TWA Flight 800 was en route from JFK Airport in New York to Paris, France, when it exploded and crashed off the coast of Long Island, killing all 230 people on board. From the very beginning, there were some who speculated that the plane was the victim of a terrorist attack, leading the FBI to conduct its own criminal investigation. Among the possibilities that were suggested as the cause were a bomb in the cargo hold, or an anti-aircraft missile. Several witnesses even claimed they saw an object or streak of light that looked liked a missile or rocket moving toward the plane before it exploded.

The final NTSB reported said that faulty wiring connected to a central fuel tank caused a blast that destroyed the fuesalage, however, there were still many skeptics and conspiracy theorists who have long doubted that official story. In one particularly famous example, Pierre Salinger, a former Press Secretary for President John Kennedy and reporter for ABC News, claimed he’d seen proof that the U.S. Navy shot down the plane and then covered it up.

Now, those theories are likely to get a new airing, thanks to accident investigators who worked on the TWA 800 case, but say they were not allowed to speak up at the time of the official report. The experts include NTSB and TWA accident investigators, who say they are only able to speak up now that they are retired. According their statements in the film, they believe the official explanation is wrong and the damage was caused by an explosion that came from outside the plane.

The filmmakers won’t speculate on what could have caused such an explosion, and haven’t yet offered up evidence to support their theory (you’ll have to watch on July 17), but they are asking the NTSB to re-open the investigation. Whether or not that happens, or even if a follow-up reaches the same conclusions as the original, this new film will ensure that the alternate theories and claims up a cover will probably never be put to rest.

Want to add to this story? Let us know in comments or send an email to the author at dbennett@theatlantic.com. You can share ideas for stories on the Open Wire.

An estimated 200,000 people turned out in July 2008 to see then Candidate Obama deliver an address in front of one of Germany’s most notable landmarks. He took a lot of criticism from Germans for his choice of location and from his U.S. political opponents who weren’t happy about seeing an American presidential hopeful being adored by tens of thousands of foreigners. The Berlin event was larger than any of his U.S. campaign stops, though some critics even disputed the crowd figures. (Republicans in the heat of a campaign, obviously found other flaws with the speech.)

2008 (AP Photo):

Fast forward to 2013, and many are now saying that Obama’s reputation is “tarnished,” by his recent snooping scandals, his extensions of the war on terror, and the hard luck realities of failing to deliver on all your promises. (Even ones you didn’t really make.) He’s “demystified” and “no longer a superstar” in German eyes. Now he’s just another world leader on a state visit, and whatever problems people have with U.S. policy are on his shoulders.

And instead of opening up the speech to the whole city, Obama spoke in front only about 5,000-6,000 spectators, all of them invited guests.

His speech today called for a reduction in global nuclear weapons (through more negotiations with Russia) and defended the idea of Western intervention in Syria. Hammering on the theme of “peace ful justice,” he also discussed closing Guantanamo Bay and taking action on climate change, calling it the “global flood of our time.” But it was notably different in tone than 2008′s more sweeping view of the world, which was a speech more fitting for a candidate. (It’s now Angela Merkel who is in the middle of an election year, as she stood next too and introduced Obama.)

The whole thing also looked a lot different to the cameras, too. (And not just because Obama was sweating through is shirt in the scorching sun.) Today’s speech was at the Brandenburg Gate — where he wanted to speak in 2008, before German politics and symbolism forced a switch to the column other end of Berlin’s Tiergarten. He also spoke on the Eastern side of the Gate, the first U.S. President to ever do so. But the crowds weren’t quite as loving or as large as last time. Check out the photos below for some comparisons.

Syrian rebels beheaded a Christian man and fed his body to dogs, according to a nun who says the West is ignoring atrocities committed by Islamic extremists.

The nun said taxi driver Andrei Arbashe, 38, was kidnapped after his brother was heard complaining that fighters against the ruling regime behaved like bandits.

She said his headless corpse was found by the side of the road, surrounded by hungry dogs. He had recently married and was soon to be a father.Sister Agnes-Mariam de la Croix said: ‘His only crime was his brother criticised the rebels, accused them of acting like bandits, which is what they are.’

There have been a growing number of accounts of atrocities carried out by rogue elements of the Syrian Free Army, which opposes dictator Bashar al-Assad and is recognised by Britain and the West as the legitimate leadership.

Sister Agnes-Miriam, mother superior of the Monastery of St James the Mutilated, has condemned Britain and the west for supporting the rebels despite growing evidence of human rights abuses. Murder, kidnapping, rape and robbery are becoming commonplace, she says.

‘The free and democratic world is supporting extremists,’ Sister Agnes-Miriam said from her sanctuary in Lebanon. ‘They want to impose Sharia Law and create an Islamic state in Syria.’

The 60-year-old Carmelite nun claims the west has turned a blind eye to growing evidence of a ‘fifth column’ of fanatics within the rag-tag ranks that make up the Free Syrian Army that they back to oust Assad.

One of the most effective fighting forces is the Jabat Al-Nusra, which has an ideology similar to Al Qaeda.

‘The uprising has been hijacked by Islamist mercenaries who are more interested in fighting a holy war than in changing the government,’ she said.

‘It has turned into a sectarian conflict. One in which Christians are paying a high price.’

The rebel attacked the northern town of Ras Al-Ayn, on the Turkish border, last month. The fighters entered the Christian quarter, ordering civilians to leave and leaving their homes.

‘More than 200 families were driven out in the night,’ Sister Agnes-Miriam says. ‘People are afraid. Everywhere the deaths squads stop civilians, abduct them and ask for ransom, sometimes they kill them.’

Militants wearing black bandanas of Al Qaeda recently laid siege to the Monastery of St James the Mutilated, located between Damascus and Homs, for two days in an attempt to prevent Christmas celebrations, the nun claims.

An estimated 300,000 Christians have been displaced in the conflict, with 80,000 forced out of the Homs region alone, she claims.

Many have fled abroad raising fears that Syria’s Christian community may vanish – like others across Middle East, the birthplace of Christianity.

Al Assad, a member of the Alawite Muslim sect, claims only his regime can protect Syria’s minorities from domination from the Sunni Muslims majority.

Meanwhile the fighting continues to rage with government forces retaking control of a key district in the city of Homs yesterday.

The latest violence comes after United Nations peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi warned of ‘hell’ for Syria if no political solution could be found.

Russia has stated the conflict is becoming increasingly militarised and sectarian and risks bringing chaos to the whole region.

Some 44,000 people have been killed since the uprising against the Al Assad regime began in March 2011.

KTLA 5 News

A statement from the editor-in-chief of online news outlet BuzzFeed reporting that Hastings, 33, had been killed, gave no details of the accident, and neither Los Angeles police nor the county coroner’s office would confirm his death.
But police said a man who had not been identified was killed before dawn on Monday when his car slammed into a tree near Hollywood and burst into flames in what authorities say was the only fatal traffic accident reported in the city during the day.
The driver was the lone occupant of the automobile, police said.
Coroner’s Lieutenant Fred Corral said the body of the driver was burned beyond recognition and that further investigation was required to make a positive identification.
Authorities said they had no further information about the circumstances or cause of the accident, which left the trunk of a palm tree at the corner of Melrose and Highland Avenues gouged and charred black.
“We are shocked and devastated by the news that Michael Hastings is gone,” BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith said in a statement. “Michael was a great, fearless journalist with an incredible instinct for the story, and a gift for finding ways to make his readers care about anything he covered, from wars to politicians.”
Hastings was best known for the Rolling Stone feature, headlined “The Runaway General,” that brought about the resignation of McChrystal as commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan in June 2010.

See the Raw Footage

Rolling Stone’s executive editor, Eric Bates, said at the time that the U.S. military apparently had given the magazine access to the general in hopes that a positive profile reaching its young readers might help boost Army recruitment.
Instead, the article Hastings wrote portrayed McChrystal and his aides making disparaging comments about President Barack Obama and other civilian leaders, prompting the president to relieve the Army general of his command.
Hastings, who remained a contributing editor to Rolling Stone as well as writing for BuzzFeed, covered the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and previously worked for GQ magazine and Newsweek.

(Reporting and writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Peter Cooney)

A new poll finds that Wisconsin representative and 2012 vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan is the most popular politician among Republicans.

In a Gallup poll of recent GOP newsmakers being listed as 2016 presidential possibilities, Paul Ryan was given a 69 percent favorable rating among right-leaning U.S. adults. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio was also rated favorably, while Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was actually given a higher net favorable rating among Democrats than among Republicans.

But the GOP politicians’ favorable ratings are not echoed by Democrats or the U.S. population as a whole.

Ryan was given the worst net score among Democrats and left-leaning independents of all the other candidates. Each of the Republican politicians was less familiar to Democrats than to Republicans, with Christie and Ryan being the most recognizable.

Christie was the only one of the five GOP politicians – which included Sen. Rand Paul, Sen. Ted Cruz, Rubio and Ryan – to be given a positive rating among Democrats. Christie also had the highest score among U.S. adults as a whole.

Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted from June 1-4, 2013, with a random sample of 1,529 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

Senior US officials said on Tuesday that representatives will begin formal talks with the Taliban “within a few” days at a new office in Doha, Qatar.

The Afghan Taliban opened the office to help restart talks on ending the 12-year-old war, saying it wanted a political solution that would bring about a just government and end foreign occupation.

Senior Barack Obama administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak on the record, described the office opening to AP as a stepping stone to full Taliban renouncement of al Qaeda.

Talking to the Taliban: Violence against women not on the cards
Karzai also on the cards

The officials said the US and Taliban representatives will hold bilateral meetings, then it is expected that Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s High Peace Council will follow up with its own talks a few days later.

A senior Afghan official told Reuters that talks with the High Peace Council would go ahead.

“The peace talks will certainly take place between the Taliban and the High Peace Council,” said the senior official, referring to the body created by Karzai in 2010 to broker peace with the insurgency.

Taliban representative Mohammed Naeem held a news conference from the group’s new office on Tuesday, telling reporters that the Islamist insurgency wanted good relations with Afghanistan’s neighbouring countries. The conference was broadcast live on Qatar’s al Jazeera television channel.

The Taliban had previously said that they would not countenance peace talks with the Karzai government, which they consider a stooge of the United States and other Western nations.

Sharyl Attkisson said on “CBS This Morning” that the odd behavior of her devices had been going on for months. One example of that was that her home and work computers were turning themselves on and then back off at night.

She said, “I was able to verify and obtain some information on the suspicious activities and then I reported that to CBS News management in January, since it included CBS equipment and systems. CBS then hired an independent cyber security firm which then conducted a thorough forensic analysis and that ruled out the ordinary malware, phishing programs and that sort of thing.”

Attkisson had been reporting on Benghazi, and the Fast and Furious program.

Asked what the intruder did or was looking for, Attkisson said, due to the continuing investigation, she can’t discuss all the details, but added, “the analysis found very unusual activity very deep in the computer.

“The unauthorized party accessed the CBS computer at my home on multiple occasions, and specifically in December, they used sophisticated methods to cover their tracks, meaning they tried to remove the indications of their previous unauthorized activity,” she said. “We’re not prepared to talk more about the who’s and who did this today, but the intruder is considered highly skilled and used very sophisticated methods.”

Speaking of the invasion of the computers, Attkisson said, “When any unauthorized party comes into the home of an American — whether it’s a private citizen or a journalist — and searches through their computers, inserting or removing material for whatever their reason is, it’s a very serious and disturbing matter.

“I’m outraged that anyone would do such a thing and CBS News takes all of this very seriously.”

It’s the two kids who start a computer company in their garage or dorm room. Or the former standup comic who creates form-shaping undergarments, or the South African immigrant who creates a new electric car and private space program.

But despite the high-profile examples, America may actually be falling behind the rest of the world when it comes to creating entrepreneurial wealth. A new study from Barclays, “Origins and Legacy: the Changing Order of Wealth Creation,” finds developing countries now lead the U.S. when comes to wealth creation by entrepreneurs.

(Read More: Entrepreneur Asia: A CNBC Special Report)
Worldwide, 40 percent of millionaires (which is defined as those with investable assets of $1.5 million or more) cited a “business sale or profit” from their business as their source of wealth. Only a quarter of the millionaires cited inheritance as their wealth source.

In the U.S., only 21 percent of millionaires cited business sale or profit as their source of wealth. A much larger percentage cited saved earnings or personal investments as their sources of wealth.

In the Asia-Pacific region, 57 percent cited business sale or profit as a source of wealth—far more than in the U.S. South Africa (68 percent) and Latin America (58 percent) were also higher.

So is America losing its entrepreneurial mojo? There is some evidence that entrepreneurial activity is flagging. The latest data from the Kauffman Foundation found that there were 514,000 new business owners a month in 2012, down from 543,000 in 2011. The 2012 numbers marked the lowest in five years.

(Read More: Key to Wealth: Work, Risk or Luck?)

A report from the Hudson Institute found that brand-new companies added 2.34 million jobs in 2010 compared with an average of about 3 million a year dating back to 1977.

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But the Barclays report said another difference between the U.S. and other countries could also be one of basic wealth cycles. Wealth in developing countries is newer, and therefore there is more wealth from freshly minted companies than from savings or investments.

“These [developing] markets have a much shorter history of widespread wealth creation and many of the high-net-worth individuals in these markets are first generation wealthy,” the report said.

Entrepreneurs were also more likely to increase their fortunes during the recession compared with those with inherited wealth or those who made their money from investments and savings.

They are also more prone to taking risks, given that risk-taking is key to entrepreneurial wealth. As a result, their fortunes are more volatile than the wealth made from savings and earnings.

“Entrepreneurs need to embrace volatility and recognize that fortunes can be lost as quickly as they were made,” the report said.

Which made the NH Ruling class look rather silly and they began to retaliate. As the first link shows, Dem Gov Lynch tried to veto the Voter ID law passed by the NH Senate and House subsequent to the videos appearing – and failed. Uber-Progressive Zandra “Rice Crispies”-Hawkins tried a petition to the AG’s office – and being plied by both sides, NH Assistant Attorney General Richard Head decided that he would not only use the good name of his office but also consorted with someone known to be on the wrong side of the law, Nadia Naffe, to obtain illegality gotten emails of James O’Keefe?

So this past week, James O’Keefe decided to confront him:

• Post your questions in the comment section below and recommend your favorites

• We are posting Snowden’s replies above the line

• You can also follow along on Twitter using the hashtag #AskSnowden

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5m ago
Question:

MonaHol
17 June 2013 4:37pm
Ed Snowden, I thank you for your brave service to our country.

Some skepticism exists about certain of your claims, including this:

I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you, or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the President if I had a personal email.

Do you stand by that, and if so, could you elaborate?

Answer:

Yes, I stand by it. US Persons do enjoy limited policy protections (and again, it’s important to understand that policy protection is no protection – policy is a one-way ratchet that only loosens) and one very weak technical protection – a near-the-front-end filter at our ingestion points. The filter is constantly out of date, is set at what is euphemistically referred to as the “widest allowable aperture,” and can be stripped out at any time. Even with the filter, US comms get ingested, and even more so as soon as they leave the border. Your protected communications shouldn’t stop being protected communications just because of the IP they’re tagged with.

More fundamentally, the “US Persons” protection in general is a distraction from the power and danger of this system. Suspicionless surveillance does not become okay simply because it’s only victimizing 95% of the world instead of 100%. Our founders did not write that “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all US Persons are created equal.”

Walk into any American high school and nearly one in five boys in the hallways will have a diagnosis of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, 11% of all American children ages 4 to 17—over six million—have ADHD, a 16% increase since 2007. When you consider that in Britain roughly 3% of children have been similarly diagnosed, the figure is even more startling. Now comes worse news: In the U.S., being told that you have ADHD—and thus receiving some variety of amphetamine to treat it—has become more likely.

Last month, the American Psychiatric Association released the fifth edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—the bible of mental health—and this latest version, known as DSM-5, outlines a new diagnostic paradigm for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Symptoms of ADHD remain the same in the new edition: “overlooks details,” “has difficulty remaining focused during lengthy reading,” “often fidgets with or taps hands” and so on. The difference is that in the previous version of the manual, the first symptoms of ADHD needed to be evident by age 7 for a diagnosis to be made. In DSM-5, if the symptoms turn up anytime before age 12, the ADHD diagnosis can be made.

It’s also easier to diagnose adult ADHD. Before, adults needed to exhibit six symptoms. Now, five will do. These changes will undoubtedly fuel increased prescriptions of the drugs that doctors use to treat ADHD: stimulants such as Ritalin and Adderall.

Enlarge Image

Corbis
Even before DSM-5, doctors were already on track to prescribe enough stimulants this year for each American man, woman and child to receive the equivalent of 130 mg of amphetamine (about 40 five-mg pills of Adderall) and an even greater amount of the very similar drug Ritalin. In this era of excessive prescribing, we seem to have forgotten the cautionary history of amphetamines in America—a history that shows how overprescribing stimulants leads to widespread dependence and addiction.

Since their introduction by the pharmaceutical company Smith, Kline & French in 1937, amphetamines have been prescribed for maladies that had more to do with societal expectations than genuine mental illness. American soldiers received stimulants during World War II to boost morale and improve performance in combat.

Meantime, back at home, amphetamine was heralded as the first antidepressant, and shortly thereafter, as an ideal weight-loss pill. One 1955 advertisement for AmPlus amphetamine tablets assured users that they would be “beachable by summer.” Decades would pass until research demonstrated the lack of long-term benefit for most cases of depression and weight loss, but the lack of proof didn’t hold doctors back from liberally prescribing stimulants to millions of housewives in postwar suburbs.

By 1969, doctors were prescribing the equivalent of 120 mg of amphetamine for each American—a high-water mark of per-capita consumption we are only now about to surpass. By then, the addictive potential of prescription stimulants had attracted intense scientific and public scrutiny as evidence grew that many patients were becoming dependent on the drugs. Thirty percent of patients in one study conducted in New York state admitted to using their medications recreationally. Millions of people without prescriptions easily obtained diverted pills.

In 1968, the National Academy of Sciences organized an authoritative investigation into the stimulants’ true benefits and risks. The consensus: These drugs had limited efficacy and real harms. Medical experts discouraged the use of stimulants for both depression and obesity, but the warnings had little effect on doctors’ prescribing habits until the Controlled Substances Act of 1971 mandated that stimulants be placed in a tightly controlled category of medications, referred to as Schedule II.

Doctors were free to prescribe the drugs but had to report each prescription. Almost overnight, prescriptions for stimulants to treat depression and obesity plummeted: Medical use dropped 90% between 1969 and 1972.

Just when it seemed that amphetamine’s days were numbered, doctors began to embrace the drug for treating Hyperkinetic Reaction of Childhood—what we now call ADHD. (It became the official name in 1987.) Concern about dependence and addiction, along with the watchful eye of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, kept prescriptions for ADHD at low levels during the 1970s.

But by the 1990s, experts and advocacy groups for ADHD, some funded by pharmaceutical companies, began to argue that stimulants did not lead to addiction when treating children for the disorder, and that the stimulants actually decreased the risk of future drug abuse. Their main argument was that ADHD itself is a significant risk factor for future substance abuse, and that stimulants, by treating the underlying illness, also reduced the likelihood of future drug use. Concerned parents were told that starting their children on stimulants when young would decrease the risks of future trouble with alcohol and drugs.

The problem with this reassuring message is that it was based on flimsy evidence. Experts had relied on studies of children treated with stimulants by their personal physicians, compared with children who had ADHD but did not receive stimulants. These community studies were fraught with confounding variables and were only suggestive.

Three months ago, the only randomized trial to study future substance abuse by ADHD kids refuted the notion that stimulants, when taken in childhood, have a protective effect. Investigators found strong evidence that ADHD itself in fact predisposes children to later substance abuse—but no evidence that stimulant medication reduces this rate any better than treating ADHD with behavioral approaches. Further evidence that stimulants do not protect children from addiction was provided in a comprehensive review published last month in JAMA Psychiatry.

We still do not have a single randomized trial to help determine if starting stimulants as an adolescent or adult further increases the risk of future substance abuse, although the long and checkered history of medical stimulants would suggest it does. Certainly, the risks from recreationally using stimulants are already well-documented.

In 2010, Adderall was second only in popularity to the painkiller Vicodin as a prescription drug of abuse among high-school seniors, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Adolescents often perceive prescription drugs as safer than illicit ones, but abusing prescription amphetamines can lead to seizures, psychosis and life-threatening heart disease.

Stimulants can certainly benefit some young children with truly disabling ADHD. However, history has already taught us that overprescribing stimulants to millions of Americans leads to dependence, addiction and overdose. By medicating children for wiggling in their chairs, losing their homework and shouting out answers, we are not teaching them vital coping skills to manage their behavior. Instead, we are teaching them to take a pill. One day, we’ll look back and wonder: Why did we do this? Again.

Dr. Cohen is an a assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Rasmussen is a professor of the history of science at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, and the author of “On Speed: The Many Lives of Amphetamine” (New York University, 2009).

A version of this article appeared June 17, 2013, on page A17 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: A Nation of Kids on Speed.