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Jury selection begins for Boston Marathon bombing trial
Source: AlJazeera America
Jury selection is set to begin on Monday in the trial of the man accused of carrying out the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing that killed three people and wounded more than 260 others — the largest mass-casualty attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a 21-year-old ethnic Chechen who is a naturalized U.S. citizen, could get the death penalty if convicted in federal court in Boston. He has pleaded not guilty to all 30 charges against him.
Tsarnaev, due to be in court on Monday, is accused of detonating a pair of homemade bombs placed amid thousands of spectators at the race's finish line on April 15, 2013.
He was arrested four days after the bombing. Prosecutors say he and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, his 26-year-old brother, later shot and killed a university police officer. The brother died after a wild gun battle with police.
Read more: http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/1/5/tsarnaev-jury-selection.html
China faces criticism for attempts to exterminate real-life 'Pikachu' with mass poisonings
The Chinese government is trying to exterminate the animal that may well have inspired the much-loved Pokemon character Pikachu – despite repeated warnings from scientists.
The small, mouse-like “pika” lives in vast networks of burrows across northwest China on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, but has been classified as a pest by officials who believe it has a damaging impact on grasslands.
According to researchers from Arizona State University, local authorities have been trying to destroy pika populations since 1958, when poisoning programmes were first sanctioned.
By 2006, almost 360,000 square km of land had been treated with zinc phosphate in China’s Qinghai province alone. The government then issued a huge grant for a new phase of poisoning which, as of the end of 2014, was scheduled to have targeted a further 110,000 square km – costing around $35 million (£22.8 million).
more
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-faces-criticism-from-conservation-scientists-for-attempts-to-exterminate-reallife-pikachu-with-mass-poisoning-9956105.html
Bowser: DC to Get Marijuana Law Enforced
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser says the city will "explore every option'' to get its law legalizing marijuana enforced.
District of Columbia voters approved the marijuana initiative in November by a nearly 2-to-1 margin. It would allow possession of up to 2 ounces of pot or up to three mature plants for personal use. But Congress, which as oversight over the city's laws, has worked to keep the city from implementing the measure.
Asked on Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press'' whether she would rule out a lawsuit, Bowser said only that the city would explore all its options. She said the measure would be sent to Congress in January.
http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Bowser-DC-to-Get-Marijuana-Law-Enforced-287456581.html
Before explosion, NASA knew aging Soviet engines posed risks
Years before an unmanned rocket erupted in a fireball in October, NASA officials knew the metal in its 50-year-old Soviet-made engines could crack, causing fuel to leak and ignite, government documents show.
As early as 2008, a NASA committee warned about the "substantial" risk of using the decades-old engines, and a fire during a 2011 engine test in Mississippi heightened the agency's concern.
The engines had a "fundamental flaw in the materials," said a top manager for NASA's contracted rocket builder, Orbital Sciences, in a 2013 interview with an agency historian. The Soviet engines were built in the 1960s and 1970s in a failed attempt to take cosmonauts to the moon.
"They were never designed to be in storage that long," said the Orbital manager, Ken Eberly, deputy director for the rocket program.
more
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-nasa-rocket-failures-20150104-story.html#page=1
Send in the Clowns: Boehner's challengers: Gohmert, Yoho
At least two conservative hard-liners are now offering themselves up as candidates to unseat House Speaker John Boehner.
Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Florida, said this weekend that he won't support Boehner as speaker when lawmakers vote Tuesday, and offered himself up as an alternative. Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, did the same thing on Fox News' "Fox and Friends Sunday."
"Well, we have heard from a lot of Republicans that, 'Gee, I would vote for somebody besides Speaker Boehner but nobody will put their name out there as running so there's nobody else to vote for,'" Gohmert said.
"Well that changed yesterday when my friend Ted Yoho said 'I'm putting my name out there. I'll be a candidate for speaker,'" he said. "And I'm putting my name out there also, today, to be another candidate for speaker. All people are welcome, unlike what some of the establishment people are saying."
more
http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/04/politics/gohmert-and-yoho-challenge-boehner/index.html
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