Wednesday, October 9, 2013

WATCH: Galloping Horse-Like Robot developed by military

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Fox News--Robot makers at Boston Dynamics have unveiled their latest military-funded creation: a four-legged machine called WildCat that bounds and gallops across the ground in an uncannily animal-like way.

WATCH IT: HERE

A new video shows off the robot's ability to run to at 16 mph (25 km/h) on flat surfaces. Boston Dynamics has not released much new information on their new bot, but a caption on the company's YouTube page says WildCat will eventually be able to run quickly over all types of terrain.

WildCat is a free-running version of one of Boston Dynamics' earlier quadruped creations called Cheetah, a frighteningly fast robot that could sprint, on a treadmill at least, up to 28.3 mph. That's 0.5 mph faster than Usain Bolt, the world's fastest man. Though WildCat is slower than its predecessor for now, it is does not need to be tethered to a treadmill to strut its stuff.

The new robot is being developed as part of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Maximum Mobility and Manipulation, or M3, program, which seeks to overcome the current limitations that ground robots face in terms of agility. The hope is that if these robots become more mobile and flexible, they can be much more effective at assisting human soldiers on the ground in a wide range of missions.
Follow us on Twitter @wztv_fox17 and LIKE us on Facebook for updates.WATCH: Galloping Horse-Like Robot developed by military

Monday, October 7 2013, 03:47 PM CDT

Sheriff: 4 dead in car linked to Tenn porn case
October 07, 2013 22:10 GMT

DOUBLE SPRINGS, Ala. (AP) -- An Alabama sheriff says four people found shot to death in a car were linked to a child pornography investigation in Tennessee.

Winston County Sheriff Rick Harris said Monday the four died in what appears to be a murder-suicide with a shotgun.

Harris says 29-year-old Robert S. Hamrick and his 39-year-old ex-wife, Kristi Hunt Hamrick, were under investigation for allegations of child pornography and molestation in Hardin County, Tenn.

The sheriff says they shared an address with 30-year-old Kevin Carey and 37-year-old Keith Hunt, who also were implicated.

All four were found dead Wednesday in a car on a dirt road about 100 miles south of their home in Savannah, Tenn.

Harris says it appears Keith Hunt killed the others, then himself. He was the brother of Kristi Hunt Hamrick.

Source: http://www.fox17.com/newsroom/top_stories/videos/wztv_watch-galloping-horselike-robot-developed-military-20590.shtml

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Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Arizona plans to require citizenship proof for state elections (reuters)

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Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/332643049?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Failed adoptions stir outrage; reforms are elusive | The Salt Lake ...

FILE - In this Monday, Sept. 9, 2013 file photo, Carri Williams, center, is taken into custody after she was found guilty of homicide by abuse and manslaughter in the death of her adopted daughter, Hana, in Mount Vernon, Wash. Hana, originally from Ethiopia, died in the backyard of the family's home in May 2011. Prosecutors said she was starved, beaten and forced outside as punishment. Her husband, Larry Williams, was found guilty of first-degree manslaughter. (AP Photo/The Skagit Valley Herald, Scott Terrell, File)

Half a world away from her birthplace in Ethiopia, teenager Hana Williams died on a rainy night in the backyard of what a prosecutor called a "house of horrors" ? the rural home of her adoptive family in Washington state.

The official causes of her death, after being forced outside as punishment, were malnutrition and hypothermia. Authorities said Hana, during three years of adoption, had been beaten repeatedly with switches, starved and made to sleep in a locked closet.

The parents, Larry and Carri Williams, have been convicted of manslaughter and face sentencing Oct. 29.

Yet more than two years after Hana?s death in May 2011, few meaningful steps have been taken by state policymakers to reduce the chances of other adopted children suffering such abuse. A task force offered detailed recommendations, and one limited bill was introduced in Washington?s legislature but died in committee this year after raising some concerns that it might infringe on parental rights.

"We really are struggling to find something that will be both effective and constitutional," said the bill?s sponsor, Rep. Mary Helen Roberts, who plans to continue her efforts.

While most adoptions are successful, the Williams case is among several recent grim adoption developments around the U.S., prompting urgent calls for better safeguards and more post-adoption support. Yet many of those making the appeals admit to frustration, having sounded alarm bells before, and they hold out little hope for prompt, sweeping responses that would strengthen international and domestic adoptions nationwide.

A key reason is the nature of adoption in America ? marked by inconsistent laws, incomplete data and the lack of any central authority. There are no authoritative statistics on the number of adoptions that fail, no reliable source of federal funding for post-adoption services. And there is a multitude of passionate organizations with often diverging views on how to maximize success stories and minimize tragedies.

"There are so many different perspectives ? the rights of the child, the rights of the family, the rights of the states," said Sharon Osborne, president of the Children?s Home Society of Washington, who would like to see some form of post-adoption assessments in her state.

"What we are advocating for is the best possible situation for a child and his or her newly formed family," she said. "We can?t seem to get through the political challenges to make it a reality."

Hana Williams? death, while notable in its sad details, was far from an isolated tragedy. A report compiled after her death documented 14 other cases of severe abuse or neglect of adopted children in Washington from 2009 to 2011.

story continues below

Other cases of adoptions gone wrong have been highlighted by Russia, which last year banned adoptions of Russian children by Americans. Though the move was part of a broader political skirmish, it afforded Moscow the opportunity to complain about mistreatment and lack of post-adoption oversight. About 20 Russian adoptees have died at the hands of their American parents, and in 2010, a Tennessee woman sent her 7-year-old adopted Russian son back to Moscow on a plane alone after losing patience with his behavior.

More recently, articles by the Reuters news agency in September detailed a phenomenon known as "re-homing" in which adoptive parents who?ve grown frustrated with a child ? often one adopted from abroad ? arranged through Internet sites for another family to take the child.

The websites were not regulated by any government authority and the families taking the adopted children were not subject to any screening, in some cases leading to incidents of mistreatment. Advocacy groups are now calling for such child-swapping to be outlawed or subject to oversight by state child-protection workers.

"It makes you wonder: Is anyone going to want to do adoptions with us?" said Susan Jacobs, the U.S. State Department?s special adviser on children?s issues and the Obama administration?s point person on international adoptions.

Some adoption advocates worry that the negative developments will result in fewer adoptions ? and thus consign more children to lives in foster care or foreign orphanages.

"The reality is that adoption is a vastly successful solution for nearly all of the children who find families," said Chuck Johnson, president of the National Council for Adoption. "For someone to conclude falsely that adoption is not the worthwhile endeavor it is, then tens of thousands of children will suffer similar or worse fates than these."

Some improvements are expected starting next July, when higher standards take effect for all U.S. adoption agencies that handle international adoptions. Among the many provisions of the Universal Accreditation Act is one requiring parents to receive training before the adoption to prepare them for future challenges.

The law does not specifically address post-adoption problems. Children adopted from abroad generally become U.S. citizens without delay, and thus it would be problematic to conduct any special tracking of them unless it was on a voluntary basis.

Though the State Department doesn?t have direct responsibility for international adoptions once they?re completed, Susan Jacobs expressed interest in working with others in the adoption field to improve support services.

"We need to help parents to find resources when they are having trouble ... so they don?t turn to the Internet to get rid of their kids," she said. "This is a horrible practice that can only lead to abuse and neglect."

During the pre-adoption process, Jacobs said, parents should be given accurate information about a child?s medical and psychological condition to minimize the chances of frustration later on.

Next Page >

Copyright 2013 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/world/56965537-68/adoption-adoptions-child-parents.html.csp

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Israel produces 10-15 nuclear bombs annually ? report

Israel has produced 690-950 kg of plutonium, and continued to produce from 10 to 15 nuclear bombs of the Nagasaki type each year, a report says.

nuclear-warhead

Illustration

Israel, which develops very sophisticated chemical weapons, in addition to biological and nuclear weapons, refutes to sign any international treaty to allow UN to inspect its nuclear, chemical and biological arsenals, Global Research quoted Jane?s Defense Weekly.

According to Jane?s Defense Weekly, Israel ? the only nuclear power in the Middle East, has 100 to 300 nuclear warheads and their appropriate vectors ( ballistic and cruise missiles and fighter-bombers ).

According to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) estimates, Israel has produced 690-950 kg of plutonium, and continues to produce as much as necessary to make from 10 to 15 bombs of the Nagasaki type each year.

Israel has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), nor the Convention Banning Biological Weapons, and has signed but not ratified the Convention Banning Chemical Weapons.

Source: http://inserbia.info/news/2013/10/israel-produces-10-15-nuclear-bombs-annually-report/

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Monday, October 7, 2013

Links to Writing & Marketing Blog Posts - Katherine Lowry Logan's ...

[unable to retrieve full-text content]To learn more about the power of content marketing, click here to read the complete post. ~*~ ... If you missed my writing & marketing tweets and retweets yesterday, here they are again: ... Rusch http://ow.ly/ptO8H; How to Grow Your Business Network with Social Media http://ow.ly/ptOas; Write It Sideways ? Writing advice from a fresh perspective: Personality Theory and Your Writing http://ow.ly/ptOgU; Why Did You Write Such a Heavily-Researched Book as a Novel?

Source: http://www.katherinelowrylogan.com/2013/10/links-to-writing-marketing-blog-posts_5.html

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Friday, October 4, 2013

Essar Energy plans to sell Mombasa refinery stake to Kenya

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Source: in.reuters.com --- Thursday, October 03, 2013
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Essar Energy , which co-owns east Africa's sole refinery in the port city of Mombasa, said on Thursday it would sell its 50 percent stake to Kenya's government after abandoning plans for a $1.2 billion upgrade. ...

Source: http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/reuters/INbusinessNews/~3/TVOzb2V4ceo/story01.htm

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Thursday, October 3, 2013

US: Taliban attack could have been foreseen

(AP) ? U.S. commanders at a base in Afghanistan where two Marines were killed in a surprise insurgent attack last year had no explicit warning but intelligence officers there had "consistent indicators" of Taliban interest in attacking, according to an investigation report released Tuesday.

The U.S. Central Command investigation's conclusions led the top Marine, Gen. James Amos, to announce on Monday that he had forced two senior Marine generals to retire early. Amos held Maj. Gen. Charles Gurganus and Maj. Gen. Gregg Sturdevant responsible for failures to protect their forces.

The Central Command's report indicated that the Marines at Camp Bastion, one of the largest coalition airfields in Afghanistan, could have foreseen the possibility of a Taliban effort to penetrate the base's perimeter on the night of Sept. 14, 2012.

It said the base's intelligence officer reported that the threat to all major installations was "high" at the time of the attack and that there were "consistent indicators that the Taliban wanted to gain access" to Bastion and attack it.

A group of 15 Taliban fighters used wire cutters to cut through a chain link fence on Bastion's perimeter and walked onto the base undetected. They destroyed six Marine fighter jets and wounded 17 people in addition to killing two Marines.

The investigation report said that in the weeks prior to the attack there had been numerous breaches of Bastion's supposedly secure perimeter, some of which had been captured on surveillance videos. One video showed an individual who entered the base through a hole in its perimeter chain-link fence, "looked around inside an empty guard tower and departed again."

It said many people, including Gurganus, who was the commander of all coalition forces in southwestern Afghanistan, had expressed concern about the breaches but "accepted them" as related to theft or other incursions that did not necessarily pose a security danger to the Marines.

The report faulted Gurganus for failing to take sufficient actions to ensure security prior to the attack.

"He underestimated the threat posed by the enemy's capabilities, overestimated U.S. and coalition capabilities to counter that threat and failed to take prudent steps to counter or mitigate an enemy attack," it concluded.

Sturdevant, who commanded the Marine aviation unit in the region, mistakenly assumed that other military units on Bastion would provide adequate protection for his aviation forces, the report said.

"This misjudgment unnecessarily exposed his personnel and equipment to enemy attack," it said.

Sturdevant and Gurganus issued statements Monday saying they respected Amos' decision.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-10-01-Marines-Generals%20Retire/id-6c5921be1d6746b38e7086c6f1e3069f

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