U.S. Navy officials have issued an apology for their response to a News4 reporter's request for materials related to the September 2013 Navy Yard shooting rampage.

In an email to News4's I-Team reporter Scott MacFarlane, Navy administrator Steve Muck asked MacFarlane to "accept [his] apologies" for an internal memo sent to MacFarlane by a Navy Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) officer.

In the memo, a Navy FOIA officer details a strategy to reject and stymie MacFarlane's requests for emails, photos and memoranda related to the Navy Yard shooting, in which 12 people died.

Another Navy official acknowledges the memo was sent to MacFarlane by mistake.

The Associated Press revealed Monday that the U.S. government is considering a drone strike to kill an American citizen with alleged terrorist ties.

Several anonymous officials made the case for killing the American without due process and despite restrictions called for last year to carry out drone strikes through the Pentagon, rather than the CIA. The American, the officials claimed, is a member of al Qaeda actively plotting to kill U.S. citizens who is currently in a remote location and has been involved in previous terrorist attacks - - all arguments that bolster the case that a strike should be authorized against an imminent threat.

Like the annual return of pinkletinks and crocuses, inns and hotels around the Island are getting familiar calls this week from White House officials planning a vacation on Martha's Vineyard for President Obama and his family.

Three reliable sources, who asked not to be named because they are not authorized to release information, told The Times that Mr. Obama will return to the Island in August. Two sources said the vacation is scheduled on or about August 9, a week earlier than the first family visited in previous years.

The president brings a large entourage of Secret Service agents, White House staffers, and support personnel, and the White House began arranging for lodging this week, according to the sources.

As the US, EU and Britain huff and puff in barrel loads of clichés: "red lines" are "crossed", "sovereignty and territorial integrity" has been "violated", they stand "shoulder to shoulder" with their shoe-horned in fascist government in Ukraine, they are "resolute" against "Russian aggression", and will not "stand idly by", sanity seems in short supply.

US Secretary of State, John Kerry representing a country which makes Genghis Khan look like a wimp when it comes to illegal invasions, still retains the prize for jaw dropper of the decade: "You just don't, in the 21st century, behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pretext", he pontificated on CBS' "Face the Nation."

On the thirteenth anniversary of the illegal invasion of Iraq and the total destruction of it's "sovereignty and territorial integrity", by America and Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron has scuttled off to Brussels for a meeting of European Union Ministers to agree a "robust response" to Russia - who has fired not a shot, invaded no one and threatened nothing except to respond that if sanctions were imposed on Russia they might consider a trading response. Fair enough, surely?

The government of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea called a referendum, distinctly disturbed by the threat by Kiev's US proxy government that the Russian language was to have no status, and Jews and blacks would not be tolerated.

A fraction under 97% voted to cede to Russia, with a turnout of over 80% - an electoral enthusiasm of which Western governments could only dream.

As much of the main stream media and the usual politicians thundered of voting under pressure or even at gunpoint, one hundred and thirty five international observers from twenty three countries said, consistently, they saw no pressure of any sort, and they had "not registered any violations of voting rules."(1)

Ignoring President Barack Obama's veto threat, the House voted on Wednesday for a bill that would expedite congressional lawsuits against the chief executive for failure to enforce federal laws.

The vote was 233-181 in the Republican-led House as GOP lawmakers excoriated Obama for multiple changes to his 4-year-old health care law, steps he's taken to allow young immigrants to remain in the United States and the administration's resistance to defend the federal law banning gay marriage.

Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., sponsor of the ENFORCE the Law Act, delivered a fiery speech and read a series of statements by Obama when he was an Illinois senator in which he warned of the encroachment of the executive on the powers of the other branches of government.

Iran's official news agency is reporting that Iran and Russia have discussed a draft agreement to build two more nuclear power plants in the Islamic Republic.

The report Wednesday by IRNA said visiting Russian official Nikolai Spassky and Iranian nuclear officials reached an initial agreement about building two new nuclear power plants for Iran. Each plant would have 1,000-megawatts capacity plus water purification capabilities.

It said a formal agreement would be signed later. It did not elaborate.

Iran built its first nuclear power plant in southern port of Bushehr with Russia's help. That plant has been online since 2011 with a capacity of 1,000 megawatts.

The Kansas House Standing Committee on Corrections and Juvenile Justice has introduced a bill that will require private citizens who file complaints against police officers to sign an affidavit, acknowledging that if their allegations are proven false, they can be charged with perjury, which is a felony charge.

Furthermore, this bill prohibits a Kansas law enforcement agency from opening an investigation into a complaint if another law enforcement agency has already investigated the complaint and found in favor of the officer.

In other words, this bill would allow police departments to arrest the people who file complaints against police officers. In Wichita, Kansas, complaints are almost always dismissed, by the Wichita Police Department, so, according to this bill and its vague wording, the WPD, could now go arrest the people who file complaints against their officers.

Russia's Foreign Ministry has published a reciprocal sanctions list of US citizens, consisting of 10 names, including: House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, Senator J. McCain; and advisers to President Obama D. Pfeiffer and C. Atkinson.

These officials, along with another five named by the Foreign Ministry, are banned from entering the country.

The move comes in response to US sanctions imposed against Russian officials after the March-16 referendum in Crimea, which Washington considered "illegitimate."

A senior Russian diplomat says Moscow may change its stance in the Iranian nuclear talks amid tensions with the West.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted Wednesday as saying by the Interfax news agency that Russia didn't want to use the Iranian nuclear talks to "raise stakes," but may have to do so in response to the actions by the United States and the European Union.

The statement is the most serious threat of retaliation by Moscow after the U.S. and the EU announced sanctions against Russia over the Ukrainian crisis.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein's bombshell accusation about the Central Intelligence Agency Tuesday set off a scramble on Capitol Hill - with Democrats and Republicans ignoring the usual party lines in response to her claim that the agency improperly interfered in a congressional investigation.

Feinstein (D-Calif.) won immediate backing from top Democrats like Majority Leader Harry Reid and Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy while some Republicans, including Lindsey Graham and John McCain, began to echo her concerns. Have these same Senators supported the NSA spying on average Americans? The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks it down.