'Very high' chance North Korea will fire missile, U.S. and South Korea say

NBC's chief Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski reports on the military's latest intelligence on North Korea's possible missile strike plans, saying U.S. military officials are "concerned" about where the missiles will be aimed.

By Jim Miklaszewski, Courtney Kube and Alastair Jamieson, NBC News

U.S. defense officials are "highly confident" that North Korea is planning the imminent launch of a medium-range missile, echoing warnings from South Korea that the probability of Pyongyang carrying out its threat is "very high."

Pentagon officials say they believe the rogue communist state is preparing to fire one or more Musadan missiles from its east coast.

The North has been threatening the United States and its "puppet" South Korea almost daily in recent weeks, and the Commander of U.S. Pacific Command told Congress on Tuesday?that he could not recollect a more tense time in the region since the end of the Korean War.

The youngest son of Kim Jong Il succeeded his late father in 2011, becoming the third member of his family to rule the unpredictable and reclusive communist state.

World leaders have shown alarm at the prospects of a conflict.

"According to intelligence obtained by our side and the U.S., the possibility of a missile launch by North Korea is very high,? South Korea?s Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se told a parliamentary hearing in Seoul, according to Reuters.

Musudan missiles could be launched "at any time from now,? he said.

U.S. defense chiefs have echoed that belief, acknowledging that North Korea has placed a Musadan missile -- which has a range of roughly 1,800 to 2,100 miles, with a minimum range of about 400 miles --?on its east coast.

Adm. Sam Locklear told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee that the U.S. is ready to respond to a North Korean missile launch or other threat.

"I am satisfied that we are ready today, yes," Locklear said.

Threats of war from North Korean may be spiking due to an aggressive vice marshal close to leader Kim Jong Un. NBC's Jim Maceda reports.

Asked specifically whether U.S. forces can intercept a missile from North Korea, Locklear said: "I believe we have a credible ability to defend the homeland, to defend Hawaii, defend Guam, to defend our forward-deployed forces and defend our allies."

He went on to say that the U.S. was in a position to intercept a missile even if one were launched imminently.

Meanwhile, Chinese authorities in the northeastern city of Dandong told tour agencies to halt overland tourism into North Korea, local travel agents said Wednesday.

"All (tourist) travel to North Korea has been stopped from today, and I've no idea when it will restart," a travel agent in Dandong told Reuters.

And despite the taunts from North Korea, which include a warning for foreigners to leave the South, State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said no new security warnings were being issued to Americans in South Korea or those planning to travel there.

Japan deploys Patriot missiles and Aegis radar-equipped destroyers in response to reports that North Korea may be preparing a missile launch. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.

"There's no specific information to suggest imminent threat to U.S. citizens or facilities in the Republic of Korea,? he added. ?So the U.S. Embassy has not changed its security posture. We have not recommended that U.S. citizens who reside in or plan to visit the Republic of Korea take special security precautions at this time."

Amid the regional tension, South Korea blamed Pyongyang for a cyberattack that shut down tens of thousands of computers and servers at banks last month.

Investigators detected similarities between the March cyberattack and past hacking attributed to the North Korean spy agency, including the recycling of 30 previously used malware programs ? out of a total of 76 used in the attack, said Chun Kil-soo, an official at South Korea's Internet security agency.

NBC News' Jim Maceda and Jeff Black contributed to this report.

Related:

Richard Engel answers your questions on North Korea

North Korea warns foreigners to leave South

'Positive thinking' after years of threats keeps South Koreans going

Full North Korea coverage from NBC News

This story was originally published on Wed Apr 10, 2013 6:57 AM EDT

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653387/s/2a8cc9cc/l/0Lworldnews0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A40C10A0C176853920Every0Ehigh0Echance0Enorth0Ekorea0Ewill0Efire0Emissile0Eus0Eand0Esouth0Ekorea0Esay0Dlite/story01.htm

Aaron Craft school closings powerball ariana grande gonzaga lyme disease temple university

Why I?m Not Nice To Conservatives (OliverWillisLikeKryptoniteToStupid)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/297905863?client_source=feed&format=rss

mlb yankees Bb&t Maria Sibylla Merian cory monteith Holly Sonders jimmy fallon

Neighbors describe student behind stabbing as shy

CYPRESS, Texas (AP) ? A 20-year-old student who told police he had fantasized for years about stabbing people to death went on a rampage with a knife at a suburban Houston community college, hurting more than a dozen people, authorities said.

The Harris County Sheriff's Office said that about 11:20 a.m. Tuesday, Dylan Quick began a building-to-building rampage with a razor-like knife at the Lone Star Community College System in Cypress. He wounded at least 14 people, two critically.

Neighbors said he was a shy young man who would say hello when he took out the trash and helped his parents tend the yard, though he rarely came out alone.

"I can't imagine what would have happened to that young man to make him do something like this. He is very normal," said Magdalena Lopez, 48, who has lived across the street from the Quick family for 15 years.

The Quicks were friendly and fit in well with the other families on the block of brick, ranch-style homes. Most were aware that Quick is deaf. A street sign, "Deaf Child In Area," was posted on the block to warn drivers.

"I can't believe he would do it," Lopez added.

But hours after the stabbing attack, Quick was charged with three counts of aggravated assault, and the statement from the sheriff's office said pieces of the blade used in the attack were found in at least one victim and at the scene of the attack. A knife handle was found in a backpack Quick was carrying when he was arrested. Authorities were seen leaving Quick's parents' home with two brown paper bags.

No one answered the door or the phone at the red brick home, though two vehicles were parked in the driveway, one of them a Honda Accord with a license plate that read "DYLAN." It was not immediately known if Quick has an attorney.

The attack began before noon on a sunny spring day, interrupting the careless chatter of Diante Cotton and his friends, who were sitting in the cafeteria when a girl clutching her neck walked in, yelling.

"He's stabbing people, he's stabbing people," Cotton said the girl shouted, his first indication that something was amiss on the normally tranquil campus.

Walking outside, Cotton and his friends saw another half-dozen people with injuries to their faces and necks. Some were being loaded into ambulances. The most critically injured were evacuated in medical helicopters.

"I turned around, and there was just blood ? just blood dripping down the stairs, all over the floor, all over everyone's towels, on their necks, just a lot of blood," Melody Vinton told KHOU-TV.

The attacker ran past Vinton, she said, as she was leaving her chemistry class. He was stabbing people, she said, one after another, always aiming for the neck or face.

"There's no humanity in that. Just to see another human being do that was more traumatic than anything," Vinton said.

Vinton and other students in the science building rushed to help the victims until emergency crews arrived.

Michelle Alvarez tried to back away when she saw Quick running toward students. She didn't even feel it as he swiped her.

"He came running and swinging at my neck, as I tried to get out of the way," she told the Houston Chronicle.

It remains unclear how long the attack lasted, but Lone Star college officials said they locked down the campus shortly after 11:30 a.m. Students described phones going off informing them of the lockdown. Some stayed in class until they were dismissed. Others went out to the hallways, where they were evacuated to their cars.

The sheriff's office said Quick told them he had fantasized about stabbing people to death since elementary school and had planned the attack for some time.

But Michael Lincoln, who lives next door, said Quick had never been aggressive, making the accusations even more shocking.

"If he's outside, he speaks to me, 'Hey neighbor, how you doing?'" Lincoln said.

Elva Garcia, 46, who lives two houses down from the Quicks, described him as a nice young man who stayed out of trouble and only came outside with his parents. She saw him, she said, just this past weekend, working with his parents in the front yard.

"We can't even believe it. What motive would he have?" Garcia said.

The attack came three months after a different Lone Star campus was the site of a shooting in which two people were hurt. The suspected gunman in that incident is charged with aggravated assault.

___

Associated Press writers Nomaan Merchant, Terry Wallace and David Warren in Dallas contributed to this report.

__

Plushnick-Masti can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/RamitMastiAP

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/students-describe-bloody-scene-texas-college-072218198.html

super bowl snacks appleton denver weather super bowl recipes planned parenthood kobayashi margaret sanger

PFT: Gronkowski's deal now a shrewd move

Getty Images

As career implosions go, it doesn?t happen much more quickly than it did for cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha, who went in roughly 20 months from being the prize of the post-lockout free-agency class to a one-year, $1.35 million base deal.

But at least Asomugha is still in the league.

Defensive end Ray Edwards, who jumped from the Vikings to the Falcons after the lockout, was cut during his second season in Atlanta, and he never has been heard from again.

Except, of course, when knocking guys out with punches so ferocious they don?t even have to, you know, connect.

Edwards, who now embraces boxing in large part because the NFL no longer embraces him, is the subject of a slow-news-day profile in USA Today.? He claims he didn?t know about Nick Capes? plan to take a no-punch dive.? Edwards also claims that his football career didn?t deserve the knockout blow it received from the Falcons.

?When they say you?re a bad apple, they don?t want you on your team; Terrell Owens is evidence,? Edwards said.? ?Before [Owens] left the game, he was a 1,000-yard receiver, but he didn?t get a job because of people saying he?s a bad person.? It?s hard to get second chances in the NFL because it?s a product line coming out of college.

?I think [Falcons head coach] Mike Smith [gave me the problem player label] because me and him weren?t on the best of terms.? He felt someone was better than me, but I knew he wasn?t.? Players didn?t agree with him.? He just didn?t like me.?

Other football coaches are smart enough to factor in those potential personal conflicts.? Disregarding whatever the Falcons were saying, the Seahawks (who gave Owens a chance last year) brought Edwards in for a tire-kicking after he was cut.? But when defensive end Chris Clemons tore an ACL in the wild-card round, Pete Carroll and John Schneider dusted off concussion-lawsuit plaintiff Patrick Chukwurah for a divisional-round game at Atlanta ? even though Edwards surely would have had extra motivation (and maybe some inside information) to help Seattle win in the Georgia Dome.

?If you don?t do what they tell to do in the NFL, exactly how they tell you to do it, you have a bad attitude,? Edwards said.? ?I have a bad attitude because I want to be on the field?? That sounds like a winning attitude to me.?

No, it sounds like a guy who knows better than his coach, and who doesn?t know when to accept the coach?s decision and move on.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/04/08/in-hindsight-gronkowski-made-smart-move/related

superbowl ads Super Bowl Ads 2013 Buffalo Wild Wings Superbowl Start Time Jim Harbaugh Who Won The Superbowl Super Bowl Halftime Show 2013

Japan increasingly nervous about North Korea nukes

TOKYO (AP) ? It's easy to write off North Korean threats to strike the United States with a nuclear-tipped missile as bluster: it has never demonstrated the capability to deploy a missile that could reach the Pacific island of Guam let alone the mainland U.S.

But what about Japan?

Though it remains a highly unlikely scenario, Japanese officials have long feared that if North Korea ever decides to play its nuclear card it has not only the means but several potential motives for launching an attack on Tokyo or major U.S. military installations on Japan's main island. And while a conventional missile attack is far more likely, Tokyo is taking North Korea's nuclear rhetoric seriously.

On Monday, amid reports North Korea is preparing a missile launch or another nuclear test, Japanese officials said they have stepped up measures to ensure the nation's safety. Japanese media reported over the weekend that the defense minister has put destroyers with missile interception systems on alert to shoot down any missile or missile debris that appears to be headed for Japanese territory.

"We are doing all we can to protect the safety of our nation," said chief Cabinet spokesman Yoshihide Suga, though he and defense ministry officials refused to confirm the reports about the naval alert, saying they do not want to "show their cards" to North Korea.

North Korea, meanwhile, issued a new threat against Japan.

"We once again warn Japan against blindly toeing the U.S. policy," said an editorial Monday in the Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of its ruling party. "It will have to pay a dear price for its imprudent behavior."

Following North Korea's third nuclear test in February, Japanese experts have increasingly voiced concerns that North Korea may already be able to hit ? or at least target ? U.S. bases and major population centers with nuclear warheads loaded onto its medium-range Rodong missiles.

"The threat level has jumped" following the nuclear test, said Narushige Michishita, a former Ministry of Defense official and director of the Security and International Studies Program at Tokyo's National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies.

Unlike North Korea's still-under-construction intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, program, its arsenal of about 300 deployed Rodong missiles has been flight tested and is thought to have a range of about 1,300 kilometers (800 miles).

That is good enough to reach Tokyo and key U.S. military bases ? including Yokota Air Base, which is the headquarters of the U.S. 5th Air Force; Yokosuka Naval Base, where the USS George Washington aircraft carrier and its battle group are home-based; and Misawa Air Base, a key launching point for U.S. F-16 fighters.

Michishita, in an analysis published late last year, said a Rodong missile launched from North Korea would reach Japan within five to 10 minutes and, if aimed at the center of Tokyo, would have a 50-percent probability of falling somewhere within the perimeter of Tokyo's main subway system.

He said Japan would be a particularly tempting target because it is close enough to feasibly reach with a conventionally or nuclear-armed missile, and the persistent animosity and distrust dating back to Japan's colonization of the Korean peninsula in 1910 provides an ideological motive.

Also, a threat against Japan could be used to drive a wedge between Tokyo and Washington. Pyongyang could, for example, fire one or more Rodong missiles toward Tokyo but have them fall short to frighten Japan's leaders into making concessions, stay out of a conflict on the peninsula or oppose moves by the U.S. forces in Japan to assist the South Koreans, lest Tokyo suffer a real attack.

"Given North Korea's past adventurism, this scenario is within the range of its rational choices," Michishita wrote.

Officials stress that simply having the ability to launch an attack does not mean it would be a success. They also say North Korea is not known to have actually deployed any nuclear-tipped missiles.

Tokyo and Washington have invested billions of dollars in what is probably the world's most sophisticated ballistic missile defense shield since North Korea sent a long-range Taepodong missile over Japan's main island in 1998. Japan now has its own land- and sea-based interceptors and began launching spy satellites after the "Taepodong shock" to keep its own tabs on military activities inside North Korea.

For the time being, most experts believe, North Korea cannot attack the United States with a nuclear warhead because it can't yet fashion one light enough to mount atop a long-range ICBM. But Japanese analysts are not alone in believing North Korea has cleared the "miniaturization" problem for its medium-range weapons.

In April 2005, Lowell Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that North Korea had the capability to arm a missile with a nuclear device. In 2011, the same intelligence agency said North Korea "may now have" plutonium-based nuclear warheads that it can deliver by ballistic missiles, aircraft or "unconventional means."

The Pentagon has since backtracked, saying it isn't clear how small a nuclear warhead the North can produce.

But David Albright, a physicist at the Institute for Science and International Security think-tank, said in an email he believes the North can arm Rodong missiles with nuclear warheads weighing as much as several hundred kilograms (pounds) and packing a yield in the low kilotons.

That is far smaller than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki but big enough to cause significant casualties in an urban area.

Japan also is a better target than traditional enemy South Korea because striking so close to home with a nuclear weapon will blanket a good part of its own population with the fallout.

Regardless of whom North Korea strikes ? with a nuclear or conventional weapon ? it can be assured of one thing: a devastating counterattack by the United States.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-04-08-Japan-NKorea's%20Nuke%20Threat/id-30d1f2695ba343a796008281a6486e10

hoodie hoosiers temperance world bank kim kardashian flour bomb hunger games box office xavier

Obama Takes Gun Control Push to Ct. (ABC News)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS and RSS Feed via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/297455133?client_source=feed&format=rss

march of dimes james randi wargames blake griffin dunk florida primary full force odd fellows

Thatcher and Reagan: The Iron Lady Was Tougher Than the Gipper (Atlantic Politics Channel)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS and RSS Feed via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/297514828?client_source=feed&format=rss

matt cain adastra holocaust remembrance day chesapeake energy dick clark death yom hashoah yolo

Pentagon struggles with high cost of health care

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The loud, insistent calls in Washington to rein in the rising costs of Social Security and Medicare ignore a major and expensive entitlement program ? the military's health care system.

Despite dire warnings from three defense secretaries about the uncontrollable cost, Congress has repeatedly rebuffed Pentagon efforts to establish higher out-of-pocket fees and enrollment costs for military family and retiree health care as an initial step in addressing a harsh fiscal reality. The cost of military health care has almost tripled since 2001, from $19 billion to $53 billion in 2012, and stands at 10 percent of the entire defense budget.

Even more daunting, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that military health care costs could reach $65 billion by 2017 and $95 billion by 2030.

On Wednesday, when President Barack Obama submits his fiscal 2014 budget, the Pentagon blueprint is expected to include several congressionally unpopular proposals ? requests for two rounds of domestic base closings in 2015 and 2017, a pay raise of only 1 percent for military personnel and a revival of last year's plan to increase health care fees and implement new ones, according to several defense analysts.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel insisted this past week that the military has no choice as it faces a $487 billion reduction in projected spending over the next decade and possibly tens of billions more as tea partyers and other fiscal conservatives embrace automatic spending cuts as the best means to reduce the government's trillion-dollar deficit.

The greatest fiscal threat to the military is not declining budgets, Hagel warned, but rather "the growing imbalance in where that money is being spent internally." In other words, money dedicated to health care or benefits is money that's not spent on preparing troops for battle or pilots for missions.

Hagel echoed his predecessors, Leon Panetta, who said personnel costs had put the Pentagon on an "unsustainable course," and former Pentagon chief Robert Gates, who bluntly said in 2009 that "health care is eating the department alive."

In his speech last past week, Hagel quoted retired Adm. Gary Roughead, the former Navy chief, who offered a devastating assessment of the future Pentagon.

Without changes, Roughead said, the department could be transformed from "an agency protecting the nation to an agency administering benefit programs, capable of buying only limited quantities of irrelevant and overpriced equipment."

The military's health care program, known as TRICARE, provides health coverage to nearly 10 million active duty personnel, retirees, reservists and their families. Currently, retirees and their dependents outnumber active duty members and their families ? 5.5 million to 3.3 million.

Powerful veterans groups, retired military officer associations and other opponents of shifting more costs to beneficiaries argue that members of the armed forces make extraordinary sacrifices and endure hardships unique to the services, ones even more pronounced after a decade-plus of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Members of the military have faced repeated deployments, had to uproot their families for constant moves and deal with limits on buying a home or a spouse establishing a career because of their transient life. Retirement pay and low health care costs are vital to attracting members of the all-volunteer military.

"If you don't take care of people, they're not going to enlist, they're not going to re-enlist," said Joe Davis, a spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Resistance in Congress to health care changes was evident in the recently passed spending bill to keep the government running through Sept. 30. Tucked into the sweeping bill was a single provision stating emphatically that "none of the funds made available by this act may be used by the secretary of defense to implement an enrollment fee for the TRICARE for Life program."

The program provides no-fee supplemental insurance to retirees 65 and older who are eligible for Medicare. The Pentagon repeatedly has pushed for establishment of a fee, only to face congressional opposition.

The provision in the spending bill blocking an enrollment fee had widespread support among Republicans and Democrats, according to congressional aides. The Pentagon, nonetheless, is expected to ask again in the 2014 budget for an enrollment fee.

The department also is likely to seek increases in fees and deductibles for working-age retirees and try again to peg increases in them to rising costs as measured by the national health care expenditure index produced by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. That index rose 4.2 percent in 2012 and is projected rise by 3.8 percent this year.

In recent years, Congress has agreed to tie any future increases to the typically smaller percentage increase in military retirees' cost-of-living adjustment, which this year is 1.7 percent.

Either way, a military retiree under age 65 and their family members pay a far smaller annual enrollment fee than the average federal worker or civilian ? $230 a year for an individual, $460 for a family. There is no deductible.

Lawmakers' other response was to establish the Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission to study the issue of benefits and offer recommendations on how the Pentagon can address the problem. The commission was created in this year's defense authorization bill.

"Nobody wants to touch it because people are confused about who it impacts," said Lawrence Korb, a former assistant defense secretary and now a senior fellow at the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress. "It's not going to impact people on active duty. It's not going to impact veterans because they're taken care of by the VA. Basically (it's) working-age retirees."

Korb said he wished Hagel has been more explicit in his warning about the impact of benefit costs.

"He did lay it out that we're going to have to do something or we're going to end up like General Motors and spending everything on people not working for us anymore."

Gordon Adams, a professor at American University who was a senior official at the Office of Management and Budget, said limited savings in the short term from changes in retirement rules or other benefits present a challenge in making the case for change.

"The savings are downstream, but you only get downstream if you get in the boat now," Adams said. "Otherwise you never get downstream, you're just waiting at the dock all the time because you don't think it'll save you money up front."

_____

Follow Donna Cassata on Twitter: http://twitter.com/DonnaCassataAP.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-04-08-Military%20Health%20Care/id-41e58ff9d7354154997c7f01e905bebb

Trick or Treat Amy Weber Happy Halloween! Star Wars Episode 7 NBA jfk airport faith hill

Mozilla pulls tracking trigger for Firefox 22, ignores ad industry ...

Mozilla has added automatic third-party cookie-blocking to a preview version of Firefox 22, a move that will put the feature in most users hands by late June and the company on a collision course with the online ad industry.

Advertising trade groups have blasted the new cookie blocking, calling it "dangerous and highly disturbing," and promising that Firefox users would see more online ads as a result.

On Friday, the privacy advocate who created the blocking code said it had landed on the "Aurora" build channel. "The new Firefox cookie policy has migrated to Aurora!" tweeted Jonathan Mayer, a graduate student in computer science and law at Stanford University.

Mayer is also one of two Stanford researchers who created the HTTP header implementation that signals a user's "No Dot Track" privacy preference.

Aurora is the name for Firefox's least-polished preliminary version that is aimed at general users. In the open-source company's development cycle, Aurora is followed by Beta and then Release. Each edition of Firefox goes through the Aurora-Beta-Release cycles, spending six weeks each in the first two.

Firefox 22, slated to ship as Release on June 25, was moved on Friday to the Aurora channel. Mozilla listed the cookie blocking in its summary of new features for the upcoming browser.

Cookies are used by online advertisers to track users' Web movements, then deliver targeted ads, a practice labeled "online behavioral advertising" by the industry. The new Firefox policy will allow cookies presented from domains that users actually visit -- dubbed a "first-party" site -- but will automatically block those generated by a third-party domain unless the user had previously visited the cookie's site-of-origin.

The by-default setting will not block all cookies and stop all tracking -- in internal discussions, Mozilla acknowledged it was a partial block -- but is designed to slow the explosion of behavioral tracking on the Web.

Even so, discussion at Mozilla to block third-party cookies raised the ire and the rhetoric of ad industry associations last month. Both the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and Association of National Advertisers (ANA) slammed the new setting, claiming it would force thousands of small online businesses to close, let Mozilla make privacy decisions best left to users, and short-circuit efforts advertisers have made to self-police their ranks.

An ad group representative also said Firefox users would see more ads, not fewer, if Mozilla went through with the plan. "The facts are that [Firefox users] will get more ads, not less, and those ads will not be tailored to their interests. They'll see untargeted ads, which will look like spam," said Dan Jaffe, the ANA's vice president of government relations, in a March interview.

In reply to the ad industry's attacks last month, Mozilla's CTO, Brendan Eich, denied the cookie blocking was imminent. "There will be months of evaluating technical input from our users and the community before the new policy enters our Aurora, Beta and General release versions of Firefox," Eich said two weeks ago in an email. "This will stay in our Nightly build until we are satisfied with the user experience."

Apparently, Mozilla is now satisfied.

Unless Mozilla recants, pulls the feature for technical reasons or simply delays it -- the company has occasionally done the latter -- the blocking will appear on schedule.

Firefox users can disable the cookie blocking, but may have trouble finding the setting. Firefox has tucked it under the "Privacy" section. To negate the blocking, users must select "Use custom settings for history" under the "History" subsection, then change "Accept third-party cookies" from the default "From visited" to "Always."

It's reasonable to assume that few Firefox users will bother.

To try Firefox 22 Aurora, users must download it from Mozilla's website. The browser is available for Windows, OS X and Linux.

Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twitter at @gkeizer, or subscribe to Gregg's RSS feed . His e-mail address is gkeizer@ix.netcom.com.

Read more about internet in Computerworld's Internet Topic Center.

Source: http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/458283/mozilla_pulls_tracking_trigger_firefox_22_ignores_ad_industry_attacks/

mickelson how to tie a tie sweet potato recipes the sound of music celebration church new york auto show 2012 tulsa

South Africa's Mandela leaves hospital after pneumonia

By Jon Herskovitz

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Former South African president Nelson Mandela left hospital on Saturday after more than a week of treatment of pneumonia that raised global concern about the health of the 94-year-old anti-apartheid leader.

"(He) has been discharged from hospital today ... following a sustained and gradual improvement in his general condition," the South African presidency said in a statement.

A military ambulance pulled into Mandela's spacious Johannesburg home before the statement was released. The presidency said Mandela, who spent about 10 days in hospital, would receive further medical care at his residence.

This was the third health scare in four months for the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who became South Africa's first black president in 1994 and who is a global symbol of tolerance and the struggle for equality.

He was in hospital briefly in early March for a check-up and was hospitalised in December for nearly three weeks with a lung infection and after surgery to remove gallstones.

Mandela stepped down as president in 1999 and has not been politically active for a decade. But he is still revered at home and abroad for leading the long campaign against apartheid and then championing racial reconciliation while in office.

His lung problems date from when he contracted tuberculosis as a political prisoner. He spent 27 years on Robben Island and in other jails for trying to oust the white-minority government.

Mandela's last notable public appearance was at the final of the soccer World Cup in 2010. Since then, he has stayed at his home in Johannesburg or in Qunu, the remote village where he was born in the impoverished province of Eastern Cape.

REMINDER OF MORTALITY

For several years South Africans have watched Mandela's health gradually deteriorate, reminding them of the mortality of the man whose face adorns the nation's new banknotes.

As he has receded from public life, critics say his ruling African National Congress (ANC) has lost the moral compass he bequeathed it when he stepped down as president in 1999.

"There are those in South Africa who argue that the ANC, especially under the leadership of current President Jacob Zuma, has deviated from Mandela's principles and values," said political analyst Aubrey Matshiqi.

Under such leaders as Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo, the ANC gained international respect as it battled white rule.

Once the yoke of apartheid was thrown off in 1994, it began governing South Africa in a blaze of goodwill from world leaders who viewed it as a beacon for a troubled continent and world.

Almost two decades later, this image has dimmed as ANC leaders have been accused of indulging in the spoils of office, squandering mineral resources and engaging in power struggles.

Mandela was criticised for not doing enough to prevent an HIV/AIDS epidemic and for making political compromises in the transition from apartheid that have kept the black majority from benefiting significantly from South Africa's mineral wealth.

The country has some of the world's highest rates of income inequality. Nearly two decades after the end of apartheid, the average white household earns about six times more than the average black household, according to government data.

But Mandela's achievement in leading South Africa out of apartheid is seen as eclipsing any criticism.

"There was no one else in 1994 who could have pulled off what he did and kept the country together and kept those forces at bay that would have plunged South Africa into a racial, civil war," analyst Matshiqi said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mandela-discharged-hospital-says-african-presidency-125710691.html

april fools pranks atlanta braves Happy Easter Game Of Thrones Season 3 campfire Kordell Stewart cesar chavez

U.S. evangelical pastor's son commits suicide

(Reuters) - The son of popular American evangelical pastor Rick Warren has committed suicide after a life-long struggle with depression and mental illness, according to a letter sent by Warren and his wife, Kay, to the staff of his Saddleback Valley Community Church.

Matthew Warren, 27, took his own life in "a momentary wave of despair at his home" after a "fun evening" with his parents, Warren said in a statement on Saturday.

"Kay and I are overwhelmed by your love, prayers, and kind words," Warren wrote on his Facebook page on Sunday.

Along with leading the Saddleback Church based in Lake Forest, California, Warren is author of the best-selling book "The Purpose Driven Life."

He delivered an invocation at President Barack Obama's first inauguration in January 2009.

Warren described his son as an "incredibly kind, gentle, and compassionate man. He had a brilliant intellect and a gift for sensing who was most in pain or most uncomfortable in a room."

Warren said in his statement that all his life, his son had struggled with mental illness, depression and suicidal thoughts.

"In spite of America's best doctors, meds, counselors, and prayers for healing, the torture of mental illness never subsided," he said.

The Orange County, California, Coroner's office responded to Warren's home in Mission Viejo at 10 a.m. on Friday, according to the agency's records. The City News Service in Los Angeles said Warren was found dead of a self-inflicted gun-shot wound.

Saddleback, one of the largest evangelical churches in the United States, is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. About 20,000 people attend weekly services at the main campus in Lake Forest, California, and at seven other churches located throughout southern California.

(Reporting by Brendan O'Brien, Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Sandra Maler)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/evangelical-pastors-son-commits-suicide-155011947.html

westminster kennel club dog show jeremy lin game winner chocolate covered strawberries shrimp scampi kate upton si cover lobster recipes hearts

Jenna Jameson: Arrested For Battery

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/04/jenna-jameson-arrested-for-battery/

weather new orleans orcl the hartford illinois primary 2012 michael bay zsa zsa gabor illinois primary

NYC 'zombie' finds Long Island cat in Times Square

In this undated photo provided by BluePearl Veterinary Partners, Jeremy Zelkowitz, who dresses in character as a zombie for a year-round haunted house in Times Square, holds a cat named Disaster which he found crossing 42nd Street in Manhattan on March 30, 2013. (AP Photo/BluePearl Veterinary Partners)

In this undated photo provided by BluePearl Veterinary Partners, Jeremy Zelkowitz, who dresses in character as a zombie for a year-round haunted house in Times Square, holds a cat named Disaster which he found crossing 42nd Street in Manhattan on March 30, 2013. (AP Photo/BluePearl Veterinary Partners)

NEW YORK (AP) ? It took a zombie to find Disaster at the Crossroads of the World.

Two years after he disappeared from his Long Island home, Disaster the cat was found this week in the heart of Manhattan ? by a Times Square haunted house promoter dressed up as a zombie.

Jeremy Zelkowitz, who sells tickets for the Times Scare haunted house, spotted Disaster early Saturday morning crossing 42nd Street. He snatched up Disaster, a black and white cat who appeared to be well-kept and neat, and brought him to a nearby animal hospital.

"I'm a big animal lover but I have a dog so I couldn't take him," Zelkowitz, 22, said Thursday. "The whole situation is very, very bizarre."

Staff at the BluePearl Veterinary Partners animal hospital scanned Disaster who had been implanted with a microchip, revealing his last known owner: New York City police Officer Jimmy Helliesen.

Helliesen, 51, received a call Saturday morning from the hospital, informing him that his long-lost feline friend had been found.

"I was shocked," said Helliesen. "How did he get to Manhattan? That's quite an adventure."

For years Helliesen has adopted stray cats he finds hanging around his Brooklyn precinct. Two years ago he adopted Disaster after he strayed from the precinct and ended up getting captured by local Animal Care and Control. That's when Helliesen got him fixed and implanted with the chip.

But six months after living in his Long Island home, Disaster escaped one day through an open window and never returned.

Helliesen never thought he'd get the cat back ? and has since taken in eight more cats he's found around the precinct who need homes.

"Disaster makes it nine," he said. "My wife has been very understanding."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/aa9398e6757a46fa93ed5dea7bd3729e/Article_2013-04-04-Zombie%20Finds%20Cat/id-5600693a1c77477daa876cb416ad2664

limp bizkit stations of the cross nike foamposite galaxy bill maher seabiscuit dingo nba all star weekend

Executive bans urged for "colossal" HBOS failure

By Matt Scuffham

LONDON (Reuters) - Bailed-out British bank HBOS was so badly run it would have failed even without the 2008 financial crisis and the regulator should consider banning its former bosses from the industry, a parliamentary panel said in a report.

The Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards, tasked with finding ways to reform UK banks, said HBOS was an "accident waiting to happen", with bad lending and losses across the business likely to have led to its insolvency even without the funding and liquidity problems of the financial crisis.

HBOS, Britain's biggest mortgage lender, had to be rescued in 2008 with a government-engineered takeover by rival Lloyds, which subsequently needed a 20 billion pound bailout to survive.

The committee said regulators bore some of the blame, but primary responsibility lay with Dennis Stevenson, chairman from the formation of HBOS in 2001 until its collapse, and former chief executives James Crosby and Andy Hornby.

There was a "colossal failure of senior management and the board", said Commission chairman Andrew Tyrie, a Conservative MP who expressed surprise that only Peter Cummings, who was head of corporate lending at HBOS, had so far been punished.

"The Commission has asked the regulator to consider whether these individuals should be barred from undertaking any future role in the sector," Tyrie said in the report published on Friday.

Crosby was chief executive of HBOS between 2001 and 2006 before being succeeded by Hornby.

The trio earned millions during their time at the bank and in subsequent roles. Crosby was paid close to 8 million pounds during his tenure as HBOS's chief executive. Hornby was earning 1.9 million pounds a year before leaving the bank, while Stevenson's package was worth over 800,000 pounds a year.

Following the report, Crosby, 57, promptly resigned as an adviser to private equity firm Bridgepoint. He is also senior independent director at the world's biggest catering company, Compass, which declined to comment on whether he would keep his 125,000-pound-a-year position.

Cummings was fined 500,000 pounds by the now disbanded Financial Services Authority (FSA) in September and banned for life from the industry.

Hornby declined to comment on the report. After leaving HBOS, he worked as chief executive of healthcare group Alliance Boots, earning over 2 million pounds a year, and now runs betting shop chain Coral,

Coral had nothing but praise for Hornby, 46, and a spokesman said his position was safe. "Coral is performing extremely well, and we are really pleased with the great job Andy is doing."

STRATEGY EXPOSED

Stevenson, 67, who sits in the upper chamber of parliament, could not be reached for comment.

HBOS was created in 2001 by a merger between Halifax, a former mutually-owned savings and loans firm, and the 300-year-old Bank of Scotland.

It ramped up lending using cheap funding on the wholesale markets rather than safer customer deposits, and its high-risk strategy was exposed when that funding dried up after the collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers in 2008.

HBOS's managers blamed the financial crisis for the collapse, but the Commission said the bank's business model was inherently flawed and its board was a "model of self-delusion".

"The sums would never have added up," Tyrie said. "The Commission has estimated that, taken together, the losses incurred by the corporate, international and treasury divisions would have led to insolvency, regardless of funding and liquidity problems, had HBOS not been bailed out by both Lloyds and the taxpayer."

The takeover by Lloyds was completed in early 2009.

The Commission said 25 billion pounds was lost on bad corporate loans, and there were losses of 15 billion at its international business and 7 billion at its treasury unit.

The report said the role played by the FSA, Britain's financial regulator which was replaced last week by two new bodies, had been "thoroughly inadequate".

Britain's finance ministry said the failure of HBOS was a "symptom of the financial crisis and the regulatory system in place at that time". It said the introduction of a tighter regulatory regime would help to prevent future failures.

The responsibilities of the FSA have been passed to two new bodies, the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority.

An FSA report into the collapse of HBOS has been delayed several times, and is not expected to be released until the end of September, according to minutes from a February 21 FSA board meeting released this week. That would be five years after the HBOS's demise.

(Editing by Will Waterman and David Stamp)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hbos-bosses-blame-banks-failure-mps-051851096--finance.html

may day protests tony nominations 2012 facebook organ donor jessica simpson gives birth carrie underwood blown away chk ryan seacrest

Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant leaking contaminated water

Reuters

An aerial view shows Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s (TEPCO) tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture March 11, 2013.

By Reuters

As much as 120 tons of radioactive water may have leaked from a storage tank at Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, contaminating the surrounding ground, Tokyo Electric Power Co said on Saturday.

The power company has yet to discover the cause of the leak, detected on one of seven tanks that store water used to cool the plants reactors, a spokesman for the company, Masayuki Ono, said at a press briefing.

The company plans to pump 13,000 cubic meters of water remaining in the tank to other vessels over the next two weeks.

---

Water from the leaking tank, which is located 800 meters from the coast, is not expected to reach the sea, Kyodo news wire reported, earlier, citing unidentified officials from the utility.

?

The company did not say how long the tank had been leaking.

The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi plant has faced a range of problems with controlling ground water and maintaining the massive cooling system built to keep the reactors stable.

The power company said on Friday said it lost the ability to cool radioactive fuel rods in one of the plant's reactors for about three hours. It was the second failure of the system to circulate seawater to cool spent fuel rods at the plant in the past three weeks.

The facility was the site of the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in March 2011 when a magnitude 9.0 earthquake triggered a tsunami that destroyed back-up generators and disabled its cooling system. Three of the reactors melted down.

The storage tanks, pits excavated at the site in the wake of the disaster, are lined with water proof sheets meant to keep the contaminated water from leaking into the soil

Work to decommission the plant is projected to take decades to complete.

Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653387/s/2a6467db/l/0Lworldnews0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A40C0A50C176229120Ejapans0Efukushima0Enuclear0Eplant0Eleaking0Econtaminated0Ewater0Dlite/story01.htm

landon collins dorial green beckham mike kelly kristen bell colbert super pac colbert super pac sloth

Rabbi Herb Cohen: A Rabbinic Take on 'The Batman Trilogy'

The following review is part of the Kosher Movies project, in which Rabbi Herb Cohen gleans life lessons from the world of film.

When I was principal of Yeshiva High School of Atlanta, I had a conversation with a board member who was a Holocaust survivor about the Holocaust Museum that was being built in Washington, D.C. He shared with me his feeling that it was not a wise use of community funds which could be better utilized to support Jewish day school education. I empathized with him since part of my job was to raise money for the school and I, too, felt that more community money should be directed towards Jewish education.

A couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to speak to my friend again and he shared with me his change of heart about the Holocaust Museum. Now he felt glad that the Museum was here to teach many subsequent generations about the Holocaust. He never envisioned years ago that there would be Holocaust deniers and that anti-Semitism would be alive and well in the world after the atrocities of the Holocaust. Never could he have imagined leaders of so-called civilized nations calling for the annihilation of the Jewish state. The world had changed and it was not for the better. Evil was a potent force in the 21st century, and the Holocaust Museum was an important agent of moral education challenging the perpetrators of evil.

The conversation brought back memories of my own innocent childhood in Mt. Vernon, N.Y., when everyone thought, post World War II, post- Holocaust, that the world was now enlightened, that there would be war no more, and that our collective human future was bright. Sept. 11 brought all that optimistic thinking to an abrupt halt.

The Batman trilogy of films deals metaphorically with how we come to terms with this new world where evil is real and ubiquitous. The reality of evil in these narratives undercuts our assumptions about the basic goodness of man and leaves us on edge.

"The Dark Knight" and "The Dark Knight Rises" present two villains who are the personifications of evil: the Joker and Bane. The Joker represents the chaotic nature of evil; Bane represents the committed terrorist, for whom death and destruction are liberating events. Bruce Wayne, aka Batman, begins with a conventional understanding of the Joker's criminal mind. He tells his butler, Alfred, "Criminals aren't complicated. I just have to figure out what he's after." Alfred wisely responds: "You don't fully understand. Some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn." Bruce is ambivalent about how to deal with the Joker and Bane, and it takes him a long time to understand how vicious they are and how he must change his preconceptions about the nature of evil people.

This perhaps can give us some understanding about the biblical approach to unfettered evil, such as we find in Amalek, the arch-enemy of the Jews who attacked the old and weak as they were leaving Egypt. The Bible tells us to eradicate this evil and for the compassionate Jew, this is a hard business. On Passover at the Seder, we are bidden to spill out drops of wine from our cup when we recount the ten plagues because our cup of joy is never full when others have suffered. Even when justice triumphs, we feel for the victim who suffers. The Ethics of the Fathers also cautions us not to rejoice over the fall of the wicked even though he is deserving of punishment. Moreover, the Talmud recounts the story of Beruriah, the wife of Rabbi Meir, who, when her husband wanted to harm bullies who were constantly harassing him, exhorted him to pray that these sinners repent, not to pray that they die.

The Batman trilogy is a brainy thriller. It asks us to leave our simplistic notions of good and evil at the door and to recognize that in our new and dangerous world, we cannot ignore evil. To be na?ve in the face of absolute terror and evil places us at great risk.

Rabbi Herb Cohen was a principal at Jewish high schools across America for three decades. He now resides in Israel and blogs weekly about the intersection of faith and film at Koshermovies.com.

?

"; var coords = [-5, -72]; // display fb-bubble FloatingPrompt.embed(this, html, undefined, 'top', {fp_intersects:1, timeout_remove:2000,ignore_arrow: true, width:236, add_xy:coords, class_name: 'clear-overlay'}); });

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-herb-cohen/a-rabbinic-take-on-the-batman-trilogy_b_2987379.html

brandon jennings the vow review luol deng culkin wooly mammoth no child left behind no child left behind

Broker round-up part 2: Mwana Africa, Fox Marble, Goldplat, Lansdowne Oil & Gas...

Facebook logo

Email or Phone
Keep me logged in

Sign Up
LikeProactive Investors ? 35,563 like this4 hours ago ?

• Broker round-up part 2: Mwana Africa, Fox Marble, Goldplat, Lansdowne Oil & Gas http://ow.ly/2vY5ie

  Like ? Comment

Source: http://www.facebook.com/ProactiveInvestors/posts/604536369574732

metro north taco bell taco bell Breezy Point Seaside Heights nj transit PSEG

ORNL's awake imaging device moves diagnostics field forward

Public release date: 4-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Ron Walli
wallira@ornl.gov
865-576-0226
DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory

A technology being developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory promises to provide clear images of the brains of children, the elderly and people with Parkinson's and other diseases without the use of uncomfortable or intrusive restraints.

Awake imaging provides motion compensation reconstruction, which removes blur caused by motion, allowing physicians to get a transparent picture of the functioning brain without anesthetics that can mask conditions and alter test results. The use of anesthetics, patient restraints or both is not ideal because they can trigger brain activities that may alter the normal brain functions being studied.

With this new capability, researchers hope to better understand brain development in babies, pre-teens and teen-agers. In addition, they believe the technology will provide unprecedented insight into conditions such as autism, drug addictions, alcoholism, traumatic brain injuries and Alzheimer's disease.

"With this work, we're hoping to establish a new paradigm in noninvasive diagnostic imaging," said Justin Baba, a biomedical engineer who heads the ORNL development team.

The study, which was performed in collaboration with Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Laboratory and Johns Hopkins University, utilized an awake imaging scanner and awake, unanesthetized, unrestrained mice that had been injected with a radiotracer known as DaTSCAN, provided by GE-Medical.

With awake imaging using DaTSCAN and other molecular probes, Baba and colleagues envision development of new, more effective therapies for a wide assortment of conditions and diseases while also contributing to pharmaceutical drug discovery, development and testing. The technology could also help with real-time stabilization and registration of targets during surgical intervention.

Baba noted that this technical accomplishment, detailed in a paper published in The Journal of Nuclear Medicine, has its origins in past Department of Energy-supported research on biomedical imaging. The paper is titled "Conscious, Unrestrained Molecular Imaging of Mice with AwakeSPECT." Jim Goddard of ORNL's Measurement Science and Systems Engineering Division is a co-author.

While a working prototype scanner is located at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, ORNL is pursuing commercialization of the technology.

###

UT-Battelle manages ORNL for DOE's Office of Science. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit http://science.energy.gov/.

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 4-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Ron Walli
wallira@ornl.gov
865-576-0226
DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory

A technology being developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory promises to provide clear images of the brains of children, the elderly and people with Parkinson's and other diseases without the use of uncomfortable or intrusive restraints.

Awake imaging provides motion compensation reconstruction, which removes blur caused by motion, allowing physicians to get a transparent picture of the functioning brain without anesthetics that can mask conditions and alter test results. The use of anesthetics, patient restraints or both is not ideal because they can trigger brain activities that may alter the normal brain functions being studied.

With this new capability, researchers hope to better understand brain development in babies, pre-teens and teen-agers. In addition, they believe the technology will provide unprecedented insight into conditions such as autism, drug addictions, alcoholism, traumatic brain injuries and Alzheimer's disease.

"With this work, we're hoping to establish a new paradigm in noninvasive diagnostic imaging," said Justin Baba, a biomedical engineer who heads the ORNL development team.

The study, which was performed in collaboration with Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Laboratory and Johns Hopkins University, utilized an awake imaging scanner and awake, unanesthetized, unrestrained mice that had been injected with a radiotracer known as DaTSCAN, provided by GE-Medical.

With awake imaging using DaTSCAN and other molecular probes, Baba and colleagues envision development of new, more effective therapies for a wide assortment of conditions and diseases while also contributing to pharmaceutical drug discovery, development and testing. The technology could also help with real-time stabilization and registration of targets during surgical intervention.

Baba noted that this technical accomplishment, detailed in a paper published in The Journal of Nuclear Medicine, has its origins in past Department of Energy-supported research on biomedical imaging. The paper is titled "Conscious, Unrestrained Molecular Imaging of Mice with AwakeSPECT." Jim Goddard of ORNL's Measurement Science and Systems Engineering Division is a co-author.

While a working prototype scanner is located at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, ORNL is pursuing commercialization of the technology.

###

UT-Battelle manages ORNL for DOE's Office of Science. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit http://science.energy.gov/.

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/drnl-oai040413.php

Rihanna Katy Perry Grammys 2013 taylor swift taylor swift Ed Sheeran Fun carrie underwood