An enthusiast who travelled to the Western Isles to view a rare bird has told of his "dismay" after watching it fly into a wind turbine and die.

The white-throated needletail, which breeds in Asia and winters in Australasia, was spotted on Harris.

About 30 birdwatchers travelled to the island to see the unusual visitor, which has only been recorded five times in the UK since 1950.

However, they then saw it die after colliding with the wind turbine.

A red panda named Rusty has pulled an Edward Snowden and gone missing. No word on whether he's bound for Ecuador.
Rusty was last seen in his exhibit at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. And then—abracadabra!—Rusty vanished.
The zoo posted this alert to its Twitter feed on Monday morning:

In a series of Twitter updates, the zoo wrote that zookeepers have scoured trees but have not been able to find him. "Red pandas are wild animals, & will bite if cornered or scared," the zoo warned. "If you do see Rusty, don’t try to approach him. Stay where you can safely keep an eye on him & alert the Zoo (202.633.4888) immediately."

SAN ANTONIO - Over the past six years, the National Security Agency has quietly transformed the former Sony chip fabrication plant on the northwest side into a black-box hub of intelligence gathering and data storage.

Satellite and aerial imagery show that massive air conditioning units and backup generators have been added to the facility, which is now ringed by barbed-wire fencing. City permits and property tax records show that the complex has been dramatically expanded.(schnip)

However, a San Antonio Express-News examination of funding for major construction projects listed in the Defense Department's budgets from fiscal years 2004 through 2013 found no appropriations for the extensive work at the old Sony plant.

"I would have thought that funding for the San Antonio facility would be handled about the same as that for Utah or Georgia, and I can't immediately think of why it wasn't," said Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists' government secrecy project.

(A) spokeswoman said the facility became operational late last year.

No standing Federal law criminalizes the assassination of a foreign official outside the boundaries of the United States. In the absence of such a statute, only Executive Order 12333 prohibits the act of state-sponsored killing. This Order, which was drafted in the mid-1970s in the wake of revelations of government involvement in plots to kill several foreign leaders, has been maintained by every administration since President Ford. In recent years, however, there have been several attempts by Congress to override Executive Order 12333. The most recent of these initiatives is H.R. 19, the “Terrorist Elimination Act of 2001,” proposed in January of this year by Representative Barr of Georgia.3 The findings section of this bill states:

Past Presidents have issued Executive orders which severely limit the use of the military when dealing with potential threats against the United States of America, these Executive orders limit the swift, sure, and precise action needed by the United States to protect our national security; present strategy allows the military to bomb large targets hoping to eliminate a terrorist leader, but prevents our country from designing a limited action which would specifically accomplish that purpose .

“We are not in a scrimmage. We are in a war ... and we are way behind the 8-ball” in terms of possible threats facing the United States, she said, adding the agency’s efforts were invaluable in keeping those threats at bay.

Sen. Mary Landrieu's son arrested on DWI, hit-and-run charges

Frank "Connor" Snellings, 21, the son of U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., was arrested Thursday morning on charges of driving while intoxicated, hit-and-run driving, and driving the wrong way on a one-way street in the French Quarter, according to the Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office.

The car Snellings was driving hit a pedestrian, who was not seriously injured, according to the sheriff's report. Snellings and a passenger in his car were not hurt.