Pirates Making Hundreds of Millions in Ransoms, as Attacks Intensify off Somali Coast

While much of the world's economy is in the doldrums, business is booming for Somalia's pirates, whose attacks on commercial ships sailing Africa's east coast are more frequent, violent and lucrative than ever.

Pirates took in an estimated $160 million in ransoms last year, and one study predicts the number will climb to $400 million by 2015, as the high seas thieves continue their brazen reign on the Indian Ocean. Efforts by shipping companies to beef up security, and by the European Union, which has mounted airstrikes on pirate ships, have so far been met with stepped-up attacks. Chillingly, pirates are now chopping off the limbs of captives in extreme cases when the airdrop of cash isn't made quickly enough to suit them.

"It's an established, structured model, where you have Somalis who are leading and financing operations and then you have pirates who actually go out to sea and conduct the activity," Brian Green, chief of the counter-piracy branch of the Office of Naval Intelligence, told FoxNews.com of the piracy industry. "They are, more or less, foot soldiers. They find targets of opportunity, attack them with the goal of hijacking and bringing that vessel back to Somalia."

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Hypocrisy Alert: Investigation Reveals AFL-CIO, SEIU in Bed with JP Morgan Chase

If union members are upset that the millions union bosses have dumped into defeating Gov. Walker in tomorrow’s recall election appear not to be working, they may be furious when they learn the details of a new investigation by the Government Accountability Institute. 

Here are a few of the highlights:
Despite the nearly 200 demonstrations against JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, and the other big banks, the AFL-CIO and SEIU are in bed with JP Morgan Chase—big time.  Through something called the “Union Plus Mortgage Program,” the AFL-CIO and SEIU provide their members over 80,000 home mortgage loans totaling a whopping $15.2 billion.  And who have the unions relied upon for 12 years and running to offer these home loans?  You guessed it, JP Morgan Chase, the very bank the big union bosses direct their members to rail against.



To hear the heated rhetoric against Chase coming out of the big unions, the average union member would have no way of guessing that their union is in business with the big bank.  “Chase’s stranglehold on the economy is everywhere,” says President of SEIU-USWW Mike Garcia.  “They’ve kicked California families out of their homes.” To rectify the injustice of it all, SEIU members are even directed to a webpage titled “Ask Jamie Dimon For a Meeting.” As the SEIU’s website declares:  “Chase hurts everybody. They’re making a profit by lending taxpayers their own money…JP Morgan Chase is manipulating government budget processes and charging local and state governments high interest rates.”   Odd words for unions who are in cahoots with JP Morgan Chase. 

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Mayor Jim Ireton So Drunk He Can't Remember He Called

It was a beautiful evening Saturday night when we gathered with several friends at our home to enjoy a bon fire. As we were enjoying our evening my cell phone started ringing. It was 11:38 PM and wouldn't you know it, it was Mayor Jim Ireton. I was somewhat surprised because of the hour but I opened the phone after showing my Wife who was actually calling.

Mayor Jim Ireton was clearly drunk and wanted to tell me that he knew I had this election won. He knew that Salisbury News was much bigger than the Daily Times and that too many people in Salisbury are already saying Joe Albero was going to win this election.

The Mayor went on to tell me that we had a lot of the same views for Salisbury but before he stepped down and showed his support for me he wanted to know if I'd be interested in meeting with him Sunday at noon at his Office. He went on to say that he knows he can't beat me and he's done fighting. He mentioned something about how the people love me and support me and he knew I'd make a great Mayor because I care.

I agreed that I would meet with the Mayor on Sunday. The next morning I headed up to the GOB and when I arrived at 11:50 AM the Mayor's vehicle was not there. I called him on the same number he called me from, (his cell phone) and there was no answer. I then sent him a text message saying I was at the GOB waiting for him. Again, no reply.

I waited until 12:10 PM before I called him again, this time leaving a message on his phone stating I had waited long enough and since he hadn't responded to any of my attempts to contact him I didn't appreciate my taking family time to come meet with him and his not responding. I then stated I felt he owed me a reply call. I never got one.

At that point, since Jim was so down on the phone Saturday night I called one Council Member as I grew even more concerned he hadn't replied. After explaining the call Saturday night and his not responding, they agreed someone needed to go check up on the Mayor.

It turns out Chief Duncan made contact with Mayor Ireton and explained my concerns. The Mayor stated he had no clue what she was talking about, he hadn't spoken with me last night. The Chief responded asking if I'd be willing to turn over my phone records.

When I originally answered the phone Saturday night I put the phone up to my Wife's ear so she could tell it was Mayor Ireton. He sounded pretty trashed and she confirmed right away it was him. I waited around in Salisbury at my Office to get some kind of reply to make sure the Mayor was OK so when I left Salisbury I drove directly to the Police Department and showed staff my cell phone proving the Mayor did in fact call me very late Saturday night and they were to relay that information to the Chief.

I think we can all agree, when someone drinks that much alcohol it can become a truth serum. My conversation with the Mayor made it blatantly obvious I had a larger following, (according to his own words) than the Daily Times, people he was running into were stating I was going to win this election and between the two of us, he wasn't going to fight me in a re election bid for Mayor. The Mayor had exposed his full deck of cards.

The scariest part of all of this is the fact that the Mayor does not recall, (so he says) ever making the phone call. If that's the case he might want to have someone hide his cell phone so he's not able to make anymore drunken phone calls. He had every opportunity today to pick up the phone and call me and simply say, why are you calling me and texting me. At that point he could have told ME that he didn't make the call Saturday night. That didn't happen because he knew he screwed up. He was sleeping off a hard night of drinking and when the Chief of Police arrived he claimed he wanted an investigation of some sort into WHO made that late night phone call. HELLLOOOOO! Are we talking about a black out here? I don't thinks so.

Jim has lost the support of most of his former friends. The Daily Times has to be sick of his temper tantrums, (as are all of us) he's admitted to me personally he can no longer afford to financially stick with being Mayor. He has personally seen my Maryland Driver's License, yet claimed last week that I wasn't a resident of Salisbury. The guy is done as Mayor. You know it, I know it and after Saturday nights phone call, even he knows it.

Vietnam Opens 3 New Sites for War Remains Search

The Vietnamese government has announced it will open three previously restricted sites for excavation by the U.S. to search for troop remains from the war.

The announcement from Vietnam Minister of Defense Phung Quang Thanh comes as U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and his Vietnamese counterpart participated in a first-of-its-kind joint exchange of artifacts from the war in Hanoi.

A Department of Defense spokesman said in a statement the department believes Joint Prisoners of War, Missing in Action Accounting Command (JPAC) research teams will greatly benefit from access to the new sites in their search for the approximately 1,200 U.S. service members still missing in Vietnam.

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Detectives Make Arrest In Shooting Incident

Location:
Caribbean Delight Restaurant, 1030 South Market Street, Wilmington, DE

Date of Occurrence:
Saturday, June 2, 2012 at 9:20 p.m.

Victims:
25 year old Wilmington woman
33 year old New Castle man

Defendant, Charges, and Bail Information:
Oneil A. Rose, 40, Wilmington, DE ( a mug shot photograph is not available at this time)
Attempted Murder 1st Degree
Assault 1st Degree
Possession of a Firearm during the Commission of a Felony (2 counts)
Possession of a Firearm by a Person Prohibited

Arraigned at JP Court 20 and then committed to the Howard Young Correctional Institution for lack of $285,000.00 cash bail.

Resume:
Wilmington- Delaware State Police detectives have arrested a Wilmington man in connection with the shooting of a female victim in the parking lot of a local restaurant.

On Sunday, June 3, 2012 detectives arrested Oneil A. Rose, 40, of Wilmington and charged him with one count each of attempted murder 1st degree, assault 2nd degree, possession of a firearm by a person prohibited, and two counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. He was then arraigned at JP Court 20 and committed to the Department of Corrections for lack of bail.

During their investigation into the shooting which occurred in the parking lot of the Caribbean Delight Restaurant located in the 1000 block of South Market Street in Wilmington, detectives learned that Oneil Rose produced a handgun and confronted a 33 year old New Castle male who he had been having an ongoing dispute with. The male victim then began to run around a vehicle which was parked in the parking lot in an attempt to flee from Rose. However, upon reaching the rear of the vehicle, Rose pointed the gun at the victim at which time the victim grabbed Rose’s hand. It was at this point that Rose fired a single shot from the gun striking a 25 year old Wilmington, DE woman who was standing outside of the vehicle. The male victim and Oneil Rose both fled the area in separate vehicles, however, the victim returned a short time later. The female victim was transported to a local hospital by friends and then later transferred to the Christiana Hospital Trauma Center where she was admitted in stable condition.

After further investigation, detectives were able to locate Oneil Rose in his vehicle in the area of DE Rt. 273 and US Rt. 13 in New Castle. He was taken into custody by members of the Delaware State Police Special Operations Response Team (S.O.R.T) without incident.

Verizon Has Chance To Take Away Super-Cheap Plan, Doesn't Take It

Based on what you read here, all telecommunications companies are money vacuums that exist solely to find excuses to kick customers off perfectly good plans and extract as much money as possible. Right? Well...maybe not. Stephen doesn't use his phone much, and is perfectly happy buying one $100 prepaid card per year to keep it activated, paying 35 cents per minute to make actual calls. Verizon has had a few opportunities over the years to take this plan away from him, but they never do. And he appreciates it.

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The Single-Mom Catastrophe

The single-mother revolution shouldn't need much introduction. It started in the 1960s when the nation began to sever the historical connection between marriage and childbearing and to turn single motherhood and the fatherless family into a viable, even welcome, arrangement for children and for society. The reasons for the shift were many, including the sexual revolution, a powerful strain of anti-marriage feminism and a "super bug" of American individualism that hit the country in the 1960s and '70s.

In its broad outlines, the story is familiar by now. In 1965, 93% of all American births were to women with marriage licenses. Over the next few decades, the percentage of babies with no father around rose steadily. As of 1970, 11% of births were to unmarried mothers; by 1990, that number had risen to 28%. Today, 41% of all births are to unmarried women. And for mothers under 30, the rate is 53%.

Though other Western countries also concluded that it was OK for the unmarried to have kids, what they had in mind as the substitute for marriage was something similar to it: a stable arrangement in which two partners, cohabiting over the long term, would raise their children together. The embrace of "lone motherhood" — women bringing up kids with no dad around — has been an American specialty.

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US Navy Hopes Stealth Ship Answers a Rising China

A super-stealthy warship that could underpin the U.S. Navy's China strategy will be able to sneak up on coastlines virtually undetected and pound targets with electromagnetic "railguns" right out of a sci-fi movie.

But at more than $3 billion a pop, critics say the new DDG-1000 destroyer sucks away funds that could be better used to bolster a thinly stretched conventional fleet. One outspoken admiral in China has scoffed that all it would take to sink the high-tech American ship is an armada of explosive-laden fishing boats.

With the first of the new ships set to be delivered in 2014, the stealth destroyer is being heavily promoted by the Pentagon as the most advanced destroyer in history _ a silver bullet of stealth. It has been called a perfect fit for what Washington now considers the most strategically important region in the world _ Asia and the Pacific.

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Navy Marks Battle of Midway's 70th Anniversary

Six months after the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan sent four aircraft carriers to the tiny Pacific atoll of Midway to draw out and destroy what remained of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

But this time the U.S. knew about Japan's plans. U.S. cryptologists had cracked Japanese communications codes, giving Fleet Commander Adm. Chester Nimitz notice of where Japan would strike, the day and time of the attack, and what ships the enemy would bring to the fight.

The U.S. was badly outnumbered and its pilots less experienced than Japan's. Even so, it sank four Japanese aircraft carriers the first day of the three-day battle and put Japan on the defensive, greatly diminishing its ability to project air power as it had in the attack on Hawaii.

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IS IT 'HATE' TO EXPOSE ISLAM?

A recent critic has blasted author Joel Richardson as “hateful” and “bigoted” for writing books that suggest the Antichrist will be a Muslim whose empire will arise out of the Middle East.

But is it really “hate” to draw parallels between the Bible’s coming villain and Islam’s expected Mahdi?

Jordan Michael Smith of the left-leaning Salon.com last week penned a column called “Books’ most hateful bestseller,” tearing into Richardson for writing such books as the New York Times bestseller “The Islamic Antichrist: The Shocking Truth About the Nature of the Beast” and the about to be released“Mideast Beast: The Scriptural Case for an Islamic Antichrist.”

“[Richardson's] preachings about loving Muslims while despising Islam make him seem grounded in Christian teachings and compassionate in his beliefs,” Smith writes. “But his virulently bigoted views on Islam make him a dangerous character – and one that has found many adherents on the religious right.”

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Merrill Losses Were Withheld Before Bank of America Deal

Days before Bank of America shareholders approved the bank’s $50 billion purchase of Merrill Lynch in December 2008, top bank executives were advised that losses at the investment firm would most likely hammer the combined companies’ earnings in the years to come. But shareholders were not told about the looming losses, which would prompt a second taxpayer bailout of $20 billion, leaving them instead to rely on rosier projections from the bank that the deal would make money relatively soon after it was completed.

What Bank of America’s top executives, including its chief executive then, Kenneth D. Lewis, knew about Merrill’s vast mortgage losses and when they knew it emerged in court documents filed Sunday evening in a shareholder lawsuit being heard in Federal District Court in Manhattan.

The disclosure, coming to light in private litigation, is likely to reignite concerns that federal regulators and prosecutors have not worked hard enough to hold key executives accountable for their actions during the financial crisis.

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Technology flashback: Atari, Commodore 64, Apples and More

Technology flashback: Atari, Commodore 64, Apples and more

Computer technology has changed quite a bit since the late 1970s. From big and bulky to slim and sleek, how many of these do you remember?

 Slide Show    HERE

War in the White House: attorney general Eric Holder and top Obama adviser David Axelrod 'had to be separated'

Eric Holder, Barack Obama's attorney general and David Axelrod, his top political adviser had to be separated after squaring up during a furious row over attempts to impose White House operatives in the justice department.

Eric Holder, who heads Mr Obama's justice department, is said to have become "incensed" after being accused by David Axelrod of complaining publicly about political interference in his office.

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Pennsylvania Father Abandons 16-Year-Old Daughter Over Bad Math Grade

A Pennsylvania father pleaded guilty to child endangerment for abandoning his teenage daughter at a mall over a bad grade she received at school.       

Tuan Huynh, 47, of Montgomery County, dropped his 16-year-old daughter off near Cheltenham Square Mall and told her she could not come home, Fox affiliate WTXF-TV reported. He told the teenager she no longer met her parents' expectations because she had received a bad grade on a calculus test, according to the station.

Assistant District Attorney Cara McMenamin told the station that the girl wandered around the Cheltenham Mall for hours before a minister finally approached her and called for help.

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Texas Woman Barred From US After Swearing She Is Not American

 A Texas woman has been stranded on the Mexican side of the US border for more than three months after making a statement saying she was born in Mexico and was not an American citizen, The Brownsville Herald reported.

Brenda Vazquez said her "false" statement to a US border official at the Brownsville international bridge on Feb. 19 came after she was grilled for seven hours when she attempted to re-enter Texas -- where she says she was born in Weslaco in 1982.

A petition filed in a US federal court on behalf of Vazquez claims she only signed the statement after a US Customs and Border Protection official seized her Texas driver's license and US birth certificate and refused to allow her access to a lawyer until she admitted she was not American, the Herald reported in its Sunday edition.

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GSA Under Even More Scrutiny

More ripples are forming in the General Services Administration financial scandal that began with a Las Vegas conference. Congress is releasing new documents to the press showing that since 2008 the GSA has given more than $1 million in bonuses to employees being investigated for misconduct. That includes about 84 workers who received annual awards of as much as $18,000. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) told the Kansas City Star the GSA has a culture of entitlement that rewards bad judgment. In response, GSA said it was reviewing bonus payouts. Records given to the Washington Post also revealed out-of-control travel expenses charged by 95 Public Buildings Service employees who work from home. Their $750,000 in spending surprised even their regional commissioner Jeff Neely, who was at the heart of that first Las Vegas scandal.

U.S. MISSILES INFECTED WITH CHINESE FAKES

Fake electronic components from China have been discovered in thermal weapons sights delivered to the U.S. Army on mission computers for the Missile Defense Agency’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, missiles and on military aircraft, including several models of helicopters and the P-8A-Poseidon, according to federal investigators.

Suspected electronic parts were found in the Forward Looking InfraRed, or FLIR, Systems being used on the Navy’s SH-60-B. The counterfeit parts were delivered by Raytheon, which alerted the Navy.

The new evidence comes reports that the problem with faked Chinese electronic components being installed in U.S. military systems is far more widespread that originally thought.

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Watergate Documents May Become Public

Secret documents linked to the Watergate scandal may become public soon. The Justice Department said there was no reason to keep many of the judicial records sealed. The agency has responded to a legal request made by a Texas history professor. He wanted to read testimony by the former FBI agent hired to eavesdrop and transcribe the conversations at Democratic National Committee headquarters in 1972. The Justice Department said hundreds of papers could be released. But others, including documents containing personal or grand-jury information or about the content of illegally obtained wiretaps, should be kept sealed.

Facebook Developing Technology to Allow Access to Children Under 13

Facebook is developing technology that would allow children younger than 13 years old to use the social-networking site under parental supervision, a step that could help the company tap a new pool of users for revenue but also inflame privacy concerns.

Mechanisms being tested include connecting children's accounts to their parents' and controls that would allow parents to decide whom their kids can "friend" and what applications they can use, people who have spoken with Facebook executives about the technology said. The under-13 features could enable Facebook and its partners to charge parents for games and other entertainment accessed by their children, the people said.

Facebook currently bans users under 13. But many kids lie about their ages to get accounts, putting the company in an awkward position regarding a federal law that requires sites to obtain verifiable parental consent before collecting personal data from children.

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Unemployment Among New Veterans Shot Up Last Month

Unemployment among new veterans shot up last month, or so it would seem from the numbers. One in eight, or 12.7 percent, post 9-11 veterans are looking for work. That's a 3 percent increase in a month. Veterans Affairs said monthly swings are normal. The good news, officials said, is that unemployment has steadily, if modestly, declined over the past two years. VA said it was continuing to hold job fairs all over the country and its other programs were proving popular. A new program to retrain unemployed vets had 12,000 applicants in the first two weeks.