Falcon Heene is hugged by his mother, Mayumi, after his disappearance led to a national scare. (Cyrus McCrimmon, Associated Press / October 15)
Has the nation been duped by a balloon-wielding evil genius? Did little 6-year-old Falcon Heene have us right where he wanted, enthralled with our local news stations and hoping for his safe landing? Click here to read this story and to see video.
I’ve heard of some strange ways people have tried to extend life (like cryonics), but this one has to be the oddest.
These guys are serious…
“The rat sniffs the air a few times, and within a minute, his naturally twitchy movements are almost still. On a monitor that shows his rate of breathing, the lines look like a steep mountain slope, going down.
At first glance, that looks bad. We need oxygen to live. If you don't get it for several minutes -- for example, if you suffer cardiac arrest or a bad gunshot wound -- you die. But something else is going on inside this rat. He isn't dead, isn't dying. The reason why, some people think, is the future of emergency medicine.”
Read the whole story here at CNN Health.
By Jacqui Hayes
Cosmos Online
SYDNEY: Do you look like your father when you're angry? Probably more than you'd imagined. Facial expressions may be inherited, Israeli researchers say.
According to scientists, every person has a set of facial expressions that is unique to them, a signature of their identity that remains stable over time. Stable patterns of facial expressions arise before a baby is six months old, but until now, scientists were unsure whether these patterns were learned or innate.
Click here to read the rest.
The number of households caught up in the foreclosure crisis rose more than 5 percent from summer to fall as a federal effort to assist struggling borrowers was overwhelmed by a flood of defaults among people who lost their jobs.
Click here to read the rest at the Chicago Tribune.
The airport shuttle driver accused of plotting a bombing in New York had contacts with al-Qaida that went nearly all the way to the top, to an Osama bin Laden confidant believed to be the terrorist group's leader in Afghanistan, U.S. intelligence officials told The Associated Press.
AP – FILE- This Tuesday, July 22, 2008 image taken from Pakistan's Geo TV shows Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, an Egyptian
On the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, specialists Michael Scavone, left, and Michael Sollitto react as the Dow Jones industrial average crosses 10,000. (Richard Drew / Associated Press / October14)
Read the story here at the LA Times
Here’s something of interest for our local Humboldt bloggers. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be an investigative reporter? Check out this program:
By Peter Rothberg
The Nation -- Here's a great new idea worth supporting: The Freedom Journalism School -- a pioneering program to train a network of fifty new media muckrakers across the South.
A new project from the Institute for Southern Studies (ISS), the outfit that publishes Facing South, the South's leading online magazine, and Southern Exposure, an award-winning journal of politics and culture, the idea is to provide training for fifty bloggers and citizen journalists in investigative reporting skills in an effort to give them the tools they need to expose corruption and hold elected leaders accountable. Click here to read the rest.
By Dave Stancliff
Why does anyone cheat on their spouse?
In particular, why do so many politicians cheat on their mates? Researchers who study societal trends agree that there are some common factors involved when politicians choose to cheat.
One of the things often mentioned is that politicians are generally risk taking types who are into gathering power. I can see that. Here are seven examples of American presidents that seem to fit that theory: Thomas Jefferson, Warren G. Harding, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Bill Clinton.
Click here to read the rest of this article at ALL VOICES
The sights and sounds of rocks rolling down mountainsides are common but still captivating phenomena for the residents of the Nile Valley in central Washington state.
But a landslide over the weekend was more than the 1,500 people in the area have ever seen. "We just had the whole face of the mountain just pretty much come off," said Valerie Royster, manager of the Woodshed Restaurant, which sits just across the road from the edge of the landslide. Here’s the full story at CNN
Photo credit: Washington Department of Transportation
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR
WASHINGTON (AP) — Insurance companies aren't playing nice any more. Their dire message that health care legislation will drive up premiums for people who already have coverage comes as a warning shot at a crucial point in the debate and threatens President Barack Obama's top domestic priority.
Democrats and their allies scrambled on Monday to knock down a new industry-funded study forecasting that Senate legislation, over time, will add thousands of dollars to the cost of a typical policy. "Distorted and flawed," said White House spokeswoman Linda Douglass. "Fundamentally dishonest," said AARP's senior policy strategist, John Rother. "A hatchet job," said a spokesman for Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont.
But the health insurance industry's top lobbyist in Washington stood her ground. In a call with reporters, Karen Ignagni, president of America's Health Insurance Plans, pointedly refused to rule out attack ads on TV featuring the study, though she said she believed the industry's concerns could be amicably addressed.
Click here to read the rest at the Chicago Tribune.
In 1961 a groundbreaking book titled Black Like Me was written by a white man who posed as a black man in America's Deep South. John ...
