With one week left in the Senate majority, California Democrat Dianne Feinstein faces a final showdown with the White House over public release of a landmark investigation of torture during the George W. Bush administration. Feinstein, who remains chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee in the waning days of the 113th Congress, said she expects the Obama administration to sign off on the report this week, “subject to change.” The stakes are high for Feinstein, because Republicans who will take over the Senate next year have soured on the investigation and would probably shelve the report. “There’s no question they have taken a long time and they have been difficult,” Feinstein said of her talks with the Obama administration about what portions of the report can be made public. “If we can’t declassify it, we can’t put it out. We think it’s valuable, that it will stand the test of time.” In a wide-ranging interview last week in her Capitol Hill office, Feinstein, 81, also said she will wait two years before deciding whether to run for re-election when her term ends in 2018. World A horse cart passes by the military hospital in Montevideo, Uruguay, on Sunday. Six prisoners from Guantanamo Bay have been transferred to Uruguay, the U.S. government said. Uruguayan officials declined comment on the transfers but Adriana Ramos, a receptionist at the hospital, said the six men were being examined there. Uruguay welcomes Guantanamo refugees’ families Scarecrows outnumber people in dying Japanese village The Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va., Monday, Nov. 24, 2014. A Rolling Stone article last week alleged a gang rape at the house which has since suspended operations. Groups urge UVa to reinstate fraternity activities Scientists at the Prague Asterix Laser System lab used a powerful laser to re-create what could have been the original spark of life on primordial Earth, possibly ignited by a crashing asteroid. Researchers said they zapped clay and a chemical soup with the laser to simulate the energy of a speeding asteroid smashing into the planet. That cooked up from scratch what can be considered crucial parts of the building blocks of life. They created all four chemical bases that are needed to make RNA, a simpler relative of DNA, the blueprint of life. In the meantime, she plans a push to expand federal protection of the California desert under the new Republican-controlled Senate. Should that fail, she said, she would “absolutely” consider asking President Obama to move on his own to create two new national monuments in the desert. Read more http://www.sfchronicle.com/nation/a...-to-release-torture-report-before-5940164.php
