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VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (KTLA) — The 30th Space Wing and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency conducted a flight test of the Ground-Based Mid-course Defense system Saturday. The missile test was designed to demonstrate the latest version of the advanced kill vehicle.

In the wake of the great success of the Iron Dome anti-missile system, which was able to intercept many of the rockets fired from Gaza at populated areas during Operation Pillar of Defense, Israel is now pushing ahead with the development of Magic Wand, which is supposed to be able to intercept short-range and medium-range rockets. According to a report in the Boston Globe on Saturday, Israel will test the system in the Negev in the coming days. Magic Wand, the report said, is being developed by the Israeli Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. in cooperation with the American company...

America is heading into a retirement crisis, an economist says. Most retirees haven't saved enough money to retire and Teresa Ghilarducci blames America's entire system for retiring. It’s been 30 years since the Individual Retirement Account model became the standard way for Americans to save for retirement. But many people who saved for three decades watched a lot of that money disappear during the financial crisis. And now, more than half of American workers have saved less than $25,000 for their golden years, and about 30 percent have saved less than a thousand dollars. Overall, the system is failing, says...

Top 10 Lawyers Working to Improve the Food SystemPosted on July 5, 2012 by Michele I admit this post is somewhat self-serving. But I am getting weary of so many lists (like this one) celebrating heroes of the food movement that leave out an entire category of professionals that deserve a little respect. They may not be as famous as Alice Waters but they are working just as hard, maybe even harder. So here, in no particular order, are ten lawyers doing critical work to improve how we eat. 1) Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety...

Odd orbits of remote objects hint at unseen world, new calculations suggest. An as yet undiscovered planet might be orbiting at the dark fringes of the solar system, according to new research.Too far out to be easily spotted by telescopes, the potential unseen planet appears to be making its presence felt by disturbing the orbits of so-called Kuiper belt objects, said Rodney Gomes, an astronomer at the National Observatory of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro. Kuiper belt objects are small icy bodies—including some dwarf planets—that lie beyond the orbit of Neptune. Once considered the ninth planet in our system, the...

It's official. Death is no longer a possible fate for three of four defendants in the January 20007 torture slayings of a Knox County couple. Assistant District Attorney General Leland Price has filed notice of an intention to seek the death penalty as punishment in the deaths of Channon Christian, 21, and boyfriend Christopher Newsom, 23, only against alleged ringleader Lemaricus Davidson. Price this month notified attorneys for Davidson's brother, Letalvis Cobbins, and Cobbins' friend, George Thomas, that he will push for a fate in their cases no more than life without possibility of parole. Because Cobbins' girlfriend, Vanessa Coleman,...

HOW TO INSTALL A SOUTHERN HOME SECURITY SYSTEM 1. Go to Goodwill and buy a pair of size 14-16 men's work boots. 2. Place them on your front porch, along with a copy of Guns & Ammo Magazine. 3. Put four giant dog dishes next to the boots and magazines. 4. Leave a note on your door that reads ...... Bubba, Me and Marcel, Donnie Ray and Jimmy Earl went for more ammo and beer. Be back in an hour. Don't mess with the pit bulls. They got the mailman this morning and messed him up bad. I don't think...

A well-informed, interested public is often hailed as the 'ideal' of democracy. But a new Princeton study suggests that the opposite could be the case - and that people who have no interest at all could be vital to the working of a democratic society. The uninformed are essential to democracy because their apathy helps to dilute the effect of powerful minority interests - for instance, highly educated elites - who would otherwise dominate public life.

With growing fears about the stability of the financial system, today King World News interviewed legendary Jim Sinclair. When asked about the ongoing crisis, Sinclair stated, “Well, the story this morning is we have it but we’re not going to spend it. We are not going to buy our own bonds, we’re not going to cap the rates, but we have it and we might use it. It’s like that every day. Those guys can’t get their story together for more than fifteen minutes. The ECB has the availability of funds for some activities in the euro bond market. They...

When I was diagnosed with cancer, I was devastated — but sure I’d get the best possible treatment. After 22 years as a GP, I felt strongly that the NHS was unbeatable when it came to major illnesses like this. But I was wrong. Instead, this wonderful institution I dedicated my life to has let me down — and I am only alive today because I begged and battled for drugs and paid for scans and treatments privately. (Snip) I insisted on an MRI scan, but my consultant said the NHS could only afford to do one without contrast, which

Mitt Romney may not be Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s biggest problem. The nonprofit group Texans for Public Justice, a good-government foundation that has been keeping tabs on him for years, may claim that title. Its Web site’s homepage features a quote from its Crony Capitalism report: “As Texas Governor Rick Perry’s influence at the RGA increased over the past five years the political finances of both the governor and the Governors Association skyrocketed. The RGA raised a record $216.9 million during the Perry years between January 2006 and June 30, 2011.

Planetary scientists have long wondered why Mars is only about half the size and one-tenth the mass of Earth. As next-door neighbors in the inner solar system, probably formed about the same time, why isn't Mars more like Earth and Venus in size and mass? A paper published in the journal Nature this week provides the first cohesive explanation and, by doing so, reveals an unexpected twist in the early lives of Jupiter and Saturn as well. Dr. Kevin Walsh, a research scientist at Southwest Research Institute® (SwRI®), led an international team performing simulations of the early solar system, demonstrating...

Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, told CNSNews.com today that the health-care law that President Barack Obama signed last March is a “platform” for building a single-payer health care system in the United States. During a newsmakers program at the National Press Club on Monday, Conyers said that after discussing the issue with Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D.-Ohio) he voted for the health-care law because he saw it as a necessary "platform" for building toward a single-payer health-care system in the United States. Speaking with CNSNews.com after the event at the National Press Club, Conyers...

"Trophy" system is activated for the first time during an IDF operation; force identifies and kills the Gazan gunman. A special missile defense system deployed in IDF armored units stopped an anti-tank missile fired by terrorists near the Gaza security fence, the first time the system has been used during an IDF operation. The IDF Spokesperson's office reported that the “Windbreaker” system managed to identify and disable the missile, and that no damage was caused to the tank or its crew. Shortly thereafter, IDF troops identified an armed man in their proximity and opened fire, killing the gunman at the...

Washington - NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has reached the outer edge of the solar system where wind from the Sun is no longer blowing outward, but sideways, the US space agency said. The spacecraft was launched in 1977 and has since snapped images of Earth and other planets in the solar system and provided NASA with crucial information as it makes its long journey into outer space. NASA researchers think Voyager 1 will leave the solar system and enter interstellar space, or the area in between the end of the Sun's influence and the next star system, in about four

As in cities today, the earliest towns helped expose their inhabitants to inordinate opportunities for infection -- and today their descendants are stronger for it, a new study says. "If cities increase the amount of disease people are exposed to, shouldn't they also, over time, make them natural places for disease resistance to evolve?" asked study co-author Mark Thomas, a biologist at University College London... study co-author Ian Barnes, a molecular paleobiologist at University College London, screened DNA samples from 17 groups long associated with particular regions of Europe, Asia, and Africa -- for example Anatolian Turks and the southern...

It is news to no one that our educational system sucks. American students are consistently out-performed by students in other countries year after year. Why? Liberals, progressives, socialists, communists, “compassionate” conservatives (i.e., neocons, RINOs, liberal Republicans) , teacher unions, and other leftist groups would like you to believe that it is some combination of bad schools, teachers, and financing. The solution, as they see it, is to engage in a game of Three Card Monty where students are shuffled from schools that are “failing” them, to schools that will allow them to “succeed” –as though success is a magical elixir...

Even as Righthaven LLC made headlines for suing Nevada U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle last week, attorneys in another Righthaven case accused the firm of misusing the legal system to carry out its copyright infringement lawsuit campaign. Righthaven, controlled by Las Vegas attorney Steven Gibson and the family of Arkansas investment banking billionaire Warren Stephens, has contracted with the Stephens Media LLC-owned Las Vegas Review-Journal to file copyright infringement lawsuits against 117 website owners and bloggers since March.

Washington - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told a panel investigating the financial crisis that regulators must be ready to shutter the largest institutions if they threaten to bring down the financial system. "If the crisis has a single lesson, it is that the too-big-to-fail problem must be solved," (Snip) Bernanke also said it was impossible for the Fed to rescue Lehman Brothers from bankruptcy in 2008 because the Wall Street firm lacked sufficient collateral to secure a loan. Lehman's former chief executive told the panel a day earlier that the firm could have been saved, but regulators refused to

A solar system containing up to seven planets orbiting a sun-like star has been detected 127 light years from Earth. The planetary system is believed to be the largest ever discovered beyond the sun. Astronomers have confirmed the presence of five planets and have tantalising evidence of two more. And it comes as Nasa has said that it plans to make an announcement about an 'intriguing' planetary system that it has discovered using the Kepler space telescope Kepler looks at the telltale 'wobble' as planets pass in front of distant stars and, earlier this year, astronomers announced that it had...