St. Louis parade on Iraq War's end draws thousands (AP)

ST. LOUIS ? Looking around at the tens of thousands of people waving American flags and cheering, Army Maj. Rich Radford was moved that so many braved a cold January wind Saturday in St. Louis to honor people like him: Iraq War veterans.

The parade, borne out of a simple conversation between two St. Louis friends a month ago, was the nation's first big welcome-home for veterans of the war since the last troops were withdrawn from Iraq in December.

"It's not necessarily overdue, it's just the right thing," said Radford, a 23-year Army veteran who walked in the parade alongside his 8-year-old daughter, Aimee, and 12-year-old son, Warren.

Radford was among about 600 veterans, many dressed in camouflage, who walked along downtown streets lined with rows of people clapping and holding signs with messages including "Welcome Home" and "Thanks to our Service Men and Women." Some of the war-tested troops wiped away tears as they acknowledged the support from a crowd that organizers estimated reached 100,000 people.

Fire trucks with aerial ladders hoisted huge American flags in three different places along the route, with politicians, marching bands ? even the Budweiser Clydesdales ? joining in. But the large crowd was clearly there to salute men and women in the military, and people cheered wildly as groups of veterans walked by.

That was the hope of organizers Craig Schneider and Tom Appelbaum. Neither man has served in the military but came up with the idea after noticing there had been little fanfare for returning Iraq War veterans aside from gatherings at airports and military bases. No ticker-tape parades or large public celebrations.

Appelbaum, an attorney, and Schneider, a school district technical coordinator, decided something needed to be done. So they sought donations, launched a Facebook page, met with the mayor and mapped a route. The grassroots effort resulted in a huge turnout despite raising only about $35,000 and limited marketing.

That marketing included using a photo of Radford being welcomed home from his second tour in Iraq by his then-6-year-old daughter. The girl had reached up, grabbed his hand and said, "I missed you, daddy." Radford's sister caught the moment with her cellphone camera, and the image graced T-shirts and posters for the parade.

Veterans came from around the country, and more than 100 entries ? including marching bands, motorcycle groups and military units ? signed up ahead of the event, Appelbaum said.

Schneider said he was amazed how everyone, from city officials to military organizations to the media, embraced the parade.

"It was an idea that nobody said no to," he said. "America was ready for this."

All that effort by her hometown was especially touching for Gayla Gibson, a 38-year-old Air Force master sergeant who said she spent four months in Iraq ? seeing "amputations, broken bones, severe burns from IEDs" ? as a medical technician in 2003.

"I think it's great when people come out to support those who gave their lives and put their lives on the line for this country," Gibson said.

With 91,000 troops still fighting in Afghanistan, many Iraq veterans could be redeployed ? suggesting to some that it's premature to celebrate their homecoming. In New York, for example, Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently said there would be no city parade for Iraq War veterans in the foreseeable future because of objections voiced by military officials.

But in St. Louis, there was clearly a mood to thank the troops with something big, even among those opposed to the war.

"Most of us were not in favor of the war in Iraq, but the soldiers who fought did the right thing and we support them," said 72-year-old Susan Cunningham, who attended the parade with the Missouri Progressive Action Group. "I'm glad the war is over and I'm glad they're home."

Don Lange, 60, of nearby Sullivan, held his granddaughter along the parade route. His daughter was a military interrogator in Iraq.

"This is something everyplace should do," Lange said as he watched the parade.

Several veterans of the Vietnam War turned out to show support for the younger troops. Among them was Don Jackson, 63, of Edwardsville, Ill., who said he was thrilled to see the parade honoring Iraq War veterans like his son, Kevin, who joined him at the parade. The 33-year-old Air Force staff sergeant said he'd lost track of how many times he had been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan as a flying mechanic.

"I hope this snowballs," he said of the parade. "I hope it goes all across the country. I only wish my friends who I served with were here to see this."

Looking at all the people around him in camouflage, 29-year-old veteran Matt Wood said he felt honored. He served a year in Iraq with the Illinois National Guard.

"It's extremely humbling, it's amazing, to be part of something like this with all of these people who served their country with such honor," he said.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iraq/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120129/ap_on_re_us/us_iraq_war_parade

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Bradley Cooper, Zoe Saldana celebrate at Sundance (AP)

PARK CITY, Utah ? Bradley Cooper and Zoe Saldana are in Park City to promote their film, "The Words," which is closing the Sundance Film Festival.

The two actors play a married couple in the film, which follows an aspiring writer who gains fame when he finds an old manuscript and passes it off as his own.

The pair avoided any appearance of their reported off-screen romance by staying apart from one another while posing for photos and giving interviews to support the film. Saldana did affectionately touch Cooper as they passed in a hallway, though.

"The Words" was among the first films acquired at Sundance. CBS Films is set to release it in the fall.

The drama, which also stars Dennis Quaid, Jeremy Irons, Ben Barnes and Olivia Wilde, premiered Friday.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120128/ap_on_en_ot/us_film_sundance_cooper_saldana

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Magnitude 5.5 quake shakes Japan

TOKYO (AP) ? A magnitude-5.5 earthquake rattled Yamanashi prefecture in central Japan on Saturday morning, the Japan Meteorological Agency reported. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries, and no tsunami warning was issued.

The temblor was some 20 kilometers (12 1/2 miles) deep and hit at 7:43 a.m. local time (2243 GMT Friday), the Japanese earthquake-reporting agency said.

Last year, a magnitude-9 quake on March 11 and subsequent tsunami about 140 miles (230 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo left nearly 20,000 people dead or missing.

Japan is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-01-27-AS-Japan-Earthquake/id-4ee2831874b141ff919e1a24a8a20ead

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Minnesota Man Says 'Hidden' Traps Are Killing Pets ? CBS Minnesota

MERRIFIELD, Minn. (WCCO) ? A Northern Minnesota man is concerned that hunting dogs are becoming the hunted.

John Reynolds of Merrifield lost his dog Penni when she got caught in what?s called a ?Body Grip Trap.?

The traps are designed to kill raccoons, fishers and bobcats ? but there have been several reports of pet dogs getting caught in them.

Reynolds is a trapper himself. But the type of trap he demonstrated for us is the kind he wants nothing to do with.

?You can imagine what this would do to the neck of a dog,? said Reynolds, as he springs a body grip trap.

There are several names for this type of trapping device, but Reynolds and others call it the body grip trap. It lures prey in-between the springs with grouse or pheasant meat. And it kills quickly ? instantly breaking the neck or the windpipe of the animal. It?s a scenario, that last month, became all too real for Reynolds.

On Dec. 17, Reynolds and his springer spaniel Penni were walking around a lake near Emily, Minnesota. Penni ran off and got caught in a Body Grip Trap.

?It took about a half hour before I found her ? and she was dead,? said Reynolds.

And he?s not alone. Reynolds says at least four other dogs in the area have been caught and killed, as well.

What worries him most is that body grip traps can virtually be set on any public land in the state of Minnesota. Including some parks.

But Reynolds isn?t out to get rid of the traps, he just wants the rules to change.

?Every time you go in the woods with your dog you are playing roulette,? said Reynolds.

Because the bait is what attracts the dogs, Reynolds would like to see the traps moved off the ground ? where fishers and raccoons can still get them but dogs can?t. Twenty-five other states have that type of regulation, but Minnesota does not. And because of what happened to Penni, Reynolds now refers to body grips as ?hidden killers.?

?All we are looking for is a change in the method. It doesn?t seem like much to ask. They are good traps, we just don?t want them set where our dogs can reach them,? said Reynolds.

In 2010, the DNR created regulations that do not allow the traps to be placed near houses or buildings occupied by livestock.

The DNR says they continue to talk with trappers and concerned dog owners about the body grip traps.

Source: http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2012/01/26/minnesota-man-says-dnr-hidden-traps-are-killing-pets/

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Iran could ban EU oil exports next week: lawmaker (Reuters)

TEHRAN (Reuters) ? A law to be debated in Iran's parliament on Sunday could halt exports of oil to the European Union as early as next week, the semi-official Fars news agency quoted a lawmaker as saying on Friday.

"On Sunday, parliament will have to approve a 'double emergency' bill calling for a halt in the export of Iranian oil to Europe starting next week," Hossein Ibrahimi, vice-chairman of parliament's national security and foreign policy committee, was quoted as saying.

Parliament is pushing for the export ban to deny the EU a 6-month phase-in of the embargo on Iranian oil that the bloc agreed on Monday as part of a raft of tough new Western sanctions aimed at forcing Iran to curb its nuclear program.

The EU accounted for 18 percent of Iranian crude oil sales in the first half of 2011, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), making it Iran's second biggest customer after China.

"If the deputies arrive at the conclusion that the Iranian oil exports to Europe must be halted, the parliament will not delay a moment (in passing the bill)," Fars quoted Moayed Hosseini-Sadr, a member of parliament's energy committee, as saying.

"If Iran's oil exports to Europe, which is about 18 percent (of Iran's oil exports) is halted the Europeans will surely be taken by surprise, and will understand the power of Iran and will realize that the Islamic establishment will not succumb to the Europeans' policies," he said.

Reflecting how seriously Tehran was taking the idea, Iran's OPEC governor Mohammad Ali Khatibi told the ILNA news agency the country might choose to raise the issue at the next OPEC meeting.

Iran's conservative-dominated parliament has previously shown it is ready to force the government to take action against what it sees as hostility from the West.

In November it voted to expel the British ambassador after London announced new sanctions ahead of other EU countries.

The day after that vote, radical Iranians stormed the British embassy, causing London to withdraw all staff and close the mission.

(Writing by Robin Pomeroy; editing by James Jukwey)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iran/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120127/wl_nm/us_iran_sanctions_oil

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European Lawmakers Want "Right to Be Forgotten" on Facebook, Google (Mashable)

European Internet users may be getting better control over information posted online, thanks to some proposed sweeping reforms lawmakers proposed Wednesday designed to protect digital privacy. The suggested law calls for a "right to be forgotten" and a "right to data portability." The former would require Internet companies such as Facebook and Google to completely wipe all of a user's info from their servers if such a request was made. The latter demands users be allowed to easily transfer data from one online service to another, a currently difficult task.

[More from Mashable: Google Thinks I?m a Middle-Aged Man. What About You?]

The "right to be forgotten" wouldn't be granted to users attempting to remove information relevant to a criminal investigation.

All online businesses operating in Europe would be bound to the new rules, whether or not they're based on the continent. Should web services fail to comply with these rights, they would be slapped with fines of up to ?1 million or up to 2% of the global annual turnover of a company (The total value of all products made in a 12-month period).

[More from Mashable: 10 Simple Google Calendar Tips and Tricks to Boost Your Productivity]

In the past, European Union (EU) member states have issued varying interpretations on existing digital privacy laws. Those different analyses have resulted in discordant levels of enforcement from country to country. If passed, this law would unify all 27 EU member states under a single set of privacy rules.

The EU argues this Europe-wide standardization would save businesses money by providing a sole definitive source of online privacy law for the continent. However, many internet companies depend on access to users' data for advertisement revenue.

A spokesman for European Union justice commissioner, Viviane Reding, told the BBC that the proposed laws are a means of protecting children and young adults who share details online which they later want removed for professional or personal reasons.

"These rules are particularly aimed at young people as they are not always as aware as they could be about the consequence of putting photos and other information on social network websites, or about the various privacy settings available," said spokesman Matthew Newman.

SEE ALSO: European Politicians Didn?t Like SOPA Any More Than You [VIDEO]

For the proposed new rules to become European law, they will need approval from the EU's member states followed by ratification from European Parliament. That process may take up to two years.

Do you think Internet users should be granted a "right to be forgotten?" Let us know in the comments below.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, richterfoto

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/internet/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/mashable/20120125/tc_mashable/european_lawmakers_want_right_to_be_forgotten_on_facebook_google

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Jumping Spiders Use Blurry Vision to Catch Quick Prey with Precision [Video]

Jumping Spider: image courtesy of Science/AAAS

To figure out how far away our dinner plate is our brain melds the slightly different images coming from our two eyes. Other creatures, including many insects, move their heads to glean how far a piece of food might be. But jumping spiders (Hasarius adansoni) don?t seem to possess either of these abilities. So how do they manage such quick and exacting lunges to capture their lunches?

Researchers have suspected the answer might have something to do with their four-layered eyes. Previous molecular and physiological work had shown that the third and fourth layers of the spiders? two principal eyes are most receptive to ultraviolet light; and the first and second are tuned more toward what we consider to be the visible spectrum, in particular, to green light. But not all of the layers see things equally. In fact, only in the first layer is the green light focused clearly, meaning that ?the second-deepest layer always receives defocused images,? according to Takashi Nagata, of the biology and geosciences department at the Osaka City University in Japan, and his colleagues. He and his team set out to figure out whether the spiders rely on that lack of focus to tackle a meal.

The investigators assumed that if the differences in the green layers were important for depth perception, spiders would not be able to determine how far to jump in the absence of green light. Sure enough, as they reported online Thursday in the journal Science, when they shone green light on the spiders and tempted them with tasty flies, the spiders made spot-on jumps?just as they did in natural light. When bathed in red light that did not contain green wavelengths, however, the spiders consistently missed their prey, often coming up short.

So instead of using a stereo focus like we do or a motion-based tactics like some other bugs, for these spiders, ?depth perception might be achieved by comparison of defocused images received by [the second layer] with focused images received by [the first layer],? Nagata and his colleagues wrote. Investigators will need to do further studies to uncover how the spiders are processing this information.

In a commentary in the same issue of Science, Marie Herberstein and David Kemp, both of the biological sciences department at Macquire University in Australia note that the new finding does more than add new insight into the major challenge of understanding how animals perceive the world. It also serves as a reminder that advanced molecular research, as helpful as it is, is not always enough on its own. In this case, the ?ultimate test still required behavioral experimentation with whole, live animals.?

The new study also could add to research beyond the animal world. ?Jumping spiders may be a real-life example of ?depth from defocus,? a notable depth measurement technique that is being developed for computer vision,? Nagata and his co-authors noted.

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Video courtesy of Science/AAAS

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=895aae94b94c166fc4462132c046e550

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