Obama signs order clarifying church-state relationship
President Barack Obama signed an executive order Wednesday clarifying the ground rules for religious groups partnering with the federal government through the White House’s controversial faith office.

The order says that religious organizations receiving federal funds must conduct explicitly religious activities in a time and place that are different from when and where they do government-financed work. Read full story from cnn.com

Sketch of King Richard II’s skull found among medieval tomb relics in museum basement
Relics from the tomb of medieval English king Richard II and sketches of his skull and bones have been discovered in boxes in the basement of the National Portrait Gallery.

Objects thought to have come from inside the tomb were found inside a cigarette box by archivists cataloguing the papers of the gallery’s first director, Sir George Scharf.

The box contained fragments of wood, possibly from the coffin itself, and a piece of leather, thought to have been part of the king’s glove.Read full story from dailymail.com

Panic Strikes Trinidad and Tobago School After ‘Devil Attack’
Panic broke out at Trinidad and Tobago high school after students fell mysteriously ill, began rolling on the ground and blabbering in a strange tongue, triggering fears of a demon attack, the Guardian Trinidad and Tobago reported. Read full story from foxnews.com

Roman settlement unearthed in Syon Park, west London
A Roman settlement filled with ancient artefacts and human remains has been found on a west London building site.

Archaeologists excavating the listed Syon Park site made the discovery of more than 11,000 Roman items just half a metre below the ground Read full story from bbc.co.uk

Vision Statements Are Not Enough. Backcasting a Pathway to Sustainability.
I’ve never liked vision statements. All too often they smack of wishful thinking and fantasy. Yet the environmental movement is rife with them. As I have argued many times before, the green movement needs a concrete plan, and that plan needs to embrace strategic thinking. Luckily, vision statements are just one tool in our tool box. But there’s another tool that can help turn visions into pathways. It’s called backcasting.

The idea behind backcasting is to first envision the future you want to see—but be specific both in terms of goals and timelines. Whether it is a fossil-fuel free town by 2050, or a household that is 100% debt free by 2015, the idea is to not just say what you want, but when you want it too. Read full story from treehugger.com

BP deep-cleaning Gulf beaches amid new worries
ORANGE BEACH, Ala. — What’s typically a beautiful, quiet stretch of beach in the fall now resembles a construction site. Bulldozers and yellow dump trucks shake the ground; a giant sifting machine spits clean sand out one end, tar balls out another.

With its Macondo well dead and few visitors on the coast during the offseason, BP has launched its biggest push yet to deep-clean the tourist beaches that were coated with crude during the worst of the Gulf oil spill. Machines are digging down into the sand to remove buried tar mats left from the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Read full story from washingtonpost.com

LA: Plastic Bags BANNED In Parts Of Los Angeles County
LOS ANGELES — Parts of Los Angeles County have joined other California communities in banning stores from using single-use plastic bags.

County supervisors approved the measure 3-1 on Tuesday in hopes of preventing billions of bags from polluting neighborhoods and waterways. It bans stores from giving customers single-use plastic bags and would require them to charge 10 cents for each paper bag. Read full story from huffingtopost.com

Strickler Responds to Phenomenology
Over the past several months, I have commenced to rejuvenate and hone my capabilities for gathering information on spiritual targets by using my subspace mind. In other words, I shift my awareness from one place to another or remote view. Read full story from thecinfluenceblog

New Plan of Attack on Climate: Shame Big Polluters?
Yes, the climate bill is dead. No, we’re probably not going to see any meaningful legislation to address carbon pollution for years to come. But climate change is still occurring. Which means that if we’re going to head off the worst case scenarios, we’re going to have to find another route outside of Congress. So now that we’ve collectively moaned and mourned and licked our wounds, it is, once again, strategy time. How do we achieve big carbon cuts without passing sweeping laws that reign in big polluters? People around the interwebs are starting to chime in with suggestions, and I’ll be looking at a number of them over the coming weeks. First up — Shaming big carbon polluters in the public eye. Read full story from treehugger.com

For Iraqi Christians, fear is knocking (Source cnn.com)