Gawker | Last month, we found out the FBI destroyed a file on Walter Cronkite despite its obligation to retain historically significant records. Gawker has learned that the file involved an extortion investigation. What is it with CBS luminaries and extortion, anyway?

AP | The top military commander in Afghanistan is asking for up to 80,000 more American troops even as he warns that rampant government corruption there may prevent victory against the Taliban and al-Qaida, according to U.S. officials briefed on his conclusions.

Reuters | A combination of the food crisis and the global economic downturn has pushed more than 1 billion people into hunger in 2009, U.N. agencies said on Wednesday, confirming a grim forecast released earlier this year.

nwolibrary.com | The benei Elohim saw the daughters of Adam, that they were fit extensions (Gen 6:2, Interlinear Hebrew Bible) In the study of the Old Testament Book of Genesis, beings of great stature called "giants" appear, which some scholars believe came into existence after powerful angels known as 'Watchers' descended to earth and used women (or their biological matter) to construct bodies of flesh, which they used to "extend" themselves into the material world.

Rawstory.com | The resistance to mandated vaccination stems from the speedy discovery, research, and approval process that the H1N1 vaccine passed through after this past year's swine flu scare. The nurses filing suit claimed that the vaccine was “rushed”. Many vaccines face a year of testing and research before they are available to the public, but the H1N1 vaccine was put into massive production more quickly than most. One of the only vaccines to be required for health care workers is also one of the least tested.

Guardian | Documents reveal Italian dictator got start in politics in 1917 with help of £100 weekly wage from MI5. History remembers Benito Mussolini as a founder member of the original Axis of Evil, the Italian dictator who ruled his country with fear and forged a disastrous alliance with Nazi Germany. But a previously unknown area of Il Duce's CV has come to light: his brief career as a British agent.

goldseek.com | Impeccably reliable sources have informed me that as recently as Sept. 30, 2009 – the last possible day of trade in the Sept. 09 gold futures – a number of well-heeled market participants “bought” substantial tonnage worth of gold futures on the London Bullion Market [LBMA] and immediately told their counterparties they wanted to take instantaneous delivery of the underlying physical bullion.

Natural News | The active ingredient of the popular herbicide Roundup, widely used on lawns and genetically modified (GM) crops worldwide, causes birth defects of the brain, heart and intestines even in minuscule doses, Argentinean researchers have found.

TheGlobeandMail.com | It's both a symptom and a cure. The acceleration of the U.S. dollar's decline in recent days is creating anxiety for exporters in Canada, Europe and Japan. But in the search to create a post-crisis economy that's less prone to financial catastrophe, the U.S. dollar's decline is widely accepted as a necessary ingredient.

AntiWar.com | Updating the lack of progress on President Obama’s promised US pullout from Iraq, Brigadier General Stephen Lanza laid out again what officials are presenting as a “responsible drawdown,” which is to say a continued delay.

Pravda.Ru | The problem with evolutionary news of fossil finds, like the recent discovery of Ardi, is that the public is given an impression in the popular media that all scientists agree with the evolutionary conclusions of such finds. The public is never, or very rarely, exposed to scientific disagreements. There are many assumptions and personal interpretations of the fossil evidence which are conveniently passed on by the media as scientific fact.

RawStory.com | Yesterday, we brought you the insurance company that wouldn't insure a 17-pound infant because he was too heavy. Today, we bring you the investment bank that manages to double its bonuses during the worst recession since the Great Depression.

AFP | In an unannounced move, President Barack Obama is dispatching an additional 13,000 US troops to Afghanistan beyond the 21,000 he announced publicly in March, The Washington Post reported Monday.

GoldSeek.com | United States legal tender nickels present an almost completely risk-free investment. Getting a large 5 gallon bucket and tossing in the nickels from your daily change is an excellent way to preserve your purchasing power, protect your wealth and reduce both counter-party and payment risk. But due to increasingly despotic threats and actions by the United States government this avenue for wealth preservation is being threatened.

Telegraph | At least 41 people were killed and dozens injured when a 13-year-old boy launched a suicide bombing in a market near Pakistan's Swat Valley.