splendor heliport

Saturday, March 23, 2013

3 dead, including suspect, in Marine base shooting

Col. David W. Maxwell holds a press conference at the Marine Corps Museum in Quantico, Va., on Friday, March 22, 2013 regarding a murder/suicide that occurred on Thursday night that resulted in the deaths of three Marines. A Marine killed a male and female colleague in a shooting at a base in northern Virginia before killing himself, officials said early Friday. (AP Photo/The Free Lance-Star, Peter Cihelka)

The Marine Base Quantico, spokesman Lt. Agustin Solivan briefs reporters following a shooting incident on the base Friday March 22, 2013. Three people, including the suspect, were killed in the shooting at Marine Base Quantico, Solivan said early Friday. He said they believe the suspect, whose name wasn't released, is a staff member at the officer candidate school at the base. No information on the victim was immediately released. (AP Photo/Matthew Barakat)

The entrance to the U.S. Marine Corps Base Quantico Friday March 22, 2013. Three people, including the suspect, were killed in a shooting at Marine Base Quantico, base spokesman Lt. Agustin Solivan said early Friday. Solivan said they believe the suspect, whose name wasn't released, is a staff member at the officer candidate school at the base. No information on the victim was immediately released. (AP Photo/Matthew Barakat)

This image provided by the U.S. Marine Corps shows snow covering one of Marine Corps Base Quantico?s many signs Wednesday March 6, 2013. One person was dead after a shooting at Marine Base Quantico and authorities were in a standoff early Friday March 22, 2013 with the suspect, who had barricaded himself in barracks, base spokesman Lt. Agustin Solivan said. Solivan said they believe the suspect, whose name wasn't released, is a staff member at the officer candidate school at the base. No information on the victim was immediately released. (AP Photo/US Marine Corps, Cpl. Antwaun L. Jefferson)

Changes scale from 50 to 150 mi/km; Map locates deadly shooting at Marine base in Virginia

QUANTICO, Va. (AP) ? A Marine who worked at an officer candidates school fatally shot two of his colleagues before killing himself in a barracks dorm room, officials said.

The Marine's colleagues were a man and a woman. Military officials did not release a motive or the identities of those slain.

Authorities were called at the Marine Corps Base Quantico in northern Virginia around 10:30 p.m. Thursday and found one Marine dead in the Taylor Hall barracks, base commander Col. David W. Maxwell said. A second victim was found elsewhere in the barracks. The body of the gunman was also located in Taylor Hall.

It wasn't immediately clear how much time passed between the killings or how far apart the bodies were found.

Only staff for the school live in Taylor Hall, a red brick building on the base that can house about 110 Marines. The officer candidates live elsewhere.

The base was put on lockdown after the first shooting and Marines and their families were told to stay inside over a loudspeaker known as the Giant Voice. The lockdown was lifted early Friday.

Officials said all three Marines were staff members at the school, but their jobs were not released. Base spokesman Lt. Agustin Solivan said everyone else was safe, including the officer candidates.

The shooting is the second tragedy the Marine Corps has faced this week. Seven members of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force were killed Monday when a mortar shell exploded in its firing tube during an exercise at Hawthorne Army Depot in Nevada. Eight others were injured.

Pentagon press secretary George Little said Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel was saddened to learn of the shooting.

"This tragedy, as well as the tragedy in Nevada earlier this week, took the lives of Marines who volunteered to serve their nation," Little said. "His heart and his prayers are with them and their families."

The sprawling Quantico base, which is 37 miles south of Washington, is also home to the FBI's training academy.

The officer candidates school's 10-week program trains Marines in the classroom and uses endurance hikes and obstacle courses to evaluate leadership potential. Candidates must also demonstrate a grasp of battlefield-tested leadership traits, the Marine Corps website said.

When they graduate, the Marines become second lieutenants.

In 2010, the Quantico base was one of several targets of an ex-Marine reservist who, during five nighttime shootings, fired on military targets including the Pentagon. Yonathan Melaku, on two separate occasions, fired at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico. No one was injured and Melaku was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-03-22-Marine%20Base%20Quantico-Shooting/id-36804bee7d3c4703b9b7d40dc42d03d2

Jordyn Wieber michael phelps Kerri Strug Ledecky Nadia Comaneci Rebecca Soni Snoop Lion

Florida Gulf Coast stuns Georgetown 78-68

Florida Gulf Coast's Chase Fieler goes up for a dunk against Georgetown's Jabril Trawick during the second half of a second-round game of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Friday, March 22, 2013, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Florida Gulf Coast's Sherwood Brown reacts after a making a basket during the second half of a second-round game against Georgetown in the NCAA college basketball tournament, Friday, March 22, 2013, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Michael Perez)

Georgetown's Jabril Trawick, center, dribbles between Florida Gulf Coast's Dajuan Graf, left, and Bernard Thompson during the first half of a second-round game of the NCAA college basketball tournament on Friday, March 22, 2013, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Florida Gulf Coast head coach Andy Enfield reacts during the first half of a second-round game against Georgetown during the NCAA college basketball tournament on Friday, March 22, 2013, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Florida Gulf Coast's Brett Comer reacts after scoring during the first half of a second-round game against Georgetown during the NCAA college basketball tournament on Friday, March 22, 2013, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

PHILADELPHIA (AP) ? College basketball, meet Florida Gulf Coast.

A school so new it wasn't eligible for the NCAA tournament until last year busted a load of brackets Friday night.

With 24 points from Sherwood Brown and a healthy dose of swagger, FGCU upset second-seeded Georgetown 78-68 in the second round of the South Regional.

"This is our first time being in the NCAA tournament. To actually go out there and win that first game, it means something really special to us," said Brown, who was the first of the players to head toward the Florida Gulf Coast cheering section with several seconds still on the clock.

The Eagles used a 21-2 second-half run to pull away from the Hoyas and then held on in the final minute to become just the seventh No. 15 seed to beat a No. 2.

"It's an unbelievable feeling. We played a very tough team in Georgetown. They have great players. They're a historic school," forward Chase Fieler said. "So being a newer school it's very exciting for us to be able to win a game like that and for the NCAA history. That's exciting and impressive to be a part of that."

Bernard Thompson had 23 points for Florida Gulf Coast, the champions of the Atlantic Sun Conference.

FGCU (25-10) will play seventh-seeded San Diego State, which beat No. 10 seed Oklahoma 70-55, in the third round on Sunday.

"We decided we can play with anybody and we did," said FGCU point guard Brett Comer, who finished with 12 points,10 assists and just two turnovers.

Comer was part of a play late in the game that almost brought down the house, throwing an alley-oop pass from the corner that Fieler grabbed and threw down with a one-handed dunk.

"Nothing special. It's something me and him have done this year," Comer said. "We knew what was going to happen there. Time and place didn't matter. I knew he'd catch it. You saw the result. The whole place went nuts and we really got the momentum from there."

Said Fieler: "That might be the highest I've ever jumped. We'll have to check the video. Brett has great vision. That was his 10th assist. He just threw it up and I had to go get it."

Just a night before, Harvard ? the nation's oldest university, founded in 1636 ? pulled off a major upset over third-seeded New Mexico. Now, one of its youngest ? FGCU's first student was admitted in 1997 ? has an even bigger one.

The Eagles' monster run gave them a 52-33 lead with 12:28 to play. The Hoyas staged a furious rally to get within 72-68 with 52 seconds left but the Eagles went 6 of 10 from the free throw line to seal it.

"In the second half, we pushed the ball, we got out, we ran, we made shots, got some alley-oop dunks to energize the crowd. I'm very proud of our players," said coach Andy Enfield, whose wife ? supermodel Amanda Marcum ? was shown several times on the arena's big screen.

For those who don't know FGCU, and that was probably plenty of people as of Friday afternoon, Florida Gulf Coast is a state university in Fort Myers with an enrollment of about 12,000 students.

This is FGCU's first tournament and Georgetown's 29th, including the 1984 national championship. But the Eagles did beat Miami earlier this season.

It was another disappointing NCAA exit for the Hoyas (25-7), who have lost to a double-digit seed in their last four appearances. The last time they made it to the second weekend of the tournament was in 2007, when they reached the Final Four.

"I wish I could, trust me, more than anyone on this Earth," Georgetown coach John Thompson III said when asked if he could figure out the losses to lower seeds. "I've tried to analyze it, think about it, look at it, think about what we should do differently and I don't know."

Markel Starks had 23 points for the Hoyas, a tri-champion of the Big East regular season and one of the top defensive teams in the nation.

That didn't seem to bother the Eagles much.

While Georgetown came in allowing 55.7 points per game, FGCU beat that number with 9:22 to play when it led 57-40. The Hoyas allowed opponents to shoot 37.6 percent from the field, fourth-best in the country. The Eagles shot 42.9 percent (21 of 49) and they held the Hoyas to 37.5 percent from the field (24 of 64).

Big East Player of the Year Otto Porter Jr. had 13 points on 5-of-17 shooting and 11 rebounds. On this night he couldn't match Brown, the A-Sun's player of the year.

Porter, a sophomore who said he hasn't made a decision yet on whether to return to Georgetown next season, said "winning is hard."

"They got out in transition, and that started their run," he said. "They started knocking down the shot. It's hard when a team is knocking down shots like that."

The FGCU fans who made the trip to Philadelphia were loud all game. The rest of the crowd at Wells Fargo Center joined them during the big run and there's nothing to bring fans together like rooting against a heavy favorite.

"I don't think anybody on our team has ever played in front of that many people," said reserve forward Eddie Murray, who had nine points.

The Eagles charged at their fans when the game ended and ? after some of them shook hands with Hall of Famer and TV analyst Reggie Miller ? it was a celebration that could be felt all the way to back to campus.

The Hoyas used an 8-0 run to take an 18-11 lead midway through the first half but that's where their offense went cold ? very cold.

The Eagles closed the half on a 13-4 run as Georgetown missed nine straight shots and committed five turnovers. FGCU took a 24-22 lead on two free throws by Eddie Murray with 26 seconds left. In another example of how out of synch Georgetown was offensively, the Hoyas passed the ball around as the halftime horn sounded, allowed the Eagles to keep their lead.

As the night wound down, one fan yelled at the Eagles to stick around Philly a couple of more days.

"Get a cheese steak, kid! Get a cheese steak!"

The crowd then paid Florida Gulf Coast the ultimate tribute: the E-A-G-L-E-S! Eagles! chant reserved for their favorite NFL team.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-03-23-BKC-NCAA-Florida-Gulf-Coast-Georgetown/id-63546776b4ed4687a44b5abb2c128b3d

safe house jay z and beyonce baby cpac powell the last lecture kim jong un josh powell

Friday, March 22, 2013

Local news anchor Janet Lomax joins Unite blog (Rochester Democrat and Chronicle)

Share With Friends:

| Politics - Top Stories Stories, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/293887273?client_source=feed&format=rss

joe paterno dead marist powerball brian urlacher cbs sports miami heat

Dinosaur-killing rock 'was a comet'

22 March 2013 Last updated at 06:05 ET By Paul Rincon Science editor, BBC News website, The Woodlands, Texas

The space rock that hit Earth 65 million years ago and is widely implicated in the end of the dinosaurs was likely a speeding comet.

That is the conclusion of research which suggests the 180km-wide Chicxulub crater in Mexico was carved out by a smaller object than previously thought.

Many scientists consider a large and relatively slow moving asteroid to have been the likely culprit.

Details were outlined at the 44th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference.

But other researchers were more cautious about the results.

"The overall aim of our project is to better characterise the impactor that produced the crater in the Yucatan peninsula [in Mexico]," Jason Moore, from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, told BBC News.

The space rock gave rise to a global layer of sediments enriched in the chemical element iridium, in concentrations much higher than naturally occurs; it must have come from outer space.

Extra-terrestrial chemistry

However, in the first part of their work, the team suggests that frequently quoted iridium values are incorrect. Using a comparison with another extraterrestrial element deposited in the impact - osmium - they were able to deduce that the collision deposited less debris than has previously been supposed.

The recalculated iridium value suggests a smaller body hit the Earth. So for the second part of their work, the researchers took the new figure and attempted to reconcile it with the known physical properties of the Chicxulub impact.

For this smaller space rock to have produced a 180km-wide crater, it must have been travelling relatively quickly. The team found that a long-period comet fitted the bill much better than other possible candidates.

"You'd need an asteroid of about 5km diameter to contribute that much iridium and osmium. But an asteroid that size would not make a 200km-diameter crater," said Dr Moore.

"So we said: how do we get something that has enough energy to generate that size of crater, but has much less rocky material? That brings us to comets."

Dr Moore's colleague Prof Mukul Sharma, also from Dartmouth College, told BBC News: "You would need some special pleading for an asteroid moving very rapidly - although it is possible. But of the comets and asteroids we have looked at in the skies, the comets are the ones that are moving very rapidly."

Long-period comets are balls of dust, rock and ice that are on highly eccentric trajectories around the Sun. They may take hundreds, thousands or in some cases even millions of years to complete one orbit.

The extinction event 65 million years ago is now widely associated with the space impact at Chicxulub. It killed off about 70% of all species on Earth in just a short period of time, most notably the non-avian dinosaurs.

The enormous collision would have triggered fires, earthquakes and huge tsunamis. The dust and gas thrown up into the atmosphere would have depressed global temperatures for several years.

Lost in space

Dr Gareth Collins, who researches impact cratering at Imperial College London, described the research by the Dartmouth team as "nice work" and "thought-provoking".

But he told BBC News: "I don't think it is possible to accurately determine the impactor size from geochemistry.

"Geochemistry tells you - quite accurately - only the mass of meteoritic material that is distributed globally, not the total mass of the impactor. To estimate the latter, one needs to know what fraction of the impactor was distributed globally, as opposed to being ejected to space or landing close to the crater."

He added: "The authors suggest that 75% of the impactor mass is distributed globally, and hence arrive at quite a small-sized impactor, but in reality this fraction could be lower than 20%."

That could keep the door open for a bigger, more slowly moving asteroid.

The authors accept this point, but cite recent studies suggesting mass loss for the Chicxulub impact was between 11% and 25%.

In recent years, several space objects have taken astronomers by surprise, serving as a reminder that our cosmic neighbourhood remains a busy place.

On 15 February this year, 2012 DA14 - an asteroid as large as an Olympic swimming pool - raced past the Earth at a distance of just 27,700km (17,200mi). It had only been discovered the previous year.

And on the same day, a 17m space rock exploded over Russia's Ural mountains with an energy of about 440 kilotonnes of TNT. About 1,000 people were injured as the shockwave blew out windows and rocked buildings.

Some 95% of the near-Earth objects larger than 1km have been discovered. However, only about 10% of the 13,000 - 20,000 asteroids above the size of 140m are being tracked.

There are probably many more comets than near-Earth asteroids, but Nasa points out they spend almost all of their lifetimes at great distances from the Sun and Earth, so that they contribute only about 10% to the census of larger objects that have struck the Earth.

Paul.Rincon-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow Paul on Twitter

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21709229#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

Kaepernick Tattoos superbowl time what time is the super bowl world war z groundhog day Ed Koch Groundhog Day 2013

Movie review: Disney girls go bad in 'Spring Breakers' | The Salt ...

This film image released by A24 Films shows, from left, Selena Gomez, Ashley Benson, Rachel Korine and Vanessa Hudgens in a scene from "Spring Breakers." (AP Photo/A24 Films, Michael Muller)

Review ? Straddling line between art and exploitation.

Harmony Korine?s "Spring Breakers" is such a perfect object of its cultural moment ? an age of sexualized youth and stylized violence ? that it?s a shame it?s not a better movie.

And that may be the first and last time anyone uses the word "shame" in connection with Korine?s self-consciously taboo-breaking drama.

?Spring Breakers?

Bad-boy director Harmony Korine deploys some Disney-friendly actresses for a dark drama in sunny Florida.

Where ? Theaters everywhere.

When ? Opens Friday, March 22

Rating ? R for strong sexual content, language, nudity, drug use and violence throughout.

Running time ? 94 minutes.

Korine begins with images of spring break on the Florida coast ? repeated (and repetitive) shots of hunky young men and buxom young women jumping around in the surf, sucking down multiple beers. The women shake their butts and occasionally bare their breasts, while the guys thrust their pelvises like they know what to do with them. The scene is every college kid?s dream and every parent?s nightmare.

To our movie?s four young heroines ? Brit (Ashley Benson), Candy (Vanessa Hudgens), Cotty (Rachel Korine) and Faith (Selena Gomez) ? spring break isn?t just a party but a sun-drenched escape from their drab lives. That?s why they?re so desperate to get out, even if it means Brit, Candy and Cotty have to rob a local diner to raise the money necessary to get there. "Just f---in? pretend it?s a video game. Act like you?re in a movie or something," one of the girls says to the others.

Faith is the odd-girl-out in the foursome, a member of a Christian youth group who calls the Florida coast "the most spiritual place I?ve ever been." At least that?s what she tells her grandmother in one of the movie?s endless voice-overs, juxtaposed with images of the four girls partying hard in a hotel room and, ultimately, sitting in a jail cell after the cops find cocaine.

The girls are bailed out by a rapping street thug named Alien ? played by James Franco, in a chameleonic performance complete with cornrows in his hair and grilles on his teeth. Alien?s seaside mansion is loaded with drugs, cash and weapons, and the girls (except Faith, who leaves early) are attracted to his loot and dangerous attitude. When Alien gets into a turf war with a rival drug dealer (played by rapper Gucci Mane), the ladies are excited to go along for the bloody ride.

Korine, whose art-house reputation includes writing the controversial "Kids" and directing the repulsive "Trash Humpers," applies a lot of visual panache to what is essentially a straightforward exploitation scenario. With gorgeous footage that captures the spring-break party scene in all its lurid excess, he makes a thin story seem like something meatier.

He does this mainly by playing with our perceptions of performers who have made their bones in family-friendly confines. Except for Rachel Korine (the director?s wife), the actresses? best-known work has been on Disney Channel ? where Gomez?s "Wizards of Waverly Place" and Hudgens? "High School Musical" aired ? and ABC Family, home to Benson?s "Pretty Little Liars." Franco, of course, is now raking in the bucks in Disney?s "Oz the Great and Powerful."

Korine?s use of these stars is a bit of a cheat, especially for those who see the ads and expect to see TV princesses in the buff. As for exposing the young ladies? depth, the movie also leaves us wanting some character traits besides bodacious bodies.

"Spring Breakers," in the end, is all eye candy and little substance.

story continues below

movies@sltrib.com

Twitter: @moviecricket

www.facebook.com/seanpmeans

Source: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/entertainment2/56024050-223/korine-spring-breakers-disney.html.csp

michael beasley jermaine jones hbo luck unc asheville stephen jackson marchmadness mike d antoni

Thursday, March 21, 2013

HP develops glasses-free 3-D for mobile devices

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Researchers at Hewlett-Packard Co. have developed a way to put glasses-free 3-D video on mobile devices with a viewing angle so wide that viewers can see an object more fully just by tilting the screen.

Glasses-free 3-D is not unique. Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s 3DS handheld allows video game play in 3-D without glasses, but it requires players to look straight into the screen with their noses centered.

HP's researchers have found a way to make images viewable in 3-D from angles up to 45 degrees from center in any direction ?up, down, side-to-side or diagonally. That means viewers can see a person's face with one ear blocked from view, but reveal the ear by swiveling the screen.

The company's findings will be published in the scientific journal, Nature, on Thursday.

The scientists used nanotechnology to etch multiple circles with tiny grooves into a glass layer of the display.

The grooves bend light in a way that allows for 64 different points of view. By moving the screen, people will perceive two of those points of view at any one time, one with their left eye and one with their right. As a result, the image will appear in 3-D.

David Fattal, the lead author of the paper, said the effect is "much like you'd see in the movie 'Star Wars' with the hologram of Princess Leia."

He acknowledged the effect wouldn't be identical to a hologram, however, since the images won't pop as far out of the screen as Leia's projection did in the movie.

The technology isn't exactly coming to a movie theater near you any time soon. While moving images can be created using computer animation, any live video capture would require an array of 64 cameras all pointed at an object, Fattal said.

___

Online:

Nature, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature11972

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-03-20-H-P-Glasses-Free-3-D/id-bdcaa66a544a4170ba53a79c945056dd

whitney houston laid to rest daytona bike week mary kay ash tiny houses maya angelou joan of arc tony robbins

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

AT&T intros extra-large Mobile Share and pooled data plans with business in mind

We can't vouch with any certainty that individual subscribers have embraced AT&T's Mobile Share plans with open arms. Corporate customers (and simply the very well-heeled) are another matter: they could use big buckets of data to get their many devices online, which is why AT&T is adding considerably more headroom today. It's launching new 30GB, 40GB and 50GB Mobile Share plans that respectively cost $300, $400 and $500 per month when there's unlimited voice and messaging attached. While those rates will be eye-watering for most of us, they make more sense knowing that the carrier ups the maximum number of devices on these plans to a more office-friendly 15 to 25, instead of the usual 10. Data-only users can get away with paying 'just' $185, $260 or $335 for similar Mobile Share plans. Companies with a larger staff count can also spring for new Business Pooled Nation plans that offer per-device data between $20 per month for 300MB and $80 per month for 10GB. Hit the source for more details, whether you're outfitting your business with phones or just have a streaming movie marathon that really, really can't wait for WiFi.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, AT&T