Thomas Bros. celebrating this news. We may have to go back to reading maps in this country.
It has become one of the staples of modern, hi-tech life: using satellite navigation tools built into your car or mobile phone to find your way from A to B. But experts have warned that the system may be close to breakdown. 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.
Former President Bill Clinton, who has pledged his philanthropic weight to help a storm ravaged Haiti, has been named a special envoy to the Caribbean nation on behalf of the United Nations. The appointment comes two months after Clinton visited Haiti alongside U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in an effort to raise global attention to the country’s halting efforts to rebuild following a string of storms that wreaked havoc on the Haitian economy, its nine million citizens and its already fragile landscape.
Another rapper gets capped. “Dolla” shot dead at CA shopping mall.
Los Angeles police arrested a man Tuesday in connection with the slaying of Atlanta rapper Dolla, who was shot Monday outside a popular Beverly Hills mall. The man, identified as Aubrey Louis Berry of Snellville, was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport with a gun on Monday night and was being questioned in the case. He was being held on $1 million bail on unspecified felony charges.
Old Republican males are some happy campers indeed.
Americans grow happier as they age, surveys find. And a new Pew Research Center survey shows the tendency is holding up as the economy tanks. Happiness is a complex thing. Past studies have found that happiness is partly inherited, that Republicans are happier than Democrats, and that old men tend to be happier than old women. And even before the economy got nasty, seniors were found to be generally happier than Baby Boomers. Some of that owes to the American Dream being lived by past generations, while Boomers work two jobs and watch the dream wither.
Iraq war veteran Adam Pearce survived Fallujah, scene of some of the U.S. military’s bloodiest urban combat since Vietnam. But the ex-Marine lost his life early Sunday morning trying to stop a fight in the parking lot of a Tucker cocktail lounge. DeKalb County Police say his killer was a knife-wielding female who remains at large. “He looked mean as hell, but underneath he had a heart of gold,” said Pearce’s mother, Pam Hayes, of Macon. “He’d help anyone, and that’s how he died.”
A 15-year-old middle school student in rural southeastern Louisiana fired a gunshot at an English teacher before class began and then shot himself in the head in an unsuccessful suicide attempt, local authorities said. In his backpack, a journal had detailed plans on how the student planned to commit his crimes, including where to enter the school and in which bathroom to “gear up,” according to Sgt. Lesley Peters, a Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s spokeswoman. “Ya’ll will die,” the student wrote in the journal, Peters said. “I will commit suicide after the killings ha ha ha.”
[Why is a 15 year old kid in middle school? And I hope the parents of this kid get hammered for allowing their son to gain access to the firearm he used to gravely injure himself and scare the crap out of a bunch of people….ed]
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Israelis have been warned violent groups may be using Facebook to recruit spies and kidnap people. The Shin Bet security agency said there was evidence Arab enemies were using social networking sites to find targets. Users should be careful not to reveal phone numbers, respond to unsolicited messages or meet up with strangers they chat to online, the agency said.
Alec Baldwin’s joke about getting a Filipino mail-order bride provoked a sharp response in the Philippines, with one senator saying Monday that the “30 Rock” star faces violence if he ever visits. Baldwin, 51, who is divorced with a teenage daughter, said in a May 12 interview on “The Late Show” with David Letterman that he would love to have more children. The Emmy-winning actor quipped that he was “thinking about getting a Filipino mail-order bride at this point … or a Russian one.” Baldwin has been involved in a bitter dispute with his ex-wife, Oscar-winning actress Kim Basinger, over custody of their 13-year-old daughter, Ireland. Philippine Sen. Ramon Revilla said Monday that Baldwin’s comment was “insensitive and uncalled for” and an insult to millions of Filipinos.
A COUNTRY doctor has saved the life of a dying 12-year-old boy by using a household drill to bore into his brain after the boy had a bike accident. The emergency “operation”, by local GP Rob Carson in the Victorian country town of Maryborough, was yesterday hailed by a leading neurosurgeon as “one of the gutsiest life-saving efforts imaginable”. (snip) The small hospital was not equipped with neurological drills, so Dr Carson obtained a household De Walt drill, used for boring holes in wood, from a hospital maintenance room.
Condemned prisoner Michael Riley wasn’t volunteering to die but had asked his friends to not pray for a reprieve that would keep him from the Texas death chamber this evening. “I’ve been locked up 23 years,” Riley, 51, said recently from a tiny visiting cage outside death row. “I’ve been going through this over and over. It’s getting old.” With his appeals exhausted and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles refusing a clemency request. Riley was set to die for fatally stabbing a store clerk during a robbery in 1986 in his hometown of Quitman in East Texas.
Congressional Democrats say they will not fund Obama’s plan to shutter Gitmo.
President Barack Obama’s allies in the Senate will not provide funds to close the Guantanamo Bay prison next January, a top Democratic official said Tuesday. With debate looming on Obama’s spending request to cover military and diplomatic operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the official says Democrats will deny the Pentagon and Justice Department $80 million to relocate Guantanamo’s 240 detainees. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the proposed changes to the bill were to be unveiled later. The administration has yet to develop a plan for what to do with the detainees, and Obama’s promise to close the facility is facing strong GOP opposition.
Michael Steele says if he loses the authority to direct the RNC money he will quit as chairman.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele told FOX News that part of his job is to “manage the money” and suggested that if committee members strip him of that authority he’ll step aside. “They can contemplate all they want to, but the reality is if they want a figurehead chairman you can have a figurehead chairman, but it won’t be Michael Steele,” he said.
A drowning Oklahoma woman spent her final moments on a 911 call, desperately trying to steer rescuers to her submerging car on a rural road. A judge on Monday ordered the release of the 10-minute call made on May 2 by 49-year-old Kimberlyn Rae Kendrick of Pryor after she had driven into floodwaters. During the call, Kendrick told a 911 operator that she had her nose up against the roof of her car and that she had only inches of air. In the initial moments of the call, she told the operator that “I’m getting covered up quickly” and to “please hurry, because I’m running out of air and if I climb out of this car I’m going to go down.” Not long after, she said, “I need to get out now. I’m drowning.”
HP Recalls Notebook Computer Batteries Due to Fire Hazard
Name of Product: Lithium-Ion batteries used in Hewlett-Packard and Compaq notebook computers
Units: About 70,000
Importer: Hewlett-Packard Co., of Palo Alto, Calif.
Hazard: The recalled lithium-ion batteries can overheat, posing a fire and burn hazard to consumers.
Incidents/Injuries: The firm and CPSC are aware of two reports of batteries that overheated and ruptured, resulting in flames/fire that caused minor property damage. No injuries have been reported.
Description: The recalled lithium-ion rechargeable batteries are used with various HP and Compaq notebook computers.
Quote of the day.
I can make a firm pledge, under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.
-Barack Hussein Obama