In an effort to sustain commercial and recreational fishing for the next several decades, this year the United States will become the first country to impose catch limits for every species it manages, from Alaskan pollock to Caribbean queen conch. Although the policy has attracted scant attention outside the insular community of those who fish in America and the officials who regulate them, it marks a monumental shift in a pursuit that has defined the country since its founding. And unlike most recent environmental policy debates, which have divided neatly along party lines, it is one that was forged under President George W. Bush and finalized with President Obama’s backing. Read full article > >

View post:
U.S. tightens fishing policy, setting 2012 catch limits for all managed species

Army officials detailed the slurs and mistreatment directed at Danny Chen, whose suicide in Afghanistan led the military to bring charges against eight members of his battalion.

Link:
Private Chen’s Family Learns More About Hazing by Fellow G.I.’s

LOS ANGELES — Officials say 12 suspected arson fires broke out overnight at carports and garages in the Los Angeles area, and a “person of interest” has been taken into custody. Department spokesman Capt. Jaime Moore says 10 of the blazes occurred in Los Angeles and two were in West Hollywood. He says they broke out shortly after 1:30 a.m. Monday. Read full article > >

Follow this link:
LA detectives questioning ‘person of interest’ after latest wave of car arson fires

Remember how I always say nothing goes unnoticed in Iran? The fact that Iranian people are so critical of their own government, and are aware of the contradictions and hypocrisies of the government’s version of Islam forced upon them, must be held in mind when looking at Iran. As you might remember, followed by the attack on the British Embassy, the officials claimed that the act was carried out by a minority of angry students who had no ties with any religious, official or governmental agencies: I came across a series of pictures captured by ISNA, Mehr and Fars News and thought to share the captions Iranians have been adding to them. While these captions are sarcastically explaining the behaviors of the subjects, they are demonstrating the distrust Iranian people have of their government and state-run media. “For a university student, there are only five spelling and grammatical mistakes in one sentence!” “As Prophet Mohammad says seek knowledge, from cradle to the grave, here is a “student” who has listened to his prophet.” “Well done, brother praying on a Ghasbi ground (i.e. a public park).” [in Islamic laws, a Muslim cannot perform religious duties on a land that does not belong to him or is taken by force. Such piece of land is called Ghasbi] “Cruel and heartless crackdowns of the protesters by the police.”

More here:
I Heart Iran: Ironic Captions

After a year-long effort to account for every grave at Arlington National Cemetery, Army officials said Thursday that there might be problems, some as minor as typographical errors in paper records, with nearly 65,000 sites — or one-quarter of the graves at the nation’s most prominent military burial ground. Read full article > >

Go here to read the rest:
Problems possible with nearly 65,000 Arlington graves, report says

Bradley Manning , the Army private accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks, will appear for the first time in a military courtroom next month, roughly a year and a half after his arrest, according to Army officials. The Army has scheduled a pretrial hearing for Manning, who faces more than two dozen charges related to his alleged leaking of classified material, for Dec. 16 at Fort Meade, according to the Military District of Washington, which has jurisdiction over the case. Read full article > >

See the rest here:
Bradley Manning hearing set for next month

Intelligence provided to U.N. nuclear officials shows that Iran’s government has mastered the critical steps needed to build a nuclear weapon, receiving assistance from foreign scientists to overcome key technical hurdles, according to Western diplomats and nuclear experts briefed on the findings. Documents and other records provide new details on the role played by a former Soviet weapons scientist who allegedly tutored Iranians over several years on building high-precision detonators of the kind used to trigger a nuclear chain reaction, the officials and experts said. Crucial technology linked to experts in Pakistan and North Korea also helped propel Iran to the threshold of nuclear capability, they added. Read full article > >

See the rest here:
IAEA says foreign expertise has brought Iran to threshold of nuclear capability

ERCIS, Turkey — Officials say the death toll in the powerful earthquake that hit eastern Turkey is now 432. The prime minister’s office on Tuesday also said 1,352 people were injured in Sunday’s 7.2-magnitude quake. Earlier, rescuers pulled out a 2-week-old baby girl, her mother and grandmother alive from the rubble of an apartment building. The quake has toppled some 2,000 buildings in the mainly Kurdish area. Read full article > >

Read the original post:
Death toll in Turkish 7.2-magnitude quake rises to 432

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Drone-fired U.S. missiles killed four people in a northwestern Pakistani region controlled by the Haqqani militant network on Friday, a day after a similar attack there killed a top commander of the group, Pakistani officials said. The identities of the dead in the North Waziristan region were not known, the officials said. Read full article > >

View original post here:
US missile attack kills 4 in Haqqani network border stronghold in northwest Pakistan

With the Defense Department bracing for cuts to its budget , the Army is wasting no time in staking out its position as the backbone of the armed forces – one that shouldn’t get short shrift when the final budget numbers are tallied. Army officials have perhaps more reason than ever to make that kind of argument. Read full article > >

View post:
The Army gets set to fight for its budget dollars

OCEAN CITY — When Maryland state and county officials arrived in this beach town for their annual summer conference four years ago, they were greeted by a remarkable display: Signs posted at one hotel after another on the main drag with messages such as “No Slots in Maryland. Period.” The scene this month was far different. The Casino at Ocean Downs, which opened its doors in January just five miles from the conference site, supplied beer cups bearing its logo at the event’s biggest draw, a crab feast attended by Gov. Martin O’Malley and hundreds of other officials from across the state. Read full article > >

View original post here:
Slots casino near Ocean City ‘another amenity’ for beach town

A day after officials at Arlington National Cemetery acknowledged discovering more problems with burials in the ongoing scandal there, members of Congress sharply questioned Army officials Thursday about why the cemetery’s former leadership wasn’t disciplined more severely.

Here is the original post:
As more problems appear at Arlington, Congress asks for accountability

Global turmoil and potentially steep budget cuts have heightened economic uncertainty, Federal Reserve leaders concluded at their last policy meeting. Yet the nation’s recovery was still on track, the officials said in choosing to maintain their current bond-buying policy.

The rest is here:
Fed sees steady recovery despite turmoil, minutes show

Slightly disconcerting: Officials in Louisiana say tar balls and oil are washing up on Gulf Coast shores across an area of more than 30 miles. Even stranger: They’re not sure where it’s coming from. Samples have been sent for testing to determine…

Visit link:
Unexplained Oil Spill Hits Gulf Coast

Radiation from Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant will reach Southern California on Friday, according to the United Nations. There’s no need to run, however: Officials will say the radiation will dilute as it moves over seas and will have minor…

See more here:
Radiation to Reach Calif. on Friday