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For several months during Bill Clinton's administration, a former top military officer says the White House lost the card with a set of numbers for opening the briefcase containing the codes for a nuclear attack. Gen Hugh Shelton, who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, said in his new memoir, "Without Hesitation: The Odyssey of an American Warrior" that "the codes were actually missing for months. That's a big deal -- a gargantuan deal." A similar claim was made by Lt Col Robert Patterson, a former aide, in a book published seven years ago. He...

The European Union, France, Germany and Britain said in a joint statement on Friday that they regret Washington’s decision to reimpose sanctions on Iran. […] “Our aim is to protect European economic actors who have legitimate commercial exchanges with Iran, in line with European legislation and the United Nations’ Security Council resolution 2231,” European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and the foreign ministers and finance ministers of the three countries said. …

MIDTERM polls are pointing towards a Congress flip on November 6, as discontent with President Donald Trump reigns among the US public. What would happen if the Democrats won in the House of Representatives? The House of Representatives and the Senate are both up for reelection on November 6, with both chambers sporting a total of 470 free seats altogether. The available 435 seats on the House of Representatives mean every member is to be replaced, so Democrats have a valuable opportunity to wrestle control. If this was to happen, Donald Trump’s job would become immediately more difficult. The Republicans...

Researchers say that the world has seriously underestimated the amount of heat soaked up by our oceans over the past 25 years. Their study suggests that the seas have absorbed 60% more than previously thought. They say it means the Earth is more sensitive to fossil fuel emissions than estimated. This could make it much more difficult to to keep global warming within safe levels this century. What have the researchers found?According to the last major assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world's oceans have taken up over 90% of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse...

A judge has rejected WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's request to loosen new living requirements, including paying for his internet and cleaning up after his cat, that he says are meant to push him into leaving the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Key points: -Julian Assange takes up more than a third of the space in the small embassy -The new rules also require him to pay for his own medical and laundry services -Mr Assange's lawyer says he plans to appeal against the decision Judge Karina Martinez decided stricter rules recently imposed by the South American nation's embassy do not violate...

MI5 is to take the lead in combating extreme rightwing terrorism amid mounting fears that white supremacists are increasing their efforts to foment violent racial conflict on Britain’s streets, The Guardian has learned. The switch from the police – which has always previously taken responsibility for monitoring far right extremism – to MI5 means that the ideology will now sit in the same portfolio as Islamist terrorism and Northern Ireland-related terrorism, which are both covered by the domestic security service. The decision also means that extreme rightwing activity will now be officially designated as posing a major threat to national...

An Instagram famous US hunter has left social media after receiving death threats for posting photos from her trip to Scotland. Larysa Switlyk, a professional “huntess” found herself at the centre of a furore after she posted photographs with her Scottish trophies, including a goat she said was killed with a “200 yard shot” during a “fun hunt” on the Hebridean island of Islay. But on Wednesday night, the 33-year-old TV presenter complained she had received death threats and posted an image of herself in front of a plane to announce her two week departure from social media. She...

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled Thursday that an Austrian woman's criminal conviction and fine for her statements accusing the Prophet Muhammad of pedophilia did not breach her right to free speech. The decision by a seven-judge panel came as an Austrian national identified as E.S. by the court, had held seminars on Islam in 2008 and 2009 for the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) where she discussed the prophet's marriage to his wife Aisha, a child at the time, and implied that he was a pedophile. An Austrian court convicted her of disparaging religious doctrines in 2011 and...

The freedom of speech does not extend to include defaming the prophet of Islam, the European Court of Human rights ruled Thursday. The Strasbourg-based ECHR ruled that insulting Islamic prophet Muhammad “goes beyond the permissible limits of an objective debate” and “could stir up prejudice and put at risk religious peace.” The court’s decision comes after it rejected an Austrian woman’s claim that her previous conviction for calling Muhammad a pedophile, due to his marriage to a 6-year-old girl, violated her freedom of speech. The ECHR ruled Austrian courts had “carefully balanced her right to freedom of expression with the right...

In Mohammed’s time — a time of rampant infant mortality and low life expectancy — notions of adulthood and marriageability were conflated with puberty. The coupling of men and girls was not uncommon or considered condemnable. Indeed, as observed by Myriam Francois-Cerrah, a progressive scholar of Islam, five centuries after Mohammed married Aisha, King John of England, at age 33, married 12-year-old Isabella of Angoulême. The problem is not that, in the seventh century, Mohammed married a young girl. It is that, while the West evolves because it venerates reason, much of Islamic culture regards Mohammed as the perfect role...

Nigel Farage burst out laughing at Mr Tajani’s speech where the President of the European President suggested the Nazis and the Soviet Union were defeated “thanks to the European Union”.

A man has been arrested on suspicion of trying to steal a Magna Carta from Salisbury Cathedral. Wiltshire police said the 45-year-old was arrested on Thursday after alarms were triggered by an attempt to smash the glass box in which the artefact was displayed. A man matching witnesses’ descriptions was arrested on suspicion of attempted theft, possession of an offensive weapon and criminal damage. Police said he remained in custody. The document was not damaged in the incident. Magna Carta, one of the most significant documents in British history, is a peace treaty that was sealed by King John in...

Orthodontics is in the midst of undergoing its most significant technological evolution to date, from traditional workflows to digital technologies. Watch our video interview to learn how the largest orthodontic laboratory in the United Kingdom created a digital department from scratch that now produces 1,200 clear aligners and retainers a month running a fleet of 12 Form 2 3D printers. With the digital workflow, technicians can remove brackets digitally and create multiple appliances on the same 3D printed model.

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THE Church of England took part in the Gender Reform Act (GRA) consultation that closed on Monday, writing in its response that “excessive bureaucracy” in obtaining a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) “is neither welcoming nor affirming of transgender people”. Members of the public and organisations were invited by the Government to respond to its GRA proposals, including religious bodies. The Secretary of State for the Department for International Development and Minister for Women and Equalities, Penny Mordaunt, writes in the foreword to the consultation: “Trans people continue to face significant barriers to full participation in public life. Reported hate crime...

The European Parliament has voted for a complete ban on a range of single-use plastics across the union in a bid to stop pollution of the oceans. MEPs backed a ban on plastic cutlery and plates, cotton buds, straws, drink-stirrers and balloon sticks. The proposal also calls for a reduction in single-use plastic for food and drink containers like plastic cups. One MEP said, if no action was taken, "by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the oceans". The UK will have to incorporate the rules into national law if the ban becomes a fully-fledged directive before...

The 48 letter threshold of Conservative MPs required to trigger a no confidence vote in Theresa May has been reached. That’s according to a source who told the Huffington Post’s Paul Waugh that the landmark requirement to initiate the process to oust her had now been passed. Sir Graham Brady, Chairman of the 1922 Committee, will now likely check that before the next step is taken.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is making a move to open up Germany's market to U.S. gas companies, following a lobbying push from President Trump, The Wall Street Journal reported. Merkel told a group of lawmakers over breakfast in October that her government will co-finance a $576 million liquified natural gas (LNG) shipping terminal in northern Germany, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the meeting. The project had been stalled for years, but Trump has lobbied hard for Europe to increase LNG purchases from the U.S. while reducing their reliance on Russia. Germany gets most of its gas from Russia,...

The devout imam was following in the footsteps of Muhammad, whose favorite wife was six when he married her. Respect it! MUSLIM PREACHER WHO RUNS BRITAIN’S BIGGEST NETWORK OF SHARIA COURTS QUIZZED ON SUSPICION OF CHILD RAPE SHEIKH FAIZ-UL-AQTAB SIDDIQI IS BEING INVESTIGATED OVER CLAIMS HE RAPED TWO DUTCH GIRLS IN THE 1980S AND 1990S BY WEST MIDLANDS POLICE By John Shammas, The Sun, 21st October 2018: A MUSLIM cleric who runs the UK’s biggest sharia courts network is being quizzed by cops over allegations of historic child rape. Sheikh Faiz-ul-Aqtab Siddiqi, 51, is alleged to have raped two Dutch...