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America tests 'the most dangerous nuclear bomb ever produced': F-15 drops $1trillion super-nuke that has an adjustable yield and is more accurate than ever An F-15E from Nellis Air Force Base dropped an inert version of the B61-12 over Nevada desert earlier this month after its first test in MarchB61-12 gravity bombs, without a nuclear warhead, were dropped from F-15E fighter jets at Tonopah Test Range in Nevada on August 8 The mock bomb landed in a dry lake bed at the Tonopah Test RangeScientists will spend months analyzing the data gathered from the testB61-12 consolidates and replaces older...

Foreclosures May Jump As ARMs Reset By J.W. ELPHINSTONE NEW YORK - In 2003, Anita Britten refinanced her two-story brick cottage in Lithonia, Ga. using a hybrid adjustable rate mortgage, or ARM. Her lender reassured her that she could refinance out of the riskier loan into a traditional one when her interest rate started to reset. Three years later, Britten can't get a new mortgage and her monthly payment has jumped by a third in six months. She can't afford her payments and may face foreclosure if her financial situation doesn't change. As more ARMs adjust upward and housing prices...

The HeraldTribune is reporting the clock is winding down on the Hybrid Loan and Sub-Prime mortgage time bombs. Starting in 2006 and accelerating into 2007, as much as $2.5 trillion worth of the fancy mortgages called "hybrids" are coming to the end of the free-lunch part of the deal. Economists are still trying to put numbers on this reset factor, particularly when it comes to the riskiest home loans, referred to as "sub-prime." "We don't have enough data to know how big a problem this will be," said David Berson, chief economist at Fannie Mae, the nation's largest mortgage packager....

I have tried to devise the absolute worst mortgage loan that I can imagine. Fortunately, this loan is nothing more than a figment of my imagination -- at least, as far as I know. But take a cynical guy like me with a looming deadline and this is what you get. This fictional loan would contain many of the elements that appeal to borrowers hemmed in by affordability. Like today's option, adjustable-rate mortgages, borrowers would be able to choose an interest-only payment or even a minimum-payment option. While the borrower is lured by the minimum payment, what results is a...