360 News Briefs

Iran Launches Research Rocket Into Space

Iran announced Wednesday it has successfully launched a 10-foot-long research rocket carrying a mouse, two turtles and worms into space -- a feat President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said showed Iran could defeat the West in the battle of technology.

The launch of the Kavoshgar-3, which means Explorer-3 in Farsi, was announced by Defense Minister Gen. Ahmad Vahidi as part of Iran's ambitious space program. It comes a year after Iran sent its first domestically made telecommunications satellite into orbit.

The program has worried Western powers who fear the same technology used to launch satellites and research capsules could also deliver warheads. Iranian state television broadcast images Wednesday of officials putting a mouse, two turtles and about a dozen creatures that looked like worms inside a capsule in the rocket before it blast off.

Vahidi gave no details on the research and the report did not disclose when or where the launch took place. The rocket is the third in a series bearing the same name. Iran reported launching Kavoshgar-1, or Explorer-1, in Feb. 2008. The first section of the rocket detached after 90 seconds and returned to earth with the help of a parachute. A second segment entered space for about five minutes, while the final section was sent toward orbit to collect data.

Later in 2008, a rocket entitled Kavoshgar-2, or Explorer-2, made it to the lower reaches of space and returned to earth 40 minutes later on a parachute. No details about that launch were reported.

Ahmadinejad praised the latest launch and said greater events would come in the future.

Massive US Study Shows Drop In Child Abuse

A new federal study documents an unprecedented and dramatic decrease in incidents of serious child abuse, especially sexual abuse. Experts hailed the findings as proof that crackdowns and public awareness campaigns had made headway.

An estimated 553,000 children suffered physical, sexual or emotional abuse in 2005-06, down 26 percent from the estimated 743,200 abuse victims in 1993, the study found.

"It's the first time since we started collecting data about these things that we've seen substantial declines over a long period, and that's tremendously encouraging," said professor David Finkelhor of the University of New Hampshire, a leading researcher in the field of child abuse.

"It does suggest that the mobilization around this issue is helping and it's a problem that is amenable to solutions," he said.

The findings were contained in the fourth installment of the National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect, a congressionally mandated study that has been conducted periodically by the Department of Health and Human Services. The previous version was issued in 1996, based on 1993 data.

The new study is based on information from more than 10,700 "sentinels" -- such as child welfare workers, police officers, teachers, health care professionals and day care workers -- in 122 counties across the country. The detailed data collected from them was then used to make national estimates.

The number of sexually abused children decreased from 217,700 in 1993 to 135,300 in 2005-2006 -- a 38 percent drop, the study shows. The number of children who experienced physical abuse fell by 15 percent and the number of emotionally abused children dropped by 27 percent. The 455-page study shied away from trying to explain the trends, but other experts offered their theories.

Finkelhor, whose own previous research detected a drop in abuse rates, said the study reveals "real, substantial declines" that cannot be dismissed on any technical grounds, such as changing definitions of abuse.

He suggested that the decline was a product of several coinciding trends, including a "troop surge" in the 1990s when more people were deployed in child protection services and the criminal justice system intensified its anti-abuse efforts with more arrests and prison sentences.

Finkelhor also suggested that the greatly expanded use of medications may have enabled many potential child abusers to treat the conditions that otherwise might have led them to molest or mistreat a child.

One curious aspect of the study was the manner of its release. Although HHS had launched the study in 2004 and invested several million dollars, it was posted a few days ago on the Internet with no fanfare -- neither a press release nor a news conference. Finkelhor, noting that experts in the field had been impatiently awaiting the study, described this low-profile approach as "shocking."

The findings might be disconcerting to some in the child-welfare field who base their funding pitches on the specter of ever-rising abuse rates, said Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform.

The study found some dramatic differences in child abuse rates based on socio-economic factors. Poor children were three times more likely than other kids to experience abuse, and rates of abuse in African-American families were significantly higher than for whites and Hispanics.

Family structure also was a factor -- for example, children whose single parent had a live-in partner faced an abuse rate 10 times that of a child living with two parents.

The study does not cover the recent period in which the United States plunged into a recession, prompting some reports of increased domestic violence and abuse in hard-off families.

Pricey Space Rock Stirs Ownership Debate

An out-of-this world rock has become the center of a down-to-earth dispute over who its rightful owner should be.

The tennis ball-sized meteorite plummeted through the roof of a Virginia medical office just after dusk on Jan. 18, the same time that people reported seeing a fireball in the sky. It plunged through the ceiling of an examination room and landed near the spot where a doctor had been sitting a short while earlier.

"I'm the most likely person to be sitting in that place where it hit," Dr. Marc Gallini said. "It just wasn't my time, I guess."

He and fellow practitioner Dr. Frank Ciampi say their first thought was to give the rare find to the Smithsonian Institution, which offered $5,000 for it. Within days, it was sent to the National Museum of Natural History for safekeeping.

The doctors are worried, though, that their longtime landlords plan to stake their own claim to the space rock; the collectors market for meteorites can be lucrative. Gallini, who has run his family practice in Lorton, Va., since 1978, said he notified his property owner, Erol Mutlu, of plans to hand the meteorite over to the Smithsonian, which holds the world's largest museum collection of meteorites. Gallini says he got Mutlu's permission. Later in the week, though, Mutlu sent the doctors an e-mail warning that his brother and fellow landlord Deniz Mutlu was going to the Smithsonian to retrieve the rock, Gallini said.

Deniz Mutlu later appeared to back away from the claim, saying the family was making no such demands and the meteorite is safe for now at the Smithsonian. He added, however, that he didn't know how long it would remain there. The doctors hired their own lawyer and demanded the Smithsonian not release the meteorite until the ownership question was resolved. The lawyer plans to ask a court to rule.

"We really want this to end up in the right place," Gallini said. The doctors plan to donate the money from the Smithsonian to Haiti earthquake relief, he said.

The Smithsonian won't comment on ownership and said in a statement that it will "retain possession of the 'Lorton Meteorite' until a legal owner has been established." The Smithsonian collection includes about 15,000 meteorites, including 738 gathered shortly after they fell from the sky. The Lorton meteorite came from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, curators said.

It has a blackened outer surface from burning through the atmosphere, said Tim McCoy, a mineral sciences curator at the Smithsonian. Inside are flecks of metal and thousands of tiny rocks containing "the primitive stuff left over from the birth of the solar system," he said. That material allows scientists to look back about 4.6 billion years, McCoy said. The last meteorite known to strike a building was in New Orleans in 2003, said Linda Welzenbach, the museum's meteorite collections manager. There were other finds that year in the Chicago area.

Space rocks can fetch thousands of dollars from collectors. Meteorite hunters descended on Washington's Virginia suburbs to look for other remnants of the Lorton meteorite.

One was Steve Arnold, co-star of the new Science Channel TV show, "Meteorite Men." Arnold estimates the Lorton meteorite could bring $25,000 to $50,000 on the open market, unless more pieces turn up. But he said Tuesday that none turned up from his search around the doctors' office.

Meteorites have been the subject of legal disputes before. In the early 1900s, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled a 15-ton meteorite belonged to the landowner on whose property it likely landed, not the person who found it. Other U.S. courts have ruled similarly - that a meteorite becomes part of the land where it arrives through 'natural cause' and hence the property of the landowner.

NZ Student Sells Virginity For $32,000

A New Zealand teenager who says she auctioned her virginity online for $32,000 to raise tuition money did not break any laws but it might be risky for her to follow through on the deal, police warned Wednesday.

The anonymous 19-year-old student offered her virginity to the highest bidder on the Web site www.ineed.co.nz under the name "Unigirl," saying she would use the money to pay for her tuition. She said in a post that more than 30,000 people had viewed her ad and more than 1,200 had made bids before she accepted an offer of more than New Zealand dollars 45,000 ($32,000).

Unlike similar New Zealand Web sites, bidding and correspondence between buyers and sellers on the ineed site is private so it is not known what bids Unigirl's offer received.

Web site owner Ross McKenzie said the site's policy was that as long as an ad was legal and did not offend the general standards of society, "it was OK." He confirmed Unigirl was a member on the site.

Prostitution is legal in New Zealand under laws considered more liberal than many countries. Prostitution among consenting adults is allowed in brothels and on the streets, and offering sexual services in print ads and online is also legal.

National police spokesman Jon Neilson said no law appeared to have been breached.

But "we would suggest it's not a safe practice," Neilson told The Associated Press. "There are definitely issues of personal safety" in using chat rooms, social dating networks and other Internet sites that can be used to arrange meetings between strangers.

Unigirl, in her initial post, described herself as attractive, fit and healthy. She did not post a photograph of herself, and bidders did not appear to have a way of confirming any of the details of her posts.

Unigirl said she was desperate for money to pay university fees.

"I am offering my virginity by tender to the highest bidder as long as all personal safety aspects are observed," her ad said. "This is my decision made with full awareness of the circumstances and possible consequences."

The internet has increasingly been used for offering and arranging sex services, and security concerns have quickly followed.

In the United States, 23-year-old former medical student Philip Markoff has pleaded not guilty to killing a masseuse he met on the Craigslist classified advertising site, and raping a stripper and robbing another woman he met in the same way.

Virginity has also been offered for sale online. British newspapers reported last week that a 16-year-old girl in Ireland had offered to sell her virginity on an online classified advertising site but recanted after a reporter posing as a bidder identified himself as from the media. A 22-year-old student in San Diego says she has received bids of up to $3.7 million for her virginity, which is being offered for sale through a brothel in Nevada, CNN reported.

Last year, a Philadelphia woman was charged with promoting prostitution after posting an ad online offering sex for tickets to a World Series baseball game.

Catherine Healy of the New Zealand Prostitutes' Collective, a group that represents sex workers on health and rights issues, said the New Zealand teenager had entered into sex work by offering herself online.

"The amount of money is absolutely huge -- and that puts her under enormous pressure to perform all sorts of acts," she said.

But Healy said it was also possible that the successful bidder wanted to "save" the teenager and would not ask her to have sex. She said the teenager would still have the right to refuse to have sex with the bidder if she changed her mind, and that the bidder could claim his money back.

Links: http://www.ineed.co.nz

Victim Chases, Rams Armed Robbers

Glynn County, Georgia - Police arrested two men after a robbery victim chased them down and rammed their car. Police said two men approached and demanded money and jewelry from a 32-year-old man and 19-year-old woman as they arrived last Tuesday night at a home in Glynn County.

As the robbers left in a 1994 Toyota Tercel, the victim got in his car and chased the them and then rammed their car. Police said the two men ran, leaving two handguns and a ski mask in their car. Officers arrested Richard Jerrod Simpson, 27, of Brunswick, in the area and charged him with armed robbery and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

About 7 a.m. the next morning, Clyde Jerome Baker, 26, of Brunswick, reported the wrecked Tercel stolen. About 2 p.m. that day, investigators arrested Baker and charged him with armed robbery.

Baker was also charged with an armed robbery on Jan. 25 where three victims reported two black men approached them on the front porch of a home. Police said the victims retreated into the house and the robbers forced their way in, demanded money and threatened to shoot the victims.

The robbers took a wallet, cell phone and two digital cameras. The cameras were recovered by police.

Iranian News Agency; US Dept of Health & Human Services; University of New Hampshire; National Coalition for Child Protection Reform; The AP.

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Tribute: Remembering Norman Rockwell

A True American Original
February 3, 2010: The American cartoonist and illustrator, whose works featured on 322 Saturday Evening Post covers over 47 years, was born on this day in 1894.

Shortly after the turn of the century, three young art students swore an oath: they signed their names in blood, swearing never to prostitute their art, never to do advertising jobs, and never to make more than fifty dollars a week. One of these blood brothers dismally failed to keep his allegiance. His name was Norman Rockwell.

To the millions of Americans whose lives were touched by his work, he is the best known and best loved illustrator of the twentieth century. For nearly seven decades, Norman Rockwell chronicled on canvas the heart and soul of America. In many of his best-known works he visually idealized the clean, simple country life of his childhood. In others he introduced middle America to the products of progressive urban life: the telephone, radio, electrical lighting, television, airplane travel, and the space program. Later in life, he devoted himself to more serious subjects: civil rights, the war on poverty, and the Peace Corps.

Norman Rockwell was born in New York City on February 3, 1894. As a child, he was drawn to country life: delighting in the summers his family spent on an upstate New York farm and their eventual move to Mamaroneck, New York.

He discovered that he had a natural talent for drawing. Since he wasn't built for athletics, he decided to work toward the goal of becoming an illustrator. In 1909 he left high school and enrolled full time in the National Academy of Design. Soon after, he switched to the Art Students League, which was the most progressive school of that time. There he studied under George Bridgeman who tutored him in the rigorous technical skills he relied on throughout his career.

Unlike most illustrators, Rockwell didn't have to face the usual hardships. His work always sold. At fifteen, he painted and sold four Christmas cards. He began a successful freelance career illustrating. He did ads for Heinz Baked Beans, two books for the Boy Scouts of America, and numerous magazine illustrations. Three years later, he was hired as an illustrator for Boy's Life. Within a few months, he was promoted to art director. He only held the position for a few years, but the relationship he established with the Boy Scouts lasted for the rest of his life.

Rockwell established his own studio in 1915 with cartoonist Clyde Forsythe. From this New Rochelle studio, he worked for popular magazines of the day: Country Gentleman, Literary Digest and St. Nicholas. The next year, he painted his first of 321 covers for the Saturday Evening Post, "Boy with Baby Carriage." Rockwell used one model for all three boys featured in the illustration. It best displayed his talent to create a variety of characters from the same subject.

He joined the navy during World War I and served as the art editor for Afloat and Ashore, the house publication for the Charleston, South Carolina Naval Reserve Base. His other duty in the service was being the naval officers' portrait painter. He was still permitted to do civilian work: his covers still appeared on the Post. A cover commission for Life magazine, "Over There" was later used on the cover of the sheet music for the song of the same name.

During a 1923 trip to Paris, Rockwell became enamored with the modernist movement. He proposed a number of works with modem influences to the Saturday Evening Post; they were horrified. Despite their reaction, traces of Picasso, Van Gogh, Pollock, Rembrandt, and Sargent occasionally appeared in his work.

In the 1920s, Rockwell's client list grew from leading publications to product advertising, illustrating everything from automobiles to Jell-O. In 1925, the first of fifty annual Boy Scout calendars featuring Rockwell's work was published.

Though he had been quite successful and productive in the twenties, his popularity hit its all-time peak in the forties. After he moved his second wife and three children to Arlington, Vermont, he set to work on his contributions to the war effort. As America came together to support our troops in World War II, he turned his talent toward producing, among other works, a series based on a Franklin Delano Roosevelt speech, "The Four Freedoms." The paintings became the main attraction of a nationwide fund drive that helped sell over $132 million in war bonds. At that time, Rockwell's Post covers depicted life on the home front, or the adventures of Willis Gillis, his characterization of G.I. "everyman."

Another memorable character Rockwell created was "Rosie the Riveter," the symbol of women involved in wartime production. Familiar images like "Rosie" and "The Recruit" were based, according to Rockwell, on works by Michelangelo. Rockwell sought to transpose the master's figures onto his models and transform them into modem middle-American icons. (Perhaps as an acknowledgment of the source of his inspiration, Rockwell placed a pale Renaissance halo over the head of his lady riveter.)

In the fifties Rockwell moved to Stockbridge, Massachusetts. There he was commissioned to do the first of two decades' worth of presidential candidates' portraits. He also produced a series of Hallmark Christmas cards, began a series of Four Seasons calendars for Brown & Bigelow, and a series of ads for Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company. At the same time he continued his long-running relationship with the Saturday Evening Post. The Post had gone through many redesigns in forty-five years, and in 1961, Rockwell depicted all of its changes as they lay strewn around Herb Lubalin's drawing table.

America had lost its veil of innocence. In the notes for a speech, Rockwell reflected: "There was a change in the thought climate in America brought on by scientific advance, the atom bomb, two world wars, and Mr. Freud and psychology. Now I am wildly excited about painting contemporary subjects ... pictures about civil rights, astronauts, Peace Corps, poverty programmes. It is wonderful."

As a result of this new consciousness, Rockwell severed his long-standing relationship with the ultra-conservative Saturday Evening Post. In one instance, the magazine rejected his cover depicting Yugoslavian premier Marshal Tito as the only hope to unite the Serbs, Bosnians and Croats in Yugoslavia because it portrayed a communist leader in a favorable light. Rockwell's last Post cover was published in December 14, 1963. It was a reprint of his famous 1960 John F. Kennedy cover portrait with an added caption, "in memoriam."

Rockwell then accepted a number of Look magazine commissions. His first cover for them "The Problem We All Live With" focused on the Civil Rights movement and specifically school desegregation. Another, "Southern justice," condemned violence against blacks and civil rights workers. A stark image of three men being murdered by a group of shadows was executed in tones of brown and grey except for a flow of red blood on one man's shoulder. This was a radical departure for a man who for nearly five decades had been depicting wholesome folk in classic scenarios. Interestingly, Look opted not to publish the finished painting of "Southern Justice." Instead, they ran his more impressionistic color study.

Rockwell never referred to himself as an artist - always as an illustrator or commercial artist. Artists, he felt, were people who painted what they wanted, not what they were paid to paint. Would he have believed it if someone told him that his works would soon fetch $150,000 to $300,000 at auction?

Detractors who take the time to study his work are surprised to find that it doesn't lack in inspirational depth, despite its accessibility, yet, in most art history textbooks, his work is not included along with another twentieth-century illustrator, Andrew Wyeth. He is not hailed for his contribution to the visual history of America as are Remington and Sargent. There are signs, however, that he will eventually be counted amongst the great twentieth-century American artists. There is a diverse group of Rockwell collectors: the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Smithsonian, The National Portrait Gallery, the Corcoran Gallery and Steven Spielberg.

The Norman Rockwell Museum opened in 1993 in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, one of the few American museums to grow out of popular demand for a single artist's work. The museum became a necessity after Rockwell agreed to lend some of his works to the Stockbridge Historical Society in 1969 for a permanent exhibition. Word spread that his works were on display and attendance swelled from 5,000 people up to the current 160,000 annually.

Compared with his achievements, to mention the awards and honors he received would seem anti-climatic, except for two. In 1977, President Gerald Ford presented Norman Rockwell with the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his "vivid and affectionate portraits of our country." And on July 1, 1994, Norman Rockwell took his place next to Elvis and other American icons when the United States Postal Service issued a commemorative series of five Rockwell works including "Triple Self Portrait" and "The Four Freedoms."

The simple eloquence of his familiar style belies his painstaking creative process. Each painting began by carefully setting up the scene and photographing it or sketching it from life. After a series of black-and-white pencil sketches, he would do color studies. The final oil painting would invariably include the excruciatingly minute details that make his work nearly impossible to forge.

Robert Campbell of the Boston Globe commented: "The mistake most of us make is to think of Rockwell as a realist. He wasn't, really. For starters, his people usually don't even cast shadows. They don't seem to have any weight or mass. They touch the ground but don't exert pressure on it. Often the ground itself is vague and white, like a cloud. Rockwell's people aren't so much flesh and blood as they are likeable everyday gods and goddesses, inhabiting American mythological heaven." In "Triple Self Portrait," Rockwell composed three images of himself placed in some illustrious company:Van Gogh, Picasso, Rembrandt and D'rer - which he included as reference studies tacked on one comer of his canvas. He admitted to being influenced by both classic and modern fine arts masters.

And like other masters, Rockwell had a unique talent for uncovering the everyday, human side of even his most famous subjects. He preferred common faces. He compared the excitement he felt painting the face of a successful person to a slab of warm butter. He readily admitted that the America he depicted was the country he hoped it could be, and considered his pre-1960s work to be more escapist than realist. There are few artists who better exemplify the dichotomy between high and popular art in the twentieth century than the man who gave Americans an endearing and enduring vision of themselves.

Read more about the life and works of Norman Rockwell:
Rcckwell on Wikipedia
Norman Rockwell WWII posters, hosted by the University of North Texas Libraries Digital Collections
Gallery of classic graphic design featuring the illustrations of Normal Rockwell.
Norman Rockwell at Find a Grave
Norman Rockwell artwork can be viewed at American Art Archives web site
Rockwell @ The Saturday Evening Post
Post Covers Catalog
Google Image Results

360 Degrees Terror Watch

Intel Chief: Al-Qaida Likely To Attempt Attack

Al-Qaida can be expected to attempt an attack on the United States in the next three to six months, senior U.S. intelligence officials told Congress Tuesday.

The terrorist organization is deploying operatives to the United States to carry out new attacks from inside the country, including "clean" recruits with a negligible trail of terrorist contacts, CIA Director Leon Panetta said. The chilling warning comes as Christmas Day airline attack suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutullab is cooperating with federal investigators, a federal law enforcement official said Tuesday. Al-Qaida is also inspiring homegrown extremists to trigger violence on their own, Panetta said.

The annual assessment of the nation's terror threats provided no startling new terror trends, but amplified growing concerns since the Christmas Day airline attack in Detroit that militants are growing harder to detect and moving more quickly in their plots.

"The biggest threat is not so much that we face an attack like 9/11. It is that al-Qaida is adapting its methods in ways that oftentimes make it difficult to detect," Panetta told the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Several senators tangled over whether suspected terrorists should be tried in civilian or military court. At the same time, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced legislation that would force the Obama administration to backtrack on its plans to try Sept. 11 defendants in federal court in New York and use military tribunals instead.

As al-Qaida presses new terror plots, it is increasingly relying on new recruits with minimal training and simple devices to carry out attacks, Panetta said as part of the terror assessment to Congress. Panetta also warned of the danger of extremists acting alone: "It's the lone-wolf strategy that I think we have to pay attention to as the main threat to this country," he said.

The hearing comes just over a month since a failed attempt to bring down an airliner in Detroit, allegedly by Abdulmutullab, a Nigerian. And the assessment comes only a few months after U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Hassan was accused of single-handedly attacking his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13.

National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair said with changes made since the Dec. 25 attack, U.S. intelligence would he able to identify and stop someone like the Detroit bomber before he got on the plane. But he warned a more careful and skilled would-be terrorist might not be detected.

FBI Director Robert Mueller defended the FBI's handling of the Detroit attempted bombing attack, disputing assertions that agents short-circuited more intelligence insights from the Nigerian suspect by quickly providing him with his Miranda rights to remain silent.

Mueller was asked by Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., whether the interrogation of Abdulmutullab continues despite the fact that the suspect had already been read his legal right to remain silent. Mueller replied: "Yes."

Mueller said that in "case after case," terrorists have provided actionable intelligence even after they were given their rights and charged with crimes. Mueller said they know such cooperation can result in shorter sentences or other consideration from the government.

Mueller also said that a new FBI-CIA interrogation team created in August to replace controversial CIA interrogations had been used several times already. That seemed to contradict what Blair told Congress in January. He said at a hearing on Abdulmutallab that he thought the interrogation team should have been used to question the suspect but later clarified his remarks to say that the teams were not used because they were not yet fully operational.

Intelligence officials confirmed Tuesday the High-Value Interrogation Group is not yet fully formed but said joint interrogation teams are available for use. Panetta confirmed that the agency participates on the team, though not in a lead role.

"They're backup, but they are doing some of the interviewing," he said.

Hundreds of terror suspects have already been convicted in civilian federal courts, including convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid. But Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., offered a bill Tuesday that would prohibit the government from using Justice Department funds to prosecute suspects charged in the Sept. 11 attack in civilian courts.

The move comes on the heels of the Obama administration's decision to rethink whether it would try self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad in a New York City courtroom. The proposed law would cover people who legally could be prosecuted by a military commission, applying to terror suspects who are not U.S. citizens. By Tuesday evening, the bill had support from 18 senators, mostly Republicans.

During the terror assessment hearing, Blair also warned of the growing cyberthreat, saying computer-related attacks have become dynamic and malicious. Obama has promised to make cybersecurity a priority in his administration, but the president's new budget asks for a decrease in funds for the Homeland Security Department's cybersecurity division.

The government's first quadrennial homeland security review states that high consequence and large-scale cyberattacks could massively disable or hurt international financial, commercial and physical infrastructure.

The report, obtained by bloggers and news organizations, said these types of cyberattacks could cripple the movement of people and goods around the world and bring vital social and economic programs to a halt.

Taken information by GlobalSecurity.org; AP; CIA.gov.

Porcupine Begs For Food At Ski Resort

A porcupine has become a regular at Telluride Ski Resort, looking and begging for handouts from skiers and snowboarders, KMGH-TV in Denver reported.

The porcupine, dubbed Stickers, has confronted so many skiers that the ski patrol has erected a warning sign that says "Caution: leaping attack porcupine."

Apparently, porcupines are nearsighted, and Stickers sometimes can't tell the difference between a finger and food. People have been feeding him anything from their ski jackets, including granola bars and candy.

Visitors to Telluride have taken a number of videos of the animal and have posted at least 16 videos of him or her on YouTube. This is apparently the second ski season that Stickers has been begging for handouts. He was spotted on the ski run last spring.

KMGH-TV, UPI

360 Degrees: Blog Sponsor Ad - February '10

360 In-Depth: Gangs Get Digital Using Social Networking Sites

When a gang member was released from jail soon after his arrest for selling methamphetamine, friends and associates assumed he had cut a deal with authorities and become a police informant.

They sent a warning on Twitter that went like this: We have a snitch in our midst.

Unbeknownst to them, that tweet and the traffic it generated were being closely followed by investigators, who had been tracking the San Francisco Bay Area gang for months. Officials sat back and watched as others joined the conversation and left behind incriminating information.

Law enforcement officials say gangs are making greater use of Twitter and Facebook, where they sometimes post information that helps agents identify gang associates and learn more about their organizations.

"You find out about people you never would have known about before," said Dean Johnston with the California Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, which helps police investigate gangs. "You build this little tree of people."

In the case involving the suspected informant, tweets alerted investigators to three other gang members who were ultimately arrested on drug charges.

Tech-savvy gangsters have long been at home in chatrooms and on Web sites like MySpace, but they appear to be gravitating toward Blogger, Twitter and Facebook, where they can make threats, boast about crimes, share intelligence on rivals and network with people across the country.

"We are seeing a lot more of it," Johnston said. "They will even go out and brag about doing shootings."

In another California case involving a different gang, much of the information gathered by investigators came from members' Facebook accounts. Authorities expect to make arrests in the coming months.

"Once you get into a Facebook group, it's relatively easy," Johnston said. "You have a rolling commentary."

And gang members sometimes turn the tables, asking contacts across their extended networks for help identifying undercover police officers.

It's hard to know exactly how many gang members are turning to Twitter and Facebook. Many police agencies are reluctant to discuss the phenomenon for fear of revealing their investigative techniques.

Capt. Walt Myer, director of the Riverside County regional gang task force, said gang activity often "mirrors general society. When any kind of new technology comes along, they are going to use it."

Tapping into tweets and status updates can be easy. Agents pose as pretty girls and send flirtatious friend requests. Confidential informants sometimes let police peer into their accounts.

Authorities can also seek help from the Web sites. Representatives from Twitter and Facebook say they regularly cooperate with police and supply information on account holders when presented with a search warrant. Neither company would discuss specifics.

Gang use of Twitter and Facebook still lags behind use of the much-older MySpace, which remains gang members' online venue of choice.

The Crips, Bloods, Florencia 13, MS-13 and other gangs have long used MySpace to display potentially incriminating photos and videos of people holding guns and making hand gestures. They also post messages about rivals.

Last week, officials in Riverside County, east of Los Angeles, announced the arrest of 50 people in a crackdown of a Latino gang they say was engaged in drug sales and hate crimes against black residents. Prosecutors say some of the evidence was pulled from MySpace and YouTube, including rap videos taunting police with violent messages.

While some members are wising up to the police attention such postings can bring, gang information remains publicly viewable online.

Dozens of Facebook accounts are dedicated to the deadly MS-13 gang, with followers from around the globe. At one site, a video displays pictures of dead members of the rival 18th Street gang, and some users have left disrespectful comments.

The toughest part about tracking someone on Twitter is finding the alias or screen name they are posting under. And many tweets are nonsensical or pointless, so cutting through the clutter can be difficult.

"It's tricky," said Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy David Anguiano. "If you find out what they go by, you are good to go."

Anguiano tracks the online activity of graffiti vandals - the so-called tagging crews that sometimes morph into gangs. They post tweets saying they are heading out to spray paint and sometimes post links to photographs of their work. Often, they cannot resist bragging about their handiwork, and the electronic trail they leave is frequently used as evidence.

"They talk about it too much," Anguiano said. "You want the fame so you've got to go out there and talk about it. That's when your mouth gets you in trouble."

Further Reading:
Gangs Find New Turf On The Net, (2001)
Gangs On The Internet
Law Enforcement Cracking Down in California

Unemployment Rises In Most Metro Areas

Unemployment rose in most cities and counties in December, signaling that companies remain reluctant to hire even as the economy recovers.

The unemployment rate rose in 306 of 372 metro areas, the Labor Department said Tuesday. The rate fell in 41 and was unchanged in 25. That's worse than November, when the rate fell in 170 areas, rose in only 154 and was unchanged in 48.

The metro employment numbers aren't seasonally adjusted and can be volatile. Many of the increases were due to seasonal factors.

For example, Ocean City, N.J., which bills itself as "America's Greatest Family Resort," saw its unemployment rate jump to 16.4 percent in December from 14.8 percent the previous month.

That's double the 8 percent it reported in July, even though the nation's economy was in worse shape then.

Ocean City is one of the 19 metro areas that reported unemployment rates of at least 15 percent. Twelve of those are in California and three are in Michigan, the department said.

Joblessness topped 10 percent in 138 metro areas, up from 125 in November but below last year's peak of 144 areas in June.

Improvement in the auto industry, meanwhile, saw unemployment rates drop in the metro areas around Detroit and Warren, Mich. Automakers and auto parts companies have recalled workers in recent months as they seek to replenish inventories depleted by the "Cash for Clunkers" program, which caused a jump in car sales in August.

The Detroit area saw unemployment fall to 15.7 percent from 16.4 percent, while the Warren area reported a drop to 14.3 percent from 14.8 percent. While still high, the rates are down about 2 percentage points from last fall.

Steve Cochrane, a regional economist at Moody's Economy.com, said it isn't clear if the gains are sustainable once the auto companies have rebuilt their inventories.

"There are no guarantees the unemployment rates won't go up again," he said.

The U.S. economy benefited heavily in the fourth quarter from inventory changes. Companies ramped up production and reduced inventories less in the October to December period, which accounted for about two-thirds of the 5.7 percent growth in the economy during that period.

Nationwide, the unemployment rate was 10 percent in December, unchanged from the previous month, as employers shed 85,000 jobs. The Labor Department will report January figures on Friday, and economists expect a gain of 5,000 jobs and a slight increase in the unemployment rate to 10.1 percent.

In the past year, unemployment rose in almost all of the 372 metro areas tracked by the report, except one: Troubled Elkhart, Ind., saw its jobless rate fall to 14.8 percent in December 2009 from 16 percent a year earlier.

Unemployment in Elkhart and the surrounding region in northern Indiana soared during the recession after many recreational vehicle manufacturers laid off workers and in some cases closed their doors. President Obama visited Elkhart twice last year.

Recently, the area has attracted several electric car manufacturers, including Think North America, a subsidiary of Norwegian-based Think Global. The company plans to sell electric cars in the United States later this year.

Think North America said last month it will open a factory in Elkhart in a former RV plant, potentially creating 415 full-time jobs by 2013.

The lowest unemployment rates are in the upper plains states, with Fargo, N.D. reporting the nation's lowest rate, at 4 percent, followed by Grand Forks, N.D., and Lincoln, Neb., at 4.1 percent each.

The highest rate is in El Centro, Calif., with 27.7 percent, followed by Merced, Calif., at 19.8 percent. El Centro is heavily agricultural and has many seasonal farm workers that are frequently unemployed. Its jobless rate is down from 33.1 percent in August.

The Labor Dept.; Economy.com; AP

Gov't: Security For Super Bowl Set

After touring a rain-soaked Sun Life Stadium, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Monday that preparations are in place to thwart any terrorist threat or safety problem at the Super Bowl.

"We are doing everything we can think of in preparation to make sure it is a great event," Napolitano told reporters. "I'm here today to see the operation myself. I thought it was important to get down here."

Milt Ahlerich, the NFL's vice president for security, said Napolitano's tour of the stadium in nearby Miami Gardens was the first time a Homeland Security secretary had visited a Super Bowl site before game day.

About 1,000 federal, state and local law enforcement and security personnel are working Sunday's game and events leading up to it, said James Loftus, director of the Miami-Dade Police Department.

Even though the FBI reports no credible threat against the Super Bowl, al-Qaida and other terror groups have frequently expressed interest in attacking a major U.S. sporting event.

"Rest assured, we're going to look out for you," Loftus said of what fans attending the game can expect. "We do this stuff week in and week out, and we're good at it."

The nerve center for security is the FBI-run Joint Operations Center, which includes representatives from 64 agencies at all levels of government, said John Gillies, agent in charge of the FBI's Miami field office. He said preparations have included intensive training and tabletop exercises involving various threat scenarios.

"There's security that the public will see, and there's security the public will not see," Gillies said.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will have its battalion of bomb-detecting dogs on hand, many of them veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, said Hugo Barrera, chief of ATF's Miami office. He said the dogs are able to find over 19,000 separate explosives components.

"They can detect about anything," Barrera said.

Fans themselves can also play a role by reporting any suspicious activity or unattended bags, Ahlerich said. And Napolitano said there will be a number flashed on screens at the stadium where fans can send a text message if they see anything amiss.

Other preparations include temporary flight restrictions and a 100-yard security perimeter around the stadium on game day. Fans attending the game face a long list of prohibited items, including long-lens cameras, camcorders, backpacks, noisemakers, coolers and camera tripods.

U.S. Homeland Security: http://www.dhs.gov/index.shtm

Sun Life Stadium: http://www.sunlifestadium.com/

NFL, AP, Wall Street Journal

Doctor Worries About 'Weed In A Can' Drink

An anti-energy drink that some call "liquid pot" or "weed in a can" has hit the market, WCVB-TV in Boston reported.

Some doctors question its safety. One person who drinks the beverage, called Drank, is gym owner Brad Cardoza.

"I'll have four or five clients first thing in the morning," Cardoza said. He pushes his clients through extreme workouts.

"I'm very high stress, high anxiety, speed, speed, speed," he said.

To help him wind down at the end of the day, he grabs a carbonated grape-flavored soda with the words "slow your roll" on the can.

"Drinking something like that, I'm definitely going to feel it," Cardoza said.

Drank claims to be the ultimate relaxation drink. It contains no drugs and is perfectly legal, the station said. Its makers claim it's made with an all-natural blend of melatonin, valerian root and rose hips, ingredients known for their calming effects.

"This little cocktail is a little bit frightening," said Dr. Cathleen London, of Brookline, Mass.

London has concerns with the drink. She warned it is packed with sugar and that the main ingredients come with risks.

She said rose hips and valerian root have been linked to side effects such as headache, nausea and disrupted sleep. But London's biggest concern is with the herb valerian root.

"It's not something you want to be using on any kind of continual basis, because it has been associated with liver damage," she said.

The Food and Drug administration told the station that valerian is an approved food additive and rose hips are generally regarded as safe. But, the FDA says, "melatonin has not been approved for use as a food additive."

London added that the hormone is used to treat jet lag and insomnia. She said melatonin and Drank should only be taken when you're ready to go to sleep.

"This is the equivalent of taking a valium and going for a drive," London said.

Drank does have a warning label that says it may cause drowsiness, and it's not recommended that you have more than two servings a day.

The makers of Drank said they've sold millions of cans with no reports of adverse effects.

WCVB; FDA; WSJR

Happy Groundhog Day! Georgia Groundhog Calls For An Early Spring...

If Georgia's groundhog can be believed, the chilly winter is about to give way to an early spring.

Gen. Beauregard Lee gave his annual Groundhog Day prognostication Tuesday morning from his home at the Yellow River Game Ranch. The prediction was delayed when Gen. Lee got away from his handlers and hid, then climbed a fence behind his mock-mansion home.

Legend has it that if a groundhog sees his shadow on Feb. 2, six more weeks of winter can be expected. Otherwise, spring is at hand. Rainy, cloudy weather kept shadows away.

His prediction contradicts the call made by Pennsylvania's Punxsutawney Phil, who did see his shadow. Official predictions call for more rain in Georgia later in the week. Gen. Lee did not address that issue.

The Inner Circle of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club annually announces Phil's forecast at dawn on Gobbler's Knob, about 65 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.

Phil's announcement came before hundreds of onlookers who huddled as temperatures hovered in the teens. The Groundhog Club says since 1887 Phil has predicted more winter weather by seeing his shadow nearly 100 times, but there are no records for nine years.

So which groundhog you believe depends on where you are. Generally, winters are shorter in the South which is logical why General Lee made his prediction. The Yankees will just have to endure.

Happy Groundhog Day!

The Quickening

China Says It Opposes Obama Meeting With Dalai Lama

China warned President Obama this week not to meet the Dalai Lama, saying any such meeting would harm bilateral relations.

An Obama meeting with the Dalai Lama would "seriously undermine the political foundation of Sino-U.S. relations," said Zhu Weiqun, executive deputy head of the Communist Party's United Front Work Department in charge of recent talks with the exiled Tibetan leader's envoys. Zhu was speaking at a news conference where he said no progress had been made at the talks with envoys of the Dalai Lama on changes to the Himalayan region's status.

The warning to Obama comes after signals from U.S. officials in recent weeks that Obama might soon meet the exiled Tibetan leader - something Chinese officials are keen to avoid before President Hu Jintao travels to Washington, possibly in April.

Zhu said any arguments that the Dalai Lama was just a religious figure were wrong, calling the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize laureate the "head of a separatist group."

No date for Obama's meeting with the Dalai Lama has been announced, but White House spokesman Mike Hammer said last month that "the President has made clear to the Chinese government that we intend to meet with the Dalai Lama, it has been his every intention."

Bilateral relations have already been strained by the U.S. announcement Friday that it planned to sell $6.4 billion worth of arms to Taiwan. Beijing quickly suspended military exchanges with Washington and announced an unprecedented threat of sanctions against the U.S. companies involved in the sale. Zhu did not give any details on what China would do if Obama meets the Dalai Lama. "We will take corresponding measures to make the relevant countries realize their mistakes."

Representatives of the United Front meet over the weekend with two Tibetan envoys for their first talks in 15 months, but Zhu said China would discuss only the future of the exiled spiritual leader - not any greater autonomy for Tibet. China maintains that Tibet has been part of its territory for centuries, but many Tibetans say the region was functionally independent for much of its history.

At the last talks in 2008, the Dalai Lama's envoys proposed a way for Tibetans to achieve more autonomy under the Chinese constitution - a key demand of the minority community. But China apparently rejected the plan, saying it would not allow Tibet the kind of latitude granted to the territories of Hong Kong and Macau. Chinese officials said they were only willing to discuss the return of the Dalai Lama, who fled to exile in 1959.

The Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharmsala, India, said last week it hoped the two sides would be able to revisit the proposal for greater autonomy. Beijing demonizes the Dalai Lama and says he seeks to destroy China's sovereignty by pushing independence for Tibet. The Dalai Lama has maintained for decades he wants some form of autonomy that would allow Tibetans to freely practice their culture, language and religion under China's rule, not independence.

Tibetan areas have been tense in recent years, with the minority community complaining about restrictions on Buddhism, government propaganda campaigns against their revered Dalai Lama, and an influx of Chinese migrants that leave Tibetans feeling marginalized. Those feelings boiled over in deadly anti-Chinese riots in 2008 that shocked Beijing's leaders.

Wet Summer, More Demand Could Create Seed Shortage

A poor growing season last year and increased orders from Europe could make it difficult for home gardeners to get seeds for the most popular cucumber variety and some vegetables this spring. Farmers, who usually grow different varieties than home gardeners, aren't likely to be affected.

Seeds for what's known as open-pollinated cucumbers seem to be most scarce, but carrots, snap peas and onions also could be in short supply.

"I suspect there will be some seeds you just won't be able to buy if you wait too long on it," said Bill Hart, the wholesale manager in charge of seed purchasing at Chas. C. Hart Seed Company in Wethersfield, Conn. "The sugar snap peas we're not able to get at all, and other companies that have it will sell out pretty quickly."

The problem is primarily due to soggy weather last year that resulted in a disappointing seed crop. European seed growers also had a bad year, leading to a big increase in orders for American seeds.

Demand for seeds in the U.S. soared last year, as the poor economy and worries about chemical use and bacteria contamination prompted many people to establish gardens. Homegrown food seemed safer and more affordable. But some wonder if the wet weather that ruined gardens in many areas last summer will discourage first-time gardeners from planting again.

"A lot of people are getting into it, but it was a disastrous year for gardens last year because it was so cold and wet," said wholesale seed distributor Mel Brekke, who owns Brekke's Town and Country near Ames, Iowa.

Kathy Gocke of Bondurant, Iowa, said she orders seeds early for herself and her county's master gardener's program and advises others to do the same.

"If you do it before the first of January, they have a pretty good stock," Gocke said.

Burpee Seeds in Warminster, Pa., bills itself as the largest provider of home garden seeds, and Chief Executive Officer George Ball said the company's huge reserves mean it will have plenty of seeds. But Ball said he understands why others might have limited supplies after a big spike in demand in the past two years.

"It was unlike anything I've seen in the past 30 years," he said.

Barbara Melera, owner of D. Landreth Seeds of New Freedom, Pa., expects carrot seeds to be especially hard to find because of big orders from Europe, which had a poor crop last year. Also, fewer farmers are opting to grow seeds, she said. Many now have switched to growing corn for the biofuels industry.

"In this country, farmers who grow things for seed are becoming an endangered species," Melera said. "The farms producing things for seeds is reduced significantly, and in the past two to three years they can get more money for growing corn for ethanol plants than carrots for seeds."

Jennifer Nothwehr, seed coordinator for the Shenandoah, Iowa-based Earl May seed and nursery business, said she hasn't run into shortages, but her company typically orders its seeds from wholesalers a year in advance. They received and packaged the seeds they'll sell this year last fall, and because they set prices last spring, any shortage won't affect them.

Nothwehr also said that while popular varieties, like one known as the straight eight cucumber, may be hard to find, others are available.

"One of the most popular carrots we can't get, but we have four other varieties we can get if a customer wants to try something different," she said.

Hart said his family business has a small retail operation, and he's noticed people coming in earlier than usual this year, possibly because of worries over a shortage of seeds.

Sources: Georgia Agri News; The AP, Wall Street Journal

NASA To Get More Money, But Must Scratch Moon Plan

President Obama is essentially grounding efforts to return astronauts to the moon and instead is sending NASA in new directions with roughly $6 billion more.

The White House has confirmed that when next week's budget is proposed, NASA will get an additional $5.9 billion to be exact over five years, as first reported in Florida newspapers. Some of that money would extend the life of the International Space Station to 2020.

It also would be used to entice companies to build private spacecraft to ferry astronauts to the space station after the space shuttle retires, said the official who was not authorized to speak by name.

The money in the president's budget is not enough to follow through with NASA's Constellation moon landing plan initiated by President Bush in 2004. A new direction for NASA has been on hold for several months while an independent commission studied options and the White House weighed them.

Already proponents of the moon mission and thousands of workers in space centers in Florida, Alabama and Texas are upset. Congressional officials in those states have denounced such ideas and some of them sit on key committees where they could fight Obama's plans. For example, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., chairs the space subcommittee in the Senate. And the chairwoman of the House space subcommittee, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., is married to a space shuttle astronaut. The budget numbers were first reported this week by the Orlando Sentinel and Florida Today.

In a statement, Rep. Suzanne Kosmas, D-Fla., said, "The president's proposal would leave NASA with essentially no program and no timeline for exploration beyond Earth's orbit."

Ken Matthews, a member of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers in Huntsville, Ala., said his members worry about "jobs that won't be there."

If Obama does cancel the Constellation program, it "leaves NASA and the nation with no program, no plan and no commitment to any human spaceflight program beyond that of today," said former NASA Administrator Michael Griffin in a statement.

Kosmas and others raised questions about the safety of switching to a privately run space travel system that NASA would pay to carry astronauts. Companies pursuing such business include Space Exploration Technology Corp. which is already building a new rocket, called Falcon, and capsule, called Dragon. The company is run by PayPal founder Elon Musk.

And a recent report by NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel warned NASA not pursue unproven technology and abandon the Ares I rocket -- the first rocket in the Bush moon program and one based on the Apollo design.

The Bush moon plan was announced after the 2003 Columbia accident that killed seven astronauts. After that disaster in which the shuttle broke apart as it returned to Earth, a special investigative panel said NASA needed a new goal. In January 2004, Bush proposed the return to the moon. It would have involved the Ares I rocket, carrying astronauts in a capsule called Orion. Another Ares spacecraft would carry heavier cargo.

So far NASA has spent $3.5 billion on Ares I and $3.7 billion on Orion and nearly $2 billion on other moon mission work. In the mid-1990s, NASA went through a similar stutter-step that meant abandoning plans that cost billions. That involved President Ronald Reagan's Freedom space station, which ran into trouble after costing $11 billion without building any hardware. President Bill Clinton had the space station redesigned and restarted.

Complied from Space.com; CBO; NASA; The AP - Jay Reeves contributed from Birmingham, Ala.

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Notes From All Over

Teen On Solo Sail Around Globe To Stop In Mexico

The 16-year-old Southern California girl attempting to become the youngest person to sail around the world alone says she is stopping in Mexico with power problems.

On her blog, Abby Sunderland of Thousand Oaks wrote Saturday she's headed for Cabo San Lucas to add a "new battery or two" because solar panels and wind generators aren't keeping up with her energy needs.

Sunderland says she'll restart the sail in her 40-foot craft Wild Eyes soon. She set sail Jan. 23 from Marina Del Rey and plans to be at sea for five or six months.

The problems bring an end to Sunderland's goal of making no land stops during the trip. She can still break the record of 17-year-old Mike Perham of Britain, who stopped on land during his voyage.

Good Luck, Abby! Godspeed and fair winds.

Teen Girl Fights Off Shark With Body Board

A teenage New Zealand girl bitten by a shark bashed it over the head with her body board until it let her go, she said.

Lydia Ward, 14, was in waist-deep water with her brother on Monday at Oreti Beach on the country's South Island when the shark -- believed to be a broad-nosed seven gill shark -- grabbed her hip. She said she did not notice the shark until the attack was under way.

"I saw my brother's face and turned to the side and saw this large gray thing in the water so I just hit it on the head with a boogie board," Ward told National Radio, adding that she had read about a surfer who fought off a shark attack with her board. "That's what she did, and that's what you're meant to do."

The pair fled from the water safter the attack. The girl's mother, Fiona Ward, said the shark's bite had ripped Lydia's wet suit and penetrated her skin, but the teen required no stitches.

Conservation Department marine scientist Clinton Duffy said the shark was likely a broad-nosed seven gill shark, a species that grows to up to 10 feet (3 meters) long and that has attacked swimmers at the Oreti Beach in the past.

The last time the species attacked a human at Oreti Beach was in 1999, and the young girl victim required 60 stitches, Duffy said.

Lydia, a former competitive swimmer and regular beach swimmer, said she would be sticking to rivers and lakes in the future.

Judge Denies Feng Shui Master Wang Fortune

A bartender-turned-fortune teller who had an affair with the pig-tailed Hong Kong tycoon who was Asia's richest woman lost his bid for her multibillion-dollar estate Tuesday when a court deemed his will a forgery.

The legal battle over the late Nina Wang's fortune has fascinated Hong Kong with its often-bizarre stories of Chinese feng shui rituals and illicit love affairs, offering a rare glimpse into the private quarters of the ultra-rich in this money-obsessed city. Feng shui is the Chinese practice of arranging objects or choosing dates to improve one's fortunes.

Wang died of cancer in April 2007 at age 69. The lawsuit centered on two competing wills - the 2006 will held by feng shui master Tony Chan Chun-chuen and 2002 will that left Wang's fortune to Chinachem Charitable Foundation Ltd., a charity set up by the late businesswoman and her husband.

High Court Judge Lam Man-hon on Tuesday ruled that Chan's will was forgery and upheld the 2006 will, according to a summary of his judgment issued by Hong Kong judicial officials.

While Lam accepted that Wang and Chan - more than 20 years her junior - had an intimate relationship, the affair was a secret Wang wanted to bury and when it came to her estate, "she placed a higher regard on her charitable objectives than the defendant," the summary said.

"The court does not believe that their relationship was such that Nina was prepared to give him her entire estate irrespective of her other commitments and responsibilities. Giving him gifts or even large sums of money during Nina's lifetime when he made her happy is one thing. Making him her sole heir in respect of her entire estate is quite different," according to the document.

The court ruled that the purported Wang signature on the 2006 will is a "highly skilled simulation."

One of Chan's lawyers, Jonathan Midgley, said his client was "extremely disappointed" and plans to appeal.

"We have won now. There is justice in this world," Wang's brother, Kung Yan-sum, told reporters Tuesday.

Hong Kong police didn't immediately return a reporter's call asking if it will investigate and prosecute Chan for forgery. Forgery carries a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison in Hong Kong.

Chan captivated public attention during the trial with his lawyer's claims that he and Wang were so intimate that she left him a pair of her pigtails. Chan himself testified they were having an affair when his wife was pregnant with their eldest son, telling the court that Wang called him her "husband."

Adding to the mystery surrounding Chan was his spotty resume that included bartender, waiter, machinery salesman, market researcher and computer parts exporting. He testified that when he became a feng shui consultant he once advised a client to burn real money.

Meanwhile, Chinachem's lawyers argued that Chan's 2006 will was part of a feng shui ritual to prolong Wang's life. The ruling Tuesday marked another episode in the colorful saga of Wang, nicknamed in Hong Kong as "Little Sweetie" for her girlish outfits and hairdo.

Wang had to fight her own probate battle. She inherited developer Chinachem Group from her late husband, Teddy Wang, after an eight-year court case against her father-in-law. Teddy Wang was abducted in 1990, and despite the family paying $33 million in ransom, he was never released and his body never found.

In 2007, Forbes magazine ranked Nina Wang as the world's No. 204 richest person with a fortune of US $4.2 billion, but it is not clear how much her fortune is currently worth because Chinachem Group is a private company. Kung told reporters on Tuesday that Wang's estate is worth "at least several tens of billions" of Hong Kong dollars (billions of U.S. dollars).

Man Battles Marauding Crocodile For Shark

A group of Australian mates on an annual fishing holiday was not going to let anything come between them and their prize catch - not even a marauding crocodile.

The friends landed a small shark on a beach recently in the tropical north of Australia - also home to wild saltwater crocodiles known to attack humans.

As they dragged the shark ashore with the help of a hooked pole, a croc about 6-feet long emerged from the water, ran up the beach to the flailing shark, and opened its jaws menacingly.

Unperturbed, the fisherman holding the hook banged it down on the head of the crocodile, which turned tail and scrambled quickly back into the water.

The incident was captured on video and posted on YouTube, where it gained a popular following and attention from Australian media.

"He was full on," Bob Callan, one of the anglers told Nine Network television Friday, describing the croc's lunge. "He was going for that shark right or wrong, then it was - bang - hit him on the snout and away he went."

After dispatching the reptile, the video shows the anglers lined up behind the shark on the beach for photos - with their backs to the water. One casts a nervous eye over his shoulder, and another jumps as his neighbor gives him a sly pinch on the leg.

Callan said the friends, from the New South Wales town of Inverell, travel to the north every year for a fishing holiday, and the shark - like all the fish they catch - was released back into the wild.

Taken from reports by The AP; Hong Kong News Agencies; the Nine Network

Families On Edge Over Soaring Tuition

As students around the country anxiously wait for college acceptance letters, their parents are sweating the looming tuition bills at public universities.

Florida college students could face yearly 15 percent tuition increases for years, and University of Illinois students will pay at least 9 percent more. The University of Washington will charge 14 percent more at its flagship campus. And in California, tuition increases of more than 30 percent have sparked protests reminiscent of the 1960s.

Tuition has been trending upward for years, but debate in statehouses and trustee meeting rooms has been more urgent this year as most states struggle their way out of the economic meltdown.

The College Board says families are paying about $172 to $1,096 more in tuition and fees this school year. The national average for 2009-2010 is about $7,020, not including room and board, according to the nonprofit association of colleges that oversees the SATs and Advanced Placement tests.

The Georgia Board of Regents has suspended indefinitely its popular "Fixed for Four" guaranteed tuition program, which since 2006 has meant students have paid the same tuition rate annually for four years of college. A freshman at the University of Georgia this year pays $3,865 in tuition and fees per semester if they take between seven and 15 hours of classes.

Some students are relieved at modest tuition increases this year, including 3.5 percent in Ohio, less than 5 percent in Pennsylvania, and 3.9 percent at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

So far a few states, like Oklahoma and Missouri, have avoided tuition increases entirely. And the Oklahoma Legislature gave its state universities no reason to complain when it fulfilled the state higher education budget request.

Wall Street Journal; AP Reporters Dorie Turner in Atlanta, Bill Kaczor in Tallahassee, Fla., contributed to this story.