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MARINE CORPS AIR STATION NEW RIVER, N.C. (Dec. 6, 2005) -- Approximately 115 athletes and nearly 120 Marine and civilian volunteers participated in the annual Special Olympics of Onslow County Fall Basketball Games in the New River Fitness Center gym Dec. 2. The Special Olympics offers year-round sports training and competition for more than one million children and adults with intellectual disabilities. According to Laura Quinn, SOOC public relations director, the athletes for the Fall Basketball Games were students from 11 area schools, including Brewster Middle School aboard Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, and Carobell, Inc., which provides 24-hour care...

GENEVA, NY—A group of anti-war protesters who threw blood on a soldier, a recruiting station and the U.S. flag will deliver a lecture at Hobart and William Smith campuses today.According to a campus press release, the four Ithaca residents-- Daniel Burns, Peter DeMott, Clare Grady and Teresa Grady--are expected to address students on “the use of unconventional politics as a means for political organizing and resistance in a time of war and in a time of the Patriot Act.”In addition, the group’s sponsor, Professor Craig Rimmerman of the HWS political science department, hopes to ask the group "what they were...

The police chief welcomes visitors to Suq Ash Skuk Police Station. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers photo by Suzanne Fournier Station Renovations Support Iraqi Police, Residents Currently, 19 of the 31 (or 61 percent) of the police facility projects planned for the Thi Qar governorate are complete. By Suzanne M. Fournier Gulf Region South U.S. Army Corps of Engineers BASE CAMP ADDER (ALI BASE), Iraq, Nov. 2, 2005 — Completed reconstruction of a police station project in Suq Ash Skukh, Iraq, will serve to support and provide increased protection for both the police assigned to it and the town's...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 21, 2005 – Coalition forces detained five terrorists and seized a large weapons cache today when they raided a suspected al Qaeda safe house northwest of Qaim, Iraq, military officials reported. The cache consisted of weapons, ammunition, mortars and bomb-making materials, officials said. Intelligence sources and tips from local citizens led coalition forces to the location. Coalition aircraft, using precision guided munitions, destroyed the safe house and weapons cache after coalition forces left the scene. Elsewhere in Iraq, Iraqi police and coalition forces stopped short a coordinated attack on the Khalis Iraqi police station Oct. 20, in Diyala....

WASHINGTON, Oct. 14, 2005 – A Task Force Baghdad unit patrolling in southern Baghdad immediately responded to a terrorist mortar attack on a polling site Oct. 13 by returning fire to drive the terrorists away, military officials reported today. The soldiers from 1st Battalion, 108th Armor Regiment, also provided medical care to two Iraqi civilians, including one child, who suffered minor injuries when the terrorist rounds detonated, officials said. "I am not surprised that the terrorists would target the innocent people of Iraq," said Maj. Liston Edge, an operations officer for the 48th Brigade Combat Team. "I am just proud...

MARINE CORPS AIR STATION NEW RIVER, N.C. (Sept. 21, 2005) -- The thunder rolled as Marines and Sailors here waved the North Carolina Rolling Thunder through the Station gates Sept. 10, and even though the personnel may not have seen the group, they did hear them. All five chapters of the North Carolina Rolling Thunder, a motorcycle group dedicated to remembering servicemembers who are prisoners of war or missing in action, hosted their yearly picnic at the Station Marina. Personally welcoming the group, Station Commanding Officer Col. Stephen L. Forand spoke to the group during the table ceremony. Forand welcomed...

BINGHAMTON, NY—A U.S. soldier has testified in federal court Tuesday (September 20) that he was splashed with human blood by anti-war protesters during a 2003 protest.The soldier, Staff Sgt. Rachon Montgomery, was working as an army recruiter on March 17, 2003, the day that four protesters threw their own blood around a recruiting center in Lansing, NY, a suburb of Ithaca. As a result of the incident, press reports indicate, Montgomery was tested for blood-borne illnesses such as HIV and hepatitis.In addition to Montgomery, the protesters also poured blood on the American flag, a military banner and the walls and...

PASCAGOULA, Miss. (NNS) -- Seabees from Construction Battalion Maintenance Unit (CBMU) 202 based in Little Creek, Va., are clearing debris and performing repairs in local areas here affected by Hurricane Katrina. Water moccasins, metal rods, giant wood beams and mounds of debris were some of the challenges faced by CBMU 202 when they arrived on board Naval Station (NS) Pascagoula to help clear and repair damage caused by the hurricane. The Seabees involved in the Pascagoula operation include members of CBMU-202 from Little Creek, Va. and members of the CBMU-202 Detachment from Kings Bay, Ga. One of the priority projects...

NAVAL STATION NORFOLK, Va., Aug. 29, 2005 – USS Saipan, USS Nashville and USS Nicholas returned to Naval Station Norfolk Aug. 25 from a three-month “surge” deployment. The ships surged May 25 under the Navy’s Fleet Response Plan. The Navy developed FRP to find new ways of operating, training, manning and maintaining the fleet so as to improve combat power and readiness, particularly in the ongoing battle against terrorism. Unlike most ships, these three deployed with less than two months to prepare, but the sailors on board understood why, said Vice Adm. Mark Fitzgerald, Commander U.S. 2nd Fleet, at the...

Radio station to pay $240K over slapping contest The Business Review (Albany) - 4:57 PM EDT Monday A radio station has settled with state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer for $240,000 for the "Smackfest" slapping contests the station held with female contestants in 2004 and 2005. Contestants could win up to $5,000 during the contests on WQHT Hot 97's in New York City, Spitzer said. The attorney general said the promotions cross the line of entertainment and became abusive. The settlement was the same size as the fine the station would have faced had it faced punishment from the state. Emmis,...

The Chaplain of the Marine Corps visited the air station July 26 to express gratitude, wishes and encouragement to Marines and sailors. Rear Adm. Robert F. Burt and Master Chief Johnny Thomas, religious program specialist of the Marine Corps, shook hands and spoke to Marines and sailors from various squadrons. He also spoke to station chaplains to share his encouragement during his three-day visit of many stops throughout the station. "Our purpose in coming here is to look the Marines in the eye and tell them how great they are,” said Burt, a Springfield, Ore., native. “(We wanted) to express...

By all accounts, Randall Yungerberg became a gasoline theft vigilante this week. But his attempts to exact justice at the St. Paul gas station where he works left him critically injured Wednesday after he tried to stop a customer reportedly leaving without paying. His head injuries came three days after he was arrested on suspicion of taking a hammer to the car of a customer he suspected of not paying. That customer was arrested after Yungerberg, 49, was punched. While experts advise against going after thieves, some people say they understand how the frustration of standing by could lead some...

A 27-year-old electrician, de Menezes was by all accounts totally unconnected to terrorism. But through his behavior and cruel coincidence, de Menezes gave police good reason to think he might be planning to detonate a bomb. In the age of terrorism, police can kill an innocent man and still be doing the right thing. This strange new reality makes us all players in a film-noir existence. Film noir refers to the eerie postwar movies in which characters grope through a world of dark menace and unanswered questions. They don't know what's going on, only that danger hovers. Here in Grand...

The teenage terrorist who blew up a double-deck bus in Tavistock Square, London, killing 13 people including himself, was caught on closed-circuit television two and a half hours earlier. Hasib Hussain, bearded and wearing jeans and a jacket, was pictured at Luton railway station as he and three other bombers headed for the 7.20am train to London last Thursday. In his rucksack was the 10lb bomb that exploded at 9.47am on the No 30 bus shortly after three other bombs went off in Underground trains. Hussain, 18, a nondescript character, troublesome at home in Leeds and an under-achiever at school,...

CAPE CANAVERAL - A balky Russian oxygen generator broke down on the International Space Station, but its two-man crew has a reserve air supply that would last about five months, NASA officials said Friday. The station's primary generator, which has been operating in an on-again, off-again fashion for months, stopped working last week and the station's crew has not been able to fix it. Mission managers say the unit has failed for good. Consequently, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev and U.S. astronaut John Phillips will be relying on reserves until replacement parts arrive at the station in late August. Kylie Clem,...

I was intending to write an article about how the ISS needs to be a key part of the Vision for Space Exploration. What I have learned recently, though, made me realize there is something much more important to talk about. There have been several discussions in the mass media of late about “tipping points” in history. Some say that the recent elections in Iraq are a major tipping point that will reshape the Middle East and the West’s relationship with it. While the elections in Iraq and the courage of the people braving threats to vote are by no...

KETTERING, Ohio - A woman rushing to a hospital to give birth hit a few stops along the way — first at a gas station where she delivered the baby herself, then when confused police ordered her out of the car at gunpoint. Debbie Coleman, whose 3- and 4-year-old daughters were asleep in the back seat, pulled over at a gas station just after midnight Tuesday. “I asked if she needed help, and she just leaned back in the seat, hollered a little, and I looked down and there was the baby’s head,” said station co-owner Lloyd Goff, who was...

US President George W Bush declared today that he had signed a rare presidential decree canceling any further expenditure of Federal funds on the US Space Shuttle program. "We cannot find any justification to continue deficit funding of a program that has no application other that proving that with enough money America can do anything," said Bush. "The whole world knows that already, so why keep spending money on it," he added. The announcement was made during an even rarer press conference with Whitehouse press corps, at which the President started proceedings by handing out Easter Eggs, quipping, "it might...

A major review last week of servicing the Hubble Space Telescope has led NASA officials to a "deorbit only" position. That’s an outcome from an intensive preliminary design review held last week at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. That appraisal involved volumes of technical data, with over 200 experts from NASA and aerospace industry contractor teams attending. The assessment backs an earlier decision by the White House to scuttle the Hubble. A robotically-controlled liquid-fueled motor would eventually be docked to the telescope. Once ignited, the engine would push the huge observatory into a controlled nose-dive into...

I listen to country music in S. Florida. The station is owned or managed by Clear Channel. I was aghast yesterday when they aired an ad for the newer show, the "L" word on Showtime. For those of you who don't know, it's a Lesbian soap opera. Okay, is it just me living in the old-fashioned era I choose to, or is this absolutely insane and disgusting? My country music station promoting a lesbian soap opera????? What is up with that? I emailed Clear Channel a letter of disgust, but have received no reply. I just wanted to vent basically.