NOW LIVE ON WhoWhatWhy
Boston Marathon Bombing Suspect’s Alleged Boat Confession May Not Float by Lara Turner
Law enforcement leaks say accused Boston Marathon Bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev confessed to his role in the attack on two occasions. An open-and-shut case, right? Here’s why neither purported confession is likely to be part of the evidence against him in his ongoing trial.
WHO
Snowden Says U.S. Policy Is Creating a Black Market for Digital Weapons
Are we seeing the rise of a Cybersecurity-Industrial Complex? In a new interview with NOVA, Edward Snowden said the U.S. government is “creating a class of Internet security researchers who research vulnerabilities, but then instead of disclosing them to the device manufacturers to get them fixed and to make us more secure, they sell them to secret agencies.” Ka-ching!
Ashton Carter Takes Revolving Door to Higher Level
The Project on Government Oversight took a long look at Obama’s nominee for Secretary of Defense. They found that Ashton Carter has made a career out of spinning through the revolving door between the government and the private industries it sustains with profitable contracts. However, Carter’s role “went deeper” than others in D.C.’s defense policy clique. Carter “has held plum positions on government advisory boards that called for reforms with potential ramifications for his defense industry clients and other companies that receive DoD dollars.” Most notably, he’s been a player on both sides—public and private—of the multibillion dollar missile defense industry.
Jeb Bush And Michael Bay: Bad Boys For Life
Director Michael Bay likes big-time explosions, fast-paced action and high-speed chases. But he faced a obstacle when filming in Florida back in 2002—one of his chase scenes envisioned boats zipping through the protected habitat of endangered manatees. State law restricts speeds to preserve the slow-moving mammals. But newly released emails from then-Governor Jeb Bush reveal a money-fueled end-run around the law, straight through the protected habitat.
WHAT
Experts Warn Governments To Plan for Climate Change Migrants
The faster pace of both climate change and natural disasters portends a growing number of displaced persons … and governments better start planning for the disruptions those migrants will bring. Jan Egeland of the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre in Geneva said “Natural disasters displace three to 10 times more people than all conflicts and war in the world combined.”
Clean Tech Investment Surges Back in 2014
On the brighter side of things—quite literally brighter—newly released data indicates a spike in the “ global clean tech market” which “enjoyed its strongest investment performance in years during 2014.” Overall, investment in clean energy rose by 16% last year to $310 billion, with solar and offshore wind leading the way.
WHY
Ending the Assassination and Oppression of Iranian Nuclear Scientists
A new paper by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists details the “Shakespearean” perils faced by Iranian nuclear scientists over the last four decades. They range from “intimidation and severe punishment, including prison terms, at the hands of their own government,” to “assassination attempts often attributed to Israeli intelligence.” The authors decry this destabilization and loss of expertise needed to reduce nuclear threats in the long run. That, therefore, is a threat to world peace.
Sign Up
Like what you see? Sign up to subscribe.
