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The Royal Navy has unveiled its largest and most powerful attack submarine, a month before the over-budget, overdue vessel is due be launched. Military officials say HMS Astute will be able to circumnavigate the planet without surfacing, and its nuclear reactor is designed to last for the vessel's 25-year operational life, meaning it will never need to be refueled. An artist's impression of the Astute class submarineInside the Astute class submarine

Scenario: Jack pulls into school parking lot with rifle in gun rack. 1956 - Vice Principal comes over, takes a look at Jack's hunting rifle, goes to his own car and gets his favorite rifle to show Jack. 2006 - School goes into lockdown, FBI called, Jack is handcuffed and hauled off to Federal prison and never sees his truck, gun or family again. Counselors are called in for all the traumatized students and teachers. FOX, ABC, CBS &NBC are on site within 5 minutes. ++++++++++++++++++++++ Scenario: Best friends Johnny and Mark get into a fist fight after school. 1956...

Mystery of the Missing Heat: Upper ocean has cooled slightly in recent years, despite warming climate Sid Perkins Between 2003 and 2005, the top layers of the world's oceans cooled slightly, but scientists aren't sure where the heat went. According to climate data gathered worldwide, 2003, 2004, and 2005 are three of the five warmest years since reliable record keeping of global air temperatures began more than a century ago. However, oceanographic surveys suggest that on average, the upper 750 meters of the world's ice-free oceans cooled about 0.03°C during that 3-year period. This cooling reverses an oceanic-warming trend observed...

Catastrophic mudslide could last 100 years, say scientists · Land in East Java likely to collapse as thousands flee· Attempts to seal channels will 'probably not succeed' John Aglionby in Jakarta Tuesday September 26, 2006 The Guardian (UK) Smoke rises from the site of the mudslide in East Java. Photograph: Vinai Dithajohn/EPA Mud, gas and boiling water that have been gushing out of the ground in East Java since May, submerging half a dozen villages and 20 factories, could continue for a century with "catastrophic consequences", European experts said yesterday. Efforts to seal the channels through which the mud is...

Seeds 200 years old breathe again By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News website The unknown acacia species is now half a metre tall Seeds which have been stored away since the time of George III have been persuaded into new life. Scientists from the Millennium Seed Bank, operated by the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, have induced seeds from three species to germinate. They had been brought to Britain from South Africa by a Dutch merchant in 1803, and were found in a notebook stored in the National Archives. Given this history, the team said it was surprised by...

BISBEE — A Mexican man pleaded no contest Tuesday to charges he stole a pickup truck and dragged a Sheriff’s deputy during a March traffic stop in Huachuca City, breaking the deputy’s ankle in the process. Hugo Rodr’guez Pelagio, 24, of Tangancicuaro, Michoacan state, will serve three years in prison and pay up to $200 in restitution as part of a plea agreement with the state. According to an arrest report from the Sheriff’s Department, Rodr’guez Pelagio was stopped at about 2:38 a.m. on March 21 as he was driving with an unidentified passenger along Highway 90 northbound in a...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - A convicted murderer who escaped from a Michigan psychiatric facility in 1976 was back behind bars Thursday after living most of his 30 years on the run as an otherwise law-abiding family man in Tennessee, authorities said. Thomas Ball, 76, was arrested at his Nashville home Wednesday morning, Deputy U.S. Marshal Danny Shelton said. Ball had been using the name Thomas Fry and had run a storage business near Nashville for years with a woman he called his wife, Shelton said. After she died last year, he turned to the government for financial help, and that led...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 12, 2006 – Five years after military recruiting hit the ceiling after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, recruiting remains solid, with every service meeting its active-duty recruiting goal for the 15th consecutive month. Recruiting and retention statistics for August, just released by the Defense Department, show the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force all meeting or exceeding both their monthly as well as year-to-date recruiting goals for the year. At the same time, retention remains solid across the board, with all services expected to meet their retention goals for the fiscal year, officials said. During August,...

It may well take 20 years. But al-Qaeda's days are numbered Five years after 9/11, Osama bin Laden waits in vain for a Muslim 'awakening'. The lure of the West is just too powerful a force Jason Burke Sunday September 10, 2006 The Observer (UK) Tomorrow will mark five years since the attacks of 11 September 2001. If one generation knew where they were when mankind first walked on the moon, another knows where they were when the Twin Towers crumbled. And they know where they were when coalition troops first entered Iraq. And when the bombs exploded in London...

Ky. businessman gets 7 years for bribe to JeffersonBy MATTHEW BARAKAT Associated Press Writer A Kentucky telecommunications executive who admitted paying more than $400,000 in bribes to Rep. William Jefferson was sentenced Friday to more than seven years in prison. Vernon Jackson, 54, of Louisville, is a key figure in the federal investigation of Jefferson, D-La., who has not been charged. But in court papers, prosecutors have alleged that they caught Jefferson on videotape taking a $100,000 cash bribe. Most of that money later turned up in a freezer in Jefferson's home. Jefferson was never mentioned by name in Friday's...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 6, 2006 -- At about 9 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, Debra Wagner and her colleagues at the Pentagon got a phone call telling them to turn on the television. There had been a terrible “accident” in New York City. Debra Wagner, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, stands by a display honoring the people who lost their lives in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the Pentagon. Wagner said she came through the tragic events with a profound belief in the resilience of America and its people. Photo by...

LOS ANGELES - Ronald Isley has been sentenced to three years and one month in prison for tax evasion. The 65-year-old R&B singer was also ordered to pay $3.1 million in back taxes to the Internal Revenue Service, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Conte. Isley was convicted last year of five counts of tax evasion and one count of willful failure to file a tax return. During Friday's hearing, defense attorney Anthony Alexander argued that Isley should receive probation instead of prison time because of complications from a stroke and a recent bout with kidney cancer. Alexander also pleaded for...

The Drug Policy Alliance is releasing a powerful flash movie that highlights the plight of 18-year-old Mitchell Lawrence, the teen now spending two years in jail for selling one joint’s worth of marijuana to an undercover cop in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. The two-minute movie introduces people to Mitchell Lawrence and the details of his case. The flash asks and then explains how an 18-year-old (he was 17 when arrested) who has never been in trouble before could be sentenced to two years in jail for selling such a minuscule amount of marijuana. The movie states: "It takes two things: A...

Start of banana farming in Africa pushed back 2000 years According to recent evidence from Uganda, the banana may have arrived on the African continent more than 4000 years ago, some 2000 years before the accepted introduction of the fruit on the continent. The finding was published in the January 2006 issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science (Vol. 33(1):102-113). The authors base their claim on banana phytoliths - distinctive microscopic silica bodies that accumulate in plant cells - which they found in sedimentary layers estimated to be 4000-4500 years old. Earlier findings in Cameroon of 2500 year-old banana phytoliths...

Flood alert for the highest tides in 20 years By David Sapsted (Filed: 07/08/2006) Thousands of people living in coastal areas are being warned to prepare for mass evacuations next month because of floods. Similar conditions in 1953 led to a flood that claimed 300 lives With the highest tides in 20 years predicted during September and October, the Environment Agency is holding road shows to alert people in the most vulnerable, low-lying areas of East Anglia. Householders are being urged to register with the agency to receive direct flood warnings, and a new Precautionary Evacuation Notice (PEN) system, involving...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A federal appeals court on Monday rejected a government request to deny the release of a top fundraiser for an Islamic charity that authorities say has ties to terrorism, his attorneys said. The move by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco came days after a federal district judge ordered the release of Abdel-Jabbar Hamdan, 45. Hamdan was to be released Monday evening, said Ranjana Natajaran of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. Hamdan has been held at the Terminal Island federal detention facility in San Pedro for more than two...

Clinton says Bush years 'hard on science'By Mark Pratt, Associated Press Writer July 23, 2006 BOSTON --New York Sen. Hillary Clinton said Sunday that scientific and medical advances in fields including embryonic stem cell research are being held back by a White House that puts ideology and theology ahead of facts and evidence. "The last 5 1/2 years have been hard on science ... and particularly hard because of the president's veto last week," Clinton told 5,000 attendees at the World Transplant Congress in Boston. **SNIP** Clinton, a potential Democratic candidate for president in 2008, said science is being politicized...

When Officer Manuel Gonzalez was stabbed to death Jan. 10, 2005, the inmate suspected in the killing was out of his cell – in violation of standing orders at the prison. Gonzalez, a veteran officer at the California Institution for Men in Chino, also wasn’t wearing his protective "stab-resistant" vest. That’s because it, and hundreds more like it, were in storage and had never been distributed. The killing came a year and a half after prison laundry employee Karen Gossom claims she was sexually assaulted by her supervisor while at work. An Internal Affairs investigation sustained the allegations, and Gossom...

Fruity headache for cafe ownersBy Samantha Williams and Karina Dunger 03jul06 Cafe workers ... Julie Hanssens and Jodie Lee / Troy Bendeich BAD weather is set to affect the price of oranges after already crippling Australia's banana industry. The worst frost in 24 years has destroyed 40,000 tonnes - about 25 per cent - of the citrus fruit produced in southern Australia. "They won't hit skyrocketing prices of bananas but there will be some price hike due to the reduction of fruit on the market," Riverina Citrus CEO Peter Morrish said. Oranges currently sell for $2.50kg, with experts predicting rises...

Early signs of elephant butchers Excavations took place in 2004 Bones and tusks dating back 400,000 years are the earliest signs in Britain of ancient humans butchering elephants for meat, say archaeologists. Remains of a single adult elephant surrounded by stone tools were found in northwest Kent during work on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link. Scientists believe hunters used the tools to cut off the meat, after killing the animal with wooden spears. The find is described in the Journal of Quaternary Science. The first signs of the Stone Age site were uncovered by constructors at Southfleet Road in Ebbsfleet,...