TV News LIES

Firefighters and other responders will be on the outside looking in when a ceremony is held marking the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks next month, according to The Daily News.

A city official told the newspaper that that the amount of space at the new memorial and security logistics have forced to city to schedule a separate ceremony for responders on a later date.

This is a cautionary tale about what can happen to someone who dares to become a corporate whistleblower. Or, more specifically, someone who incurs the wrath of News Corporation, the media empire owned by Rupert Murdoch, of which News America forms a part.

Emmel's lawyer, Philip Hilder, has had a ringside seat at the gradual unravelling of his client's life. A former federal prosecutor based in Houston, Texas, Hilder is well versed in whistleblower cases having represented Sherron Watkins, who helped uncover the Enron scandal. Hilder said: "News America has engaged in Rambo litigation tactics. They have a scorched earth policy, and it's taken a huge toll on him."

One of the world's largest insurances companies has blacklisted a trio of American cluster bomb manufacturers that have benefited from investment by British banks despite a growing global ban on the deadly weapons.

British insurer Aviva has created a "stop list" of 12 arms manufactures which include the US defence giants Lockheed Martin, Textron and Alliant Techsystems. All three companies have received hundreds of millions of pounds in investment from British high street banks.

The Army improperly tested new bullet-blocking plates for body armor and cannot be certain that 5 million pieces of the critical battlefield equipment meet the standards to protect U.S. troops, the Defense Department's inspector general found.

The Pentagon report focused on seven Army contracts for the plates, known as ballistic inserts, awarded between 2004 and 2006 and totaling $2.5 billion. The inspector general's audit, carried out over a two-year period ending in March, found the tests were incomplete, conducted with the wrong size plates or relied on ballistic test rounds that were inconsistent. Due to the demands of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, tests under certain temperatures and altitudes were scrapped altogether.

Imagine a world in which a man who is repeatedly investigated for a string of serious crimes, but never prosecuted, has his slate wiped clean every time the cops fail to make a case. No more Lifetime channel specials where the murderer is unveiled after police stumble upon past intrigues in some old file – "Hey, chief, didja know this guy had two wives die falling down the stairs?"

No more burglary sprees cracked when some sharp cop sees the same name pop up in one too many witness statements. This is a different world, one far friendlier to lawbreakers, where even the suspicion of wrongdoing gets wiped from the record.

That, it now appears, is exactly how the Securities and Exchange Commission has been treating the Wall Street criminals who cratered the global economy a few years back.

James Murdoch has admitted that News International paid “hush money” to a phone hacking victim, despite telling MPs that they didn't try to buy his silence.

The admission that money was paid to ensure Mr Taylor’s silence is likely to exacerbate claims that News International tried to cover up the scale of phone hacking at the News of the World. Mr Murdoch also admitted that News International paid a convicted criminal almost £250,000 after his employment was terminated.

"For decades, our community's leadership has been protecting pedophiles," Ben Hirsch, president of Survivors for Justice, told the newspaper. "This is going to sound shocking, but the safest place for a sex offender to reside is within the Hasidic and strictly Orthodox community, employed as a teacher."

Survivors For Justice is a child-safety advocacy organization and support group for abuse victims in the Orthodox community.

In the latest escalation of an increasingly bitter labor battle, Verizon Communications Inc. has been telling union members it will suspend basic health-insurance and medical benefits on Aug. 31 for all workers still on strike at that time.

Verizon issued the threat in letters sent to 45,000 workers, who walked off the job to protest proposed cuts to their benefits that the telecommunications company says are necessary to stem a sales decline in its traditional wireline business.