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মঙ্গলবার, ৩০ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩
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Tebow Time in New York over after Jets cut QB
In this Sunday, Dec. 30, 2012 photo, New York Jets quarterback Tim Tebow (15) warms up before an NFL football game against the Buffalo Bills in Orchard Park, N.Y. The New York Jets say, Monday, April 29, 2013, they have waived Tebow. (AP Photo/Gary Wiepert)
In this Sunday, Dec. 30, 2012 photo, New York Jets quarterback Tim Tebow (15) warms up before an NFL football game against the Buffalo Bills in Orchard Park, N.Y. The New York Jets say, Monday, April 29, 2013, they have waived Tebow. (AP Photo/Gary Wiepert)
New York Jets quarterback Tim Tebow arrives on the first day of NFL football offseason workouts at the Jets practice facility in Florham Park, N.J., Monday, April 15, 2013. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)
NEW YORK (AP) ? Tebow Time is over in New York ? before it ever got started.
Tim Tebow was waived by the Jets on Monday, the end of an unsuccessful one-season experiment in New York.
Coach Rex Ryan said in a statement by the team in announcing the move that had been expected for months: "Unfortunately, things did not work out the way we all had hoped."
The Heisman Trophy winner attempted just eight passes after his ballyhooed arrival in a surprising trade from the Denver Broncos in March 2012. He threw for 39 yards and rushed 32 times for 102 yards ? and stunningly had no touchdowns as a member of the Jets.
Meanwhile, starter Mark Sanchez struggled amid constant questions about Tebow's playing time, and still Tebow remained mostly on the sideline. The Jets and new general manager John Idzik drafted former West Virginia star Geno Smith in the second round of the NFL draft Friday, giving New York six quarterbacks on its roster ? and creating uncertainty about Sanchez's future as well.
Tebow arrived at the team's facility in Florham Park, N.J., on Monday morning and was told he had been cut.
"Tim is an extremely hard worker, evident by the shape he came back in this offseason," Ryan said. "We wish him the best moving forward."
Tebow led the Broncos to the playoffs in 2011, but became expendable when Denver signed Peyton Manning as a free agent. The popular backup quarterback was acquired by the Jets for a fourth-round draft pick and $1.5 million in salary. He was introduced at the Jets' facility to plenty of fanfare at a lavish news conference, with Tebow repeatedly saying he was "excited" to be in New York.
It turned out to be one of the few high points in Tebow's stay with the Jets. Along with his shirtless jog from the practice field in the rain during training camp, of course.
Owner Woody Johnson jokingly said last season that "you can never have enough Tebow." Well, the Jets apparently had their fill after just one year.
From the day the Jets made the move to bring Tebow in to compete with Sanchez, many fans and media predicted it was only a matter of time before the former Florida star stepped in as the starting quarterback. There were billboards outside the Lincoln Tunnel in New Jersey welcoming Tebow, and sandwiches named after him at Manhattan delis.
Meanwhile, the Jets insisted having both Tebow and Sanchez would not be a distraction. The plan was that the team would benefit from having both players' different skill sets: Sanchez as the traditional quarterback, and Tebow running the wildcat-style offense.
While everyone from Johnson to Ryan to former general manager Mike Tannenbaum to former offensive coordinator Tony Sparano said they were all "on board" with Tebow, it became evident early that he had no clear role.
And Tebow simply didn't impress enough in practice to earn more playing time.
Ryan refused to start Tebow in place of a struggling Sanchez late in the season, choosing instead to go with third-stringer Greg McElroy ahead of him for one game ? despite Tebow's multitude of fans taking to Twitter and begging the team to give their favorite player a chance. The since-fired Sparano never was able to figure out a way to consistently use Tebow, who spent most of his time on the sideline during games.
He was solid in his role on special teams as the personal punt protector, but the Jets stopped using him even there after he broke two ribs in a game at Seattle in November. Tebow's overall role diminished greatly after the injury, even after he healed. He tried to hide his frustration, but acknowledged late in the season that things didn't turn out quite how he expected in New York.
"I think it's fair to say," Tebow said, "that I'm a little disappointed."
The Jets appear to be sticking with Sanchez despite his struggles and the arrival of Smith as the future quarterback because he is guaranteed $8.25 million this season. But Idzik made it clear that the team would bring in competition for Sanchez. Tebow, however, is not going to be among the team's options. And, he's free to explore other opportunities ? even if there don't seem to be many at this point.
It appeared Jacksonville, the other team to pursue Tebow last offseason, would be an obvious landing spot. But new general manager David Caldwell nixed the idea of a happy homecoming when he declared at his introductory news conference that he couldn't "imagine a scenario in which he'll be a Jacksonville Jaguar."
Many believe Tebow's best chance to stick in the NFL would be to switch positions, but he insists he is a quarterback and just wants an opportunity. Just as the Broncos gave him two seasons ago when he took over for Kyle Orton and led Denver to several comeback victories and into the playoffs.
Tebow was the talk of the country back then, as it seemed everyone ? including actor Robert Downey Jr. at the Oscars ? was dropping to a knee to do their version of "Tebowing," mimicking the quarterback's prayerful pose.
It was something that was absent all season in his stint with the Jets.
Chicago could be a possibility since new coach Marc Trestman worked with Tebow before the NFL draft in 2010 and in the Senior Bowl and liked what he saw. He'd be a backup there behind Jay Cutler, though. Tampa Bay, San Diego and New England might also be options.
Tebow could also head to Canada and play in the CFL, taking the route several others before him have, such as Doug Flutie, Warren Moon and Jeff Garcia. The Montreal Alouettes own his exclusive negotiating rights, but whether Tebow would even be open to a move north of the U.S. border is uncertain.
Brett Bouchy, the owner of the Orlando Predators of the Arena League, recently told the Orlando Sentinel that his team would "love to have him," and added that "we have a contract waiting for him to sign."
Either way, it's quite a fall from grace for Tebow, who was a two-time national champion with the University of Florida, and whose No. 15 Broncos jersey ranked second in national sales to Green Bay's Aaron Rodgers in 2011. He remained a model citizen throughout his frustrating year in New York and answered the constant barrage of questions about his role and mindset all season.
Recently retired Jets special teams coordinator Mike Westhoff labeled the way the team used Tebow an "absolute mess." Former Jets teammate Mike DeVito, now with Kansas City, said after the season that he would've liked to have seen Tebow get a chance.
Whether Tebow gets another one elsewhere ? and if it's as a quarterback ? this season remains to be seen.
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New robots crawl like sea turtles
Researchers have designed a new type of robot modeled on sea turtles known as FlipperBot. This is the first robot to use flippers against pliable surfaces and has moved the work toward amphibious robots forward.
Georgia Tech associate professor Daniel Goldman and researcher Nicole Mazouchova watch FlipperBot move through a bed filled with poppy seeds.
Georgia Tech/ Gary Meek
EnlargeFlippered robots inspired by sea-turtle hatchlings could shed light on how the ancestors of terrestrial animals first evolved to crawl on land, researchers say.
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Such research could also lead to amphibious robots that can tackle both land and sea, investigators added.
Scientists are designing robots that can go where humans cannot or should not go, and often rely on inspiration from nature to do so. For instance,?snakelike robots?could, in principle, slither into crevices to help find disaster victims.
Challenging environments for robots to cross include?sand, gravel, soil, mud and other unstable granular surfaces?that can deform around legs in complex ways. To learn new ways to navigate such ground, Daniel Goldman, a physicist at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, and his colleagues investigated sea-turtle hatchlings.
"These little turtles are remarkably effective at moving over solid ground, with limbs designed for moving in fluid," Goldman told TechNewsDaily.
The researchers analyzed 25 baby loggerhead sea turtles from nests on Jekyll Island, one of Georgia's coastal islands, at night. They investigated how the turtles crawled on tracks of beach sand housed in a truck parked near the beach, video-recording them as they moved in the darkness toward a light that simulated the moon. [See also:?10 Animal-Inspired Robots]
Goldman and his colleagues Nicole Mazouchova and Paul Umbanhowar were surprised to learn the hatchlings moved about as quickly on soft sand as they did on hard sand.
"The turtles insert their flippers just deep enough into soft sand so that the material does not yield behind the flipper as they move," Goldman said. "That means the sand doesn't flow around the flippers, and they don't slip ? so they can propel themselves."
The key to performing well, regardless of the conditions of the sand, seemed to lie in how the turtles controlled their wrists.
"On hard ground, their wrists locked in place, and they pivoted about a fixed arm," Goldman said. "On soft sand, they put their flippers into the sand, and the wrist would bend as they moved forward. We decided to investigate this using a robot model."
These findings led to the development of FlipperBot, the first robot to employ flippers against malleable surfaces. The small droid is about 7.5 inches (19 centimeters) long, weighs 2 lbs. (970 grams), and has two motor-driven flippers with flexible wrists similar to sea turtle wrists
Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/4vJsgtTY6gE/New-robots-crawl-like-sea-turtles
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রবিবার, ২৮ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩
Dosi.io Makes LinkedIn Stalking Better With Info From GitHub, AngelList & CrunchBase
Dosi.io is a new Chrome extension that builds a better dossier at the top of LinkedIn profiles where it helps you determine who’s worth your time. Once installed, LinkedIn stalking gets a lot more interesting, as Dosi.io displays more information about the person in question by pulling in additional data from CrunchBase, GitHub and AngelList. It also displays a score indicating that person’s importance to you in terms of how well they match your networking goals. The extension, built here at the TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013 hackathon, is currently designed for the developer crowd, but the creators intend to bring it to other communities in the future. You can think of Dosi.io as something like a Rapportive for LinkedIn, explains co-creator Niles Brooks, who’s also the co-founder of sustainable restaurant guide Clean Plates. He says he came up with the idea for the extension the midnight before the hackathon’s start. Kenneth Chen, a software developer in the finance industry, had been thinking about things along the same lines, he tells us, and decided to team up on the project along with third member,?Vijith Assar. In a nutshell, the extension’s secret sauce is a combination of the number of followers a person has and the general impact they might have. From AngelList, it knows whether or not you have an account – a signal in and of itself – as well as the number of followers you have there. That information also helps Dosi.io know what companies to query up on CrunchBase, where it learns about the investments a company has, the sale price of a company, and the total amount of funding a person has raised over their lifetime. And on GitHub, Dos.io learns the commits you’ve made, the number of public repos you’re involved in, and again, the number of followers the person has. All of this data is boiled down into a simple visualization that appears directly above LinkedIn profiles, which also shows you a person’s overall Dosi.io score. Ranging from 1 to 10, the score is meant to convey how much of your time that person warrants. Brooks says he imagines this score becoming even more useful one day as a Google Glass application using facial recognition, where it could help users better network while at conferences and other events. (Nope, not creepy at all!) The extension today is client-side JavaScript, and though it’s live, they’re runningSource: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/XeIbrWV2qr4/
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শনিবার, ২৭ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩
HR Student Team Places Third at Pacific West Regional Case ...
Four Boise State students competed in the 2013 Pacific West Regional Case Competition sponsored by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) on April 13. Eight undergraduate teams put their HR knowledge to the test and presented solutions to a panel of HR-certified judges through a 15-minute oral presentation and 2 -page executive written summary. The Boise State team, comprised of Stephanie Ortiz (president), Julian Rodriguez (vice president), Melissa Black (running for secretary) and Scott Hutchinson (running for treasurer), took 3rd place overall at the event. The team had met with coach Decateur Reed every Saturday for roughly four hours since mid-February. The hard work paid off, as the students received?$2,500 in prize money and complimentary registration to SHRM?s annual conference in Chicago.?Congratulations to our Boise State students!
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Timothy Busfield & Melissa Gilbert Tie The Knot!
Timothy Busfield & Melissa Gilbert Tie The Knot!
Former “Little House on the Prairie” star Melissa Gilbert married actor-director Timothy Busfield at San Ysidro Ranch in Montecito, California, on Wednesday, she confirmed on Twitter Thursday. The 48-year-old bride wore a strapless red tiered dress for her special day, while her “Thirtysomething” star groom went with a traditional black suit. Gilbert and Busfield, who ...
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Source: http://stupidcelebrities.net/2013/04/timothy-busfield-melissa-gilbert-tie-the-knot/
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NBC plans 'The Million Second Quiz,' a twelve-day, 24 / 7 game show
Second screen experiences connected to TV shows haven't exactly set the world on fire, but NBC will give it another try with a new game show this fall. The Million Second Quiz is being promoted as a non-stop, twelve day trivia game with an "unprecedented level of interactivity" for viewers. In a move that harkens back to our memories of 1 vs 100 on Xbox Live a few years ago, viewers at home can play along and possibly win a spot on the show. While the competition will go on around the clock, the show airs during prime time. It will broadcast live from an "hourglass-shaped structure" located in Manhattan where the four reigning champs will reside as long as they can stay on top throughout the two week competition. Once the million seconds are up, the four champions will face off for a cash prize of up to $10 million. We'll need more details before we can decide if this is more Ultimate Ninja Warrior or Oh Sit! / Splash / Bet On Your Baby (these are all real game shows, we promise), but it's one to keep an eye out for when the all new shows debut.
Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD
Source: The Million Second Quiz (Facebook), Million Seconds (Twitter)
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Joy Field: Radical Idea: The Short-Term Ministry Staycation
Spring is here, and that means summer is almost upon us. In Christian circles, that means camping trips, BBQs, church soft-ball leagues and low attendance on Sunday mornings as families take weekend trips out of town.
?
A popular term that has popped up over the past few years is 'staycation,' meaning, a vacation taken locally or at home. Vacations cost a lot of money, especially ones that include international travel. With the economic downturn, more people have been opting to take their vacations locally and explore what their own communities have to offer in the way of leisure activities.
Another sign of the season is summer short-term ministry* trip fund-raising--just about now you will begin to see the usual flurry of bake sales, rummage sales and car-washes all with the goal of raising money for these trips. These ministry trips often consists of one or two dozen people traveling internationally for a week to do a service project or lead a VBS. Globally, this has turned into a billion dollar industry (it is a business) and some have advocated the broader use of the term 'Christian tourism' to describe this trend rather than short-term ministry.
I don't want to go on a tirade against short-term ministry, although I would encourage the church to consider more deeply how it stewards its resources and determines its priorities. What I do want to do is offer an alternative vision, a radical new idea!?
A popular term that has popped up over the past few years is 'staycation,' meaning, a vacation taken locally or at home. Vacations cost a lot of money, especially ones that include international travel. With the economic downturn, more people have been opting to take their vacations locally and explore what their own communities have to offer in the way of leisure activities.
For two years I had the opportunity to serve with a ministry that worked among refugees in Chicago, each year we would have several short-term teams visit and we would give them the opportunity to experience what life and ministry was like for us. We emphasized learning and understanding rather than doing.
We took these visitors to mosques and Hindu temples, took them down to Little India for a day and had them prayer walk while they explored--often they would exclaim that they had never prayed so much in their lives. Sometimes we were even able to arrange it so that they could do home-stays with some of the refugee families that we were working among. Never once did I hear anyone complain that their trip to Chicago didn't live up to their expectations--more often than not, these visitors were surprised at the rich diversity around them and went home excited to about the possibility of reaching out in their own communities to their new neighbors.This kind of trip, to an American city is significantly less costly than traveling overseas--and in the case of these teams, the impact on them Spiritually and practically was often more significant than international trips that they had previously taken, because it hit closer to home.
Here's where my radical idea comes in. Continue to have the bake sales and car washes, continue to have the young people in your church scrimp and save their money, continue to have them send out financial appeals to their friends and families. But instead of using the money on themselves, teach them the joy of giving. Consider using the tens of thousands of dollars your church raises for short-term ministry each year, and pick a long-term missionary to invest it in!
Here's the rub, this isn't a new idea--churches used to have their youth raise money for global missions. Most of the time these youth would never travel internationally, but they would save their pennies for missions. Instead, we've inculcated into today's youth the idea that church fund-raising is about them--they're not raising for the mission of God, but for their own summer experience.
I was recently at a church that was planning several short-term international ministry trips for their youth. Each youth would need to raise over two-thousand dollars. In total, this meant over fifty thousand dollars would be needed just for that summer's trips--they had been doing these trips for years! The congregation didn't blink an eye-lash at the expense. However, that same congregation couldn't find fifty-dollars a month in their budget to support a long-term missionary working among an unreached people group and turned me away at the door.
Very few churches take into account how much they spend on short-term ministry because it isn't a line item in their church budget. They depend on those in the church to raise the money. At the same time, they are often very wary of missionaries making direct appeals to their church members out of fears that it will diminish giving towards the church.
In some cases, this creates a funny paradigm where long-term missionaries have to vie for a small amount of financial support through official channels while short-term teams can make direct appeals to church members and circumvent official channels and accountability.
What would happen if the youth leader at the church advanced a radical new idea--rather than raising money for a short-term international trip this summer, raise the same amount of money and give it towards long-term missions.
The youth group could then spend a week ministering locally. In the process the youth members would be required to study an unreached people group and learn about the long-term missionary they were supporting. They could skype with the missionary(s) and pray for them. They may even have a banquet at the church where they partake in a meal inspired by the food of the people they are praying for.
This would be a great way to do a short-term summer staycation--have it be focused on prayer and education rather than some amorphous experience.
To be clear, I believe that short-term international ministry trips have value, when done right--but we need to be discerning both in how we use our resources and how best to disciple those in our churches--both the adults and the youth. Short-term ministry staycations may be one way that we can become more healthy in all of these areas.
* I advocate the use of the term short-term ministry rather than mission. Ministry means service, whereas mission, properly understood has a much narrower definition of making disciples cross-culturally. Going to another country and painting a wall doesn't count as mission work.
Source: http://www.joyfield.org/2013/04/radical-idea-short-term-ministry.html
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Georgia toddler killed by family dog inside home | MyFOX8.com
Posted on: 7:40 pm, April 25, 2013, by Web Staff, updated on: 07:48pm, April 25, 2013
ATLANTA ? ?Authorities say a metro Atlanta toddler was killed in a dog attack Wednesday while his mother was in the bathroom.
FOX 5 reports that the unidentified 2-year-old boy was attacked by a family dog that had been in the family for eight years.
Neighbors told the station they heard the mother?s screams as she ran out of the house and began rolling around on the ground.
The mother, whose identity was not released, was so distraught that she was taken to an area hospital for observation, FOX 5 reports.
A Fulton County police detective said the attack appears to be accidental and it is unclear whether charges will be filed.
It was unclear whether the dog would be euthanized.
Read more at FOX 5
Source: http://myfox8.com/2013/04/25/georgia-toddler-killed-by-family-pit-bull-inside-home/
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বৃহস্পতিবার, ২৫ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩
Rethinking early atmospheric oxygen: Possibility of more dynamic biological oxygen cycle on early Earth than previously supposed
Apr. 24, 2013 ? A research team of biogeochemists at the University of California, Riverside has provided a new view on the relationship between the earliest accumulation of oxygen in the atmosphere, arguably the most important biological event in Earth history, and its relationship to the sulfur cycle.
A general consensus exists that appreciable oxygen first accumulated in Earth's atmosphere around 2.4 to 2.3 billion years ago. Though this paradigm is built upon a wide range of geological and geochemical observations, the famous "smoking gun" for what has come to be known as the "Great Oxidation Event" (GOE) comes from the disappearance of anomalous fractionations in rare sulfur isotopes.
"These isotope fractionations, often referred to as 'mass-independent fractionations,' or 'MIF' signals, require both the destruction of sulfur dioxide by ultraviolet energy from the sun in an atmosphere without ozone and very low atmospheric oxygen levels in order to be transported and deposited in marine sediments," said Christopher T. Reinhard, the lead author of the research paper and a former UC Riverside graduate student. "As a result, their presence in ancient rocks is interpreted to reflect vanishingly low atmospheric oxygen levels continuously for the first ~2 billion years of Earth's history."
However, diverse types of data are emerging that point to the presence of atmospheric oxygen, and, by inference, the early emergence of oxygenic photosynthesis hundreds of millions of years before these MIF signals disappear from the rock record. These observations motivated Reinhard and colleagues to explore the possible conditions under which inherited MIF signatures may have persisted in the rock record long after oxygen accumulated in the atmosphere.
Using a simple quantitative model describing how sulfur and its isotopes cycle through Earth's crust, the researchers discovered that under certain conditions these MIF signatures can persist within the ocean and marine sediments long after O2 increases in the atmosphere. Simply put, the weathering of rocks on the continents can transfer the MIF signal to the oceans and their sediments long after production of this fingerprint has ceased in an oxygenated atmosphere.
"This lag would blur our ability to date the timing of the GOE and would allow for dynamic rising and falling oxygen levels during a protracted transition from an atmosphere without oxygen to one rich in this life-giving gas," Reinhard said.
Study results appear in Nature's advanced online publication on April 24.
Reinhard explained that once MIF signals formed in an oxygen-poor atmosphere are captured in pyrite and other minerals in sedimentary rocks, they are recycled when those rocks are later uplifted as mountain ranges and the pyrite is oxidized.
"Under certain conditions, this will create a sort of 'memory effect' of these MIF signatures, providing a decoupling in time between the burial of MIF in sediments and oxygen accumulation at Earth's surface," he said.
According to the researchers, the key here is burying a distinct MIF signal in deep sea sediments, which are then subducted and removed from Earth's surface.
"This would create a complementary signal in minerals that are weathered and delivered to the oceans, something that we actually see evidence of in the rock record," said Noah Planavsky, the second author of the research paper and a former UC Riverside graduate student now at Caltech. "This signal can then be perpetuated through time without the need to generate it within the atmosphere contemporaneously."
Reinhard, now a postdoctoral fellow at Caltech and soon to be an assistant professor at Georgia Institute of Technology, explained that although the researchers' new model provides a plausible mechanism for reconciling recent conflicting data, this can only occur when certain key conditions are met -- and these conditions are likely to have changed through time during Earth's long early history.
"There is obviously much further work to do, but we hope that our model is one step toward a more integrated view of how Earth's crust, mantle and atmosphere interact in the global sulfur cycle," he said.
Timothy W. Lyons, a professor of biogeochemistry at UCR and the principal investigator of the research project noted that this is a fundamentally new and potentially very important way of looking at the sulfur isotope record and its relationship to biospheric oxygenation.
"The message is that sulfur isotope records, when viewed through the filter of sedimentary recycling, may challenge efforts to precisely date the GOE and its relationship to early life, while opening the door to the wonderful unknowns we should expect and embrace," he said.
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Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California - Riverside. The original article was written by Iqbal Pittalwala.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Christopher T. Reinhard, Noah J. Planavsky, Timothy W. Lyons. Long-term sedimentary recycling of rare sulphur isotope anomalies. Nature, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/nature12021
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/YRepc-uxACM/130424185213.htm
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Boston Marathon bombing: Is American jihadism on the rise?
The Boston Marathon bombing suspects appear to be the latest American jihadis, responsible for a surge in homegrown terror plots and attacks. But their ranks are diminishing, say some experts.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev (l.) and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (r.). read 'Inspire' magazine, Dzhokhar told authorities, an online publication from Al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) that seeks to radicalize Westernized Muslim youth.
The Lowell Sun & Robin Young / AP / File
EnlargeThe emerging portrait of the brothers Tsarnaev, deceased 26-year-old Tamerlan and Dzhokhar, 19, both implicated in a terrorist bomb attack at the Boston Marathon, is one that increasingly describes a pair of homegrown American jihadis.
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However what caused Tamerlan and Dzhokhar, who shared an apartment in Cambridge, Mass., to ?radicalize? ? going from young party-throwing American immigrants to suspected bomb-toting terrorists willing to wreak destruction on their adopted country ? isn?t known yet.
Relatives and friends describe a shift in Tamerlan, beginning around 2009, in which he suddenly delved into Islam and tossed aside his boxing career. But even before he left the sport he was quoted, now famously, as saying that he had no American friends and didn?t ?understand them.
For his part, Dzhokhar was reported Tuesday to have told investigators from his hospital bed that he and his brother read ?Inspire,? an online magazine published by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. If so, the pair would not be the first Americans to take inspiration and operational advice on how to conduct mayhem from that jihadi magazine, which first appeared in mid-2010.
But for clearer answers on why the brothers turned to violence, government intelligence agencies are still analyzing the suspects? backgrounds, their FaceBook pages, immigration information, travel connections, and biographical data. Whom, for instance, did Tamerlan meet with during his trip last year to Dagestan, a republic in Russia's south that borders Chechnya?
What does seem to be getting clearer, though, is that the Boston Marathon bomb attack that killed three people and wounded more than 280 appears to fit a national portrait in domestic jihadism ? mostly attempted plots with a handful of attacks ? that have bubbled up from within America over the past decade.
There have been 63 homegrown violent jihadist plots or attacks in the United States since Sept. 11, 2001, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) reported in January. Two-thirds of those ? 40 plots and two attacks ?were uncovered or occurred between April 2009 and December 2012.
?Most of the 2009-2012 homegrown plots likely reflect a trend in jihadist terrorist activity away from schemes directed by core members of significant terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda,? the CRS reported. ?It may be too early to tell how sustained this uptick is.... Regardless, the apparent spike in such activity after April 2009 suggests that ideologies supporting violent jihad continue to influence some Americans ? even if a tiny minority.?
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Italy president calls centre-left official Letta
By Paolo Biondi
ROME (Reuters) - Italian President Giorgio Napolitano called Enrico Letta, deputy head of the center-left Democratic Party, to the Quirinale Palace, indicating he was likely to be asked to form a new coalition government.
The new government, which could take office in a matter of days, would be backed primarily by the rival center-left and center-right groupings, which had hitherto refused to cut a deal following inconclusive elections in late February.
Formation of a government would end two months of damaging political impasse in Italy and send a signal to markets that the country might at last be ready to make a start on much-needed reforms.
Letta, the nephew of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's long-time chief of staff Gianni Letta, is considered a moderate. He is close to former party leader Pier Luigi Bersani, who resigned at the weekend after rebels sabotaged him in the voting for a new president, which ended with Napolitano being re-elected.
Berlusconi's People of Freedom (PDL) party, Letta's PD and the centrist Civic Choice movement of outgoing premier Mario Monti have all said they will cooperate with whomever Napolitano chooses.
"Given the crisis the country finds itself in, the country needs a strong, a durable government that can make important decisions," Berlusconi said after meeting Napolitano.
Letta said on Tuesday his party would back any government committed to tackling the "social-economic emergency," and enacting serious political reform, including changes to a dysfunctional electoral law considered largely responsible for the two-month long political stalemate.
In February's general election, the center-left narrowly won a majority in the lower house but failed to win control of the Senate and was not able to form a government.
Hopes that the deadlock would soon be over have given a further boost to financial markets, with the yield on 10-year Italian government bonds dropping below 4 percent and the spread, or risk premium over German bonds, narrowing.
Italy's economy has been the most sluggish in Europe for more than a decade and mired in a deep recession since the middle of 2011, with no recovery in sight.
POLITICAL "IRRESPONSIBILITY"
Napolitano angrily scolded the parties on Monday when he was inaugurated for an unprecedented second term, berating them for their "irresponsibility" in prolonging the political stalemate for nearly two months.
He threatened to resign unless the parties agreed to cooperate and find some middle ground on reforms.
The PD has emerged the most scarred from the crisis and its fractures could threaten the stability of the next government given the hostility among many in the party to any deal with Berlusconi, their enemy for almost two decades.
Deep internal divisions worsened when Bersani was unable to make a government deal with either Berlusconi's center-right or the shock new third political force, Beppe Grillo's 5-Star Movement.
Berlusconi has capitalized on the center-left's woes. One poll gave the center-right a clear lead of around 8 points.
The anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, which won a quarter of the vote and speaks for millions of Italians disillusioned with an entire political class, told Napolitano it would sit in opposition and may support specific reforms.
The Left Ecology Freedom party (SEL), a partner of the PD in the February election, and Berlusconi's allies in the Northern League also said they would not join a coalition led by Amato.
(Additional reporting by James Mackenzie; Editing by Robin Pomeroy, Barry Moody and Giles Elgood)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/italy-president-set-announce-choice-prime-minister-054722232.html
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Reese Witherspoon & Jim Toth -- Back to Business After ... - TMZ.com
Reese Witherspoon & Hubby
Back to Business
After Embarrassing Arrests
Exclusive
Reese Witherspoon and husband Jim Toth aren't hiding in shame following their embarrassing weekend arrests ... they're facing life head-on.
Reese was all smiles today in L.A. getting out of her car ... and Jim was back to work as usual at CAA, where he's one of Hollywood's bigwig agents.
You'll recall, Reese and Jim were both arrested in Atlanta on Friday -- Jim was popped for DUI ... and Reese was busted for disorderly conduct, after getting a little too worked up in her husband's defense.
According to police, Reese told one officer, "You're about to find out who I am ... You are going to be on national news."
Reese later released a statement, saying she was "deeply embarrassed" by what she had said.
Source: http://www.tmz.com/2013/04/24/reese-witherspoon-jim-toth-photos-pics-arrest-dui-disorderly-conduct/
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বুধবার, ২৪ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩
Bacteria may contribute to premature births, STDs
Apr. 22, 2013 ? New research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis points to a common species of bacteria as an important contributor to bacterial vaginosis, a condition linked to preterm birth and increased risk of sexually transmitted diseases.
The condition affects one in every three women, making it more common than yeast infections. But bacterial vaginosis often does not cause significant symptoms, leaving many women unaware they have it.
"Bacterial vaginosis can precipitate significant health problems, but it is not a common topic of conversation between patients and their gynecologists," says Amanda Lewis, PhD, assistant professor of molecular microbiology. "Our findings, which come from new experimental models of the condition, may be a first step toward a better understanding of how to treat bacterial vaginosis and prevent serious complications linked with the condition."
Bacterial vaginosis occurs when the typical mix of microbes in the vagina is knocked off-kilter. In some cases, bacterial vaginosis causes a change in the consistency of vaginal fluids and an unpleasant odor. The condition is diagnosed through examination of the vagina and tests of the vaginal fluids. Doctors typically treat it with antibiotics, but the condition often recurs.
Lewis and her colleagues recently published back-to-back papers on bacterial vaginosis, the first in Journal of Biological Chemistry and the second in PLOS One.
Dozens of bacterial species have been linked with bacterial vaginosis, leading to heated debates in the scientific community over which bacteria actually cause the condition and its complications. The new research provides evidence that mucus layers and cells lining the surface of the vagina are damaged in women with bacterial vaginosis and suggests that a single organism, Gardnerella vaginalis, is likely the cause.
G. vaginalis is commonly found in the vaginal fluids of women with bacterial vaginosis and in some women who don't have the condition. The latter had led many researchers to dismiss the bacterium's potential contributions to bacterial vaginosis.
Working in mice to simulate this condition, Nicole Gilbert, PhD, postdoctoral fellow, showed that G. vaginalis causes increased shedding of the outermost cells covering the vaginal lining.
"We think the vaginal lining is shed as part of the body's effort to eliminate bacteria," says Gilbert. "However, this shedding may also expose sensitive underlying tissues. This may be important for understanding why women with bacterial vaginosis are more susceptible to sexually transmitted diseases and urinary tract infections."
Based on their observations in mice, the researchers compared vaginal samples from women with and without bacterial vaginosis and found that the outermost cells from the lining of the vagina are shed in higher numbers during bacterial vaginosis.
"This is the first time, to our knowledge, that the presence of increased numbers of shed cells has been detected in bacterial vaginosis in humans," Lewis says. "These results also suggest that G. vaginalis is the cause of this increase."
The researchers examined the ability of G. vaginalis to degrade mucus, which normally helps protect the vagina and uterus from infection.
Using biochemical approaches, Warren Lewis, PhD, research instructor in medicine, and Lloyd Robinson, PhD, research technician, showed that the bacterium uses an enzyme called sialidase to detach sialic acids, which are an abundant and important part of mucus.
The research team showed that the bacterium not only breaks up mucus barriers but also makes a meal of some of the components it frees from the barriers.
When the researchers tested vaginal mucus samples from women with bacterial vaginosis, they found lower levels of sialic acids than in women who did not have the condition. Mice also had lower levels of vaginal sialic acids after infection with G. vaginalis.
"This is the first time that a bacterium associated with vaginosis has been shown to participate in mucus degradation," says Lewis. "This is significant because infection of the uterus is a common cause of preterm birth and likely requires degradation of the mucus plug, a physical structure that protects the pregnant uterus from bacteria in the vagina."
This work was supported by the March of Dimes, the Barnes-Jewish Hospital Foundation and the American Heart Association. The animal work was performed in a facility supported by a National Center for Research Resources grant C06RR012466.
Gilbert NM, Lewis WG, Lewis AL. Clinical features of bacterial vaginosis in a murine model of vaginal infection with Gardnerella vaginalis. PLOS One, published online.
This work was supported by the March of Dimes, the Barnes-Jewish Hospital Foundation, the American Heart Association and in part by NIH grant P50DK064540-11
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Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Washington University School of Medicine. The original article was written by Michael Purdy.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal References:
- W. G. Lewis, L. S. Robinson, N. M. Gilbert, J. C. Perry, A. L. Lewis. Degradation, foraging and depletion of mucus sialoglycans by the vagina-adapted Actinobacterium Gardnerella vaginalis. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 2013; DOI: 10.1074/jbc.M113.453654
- Nicole M. Gilbert, Warren G. Lewis, Amanda L. Lewis. Clinical Features of Bacterial Vaginosis in a Murine Model of Vaginal Infection with Gardnerella vaginalis. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (3): e59539 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0059539
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/VIQTWKEwSxM/130423102411.htm
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House OKs $15B education bill with free all-day kindergarten (Star Tribune)
মঙ্গলবার, ২৩ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩
5 dead in shooting south of Seattle
FEDERAL WAY, Wash. (AP) ? Gunfire erupted at an apartment complex in a city south of Seattle and five people were shot to death, including a suspect who was shot by arriving officers, police said early Monday.
Officers responding to an emergency call at 9:30 p.m. PDT Sunday at the apartments in Federal Way encountered a chaotic scene, with bullets flying.
"When officers arrived there were still shots being fired," said Federal Way police spokeswoman Cathy Schrock.
They found two injured men on the ground in a parking lot. One of the men reached for a gun as police moved in to assist the two, she said.
At that point, officers opened fire. The suspect died but police said it wasn't immediately clear if it was from their gunfire.
The other man on the ground and a third man in the parking lot were found dead.
In a search of the complex, police found a fourth man dead in one apartment and a slain woman in another unit. Schrock said police were trying to determine if the woman was accidentally hit by gunfire.
A total of eight officers fired their weapons, Schrock said. All have been placed on administrative leave, per standard policy, as the investigation continues.
There was no immediate word what set off the shooting.
"We're gonna continue to go door to door in hopes that we can find some additional witnesses, and hopefully we won't be finding any more victims." Schrock said. "We still don't have any idea what started this disturbance tonight."
After police flooded the area and carried out searches, authorities said they were confident there were no more casualties from the shooting.
They said they did not think another shooter was on the loose or that there was an immediate threat to the public.
There were no reports of any officers being injured, and the names of the five people who were killed were not immediately available.
Federal Way is about 20 miles south of Seattle.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/police-5-dead-shooting-south-seattle-081054003.html
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Red light increases alertness during 'post-lunch dip'
Apr. 22, 2013 ? Acute or chronic sleep deprivation resulting in increased feelings of fatigue is one of the leading causes of workplace incidents and related injuries. More incidents and performance failures, such as automobile accidents, occur in the mid-afternoon hours known as the "post-lunch dip." The post-lunch dip typically occurs from 2-4 p.m., or about 16-18 hours after an individual's bedtime from the previous night.
A new study from the Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute shows that exposure to certain wavelengths and levels of light has the potential to increase alertness during the post-lunch dip. The research was a collaboration between Mariana Figueiro, LRC Light and Health Program director and associate professor at Rensselaer, and LRC doctoral student Levent Sahin. Results of the study titled "Alerting effects of short-wavelength (blue) and long-wavelength (red) lights in the afternoon," were recently published in Physiology & Behavior journal.
The collaboration between Figueiro and Sahin lays the groundwork for the possible use of tailored light exposures as a non-pharmacological intervention to increase alertness during the daytime. Figueiro has previously conducted studies that show that light has the potential to increase alertness at night. Exposure to more than 2500 lux of white light at night increases performance, elevates core body temperature, and increases heart rate.
In most studies to date, the alerting effects of light have been linked to its ability to suppress melatonin. However, results from another study led by Figueiro demonstrate that acute melatonin suppression is not needed for light to affect alertness during the nighttime. They showed that both short-wavelength (blue) and long-wavelength (red) lights increased measures of alertness but only short-wavelength light suppressed melatonin. Melatonin levels are typically lower during the daytime, and higher at night.
Figueiro and Sahin hypothesized that if light can impact alertness via pathways other than melatonin suppression, then certain wavelengths and levels of light might also increase alertness during the middle of the afternoon, close to the post-lunch dip hours.
During the study conducted at the LRC, participants experienced two experimental lighting conditions in addition to darkness. Long-wavelength "red" light (?max = 630 nanometers) and short-wavelength "blue" light (?max = 470 nanometers) were delivered to the corneas of each participant by arrays of light emitting diodes (LEDs) placed in 60 ? 60 ? 60 cm light boxes. Participant alertness was measured by electroencephalogram (EEG) and subjective sleepiness (KSS scale).
The team found that, compared to remaining in darkness, exposure to red light in the middle of the afternoon significantly reduces power in the alpha, alpha theta, and theta ranges. Because high power in these frequency ranges has been associated with sleepiness, these results suggest that red light positively affects measures of alertness not only at night, but also during the day. Red light also seemed to be a more potent stimulus for modulating brain activities associated with daytime alertness than blue light, although they did not find any significant differences in measures of alertness after exposure to red and blue lights. This suggests that blue light, especially higher levels of blue light, could still increase alertness in the afternoon. It appears that melatonin suppression is not needed for light to have an impact on objective measures of alertness.
"Our study suggests that photoreceptors other than the intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells respond to light for the arousal system," said Figueiro. "Future research should look into the spectral sensitivity of alertness and how if it changes over the course of 24 hours."
Sahin, who has more than 10 years of experience in railway engineering, was interested in this study from a transportation safety perspective, and what the results could mean to the transportation industry. "Safety is a prerequisite and one of the most important quality indicators in the transportation industry," said Sahin. "Our recent findings provided the scientifically valid underpinnings in approaching fatigue related safety problems in 24 hour transportation operations."
From the present results, it is not possible to determine the underlying mechanisms contributing to light-induced changes in alertness because the optical radiation incident on the retina has multiple effects on brain activity through parallel neural pathways. According to Figueiro, that is an area that she would like to explore in future research.
The study was funded by the Office of Naval Research.
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Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), via Newswise.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Levent Sahin, Mariana G. Figueiro. Alerting effects of short-wavelength (blue) and long-wavelength (red) lights in the afternoon. Physiology & Behavior, 2013; 116-117: 1 DOI: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2013.03.014
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/living_well/~3/D_-gNIsnbLA/130422100801.htm
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NY brothers' $5 million lottery theft trial starts
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) -- Two brothers accused of stealing a winning $5 million scratch-off lottery ticket became agitated and angry when questioned about it, and one of them threatened to destroy it, a state lottery official testified Monday.
"I'll rip up this ticket right now," lottery division clerk Joan China quoted Nayel Ashkar as saying during a March 2012 interview.
China testified that Ashkar asked a lottery security investigator if he was accusing him of something.
The trial for Nayel Ashkar, 36, and Andy Ashkar, 34, began Monday in Onondaga County Court after the brothers signed waivers allowing Judge Joseph Fahey to rule from the bench.
Andy Ashkar is accused of stealing the ticket from Robert Miles at The Green Ale Market on Oct. 27, 2006. Prosecutors say Ashkar told Miles, a maintenance worker, the winning ticket was worth $5,000 and paid him $4,000 and kept the other $1,000 for the store, which his father owns.
Nayel Ashkar is accused of conspiring with his brother to try to claim the winnings just before the ticket expired. The jackpot was to be paid out over 20 years, not in a lump sum.
Prosecutor Beth Van Doren, in her opening statement, said the issue wasn't that the defendants waited so long to try to cash it.
"That is a legal right of the rightful owner," Van Doren said. "Robert Miles is the actual owner. Co-workers saw the elation, the devastation of Miles. He lost the ticket when Andy Ashkar snatched it from his hand."
Van Doren said the Ashkars made several conflicting statements to lottery officials and that led to an investigation and a recommendation not to pay the jackpot.
Defense attorney Robert Durr, who is representing Andy Ashkar, called the case one of "common sense" in his opening, saying the court would understand the delay in attempting to cash the ticket.
"There are major inconsistencies in what occurred that day," Durr said. "There is no way possible to find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt."
Defense attorney Robert Tisdell, who represents Nayel Ashkar, said there was no evidence his client had committed any crime.
"Where's the proof?" Tisdell asked. "There's not been one witness, one claim, that ties him to the claim."
China, an employee of the lottery division for seven years, said the Ashkars drove to Schenectady to claim the prize instead of doing so at an office in Syracuse. She testified the brothers were expressionless and unable to give a definitive answer as to when the ticket was purchased.
China also said both initially declined to sign the necessary papers to claim the prize, adding that she had never experienced such a subdued reaction from a jackpot winner.
"I had never seen claimants come in that were unhappy. It's a life-changing event," China said. "They weren't excited. Andy wanted to know the process would be safe. He was worried about his parents."
China also testified that Nayel Ashkar asked if they could accept a smaller amount of money to avoid a media event.
The brothers' father, Nayef Ashkar, who was in the courtroom, is charged with conspiracy in the case. The father, who had declined to comment after his arrest, has a separate trial scheduled for September.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ny-brothers-5-million-lottery-124936965.html
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রবিবার, ২১ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩
Nicole Eggert hospitalized after 'Splash' injury
ABC/Kelsey McNeal
Joey Lawrence and Nicole Eggert on "Splash."
By Tierney Bricker, E! Online
Yet another celebrity has been injured on "Splash." Nicole Eggert is just the latest contestant to suffer an injury while participating on the ABC reality show. The former "Baywatch" star was injured during a taping of "Splash" and spent Thursday in the hospital, Eggert's rep David Weintraub confirms to E! News.
The 41-year-old was pulled from the water by EMTs after "a bad landing," a rep for the show confirms. She was rushed to the hospital and released later that day. "She is currently consulting with a doctor," the rep adds.
READ: Find out what Katherine Webb had to say about quitting the show
"The ER is always fun," Eggert tweeted on Thursday night.
Katherine Webb was forced to quit the show in the last episode due to a back injury, while Chuy Bravo was forced to leave after hurting his heel in practice.
And though he suffered a ruptured eardrum after performing a drive, extreme skier Rory Bushfield has chosen to stay in the competition.
TMZ first reported the news of Eggert's hospitalization.
PHOTOS: Check out all the latest TV scoop
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শনিবার, ২০ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩
Young NKoreans train to seek 'revenge on US'
PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) ? North Korea's newest batch of future soldiers ? scrawny 11-year-olds with freshly shaved heads ? punch the air as they practice taekwondo on the grounds of the Mangyongdae Revolutionary School. Students and teachers here say they're studying harder these days to prepare for a fight.
Across the country, banners, slogans and artwork have been redrawn to focus on fighting "the imperialist Americans and their traitorous followers," a reference to South Korea. Slogans on improving North Korea's economy had dominated since 2009, but anti-American propaganda has re-emerged over the past year, particularly following U.S.-led censure of North Korea's decision to launch a long-range rocket and test a nuclear bomb.
At the military school, where students work on desktop computers without Internet access and practice their English with chants such as "The respected Marshal Kim Jong Un is our father," classwork is infused with conflict.
"Because of the present situation, I am trying to study harder, because I really think that's how I can get my revenge on the American imperialists: by getting top marks in class," one student, Jo Chung Hyok, told The Associated Press.
"It's my revolutionary duty," Jo said. "I'm working extra hard to get top marks in military subjects like tactics and shooting."
The uptick in anti-American sentiment comes on the heels of international condemnation and U.N. sanctions for North Korea's long-range rocket launch in December and its underground nuclear test in February, which Pyongyang accuses Washington and Seoul of instigating. Joint U.S.-South Korean military drills south of the border also have incensed Pyongyang.
The anti-American campaign also comes as North Korea prepares to mark the 60th anniversary in July of the close of the Korean War. The three-year conflict pitting North Korea and China against U.S.-led U.N. troops ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. The continued division of the Korean Peninsula, and the presence of 28,500 American troops in South Korea, has rankled North Korea's leadership.
For weeks, North Korea has threatened to attack the U.S. and South Korea for holding joint military drills and for supporting U.N. sanctions. Washington and Seoul say they've seen no evidence that Pyongyang is actually preparing for a major conflict, though South Korean defense officials say the North appears prepared to test-fire a medium-range missile capable of reaching the American territory of Guam.
Both sides have said that in order for dialogue, the other side needs to act.
The U.S. says Pyongyang must bring down tensions and honor previous disarmament agreements before talks can begin.
North Korea laid out a long list of preconditions for resuming talks Thursday, including the lifting of U.N. sanctions, the end of U.S.-South Korea military drills, the withdrawal of U.S. nuclear weapons assets from the region a halt to criticism of North Korea. On Friday, it reiterated a warning to South Korea to apologize for offending its leadership before any talk of dialogue to defuse tensions.
South Korea's Foreign Ministry called North Korea's demands illogical, but in Washington, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry put a more positive spin on Pyongyang's response.
"It's the first word of negotiation or thought of that we have heard from them since all of this has begun," he said Thursday before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. "I'm prepared to look at that as at least a beginning, not acceptable obviously, and we have to go further."
The U.S. remains open to "authentic and credible negotiations," White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters aboard Air Force One. But he said the U.S. has not seen any commitment from North Koreans that they are willing to end their nuclear program.
Inside the sprawling compound of the Mangyongdae Revolutionary School, students are made aware of their government's latest invectives against its foes, in addition to usual subjects of study: biology, history, foreign languages.
"At the moment, the situation on the Korean Peninsula is tense, and America is being bad to us," said Lt. Col. Kim Hak Bin, an administrator at the military academy. "But you can see that the students here look just as bright as usual, and life and classes are carrying on the same as before.
"Our students are ready to go to the front lines whenever a war breaks out, and they are now studying harder than usual," he said Thursday.
The school, located near the birthplace of North Korea's first leader, Kim Il Sung, was created in 1947 to house, feed and educate the sons and daughters of soldiers killed while fighting the Japanese who occupied Korea from 1910 to 1945.
Today, the girls are housed in a separate academy named after Kim Il Sung's mother, the Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School in the western port city of Nampho.
Late leader Kim Jong Il attended the academy for eight months during the Korean War, school records show. His son, current leader Kim Jong Un, did not. His military education came from studying at the Kim Il Sung Military University next door.
During his 17-year rule, Kim Jong Il elevated the importance of the army and poured much of the nation's meager resources into defense. Military life became an integral part of the North Korean identity.
The students here are being groomed to serve as the "core" of the Korean People's Army, said biology teacher Ri Kyong Hui.
A visit to the military academy offered a peek into how young North Koreans learn to march and chant with such startling precision as displayed in parades held on major anniversaries.
A group of students, dressed in uniform, struggled to get their march just right as an instructor adjusted their arms. One boy grimaced in frustration. Inside, other students rehearsed for a performance, using fake rifles as props.
But boys will be boys, and the 11-year-olds who just joined the academy at the start of the month were hardly examples of discipline.
Suited up in light green and blue tracksuits, they squirmed, giggled and made faces as they practiced taekwondo.
___
Associated Press Television News in Pyongyang, and AP writers Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea, and Matthew Pennington and Jim Kuhnhenn in Washington contributed to this report. Follow AP's Korea bureau chief in Pyongyang at www.twitter.com/newsjean.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/young-nkoreans-train-seek-revenge-us-073959131.html
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