Free Republic

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Late-blooming sekiwake Tamawashi, who won his first title at the age of 34 in the just-ended New Year Grand Sumo Tournament, said Monday he does not intend to slow down his career despite taking his time to claim the Emperor's Cup. A day after winning the 15-day championship at Tokyo's Ryogoku Kokugikan with a 13-2 record, the Mongolian said he will shatter the young athlete ideal by fighting aging and working out to stay younger for longer. "I have to be young. I have to train as hard (as the younger wrestlers)," said Tamawashi, who became the...

It's a major shift after decades in which submarines focused on projecting power ashore, with their only anti-ship weapons being their rarely-used torpedoes. Driving the change: increasing anxiety about China. WASHINGTON: With an eye on China, the Navy will begin arming its attack submarines with ship-killer missiles for the first time in decades. The weapon of choice: an updated model of the decades-old Harpoon. In a little-noticed announcement posted earlier this month on a government contracting site, the Navy said it was entering into negotiations with Boeing to refurbish and recertify Harpoon anti-ship missiles for Los Angeles-class subs. It’s a...

After almost a year of deliberation, Kitsap County has unveiled a draft of an ordinance that seeks to limit drone activity near the five Naval Base Kitsap installations in the county. “The Navy appreciates the effort in Kitsap County to develop this draft ordinance," said Naval Base Kitsap commanding officer Capt. Alan Schrader. "As the number of (drone) sightings increase in and around Naval Base Kitsap, this ordinance will allow the Navy and local officials to have the authorities needed enforce and comply with FAA and Department of Defense rules to ensure base security." The Federal Aviation Administration banned the...

For the past 100 years, Keyport has been home to one of Navy's primary efforts to research, develop and test torpedoes, which earned the small, waterfront community the moniker of "Torpedo Town, U.S.A." Now, Keyport's Naval Undersea Warfare Center is becoming the modern testing ground for a new type of technology that silently operates in the depths — unmanned undersea vehicles, which are known as UUVs. Those unmanned undersea vehicles are essentially "pre-programmed, small submarines," said Cmdr. Scott Smith, commanding officer of the Navy's newly formed Unmanned Undersea Vehicle Squadron 1. The squadron's UUVs range from 10-inch torpedo-shaped tubes to large submersibles more than 80 inches in diameter. Many of...

Chinese government hackers have compromised the computers of a Navy contractor, stealing massive amounts of highly sensitive data related to undersea warfare — including secret plans to develop a supersonic anti-ship missile for use on U.S. submarines by 2020, according to American officials. The breaches occurred in January and February, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. The hackers targeted a contractor who works for the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, a military organization headquartered in Newport, R.I., that conducts research and development for submarines and underwater weaponry.

Microsoft may be moving to discontinue several first-party apps installed in Windows 10 that aren’t a major priority. Unnamed sources indicate that the company is now shifting internal developers away from the likes of Windows 10’s Stocks and Weather apps to focus on Microsoft Edge. Microsoft is also grabbing employees that previously worked on now-canceled Redstone 5 enhancements to provide them with positions on the Edge browser team. The news arrives after Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella distributed an email to employees in March that outlined a restructuring within the company. Rajesh Jha now leads a new engineering team focused on...

Chipmaker AMD has released new microcode updates to mitigate the Spectre variant 2 side-channel attack, which Microsoft has supported with a Windows 10 patch for AMD systems. AMD's latest microcode update coincided with Microsoft's April Patch Tuesday fixes and comes just weeks after Intel wrapped up its Spectre 2 mitigations for all CPU families released over the past nine years. AMD's chief mitigation for its chips on Windows affected by variant 2 CPU indirect branch target injections is called 'indirect branch prediction barrier' (IBPB), which is only intended for cases when software switches from one user context to a context...

Microsoft is releasing the source code for its original Windows File Manager from nearly 28 years ago. Originally released for Windows 3.0, the File Manager was a replacement for managing files through MS-DOS, and allowed Windows users to copy, move, delete, and search for files. While it’s a relic from the past, you can still compile the source code Microsoft has released and run the app on Windows 10 today.

Last week, Moor Insights & Strategy analysts Anshel Sag, Chris Wilder, Karl Freund and I attended NVIDIA GTC 2018, what I consider the industry leader’s premier GPU developer conference. If you’re unfamiliar with GTC, I wrote a preview here. As per usual with these events, the main keynote, given by CEO Jensen Huang, was the time to catch the biggest announcements coming out of the conference. More importantly, the event was also an opportunity to meet with NVIDIA developers, customers, press and senior leaders.

A.I.-driven hardware produced by Microsoft is on the horizon according to Harry Shum, executive vice president of the company’s A.I. and Research Group. It’s part of Microsoft’s initiative to integrate artificial intelligence into every product and service offered by the company. Shum says these devices will be “very, very exciting.” The comment arrives after Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced yet another reorganization within the company, with the result creating two new engineering teams: the Experiences & Devices group led by Rajesh Jha, and the Cloud and A.I. Platform group led by Jason Zander. Harry Shum will continue to run the...

If you're looking to raise one of the most powerful business leaders in the world, you might want to send your kid to Hyderabad Public School, Begumpet, in India. In an interview with Stephen Dubner on an episode of the "Freakonomics" podcast, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella mentioned that not only did he attend the high school, but so did Shantanu Narayen, the CEO of Adobe, and Ajay Banga, the CEO of Mastercard. Hyderabad Public School is what Americans would consider a private school — though in India, like England, such schools are called public schools. According to Hyderabad Public School's...

OSAKA (Kyodo) -- Ozeki Takayasu may have finished without a title, but he finished the Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in style with a win over yokozuna Kakuryu on Sunday. Takayasu and Kakuryu were forced to refight the tournament's final bout on the 15th and final day at Edion Arena Osaka, where judges were unable to decide a winner in their first try. In the second try, Takayasu was too fast for the grand champion and easily forced him out. Takayasu has now won 12 bouts in consecutive tournaments. Kakuryu, who clinched his fourth career championship on Saturday, finished with a...

OSAKA (Kyodo) -- Yokozuna Kakuryu's awkward win kept him atop the standings with Brazilian maegashira Kaisei on Monday, the ninth day of the Spring Grand Sumo Tournament. The yokozuna was nearly blown out of the ring by a powerful but uncontrolled final charge from No. 4 maegashira Shodai (5-4), but Kakuryu made his escape tip-toeing along the ring's straw-bale border as Shodai thundered out. The Mongolian could barely control his smile after snatching victory from defeat. He had opened brightly, but Shodai repulsed his charge and seized the initiative. Everything was going the youngster's way until his failed attempt to...

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- A day after clinching his first championship, Tochinoshin finished the New Year Grand Sumo Tournament on Sunday by dispatching fan-favorite Endo and finishing with a 14-1 record. Tochinoshin, a third-ranked maegashira, survived a scare when he was pushed towards the edge, but he pulled himself together to force Endo (9-6) out at Tokyo's Ryogoku Kokugikan. For his achievements, the Kasugano stable's new hero received his first Outstanding Performance prize and his second Technique prize, his first since the May meet in 2016. The 30-year-old became the first wrestler to win two prizes in a single meet since...

A 34-year-old Pierce County sheriff’s deputy was killed while responding to a report of a home invasion near Frederickson late Sunday night, according to the sheriff’s department. The officer was identified by the sheriff’s department as Daniel McCartney of Yelm, a Navy veteran and a father of three young boys. One of two suspects was also killed during the exchange, according to the sheriff’s department. The Pierce County Sheriff’s Department posted early Monday on its Facebook page that the deputy was shot just after 11:30 p.m. while responding to a report of an intruder at a residence on 200th Street...

FUKUOKA (Kyodo) -- Mongolian grand champion Hakuho saw his overnight lead trimmed to one win after suffering a shock first defeat at the Kyushu Grand Sumo Tournament on Wednesday. Hakuho got quickly rammed out by sekiwake Yoshikaze in the day's final bout at Fukuoka Kokusai Center but in a rare act unfitting of a yokozuna, raised his arm in protest at the referee's decision. Hakuho took his foot off the pedal after the charge, suggesting he thought Yoshikaze (6-5) had made a "matta" false start. He left the ring shaking his head in disbelief after dropping to 10-1. "The yokozuna...

WASHINGTON: All hands, brace for disappointment. The president’s promised naval buildup won’t begin in the 2018 budget out next week — or maybe ever. Sure, before the election, candidate Donald Trump promised a 350-ship Navy. Sure, just this morning, House Speaker Paul Ryan repeated the 350 figure. Sure, this week the Chief of Naval Operations emphasized the buildup should and could be fast. US shipyards could deliver 29 additional ships over the next seven years, said the CNO, Adm. John Richardson. That averages to 4.1 additional ships per year, although the first years would probably be lower because the shipyards...

PITTSBURGH -- Kevin Shattenkirk knew he could improve and showed it Monday. Shattenkirk scored a power-play goal 3:13 into overtime to give the Washington Capitals a 3-2 win against the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Second Round at PPG Paints Arena. After Trevor Daley was called for holding Marcus Johansson at 2:40 of overtime, Shattenkirk beat Marc-Andre Fleury with a wrist shot from below the circles for his first goal of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Penguins lead the best-of-7 series, 2-1. Game 4 is here on Wednesday (7:30 p.m. ET; NBCSN, CBC, TVA Sports). Pittsburgh...

“Mayday, mayday.” That’s the message that Hampton Roads’ ship-repair industry is sending to Congress as it gets back to work this week. A minimum of 1,000 layoffs are projected in the region’s ship-repair yards in the weeks and months ahead, some of which have already begun to unfold. They’re largely the result of a stopgap spending measure the government has been operating under for roughly seven months and the failure to approve a new national budget with adequate funding to maintain Navy ships, said Bill Crow, president of the Virginia Ship Repair Association, a regional trade group. The meter on...

One of the U.S. destroyers tasked with launching a Tomahawk Land Attack Missile on a Syrian airfield last week has returned to its homeport in Spain, the service announced on Tuesday. USS Porter (DDG-78) returned to Naval Station Rota making the completion of a five-month European patrol in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. “During the patrol, Porter conducted port visits in Valencia, Spain; Venice, Italy; Souda Bay, Greece; and Constanta, Romania,” read a statement from U.S. 6th Fleet. Last week, 59 TLAMS from Porter and USS Ross (DDG-78) struck targets at the al-Shayrat air base in Syria destroying Su-22...