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U2 frontman Bono talks about faith and life

Until Lockheed Martin finally builds the SR-72 Mach-6 spy plane it announced in November, the iconic SR-71 Blackbird, capable of flying three times the speed of sound, remains the fastest warplane ever flown operationally. So fast that no missiles fired at it had a chance of hitting. When the U-2 spy plane was built in the 1950s, its designer Clarence “Kelly” Johnson already knew that it would be vulnerable to enemy defenses.

A newly declassified CIA history from 20 years ago spills the story about Nevada's Area 51 and its secret mission — which was not to study UFOs, but to test the U-2 and other spy planes. The CIA's story about the legendary test site is contained in "The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance: the U-2 and Oxcart Programs." The document was approved for release in June, with just a few remaining redactions, in response to a Freedom of Information request filed by George Washington University's National Security Archive back in 2005.

How To Fly A U-2 Spy Plane Got your eye on a sweet used '59 U-2 spy plane you saw on Craigslist? Would you go ahead and take the plunge if you just, you know, knew how to fly it? Then boy, are you in luck. That's because a couple days ago an entire flight manual for the U-2 from 1959 was declassified and released by the CIA. You can tell it's declassified because on each page where the word "secret" appears, someone has carefully drawn a line through it. We've got a copy here for you. The U-2 is,...

U2 guitarist may get a second chance at Malibu mansions Lobbyists who worked on the Edge's project are urging legislators to approve a measure that could clear the way for his development, which the Coastal Commission rejected. SACRAMENTO — The California Coastal Commission rejected a controversial proposal last year by U2 guitarist the Edge to build five mansions on a scenic bluff above Malibu, saying that it would scar a rugged ridgeline and harm sensitive habitat. Now, some of the same powerful lobbyists and lawyers behind the musician's quashed development are working the halls of the Capitol to push a...

(CNN) -- An American pilot whose U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union will be posthumously awarded the Silver Star next week, 50 years after he was released from prison and returned to the United States. The award for valor is being bestowed on Francis Gary Powers for exhibiting "exceptional loyalty" during harsh interrogation while in captivity by the Soviet Union for nearly two years, the Air Force said. The Silver Star is the third-highest combat military decoration awarded to members of any U.S. military branch for valor in the face of the enemy, the Air Force...

Short sellers desperate to bet against Facebook shortly after its debut on public markets are now getting their chance. Shares of the much-anticipated IPO have fallen sharply since they opened at $42.05 on Friday amid an initial flurry of trading problems at the Nasdaq and after news that top underwriters cut their revenue estimates just days before the offering. Yet, short sellers are still eager to bet against the stock given its lofty valuation.

Investors File Suit Against Facebook, Underwriters By DAVID BENOIT Three Facebook Inc. investors filed a civil lawsuit Wednesday in Manhattan federal court, alleging the company and its underwriters failed to properly disclose changes to analysts' forecasts made at the underwriting banks. The suit follows reports that analysts at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. cut their revenue forecasts on Facebook amid the investor roadshow, a change that wasn't widely disseminated. Late Tuesday, Massachusetts sent a subpoena to Morgan Stanley following the reports. Several other plaintiffs' lawyers have said they filed suits over the offering in other courts throughout the...

<p>NEW YORK—Facebook Inc. FB -6.57% shares fell below the initial public offering price of $38 Monday, its second day of trading, a black eye for all those involved with the social networking company going public.</p> <p>Facebook shares changed hands at $37.08, down 3%, in premarket trading.</p>

.Facebook Inc. FB +0.61%took eight years to stage one of the most anticipated initial public offerings ever. The anticlimax came Friday, as Wall Street bankers struggled to prevent the newly minted stock from ending its first day with a loss. The stock had been widely predicted to soar on its first day. Instead, up until the closing moments of the trading session, Facebook's underwriters battled to keep the stock from slipping below its offering price of $38 a share. Such a stumble would have been a significant embarrassment, particularly for a prominent new issue like Facebook, the most heavily traded...

Talk about a "Beautiful Day." Once the smoke clears from Friday's (May 18) Facebook IPO
, U2 singer Bono could be the richest musician on the planet. According to England's NME, the already flush, tech-savvy
 Irish rock icon owns 2.3 percent of the shares of Facebook through his investment group, Elevation Partners. Well before Facebook filed papers to go public, Elevation paid $90 million for the shares in 2009 and after what is expected to be the second-biggest IPO in history, Bono's share could be worth more than $1.5 billion.

How Lockheed’s Skunk Works Got into the Stealth Fighter Business How Lockheed’s Skunk Works Got into the Stealth Fighter Business How do you hide an airplane behind a bird? Very skillfully. Lt. Col. William B. O'Connor (ret.) flew the F-117 Nighthawk during the Bosnia Conflict, and in Stealth Fighter, he explains the history, operation, and soul America's most advanced stealth jet. While the United States had never embraced a defensive mindset and had only fielded one strategic SAM system to that point, the Nike-Hercules dating from the 1950s, and one real medium-range tactical system, the HAWK (homing all the way...

U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Henry thought the tiny red dots on his skin were insect bites. But as he relaxed at a Florida beach house with a fellow pilot on a day off in 1990, he noticed he was the only one getting bitten. Henry wouldn’t learn until later that the dots were capillaries breaking under the strain of nitrogen bubbles that had formed during his latest flight in a Lockheed U-2 spyplane, 10 hours earlier. He would find out the hard way how much worse it could get. Henry had been flying the U-2 since 1987, and...

Last year the U.S. Air Force decided to extend the life of its U-2 fleet and cut back on the use of large UAVs for strategic reconnaissance. One of the many upgrades U-2s will now receive will be better cockpit pressurization. Currently, pilots operate in a cockpit pressurized to conditions found at 9,600 meters (30,000 feet). This puts more strain on the pilot's body. That, and the fact that they breathe pure oxygen while up there, means they tend to be completely exhausted after returning from a long mission. So pressuring the cockpit to the level of a lower altitude...

The draft of the federal budget for 2013 pulls back the throttle on the rival Global Hawk program. An Air Force general says the U-2, a design that dates to the 1950s, is "the stronger system." Score one for old-school aircraft against the upstart drones. Perhaps it's just a brief respite from the seemingly inevitable winds of change propelling unmanned aircraft ever higher in the Pentagon's airpower depth charts, but the venerable U-2 spy plane has won a key vote of confidence over the unmanned RQ-4 Global Hawk. That victory came not in a head-to-head aerial dogfight, but in a...

The U.S. Air Force has decided to scrap its Northrop Grumman Corp high-altitude unmanned surveillance plane program and keep its Cold War-vintage U-2 spy planes flying into the 2020s, according to a government official and a defense analyst. Loren Thompson, chief operating officer of the Virginia-based Lexington Institute, said the Air Force decision was based on the cost of the RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned planes, and said the service would investigate using a marine version with different sensors that Northrop is developing for the Navy. The Navy is proceeding with its plans to buy 68 of that version of the...

A U-2 pilot completed the final manned intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance mission over Iraq Dec. 18, as the last American troops withdrew into neighboring Kuwait. Maj. Steve flew his first mission over Iraq during Operation Southern Watch in the early '90s, so it was fitting for the 99th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron Airman to close out this chapter of his unit's history. The major, deployed from Beale Air Force Base, Calif., said he was proud to be part of this landmark event. "The best part about it was it was quiet for the folks on the ground," said Steve, a Lake...

This has been seen before by a few of us, but it's not a bad repeat.... http://www.wimp.com/breathtakingfootage/

Two Chinese warplanes intercepted an American spy plane over the tense Taiwan Strait last month in China’s most aggressive challenge to U.S. surveillance flights since a 2001 collision that touched off an international crisis. According to defense officials, the intercept took place June 29. The two Chinese jets flew from a base in China to head off an Air Force U-2 spy plane over the dividing line in the 100-mile wide Taiwan Strait. “In general, these reconnaissance flights are conducted in international airspace, as are the PRC [Chinese] intercepts, which happen fairly routinely,” said a Pentagon official familiar with the...

Cuba’s leading dissident, Oscar Elias Biscet, said he “was shaking with happiness” as he learned Thursday that rock star and social activist Bono had sung his praises during a jam-packed U2 concert in Miami. The 73,000-strong audience at the Sun Life stadium roared with delight Wednesday when Bono urged support for the 49-year-old Biscet and declared that “some day soon Cuba will be free.” “As you read me what he said, I was shaking with happiness because it showed it’s good when one is chosen as a symbol of his people,” Biscet told El Nuevo Herald, which first told him...