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US Technology Heads to Brazil For Black Box Search

RECIFE, Brazil – A U.S. Navy team was flying to Brazil on Monday with high-tech, underwater listening devices to help the search for the black boxes from an Air France plane that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean.

Brazilian and French military ships, which have so far recovered 17 bodies and large amounts of plane wreckage from the sea, resumed their search amid the floating debris.

What caused the Airbus A330 to crash May 31 with 228 people on board will remain a mystery unless searchers can locate the plane's black box flight data and voice recorders, likely buried deep in the middle of the ocean.

Two U.S. Navy devices that can detect emergency beacons to a depth of 20,000 feet (6,100 meters) are being flown to Brazil with a Navy team, according to the Pentagon. They will be delivered to two French tugs that will then listen for transmissions from the black boxes, which are programmed to emit signals for at least 30 days.

Bodies recovered Sunday raised the total to 17, after pilots in a grid search found 15 corpses about 45 miles (70 kilometers) from where the jet sent out messages signaling electrical failures and loss of cabin pressure.

The first two bodies were found Saturday. Authorities also announced that searchers spotted two airplane seats, debris with Air France's logo, and recovered dozens of structural components from the plane. They had already recovered jet wing fragments, and said hundreds of personal items believed to from passengers were plucked from the water.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said his nation's military would do all it can to retrieve bodies and return them to relatives.

"We know how significant it is for a family to recover their loved one," Silva said Monday on his weekly radio show.

France is leading the investigation into the cause of the crash, while Brazilian officials are focusing on the recovery of victims and plane wreckage.

There is "no more doubt" that the wreckage is from Air France Flight 447, Brazilian Air Force Col. Henry Munhoz said Sunday.

Flight 447 disappeared and likely broke up in midair in turbulent weather the night of May 31 en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.

The search is focusing on a zone of several hundred square miles (square kilometers) roughly 400 miles (640 kilometers) northeast of the Fernando de Noronha islands off Brazil's northern coast.

Brazilian authorities have refused to release the precise coordinates of where they are looking, except to say the area lies southeast of the last jet transmission and could have indicated the pilot was trying to turn around in mid-flight and head back to the islands.

The investigation is increasingly focused on whether external instruments on the Airbus A330 may have iced over, confusing speed sensors and leading computers to set the plane's speed too fast or slow — a potentially deadly mistake.

The French agency investigating the disaster said airspeed instruments on the plane had not been replaced as the maker had recommended, but cautioned that it was too early to draw conclusions about what role that may have played in the crash.

The agency, BEA, said the plane received inconsistent airspeed readings from different instruments as it struggled in a massive thunderstorm.

Nine bodies have been recovered by Brazilian authorities: four men, four women and one that was impossible to identify by gender, Munhoz said. He did not have information about the genders of the eight bodies recovered by French military helicopters that were transferred to a French ship.

Munhoz and Brazilian Navy Capt. Giucemar Tabosa Cardoso declined to comment on the condition of the bodies, saying that information would be too emotionally painful for relatives.

Neither would authorities immediately identify hundreds of personal items that have been recovered. Relatives of the victims were devastated by an announcement Saturday that a laptop computer and briefcase containing a plane ticket had been found.

"We don't want to cause them more suffering," Munhoz said.

The bodies and plane wreckage were being transported by Brazilian and French ships and should arrive Tuesday at the Fernando de Noronha islands, where the military has set up a staging post for the search operation. From there, remains and debris will be taken to the northeastern coastal city of Recife for identification.

Meanwhile, friends and family remembered geologist Michael Prince Harris and his wife, Anne Debaillon Harris — the only U.S. citizens on the plane — in a memorial service Sunday in Lafayette, Louisiana.

The couple had lived in Lafayette before moving to Houston and then Brazil.

The Pentagon has said there are no signs that terrorism was involved in the crash.

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090608/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/brazil_plane

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Heavyweight Orbits Cross In St. Louis

ST. LOUIS – Brett Rogers’ new mixed martial arts gym in Eagan, Minn., is named Ambition MMA, an appropriate moniker for a place that houses a guy looking to move to the top of the heavyweight division.

There is little doubt what the future holds for the undefeated Rogers, who scored a spectacular first-round knockout of former Ultimate Fighting Championship heavyweight king Andrei Arlovski Saturday on a Strikeforce card at the Scottrade Center.

More serious questions surround the future of Arlovski, who has now been knocked out in each of his last two fights.

Arlovski, the former UFC heavyweight champion, is good enough to beat the majority of the world’s heavyweights. He doesn’t look like a guy, though, who is prepared to beat the elite men in the important bouts.

Rogers needed just 22 seconds to dispose of Arlovski on Saturday. He blasted the Belarusian with a left hook that sent the popular former champ staggering back into the cage. Rogers finished him with a flurry of punches, including a left-right-left combination that nearly left Arlovski’s head spinning like a top.

Rogers, the one-time Sam’s Club employee, guaranteed himself another high-profile bout with the nationally televised victory. He may get a shot at Strikeforce heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem on an Aug. 15 card that also features a women’s showdown between Gina Carano and Cris “Cyborg” Santos.

“I’m ready for whatever, man,” Rogers said after improving to 10-0 with his ninth knockout. “I was planning on picking that (heavyweight title) up today, but it was kind of pushed back. I hope he’s keeping that belt good and clean for me.”

Arlovski is only 30 years old, and there’s no reason he couldn’t continue to fight at a high level for four or five more years. But when a man has scaled the heights that Arlovski has, it’s often difficult to accept being a middle-of-the-pack guy.

That’s what Arlovski appears to be at this stage. He was knocked out by Fedor Emelianenko in Anaheim, Calif., in January and suffered a similar fate on Saturday to a man with a far less impressive résumé than Emelianenko.

Many fighters who get knocked out as hard as Arlovski was by Emelianenko are never truly able to take a hard shot again.

It’s hard to question Arlovski’s chin on Saturday because the punches Rogers hit him with were powerful enough to knock down a schoolyard wall. The psychological effect, though, of another knockout loss figures to have a far more lasting impact than the physical damage sustained.

Rogers, though, inflicted plenty of that. He made little pretense of what he intended to do and then simply went out and overpowered Arlovski.

“He wasn’t moving much,” Rogers said.

That’s probably because the first clean punch Rogers landed, a left hook to the cheek, appeared to put Arlovski out on his feet. He was back against the cage when Rogers waded in firing heavy shots, forcing referee John McCarthy to jump in and stop the carnage after Arlovski dropped to the mat.

“I wanted to show everyone I’m not in there to play around,” Rogers said.

If he gets past Overeem in August, he’ll have positioned himself to fight the biggest names available. Though Rogers’ record isn’t filled with big names, he’s only been out of the first round once in 10 fights, and that has to count for something. You can bet that the Showtime television executives have taken note of that.

What clouds Arlovski’s future is that those same executives undoubtedly were carefully watching his last two outings. Because of his past he commands big money, but fighters who make big money in MMA do it by fighting top-shelf competition.

But after back-to-back crushing knockouts, it’s doubtful Arlovski is going to get another fight of similar magnitude anytime soon.

He was so confident of a victory on Saturday that he’d already agreed to a boxing match on June 27 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. That, too, went out the window when he got knocked out by Rogers.

Arlovski’s boxing handlers were excited by his potential and believed he had the skills to compete for a title. His confidence, though, is now as shattered as his chin.

Rogers has no such issues. His confidence soared with the career-defining win over Arlovski, and his prospects are exceedingly bright.

Rogers hasn’t proven he has a ground game, though the other way to look at is that he hasn’t needed to. If he keeps knocking guys out, he won’t have to worry about his ground skills.

He began training in his spare time while he worked in the tire department at a Minnesota Sam’s Club. He finally decided earlier this year to give the job up for good so he could concentrate on MMA full-time.

It clearly looked like a good move on Saturday, though Rogers doesn’t want to get caught up in the hype.

“I’m not the only guy who started in the working world,” Rogers said. “This was a perfect opportunity and this sport is all about timing. Definitely this is my time and I’m just going to keep on working.”

The only difference between now and six months ago is that he can do his work in a spiffy new gym and doesn’t have to worry about throwing tires around in an auto shop.

It’s the guy he beat on Saturday who might have to think about getting a job.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/news?slug=ki-rogerswins060709&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

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Oprah Responds to Newsweek Article About Bad Medical Advice

Oprah Winfrey thinks her viewers are smarter than Newsweek magazine's most recent cover story implies.

The talk show queen responded to the magazine's article that condemned the medical advice given by some of her guests, according to Us. Winfrey said she's not endorsing any method, but rather putting out information for her viewership to consider.

"For 23 years, my show has presented thousands of topics that reflect the human experience, including doctors' medical advice and personal health stories that have prompted conversations between our audience members and their health care providers," Winfrey said in a statement. "I trust the viewers, and I know that they are smart and discerning enough to seek out medical opinions to determine what may be best for them."

The article — which sports the headline "Crazy Talk: Oprah, Wacky Cures & You" on the cover — takes Winfrey to task for offering medical tips on her show that the magazine suggests are ineffective and possibly dangerous. While the article praises Winfrey's health and fitness experts Dr. Mehmet Oz and trainer Bob Green, it's particularly critical of such celebrity guests as Suzanne Somers and Jenny McCarthy, who advocated taking 60 daily supplements and avoiding vaccinations out of fear that they cause autism, respectively. The article suggests that Winfrey fails to challenge these guests and their ideas on her show.

Do you think Oprah promotes unsafe health practices?

Source: http://tv.yahoo.com/the-oprah-winfrey-show/show/32704/news/urn:newsml:tv.tvguide.com:20090604:1006641__ER:1

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NKorea Sentences 2 US Journalists to 12 Years Jail

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea's top court convicted two American journalists and sentenced them to 12 years in labor prison Monday, intensifying the reclusive nation's confrontation with the United States.

The North's Central Court tried TV reporters Laura Ling and Euna Lee during proceedings running from last Thursday to Monday and found them guilty of a "grave crime" against the nation, and of illegally crossing into North Korea, the country's state-run Korean Central News Agency said.

It said the court "sentenced each of them to 12 years of reform through labor." The KCNA report gave no other details.

Ling and Lee — who were working for former Vice President Al Gore's California-based Current TV — cannot appeal because they were tried in North Korea's highest court, where decisions are final.

Many analysts believe there is a good chance the two woman will be freed. They say the reporters are being used by Pyongyang as bargaining chips in its standoff with South Korea and the United States, which are pushing for U.N. sanctions to punish the North for its latest nuclear test and a barrage of missile tests.

By sentencing them to prison, North Korea has "paved the way for a political pardon and a diplomatic solution," said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at Seoul's University of North Korean Studies.

He noted that a pardon can only be issued after a conviction and that the regime's courts were not about to find the reporters innocent, which would imply they were wrongly arrested.

Kim Yong-hyun, a professor at Seoul's Dongguk University, said the sentence — the maximum possible allowed by the North's laws — could have been a reaction to strong statements from the U.S., including threats of sanctions and putting North Korea back on a list of state sponsors of terrorism.

"I think this is the North's response to recent hard-line moves by the U.S.," Kim said. "But the sentence doesn't mean much because the issue will be resolved diplomatically in the end."

The circumstances surrounding the trial of the two journalists and their arrest March 17 on the China-North Korean border have been shrouded in secrecy, as is typical of the reclusive nation. The trial was not open to the public or foreign observers, including the Swedish Embassy, which looks after American interests in the absence of diplomatic relations.

The two were reporting about the trafficking of women at the time of their arrest, and it's unclear if they strayed into the North or were grabbed by aggressive border guards who crossed into China.

U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Washington was trying to confirm press reports of the sentencing.

Kelly said the U.S. was "deeply concerned" about the sentences and that officials would "engage in all possible channels" to free the women.

Gore spokeswoman Kalee Kreider said the former vice president has no comment. The South Korean government also did not comment. Alanna Zahn, a spokeswoman for the journalists' families, said the family members are not currently available for any interviews.

Another American who was tried in North Korea in 1996 was treated more leniently. Evan C. Hunziker, apparently acting on a drunken dare, swam across the Yalu River — which marks the North's border with China — and was arrested after farmers found the man, then 26, naked. He was accused of spying and detained for three months before being freed after negotiations with a special U.S. envoy.

The North Koreans wanted Hunziker to pay a $100,000 criminal fine but eventually agreed on a $5,000 payment to settle a bill for a hotel where he was detained.


source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_nkorea_journalists_held