Here's something you don't see every day — hundreds of new islands have been discovered around the world.
The Earth has 657 more barrier islands than previously thought, according to a new global survey by researchers from Duke University and Meredith College in Raleigh, N.C.
The researchers identified a total of 2,149 barrier islands worldwide using satellite images, topographical maps and navigational charts. The new total is significantly higher than the 1,492 islands identified in a 2001 survey conducted without the aid of publicly available satellite imagery.
The UN says at least 20 children have been killed in the western Libyan city of Misratah during attacks by forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi.
"We have at least 20 verified child deaths and many more injuries due to shrapnel from mortars and tanks and bullet wounds," Reuters quoted Marixie Mercado of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) as saying in Geneva on Tuesday.
Mercado also said child casualties in Libya are “far worse than feared” and expressed deep concern that the death toll could rise if a ceasefire is not brokered immediately.
Food agencies say the residents of the besieged city of Misratah are in dire need of food, medicine, and other basic necessities while tens of thousands of foreign workers and injured people are waiting at the port to be evacuated.
Meanwhile, the UN says it has reached an agreement with the Libyan government to create a humanitarian corridor for dispatching aid to the long-suffering residents of Misratah.
HAVANA (AP) -- Cuba's Communist Party stuck Tuesday with a slate of silver-haired icons of the revolution to spearhead a last-ditch effort to save the island's sputtering economy -- surprising those who took to heart declarations by Raul and Fidel Castro that it was time to give way to a new generation of leaders. (Scroll down for video)
Delegates to a key Party Congress picked 79-year-old Raul Castro to replace his ailing brother at the helm, while weathered veterans moved up to the No. 2 and 3 positions. Three somewhat younger politicians were named to lesser roles in the leadership council, but it remained dominated by men who came of age before television, let alone the Internet.
Fidel Castro made a surprise appearance, to thunderous applause from delegates, many of whom could be seen crying as he was helped to his place on stage by a young aide, then stood at attention during Cuba's national anthem.
Wearing a blue track suit over a checked shirt, the 84-year-old revolutionary leader looked unsteady on his feet as he clutched the aide's arm, and at times slumped in his chair. He became more animated as the proceedings continued, especially when Raul's name was read out by an official announcing members of the party's Central Committee. Fidel was left off the leadership slate for the first time.
But Raul said his brother needed no formal title to continue being the country's guiding light. "Fidel is Fidel," he said.
In a speech closing out the Congress, Raul acknowledged the lack of fresh faces, saying the country had failed to develop young leaders because of errors committed in the past, including by him and his brother.
"We have kept various veterans of the historic generation, and that is logical due to the consequences of the mistakes that have been made in this area," Raul told 1,000 delegates gathered in a sprawling Havana convention center.
The Washington Post is reporting that the Boeing 737 with Michelle Obama onboard was preparing to land at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland when air traffic control instructed the White House plane to execute a series of S-turns so it would not collide with a 200-ton C-17.
[Corrected, 3:20 p.m.: An earlier version of this post said the plane was trying to land at Edwards Air Force Base.]
When it became a greater possibility that the C-17 wouldn't be able to get off the runway quickly enough for the White House plane to land, the Andrews controllers instructed the 737 to abort its landing.
"In the grand scheme of things, events like this happen fairly frequently," a federal official who works with the air traffic control system told the Post anonymously. "Unfortunately, this one involves a presidential plane."
Florida's unemployment agency director has asked for an investigation into a federally funded jobs agency that is giving 6,000 superhero capes to the jobless.
The jobs agency plans to distribute the superhero capes to residents taking part in the agency's "Cape-A-Bility Challenge" by trying to vanquish "Dr. Evil Unemployment."
Residents of central Florida can win a cape by becoming a Workforce Central Florida fan on Facebook, taking a Facebook quiz, having a photo taken with a foam cutout of Dr. Evil Unemployment, tweeting a job posting, or using LinkedIn to recommend someone using the word "super."
The agency also spent about $2,300 on 12 five-feet-tall foam board cutouts of Dr. Evil Unemployment.
Florida Director Cynthia Lorenzo said the spending seemed "insensitive and wasteful" and has asked for an investigation
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US military has flown more than 800 sorties over Libya since handing control of the air campaign's operations to NATO, the Defense Department said Tuesday.
Navy Captain Darryn James said US fighter jets this month unleashed bombs eight times on the air defenses of strongman Moamer Kadhafi's government, which is battling anti-regime rebels in the North African nation.
"The US has flown more than 800 sorties in support of Operation Unified Protector since April 1, and of those, more than 150 have been SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses) missions," said James, a Pentagon spokesman.
Humanitarian war-making (an oxymoron, indeed) is on full display in Libya. Reports persist that the Libya intervention, as it's commonly referred to, is bogged down. Is anyone really surprised?
There's been talk of the U.S. sending in ground troops as part of an international force to aid Libyan rebels, among whom are, undoubtedly, jihadists. Jihadists, as in enemies of the United States and the entire Western world. But if the U.S. doesn't pony-up troops, NATO may. Never mind that a humanitarian war was supposed to protect innocents, not support rebels. Doesn't taking sides violate a tenet of humanitarian war? Or will the U.N. sanctioned coalition overtly help the rebels in the name of humanitarianism?
Who knows? Who knows about humanitarian war's tenets? Liberals, being good relativists, are situational; aims are always malleable. But we do know this: winning at war -- or articulating victory as the goal of war -- is to be dismissed. Have President Obama and those mealy-mouthed functionaries at the State Department claimed victory as a war aim? Winning -- as in defeating an enemy -- defines traditional war, which liberals disdain. Traditional war is about protecting or advancing vital national interests, but national interests are narrow, squalid concerns.
So Libyan rebels shouldn't be cheered by the possible deployment of coalition ground troops; such may prove highly conditional and subject to change, particularly if the fighting gets tough and proves inconclusive. And if the coalition's constituencies back home begin to weary of the burden, goodbye troops, which is distinctly possible among Europeans.
The opening shock and awe phase of the Libyan fight was supposed to either kill Moammar Gaddafi (despite Orwellian pronouncements to the contrary) or send him packing, tail tucked between his legs. Instead, Gaddafi is proving wily and tenacious -- to a point. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is warning not to underestimate Gaddafi. Of course, neither should anyone overestimate the progressives who are running this war.
WASHINGTON — U.S. officials say the Army private suspected of giving classified data to WikiLeaks is being moved to Fort Leavenworth in Kansas in the wake of international criticism about his treatment during his detention at the Marine Corps base at Quantico, Va.
The officials say an announcement that Army Pfc. Bradley Manning will be moved is expected Wednesday at the Pentagon. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the move has not yet been made public.
Amnesty International has said Manning's treatment may violate his human rights. A committee of Germany's parliament has also protested about his treatment to the White House.
Manning is being held in maximum security in a single-occupancy cell at Quantico, and he is allowed to wear only a suicide-proof smock to bed each night.
The commitment came after one radical group, Muslims Against Crusades, made a formal bid for permission to demonstrate outside Westminster Abbey on the big day.
Senior officers rejected the application but admitted they have no powers to ban a stationary protest elsewhere in central London.
The group's US-registered website has a clock counting down the hours until the wedding on April 29 and includes a mocked-up photo of Prince Harry wearing a swastika beret.
"We strongly advise Prince William... to withdraw from the crusader British military and give up all affiliation to the tyrannical British Empire," the group's website warns.
"We promise that should they refuse, then the day which the nation has been dreaming of for so long will become a nightmare..."
Teachers join anti-government protesters on February 20, 2011 in Manama, Bahrain.
Bahrain police have abducted six female teachers from school in Muharraq following the regime's crackdown on anti-government protesters.
The teachers were kidnapped on Tuesday, witnesses said.
On Monday, Bahraini security forces arrested eight teachers and several pupils in the town of Hamad.
Meanwhile, the Bahraini education ministry formed a committee tasked with taking action against school officials taking part in anti-government protests and strikes.
Reports said some heads of schools, administration staff as well as teachers have already been summoned for questioning.
To express solidarity with the ongoing revolution, thousands of teachers, called by the Bahrain Teachers Society, went on a strike in February and again during in March.
People in Bahrain have been protesting since February 14, demanding an end to the rule of the Al Khalifa dynasty.
Published: Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 3:00 p.m. Last Modified: Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 3:01 p.m.
COLUMBIA — A conservative policy group said the public is being cut out of the discussion on a sales tax break for a South Carolina warehouse planned by online retail giant Amazon.com.
South Carolina Policy Council president Ashley Landess said the Senate Finance Committee meeting Tuesday does not give the public ample notice or opportunity to be heard on the issue.
South Carolina's Commerce Department had promised Amazon wouldn't have to collect sales taxes on goods sold in South Carolina as part of a deal to get the company to hire more than 1,200 people at a new facility in Lexington County. Amazon says it will scuttle its plans if it doesn't get the tax break.
Landess' group opposes such tax breaks as giving companies an unfair advantage over established retailers.
Neighbors are seeking an apology from Camden police after a Friday night incident in which they say a dog was shot by officers who were carelessly firing on a street crowded with children.
The dog was killed around 9 p.m. Friday after officers responded to calls of a fight between teenagers in the Baldwin Run neighborhood of the city’s Rosedale section.
But neighbors are also concerned by what they said is an excessive use of force after bullet holes were found sprayed around the neighborhood. Shots went through through the walls and windows of a home four houses away and punched holes in several vehicles parked in nearby driveways.
TRIPOLI, Libya – Britain is sending up to 20 military advisers to help Libya's ragtag rebel force break a military stalemate with Moammar Gadhafi's army, even as NATO acknowledged Tuesday that its airstrikes alone cannot stop the daily shelling of the besieged opposition-held city of Misrata.
Gadhafi's troops have been pounding Misrata indiscriminately with mortars and rockets, a NATO general said, and residents reported more explosions and firefights in Libya's third-largest city. Hospitals are overflowing and 120 patients need to be evacuated from the city that has been under siege for nearly two months, the World Health Organization said.
TRIPOLI, Libya – Britain is sending up to 20 military advisers to help Libya's ragtag rebel force break a military stalemate with Moammar Gadhafi's army, even as NATO acknowledged Tuesday that its airstrikes alone cannot stop the daily shelling of the besieged opposition-held city of Misrata.
Gadhafi's troops have been pounding Misrata indiscriminately with mortars and rockets, a NATO general said, and residents reported more explosions and firefights in Libya's third-largest city. Hospitals are overflowing and 120 patients need to be evacuated from the city that has been under siege for nearly two months, the World Health Organization said.
Pupils are being taught about euthanasia with a video featuring a notorious assisted suicide campaigner nicknamed Dr Death.
Dr Philip Nitschke is shown demonstrating his machine that delivers lethal injections in the film, which is already being shown to pupils as young as 14 across the country.
There is also footage of him giving workshops on assisted suicide methods, which church leaders have criticised as an 'invitation to commit suicide'.
Controversial: A scene from the video being shown in schools which features Dr Philip Nitschke, a man condemned by both sides off the euthanasia lobby as irresponsible
The decision to include Dr Nitschke in the video was condemned by campaigners both for and against assisted dying, and a psychologist warned that it could encourage vulnerable teenagers to end their lives.
The video is being shown as the BBC stands accused of being 'a cheerleader for assisted suicide' after filming a man killing himself at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland.
Writer Sir Terry Pratchett, an outspoken advocate of euthanasia, presents the documentary which is due to be broadcast on BBC2 this summer
At times it really is breathtaking how corrupted the U.S. government has become. Government corruption has become so endemic in our society that most people have just kind of accepted it as "normal". But shouldn't we all get hopping mad when we learn that the Federal Reserve sent billions of dollars in bailout money to addresses in the Cayman Islands? Shouldn't we all be furious when one of the leading candidates for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, Mitt Romney, declares that he is "not going to spend my time focusing on the Federal Reserve"? Shouldn't we all be alarmed when Nancy Pelosi gives a speech in which she says that "elections shouldn't matter"? Shouldn't we all demand that someone be held accountable when we find out that a CBO analysis shows that the "$38.5 billion" in spending cuts will only reduce the budget deficit for this year by $352 million dollars? On top of everything else, shouldn't we all be absolutely horrified when the TSA gropes little 6 year old girls and virtually none of our politicians demand change?
$38.5 Billion In Budget Cuts Is Really Just $352 Million In Deficit Reduction?
Yesterday I wrote about how a close examination of the "budget cut deal" reveals that the 38.5 billion dollars in budget cuts are largely illusory.
However, even I was not ready for what the Congressional Budget Office had to say about this deal. What I read in the Washington Post today absolutely floored me. According to the Washington Post, the Congressional Budget Office is saying that the budget deal will only cut the budget deficit for this year by less than one percent of what was being claimed by Republican and Democrat leaders....
The Congressional Budget Office estimate shows that compared with current spending rates the spending bill due for a House vote Thursday would pare just $352 million from the deficit through Sept. 30. About $8 billion in cuts to domestic programs and foreign aid are offset by nearly equal increases in defense spending.
What a joke.
The reality is that U.S. government is increasing by over 2 million dollars every single minute. So the entire "savings" from this "budget deal" will account for approximately 3 hours of government spending.
Look, the U.S. government ran a budget deficit of $188 billion dollars for the month of March alone. We are in debt up to our eyeballs and it is getting worse at a mind blowing pace.
When are people going to wake up and realize that neither political party is the least bit serious about dealing with our debt problem any time soon?
The Federal Reserve Sent Billions In Bailout Aid To Millionaires and Billionaires In The Cayman Islands
Most Americans don't even understand what the Federal Reserve is, and yet they get to throw trillions of dollars around while being more or less completely unaccountable the entire time.
In a new article for Rolling Stone (which is a must read), Matt Taibbi exposes some of the folks that the Federal Reserve has been sending money to....
The Fed sent billions in bailout aid to banks in places like Mexico, Bahrain and Bavaria, billions more to a spate of Japanese car companies, more than $2 trillion in loans eachto Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, and billions more to a string of lesser millionaires and billionaires with Cayman Islands addresses. "Our jaws are literally dropping as we're reading this," says Warren Gunnels, an aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. "Every one of these transactions is outrageous."
How in the world does it benefit the American people to send billions of dollars to some ultra-wealthy people down in the Cayman Islands?
In light of what we have already found out, it is absolutely amazing that Congress is still refusing to authorize a complete audit of the Federal Reserve.
The corruption of the Fed is crying out to be investigated.
Unfortunately, many of our top politicians are openly declaring that they have no intention of going after the Federal Reserve.
Mitt Romney Declares That He Will Not Be Going After Ben Bernanke Or The Federal Reserve
In case anyone needs one more sign that Mitt Romney is just another shill for the establishment, just check out the two statements by Romney below.
According to Politico, Romney recently told CNBC's Larry Kudlow that he is not concerned about the Federal Reserve at all....
"I think Ben Bernanke is a student of monetary policy; he's doing as good a job as he thinks he can do," Romney said when Kudlow asked what kind of job Bernanke is doing. "I'm not going to spend my time going after Ben Bernanke. I'm not going to spend my time focusing on the Federal Reserve."
That's just great. The Republican candidate with perhaps the greatest amount of "establishment support" says that he thinks that Bernanke is doing a good job and he does not plan to spend any time focusing on the Federal Reserve.
So if Romney gets in the Federal Reserve will continue to be able to dish out trillions to their friends without any interference.
Nancy Pelosi Declares That "Elections Shouldn't Matter"
How are we supposed to respond when the top Democrat in the House of Representatives declares that "elections shouldn't matter as much as they do"?
During a recent speech, Pelosi implored establishment Republicans to "take back your party" so that elections won't "matter" as much....
To my Republican friends: take back your party. So that it doesn’t matter so much who wins the election, because we have shared values about the education of our children, the growth of our economy, how we defend our country, our security and civil liberties, how we respect our seniors. Because there are so many things at risk right now — perhaps in another question I’ll go into them, if you want. But the fact is that elections shouldn’t matter as much as they do… But when it comes to a place where there doesn’t seem to be shared values then that can be problematic for the country, as I think you can see right now.
Apparently what Pelosi wants is for America to go back to a time when all of us just went along with the false left/right paradigm and when we were all content to sleep while the establishment agenda rolled right along.
Well guess what Nancy? Some of us are starting to wake up.
6 Year Old Girl Molested By The TSA
How far have we fallen as a nation when a 6 year old girl has to have her private areas touched in public by the TSA before she is allowed to get on an airplane?
America is becoming a very strange place.
The following is video that was posted on YouTube of the recent incident involving a 6 year old girl....
So is this what we have become as a nation?
Will we subject ourselves to anything as long as the authorities insist that it will keep us a little bit safer?
Pretty soon America is going to be unrecognizable.
I have previously written about how in one town in Missouri, girls scouts have actually been banned from selling girl scout cookies in their own front yards.
How crazy is that?
In Cleveland, authorities haves announced plans to have "trash supervisors" go snooping through trash cans to ensure that people are actually recycling according to city guidelines.
The control freaks we keep voting into office seem to have an obsession with running ever detail of our lives.
In many areas of the nation we aren't even allowed to do acts of kindness anymore.
For example, in Houston, Texas a couple named Bobby and Amanda Herring that had been feeding homeless people for over a year has been banned by the city from doing so.
Gold futures rose to a record $1,500.50 an ounce as U.S. debtconcerns weighed on the dollar, boosting demand for the precious metal as an alternative investment.
The greenback dropped against the euro on speculation that theEuropean Central Bank will continue to raise borrowing costs as some nations struggle to contain sovereign debt. Standard & Poor’s yesterday revised its long-term outlook of U.S. debt to negative from stable. Before today, gold climbed 31 percent in the past year, and silver prices doubled.
Lenders would be required to make sure prospective borrowers have the ability to repay their mortgages before giving them a loan, under a proposal released by the Federal Reserve on Tuesday.
The Federal Reserve headquarters in Washington, DC.
The rule, which is required by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, is intended to tighten lending standards and combat home lending abuses that contributed to the 2007-2009 financial crisis.
The rule would establish minimum underwriting standards for most mortgages and lenders could be sued by the borrower if they do not take the proper steps to check a borrowers ability to repay the loan.
The law does provide protections from this type of liability if a loan meets the specific standards that are part of a "qualified mortgage."
In its proposal, the Fed is seeking comment on two possible ways of defining a qualified mortgage.
Under the first scenario the loan could not include interest-only payments, a balloon payment and regular payments could not result in the principle of the loan increasing.
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Ratings agency Standard & Poor's has cut the outlook on US sovereign debt to "negative", raising doubts about Washington's ability to tackle its huge debt and fiscal deficits.
The move, the first time S&P has ever placed such a warning on the US's gold-standard AAA rating, raised the stakes as Washington's political leaders began grappling over how to address the government's yawning budget shortfall over the long term.
Administration officials said S&P "underestimates" political leaders' ability to agree a path out of the country's worst financial jam since the 1930s.
But S&P said it could not foresee any deal between Democrats and Republicans until after the November 2012 presidential and congressional elections, and that without one, the problem was only going to worsen.
"Because... the path to addressing these (problems) is not clear to us, we have revised our outlook on the long-term rating to negative from stable," S&P said.
With no action, S&P officials warned, within two years it could cut the US rating for the first time, a move which would send Washington's debt costs sharply higher.
Other countries with the coveted AAA rating and deficit challenges, like France, Germany and Britain, had all moved last year on their fiscal problems, they said, said S&P's Nikola Swann.
But "the US has yet to agree on a plan," he said .
US stocks and bonds plunged at the news, although the bond market subsequently made up the ground.
President Barack Obama's administration rebuffed the rating agency's warnings.
"We think that the political process will outperform S&P expectations," said White House spokesman Jay Carney.
"The fact is, when the issues are important, history shows that both sides can come together and get things done."
Carney said, however, that S&P's negative outlook was a "reminder that it is important that we reach agreement on fiscal reform."
Republicans quickly linked the issue to the next political battle, the $14.29 trillion ceiling on government debt, which must be raised to allow the government to finance immediate fiscal shortfalls.
The limit will be reached by mid-May and lawmakers have to act by July or see the United States default on its debt.
Republicans want more budget cuts before they agree to hike the debt ceiling.
"As S&P made clear, getting spending and our deficit under control can no longer be put off for another day," said Eric Cantor, Republican majority leader in the House of Representatives.
"House Republicans will only move forward on the president's request to increase the debt limit if it is accompanied by serious reforms that immediately reduce federal spending and end the culture of debt in Washington."
With about six weeks to go until the summer driving season begins, the price of a gallon of gasoline is just 18 cents away from the record price of $4.11, which was set in the summer of 2008.
The prices at the pump hit a national average of $3.83 a gallon on Monday, according to AAA. That’s close to the point where consumers say they will have to start cut back to pay their fuel expenses. This could adversely affect restaurants, malls, and entertainment venues that count on people driving to get there. Some analysts say it’s one reason the stock market has been struggling recently, including on Monday, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 140.24 points to close at 12,201.59.
