A New York State Senator testified in federal court Monday that New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly explained the city’s controversial stop-and-frisk program as a means of instilling fear in young African American and Hispanic men. - Twenty-two year NYPD veteran and State Senator Eric Adams told the court that in 2010 he traveled to Albany to voice his support to a bill that would forbid the NYPD from keeping a database of information pulled from stop-and-frisks that did not lead to an arrest. That bill would ultimately pass, but Adams testified on Monday that, upon telling Kelly the program disproportionately targeted young black and Latino men, the commissioner was far from concerned.

Residents of Mayflower, Arkansas are shocked, frustrated and discouraged after an ExxonMobil oil pipeline - which many were unaware existed - burst, devastating the small town by flooding its streets with thousands of barrels of Canadian crude. ExxonMobil is cleaning up the town after an oil pipeline spilled thousands of oil all over its streets. The company's Pegasus pipeline – which can carry more than 90,000 barrels of Canadian Heavy crude oil per day from Patoka, Illinois, to Nederland, Texas – was shut down after the leak was discovered on Friday in a suburban area near the Arkansas town of Mayflower.

The amount of land currently being used to cultivate genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) is the highest it has ever been throughout the world, according to a new report. Data compiled by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), a pro-GMO group whose stated mission is to increase crop productivity and alleviate poverty for resource-poor farmers, reveals that an astounding 420 million acres of land in 28 countries are currently growing GM crops.

This amount is six percent higher than the roughly 410 million land acres that harbored GM crops in 2011, according to the report, and the majority of this rapid growth took place in developing countries. In fact, most of the growth in the GM crop sector throughout the past decade or more has taken place in developing countries, where biotechnology corporations apparently see the most profit and growth potential.

The U.S. Navy is shifting a guided-missile destroyer in the Pacific to waters off the Korean peninsula in the wake of ongoing rhetoric from North Korea, U.S. defense officials said. The USS McCain is capable of intercepting and destroying a missile, should North Korea decide to fire one off, the officials said. Still, U.S. defense officials insist that there is nothing to indicate that North Korea is on the verge of another launch.

The Guardian has published a report based on new interviews with British soldiers who witnessed torture and abuse of Iraqi detainees at the US-run prison Camp Nama following the invasion in 2003. The full extent of the torture and abuse that took place in US-run facilities in Iraq will never be known. Most Americans think the scandal went no farther than a few bad apples at Abu Ghraib, where leaked photographs revealed blood-streaked floors, detainees on dog collars, sadistic sexual abuse, evidence of homicide and more. But the true scandal was bigger. Much bigger.

The attacker stabbed Cable in the neck during a meeting in Nangarhar Province. Cable was outside and reportedly playing with children who had come to the site when the attack occurred, and the assailant escaped. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid identified the attacker as a 16-year-old named Khalid, saying he was acting on his own in the killing but had since joined the Taliban after fleeing the scene. Today’s revelations are a stark change from the Pentagon’s initial statement on the matter, which claimed he was killed in combat with “enemy forces.”

■ US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel have conspired to destroy Syria by way of arming sectarian extremists since 2007.
■ The West now admits it, along with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have provided thousands of tons of weapons to militants in Syria - while also conceding that Al Qaeda's Syrian franchise, Jabhat al-Nusra is the best armed, most well equipped militant front in the conflict.
■ US, Saudi, Israeli-backed terrorists are now committing a myriad of horrific atrocities against all of Syria's population, including Sunni Muslims - meaning neither "democracy" nor even "sectarianism" drives the conflict, but rather the destruction of Syria in its entirety.
■ US State Department acknowledges Syria faces threat from Al Qaeda, demands blockade of arms/aid from reaching government to fight terrorists the US State Department admits are present in every major Syrian city.

Jason Ditz: UN Plans Massive Post-Assad Syria Deployment

On Thursday the Greek parliament voted to pass legislation, codenamed the Athena Plan, aimed at the destruction of free, state-provided higher education. The law was rammed through in flagrant violation of the Greek constitution, which does not allow for the abolition of universities. - The law was passed with 148 parliamentary deputies voting in favour with 125 against. Athena results in the immediate closure of four universities (ten percent of the remaining 40). These are the University of Central Greece, the University of Western Greece, the International Hellenic University and the University of Western Macedonia. Some 20 percent of Greece’s technical institutions will also be abolished, with a number merged to establish privatized colleges.

If you talk to the global warming crowd, carbon dioxide -- CO2 -- is the enemy of mankind. Any and all creation of CO2 is bad for the planet, we're told, and its production must be strictly limited in order to save the world. But what if that wasn't true? What if CO2 were actually a planet-saving nutrient that could multiply food production rates and feed the world more nutritious, healthy plants? As it turns out, CO2 is desperately needed by food crops, and right now there is a severe shortage of CO2 on the planet compared to what would be optimum for plants. Greenhouse operators are actually buying carbon dioxide and injecting it into their greenhouses in order to maximize plant growth. The science on this is irrefutable. As just one example, the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food says:

CO2 increases productivity through improved plant growth and vigour. Some ways in which productivity is increased by CO2 include earlier flowering, higher fruit yields, reduced bud abortion in roses, improved stem strength and flower size. Growers should regard CO2 as a nutrient.

Bob Carter, Willie Soon & William Briggs: Changing sun, changing climate