WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon has extended the tour of 2,200 Marines in Afghanistan, after insisting for months the unit would come home on time.

The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which is doing combat operations in the volatile south, will stay an extra 30 days and come home in early November rather than October, Marine Col. David Lapan confirmed Thursday.

SAN FRANCISCO, Jul 3 (IPS) - U.S. journalist Zoriah Miller says he was censored by the U.S. military in the Iraqi city of Fallujah after photographing Marines who died in a suicide bombing.

On Jun. 26, a suicide bomber attacked a city council meeting in Fallujah, 69 kms west of Baghdad, between local tribal sheikhs and military officials.

Three Marines, Cpl. Marcus Preudhomme, Capt. Philip Dykeman, and Lt. Col. Max Galeai, were assigned to 2d Battalion, 3d Marines, 3rd Marine Division, Marine Corps Base Hawaii, Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon has revised its policy for recruits who must get waivers for past bad behavior, but officials stopped short of eliminating waiver requirements for petty crimes, The Associated Press has learned.

Congress has heard from politicians, pundits, and generals, but not, up to this point, from the average boots-on-the-ground soldier.

On May 15th, Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) and the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) began the process of righting this imbalance with Winter Soldier on the Hill. Nine members of IVAW testified before the CPC about rules of engagement, the killing and abuse of civilians, the use of drop weapons, and the true consequences of the "surge."

We all know how much money we spend on food each week, but what about families in other countries, particularly those less fortunate than us? This photo essay shows an interesting comparison.

The teenagers crowding Six Flags Over Georgia during this week's spring break have an alternative to the endless lines for the Georgia Scorcher: a virtual combat zone set up by the U.S. Army to thrill these kids, entertain them and maybe even recruit them.

The Virtual Army Experience — a noisy world of genocidal killers, Humvees and improvised explosive devices — looms under a tent at the edge of the park. The show, which launched at the Daytona 500 in early 2007, travels the country and already has had 60,000 visitors.

An Arizona energy company is betting big on algae. PetroSun Biofuels has opened a commercial algae-to-biofuels farm on the Texas Gulf Coast near scenic Harlingen Texas. The farm is a 1,100 acre network of saltwater ponds, 20 acres of which will be dedicated to researching and developing an environmental jet fuel.

PetroSun's gameplan is to extract algal oil on-site at the farms and transport it to company bideisel refineries via barge, rail or truck. The company plans to open more farms in Alabama, Arizona, Louisiana, Mexico, Brazil, and Australia in 2008.

Artificial human sperm could come to the aid of infertile men, according to a team of German scientists who have used lab-grown sperm to inseminate female mice.

Artificial sperm could also make males totally redundant, permitting women to give birth without a biological male mate.

The genetic scientists at the University of Goettingen in Germany have produced 65 mouse foetuses using sperm which was grown from embryonic stem cells, according to a Deutschlandfunk radio report.

Twelve baby mice have been born using this artificial, lab-grown sperm, said Dr Wolfgang Engel, director of Human Genetics at the medical university.

However, the mortality rate is high, he told the German broadcaster.

"We started out with 65 embryos from egg cells which had been inseminated by the sperm-like cells created in our lab. Of those, 12 reached full term and were born. But seven of the newborn animals died within a period ranging from three days to five months after birth of causes which we have not been able to determine," he said.

"So you can see that this is all still in the very early experimental stages," he added. "If it works in the mouse, I'm sure it will also work in the human."

A sperm cell from an embryonic stem cell would still not give an infertile man a biological tie to his child, however. It would not be any different than using donor sperm.

Engel's team has now turned to generating sperm from very early germ cells taken from the testicles. Another possibility is to try and generate viable sperm cells using stem cells in bone marrow.

"If it works in the mouse, I'm sure it will also work in the human," he was quoted as saying.

Engel says if sperm can be grown in the lab, it would be possible to take early germ cells from one woman, turn them into sperm cells, and use those to fertilise the egg of another woman.

But Engel said his team will stop short of tests on humans in compliance with federal law in Germany which bans all genetic research using human stem cells.

He said one member of his team has gone to Newcastle, England, to conduct research on artificial human sperm.