| Pentagon grounds Marine Corps model of F-35 fighter jet Jan 18th 2013, 22:37  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon and U.S. Navy on Friday grounded the Marine Corps version of Lockheed Martin Corp's F-35 fighter jet after an incident that occurred during a training flight at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida on Wednesday. The Pentagon's F-35 program office said the grounding affected all 25 F-35B model jets, while flights of the Air Force's A-model and the Navy's C-model were unaffected. Ground operations of the B-model planes continued, it said. ...
|  | Supreme Court to weigh weapons law in spurned lover case Jan 18th 2013, 22:31  (Reuters) - The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a new appeal by a woman convicted under a federal law intended to combat chemical weapons in a case where she admitted trying to poison a former friend who had an affair with her husband. At the center of the case is a 1998 U.S. law banning the use of chemical weapons other than for a "peaceful purpose." That law grew out of the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, an international agreement designed to keep rogue countries and terrorists from obtaining weapons of mass destruction. ...
| | U.S. replaces airport scanners in bid for more privacy Jan 18th 2013, 22:21  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Transportation Security Administration said Friday it is removing controversial full-body scanners at U.S. airports and replacing them with new scanners that allow greater privacy. The TSA canceled a contract with Rapiscan, a unit of OSI Systems Inc, on Thursday because the company had failed to deliver software to protect the privacy of passengers. The TSA had faced widespread complaints from travelers that the Rapiscan equipment, using an X-ray technology called backscatter, had shown what looks like a naked image of passengers' bodies to security officers. ...
| | Appeals court upholds controversial Wisconsin union law Jan 18th 2013, 21:55 (Reuters) - A federal appeals court on Friday upheld a controversial Wisconsin law that restricts the power of public-sector unions, the passage of which sparked an unsuccessful effort to recall the state's Republican governor, Scott Walker. By a 2-1 vote, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago found that the law is constitutional, rejecting claims that it violated the equal protection and First Amendment rights of union members. It reversed part of a March 2012 ruling by U.S. District Judge William Conley in Madison, Wisconsin. ... | | California woman pleads guilty in assisted suicide of WW II veteran Jan 18th 2013, 21:40 LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A California woman accused of helping an 86-year-old World War II veteran kill himself by mixing a lethal dose of Oxycontin into his yogurt pleaded guilty on Friday to a charge of assisted suicide and was sentenced to probation. Elizabeth Barrett, 66, was given three years formal probation instead of jail time based on her lack of a criminal record, the wishes of the victim's family and other factors, according to the Orange County District Attorney's Office. ... | | U.S. won't drop conspiracy charge against 9/11 plot suspects Jan 18th 2013, 21:07  MIAMI (Reuters) - The Pentagon appointee overseeing the Guantanamo war crimes court refused on Friday to drop conspiracy charges against five accused plotters of the September 11 attacks despite the chief prosecutor's concerns that the charge might not withstand appeals. The decision announced by the Pentagon means the alleged mastermind of the hijacked plane attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and four other captives could be tried on a charge that the prosecutor acknowledged might not have been recognized as a war crime when the attacks occurred in 2001. ...
| | Black student who helped integrate University of Alabama dies Jan 18th 2013, 20:44  (Reuters) - One of the first black students to enroll at the University of Alabama 50 years ago, defying then-Governor George Wallace's pledge to block integration of the state's public schools, died on Thursday of natural causes, a funeral home said. James Hood, 70, died in his hometown of Gadsden, Alabama, according to his obituary notice published on Friday. Hood and Vivian Malone were the first African-American students to register to attend the all-white state university, and did so over the objections of a governor known for his resistance to the U.S. civil rights movement. ...
| | New York doctor admits role in railroad retirement fraud Jan 18th 2013, 20:44 NEW YORK (Reuters) - A local doctor pleaded guilty on Friday to playing a key role in a so-called disability mill that allowed hundreds of Long Island Rail Road employees to retire early with increased payouts after he claimed they had been injured on the job, authorities said. The scheme went on so long and was so widespread that three-quarters of all Long Island Rail Road employees who retired between 1995 and 2011 got disability benefits, compared with one-quarter of their counterparts at Metro-North Railroad, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement. Dr. ... | | Mayors focus on "local warming," urge Obama to act Jan 18th 2013, 20:43 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Reeling from an historic drought, the hottest year on record and more frequent wild weather, mayors from a number of U.S. cities urged the White House this week to take the lead on setting an agenda to address climate change. ... | | Police arrest New York woman after her son, 7, brought gun to school Jan 18th 2013, 19:19 NEW YORK (Reuters) - The mother of a 7-year-old New York City student who brought a handgun to his school in a book bag on Thursday has been arrested on multiple weapons possession and endangerment charges, police said on Friday. New York police said Deborah Farley, 53, had put the gun in her son's school bag. It was unclear why she had done so and whether the child was aware he was carrying the weapon when she dropped him off at his public elementary school, a police department spokeswoman said. Farley is expected to be arraigned Friday afternoon. ... | | Analysis: Obama's home state offers a lesson on path to gun laws Jan 18th 2013, 19:18  CHICAGO (Reuters) - The failure of President Barack Obama's home state of Illinois to pass new restrictions on guns could prove instructive for Obama's own fledging campaign to enact stricter national gun laws. Within days after a gunman killed 20 first-graders at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, some Illinois state legislators sought to capitalize on the national outcry about gun violence to launch a new broadside on the availability of guns. ...
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