Blog Heap o'Links for May 2009

Collins said somehow they ended up in the Cherry Hill section of south Baltimore. Hopelessly lost, relief melted away concerns after they spotted a police vehicle. "I said, 'Thank goodness, could you please get us to 95?" Kelly said. "The first thing that she said to us was no -- you just ran that stop sign, pull over," Brook said. "It wasn't a big deal. We'll pay the stop sign violation, but can we have directions?" "What she said was 'You found your own way in here, you can find your own way out.'" Kelly said. Collins said the couple spotted another police vehicle and flagged that officer down for directions. But Officer Natalie Preston, a six-year veteran of the force, intervened. "That really threw us for a loop when she stepped in between our cars," Kelly said. "(She) said my partner is not going to step in front of me and tell you directions if I'm not."

67-year-old George Tiller... A Kansas doctor reviled by anti-abortion groups for his work providing so-called "late-term" abortions was shot and killed in his Wichita, Kansas, church on Sunday, and police said they captured the man responsible.

Her death came on the 98th anniversary of the launching of the Titanic on May 31, 1911... Her brother died in 1992 on the 80th anniversary of the ship's sinking. He was 81.

Spigner says Prater initially said he would charge only Ersland and is going back on his word. Prater says he changed his mind after additional legal research.

the power to burn as hot as a star... could deliver breakthroughs in safe fusion power...

A history of tobacco regulation Major events in the federal government's history with cigarette makers. May 30, 2009 Tobacco regulation 1964: The surgeon general issues a landmark report linking smoking to lung cancer. 1965: Warning labels are mandated on cigarette packs stating, "Caution: Cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health." 1969: Cigarette advertising is banned on TV and radio. 1979: Smoking is restricted in all federal buildings in the United States. 1990: Smoking is banned on all U.S. commercial airline flights. 1994: Mississippi becomes the first state to sue the tobacco industry to recover costs for tobacco-related illnesses. 1998: The tobacco industry agrees to pay $206 billion, which will help fund anti-tobacco programs, as part of a settlement agreement with 46 states. 2000: U.S. Supreme Court rejects a Clinton administration effort to give the Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate tobacco. 2009: Congress approves the largest-ever increase in the federal cigarette tax, boosting it 62 cents, to $1.01 a pack. Source: Office of the Surgeon General

"I'm sure she would have restated it," Obama flatly told NBC News, without indicating how he knew that.

On his trip to get a burger with Brian Williams at Five Guys this afternoon, the president appears to have learned of the existence of a Defense Department intelligence arm, the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, from an agency employee also at the burger restaurant.

Obama's predecessor asked the former president to orchestrate the response to the Asian tsunami and then to Hurricane Katrina. Obama gives him Haiti.

Justice Department political appointees overruled career lawyers and ended a civil complaint accusing three members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense of wielding a nightstick and intimidating voters at a Philadelphia polling place last Election Day, according to documents and interviews.

A Lubbock man was convicted Friday of kidnapping three children who were taken to Oklahoma on a three-day camping trip where they endured what prosecutors called "terror games" that included talk of cannibalism and sex acts.

Investigators continue to search for a missing 5-year-old girl whose mother spoke of a sex offender considered a person of interest in the case as a "father figure" to her daughter, who disappeared five days ago. Police found a blood-stained towel, shorts and a photo of a girl similar to Nevaeh Buchanan during a search of the motel room where 36-year-old George Kennedy, a registered sex offender, was staying Thursday. Kennedy is a longtime acquaintance of the girl's mother, Jennifer Buchanan.

A jury sentenced a suburban Dallas man to 45 years in prison Friday for knowingly infecting six women with the AIDS virus. Philippe Padieu, described by his own lawyer as a "modern-day Casanova," shook his head and looked down when the decision was read.

Desmond Hatchett's brood came to light after authorities in Tennessee in the U.S. took him to court for non-payment of child support. He has apparently set a U.S. record but said: 'It just happened.'

MIDWEST CITY, Oklahoma -- Just days after graduating, Carl Albert High School students are mourning the loss of classmate Ashley Parham. Parham was picking her brother up from football practice when she hit another car in the parking lot.

A Tulsa driver is lucky to be alive after a pole fell on his car on Highway 75. He says a man hit the light pole with a tractor.

Legendary music producer Phil Spector was sentenced Friday to 19 years to life in prison for killing actress and House of Blues VIP hostess Lana Clarkson in the foyer of his Alhambra mansion more than six years ago.

A promise made more than 30 years ago is giving a Bartlesville woman the chance for a free education. All it took was a little digging through some old files and a belief in commitment.

R.H. Donnelley Corp., the publisher of 600 directories including telephone Yellow Pages, sought bankruptcy protection from creditors to reduce debt by about $6.4 billion amid mounting losses.

Wikipedia, the giant online encyclopedia anyone can edit, has decided to block contributions from computers owned by the Church of Scientology, saying that it has changed copy to advance its own agenda.

Oil futures rallied Friday, posting the biggest monthly gain since 1999, as sharp weakness in the U.S. dollar and hopes of an economic recovery boosted demand for crude.

Even though it has been nearly 30 years, when I first saw him I recognised him, he has my eyes.

We're still waiting on what is expected to be an opportunity to play with Google Wave, the company's ambitious project to rework email, instant messaging, document sharing, and blogging. After doing some thinking, however, I wanted to highlight some of the points that intrigued me personally.

At the All Things D conference on Thursday, Microsoft unveiled the latest re-branding of its search engine. Forget Live Search--that's so three months ago. Now Bing is in! Launching in a couple of weeks, Bing hopes to make searching a little more useful and, judging from this video demo (warning: video contains Steve Ballmer), it looks a bit like the love-child of Google and WolframAlpha.

after the boy's mother was tipped off by school employees, she checked her son's cell phone and found hundreds of calls and texts from Weber, the last text reading, "erase your phone."

An all Spanish-speaking television station has joined the Tulsa market. ... "It's an advertising opportunity, a marketing opportunity and a political one...."

Outside China he is known simply as Tank Man. Inside the country he is not known at all. No trace is to be found of the young man armed only with shopping bags who 20 years ago blocked a column of tanks rolling through Beijing. His defiance became the defining image of the student demonstrations crushed by the People's Liberation Army. ... The identity of Tank Man remains a mystery. Did he vanish back into the crowd? Was he picked up by police and jailed? Even executed? Throughout the deathdefying stand-off, none of the many cameras focused on him from the Beijing Hotel ever captured his face. Perhaps only the tank driver and passers-by who pulled him away ever saw his features....

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

A 9-year-old girl whose mother allegedly perpetrated a kidnapping hoax was reunited with her father Thursday in Florida.... told ABC's "Good Morning America" he was "elated" to hear Julia's voice on the telephone....

As a damaging audiotape of Senator Roland W. Burris began playing on seemingly every television and radio station here, he toured his home state Wednesday and portrayed that secretly recorded phone conversation, with the brother of the man who appointed him to the Senate, as proof that he had not tried to trade favors for the post. Related The Caucus: Senator Burris in the Cross-Hairs of 'Hardball' That portrayal astonished many....

Bonnie Sweeten is accused of filing false reports that she and her daughter were kidnapped, and then taking her daughter for a trip to Disney World while using another woman's ID to get there.

20-year-old Aloha man had a sleep-over at the Washington County Jail on Memorial Day after calling 9-1-1 to complain that McDonald's left out a box of orange juice from his drive-thru order.

A chain-reaction collision Thursday involving a school bus [empty], a casino bus and a tractor-trailer injured nearly 60 people and shut down the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway for hours

Scientists have identified a lethal new virus in Africa that causes bleeding like the dreaded Ebola virus. The so-called "Lujo" virus infected five people in Zambia and South Africa last fall. Four of them died, but a fifth survived, perhaps helped by a medicine recommended by the scientists. It's not clear how the first person became infected, but the bug comes from a family of viruses found in rodents....

Four children died when a powerful 7.1 magnitude earthquake shook Honduras on Thursday and the death toll could be much higher

Economic hardship in the officially 'self-reliant' North has led to mass starvation, while the South has a vibrant economy able to compete with the best of the world. In 1996, the per capita GNP in the North was $920, while it was $11.270 in the South. A 1999 estimate of per capita GNPs put the South's at 13 times that of the North. More recent figures will probably show an even wider gap. Due to the different economic results on either side of the Demilitarized Zone, the ethnically quite homogenous Koreans have even begun to diversify physically, with the average North Korean male almost 7 cm shorter than his Southern counterpart (165,6 cm vs. 172,5 cm). North Korean females are on average 4 cm shorter than Southern women (154,9 cm vs. 159,1 cm). By 2025, the height difference is projected to increase to 11 cm for men, 6 cm for women. Unless the North's economic situation changes drastically, that is.

A bloody towel, a sharped-edged tool stained with blood and photos of young girls were among the evidence confiscated from the motel room and van of George Kennedy, a "person of interest" in the case of missing Michigan 5-year-old Nevaeh Buchanan.... Sheriff ... stopped short of calling him a suspect ...

While researching this morning's major earthquake off of the coast of Honduras, I came across an interesting story. It was about the fear of a tsunami in Puerto Rico, reported just yesterday. This is on the other side of the Caribbean, but could it be connected? The Tsunami Watch was dropped this morning, but other questions have been raised.

AOL, eight years after the Internet service linked up with Time Warner Inc. in a $124 billion merger, is now worth half as much as Facebook Inc. and less than 5 percent of Google Inc.

General Motors Corp said on Thursday it had reached a deal with some major bondholders that would give them a bigger stake in a reorganized automaker and could pave the way for a fast-track bankruptcy backed by the U.S. Treasury within days. The announcement was the clearest indication yet that GM, the No. 1 U.S. automaker, is close to filing for bankruptcy under the direction of the Obama administration. It would be the biggest-ever bankruptcy for a U.S. industrial company.

Ever since the mid 14th century, Büsingen has had Austrian overlords — at the end of the 17th century, the abduction, trial and death sentence of the Lord of Büsingen at the hands of the neighbouring Swiss canton of Schaffhausen almost led to war between Austria and Switzerland. It's said that due to this near-war, the Austrians decided to never relinquish control over Büsingen to the Swiss, just to spite them. When Austria sold its rights to the nearby villages of Ramsen and Dörflingen to the canton of Zürich in 1770, Büsingen effectively became an enclave within Switzerland.

Sara Jane Moore (born Sara Jane Kahn) tried to assassinate president Gerald Ford in September 1975. This was just seventeen days after Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme had also tried to kill the president. She now speaks out, aged 80 and released from prison 2 years ago, and even offers public apologies for her reaction back then.

Free after 32 years in prison, Sara Jane Moore says she was wrong, "misled" and "mistaken" in trying to assassinate President Gerald R. Ford in September 1975. However, she added: "I still believe if I hadn't done it, someone else would." [What th...?]

some critics charging that its premise is misogynistic [NO DOUBT the SAME people who decry similar women's groups as misandrist!]

told them to "stop religious assembly or apply for a major use permit"

Sonia Sotomayo: I warn Latinos in this room: Latinas are making a lot of progress in the old-boy network. ... ... America has a deeply confused image of itself that is in perpetual tension ... achieving success here is no easy accomplishment for Latinos or Latinas ... I wonder whether by ignoring our differences as women or men of color we do a disservice both to the law and society. ... I accept the thesis.... there is a diversity of opinion because there is both a diversity of experiences and of thought.... feminist theories of judging ... That same point can be made with respect to people of color. ... [Ethnicist, sexist, and racist... what a maroon.]

President Barack Obama's nominee to fill a Supreme Court vacancy has yet another tie to Connecticut. She sided against a student in the infamous "douche bag" case, and that has upset some free-speech advocates.

is listed as a member of the National Council of La Raza, a group that's promoted driver's licenses for illegal aliens, amnesty programs, and no immigration law enforcement by local and state police.

The pharmacist charged with first-degree murder was released today from the Oklahoma County jail after a supporter came up with the money for his $100,000 bail

It was the five shots Ersland fired into 16-year-old Antwun Parker's abdomen that prompted them to file first degree murder charges. ... The Oklahoma County District Attorney's Office released surveillance video from the pharmacy Wednesday. Here is where the debate lies - did pharmacist Jerome Ersland cross the line?

This year, the World Naked Bike Ride happens on June 13. Here's what the 2006 version looked like in one city. [video]

an international clothing-optional bike ride in which participants plan, meet and ride together en masse on human-powered transport (the vast majority on bicycles, but some on skateboards and inline skates), to "deliver a vision of a cleaner, safer, body-positive world."

A 35-year-old Dewey man appeared before Special Judge John Gerkin on Tuesday to answer to charges stemming from the alleged molestation of a then 13-year-old girl. ... victim, now 14, gave her mother a note saying that Kelley had "sex with her multiple times" and for her (mother) not to get mad.....

A Bartlesville man is being held on $15,000 bond after his arrest for the alleged abuse of a 14-year-old girl. As a result of the arrest, Robert Lee Halcom, 45, faces a single charge of child abuse by injury.

We are not talking about stepping up military efforts but rather about measures in case a military conflict [???]

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said North Korea must face consequences for its "belligerent and provocative behavior" after Kim Jong Il's regime threatened military action against South Korea.

The Dutch justice ministry has announced it will close eight prisons and cut 1,200 jobs in the prison system. A decline in crime has left many cells empty.

France has confirmed that it has not "personally" invited the Queen to the 65th anniversary of D-Day on June 6 but said that she was "naturally welcome", following reports that Buckingham palace had been snubbed.

The Monorail Society is an all-volunteer organization founded to foster more awareness and promote this unique method of transportation. Monorails are NOT just for theme parks and zoos! Our aim is to inform people of the many possible uses for them....

Demolition crews are busy tearing down an old bridge leading to downtown Tulsa. It's the Boulder Bridge, going across the railroad tracks on the north edge of downtown. The bridge was built eight decades ago and has just become too unsafe to keep open. Construction on the Boulder Bridge near Tulsa Union Station began in 1929. Now, the bridge is coming down.

A 62-year-old Singapore man was temporarily denied entry into the U.S. because a cancer drug he was taking had made his fingerprints disappear.... people being treated with Xeloda, described as an oral chemotherapy drug, should carry a letter from their doctor that they are taking the medication if they want to travel to countries that require fingerprints for identification. ...

at this morning's Google I/O 2009 opening keynote, Google gave away a new, unlocked HTC Magic to all 4,000 attendees. This phone was previously unavailable in the US. As you might expect, this move drew the biggest applause by far from the audience, but actually very little of the keynote was devoted to Android.

Problem: When you project a round surface (such as the surface of the Earth) onto a flat map, there is a great deal of distortion. Fuller partially solved this by converting the globe to an icosahedron

a "Future MILF" teddybear? Is that for deployment in the baby's crib?

In making Sonia Sotomayor his first nominee for the Supreme Court yesterday, President Obama appears to have found the ideal match for his view that personal experience and cultural identity are the better part of judicial wisdom.

Newt Gingrich, Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh -- have taken to calling the Supreme Court justice nominee Sonia Sotomayor a 'racist,' with Gingrich even going so far as to ask her to withdraw. [And rightly so, despite the indignent Daily News tone]

A 5-year-old Russian girl has been has placed in state custody after being found alone in an apartment filled with cats and dogs and imitating the animals' behavior. Police in the Transbaikal region of Siberia said Wednesday that the girl was kept shut up with the animals in a filthy apartment in the regional capital of Chita, where she lived with relatives, including her father and grandparents.

The global climate challenge may have been on the daytime agenda during the recent World Business Summit climate conference in Copenhagen, but in the evenings many businessmen, politicians and civil servants are reported to have availed themselves of the capital's prostitutes. "We've been extremely busy. Politicians also need to relax after a long day," says 'Miss Dina', herself a prostitute.

A graffiti vandal who was convicted last year, after his work was posted on YouTube, was charged Tuesday with five new felony vandalism charges. Authorities allege that Cyrus Yazdani, 25, caused more than $14,000 in damage between last Dec. 22 and March 31 on the 7th Street and Cesar Chavez bridges and in the 4200 block of South Broadway.

report on broadband strategy for rural America on Wednesday. ... Copps called this report on rural broadband strategy a starting point for developing a national broadband policy. And even with the $7.2 billion of money from the stimulus package, Copps said that more money will be needed to ensure that every American has access to broadband. ... [FREE MONEY! WHEEE!]

James Stacy has done his share of pothole patching during his decades in the asphalt business. ... He insists his intentions were pure Tuesday morning, when he took a broom and pickax to a menacing chuckhole outside his home on East Crosier Street. An Akron police officer sees it differently and has charged Stacy with criminal damaging, a second-degree misdemeanor.

Mexican authorities have arrested 27 high-ranking officials suspected of collaborating with drug-trafficking gangs in the state of Michoacan. They include 10 mayors, a judge and an aide to the governor of Michoacan.

North Korea launched an additional short-range missile from its east coast Tuesday night.... Officials here believe the missile launches are partly aimed at preventing South Korean and U.S. reconnaissance planes from nearing the communist state to verify its claimed nuclear test....

North Korea is reported to have fired another missile, despite US warnings it would "pay a price" for nuclear and missile tests in recent days. The launch of the missile coincides with efforts to secure a UN Security Council resolution condemning the country's nuclear programme.

A Nielsen Co. report found unlimited texting plans offered by wireless carriers have sent U.S. teens on a messaging spree, sending and receiving an average of 2,272 texts per month, more than double the amount from a year earlier. Physicians said all the texting is causing anxiety, distraction in school, falling grades, repetitive stress injury and sleep deprivation among teenagers.

accused of throwing hot coffee at a neighbor's dog.... Police said they could smell coffee on the dog's fur....

Police have issued an Amber Alert for a 9-year-old girl who they believe is may be in the trunk of a sport utility vehicle with her mother after being carjacked in suburban Philadelphia.

Director Mike Judge's new animated television series "The Goode Family" is a send-up of a clan of environmentalists who live by the words "What would Al Gore do?" Gerald and Helen Goode want nothing more than to minimize their carbon footprint. They feed their dog, Che, only veggies (much to the pet's dismay) and Mr. Goode dutifully separates sheets of toilet paper when his wife accidentally buys two-ply. And, of course, the family drives a hybrid.

China's official foreign exchange manager is still buying record amounts of US government bonds, despite Beijing's increasingly vocal fear of a dollar collapse, according to officials and analysts.

STROUD, OK -- The countdown is on as a popular Route 66 restaurant is about to reopen after being nearly destroyed by a fire. On May 20, 2008, the Rock Cafe nearly burned to the ground, tearing apart a piece of Oklahoma history. Rock Cafe owner Dawn Welch has been putting the puzzle back for a little more than a year.

A judge ruled Tuesday afternoon that 13-year-old Daniel Hauser's parents could have custody of their son as long as they agree to treat his cancer with chemotherapy. Colleen and Anthony Hauser now say they understand their son needs chemotherapy. A doctor's exam showed the tumor, which is located in his chest, has grown and is pushing against his trachea, causing pain.

Psystar, maker of the the Open Computer, has filed for bankruptcy protection. ... "Debtor sales have been greatly affected by the decrease in consumer spending. The financial crisis has also caused creditors to tighten up their terms and become more demanding for immediate payment," the company said in a court document. Psystar also blames its partner vendors' own financial problems, which resulted in Psystar having to pay higher prices on parts. At that point, Psystar was unable "to turn a significant profit in each sale."

questions about her temperament, her judicial craftsmanship, and most of all, her ability to provide an intellectual counterweight to the conservative justices, as well as a clear liberal alternative. ... The most consistent concern was that Sotomayor, although an able lawyer, was "not that smart and kind of a bully on the bench...."

Already, a few Republicans have cast doubt on Sotomayor's objectivity. And her history of decisions and opinions surely will raise more questions. ... Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, in a written statement, said Tuesday he's concerned Sotomayor has shown "personal bias based on ethnicity and gender...." Sotomayor has a record of being rebuffed by the high court. Of the six decisions she was a part of that came before the high court, five were reversed. In the sixth, the court disagreed with Sotomayor's reasoning.

Four states are ordering people to wipe the grins off their faces in their license photos. "Neutral facial expressions" are required at departments of motor vehicles (DMVs) in Arkansas, Indiana, Nevada and Virginia. That means you can't smile, or smile very much. Other states may follow.

President Obama is expected to announce late this week that he will create a "cyber czar," a senior White House official who will have broad authority to develop strategy to protect the nation's government-run and private computer networks, according to people who have been briefed on the plan.

Berkeley Elliott Challis took sudden leave from our planet on Wednesday, May 20, 2009. Berkeley was born on May 17, 1982 in Oklahoma City to proud parents, Michael Challis and Elizabeth Hansel Challis. ... Berkeley will be remembered by his amazing willingness to be of service to those in need. He was a true friend and always ready to lend a hand. He was a skilled automotive technician, a carpenter, a gardener, and the best cook in the family. ...The Mansions on High now have a dedicated servant as he continues his Paradise ascent to find the satisfactions of eternal service. ...

North Korea defied world powers and carried out an underground test Monday of a nuclear bomb Russian officials said was comparable to those that obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The incident drew condemnation from Washington to Beijing and set the communist regime up for a showdown with the United Nations.

Bartlesville native Robert Radebaugh was in the 11th wave. He was drafted at age 19 after having been kicked out of school for beating up the principal's son. "I knew I was going to be drafted," he said. "I was ready to go. There was nothing left here. I had quit school. I had been kicked out of school so I was ready to go."

veteran Chicago police officer accused of being drunk behind the wheel while causing a fatal hit-and-run accident that killed a 13-year-old boy on the South Side.

ELM GROVE, Wis. -- A father and a police officer were injured Monday when a minivan was hit by a southbound freight train in Elm Grove. Police said traffic was backed up because of a parade that was supposed to start within the hour and that when the gates came down, two vehicles were stuck between the gates....

The Monroe County Sheriffs Office is investigating the disappearance of Neviaeh Amyah Buchanan. The 5-year old's abandoned bike was found in the parking lot of an apartment complex.

Chances are, the skeletal remains of at least one of Oklahoma 's missing persons sets unidentified somewhere in a medical examiner's office. For decades, the lack of a uniform state and nationwide system to match unidentified remains with missing people has prevented some families from learning that their missing loved one has died.

an artist and illustrator specialising in prehistoric animals; Mesozoic reptiles mostly, and pterosaurs in particular.

Sutton served his country both as an U.S. Army soldier as well as a member of the Air Force and the Air Guard, the former during the Vietnam conflict. The ride is currently foremost in his mind, but such rides are never far from his thoughts. This one will be held for Army Spc. Adam Noel Brewer. The 22-year-old was killed Feb. 25, 2005 near Taji, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated while he was on patrol.

An anonymous 911 call helped police in Duncan arrest a car load of convicted felons with loaded weapons. Five officers were on the lookout for the men after the caller said they were driving the streets of Duncan with a car filled with loaded weapons....

Police in Arnold, Mo., reported that a woman heading for the exit of a grocery store with a shopping cart containing more than $1,200 in stolen "groceries and other items" was thwarted by trying to leave through the wrong automatic door.

The National Cartoonists Society (NCS) is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the troops. They enjoyed each other's company and decided to meet on a regular basis.

An olfactory receptor neuron (ORN), also called an olfactory sensory neuron (OSN), is a transduction cell within the olfactory system... Humans have about 40 million olfactory receptors that detect up to 10,000 different odorsneurons....

President Obama on Friday promised the U.S. Naval Academy's graduating class that he will not send them into combat unless absolutely necessary and will always make sure they are properly prepared and equipped, in an apparent swipe at the Bush administration and the Iraq war.

People convicted of certain misdemeanors and illegal immigrants arrested for any crime will have to provide a DNA sample under a bill signed into law Wednesday. Gov. Brad Henry said the measure is intended to help law officers solve cold cases of violent crimes.

Travelling through Oklahoma, Kevin Connolly recalls the life of Cherokee-American Will Rogers, a star of silent and talking movies.

Golden shovels turned the first dirt Friday for construction of a $15 million hotel in the heart of downtown on a corner facing a historic railroad depot and the ConocoPhillips office.

Billy Best ran away from home in Norwell, Mass., in 1994 to avoid chemotherapy, and today he offered conflicting words of support and opposition to Daniel and Colleen Hauser. The mother and son, who are from Minnesota, are now part of an international police search after they fled a judge's court-ordered chemotherapy Monday for Daniel.

The half-sized cows barely reached Kenny's waist. The ranch's border collie stared eye-to-eye with wandering calves. "Aren't they sweet?"

The Obama administration on Friday launched Data.gov, a Web site intended to increase public access to data collected by the government.

"The black and white stripe is basically a contrasting stripe that's kind of a safety enhancement project that we're starting to do," said Paul Green, Oklahoma Department of Transportation construction engineer. The alternating stripes make it easier for drivers to see which lane they are in.

graduate student stands accused of sharing copyrighted music files for years on P2P networks. Tenenbaum is defended by Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson, but the Free Software Foundation has also shoved its oar into the water and is paddling around a bit, trying to make some waves.

No one's happy about The Pirate Bay verdict. The site admins, who are now on the hook for a collective 30 million kronor in damages plus one year each in jail, have charged that the judge was biased. But the movie and music businesses have filed an appeal of their own, saying that the 30 million kronor in damages wasn't nearly enough

An Oklahoma bill to ban abortions based on an unborn child's sex has been passed by the state legislature and now heads to the governor for signing.

Obama White House officials decided to do their own media report on the visit, complete with cuts, interviews, and chyrons identifying who's speaking. Also, just like a network, they have their own little logo! Cute!

The buses from Conway Elementary arrived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue a little later than planned, and they were locked out. "We were going to the White House, but we couldn't get in so I felt sad...." Parents say they were just 10 minutes late for their scheduled tour. School officials say White House staff said they needed to get ready for the president's event with the Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers, so they couldn't come in.

The California Sunday school teacher accused in the shocking kidnap, rape and murder of 8-year-old Sandra Cantu now is being accused of secretly poisoning two people, including another little girl.

BROKEN ARROW, OK -- "No veteran should ever be forgotten." That's the theme for Floral Haven's annual Memorial Day Observance. A nearly forgotten veteran of the Vietnam War will be given a special place of honor in Saturday's ceremonies. A bench will be the final resting place for Private Warren Nicholls at Floral Haven Memorial Gardens. Don Clapsaddle is with the Military Order of the Purple Heart. He has led an effort to properly honor a nearly forgotten Viet Nam veteran...

The term Aspect Ratio refers to the width of a picture (or screen) in relation to its height. Ratios are expressed in the form "width x height". For example, a 4x3 ratio means the picture is 4 units wide by 3 units high. Alternatively a colon may be used (e.g. 4:3 or 16:9) or a ratio to the number 1 (e.g. 1.33:1 or 1.78:1). Note that the actual physical size of the picture is irrelevant — aspect ratio refers only to the relationship between width and height.

"Twinkie defense" is a derisive label for an improbable legal defense. It is not a recognized legal defense in jurisprudence, but a catchall term coined by reporters during their coverage of the trial of defendant Dan White for the murders of San Francisco city supervisor Harvey Milk and mayor George Moscone. White's defense was that he suffered diminished capacity as a result of his depression. His change in diet from health food to Twinkies and other sugary food was said to be a symptom of depression. This defense is a claim that sugary food was not itself responsible for White's criminal behavior, but rather that it was a symptom of depression, which was the underlying cause. White was convicted of voluntary manslaughter.

Daniel James "Dan" White (September 2, 1946 — October 21, 1985) was a San Francisco supervisor who assassinated San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, on Monday, November 27, 1978, at City Hall. In a controversial verdict that led to the coining of the legal slang "Twinkie defense," White was convicted of manslaughter rather than murder in the deaths of Milk and Moscone

A former reserve police officer charged with impersonating a police officer is contending that prosecutors failed to state a crime. According to a motion to dismiss filed this week in the case against Eric Evans, the state "failed to state a crime, under the circumstances of this action, which constitutes a crime."

The Last Supper (Italian: Il Cenacolo or L'Ultima Cena) is a 15th century mural painting in Milan created by Leonardo da Vinci for his patron Duke Ludovico Sforza and his duchess Beatrice d'Este. It represents the scene of The Last Supper from the final days of Jesus as it is told in the Gospel of John 13:21, when Jesus announces that one of his Twelve Apostles would betray him.

Visible Leaders Shamsi Ali, Marc Schneier Come Together At 96th Street Mosque To Denounce Terrorism

new service in Northwest Houston, uses a water-based cleaning solution that is non-hazardous and biodegradable.

Last month, a Swedish court found the four men behind the popular Pirate Bay website guilty of assisting copyright infringement, sentencing each of them to one year in prison and a $905,000 fine. Shortly afterword, Pirate Bay lawyer Peter Althin demanded a retrial due to bias -- given the trial's judge is a member of the same copyright protection organizations as several of the main entertainment industry representatives. A second judge was tasked with determining bias has themselves been removed from said task -- for bias....

Dozens of soldiers will make return home in time for Memorial Day. There are 120 Oklahoma National Guard troops that will land on Sunday; 80 of those will return to Tulsa. They've been in Iraq for the past eight months.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday she won't talk any more about her charge that the CIA lied in 2002 about using waterboarding on terrorism suspects.

President Barack Obama sees his secretary of defense just about every day, but he still flubbed Robert Gates' name on Thursday. Gates was in the crowd for Obama's national security speech. Pointing him out, the president said "William Gates" was on hand. Perhaps Obama was thinking of Bill Gates, the Microsoft billionaire.

Four New York men were arrested Wednesday in connection with an alleged plot to blow up area Jewish centers and military targets. The plot, however, was foiled by undercover agents. Raids by the FBI-NYPD Joint Terrorist Task Force in the Bronx captured the suspected ringleader and three followers in what law enforcement sources are calling a homegrown terrorist plot.

Report: widespread abuse of Irish children in Catholic Church-run institutions The government did little as Generations of children were abused, according to the nearly decade-long investigation. Counseling centers report a surge in callers since the report's release.

Law enforcement computers were struck by a Mystery computer virus Thursday, forcing the FBI and the U.S. Marshals to shut down part of their networks as a precaution.

Federal prosecutors have charged 147 members of a predominantly Latino street gang that has long ruled the streets of Hawaiian Gardens, a city of 14,000 east of Long Beach, with making racial attacks on African-Americans and drug dealing. Prosecutors said the Varrio Hawaiian Gardens gang, with approximately 1,000 members and associates, carried out racially motivated shootings to enforce its territory and to intimidate black residents.

A former U.S. Army private received a life sentence with no parole Thursday for raping an Iraqi teenager and killing her and her family. Prosecutors sought the death penalty for Steven Green, but jurors in federal court in Kentucky were unable to agree on the sentence.... killings took place in March 2006. Investigators Green and other soldiers broke into Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi's house in Mahmudiya. Others in the group testified Green killed the teen's parents and sister and shot her in the head. Four other soldiers pleaded guilty and were sentenced to prison.

The same day Dick Cheney delivered a major speech on the battle against terrorism, a new national poll suggests that favorable opinions of the former vice president are on the rise.

The number of people killed in this morning's military air crash in Indonesia has risen to 98, including two on the ground. The C-130 Hercules barrelled into the ground a few kilometres short of its intended destination, a nearby air base. Most of the plane exploded in flames but remarkably 15 people survived, albeit severely injured. The plane was carrying 99 passengers and eleven crew.

A new poll of Oklahoma from Public Policy Polling (D) suggests that the 2010 Senate race in this deep-red state could potentially be a competitive one -- that is, if GOP Sen. Tom Coburn retires.

We aren't really at the point yet where we can send human beings to Mars. The first and most important reason for that hesitation is our track record -- different nations have sent more than 30 probes toward Mars, but fewer than one-third of those probes have survived the trip. It's not a very good track record, and certainly not one that would encourage us to replace those robotic probes with human beings, at least until we've improved the odds of success.

A NASA Mars rover, the Spirit, is stuck. The rover drove into soft ground a couple of weeks ago, and when it tried to get out, its wheels slipped and it moved only a couple of inches. The Spirit has been stuck before, and mission managers have been assiduously driving it around potential hazards. But they did not see the soft spot, which was hidden under a veneer of normal-looking soil.

Bartlesville police are closing the books on the missing person case for Bartlesville resident Dave Rockey. "David came in Thursday and spoke to the investigative team that had been looking for him for the last seven years,"

Members of Muskogee's 341st Engineering Company enjoyed a happy homecoming on Wednesday. They are back home after a year in Iraq.

goal is to show even a big, strong young man can be incapacitated by a quick jolt from the Taser C-2. The Taser is actually not about administering pain because people react to that differently. It's about making the muscles contract so the threat stops.

By 67-29, the Senate passed Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn's amendment to let law-abiding visitors carry legal firearms into national parks. This overturns a 1983 federal rule requiring that firearms be kept unloaded and in an inaccessible place such as a trunk of a car. The provision (now part of credit-card legislation) protects Second Amendment rights, and it preserves the right of states to pass firearm laws that apply consistently, even on federal lands.

President Barack Obama's allies in the Senate will not provide funds to close the Guantanamo Bay prison until the administration comes up with a satisfactory plan for transferring the detainees there, a top Democrat said Tuesday.

A Bakersfield father is accused of biting out one of the eyes of his small child and similarly mutilating the other eye, leaving the child blind. After attacking the child, 34-year-old Angel Vidal Mendoza Sr. quickly left his apartment in a wheelchair, entered a backyard of a nearby vacant home and attacked his own legs with an ax, severely injuring himself.... The child, 4-year-old Angelo Mendoza Jr., later told police, "My daddy ate my eyes."... unknown whether the child will regain vision in his right eye....

US government officials are concerned that the quality of the Global Positioning System (GPS) could begin to deteriorate as early as next year, resulting in regular blackouts and failures — or even dishing out inaccurate directions to millions of people worldwide. The warning centres on the network of GPS satellites that constantly orbit the planet and beam signals back to the ground that help pinpoint your position on the Earth's surface. The satellites are overseen by the US Air Force, which has maintained the GPS network since the early 1990s. According to a study by the US government accountability office (GAO), mismanagement and a lack of investment means that some of the crucial GPS satellites could begin to fail as early as next year.

Calling it a "stupid, silly, one-line aside," he touched on the attention it received. "I think it's an incorrect statement to say I was, in any way, trying to disparage legitimate protests," said Cooper. "I don't think it's my job to disparage, or encourage, which oddly other networks seemed to be doing. Protest is the great right of all Americans, and it's not my job in any way to make fun of people or disparage what they're doing."

botching statements on three subjects in one news conference ... mangled his party's position on... Guantanamo Bay... "We will never allow terrorists to be released into the United States," he said. No one, of course, was talking about releasing terrorism suspects among the American populace. Imprisoning them, perhaps, but not releasing them.

in the process of developing a code that synthesizes employee surveys, promotions and pay to estimate which employees are most likely to quit the company.

The DNA of a suspected serial killer was linked Tuesday to a seventh woman murdered in Milwaukee, as part of a major investigation into unsolved homicides stretching back 23 years. The State Crime Laboratory reported that the suspect's DNA has now been found on Florence McCormick, a 28-year-old prostitute strangled on April 24, 1995, police said. The other homicides occurred in 1986, 1995, 1997 and 2007 - all but one on the north side of Milwaukee. The unknown male suspect may be linked to more murders. Testing continues on DNA from about two dozen other unsolved prostitute homicides.

CONNEAUT — City administrators have sent a letter to a local Website operator, ordering her to remove information related to municipal offices.... Ward 1 Councilman Dave Campbell, who has promoted the Web site, was outraged by the letter, calling it "garbage. We cannot dictate how she runs her business...."

A former U.S. Democratic Party fundraiser whose 2007 arrest prompted Hillary Clinton to return $850,000 in campaign contributions was found guilty on Tuesday of breaking federal campaign laws. Businessman Norman Hsu, 58, was convicted by a jury in federal court in New York of violating election laws by making donations to political campaigns in other people's names. Hsu also pleaded guilty on May 7 to charges of mail fraud and wire fraud in running a Ponzi scheme of up to $60 million.

Oklahoma state legislature passed a resolution claiming sovereignty and rebuking Congress and the Executive Branch for issuing mandates that go beyond their Constitutional powers. Though largely symbolic, the resolution, passed by the Oklahoma Senate this week, could impact the ability of Oklahoma to use federal tax dollars offered to the state.

The coconut crab (Birgus latro) is a type of land hermit crab with a spectacular appearance and intriguing biology. Able to grow to relatively gigantic proportions, the coconut crab is probably the largest terrestrial arthropod in the world. Indeed, Charles Darwin described the coconut crab as "monstruous" when he encountered it on the Keeling Islands during the voyage of the Beagle

The coconut crab, Birgus latro, is the largest land-living arthropod in the world, and is probably at the upper size limit of terrestrial animals with exoskeletons in today's atmosphere. It is also known as the robber crab or palm thief, because some coconut crabs are rumored to steal shiny items such as pots and silverware from houses and tents.

a leading paleontologist said scientists have dug up the 47 million-year-old fossil of an ancient primate whose features suggest it could be the common ancestor of all later monkeys, apes and humans. Anthropologists have long believed that humans evolved from ancient ape-like ancestors. Some 50 million years ago, two ape-like groups walked the Earth. One is known as the tarsidae, a precursor of the tarsier, a tiny, large-eyed creature that lives in Asia. Another group is known as the adapidae, a precursor of today's lemurs in Madagascar. Based on previously limited fossil evidence, one big debate had been whether the tarsidae or adapidae group gave rise to monkeys, apes and humans. The latest discovery bolsters the less common position that our ancient ape-like ancestor was an adapid, the believed precursor of lemurs.

Problem: Quality housing is too expensive for the average person. Answer: The Dymaxion House!

terror groups were using popular social networking Web sites like Facebook to recruit, and possibly kidnap, Israeli citizens.

You can run, but you cannot hide ... and if you try, one push of a button will cause a lethal poison to immediately begin flowing through your body. That's the Orwellian future a Saudi inventor was seeking to bring to Germany until that nation's patent office announced last week it was rejecting his request to patent what has been dubbed the "Killer Chip."

A British tourist was recovering last night after being stung more than 500 times when a swarm of bees attacked visitors to an art gallery in France.

Authorities say a student shot himself in the head at a Louisiana middle school after firing a handgun in a student-filled classroom. There were conflicting reports about whether the student fired the .32-caliber handgun at a teacher.

According to a report, while recently attending the Gridiron Club dinner in Washington, an annual event where powerful politicians and media elite get a chance to cozy up to one another, Biden told his dinnermates about the existence of a secret bunker under the old U.S. Naval Observatory, which is now the home of the vice president. The bunker is believed to be the secure, undisclosed location former Vice President Dick Cheney remained under protection in secret after the 9/11 attacks.

Privacy advocates plan to call on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to suspend use of "whole-body imaging," the airport security technology that critics say performs "a virtual strip search" and produces "naked" pictures of passengers

The Belgian bodybuilding championship has been canceled after doping officials showed up and all the competitors fled

NBC has finalized a deal to bring Chuck back for a third season, multiple sources confirm. That's the good news. Here's the bad news: The 13-episode pickup came after Warner Bros. agreed to make significant budget concessions, including scaling back the number of episodes several members of the show's stellar supporting cast will appear in and, per one insider, possibly eliminating one actor altogether (R.I.P. Anna Wu?).

Drew Peterson pleaded not guilty Monday to a charge of first-degree murder in the death of his third wife, Kathleen Savio.... Investigators have named Peterson as a suspect in the disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson. His third wife's death was originally deemed an accident, but after the case of the fourth wife sparked new questions, Savio's body was exhumed and a grand jury indicted Peterson this month on a charge of first-degree murder in her death.

A millionaire is selling his £16 million country house hotel and donating the entire proceeds to a cancer charity after his wife survived the illness.

Tony Alleyne decided to turn his flat into a Star Trek spaceship after his wife left him. He now lives amid the transporter deck and LCARS control panels in Hinckley, Leicestershire.

"Star Trek" really is going to the final frontier. NASA astronaut Michael Barratt will watch the film while aboard the International Space Station, 220 miles above Earth, NASA said in a statement to Access Hollywood.

"I think that amount of time is excessive, but it's not up to me," U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel said

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors' case against medical marijuana reached a legal dead-end Monday. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from San Diego and San Bernardino counties, which sought a ruling on whether California's medical marijuana law trumps the federal controlled-substances law banning the drug's use. In reaction to the court's decision, the county's lead attorney said he will recommend the board approve giving the ID cards to patients at its meeting on June 16.

A revolutionary new search engine that computes answers rather than pointing to websites will be launched officially today amid heated talk that it could challenge the might of Google. WolframAlpha, named after Stephen Wolfram, the British-born computer scientist and inventor behind the project, takes a query and uses computational power to crunch through huge databases

"I feel at home here," said Barnouw, who turned 102 last month.

An Albuquerque archeologist and his team have returned with artifacts from a dig site near the Dead Sea which they believe reveals the lost city of Sodom. ...

Our first list on Historical Oddities was very popular, so we are now presenting you with a second list! Here are 20 strange facts of history that you are probably not aware of.

charges of evading police with disregard to public safety, driving with a suspended license, throwing objects from the vehicle while moving, driving under the influence, possession of a controlled substance, reckless driving, and felony hit and run.

DNA tests have revealed that a 13-year-old British boy who claimed to have fathered a child with his 15-year-old girlfriend was not the dad.... story... sparked claims from other boys who lived nearby that they could also be the father and social workers organised a DNA test. ... father was 15-year-old Tyler Barker, who lived on the same housing estate

An off-duty FDNY chief fought off a disturbed man who tried to snatch his son off a crowded Brooklyn street Sunday afternoon

Rodrigo Rosenberg shot two days after recording YouTube video at friend's offices in Guatemala City.... "If you are hearing this message," Rosenberg begins, "unfortunately, it is because I have been murdered by the president's private secretary, Gustavo Alejos, and his partner, Gregorio Valdez, with the approval of Álvaro Colom and Sandra de Colom [Guatemala's president and first lady]...."

A sex theme park in southwest China that featured giant genitals and a sex-technique workshop has been torn down after officials said it had an "evil influence" on society....

All the civilians who were trapped in Sri Lanka's northern war zone have escaped, military officials say. Army spokesman Brig Udaya Nanayakkara said some 50,000 ethnic Tamils had fled the area over the past three days. The military claims cannot be verified.

After more than 25 years, the civil war in Sri Lanka was over. The only question was whether it would end in an ordered fashion or a bloodbath.

Rick Strandlof, executive director of the Colorado Veterans Alliance and the man most colleagues knew as Rick Duncan, was front and center during the 2008 political campaigns in Colorado. ... Now, politicians are dealing with news that the man they believed to be a former Marine and war veteran wounded in Iraq by a roadside bomb, in fact, never served in the military — but did spend time in a mental hospital.

saying that she really meant only to criticize the Bush administration rather than career officials.

by Charlie Bucket [video]

We knew a Google outage had worldwide Internet impact, but do we know just how much? Here's an unsettling number to chew on over the weekend: the Google outage Thursday that brought down Google's search platform and many of its Web-based applications meant that 5 percent of Internet traffic went with it.

THE Obama administration's drug czar made news last week by saying he wanted to end all loose talk about a "war on drugs." "We're not at war with people in this country," said the czar, Gil Kerlikowske, who favors forcing people into treatment programs rather than jail cells. Here's a better idea — and one that will help the federal and state governments fill their coffers: Legalize drugs and then tax sales of them.

Image of the solar transit of the International Space Station (ISS) and Space Shuttle Atlantis (50 minutes after undocking from the ISS, before return to Earth), taken from the area of Mamers (Normandie, France) on september 17th 2006 at 13h 38min 50s UT.

This article is a list, including pictures, of the sixteen most horrific growths to appear on humans over the years

President Obama has been accused of a major policy U-turn after he decided to restore the controversial military commissions set up by George Bush to prosecute terror suspects. The surprise White House announcement reversed his campaign pledge to rely on the conventional court system. [Surprise??]

The bodies of four U.S. citizens were found strangled, beaten and stabbed in a van in this border city, two days after they reportedly left their Southern California homes for a night at the Mexican clubs.... ages 19 to 23 years old, were found tied up on Saturday.... latest in a string of violence in Tijuana that authorities blame on a bloody turf war between drug cartels....

Nimzay Aponte met Raymond Dennis via AOL, but ultimately refused to meet him face to face. He responded by stabbing her in broad daylight as she sat with a friend, William Sherief, on a park bench in the Bronx... died a short time after the Tuesday afternoon attack - but not before she gave police a dying declaration: "Mike did it." ...

Two seasonal Yellowstone National Park concession workers have been fired after a live webcam caught them urinating into the Old Faithful geyser.

Unhappy about being asked to leave a local watering hole, Naples police say a 21-year-old man took revenge: He unzipped his pants and urinated at the bar. But if his mug shot is any indicator, the rest of his plan didn't go so swell.

Troy -- It was supposed to be a shining example of the green movement -- a completely independent solar-powered house with no gas or electrical hookups. Seven months ago, officials gathered for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the $900,000 house owned by the city of Troy that was to be used as an educational tool and meeting spot. But it never opened to the public. And it remains closed. Frozen pipes during the winter caused $16,000 in damage to floors, and city officials aren't sure when the house at the Troy Community Center will open.

video... all the manipulated images are "found art" from the Library of Congress.

The Washington County District Attorney's office is in the process of preparing charges against a woman accused of attacking an umpire following a game last week in Bartlesville.

Arizona's oldest continuously published daily newspaper, the Tucson Citizen, will publish its final print edition Saturday but will continue operating online.

The Ann Arbor News plans to publish its last newspaper July 23, with a twice-weekly online-focused operation taking its place. ... after 174 years because of steep revenue losses. ... A Web-based media company called AnnArbor.com will emerge....

[Photos]

The mural comes alive. The photo of a beaming Lewis in formal attire transforms into Lewis the basketball player, streaking down the court [video]

I noticed something interesting in the Google outage and its aftermath on Thursday ... there doesn't appear to be the same lasting hostility and call to arms that often follows such incidents. ... Within about 20 minutes, though, Google made a statement ... An hour later, another statement came in: ... a sign of ongoing communiqué and a promise of information. Here's where the good part comes in: Google actually kept the promise. ....

The outage that took Google offline for scores of users on Thursday was caused by a traffic routing error, the company now says ... Because of a system mistake, too many users were being routed through the same location. ...

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Massachusetts directed employees earlier this month not to log onto the Drudge Report website with government-issued computers due to potential viruses on the site.

When the soldiers of the future want to communicate, they'll read each other's minds. At least, that's the hope of researchers at the Pentagon's mad-science division Darpa. The agency's budget for the next fiscal year includes $4 million to start up a program called Silent Talk. The goal is to "allow user-to-user communication on the battlefield without the use of vocalized speech through analysis of neural signals."

A new Gallup Poll, conducted May 7-10, finds 51% of Americans calling themselves "pro-life" on the issue of abortion and 42% "pro-choice." This is the first time a majority of U.S. adults have identified themselves as pro-life since Gallup began asking this question in 1995.

first born... attention-seeking authoritarian strict ... second born... perfectionism competitive wants to overtake older child... third born... strong-willed even tempered "take it or leave it" attitude has trouble finding a place... fourth born... wants to be bigger than the others may have huge plans that never work out spoiled...

The Birth Order Effect for Couples: How Birth Order Affects Your ... By Cliff Isaacson, Meg Schneider [Google Books]

CLINTON, Maine — Police in Clinton say a 500-pound moose fell 18 feet to its death when it apparently leaped a guardrail on an Interstate 95 overpass and landed on Hinckley Road. Officials learned of the incident when a motorist called the town office shortly after 8 a.m. Tuesday and told Assistant Town Clerk Shirley Bailey that "a moose just fell out of the sky."

It suffers from shrinkage.

Researchers at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan have developed a new method for bracing high rise concrete buildings. By reinforcing the concrete with steel fibers, they were able to design coupling beams (beams used to connect walls around openings like windows and door frames) that are both easier to construct and more effective than traditional coupling beams. A test structure using these new beams was shown to be able to withstand a fake earthquake stronger than any real earthquake ever recorded.

the army has launched what appears to be a full-blown assault on the Taleban in the Swat Valley. Unusually, it also has widespread support from Pakistan's political parties, as well as from moderate Islamic clerics.

told US border guards he was taking them to his new job with the National Institutes of Health at the Biodefense Research Laboratory in Bethesda, Maryland.

OKC -- High winds early Wednesday broke in two a piece of granite that is part of the fallen law officer monument...

News crews in Oklahoma captured a tornado forming as severe weather rolled through that state. [video]

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday accused the CIA of misleading Congress about its use of enhanced interrogation techniques on terror detainees. ... Pelosi adamantly insisted that she was not aware that waterboarding or other enhanced interrogation techniques were being used on terrorism suspects. ... The CIA immediately disputed Pelosi's accusation, saying the documents describing the particular enhanced interrogation techniques that had been employed are accurate. ...

Karl Rove: Mrs. Pelosi "questioned whether we were doing enough" to extract information... does that make her an accessory to a crime of torture, as many Democrats are calling enhanced interrogation?

Lions and tigers and bears and just about any other exotic animal you can think of were found on a mega yacht in Miami and caused quite an expensive problem for one of the wealthiest men in America. The decorative animal hides, stuffed heads and ivory carvings are illegal to have in the U.S., an endangered species law lost on Tamir Sapir, the New York billionaire who owns the vessel.

City authorities in Mumbai demolished the shanty home of a "Slumdog Millionaire" child star on Thursday, forcing his family into the streets months after the Oscar-winning film shot him to global fame.

Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry has denied clemency for a Cleveland County man convicted in the 1995 beating death of an 8-year-old boy whose battered remains were found in an abandoned freezer. Henry announced Monday that the execution of 48-year-old Donald Lee Gilson will proceed on Thursday

Retired Cleveland County Sheriff's Department investigator Cliff Winkler can't ever forget the images of finding 8-year-old Shane Coffman's badly decomposed body packed inside a deep freezer behind a Newalla trailer home on Feb. 9, 1996. "It's a case that has really haunted me over the years and I feel like at least tomorrow, there will be some closure to it...."

The case is closely watched because it could increase the cost of raising chickens and lead to higher meat prices.

Rising U.S. sales of acai, a purple Amazon berry promoted as a "superfood" on Oprah Winfrey's Web site, are depriving Brazilian jungle dwellers of a protein-rich nutrient they've relied on for generations.

This morning the European Space Agency successfully launched two new science heavyweights — the Herschel Space Observatory and the Planck Surveyor — onto journeys deep into space, where they will begin their much-awaited missions. With its far-infrared vision, Herschel will help astronomers learn more of how stars are born today and how galaxies formed in the early universe. Planck will look even earlier. It should help unravel the origin of the universe as a whole by mapping in new detail the microwaves radiated 380,000 years after the Big Bang.

an energy watchdog is alarmed about the threat to the environment from the soaring electricity needs of gadgets like MP3 players, mobile phones and flat screen TVs.

OKC --High winds early Wednesday broke in two a piece of granite that is part of the fallen law officer monument

As thousands of General Motors workers await word on more U.S. plant closures, reports that the company plans to import Chinese-made vehicles to the U.S. have created a political problem for the automaker and the White House.

A white fraternity that traces its roots to the Civil War and Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee is again facing complaints over its antebellum-themed events. This time, University of Alabama alumnae are upset after Kappa Alpha Order members wearing Confederate uniforms and carrying battle flags paraded past a historically black sorority as the women celebrated the group's 35th anniversary.

Here's what we know about the authenticity of Zhao Ziyang's memoirs,which will be published in English on May 19 (20 years to the day when he was removed from his post as general secretary of the Communist Party).

A new memoir by the deceased former Communist Party chief ousted for refusing to help suppress 1989 pro-democracy protests offers a rare window into the power struggle that surrounded the bloody crackdown as its 20th anniversary nears.

Western governments have condemned the new charges brought against Burma's pro-democracy opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. ... She faces trial on Monday for breaching the terms of her house arrest after an apparently uninvited visit by a US man. ...

President Obama plans deep new cuts in the U.S. nuclear arsenal at a time when the government faces a 15-year backlog of warheads already waiting to be dismantled and a need for billions of dollars in new facilities to store and dispose of the weapons' plutonium.

The Obama administration's behavior in the Chrysler bankruptcy is a profound challenge to the rule of law. Secured creditors -- entitled to first priority payment under the "absolute priority rule" -- have been browbeaten by an American president into accepting only 30 cents on the dollar of their claims. Meanwhile, the United Auto Workers union, holding junior creditor claims, will get about 50 cents on the dollar.

In a dramatic, high-profile reversal for his young administration, President Barack Obama is seeking to block the release of 44 photographs depicting abuse of detainees in U.S. military custody in Iraq and Afghanistan. [Surprise??]

A Connecticut prosecutor says test results show a chimpanzee that mauled a woman had the anti-anxiety drug Xanax in its system. ... unclear if the drug played a role in the attack. ...

A Clarendon County waitress is accused of shooting a customer at the restaurant after the two had a dispute. ... Crystal Samuels Twitter Facebook Share Email Print - A A A + Written by Tony Santaella FILED UNDER News Crime Stoppers System.FormatException: Input string was not in a correct format. at Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.Conversions.ParseDecimal(String Value, NumberFormatInfo NumberFormat) at Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.Conversions.ToLong(String Value) --- End of inner exception stack trace --- at Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.Conversions.ToLong(String Value) at Newsmaker.Controls.Masters.Article_MultipleVideos.Page_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e)--> Yakeisha Ward The Waffle House in Manning Crystal Samuels EDITORS NOTE: This story was published on May 12, 2009, and was last updated on May 13, 2009. It has not been reposted by WLTX staff. The reason it is in the most read category on January 28, 2011 is because it has picked up enough pageviews on a blog or third party website to be counted in our tracking numbers for top stories of the day. Clarendon County (WLTX) - A Clarendon County waitress is accused of shooting a customer at the restaurant after the two had a dispute. Yakeisha Ward, 29, is charged with assault and battery with intent to kill. An early morning run for breakfast at the Waffle House on Paxville Highway in Manning turned terribly wrong for Crystal Samuel. "I thought I was gonna get me an All-Star," says Samuel. A popular meal on the menu. "Grits, sausage, toast, eggs and a waffle...."

One out of every four ballots requested by military personnel and other Americans living overseas for the 2008 election may have gone uncounted, according to findings being released at a Senate hearing Wednesday. Sen. Charles Schumer, chairman of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, said the study, while providing only a snapshot of voting patterns, "is enough to show that the balloting process for service members is clearly in need of an overhaul."

Oklahoma authorities say Donald Lee Gilson is on schedule to be executed this week for the 1995 beating death of an 8-year-old boy.

A Bartlesville police officer currently on administrative leave was arraigned Wednesday on charges of obtaining merchandise by false pretense. Ronald Robert Sweeten Jr. was arraigned in Nowata County on charges stemming from an incident alleged to have occurred in 2007. ... used his position at the Bartlesville Police Department to transfer a valuable Colt M-16 rifle owned by the BPD to himself for $500 by going through a Nowata gun dealer.

Much of what we think of as being out there actually comes from in here, and is a byproduct of how the brain processes sensation. In recent years scientists have come up with a number of simple tricks that expose the artifice of our senses, so that we end up perceiving what we know isn't real - tweaking the cortex to produce something uncannily like hallucinations

theory that suggests that a clever cat parasite may alter human cultures on a massive scale. ... Toxoplasma gondii, has been transmitted indirectly from cats to roughly half the people on the planet, and it has been shown to affect human personalities in different ways. ... women who are infected with the parasite tend to be warm, outgoing and attentive to others, while infected men tend to be less intelligent and probably a bit boring. But both men and women who are infected are more prone to feeling guilty and insecure. ... Other researchers have linked the parasite to schizophrenia.... Can a common cat parasite account for part -- even if only a very small part -- of the cultural differences seen around the world?

Imax ...said on Tuesday its "Star Trek" screenings grossed a record $8.5 million during the film's first weekend, even as some purists complained that the company's big screens were not big enough.

The Atlantis astronauts have captured the Hubble Space Telescope. ... now face five days of treacherous telescope repairs to the 19-year-old Hubble. That's because Atlantis and Hubble are flying in a 350-mile-high orbit, which is littered with space junk. ...

A remarkable ivory carving is arguably the oldest sculpture of a human figure yet found ... The distorted object, which portrays a woman with huge breasts, big buttocks and exaggerated genitals, is thought to be at least 35,000 years old. ...

A Tulsa-based company has reason to celebrate. FreshBerry Frozen Yogurt Cafes are going international. Its parent company, Beautiful Brands, has signed a deal with a Saudi based company to put 120 locations in the Middle East and North Africa. The first six stores open this summer.

No one was willing to pay $25,000 for what's believed to be an original recipe for Dr Pepper. Bill Waters of Tulsa said he found the Dr Pepper Pepsin Bitters recipe in an old pharmacy's book of formulas.

A missing 13-year-old boy from Ohio, who authorities say kept a diary hit list and threatened several faculty members and students at his school, was traced making a phone call from Kentucky

"The outstanding characteristic of this race was their peculiar urge to build, to build anything and everything, even to the piling up of vast mounds of stone just to see which tribe could build the largest mound. Though they were not a progressive people, they profited much from the schools of the Prince and sent delegates there for instruction. ... The orange race was probably part of those that built the pyramids, as it was said they liked to make vast mounds of stone. ... --Frank Jakubowsky

Be the envy of every other survivalist and have your own converted cold-war Atlas-F missile silo home!

Pakistani commandos swooped into a Taliban mountain stronghold by helicopter today as the army pushed forward with an operation it said had killed over 750 militants and left at least 800,000 civilians homeless.

A U.S. jury found five men guilty on Tuesday of plotting with al Qaeda to blow up Chicago's Sears Tower and government buildings after two previous attempts to convict the group ended in mistrials. The jury acquitted a sixth man in a case that was touted nearly three years ago as a major blow against terrorism and a victory in the government's efforts to dismantle domestic "sleeper cells."

Survivors of a Nazi death camp were shot at and abused as they gathered to remember their liberation. Masked neo-Nazi thugs screamed 'Heil Hitler!' and 'This way for the gas!' at ten elderly Italian men and women, who returned to the site of the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria.

Terrified residents at a Corpus Christi, Texas, state school for the mentally disabled were forced to be part of a brutal "fight club" operated by night shift employees, who made videos of the sessions with their cell phones, the newly released videos show. On the videos employees can be seen and heard laughing and prodding the residents to fight.

The House majority leader reluctantly agreed Tuesday that congressional hearings should investigate Speaker Nancy Pelosi's assertion that she wasn't informed, more than six years ago, that harsh interrogation methods were used on an al-Qaida leader.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi learned in early 2003 that the Bush administration was waterboarding terror detainees but didn't protest directly out of respect for "appropriate" legislative channels, a person familiar with the situation said Monday. The Pelosi camp's version of events is intended to answer two key questions posed by her critics: When, precisely, did she first learn about waterboarding? And why didn't she do more to stop it?

Police say a Palmetto mother neglected to provide her child with needed dental care, which led to severe tooth decay.

ROXBURY TWP. - Oklahoma authorities confirmed the identity Tuesday of Deputy Mayor Jim Rilee's daughter, who was found dead under suspicious circumstances in a state park in Oklahoma. Jody Nicole Rilee-Wilson, 23, had been missing since last Tuesday.

The World Health Organization is investigating a claim by an Australian researcher that the swine flu virus circling the globe may have been created as a result of human error. ... may have accidentally evolved in eggs scientists use to grow viruses and drugmakers use to make vaccines ... came to his conclusion as part of an effort to trace the virus's origins by analyzing its genetic blueprint.

The maps of the artificial night sky brightness at zenith at sea level allow to compare levels of light pollution in the atmosphere, to recognize more and less polluted areas and to identify the more polluting districts and the bigger sources.

[world map illustration]

A five-season cast member (from 1986 to 1991), Hooks never much became a household name with viewers. The most recognizable recurring character she brought to the show was big-haired lounge lizard Candy Sweeney, one half of The Sweeney Sisters (with Nora Dunn). And while the bit was funny, Hooks, herself, was always much funnier.

You have lost half your wealth. The media hate you. The President, whom you supported, now calls you names and wants to raise your taxes. You can't even carry an Hermes bag in public anymore. It is a tough time to be rich. But don't fear. The good people at Forbes have come up with a "Survivor's Guide for the Affluent...."

"It's great to have a nice home. It's great to have nice homes! It's great to have a nice home that just escaped the fire in Santa Barbara," she told the students. "It's great to have a private jet. Anyone that tells you that having your own private jet isn't great is lying to you."

At a press conference addressing Carrie Prejean's disputed title in the Miss USA competition, pageant owner Donald Trump compared Prejean's stated views on gay marriage to Obama's. "It's the same answer that the president of the United States gave," Trump said. "She gave an honorable answer. She gave an answer from her heart." In her own remarks moments later, Prejean echoed Trump's statement, telling reporters: "The president of the United States, the secretary of state, and many Americans agree with me in this belief."

"I think what makes that movie work chiefly — aside from, of course, the talents who all came together behind it — is Chris Pine," Smith said when he stopped by the MTV News offices. "That dude is astounding. To be able to invoke Kirk without doing a Shatner impression? That performance was so electric and so wonderful to watch. "That dude is an instant movie star," Smith added. "That dude is gonna work forever. He's so good and effortless in his delivery."

Space shuttle Atlantis is now in a rough orbital neighborhood—a place littered with thousands of pieces of space junk zipping around the Earth at nearly 20,000 mph. There are more pieces of shattered satellites and used-up rockets in this region than astronauts have ever encountered. And the crew must be there for more than a week to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. As soon as the job is complete, the shuttle will scamper to safety.

computer generated image, supplied by NASA, shows objects that are currently being tracked in Earth orbit. Approximately 95% of the objects in this illustration are orbital debris, i.e., not functional satellites [incredible illustration]

The Atlantis astronauts have uncovered a long stretch of nicks on their space shuttle, the result of launch debris. ... where the right wing joins the fuselage. ... does not appear to be serious...

accusing her husband of "extreme cruelty."

Brad Beckstrom "Google should have explored using text messaging to gauge user response to radio spots. Many stations are using it to add a third dimension to radio allowing consumers to opt in to offers they want to receive by texting a keyword."

The Boston-area transit authority trolley driver who allegedly slammed into another train while text-messaging his girlfriend Friday had three speeding tickets on his driving record in recent years and could face criminal charges.

losses related to software piracy amounted to $50 billion USD last year, an 11 percent increase from last year. [Making certain assumptions about the actual value of piracy....]

This chart provides a rundown of some of the major features introduced in each Windows iteration, as well as a quick look at the minimum hardware requirements for XP, Vista, and 7

SHERMAN, Texas — The father of a U.S. soldier accused of killing five fellow troops in Iraq said his son "forfeited his life" but the military bears some responsibility for the rampage. Wilburn Russell said Tuesday that 44-year-old Army Sgt. John M. Russell wasn't typically a violent person, but counselors "broke" him before gunfire erupted in a military stress center Monday in Baghdad. "John has forfeited his life. Apparently, he said (to his wife), 'My life is over. To hell with it. I'm going to get even with 'em,'" said the elder Russell, 73

five months after becoming the first American face transplant patient, Connie Culp is taking advantage of the opportunity to tell her story and warn others that what happened to her could happen to them.. "If your husband threatens you in any way, it's going to get worse. Even if they say something to you, they tell you … Oh, you're ugly, you're stupid," said Culp, whose face was obliterated in 2004 by a gunshot from her husband. "But if somebody points something at you and they say they're going to do it, eventually they're going to do it."

Hackers have broken into the air traffic control mission-support systems of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration several times in recent years.... compromised an FAA public-facing computer and used it to gain access to personally identifiable information, such as Social Security numbers, on 48,000 current and former FAA employees....

It's time for the sun to move into a busier period for sunspots, and while forecasters expect a relatively mild outbreak by historical standards, one major solar storm can cause havoc with satellites and electrical systems here....

Intelligence officials released documents this evening saying that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was briefed in September 2002 about the use of harsh interrogation tactics against al-Qaeda prisoners, seemingly contradicting her repeated statements over the past 18 months that she was never told that these techniques were actually being used.

ALTUS, OK - A Fort Sill-based soldier from Texas has been arrested on a first-degree murder complaint in the shooting death of a bar owner near the southwest Oklahoma town of Eldorado.

A new study out of the University of Pittsburgh suggests that a moderate dose of alcohol increases a person's mind wandering, while at the same time reducing the likelihood of noticing that one's mind has wandered. [Shock!]

Distributed and intermittent electricity generation, such as wind power, is rapidly expanding, new smart meters are giving consumers more control over their energy usage, and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles may someday radically increase the overall demand for electricity. The evolution of America's energy needs has forced scientists and engineers to re-examine the operations, efficiency and security of the national power grid. The creation of a more secure and efficient national power grid requires significant innovations in the way we transmit electricity and monitor its use.

Cancel plans for that "swine flu party": a top US health official says deliberately trying to get infected with the A(H1N1) flu virus as protection against a future more virulent strain is a bad idea.

The Drew Peterson case continues to read like a black-comedy version of "The Silence of the Lambs" done by "Monty Python's Flying Circus," with the Keystone Cops standing in for the FBI.

the crusts of neutron stars are 10 billion times stronger than steel or any other of the earth's strongest metal alloys.

Whatever dark energy is, explanations for it have less wiggle room following a Hubble Space Telescope observation that has refined the measurement of the universe's present expansion rate to a precision where the error is smaller than five percent. ...

upwards of $6,000 in damage to Sooner Park early this morning... damage throughout the park and a backhoe on-site was still warm to the touch ... damage to the Sooner Pool building, light poles, fences and the SunFest storage area ... cut one of the cables to the Bruce Goff designed tower ...

Vandals caused about $5,000 in damage to a city park in Bartlesville early Friday morning. City officials say the damage will also delay the opening of a city pool by a week.

having a conscientious partner may actually be good for one's health. ... study, of adults over age 50, also found that women, but not men, get an added health benefit when paired with someone who is conscientious and neurotic....

several regions in the brain that continue to interact while a person is supposedly at rest ... ... Communications between brain regions seem to be localized in children, but over time, regional communication becomes distributed across the whole brain. Despite these differences, children's brains are still very efficient. As with the adults, the brains in the children were still organized like a 'small world.'

babies are a lot smarter than others may realize. ... The finding that infants can distinguish between solids and liquids at such an early age builds upon a growing body of research that strongly suggests that babies are not blank slates who primarily depend on others for acquiring knowledge. That's a common assumption of researchers in the not too distant past.

researchers who study how the brain makes decisions are uncovering the biological mechanisms behind the belief that a choice is likely to be correct. ... choice certainty is closely associated with reaction time and with decision accuracy.

Periodical cicadas, insects best known for their 17-year long life cycle, are emerging four years early in several Atlantic states

The notion that a decline in pollinators may threaten the human food supply — producing a situation that has been referred to as a "pollination crisis" — can be considered a myth, at least where honey bees are concerned....

A grieving pet owner says a Catoosa police officer cruelly killed her dog. The two-year-old Boxer was shot after police say she lunged at the officer [News video]

The fingernail-size shells, already known from 82,000-year-old Aterian deposits in the cave, have now been found in even earlier layers. While the team is still awaiting exact dates for these layers, they believe this discovery makes them arguably the earliest shell ornaments in prehistory. ... the Aterian in Morocco dates back to at least 110,000 years ago.

a technique that uses sensors and computational software to constantly monitor forces exerted on wind turbine blades, a step toward improving efficiency by adjusting for rapidly changing wind conditions.

UK researchers have published a new estimate... of how much crude oil we have extracted from the planet

A Bartlesville man who had been missing for nearly seven years has been found alive and well and living in South Dakota. Now his wife is speaking out. ... says she also wants to talk with her husband. She has lots of questions and things she does not understand.... [And likely never will!]

the world's smallest incandescent lamp ... to explore the boundary between thermodynamics and quantum mechanics

can traveling at warp speed ever become a reality? ... theorize that by manipulating the space-time dimensions around the spaceship with a massive amount of energy, it would create a "bubble" that could push the ship faster than the speed of light. To create this bubble, the Baylor physicists believe manipulating the 11-dimension would create dark energy. ... [Any day now...]

[video]

a method to integrate high-speed CMOS electronics and nanophotonic circuitry based on plasmonic effects. Metal-based nanophotonics (plasmonics) can squeeze light into nanoscale structures that are much smaller than conventional optic components.

first to create one of two basic types of semiconductors using an exotic, new, one-atom-thick material called graphene.... "There are still enormous challenges to really put it into products, but I think this really could play an important role...."

a unique robotic hand that can firmly hold objects as heavy as a can of food or as delicate as a raw egg, while dexterous enough to gesture for sign language.

And you thought the John Edwards sex scandal couldn't get seamier. The ex-senator's former lover - furious at being portrayed as a stalker in his wife's media tour - reportedly is taking revenge and will allow a paternity test for her baby after all.

You know the most disillusioning thing about John Edwards? ... the worst thing about Edwards is a total ratings loser. People magazine is going nowhere with this one.

Details of the school bus accident that claimed the life of an Owasso man ... swerved to the right in an attempt to avoid the accident, striking the bus in the rear. The report states that the Malibu became caught under the bus and was sent into the ditch after the bus made a quarter turn....

There are many problems with the official story of the bombing ... no plausible explanation of how he traveled the mile and a quarter from McDonald's to the rental agency, carless and alone as he claims, without getting soaked in the rain. ... took 44 days for the FBI to convince the car rental agency owner that John Doe 1 was Timothy McVeigh ... what was the Army doing with a Ryder Truck just before the Murrah blast? ... [Report:] the second explosive was found and defused. ... men in suits and ties were literally stepping over the wounded in their haste to gather up files and certain other items in the debris. ... taping plastic sheeting over portions of the building wreckage!

Despite Timothy McVeigh's guilty verdict, numerous unanswered questions about the murderous Oklahoma City bombing remain. Indeed, there are so many unanswered questions, it is amazing that the prosecution was able to secure a conviction at all. So pull up a front-row seat for the McVeigh lynching, folks, and contemplate a few of the contradictions in the official account of the OKC bombing before it all gets flushed down the memory hole. If this list doesn't make you paranoid, you must be one of them!

A lot of conspiracy theories have circulated around the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995, not all of them consistent with one another, some of them plausible, none of them proven. Although I have no specific theories of my own, I've had the suspicion from the start that someone in the federal government had advanced knowledge that something nasty was going to happen in Oklahoma City that day. As to the details, I am as much in the dark as anyone who wasn't there. Compounding the matter is the fact that — so far, anyway — McVeigh himself isn't talking. He seems to have dismissed all conspiracy theories and reports of "John Doe No. 2's" with the remark in a recent interview that "You can't handle the truth. And the truth is that it is pretty scary that one guy can do this all alone."

A variety of conspiracy theories have been proposed regarding the Oklahoma City bombing. These theories reject all or part of the official government report. Some of these theories focus on the possibility of additional, unindicted co-conspirators or additional explosives planted inside the Murrah Federal building. Other theories allege that government employees and officials, including US President Bill Clinton, knew of the impending bombing and intentionally failed to act on that knowledge. Government investigations have been opened at various times to look into the theories.

This documentary examines eyewitness accounts and news media reports documenting the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City. Included with this presentation is a video affidavit of bombing survior Jane C. Graham and her sightings of strange individuals in the building prior to the tragic event. [video]

The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation is searching for the body of a Texas woman believed to have been killed and dumped in Oklahoma.Police in Coppell, Texas, have charged 75-year-old Leroy Tellgren with capital murder in the death of 49-year-old Kathleen Garza even though Garza's body has not been found.

[Video done in Bartlesville. THIS IS GENIUS... in a weird way, of course.]

Bartlesville Police Department officers shot and killed a pit bull dog Wednesday after it reportedly attacked several children before turning on officers.

MADISON COUNTY, MO -- Search crews found the missing three-year-old Madison County boy alive after he was missing for more than 48 hours. Three-year-old Joshua Childers was moved to another hospital. He is in good condition with only minor scratches from sticker bushes....

"I could just see the little part of his little butt sticking up there, and I took a couple more steps, and I could see his legs. I thought the worst at first.... I said, 'Hey, buddy,' And that little feller just sit right up, gets a little smile on his face and I asked him, 'Do you want to go home?'

told police he left Bartlesville due to "personal reasons."

Oklahoma voters will decide whether English should be the state's official language.

Despite promises from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) that Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.) would retain his seniority after switching parties, Specter will be put at the end of the seniority line on all his committees but one under a resolution approved on the floor late Tuesday.

In the 1960s, Specter came to national prominence as the young assistant lawyer with the Warren Commission who created the "single bullet theory" to argue Lee Harvey Oswald was a "lone nut" solely responsible for assassinating President John F. Kennedy with a World War II Italian-made bolt-action rifle with a telescopic sight that was not properly mounted. ... Without Specter's theory, the Warren Commission would have been forced to conclude that a conspiracy was behind the murder of JFK....

A convicted Swedish hacker stands accused of cracking the security of NASA and Cisco in 2004. After a federal investigation, the 21-year-old man now faces multiple charges here in the United States.

Due to unforeseeable circumstances Nora Dunn will not be able to perform in the staged benefit reading of Sunset Boulevard on May 15. Replacing Ms. Dunn will be Scott Bradley of the Scooty and Jojo show.

Although Gov. Brad Henry vetoed similar legislation 10 days earlier, House members Monday again approved a resolution claiming Oklahoma's sovereignty.

the fifth state to approve the practice and moving New England closer to allowing it throughout the region. New Hampshire legislators were also poised to send a gay marriage bill to their governor, who hasn't indicated whether he'll sign it. If he does, Rhode Island would be the region's sole holdout.

Critics of Craigslist are calling for the site to remove its erotic services section in response to controversy. But threats by South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster to pursue a criminal investigation lack substance, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation digital rights advocate organization.

We oppose yielding any new authority to global institutions such as the United Nations. We reject all calls for a "New World Order," "Global Regime" or global governance by any other name. We recognize that the United States is the greatest nation in history, but that to remain great, it must stay fiercely independent and true to its divinely blessed Constitution. To do less would be to ignore and dishonor the heroic sacrifices of millions of Americans who fought and died to preserve this free and independent nation.

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden took a short—but wholly noticeable—motorcade ride from the White House to Virginia and pulled into a small, independent burger joint called Ray's Hell Burger. The two leaders went right up to the counter where the meat was being grilled and ordered.

The $328,835 snapshots of an Air Force One backup plane buzzing lower Manhattan last week will not be shown to the public, the White House said yesterday. "We have no plans to release them,"

The same Homeland Security Department office that categorized veterans as potential terrorists issued an earlier report that defined dozens of "extremists" ranging from black power activists to abortion foes. The report was nixed within hours and recalled from state and local law enforcement officials. Whites and blacks, Christians and Jews, Cubans and Mexicans, along with tax-hating Americans were among several political leanings listed in the "Domestic Extremism Lexicon" that came out of the Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) in late March.

Without defining what "most important" and "faith moment" mean, U.S. News & World Report clearly shows its thesis and thrust in the column with this sentence: "Barack Obama has embraced faith in a more visible way than any other president in recent memory." With a statement like that, the top 10 list must be rock-solid faith stimulators, right? You decide. Here is its list of 10 and my thoughts on each. --Chuck Norris

The leader of a pro-family organization says families across the nation need to contact their U.S. senators now to try to derail a legislative plan that already has passed the U.S. House and is being awaited by President Obama — after a Democrat confirmed it would protect "all 547 forms of sexual deviancy or 'paraphilias' listed by the American Psychiatric Association."

A man was caught in Tampa Tuesday for allegedly throwing his ex-girlfriend's 4-month-old baby out of a car window, killing the child.

Caroline Kennedy ditched her bid for a U.S. Senate seat in New York because her children were alarmed at the person she had become, a family friend said. "...told her that if she was getting this worked up just getting the job, they didn't want to see what she would be like in the trenches of a political campaign or a fight in Washington,"

A man was stoned to death in Iran for adultery but the woman involved in the case repented, the judiciary said on Tuesday, suggesting her life was spared. The Islamic Republic has been heavily criticized by the European Union, rights groups and the United Nations for stoning convicted criminals and there are official Iranian recommendations the practice should not occur.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have confirmed a case of swine flu in Oklahoma, and testing is being done in Atlanta on four other suspected cases. ... a Pontotoc County woman....

A 16-year-old homeschooled boy from North Carolina was taken away from his home in handcuffs two months ago and has been held by the FBI in Indiana ever since, a victim, his mother claims, of the Patriot Act spun out of control. ... His mother, however, told Raleigh's WRAL-TV that she argued with the authorities, claiming someone must have hacked into her son's IP address and used it to make crank calls. The agents' search, she claims, also failed to uncover any trace of bomb-making materials....

A Southwest Oklahoma man is all smiles after a horse he found won the Kentucky Derby. Frederick native Ralph Kinder finds race horses for a living--potential winners that no one has discovered yet. And Kinder sure found one. He found Mine that Bird last fall during a trip to Canada. He then bought the horse for the Double Eagle Ranch in New Mexico.

Two identical twin brothers have married two identical twin sisters in a joint wedding ceremony in China. The two couples, from Binhai town, look so much alike that members of their own family struggle to tell them apart. ... "We really can't distinguish who's who, so we ask them to name themselves before speaking," said Zhang Shengzhong, the father of the twin sisters. And the grandmother of the twin brothers admitted: "If I can't tell the difference, I just answer them with a smile without speaking."

changing the "canon" -- events and characters that shape "Star Trek" lore -- could leave legions of old "Trekkies" thinking Abrams had done something "highly illogical...."

the face of the earliest known modern European - a man or woman who hunted deer and gathered fruit and herbs in ancient forests more than 35,000 years ago. It was created by Richard Neave, one of Britain's leading forensic scientists, using fossilised fragments of skull and jawbone found in a cave seven years ago.

Kent State: A Requiem written by J. Gregory Payne, is a dramatic and factual examination of the events of May 4 from the perspective of Mrs. Florence Schroeder, whose son Bill was one of the 4 students killed.

involved the shooting of unarmed college students by members of the Ohio National Guard on Monday, May 4, 1970. The guardsmen fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis.

Guess what! Google is going to buy Twitter! No, Facebook's going to buy it! Or Yahoo--oh, wait, they can't afford it anymore. The latest and most absurd rumor, floated by Valleywag, suggests that Apple has been looking at buying Twitter, too.

A Swedish couple from Åre in northern Sweden have taken their fight to name their son Q to the Supreme Administrative Court. The court will rule if current legislation permits the use of a single letter as a first name.....parents insist... the decision was ... a last minute one when "Q" was born.

The isolation of a gene for anger helps explain why some fly into a rage at the slightest provocation, while others can remaining irritatingly calm.

Six Democratic members of Congress are urging the Department of Justice to investigate the Five Tribes of Oklahoma, alleging that the Oklahoma tribes have illegally barred the descendants of slaves from their membership rolls.

An Oklahoma mother, who stood by and watched as someone gave drugs to her seven-year-old, is now behind bars. The stunning scene involving the developmentally delayed child was caught on camera. Authorities were tipped off to what happened after video of the incident surfaced on a repossessed computer.

Investigators were searching Monday for a 3-year-old boy who was kidnapped at gunpoint by two men who broke into his family's California home, tied up his mother and siblings and ransacked the house.... Police said they had not determined a motive for the Sunday afternoon kidnapping....

LAKELAND, Fla A 34-year-old father who shot and killed his wife and two young sons fell over a bicycle and missed another son before killing himself on the front lawn of their house ... surviving 13-year-old boy escaped through the garage as his father fired a rifle at him....

As soon as Warwick police arrived at the Holiday Inn on a report of a woman robbed last month they realized there was a connection to the "Craigslist Killer" cases in Boston -- along with her money, the thief stole a pair of the woman's panties....

Walker has said he was inspired to write the song after an encounter with a street performer in a New Orleans jail and does not refer to the famous stage and movie personality Bill "Bojangles" Robinson.

American country music singer and songwriter. He is probably most famous for writing the song "Mr. Bojangles.

White House plays host to ambassador who calls this a serious debate. ... "As most things in life, you need two to tango,'' Sarukhan said in a recent appearance on CBS News' Face the Nation. He was talking about combatting the flow of drugs and weapons across the border.

"Howdy, howdy, howdy hey! Marijuana's here to stay!"

Now that Michigan voters have approved medical use of marijuana, one community is considering adding pot-providers to its zoning law.

Consider these two different reactions from the White House press corps during presidential drop-ins at the White House's James S. Brady Briefing Room [video]

President Barack Obama plans to roll out a set of proposals on international tax policies on Monday, in an announcement with potential implications for U.S. multinational firms.

"Progress in simulation-based engineering and science holds great promise for the pervasive advancement of knowledge and understanding through discovery," said Clark Cooper, program director for materials and surface engineering at NSF and also a sponsor of the report. "We expect future developments to continue to enhance prediction and decision making in the presence of uncertainty."

Michael Woodworth, a forensic psychologist at UBC Okanagan studying deception in computer-mediated environments, says offering up a fib in person might make you provide certain signals that you're trying to deceive, but lying online avoids the physical cues that can give you away.... a growing number of individuals are falling prey to deceptive practices and information received through computer mediated contexts such as the Internet "By learning more about how various factors affect detecting deceit in online communication, our research will certainly have important implications in organizational contexts, both legal and illegal, in the political domain, and in family life as more and more children go online...."

18 countries have officially reported 898 cases of influenza A(H1N1) infection....

"She went around a barrier, and we don't understand that, because she knows, she's always known how dangerous that road was," said Kendrick's aunt.... 911 call: a desperate woman calling for help after flood water swept her car off the road. "Seemed really calm. Level headed. But, she knew she was in trouble, right off the bat...."

resolved a long-standing mystery about an X-ray glow along the plane of the our home galaxy. The glow in the region covered by the Chandra image was discovered to be caused by hundreds of point-like X-ray sources, implying that the glow along the plane of the Galaxy is due to millions of such sources.

During the last two decades, astronomers have found hundreds of planets orbiting stars outside our solar system. New research indicates they might have found even more except for one thing — some planets have fallen into their stars and simply no longer exist. [Um... duh.]

Ancient protein dating back 80 million years to the Cretaceous geologic period has been preserved in bone fragments and soft tissues of a hadrosaur, or duck-billed dinosaur....

Despite the common perception that total hip replacements last about 10 years, researchers at Rush University Medical Center have found that the devices are extremely durable, even 20 years after surgery.

Scientists have studied high-frequency brain waves, known as gamma oscillations, for more than 50 years, believing them crucial to consciousness, attention, learning and memory. Now, for the first time, MIT researchers and colleagues have found a way to induce these waves by shining laser light directly onto the brains of mice.

Scrawnier people are more likely to perceive an approaching sound as closer than it actually is. This connection between physical fitness and the brain's auditory system may have evolved to help the weak get out of the way of approaching danger.

children's short sleep duration even without sleeping difficulties increases the risk for behavioral symptoms of ADHD.

investigated the effects of oxytocin, the "love hormone," on human couple interactions.... Oxytocin increased positive communication behavior in relation to negative behavior and reduced salivary cortisol, i.e., their stress levels, compared to placebo....

sometimes the delicate balance is tipped toward one partner or the other. ... When Nodosa begins to flower, the ants attack the buds, lopping them off before they get a chance to spread seeds. The ant, in effect, sterilizes its gracious host. Ingrates....

able to send half of their brains to sleep while the other half remains conscious. What is more, the mammals seem to be able to remain continually vigilant for sounds for days on end.... when the team checked the dolphins' blood for physical signs of sleep deprivation, they couldn't find any. After 5 days of unbroken vigilance the dolphins were in much better shape than the scientists.

possible to make type of dike that acts as an invisibility cloak that hides off-shore platforms from water waves. The principle is analogous to the optical invisibility cloaks that are currently a hot area of physics research. Tsunami invisibility cloaks wouldn't make structures disappear from sight, but they could manipulate ocean waves in ways that makes off-shore platforms, and possibly even coastlines and small islands, effectively invisible to tsunamis.

a "carpet cloak" from nanostructured silicon that conceals the presence of objects placed under it from optical detection. While the carpet itself can still be seen, the bulge of the object underneath it disappears from view. Shining a beam of light on the bulge shows a reflection identical to that of a beam reflected from a flat surface, meaning the object itself has essentially been rendered invisible.

a plug-and-play hardware prototype for personal computers that induces a new energy saving state known as "sleep talking." ... The new sleep talking state provides much of the energy savings of sleep mode and some of the network-and-Internet-connected convenience of awake mode.....

Our serial time-encoded amplified microscopy (STEAM) technology

We invite you to experience Karnak — to learn about an ancient site that still resonates today because of its monumental pylons, towering columns, stunning reliefs and architectural marvels. Enter the temple precinct and discover its rich religious, political and architectural history.

a high-tech model that runs in real time and allows users to navigate 2,000 years of history at the popular ancient Egyptian tourist site near modern-day Luxor, where generations of pharaohs constructed temples, chapels, obelisks, sphinxes, shrines and other sacred structures beginning in the 20th century B.C.

"In startling revelations, convicted terrorist Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri admitted that Al Qaeda used public telephones, pre-paid calling cards, search engines and Hotmail. al-Marri 'used a "10-code" to protect the [phone] numbers — subtracting the actual digits in the phone numbers from 10 to arrive at a coded number.' The real story behind all this is that the terrorists weren't using sophisticated methods to avoid detection or monitoring — which tells us just how crappy SIGINT really is right now.

One day after a disastrous appearance on the Today Show where Vice President Biden advised not to fly or take the subway, his office announced that he's leaving the country.

Special forces on a Portuguese warship seized explosives from suspected Somali pirates after thwarting an attack on an oil tanker, but later freed the 19 assailants.

A small plane crashed into a storage yard full of portable potties Friday afternoon near Thun Field just minutes after taking off from the field. Pilot Clifford Howell of Lake Bay told investigators at about 150 feet in the air, his engine quit. He banked and tried to make it back to the runway, but came up short.

[video — full 1 minute commercial]

Today is Free Comic Book Day (FCBD) around the world. Started by industry distributors in 2002 and supported by major comics publishers, the event has grown into a major promotional event for the industry. All visitors to participating comics establishments will, naturally enough, get a free comic book. DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, and other companies publish special FCBD issues.

Judge has ruled that much of the fortune accumulated by late Bartlesville oilman Charles Foster Doornbos should be returned to his four daughters.

Maine's senate passed a bill on Thursday that could make the northeastern U.S. state the fifth in the country to allow gay marriage, but the lower chamber and governor have yet to approve it.

Google and 47 other international corporations have been sued in a US District Court for trademark infringement over their use of the word "Android." To Google, Android is the name of its open-source, Linux-based operating system for phones and mobile devices that it introduced in November of 2007. To Erich Specht, a software developer and internet applications service provider in the Village of Palatine, Illinois, Android is the part of the name of his company, Android Data, for which he was granted a trademark in October of 2002 by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

A third-grader was expelled from a local private school after a "hit list" of students and a teacher was found in his desk.

A Swedish man and a Singaporean woman have been fined for strolling naked through a busy upscale bar and restaurant area for a stunt after a few drinks

A United Airlines flight from Munich to Washington made a two-hour stop at Logan International Airport this afternoon so a female passenger who had complained of flu-like symptoms could be removed and taken to a hospital for treatment.

A Washington state biosurveillance firm raised the first warning about a possible outbreak of swine flu in Mexico more than two weeks before the World Health Organization offered its initial alert about a public health emergency of international concern.

Many are understandably aghast that some opportunistic and homophobic characters are disputing the idea that the brutal Matthew Shepard killing was purely a hate crime: a young man singled out and beaten to a bloody pulp by strangers solely because he was gay. A pure hate crime was certainly how I first thought of the case, but the notion that the story is a lot murkier is not crazy or bigoted.

New York teen Brittanee Drexel had "her mind set" on spring break in Myrtle Beach, S.C. Her mom didn't want her to go, but the strong-willed 17-year-old from Rochester, N.Y., went anyway. Now she's missing, and her mom fears the worst. ... made it to her South Carolina hotel and kept in touch until last Saturday night. That's when the messages suddenly stopped and the high school junior vanished, seemingly without a trace ....

Visitors won't have to crane their necks to see straight down from the Sears Tower Skydeck when the building adds four glass-bottomed balconies, nicknamed "The Ledge," to its 50-mile views come June. The Skydeck on the 103rd floor of the building that is changing its name to Willis Tower, opened in 1974, and has--weather permitting--always provided a view of four states. But to see what's directly beneath them, visitors always had to get as close to the building's windows as possible. The Ledge is scheduled to open next month, according to a spokeswoman for the Skydeck.

Microsoft hopes you'll succumb to a Jedi Mind Trick: that you'll buy a netbook with a version of Windows 7 that will only let you run three applications simultaneously and that won't have a media player or simplified networking, but that you'll like Windows 7 so much you'll then want to buy a notebook or desktop running a full version of Windows 7. And Microsoft wonders why European regulators are so willing to see the company in court.

Marc Stephens said he had to act quickly when his wife Jo went into labour three weeks early as she had a history of fast births with her previous three children. The 28-year-old Royal Navy air engineer, from Redruth, Cornwall, searched "how to deliver a baby" on the internet and after viewing a few clips said he was ready to help deliver healthy baby Gabriel.

As the secrets about the CIA's interrogation techniques continue to come out, there's new information about the frequency and severity of their use, contradicting an 2007 ABC News report, and a new focus on two private contractors who were apparently directing the brutal sessions that President Obama calls torture.