An experimental aircraft crashed into a house

Small plane hits house in Las Vegas; 3 dead

An experimental aircraft crashed into a house shortly after takeoff Friday, killing the pilot and two people inside the home, authorities said.

The pilot of the home-built plane radioed that he was in trouble shortly after taking off from the North Las Vegas Airport, said Ian Gregor, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman in Hawthorne, Calif.

“He said he was unable to gain altitude and was going down,” Gregor said.

Firefighters quickly doused an intense fire in the single-family home in a neighborhood southeast of a main runway at the airport.

The pilot and one resident of the house died in the 6:28 a.m. crash, and another person in the house died after being taken to University Medical Center in Las Vegas, said a deputy fire chief, Kevin Brame.

The names of the dead were not immediately released.

Gregor characterized the rear-propeller Velocity 173 RG aircraft as “experimental,” and said it can be built from a kit. FAA records showed the aircraft was certified for flight in 2002, he said, and was owned by a Las Vegas resident. The name of the owner was not released.

Gregor said FAA and National Transportation Safety Board investigators were traveling to North Las Vegas to investigate the crash.

North Las Vegas Airport is the second-busiest airport in Nevada after McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, according to the airport’s Web site. It’s a busy hub for small planes and jets, and serves as a base for sightseeing flights to the Grand Canyon and other attractions.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080822/ap_on_re_us/las_vegas_plane_crash

Top 25 Colleges

 

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Top 25 National Universities

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Harvard University Photo: AP

1. Harvard University
Location
Cambridge, MA
2007 Total Enrollment
19,257
2008-2009 Tuition and Fees
$36,173
Application Deadline
1/1
Academic Calendar
Semester

 

2. Princeton University
Location
Princeton, NJ
2007 Total Enrollment
7,334
2008-2009 Tuition and Fees
$34,290
Application Deadline
1/1
Academic Calendar
Semester

3. Yale University
Location
New Haven, CT
2007 Total Enrollment
11,454
2008-2009 Tuition and Fees
$35,300
Application Deadline
12/31
Academic Calendar
Semester

MIT Photo: AP

4. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Location
Cambridge, MA
2007 Total Enrollment
10,220
2008-2009 Tuition and Fees
$36,390
Application Deadline
1/1
Academic Calendar
4-1-4

 

4. Stanford University
Location
Stanford, CA
2007 Total Enrollment
19,782
2008-2009 Tuition and Fees
$36,030
Application Deadline
1/1
Academic Calendar
Quarter

University of Pennsylvania Photo: Courtesy of U Penn

6. University of Pennsylvania
Location
Philadelphia, PA
2007 Total Enrollment
18,916
2008-2009 Tuition and Fees
$37,526
Application Deadline
1/1
Academic Calendar
Semester

 

6. California Institute of Technology
Location
Pasadena, CA
2007 Total Enrollment
2,133
2008-2009 Tuition and Fees
$34,437
Application Deadline
1/1
Academic Calendar
Quarter

Columbia University Photo: AP

8. Columbia University
Location
New York, NY
2007 Total Enrollment
22,655
2008-2009 Tuition and Fees
$39,326
Application Deadline
1/2
Academic Calendar
Semester

 

8. Duke University
Location
Durham, NC
2007 Total Enrollment
13,598
2008-2009 Tuition and Fees
$37,525
Application Deadline
1/2
Academic Calendar
Semester

8. University of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
2007 Total Enrollment
12,336
2008-2009 Tuition and Fees
$37,632
Application Deadline
1/2
Academic Calendar
Quarter

Dartmouth College Photo: AP

11. Dartmouth College
Location
Hanover, NH
2007 Total Enrollment
5,849
2008-2009 Tuition and Fees
$36,915
Application Deadline
1/1
Academic Calendar
Quarter

 

12. Northwestern University
Location
Evanston, IL
2007 Total Enrollment
18,028
2008-2009 Tuition and Fees
$37,125
Application Deadline
1/1
Academic Calendar
Quarter

12. Washington University
Location
St. Louis, MO
2007 Total Enrollment
13,382
2008-2009 Tuition and Fees
$37,248
Application Deadline
1/15
Academic Calendar
Semester

Cornell University Photo: AP

14. Cornell University
Location
Ithaca, NY
2007 Total Enrollment
19,800
2008-2009 Tuition and Fees
$36,504
Application Deadline
1/1
Academic Calendar
Semester

 

15. Johns Hopkins University
Location
Baltimore, MD
2007 Total Enrollment
19,737
2008-2009 Tuition and Fees
$37,700
Application Deadline
1/1
Academic Calendar
Semester

Brown University Photo: AP

16. Brown University
Location
Providence, RI
2007 Total Enrollment
8,167
2008-2009 Tuition and Fees
$37,718
Application Deadline
1/1
Academic Calendar
Semester

 

17. Rice University
Location
Houston, TX
2007 Total Enrollment
5,243
2008-2009 Tuition and Fees
$28,996
Application Deadline
1/2
Academic Calendar
Semester

18. Emory University
Location
Atlanta, GA
2007 Total Enrollment
12,570
2008-2009 Tuition and Fees
$36,336
Application Deadline
1/15
Academic Calendar
Semester

University of Notre Dame Photo: Courtesy of Notre Dame

18. University of Notre Dame
Location
Notre Dame, IN
2007 Total Enrollment
11,733
2008-2009 Tuition and Fees
$36,847
Application Deadline
12/31
Academic Calendar
Semester

 

18. Vanderbilt University
Location
Nashville, TN
2007 Total Enrollment
11,847
2008-2009 Tuition and Fees
$37,005
Application Deadline
1/3
Academic Calendar
Semester

21. University of California at Berkeley
Location
Berkeley, CA
2007 Total Enrollment
34,953
2008-2009 Tuition and Fees
In-state: $8,932
Out-of-state: $29,540
Application Deadline
11/30
Academic Calendar
Semester

Carnegie Mellon University Photo: AP

22. Carnegie Mellon University
Location
Pittsburgh, PA
2007 Total Enrollment
10,493
2008-2009 Tuition and Fees
$38,844
Application Deadline
1/1
Academic Calendar
Semester

 

23. Georgetown University
Location
Washington, D.C.
2007 Total Enrollment
14,826
2008-2009 Tuition and Fees
$38,122
Application Deadline
1/10
Academic Calendar
Semester

23. University of Virginia
Location
Charlottesville, VA
2007 Total Enrollment
24,257
2008-2009 Tuition and Fees
In-state: $9,300
Out-of-state: $26,900
Application Deadline
1/2
Academic Calendar
Semester

University of California at L.A. Photo: Courtesy of UCLA

25. University of California
at Los Angeles
Location
Los Angeles, CA
2007 Total Enrollment
38,896
2008-2009 Tuition and Fees
In-state: $7,034
Out-of-state: $26,102
Application Deadline
11/30
Academic Calendar
Quarter

 

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/college-education/article/105598/Best-Colleges-2009

This could be a world changing event

Wireless power is an amazing concept. This could be a world changing event.

Intel cuts electric cords with wireless power system

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080821/ts_afp/usitinternetenergychipcompanyintel

Michael Phelps!

Michael Phelps really made the Olympics worth watching. He is an amazing athlete and seems to be a great person. He worked hard and made his dream com true. He has a lot to celebrate!

Heath Ledger finally gets to rest in peace

I think they should let  this man rest in peace I am glad to hear they have dropped the investigation.

Federal investigators drop Ledger drug inquiry

By TOM HAYS, Associated Press Writer

Federal prosecutors have decided not to pursue a criminal case into how Heath Ledger obtained the powerful painkillers that contributed to his overdose death this year, a law enforcement official said Wednesday.

Prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan had been overseeing a Drug Enforcement Administration probe into whether the painkillers found in Ledger’s system were obtained illegally. But the prosecutors have bowed out “because they don’t believe there’s a viable target,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because no charges have been filed.

The decision comes after recent reports that actress Mary-Kate Olsen was demanding immunity before answering questions about the startling death of her close friend and his drug use. Authorities say she was the first person called by a masseuse who found the 28-year-old “Dark Knight” actor’s lifeless body in his Manhattan apartment.

The DEA had obtained a subpoena that could have forced Olsen if she continued to hold out. But the subpoena, issued in April, is no longer valid because it was contingent upon prosecutors pursuing the case, the official said Wednesday. The official added that the case could still be revived if evidence of a crime emerges.

Rebekah Carmichael, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office, said it’s the office’s policy to “neither confirm nor deny the existance of an investigation.” There was no immediate response to a message left for Olsen’s attorney, Michael C. Miller.

DEA investigators suspect the painkillers found in Ledger’s system, oxycodone and hydrocodone, were obtained with phony prescriptions or other illegal means. Oxycodone is sold as OxyContin and hydrocodone as Vicodin.

Miller insisted this week that Olsen, a former child star on the sitcom “Full House,” had already told the government she “does not know the source of the drugs Mr. Ledger consumed.”

Other potential witnesses apparently answered questions voluntarily, including doctors, Ledger’s ex-girlfriend Michelle Williams and people in his apartment around the time of his death.

Other drugs taken by Ledger, including anti-anxiety medication and sleeping pills, were prescribed legally by doctors in California and Texas.

The medical examiner’s office wouldn’t say what concentrations of each drug were found but made clear he was killed by the combination — not an excess of any one drug in particular. It’s common for the DEA to investigate an overdose death with so many different drugs involved, a DEA spokesman said last month.

The masseuse discovered Ledger’s body on Jan. 22. Police say she spent nine minutes making three calls to Olsen before dialing 911 for help, then called the actress a fourth time after paramedics arrived. At some point during the flurry of frantic calls, Olsen, who was in California, summoned her personal security guards to the apartment to help, police said.

Ledger died after filming “The Dark Night,” the latest movie in the “Batman” series, in which he has earned rave reviews for playing a maniacal Joker. The film had taken in more than $400 million domestically as of Monday.

 

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080807/ap_en_ce/heath_ledger;_ylt=AqtgoOQRW7vthtWYQ_448WKs0NUE

ARE THEY FRAMING: Ivins solely responsible for anthrax attacks

HE’S NOT HERE TO DEFEND HIMSELF COULD OUR  GOVERNMENT BE FRAMING HIM, NO NOT OUR GOVERNMENT…READ ON:

US: Ivins solely responsible for anthrax attacks

By LARA JAKES JORDAN and MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writers

The murder weapon was a flask. Army scientist Bruce Ivins was the anthrax killer whose mailings took five lives and rattled the nation in 2001, prosecutors asserted Wednesday, alleging he had in his lab a container of the lethal, highly purified spores involved and access to the distinctive envelopes used to mail them.

Making its points against Ivins, a brilliant yet deeply troubled man who committed suicide last week, the government released a stack of documents to support a damning though circumstantial case in the worst bioterror episode in U.S. history. The court documents were a combination of hard DNA evidence, suspicious behavior and, sometimes, outright speculation.

Ivins’ attorney said the government was “taking a weird guy and convicting him of mass murder” without real evidence. Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa called for a congressional investigation.

Ivins had submitted false anthrax samples to the FBI to throw investigators off his trail and was unable to provide “an adequate explanation for his late laboratory work hours” around the time of the attacks, according to the government documents.

Investigators also said he sought to frame unnamed co-workers and had immunized himself against anthrax and yellow fever in early September 2001, several weeks before the first anthrax-laced envelope was received in the mail.

Ivins killed himself last week as investigators closed in, and U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor said at a Justice Department news conference, “We regret that we will not have the opportunity to present evidence to the jury.”

The scientist’s attorney, Paul F. Kemp, heatedly dismissed that comment.

“They didn’t talk about one thing that they got as result of all those searches,” he said. “I just don’t think he did it, and I don’t think the evidence exists.”

Taylor conceded the evidence was largely if not wholly circumstantial but insisted it would have been enough to convict.

The prosecutor’s news conference capped a fast-paced series of events in which the government partially lifted its veil of secrecy in the investigation of the poisonings that followed closely after the airliner terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The newly released records depict Ivins as deeply troubled, increasingly so as he confronted the possibility of being charged.

“He said he was not going to face the death penalty, but instead had a plan to kill co-workers and other individuals who had wronged him,” according to one affidavit. In e-mails to colleagues, Ivins described a feeling of dual personalities, the material said.

Officials disclosed Wednesday they had restricted his access to the biological agents last September.

Ivins had sole custody of highly purified anthrax spores with “certain genetic mutations identical” to the poison used in the attacks, according to an affidavit among a stack of documents the government released, all seemingly pointing to his guilt. Investigators also said they had traced back to his lab the type of envelopes used to send the deadly powder through the mails.

The FBI’s investigation had dragged on for years, tarnishing the reputation of the agency in the process. Investigators had long focused on Steven J. Hatfill, whose career as a bioscientist was ruined after then-Attorney General John Ashcroft named him a “person of interest” in 2002. The government recently paid $6 million to settle a lawsuit by Hatfill, who worked in the same lab as Ivins.

Taylor said Wednesday that investigators concluded in 2005 that Hatfill couldn’t have had access to a crucial flask of anthrax spores.

Authorities say that language Ivins used in an e-mail days before a second round of anthrax attacks was similar to the messages in anthrax-laced letters received soon after by Democratic Sens. Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy.

In the e-mail, Ivins wrote that “Bin Laden terrorists for sure have anthrax and sarin gas” and have “just decreed death to all Jews and all Americans.” The letters to Daschle and Leahy said: “WE HAVE THIS ANTHRAX . . . DEATH TO AMERICA . . . DEATH TO ISRAEL.”

Wednesday’s documents were released as FBI Director Robert Mueller met privately with families of the victims of the attacks to lay out the evidence officials said the agency was preparing to close the case.

As for motive, investigators seemed to offer two possible reasons for the attacks: that the brilliant scientist wanted to bolster support for a vaccine he helped create and that the anti-abortion Catholic targeted two pro-choice Catholic lawmakers.

“We are confident that Dr. Ivins was the only person responsible for these attacks,” Taylor told a news conference at the Justice Department.

Noting that Ivins would have been entitled to a presumption of innocence, Taylor nevertheless said prosecutors were confident “we could prove his guilt to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.”

The events in Washington unfolded as a memorial service was held for Ivins at Fort Detrick, the secret government installation in Frederick, Md., where he worked. Reporters were barred.

More than 200 pages of documents were made public by the FBI, virtually all of them describing the government’s attempts to link Ivins to the crimes.

That’s not enough, said Grassley, the Iowa senator. He said there should be hearings rather than “the selective release of a few documents.”

“This has been one of the largest domestic terrorism investigations in the FBI’s 100-year history, and the investigative team made mistakes, missteps and false accusations,” he said.

The government material describes at length painstaking scientific efforts to trace the source of the anthrax that was used in the attacks.

It says that in his lab, Ivins had custody of a flask of anthrax termed “the genetic parent” to the powder involved — a source that investigators say was used to grow spores for the attacks on “at least two separate occasions.”

Anthrax culled from the letters was quickly discovered to be the so-called Ames strain of bacteria, but with genetic mutations that made it distinct. Scientists developed more sophisticated tests for four of those mutations, and concluded that all the samples that matched came from a single batch, code-named RMR-1029, stored at Fort Detrick.

Ivins “has been the sole custodian of RMR-1029 since it was first grown in 1997,” said one affidavit.

Powder from anthrax-laden letters sent to the New York Post and Tom Brokaw of NBC contained a bacterial contaminant not found in the anthrax-containing envelopes mailed to Leahy or Daschle, the affidavit said.

Investigators concluded that “the contaminant must have been introduced during the production of the Post and Brokaw spores,” the affidavit said.

The documents disclosed that authorities searched Ivins’ home on Nov. 2, 2007, taking 22 swabs of vacuum filters and radiators and seizing dozens of items. Among them were video cassettes, family photos, information about guns and a copy of “The Plague” by Albert Camus.

Ivins’ cars and his safe deposit box also were searched as investigators closed in on the respected government scientist who had been troubled by mental health problems for years.

According to an affidavit filed by Charles B. Wickersham, a postal inspector, the scientist told an unnamed co-worker “that he had `incredible paranoid, delusional thoughts at times’ and ‘feared that he might not be able to control his behavior.’”

A mental health worker who was involved in treating Ivins disclosed last week that she was so concerned about his behavior that she recently sought a court order to keep him away from her.

One FBI document said Ivins “repeatedly named other researchers as possible mailers and claimed that the anthrax used in the attacks resembled that of another researcher” at the same facility.

The name of the other researcher was not disclosed.

The documents painted a picture of Ivins seeking to mislead investigators beginning in 2002, when he allegedly submitted the wrong samples to FBI investigators.

It wasn’t until more than two years later, in March 2005, that he was confronted with the alleged switch, according to U.S. Postal Inspector Thomas Dellafera, who added that Ivins insisted he had not sought to deceive.

The victims of the attacks had little in common.

Robert Stevens, 63, a photo editor at the Sun, a supermarket tabloid published in Boca Raton, Fla., was the first to die. Thomas Morris Jr. 55, and Joseph Curseen, 47, worked at a Washington-area postal facility that was a hub for sorting the capital’s mail. Kathy Nguyen, 61, who had emigrated from Vietnam and lived in the Bronx, worked in a stock room at Manhattan Eye Ear & Throat Hospital. Ottilie Lundgren, 94, who lived in Oxford, Conn., was the last to die.

 

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080806/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/anthrax_investigation

Olsen Lawyer Co-Operting

Looks like Olsen wants to stay clear of this. I wonder what she may know if anything.

Lawyer: ‘Olsen Is Co-Operating With Ledger Investigation’

Mary-Kate Olsen knows nothing about the drugs that killed her friend Heath Ledger, her lawyer insists.

Reports on Monday suggested officials behind a federal probe into Ledger’s January death from an accidental overdose were targeting Olsen, but she was refusing to co-operate until she was guaranteed immunity from prosecution.

Her name was dragged into the case because the masseuse who found Ledger dead called Olsen before contacting the emergency services, prompting suspicions.

The 22-year-old actress’ lawyer Michael C. Miller now tells Usmagazine.com that Olsen has provided the Drug Enforcement Administration with all the information she has on her late pal.

Miller says, “Regarding the Government’s investigation, at Ms. Olsen’s request, we have provided the Government with relevant information including facts in the chronology of events surrounding Mr. Ledger’s death and the fact that Ms. Olsen does not know the source of the drugs Mr. Ledger consumed.”

Miller also blasted reports that Olsen faces a Grand Jury subpoena if she refuses to co-operate, adding, “We don’t know the source of the information being quoted in the media regarding the Government’s inquiry, but these descriptions are incomplete and inaccurate.”

Lohan’s Dad rejecting daughters life style???

Read this story a dad reduding his daughter because it’s not his thing.

Lohan’s Dad Won’t Walk Her Down The Aisle

AP Photo/Evan Agostini lohan

Michael Lohan’s devout Christian faith will prevent him from walking his actress daughter Lindsay Lohan down the aisle if she chooses to marry Samantha Ronson.

Lohan and Ronson have long refused to confirm rumors they are in a romantic relationship, but reports suggest the couple is now planning to exchange vows in a commitment ceremony.

However, Michael, a born-again Christian, is convinced the star won’t invite him to be a part of the event.

He tells MSNBC’s The Scoop, “I haven’t heard anything (about an upcoming wedding) from Lindsay, but if she was marrying Sam, I don’t think she’d ask me to walk her down the aisle.

AP Photo/Evan Agostini

“She knows about my (Christian) faith. She just wouldn’t ask.” But Michael insists he isn’t against his daughter settling down with Ronson, as long as Lindsay is happy.

He adds, I want her to be happy and healthy and stay on the right path. If I discuss (her relationship), I say that I want her to be happy.

Legislation to ban gay marriage in California was overturned in May.

Mendes’ too sexy for U.S., huh?

READ THIS: I tghought anything goes these days but I guess not.

Mendes’ Advert ‘Too Sexy’ For U.S.

AP Photo/Evan Agostini

Actress Eva Mendes’ saucy perfume advertisement for Calvin Klein has been banned by several TV networks in the United States.

Bosses at national broadcasting stations are refusing to air the commercial for the company’s Secret Obsession fragrance, in which the nude star writhes seductively on a bed and caresses her chest. Video (Warning: Possibly NSFW)

The fashion firm’s heads insist they weren’t surprised by the TV network executives’ decisions to reject the campaign, but maintain they will stand by the ad.

Tom Murry, president of Calvin Klein Inc., tells the New York Daily News, “We believe the commercial is exceptional and hits the mark for Secret Obsession.

“We are anticipating a very successful global launch.”

A censored clip is expected to be shown on U.S. cable networks, while the unedited version will air in full in other countries.

Anthrax Suicide WOW!!!

Army scientist Bruce E. Ivins committed suicide leaving the anthrax murders unsolved. Theory is he released it to test his new cure. I guess that would make him a “mad scientist”. Sorta out of a Batman movie huh, I can say I never saw that one coming.