TV News LIES

At a time when states are struggling to reduce bloated prison populations and tight budgets, a private prison management company is offering to buy prisons in exchange for various considerations, including a controversial guarantee that the governments maintain a 90% occupancy rate for at least 20 years.

The $250 million proposal, circulated by the Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America to prison officials in 48 states, has been blasted by some state officials who suggest such a program could pressure criminal justice officials to seek harsher sentences to maintain the contractually required occupancy rates.

A new report by House Republican members of the Homeland Security Committee's subcommittee on Transportation Security essentially confirms what many Americans have known for years: The Transportation Security Administration is inept, overly burdensome to the transportation industry and largely ineffective in terms of identifying future threats.

In classic understatement fashion the report, titled, "Rebuilding TSA into a Smarter, Leaner Organization," concluded that "despite the reality that we have not endured another successful terrorist attack since 2001, TSA is failing to meet taxpayers' expectations."

Over two decades, the Boy Scouts of America failed to report hundreds of alleged child molesters to police and often hid the allegations from parents and the public.

A Los Angeles Times review of 1,600 confidential files dating from 1970 to 1991 has found that Scouting officials frequently urged admitted offenders to quietly resign — and helped many cover their tracks. Volunteers and employees suspected of abuse were allowed to leave citing bogus reasons such as business demands, "chronic brain dysfunction" and duties at a Shakespeare festival.

In a letter submitted Friday afternoon to internal investigators at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a whistleblower engineer within the agency accused regulators of deliberately covering up information relating to the vulnerability of U.S. nuclear power facilities that sit downstream from large dams and reservoirs.

The letter also accuses the agency of failing to act to correct these vulnerabilities despite being aware of the risks for years.

The U.S. ambassador to Libya and three American members of his staff were reportedly killed Tuesday in riots sparked by outrage at a film backed by Gainesville pastor Terry Jones, the Gainesville pastor whose burning of Korans last year led to days of rioting in Afghanistan.

The deaths were reported by Libyan officials after attacks on U.S. diplomatic compounds in Benghazi, Libya's second largest city, and Cairo, Egypt. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton acknowledged the film, which conservative Muslims said denigrated Islam and its holiest figure, Muhammad, as the likely cause, although she made it clear she felt "there is never any justification for violent acts of this kind."

A tornado touched down briefly in Queens and Brooklyn Saturday morning, destroying property, disrupting plans and terrifying residents all over the city.

A black funnel cloud accompanied by howling winds screamed into south Brooklyn and Queens at around 11 a.m., with reports of the potent storm hitting the ground on the Rockaway Peninsula and Carnarsie.