Using Twitter to track people's moods

There's a lot you can read about on Twitter — including, it now appears, the patterns of human moods.
After analyzing two years' worth of tweets by 2.4 million people around the world, researchers at Cornell University have concluded that individuals wake up happy but that their mood deteriorates as the day progresses.
That discovery, among others reported Thursday in the journal Science, will interest researchers who are trying to understand how circadian rhythms and other natural influences shape our states of mind. But the study's primary significance may have more to do with its methods than its results.
"We now have the ability to view societies at a massive scale using the Internet," said study leader Scott Golder, a graduate student in sociology at Cornell. "This will open up opportunities for social scientists."
Golder said he intended to use Twitter to study behavior, not emotion. He and a fellow graduate student wrote a computer program that sampled all Twitter user accounts created between February 2008 and April 2009, collecting up to 400 messages from each account.
The program compiled more than half a billion Twitter messages, none longer than 140 characters. Most were written by English speakers and deemed good candidates for analysis with other software. The researchers looked at keywords in the tweets to figure out what people were doing and used timestamps embedded in the tweets to peg those activities to particular times of day and locations around the world.
They surmised that bacon is more popular than sausage (but eaten at the same time of day) and that a television show about someone named "Oprah" aired at 4 p.m. on weekdays. They estimated that it takes seven hours to become inebriated, based on the lag between tweets about "beer" and tweets about being "drunk."
They also figured out that they could search for mood-oriented keywords just as easily as they searched for behavior-oriented ones, Golder said.
The team employed a well-known text analysis program that is often used by researchers to sort words based on their emotional content; it seeks out words such as "happy," "awesome" and "fantastic" that have positive overtones as well as words like "afraid," "remorse" and "fury" that have negative ones. Sure enough, patterns emerged.
More Read: articles.latimes.com

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California man is found alive by his children after wreck

David Lavau’s children drove slowly along the mountain road, stopping to peer over the dropoffs and call out for their missing father.
Then finally a faint cry: “Help! Help!” The voice not only let Lavau’s children find him, it may have resolved another missing-person case.
Six days after his car plunged 200 feet into a ravine, Lavau, 68, was rescued Thursday by his three adult children, who took matters into their own hands after a detective told them his last cellphone signal came from a section of the Angeles National Forest.
And near him they found a body in another car that belonged to a man reported missing 10 days earlier.
As Lavau lay injured in the woods next to his wrecked car, he survived by eating bugs and leaves and drinking creek water, a doctor said.
Lavau was in serious but stable condition Friday at a hospital with three rib fractures, a dislocated shoulder, a broken arm and fractures in his back.
Ranbir Singh, the hospital’s trauma director, said Lavau told him he was driving home on the evening of Sept. 23 when he was temporarily blinded by the headlights of an oncoming car. He braked but failed to gain traction. The car flipped and plunged down the embankment.
It landed near a car belonging to Melvin Gelfand, 88, whose family had reported him missing on Sept. 14. The body found inside could not be visually identified due to decomposition. Gelfand’s son-in-law Will Matlack said the family had been contacted by the coroner’s office, which was trying to match fingerprints or dental records to make a positive identification.
Lavau spent the night in his wrecked car and crawled out in daylight. He found a stream nearby and ate ants, the doctor said. He also found a flare in the other car and tried to light it, but it was expired. He also couldn’t find his cellphone.

Read more: kansascity.com

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Ceremony honors old, new Joint Chiefs chairmen

With full military fanfare -- gun salutes, fife and drum corps, brass bands, a flyover and presidential praise -- the nation bid farewell to its top military man and honored his successor Friday.
Adm. Mike Mullen has been Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, the president's top military adviser, since October of 2007.
Army Gen. Marty Dempsey takes his place.
"As the new secretary of defense, I am confident of the future because we have the strongest military force in our history -- and it is strong because we can replace one great warrior with another," Leon Panetta said during the 90-minute Hail and Farwell ceremony on the Fort Myer parade ground across the river from Washington..
It wasn't just the October sun that brightened the day for Mullen. It was also the lengthy praise from the president and from the military he had served for 43 years, as well as the day's latest success in the terrorism fight -- the successful take-down of al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki.
Obama pointed to Mullen's leadership, from all the advice he provided in the Oval Office about the nation's two wars, to his crucial testimony to Congress that the country should end its ban on gays and lesbians serving open in the military. "Mike, as you look back at your four consequential years as chairman and your four decades in uniform, be assured: Our military is stronger and our nation is more secure because of the service that you have rendered."
Mullen, the son of a Hollywood publicist, is a master of self-deprecating humor. He drew laughter from the crowd when he told a story of how he had been mistakenly identified at a party as the former general, and now CIA director, David Petraeus. And he said that White House meetings went better if participants didn't criticize the president's baseball team, the Chicago White Sox.
"And he really likes it when you laugh at his jokes. It just makes the meeting go better." Mullen said.
Mullen never misses a chance to make a point, hammering a favorite theme, that the American public must become more connected to its military personnel when they come home, giving them a chance, a job, an education.
"Welcome them back to those places, not with bands and bunting or yellow ribbons, but with the solemn recognition that they have done your bidding, they have represented you well, they have carried the best of you and of this country into battle," Mullen said. "They have done things and seen things and bear things in their souls that you cannot know."
Panetta praised Mullen's hard work and dogged persistence. "His leadership, his influence, his honest candor, his compassion and his outspoken concern for our troops have set an exceptionally high standard for the responsibilities and performance of a chairman of the Joint Chiefs," Panetta said.
for more detail visit cnn.com

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Bilal Sharif Birthday Party

لاہور کے معروف بزنس مین اور ہاٹی ناٹی ویب ساٹس کے مالک اور ریکارڈ یافتہ رکشہ چیکر ڈیز مسٹر بلال شریف عرف بلا ھوشاری آج اپنے پیارے اور خیر خواہ دوستوں کے ہمراہ اپنی سالگرہ منایں گے۔ جس میں تمام زند دلان لاہور کو دعوت عام دی جاتی ہے کہ وہ آج  پانچ بجے گلشن پارک کے وسیع و عریض گھاس والے پلاٹ  میں جمع ہو جایں۔اور اپنے ساتھ تحفے تحاف ضرور لے کر آیں۔ لنگر کا وسیع انتظام ہو گا۔ مہمان خصوصی لاہور کے معروف فنکارطاہر چمٹے والا شرکت فرمایں گے اور اپنے جوشیلے انداز سے فن کا مظاہرہ کریں گے۔ وقت کی پابندی کا خیال رکھیں۔ اور یاد رہے اس پارٹی میں لاہور کے معروف بزنس مینز تشریف فرما رہے ہیں

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FBI's terrorism search goes undersea

They search the ocean depths hunting for evidence left by predators deadlier than great white sharks.
They are members of the FBI's Technical Dive Team, an elite group of special agents tracking terrorism underwater.
Starting next year, this 10-member team could be called on to search for evidence left behind by international terrorists in water contaminated by chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear waste.
"There have been enough scenarios recently," says team member Supervisory Special Agent James Tullbane, citing the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India, which began when terrorists entered the port city by boat.
"If you look at Mumbai and you look at various international incidents that occurred where there's attacks on American civilians or attacks on American interests where water has been involved, ... we determined that we really do need to expand our capabilities."
A year ago, the FBI created the Technical Dive Team with a primary mission of gathering evidence after a terrorist attack to help find and prosecute those responsible.
The team's ability to operate in contaminated water and to dive at extreme depths sets these divers apart from the FBI's existing Underwater Search and Evidence Response Teams.
A large part of the Technical Dive Team's training is focused on diving in hazardous materials, Tullbane says. Instead of air tanks, the divers use a hose connected to a surface supply system.
"It not only provides the air, it collects the air that you exhale and brings it back to the surface," says Michael Tyms, the team's program manager.
for more deatai visit cnn.com

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Two-faced cat claims Record

We all know cats have nine lives, but ... two faces?

Meet Frank and Louie, a rare cat known as a Janus who has earned a place in the 2012 Guinness World Records book as the oldest-living two-faced feline. 
Luckily for Frank and Louie's owner, who according to media reports lives in Worcester, Mass., the cat has only one stomach and one brain, so he doesn't require extra food to fill two bellies and has no split personality issues. He eats with just one of two mouths and does not have to worry about his three eyes making life confusing. Only two of them -- one on each face -- work, while the middle one just stares ahead, giving Frank and Louie perfect vision despite the somewhat cyclops-like appearance.
But love is blind, and Frank and Louie's owner loves him -- or them -- so much that she may have contributed to the cat's unusually long life.
When she rescued Frank and Louie from being euthanized 12 years ago, Marty -- who asked not to have her last name published for privacy's sake -- was warned that such cats rarely survive long because of problems linked to their condition, which is the result of a congenital defect, according to various media reports. But she "stood by the cat, and I'm really glad she did because this cat really has fewer problems than many cats that have very normal anatomies," said Armelle deLaforcade, head of the emergency services section at Tufts University's Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, the Associated Press reported.

Marty was working there 12 years ago when the cat's owner brought the animal in to be euthanized. She brought him home and spent three months feeding him through tubes. As he grew, she said Frank and Louis developed a "very, very laid back" personality and is more dog-like than cat-like. He walks on a leash and loves riding in the car, she said while stroking the cat's silky coat. "Every day is kind of a blessing."
The technical term for the cat's condition is craniofacial duplication, or diprosopia, which can cause part or all of an individual's face to be duplicated. Such cats are called Janus, after the Roman god with two faces.
source: latimesblogs.latimes.com

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China's space ambition soars

China on Thursday launched its first space laboratory module, marking another step upward for its space program.
"We must soberly recognize that China's space-station technology is still in its initial stage, compared to those of the U.S. and Russia," said a commentary from the state-run Xinhua News Agency.
"But the launch of Tiangong-1 is the beginning of China's efforts to narrow the gap."
China-watchers agree.
"The test reflects China's technological advances, funded by its rapid economic growth and facilitated by the military's ballistic missile program," says Taylor Fravel, associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
The unmanned space-lab is an 8-ton module named Tiangong-1, or "Heavenly Palace." That's what the Chinese called outer space in ancient times.
Tiangong-1 is designed to stay in space for two years and is expected to dock with an unmanned spacecraft in November.
for more detail visit cnn.com

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Amazon unveils $199 Kindle Fire tablet and $79 e-ink Kindle

After months of speculation, it's here: Amazon's tablet, the $199 Kindle Fire, was unveiled Wednesday.
Smaller and cheaper than Apple's dominant iPad, the Kindle Fire has a 7-inch display and runs on a heavily customized version of Google's (GOOG, Fortune 500) Android operating system. The tablet offers Wi-Fi connectivity, but no 3G or other cellular connection. It also lacks a camera and microphone, two features found in most rival tablets.

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But the Kindle Fire isn't trying to be an all-in-one computing device. Amazon's focus is on media consumption, like reading books and magazines as well as watching video and streaming music. The tablet includes a 30-day free trial of Amazon Prime, the company's $79-a-year service that includes two-day shipping and some free streaming video access.
Priced at less than half the $499 starting price of an iPad, the Kindle Fire aims to undercut Apple's wildly popular tablet, which has sold 28 million units since its 2010 debut. The iPad's momentum is picking up: Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) sold a record 9.3 million iPads in its latest quarter.
Amazon will begin taking Kindle Fire orders on Wednesday, and will start shipping the device on November 15. At $199, the device will be slightly cheaper than Barnes & Noble's similar Nook Color, a $249 tablet that made its debut 11 months ago.
"We're making millions of these," Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos told the audience at a New York City press conference.
for more detail visit cnn.com

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Saudi king revokes flogging of female driver

Saudi King Abdullah has revoked a flogging sentence for a woman who allegedly flouted the conservative kingdom's strict rules that prohibit women from driving a car, two sources with knowledge of the case said Wednesday.
Amnesty International said a Saudi woman was sentenced to 10 lashes for getting behind the wheel, and had urged the dismantling of the "whole system of women's subordination."
Authorities are not expected to release an official statement, but the woman will not be sentenced, according to a source close to the Royal Court.
A source connected to the country's Interior Ministry also confirmed the revocation.
The move comes just as the country's ruling elite promised greater political participation for women in the Islamic nation.
On Sunday, King Abdullah announced two changes for women that would be historic for Saudi Arabia. He said women will be allowed to serve as members of the Shura Council, the appointed consultative council that advises the king.
for more detail visit edition.cnn.com

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Why would anyone want to be president?

I'm struck by one big question as I watch the Republican presidential candidates battle each other while President Obama tries to win re-election: Why does anyone want to be president?
It's like auditioning to be bandleader on the Titanic. And yes, I said bandleader and not captain because the captain of a ship has more of an impact on the direction of a voyage than President Obama, or any president who might follow him, can have in our hyperpolarized political climate.
With the onslaught of problems he faces today, I wouldn't be shocked if in the coming weeks President Obama appeared on national TV and declared: "I have an important announcement: I was actually born in Kenya. Joe Biden you take over, I'm outta here!"
But he won't quit. Instead, he will raise close to a billion dollars for his re-election campaign. Meanwhile, the Republican presidential candidates will viciously fight each other, like gladiators in the Roman Coliseum -- which, frankly, the past two Republican debates resembled. The audience jeered and booed, with some at times even applauding the death penalty and cheering the notion of allowing a person with no health insurance to die. All that was missing was a thumbs up or down from the crowd indicating if a candidate should be executed. (This, too, would undoubtedly have been met with cheers.)
for more detail visit edition.cnn.com

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Jennifer Lopez 'rising above' divorce, Randy Jackson says

Jennifer Lopez is back to work on "American Idol" -- and she's not letting personal drama get in the way.
"We've been doing auditions and she's rising above," Lopez's fellow judge Randy Jackson, 55, told PEOPLE Saturday at Las Vegas's iHeartRadio Music Festival, where both he and Lopez performed. "She's strong, she's a trooper, she's a great girl. She's amazing."
Since announcing her split with husband Marc Anthony, Lopez appears to be in good spirits, even recently joining Anthony poolside at Miami.
On Saturday, though, Lopez, 42, did what she does best: performing. During her 25-minute set, Lopez seemed energetic, jumping around the stage with her dancers and singing a medley of her hits.
"I don't want to see anyone trying to act cool around here," she told the crowd. "I want to see you dancing and jumping and singing and acting like a fool."
It certainly seems as though Lopez, who let loose later that night at Pure nightclub, is, indeed, enjoying the single life. But if she ever needs anything, Jackson said the Idol family always has her back.
"Whatever help we need to give, we'll give her," he said
for more detail visit edition.cnn.com

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More than 2,900 convicted criminal immigrants arrested, ICE says

In a huge, seven-day operation covering all 50 states and four U.S. territories, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials arrested 2,901 convicted criminal immigrants as part of the "Cross Check" enforcement operation, ICE officials announced Wednesday.
ICE officials trumpeted the arrests at a news conference designed to highlight "the Obama administration's ongoing commitment to prioritizing the removal of criminal aliens and egregious immigration law violators."
ICE Director John Morton said all those arrested had prior criminal convictions, including 1,282 who had multiple convictions. More than 1,600 of those arrested had felony convictions including manslaughter, attempted murder, kidnapping, armed robbery, drug trafficking, child abuse, sexual crimes against minors and aggravated assault. Forty-two of them were gang members and 151 were convicted sex offenders, officials said.
ICE officials acknowledged that despite the large number of arrests, there were still an estimated 1 million convicted criminal aliens in the United States. Morton said one of the issues ICE is trying to deal with is the lack of notification to immigration authorities when offenders are released from jail.
Most of the people detained -- 2,642 -- were men. Those arrested came from 115 countries, with immigration fugitives accounting for 681 of those detained in the operation, Morton said. Of the people arrested, 386 were illegal re-entrants.
"The results of this targeted enforcement operation underscore ICE's ongoing commitment and focus on the arrest and removal of convicted criminal aliens and those that game our nation's immigration system," Morton in a statement released before the news conference. "Because of the tireless efforts and teamwork of ICE officers and agents in tracking down at large criminal aliens and fugitives, there are 2,901 fewer criminal aliens in our neighborhoods across the country."
for more detail visit cnn.com

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Michael Jackson killed himself with drugs

Los Angeles: Jurors in the involuntary manslaughter trial of Michael Jackson's doctor Tuesday heard dramatic opening statements and a startling recording of the pop singer, his words slow and slurred as he talks about his planned comeback concerts.
Prosecutors portrayed Dr. Conrad Murray as motivated by money, while the defense contended Murray's superstar client self-administered a fatal mix of drugs. Witnesses gave varying accounts of Jackson's condition as he prepared for the shows in London.
Murray abandoned "all principles of medical care" in attending to Jackson, prosecutor David Walgren said in his opening statement.
Defense attorney Ed Chernoff countered, saying Jackson's death was "tragic, but the evidence will not show that Dr. Murray did it."
Murray acquired massive quantities of the powerful surgical anesthetic propofol to help Jackson sleep, giving him a final dose of the drug after a long, restless night when the singer begged for help sleeping, according to recordings played by prosecutors.
Murray gave in to Jackson's demands not because it was the right medical decision, but because he was motivated by a $150,000 a month contract to serve as Jackson's doctor, Walgren said.
"The evidence in this case will show that Michael Jackson trusted his life to the medical skills of Conrad Murray, unequivocally that that misplaced trust had far too high a price to pay," Walgren said. "That misplaced trust in the hands of Conrad Murray cost Michael Jackson his life."
for more detail visit cnn.com

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Health Insurance Costs Rising Sharply This Year in U.S.A.

The cost of health insurance for many Americans this year climbed more sharply than in previous years, outstripping any growth in workers’ wages and adding more uncertainty about the pace of rising medical costs.
A new study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit research group that tracks employer-sponsored health insurance on a yearly basis, shows that the average annual premium for family coverage through an employer reached $15,073 in 2011, an increase of 9 percent over the previous year.
“The open question is whether that’s a one-time spike or the start of a period of higher increases,” said Drew Altman, the chief executive of the Kaiser foundation.
The steep increase in rates is particularly unwelcome at a time when the economy is still sputtering and unemployment continues to hover at about 9 percent. Many businesses cite the high cost of coverage as a factor in their decision not to hire, and health insurance has become increasingly unaffordable for more Americans. Over all, the cost of family coverage has about doubled since 2001, when premiums averaged $7,061, compared with a 34 percent gain in wages over the same period.
How much the new federal health care law pushed by President Obama is affecting insurance rates remains a point of debate, with some analysts suggesting that insurers have raised prices in anticipation of new rules that would, in 2012, require them to justify any increase of more than 10 percent.
In addition to increases caused by insurers getting ahead of potential costs, some of the law’s provisions that are already in effect -- like coverage for adult children up to 26 years of age and prevention services like mammogram screening -- have contributed to higher expenses for some employers.
The Kaiser survey includes both big and small companies using employer-sponsored coverage representing about 60 percent of all insured Americans of working age. The annual growth in premiums, according to the survey, had slowed in recent years to 5 percent, rising just 3 percent in 2010, in part due to the lingering effects of the recession. After years of double-digit increases, the moderation was a welcome relief.
The unexpected increase in premiums raises questions about whether health care costs are, in fact, stabilizing at all, as people have postponed going to the doctor or dentist and have put off expensive procedures. “No one quite knows,” said Mr. Altman.
Throughout this year, major health insurers have defended higher premiums — and higher profits — saying that their expenses would rise once the economy recovered and people believed they could again afford medical care. The struggling economy will probably keep suppressing demand for medical care, particularly as people pay a larger share of their own medical bills through higher deductibles and co-payments, according to benefits consultants and others. About three-quarters of workers now pay part of the bill when they go see a doctor, and nearly a third have a deductible of at least $1,000 if they have single coverage, up from just one in 10 in 2006, according Kaiser.
for more detail visit nytimes.com

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Jury to get overview of case against Michael Jackson doc

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The trial of the doctor charged in Michael Jackson's death opens Tuesday with a bit of star power and the one thing the King of Pop enjoyed throughout his life — a worldwide audience.
The case will enter a crucial final act in a packed Los Angeles courtroom with opening statements and the start of testimony. Jackson's family, including his parents and many of his siblings, are expected to be present as dozens of reports cover the case. Proceedings also will be televised and broadcast online.
While much is known about Jackson's June 2009 death, the trial will reveal new information and provide a detailed record of the singer's final hours. Dr. Conrad Murray's trial is expected to be the first time that the public hears — in the defendant's own words — his account of what happened in the bedroom of Jackson's rented mansion.
By Monday evening, 15 satellite trucks and news vans were parked within a block of the courthouse.
Prosecutors plan to call the pop superstar's friend and choreographer, Kenny Ortega, as their first witness in the case.
During the next five weeks, prosecutors will rely on Ortega and other witnesses to detail Jackson's final days and hours and explain to a jury of seven men and five women exactly how the King of Pop died. Defense attorneys for Dr. Conrad Murray, who faces four years in prison and the loss of his medical license if convicted of involuntary manslaughter, hope to poke holes in the prosecution's case and present jurors with their own theory that the singer was culpable for his own death.
Ortega testified at a hearing earlier this year that Murray warned him not to try to act as Jackson's physician or psychiatrist after Ortega sent the singer home from rehearsals for his final concerts because he appeared to be sick. He is also likely the best witness to walk jurors through footage of Jackson's final rehearsals that were used for the film "This Is It," which will be played in part for jurors. Ortega served as choreographer for the aborted shows and director of the theatrical film.
For most of the jury, it will be their first exposure to the footage. Only two indicated on questionnaires filled out before the trial that they had seen any portion of "This Is It."
Prosecutors plan to play a recording of the physician's interview with police conducted two days after Jackson's death, when he revealed that he had been giving the entertainer the anesthetic propofol as a sleep aid. The disclosure led to Murray being charged in February 2010 with involuntary manslaughter and nearly 20 months of legal wrangling over how the trial will be conducted.
Witnesses' recollections and conclusions about the events will be challenged to a far greater extent than they were during a preliminary hearing earlier this year that resulted in a judge ruling there was enough evidence for Murray to stand trial. Defense attorneys did not present a case or make an opening statement during that hearing, but lead defense attorney Ed Chernoff is expected to lay out Murray's side to jurors on Tuesday.
Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor has limited what Murray's lawyers can say about Jackson's history with drugs and his financial troubles. Prosecutors are similarly prohibited from mentioning some of the messy details of the doctor's personal life, including his sizeable debts and that he had several mistresses.
If prosecutors follow the same script they employed during Murray's preliminary hearing, the early part of the case will likely move in chronological order beginning with Jackson's final days and then moving into his final hours. After the singer's security guards, paramedics and emergency room doctors take the stand, the case will then move into more forensic and scientific territory.
Much of that testimony will focus on propofol, which is normally administered in hospital settings. Authorities contend Murray administered a lethal dose of the drug along with other sedatives, and lacked the proper lifesaving equipment to revive Jackson.
Defense attorneys will present an alternate theory — that Jackson ingested or somehow gave himself the fatal dose.
source google.com

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Bus Crash in Pakistan kills 36

At least 36 people have been killed in a bus crash in Pakistan.
The bus was returning from a school trip to a salt mine popular with tourists when it went into a ravine. Forty other people on the bus were injured.
The incident happened in Kalar Kahar, east of the capital Islamabad.
Pakistan has one of the world’s worst records for fatal traffic crashes, blamed on poor roads, badly maintained vehicles and reckless driving.
Speaking from the scene in Chakwal district, Punjab province, about 100 kilometres southeast of the capital, senior police officer Chaudhry Salim said at least 30 people were killed, including 24 school students.
He said the cause of the accident, which also left more than 55 injured, was brake failure.
"We have received 24 dead bodies and six to eight dead bodies were sent to another nearby hospital," he said.
Another official from the traffic police confirmed the accident and said 26 people, including 22 students, were killed on the spot.
He said the driver, his helper and the vice principal of the school were among the dead.
A government official said an inquiry had been ordered and an investigation team will examine the scene of the accident on Tuesday to examine the cause.
Pakistan has one of the world's worst records for deadly traffic accidents, blamed on poor roads, badly maintained vehicles and reckless driving.
source: theprovince.com, irishtimes.com

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Particles faster than light: Revolution or mistake?

In science, revolutions take time Eu­reka moments can stretch into noggin-scratching years.
So, the day after news broke of a possible revolution in physics — particles moving faster than light — a scientist leading the European experiment that made the discovery calmly explained it to a standing-room- ­only crowd at CERN the giant particle accelerator straddling the Swiss-French border.
The physicist, Dario Auterio, made no sweeping claims.
He did not try to explain what the results might mean for the laws of physics, let alone the broader world.
After an hour of technical talk, he simply said, “Therefore, we present to you today this discrepancy, this anomaly.”
But what an anomaly it may be. From 2009 through 2011, the massive OPERA detector buried in a mountain in Gran Sasso, Italy, recorded subatomic particles called neutrinos generated at CERN arriving a smidgen early, faster than light can move in a vacuum. If confirmed, the finding would throw more than a century of physics into chaos.
“If it’s correct, it’s phenomenal,” said Rob Plunkett, a scientist at Fermilab the Department of Energy physics laboratory in Illinois. “We’d be looking at a whole new set of rules” for how the universe works.
Those rules would bend, or possibly break, Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity, published in 1905. Radical at the time, the theory tied together space and time, matter and energy, and set a hard limit for the speed of light, later measured to be about 186,000 miles per second.
No experiment in 106 years had broken that speed limit.
But some 16,000 wispy neutrinos zooming underground in Europe apparently have, out-racing light by 60 billionths of a second.
Physicists expect intense scrutiny to follow, which OPERA and CERN scientists welcomed.
Fermilab operates a similar experiment, called MINOS, that shoots neutrinos from Illinois to an underground detector in Minnesota. In 2007, MINOS sniffed a hint of faster-than-light neutrinos, but the margin of error was too big to “make a claim,” Plunkett said.
Fermilab scientists will reanalyze their data, which will take six to eight months. In 2013, the MINOS detector, now offline, will restart after an upgrade. It could then offer confirmation, or refutation, of the results.
for more detail visit washingtonpost.com

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Brad Pitt's 'Moneyball' Aims to Join Other Great Baseball Films

'Moneyball'  the big screen's latest baseball offering, opens today and, by many accounts, it's a home run.

Starring Brad Pitt  and Jonah Hill, the film is based on Michael Lewis' book about how Oakland Athletics' general manager, Billy Beane, played by Pitt, took a roster of rejects and the second-lowest payroll in the majors all the way to the playoffs.
Hill plays a Yale numbers cruncher who convinces Beane that the best way to evaluate players is not by how many runs they drive in but how many times they can get on base -- the logic being that the more players on base, the more runs scored, the more games won.

With screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, who won the Oscar for "The Social Network," collaborating with equally acclaimed Steven Zaillian ("Schindler's List"), and "Capote" director Bennett Miller at the helm, the film could join other great baseball movies of the past.
for more detail visit abcnews.go.com

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Pakistan’s Spy Agency Is Tied to Attack on U.S. Embassy

WASHINGTON — The nation’s top military official said Thursday that Pakistan’s spy agency played a direct role in supporting the insurgents who carried out the deadly attack on the American Embassy in Kabul last week. It was the most serious charge that the United States has leveled against Pakistan in the decade that America has been at war in Afghanistan
In comments that were the first to directly link the spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence with an assault on the United States, Adm. Mike Mullen the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, went further than any other American official in blaming the ISI for undermining the American effort in Afghanistan. His remarks were certain to further fray America’s shaky relationship with Pakistan, a nominal ally.
The United States has long said that Pakistan’s intelligence agency supports the Haqqani network, based in Pakistan’s tribal areas, as a way to extend Pakistani influence in Afghanistan. But Admiral Mullen made clear that he believed that the support extended to increasingly high-profile attacks in Afghanistan aimed directly at the United States.
These included a truck bombing at a NATO outpost south of Kabul on Sept. 10, which killed at least five people and wounded 77 coalition soldiers — one of the worst tolls for foreign troops in a single attack in the war — as well as the embassy assault that killed 16 Afghan police officers and civilians.
“With ISI support, Haqqani operatives planned and conducted that truck bomb attack, as well as the assault on our embassy,” Admiral Mullen said in a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “We also have credible evidence that they were behind the June 28th attack against the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul and a host of other smaller but effective operations.” In short, he said, “the Haqqani network acts as a veritable arm of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency.” His remarks were part of a deliberate effort by American officials to ratchet up pressure on Pakistan and perhaps pave the way for more American drone strikes or even cross-border raids into Pakistan to root out insurgents from their havens. American military officials refused to discuss what steps they were prepared to take, although Admiral Mullen’s statement made clear that taking on the Haqqanis had become an urgent priority.
for more detail visit nytimes.com

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Denmark's centre-left bloc narrowly wins national elections

Denmark's centre-left has won the country's general election, ending nearly a decade in opposition.

With all votes counted, the bloc led by Social Democrat leader Helle Thorning-Schmidt had won a narrow majority in parliament.
She is set to become Denmark's first woman prime minister. Incumbent Lars Lokke Rasmussen has admitted defeat.
Ms Thorning-Schmidt had campaigned on a platform of tax rises and increased public spending.
She also promised to roll back tough immigration laws proposed by a junior partner of the current coalition.
The centre-left bloc won 89 seats in Denmark's 179-seat parliament against 86 for the centre-right. Turnout was high at 87.7%.
"We did it... today we've written history," Ms Thorning-Schmidt told jubilant supporters.
Mr Rasmussen said he had called Ms Thorning-Schmidt to congratulate her, but added: "Tonight I hand over the keys to the prime minister's office to Helle Thorning-Schmidt. And dear Helle, take good care of them. You're only borrowing them."
The "Blue Bloc" led by Mr Rasmussen has held power in Denmark for a decade.
The country has seen its worst economic downturn since World War II. Although Denmark is a member of the EU, it has chosen not to adopt the euro.

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Nasa's Kepler telescope finds planet orbiting two suns

A planet orbiting two suns - the first confirmed alien world of its kind - has been found by Nasa's Kepler telescope, the US agency announced. 

It may resemble the planet Tatooine from the film Star Wars, but scientists say Luke Skywalker, or anyone at all, is unlikely to be living there.
Named Kepler-16b, it is thought to be an uninhabitable cold gas giant, like Saturn.
The newly detected body lies some 200 light years from Earth.
Though there have been hints in the past that planets circling double stars might exist, scientists say this is the first confirmation.
'Stunning' It means when the day ends on Kepler-16b, there is a double sunset, they say.
Kepler-16b's two suns are smaller than ours - at 69% and 20% of the mass of our sun - making the surface temperature an estimated -100 to -150F (-73 to -101C).
The planet orbits its two suns every 229 days at a distance of 65m miles (104m km) - about the same solar orbit as Venus.
The Kepler telescope, launched in 2009, is designed to scour our section of the Milky Way galaxy for Earth-like planets.
"This is really a stunning measurement by Kepler," said Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution for Science, a co-author of the study.
"The real exciting thing is there's a planet sitting out there orbiting around these two stars."
Kepler finds stars whose light is regularly dimmed, which means there is an orbited planet between the star and the telescope.
Nasa's scientists saw additional dips in the light in both stars at alternating but regular times, confirming the dual orbit of the planet.
The finding was reported in Friday's issue of the journal Science.
source : bbc.co.uk

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US claims killing of Qaeda's operational chief in Pakistan

Islamabad—Talking to a private tv channel on conditions of anonymity, a highly-placed senior US administration official confirmed the death of Abu Hafs al-Shahri in an attack last week. “It has been confirmed that al Qaeda’s chief of Pakistan operations, Abu Hafs al-Shahri, was killed earlier this week in Waziristan, Pakistan,” the official said.


The official observed that Abu Hafs’ death would further degrade al Qaeda’s ability to recover from the death last month of Al-Qaeda’s number two, Atiyah Abdul Rehman. The official, however, declined narrating details of operation that killed Abu Hafs or whether he was killed in a drone strike.

source pakobserver.net

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Microsoft reveals Windows 8

Microsoft has given its most extensive preview of the forthcoming release of Windows. Speaking at the company’s ‘Build’ conference, Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows and Windows Live Division at Microsoft, said that “We reimagined Windows. From the chipset to the user experience, Windows 8 brings a new range of capabilities without compromise.”
The new operating system borrows some features from the increasingly popular Windows Phone operating system, using tiles and apps on an interface that is designed for both conventional PCs as well as tablets.The preview has been well received by commentators, with blogger Zach Epstein summarising it as “overwhelmingly positive”.
Microsoft highlighted a number of specific features, and gave each developer who attended the conference a Samsung tablet computer running a preview version of Windows 8.
It says a new interface, called “Metro” uses a simpler approach that is more appropriate for touchscreens, as well as working with a mouse and keyboard. Similarly, it says the new version of Internet Explorer will allow websites to take up more of the screen and only be conspicuous where necessary.
Apps are also set to play a larger role, with whole-screen programmes reminiscent of mobile apps, but able to work together and available from a Windows App Store. On the Microsoft Blog, the company said “For example, you can easily select and email photos from different places, such as Facebook, Flickr or on your hard drive”. Microsoft also said that all devices running the new operating system would synchronise more effectively, allowing users to run their apps across, for instance, tablets, phones and PCs.
On conventional computers, Windows 8 is built on Windows 7’s “solid foundations” the company said, but will use fewer system resources than its predecessor.
source telegraph.co.uk

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Poverty in the US reaches a 52-year peak

WASHINGTON: Another 2.6 million people slipped into poverty in the United States last year, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday, and the number of Americans living below the official poverty line, 46.2 million people, was the highest number in the 52 years the bureau has been publishing figures on it.

And in new signs of distress among the middle class median household incomes fell last year to levels last seen in 1997.

Economists seized on a telling statistic: It was the first time since the Great Depression that the median US household had a lower income, adjusted for inflation, than 13 years earlier, said Lawrence Katz, an economics professor at Harvard University.

"This is truly a lost decade," Katz said. "We think of America as a place where every generation is doing better, but we're looking at a period when the median family is in worse shape than it was in the late 1990s."

The bureau's findings were worse than many economists expected, and brought into sharp relief the toll the past decade - including the sharp declines of the financial crisis and recession had taken on Americans at the middle and lower parts of the income ladder.

The report comes as President Barack Obama gears up to try to pass a jobs bill, and analysts said the bleak numbers could help him make his case for urgency. But they could also be used against him by Republican opponents seeking to highlight economic shortcomings on his watch as the election season gets under way.

"This is one more piece of bad news on the economy," said Ron Haskins, a director of the Center on Children and Families at the Brookings Institution. "This will be another cross to bear by the administration."

The past decade was also marked by a growing gap between the very top and very bottom of the income ladder. Median household income for the bottom tenth of the income spectrum fell by 12 per cent from a peak in 1999, while the top tenth's income dropped by just 1.5 per cent.

The census report said that the per centage of Americans living below the poverty line last year, 15.1 per cent, was the highest level since 1993 (the poverty line in 2010 for a family of four was $22,314).

And this year is not likely to be any better, economists said. Stimulus money has largely ended, and state and local governments have made deep cuts to staff and to budgets for social programs, both likely to move economically fragile families closer to poverty.

Minorities were hit hardest. Blacks experienced the highest poverty rate, at 27 per cent, up from 25 per cent in 2009, and Hispanics rose to 26 per cent from 25 per cent. For whites, 9.9 per cent lived in poverty, up from 9.4 per cent in 2009. Asians were unchanged at 12.1 per cent.
for more detail visit economictimes.indiatimes.com

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Tennis | Novak Djokovic beats Rafael Nadal in U.S. Open men's final

NEW YORK — For most of Monday's 4-hour, 10-minute U.S. Open men's final, it felt more like a heavyweight fight than a tennis match, with Novak Djokovic of Serbia and Rafael Nadal of Spain trading full-body blows with their rackets.
But the top-seeded Djokovic landed the more punishing hits, pummeling Nadal, the tournament's defending champion, 6-2, 6-4, 6-7 (3-7), 6-1 to win his first U.S. Open championship after finishing as the tournament's runner-up in 2007 and 2010.
With the victory, Djokovic improved his record in this spectacular season to 64-2.
At 24, he has won three of the sport's four majors, with the U.S. Open rounding out a portfolio that includes the 2008 and 2011 Australian Open titles and the Wimbledon championship in July, where he also dethroned Nadal for the title.
Djokovic fell flat on his back on court after ripping a final forehand winner — his 55th winner of the match.
"Maybe it is the best match I played this year," he said. "I stepped on the court believing I could win. I didn't give him any comfort. I didn't give him any room."
Nadal, 25, was quick to the net with a congratulatory handshake.
But as the match made clear, the left-hander has yet to figure out a solution to Djokovic — who is 6-0 against him this year — no matter how much energy he expends on court.
Before a crowd of 23,000, Nadal mounted another physically wrenching effort against Djokovic. Once again, he lost.
There was an unrelenting rhythm to the match, and it exacted a harsh toll on both players — particularly Djokovic, who was two points from winning in straight sets, serving at 6-5 and 30-all, only to get broken after sending a forehand long.
There were signs Djokovic's lower back was ailing when the contenders began the tiebreak after more than three hours of play.
for more detai visit seattletimes.nwsource.com

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"Kill or capture" unit in Gaddafi manhunt

A TEAM of “kill or capture” troops have been deployed to hunt down Colonel Gaddafi.
The 200-strong Libyan special forces group – trained by NATO forces – was unleashed as Interpol issued a warrant for his arrest.
Interpol’s “red notice” also names his son Seif al-Islam and Libya’s ex-head of ­military intelligence as wanted for war crimes.

The notice was yesterday sent to 188 countries.
It is believed the fugitive leader is in one of three remaining strongholds of loyalist support – his home town of Sirte and the cities of Bani Walid and Sabha.
Anis Sharif, of the Tripoli military council, said: “He is moving in a small convoy of cars trying to avoid NATO or the rebels.”
for more detail visit mirror.co.uk

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China's billionaires double

The number of billionaires in China has doubled in the past two years, according to the latest rich list by Hurun Report magazine, giving China the second-largest number of billionaires in the world.
Liang Wengen, chairman of construction company Sany topped this year’s list with a fortune worth about $11 billion. He is now one of 271 US dollar billionaires on the list – up from 130 in 2009 – meaning China is now second only to the United States by this measure.
‘Given the rapid increase in China’s economic growth, it’s unsurprising that the numbers of wealthy people should increase rapidly as well,’ says Prof. June Teufel Dreyer, a China specialist at the University of Miami. ‘And since the property market has been so active – many would say overheated – the disproportionate number of the very wealthiest who made their billions in property is also unsurprising.’
Robert Kapp, president of Kapp Associates, agrees. ‘Real estate is to China what “finance” became for the United States in the run-up to 2008,’ he says. ‘It’s interesting to see that most of these hyper-wealthy individuals appear to have amassed their wealth beyond the direct domination of the state. Though, of course, nothing is more government-dependent than real estate development.’
Why has the real estate sector spawned so many ultra-rich? Minxin Pei, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College says one factor is the nature of ‘crony capitalism’ in China. ‘To make money in real estate requires two things: access to cheap land and access to cheap money. Both require guanxi (personal networks).’
According to this year’s list, four of the top 10 made their fortunes in property, while a fifth made his in property and investments. The youngest on the list is Ohio State University graduate Yang Huiyan majority shareholder of Country Garden Holdings, who is aged just 30.
This rapid accumulation of wealth is likely to be viewed with envy, says Teufel Dreyer, ‘although resentment seems to accrue to the class of super-wealthy in the abstract rather than being attached to individuals.’

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Dozens killed as Russian plane carrying hockey team crashes

A plane carrying a hockey team with international players, including some NHL veterans, crashed as it took off Wednesday afternoon from Russia's Yaroslavl airport, killing at least 43 people, Russian emergency officials said.
The Yak-42 aircraft was taking players for Lokomotiv Yaroslavl -- one of Russia's leading ice hockey teams -- to Minsk, the Belarusian capital, the Russian aviation authority told CNN.
Two of the 45 people aboard the plane, which included eight crew members, survived, a Russian Emergency Situations Ministry representative said. Eleven of those on the aircraft were foreigners, the ministry said.
Yaroslavl's regional governor, Sergei Vakhrukov, named the two survivors as Russian forward Alexander Galimov and flight crew member Alexander Sizov. Both are being treated in intensive care.
Thirty-five bodies have been recovered from the crash site so far, the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry said, and the search for those still missing continued into the night.
Many of the bodies were recovered from the Volga River after the plane crashed on its banks near the airport, the ministry said.
The Lokomotiv team, which was scheduled to play a match Thursday in the new Kontinental Hockey League, had a number of players with ties to the National Hockey League.
NHL.com cited Russia's Sov Sport website as confirming that the entire main roster of the team Lokomotiv Yaroslavl was on the plane, along with four players from the youth team.
for more detail visit cnnnews

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Bombers target home of Pakistani paramilitary official, kill 23

Two suicide bombers targeted the home of a senior officer with Pakistan's paramilitary force Wednesday, killing at least 23 people and wounding 52.
The attacks took place in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta.
Brigadier Farrukh Shehzad, believed to be the target of the attacks, was injured in the blasts, said Tariq Manzoor, a senior Quetta police officials. Shehzad is a senior official in the Frontier Corps paramilitary force.
Among the dead were Shehzad's wife and six security personnel, he said. None of Shehzad's children were home at the time, as they had left for school before the incident, he said.
The first bomber rammed his explosives-laden car into security vehicles cars parked outside Shehzad's home, officials said. The second attacker, who was on foot, managed to enter the house, said Abdullah Afridi, a senior Quetta police official. When a security officer fired on him, the attacker blew himself up, Afridi said.
The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attacks. A spokesman for Tehrik-e-Taliban, Ihsanullah Ihsan, said Shahzad was the target of the attack and expressed regret at the death of his wife. Ihsan said the attacks were retaliation for Shahzad's involvement in an operation against the group on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border last year.
Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has been described as a "Taliban-inspired alliance of Pakistan-based Sunni tribal militants."
An Afghan refugee card was found at the site, and a picture on the card matches the description of one of the suicide bombers, said an official in the paramilitary force who asked not to be identified. The card identifies a 21-year-old man from Afghanistan's Kunduz province who was living in Peshawar, Pakistan.
About 60 kilograms of explosive material was used in the explosions, Manzoor said.
Quetta is the capital of Balochistan province, which has been a hotbed for militancy.
for more detail visit edition.cnn.com

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Nevada restaurant shooting leaves five people dead

A gunman wielding an AK-47 opened fire on a table of uniformed troops at a restaurant in Carson City, Nevada, killing four people and wounding seven others before he turned the gun on himself.
Five Nevada national guard troops sitting together at the back of an International House of Pancakes restaurant were shot – three of them fatally – and a woman was also killed. The gunman, 32-year-old Eduardo Sencion of Carson City, died at a hospital.
The shooter's motive was unclear. He had never been in the military and had no known affiliation with anyone inside the restaurant.
Witnesses and authorities described a frantic scene in which the gunman pulled into the large complex of retail stores and shops just before 9am local time in a blue minivan with a yellow "Support Our Troops" sticker on the back. He got out and immediately shot a woman near a motorcycle, a witness said.
Witness Ralph Swagler said he grabbed his own weapon, but it was too late to stop Sencion, who charged into the restaurant through the front doors.
"I wish I had shot at him when he was going in the IHOP," said Swagler. "But when he came at me, when somebody is pointing an automatic weapon at you – you can't believe the firepower, the kind of rounds coming out of that weapon."
The gunman went all the way to the back of the International House of Pancakes restaurant to the back area and opened fire, Carson City sheriff Kenny Furlong said.
When Sencion left the restaurant, he stood in the parking area and shot into the nearby businesses, shattering several windows across the street.
Police arrived minutes later and found Sencion and the person who was by the motorcycle wounded and lying in the parking lot. The names of the victims, including the three troops who were killed, were not immediately released.
Sencion left two more guns in the van – a rifle and a pistol, authorities said.
As the attack unfolded, Nevada officials worried about the violence being more widespread. They shut the state capitol and supreme court buildings for about 40 minutes, and put extra security in place at state and military buildings in northern Nevada.
"There were concerns at the onset, so we took certain steps to ensure we had the capability to embrace an even larger circumstance," Furlong said. "At this point in time it appears to be isolated to this parking lot."
for more detail visit guardian.co.uk

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Central Texas fires cause a handful of high school sporting delays

As the raging wildfires neared, Bastrop High football coach Gerald Perry rushed from his home Sunday with his wife, Michelle, and their three children. On Tuesday, he and his family had settled into an uneasy existence at a shelter for evacuees at Bastrop Middle School.
Perry, who left home with "a pair of shorts and two T-shirts," said he had no idea whether his house was among the roughly 577 homes destroyed by two fires in Bastrop County that had burned 34,800 acres by Tuesday night. He did know that two of his assistant coaches and at least two of his players had lost their homes to the wind-driven flames .
"It looks like a war zone out there," Perry said. "We've got friends who have lost their homes. This is a daunting task. Football is about the furthest thing from my mind."
On Friday night, Perry's team shut out Seguin to even its record after two games. By Tuesday, the Bears' football season had been pushed into the background, as a handful of high schools in Central Texas postponed or cancelled sporting events and other extracurricular activities in the wake of the devastating fires.
Tuesday's varsity volleyball matches involving teams from Bastrop, Cedar Creek, Vandegrift, Rouse and Smithville high schools were called off.
Bastrop and Cedar Creek also won't play Friday after the Bastrop Independent School District cancelled classes for the rest of this week.
The decision also meant Bastrop's football team won't play its scheduled game against Akins on Friday night.
Cedar Creek, which won't field a varsity football team until next year, will not play its scheduled junior varsity game on Thursday. Coach Dan Hernandez said he had contacted most of the 85 to 90 juniors, sophomores and freshmen who play football for Cedar Creek, which opened in 2010.
for more detail visit  statesman.com

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Obama Times are tough "but we're tougher"

President Barack Obama called for an end to "Washington games" and for Congressional Republicans to support initiatives to promote job creation benefiting the middle class.

Speaking to a Labor Day rally in Detroit, a city he said had been "to heck and back," Mr. Obama challenged Congressional Republicans to put the country ahead of party.

In a preview of his speech Thursday to a joint session of Congress, Mr. Obama proposed boosting construction and infrastructure projects - and included some finger-wagging at critics. "We have more than one million unemployed construction workers ready to get dirty right now," he said. "Labor's on board and businesses [are] on board. We just need Congress to get on board."
for more detail visit cbsnews.com

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Al Qaeda’s ‘foreign minister’ captured

ISLAMABAD, Sept 5: The military on Monday announced the arrest of senior Al Qaeda operative Sheikh Younis Al Mauritani, a confidant of Osama bin Laden and the central character in the terror group’s ‘Europe plot’ last year, in a joint operation with CIA.
Sheikh Al Mauritani, described by a website as Al Qaeda’s ‘foreign minister’, was arrested from a compound on the suburbs of Quetta on an unspecified date along with two of his accomplices — Abdul Ghaffar Al Shami (Bachar Chama) and Messara Al Shami (Mujahid Amino).
They were taken into custody just before they were to set off for an African destination from where they were to execute the planned attacks on US targets, including strikes on ships and oil tankers, with the help of explosive- laden speed boats in international waters.
“He (Mauritani) was planning to target United States economic interests including gas/oil pipelines, power generating dams and strike ships/oil tankers through explosive laden speed boats in international waters,” the Reuters news agency quoted from a statement released by the military.
The capture of the three men, which came on the heels of the reported killing of Al Qaeda second in command Atiyah Abd al-Rahman in a drone attack last week, was termed “yet another fatal blow” to the outfit by ISPR.
Younis Mauritani formed part of Al Qaeda’s international operations cell along with Adnan el Shukrijuma and Ilyas Kashmiri, who was rumoured to have been killed in a drone strike earlier this year.
Mauritani was tasked with hitting targets of economic importance in Europe, the United States and Australia.
The detainees, a security official said, were in the custody of Pakistani agencies and CIA had not been provided access to them as yet.
The capture of the Al Qaeda men is, in a way, a sequel to the May 2 raid in Abbottabad in which Osama bin Laden was killed, but had put Pakistan-US ties on a downward spiral.
Mauritani had been on the watch of Western intelligence agencies for sometime, but he came to the limelight after US agents got hold of a strategy paper authored by him from the “treasure trove” they seized from Osama’s Abbottabad hideout.
for more detail visit dawn.com

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Wind-driven fires kill woman, child in East Texas

A longtime Texas sheriff says it was the fastest-moving fire he has ever seen. Six homes were toppled within minutes, including one trailer where a woman and her 18-month-old daughter were killed because they couldn't escape in time.

Authorities said the fires, including the one that killed the two people Sunday near the East Texas community of Gladewater, were propelled partly by the high winds caused by Tropical Storm Lee. Neighborhoods across eastern and central parts of the state were reporting widespread damage covering thousands of acres.

"The houses that were in its path on this particular roadway were taken out," Gregg County Sheriff Maxey Cerliano said. "... There were many other houses that the fire got right up to the porch."

The 20-year-old woman and her child were found dead near the bathroom of their trailer home just outside Gladewater, about 120 miles east of Dallas and 60 miles west of Shreveport, La. A male occupant of the home sustained minor burns but was able to escape, and he frantically searched for the others, Cerliano said.

Texas Forest Service officials estimated some 1,400 acres were burned in that area alone, destroying homes, barns and vehicles, and thousands of other acres were scorched in other parts of the state.

for more detail visit chron.com

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World's heaviest woman?

A 32-year-old woman is attempting to become the heaviest woman ever, but her nearest competitor, a woman who holds the record of "World's Fattest Mom," is having a hard time letting go of her heavyweight claim to fame, even as she says she's going on a diet.

Susanne Eman, a 728-pound woman in Casa Grande, Ariz., is attempting to get into Guinness World Records as the "World's Heaviest Woman." The 2012 edition of the book will be released later this month.

The last woman to hold the title, 1,200-pound Rosalie Bradford, died in 2006. "The category is currently open," a Guinness representative told HuffPost Weird News. "We've got several claims that we're researching, and we may have a new title holder very soon."

Eman has told reporters that she wants to shatter the record by packing on 1,600 pounds. Her ultimate goal: weighing in at one ton. She won the title by weighing a whopping 532 pounds when she gave birth to her daughter, Jacqueline, in February 2007 - an event that required 30 doctors. Simpson just announced to the world via HuffPost Weird News that she's decided to go on a diet, but she's having a hard time letting go of the "prestige" that goes along with the honour of being America's heaviest woman - and said she views Eman as an upstart trying to usurp her hard-earned fame.
source nation.com.pk

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