Afghan killing spree suspected to occur in two stages

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Army sergeant accused of killing 17 Afghan civilians is believed to have carried out the rampage in two stages, returning to base after the first shootings and then going out to kill again, a U.S. official said on Saturday. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, did not offer further details about the investigation into the March 11 shooting spree in southern Afghanistan, which has further eroded U.S.-Afghan relations already frayed by a decade of war. …

Cheney gets heart transplant, in intensive care

Former Vice President Dick Cheney waves during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in WashingtonWASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former Vice President Dick Cheney was recovering on Saturday after undergoing heart transplant surgery, a once risky procedure whose survival rates have improved over the years. The 71-year-old Republican, who wielded unprecedented power as vice president during the George W. Bush administration’s war on terrorism, was in the intensive care unit at Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, Virginia. …

Cheney recovering after heart transplant: spokeswoman

Former Vice President Dick Cheney waves during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in WashingtonWASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former Vice President Dick Cheney is recovering in a Virginia hospital after undergoing a heart transplant on Saturday, a spokeswoman for Cheney said in an email. Cheney, 71, who served as vice president in the George W. Bush administration, has had a long history of heart trouble. The spokeswoman said Cheney was recovering in the intensive care unit of Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, Virginia, a suburb of Washington. The statement said Cheney and his family do not know the identity of the donor, but “they will be forever grateful for this lifesaving gift. …

Chavez returning to Cuba for radiation therapy

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez reacts while speaking in a video conference with Argentina's counterpart Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner in CaracasCARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will return to Cuba to begin radiation treatment for cancer on Sunday, but said he was in good shape and would be back home in several days. Since returning to Caracas from Havana a week ago after a third operation in less than a year to remove a malignant tumor from his pelvis, the 57-year-old socialist leader had been saying he would begin radiation therapy soon. …

Tea Party activists defy rain to rip Obama health care law

Man hides from rain under his sign at Tea Party Patriots rally calling for repeal of the 2010 healthcare law on Capitol Hill in WashingtonWASHINGTON (Reuters) – Several hundred rain-soaked Tea Party activists rallied on Saturday to call for the U.S. Supreme Court to repeal President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law after arguments next week. Speaker after speaker at the two-hour protest in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol tore up copies of the law and condemned it as a threat to American freedoms and a violation of the Constitution. …

Scientist who coined ‘Pink Slime’ reluctant whistleblower

Handout photo of boneless lean beef trimmingsKansas City (Reuters) – Every time someone calls former U.S. government scientist Gerald Zirnstein a whistleblower, he cringes a little. When he coined the term “Pink Slime” to describe the unlabeled and unappetizing bits of cartilage and other chemically-treated scrap meat going into U.S. ground beef, Zirnstein was a microbiologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He made the slime reference to a fellow scientist in an internal – and he thought private – email. But that email later became public, and with it came an explosion of outrage from consumer groups. …

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