Singer McCready's son found safe with mother

Law enforcement in Arkansas and U.S. Marshals have 5-year-old Zander McCready in their custody and say that he is safe, according to officials with the Childrens Network of Southwest Florida, NBC station WBBH reported late Friday.

Officials say that his mother, country singer Mindy McCready, was hiding in a closet with him when law enforcement entered the Heber Spings, Ark., home of McCready's boyfriend.

Gayle Inge, Zander's grandmother and McCready's mother, was tearful when she talked about the news Friday night with The Associated Press.

"I'm real excited that he's safe," she said. "But I can't explain what this is like. We feel for Mindy and we feel for Zander."

Inge said her son ? McCready's half brother ? texted McCready, who responded with a text that said her mother would never see her again.

Right now, they don't know what will happen with Zander, but they are happy he is safe.

Florida Department of Children and Families spokeswoman Terri Durdaller said in an email Friday night that her agency was working with Arkansas officials to bring the boy back to his legal guardian in Florida, his maternal grandmother.

Gayle Inge, and Mindy McCready's stepfather, Michael Inge, had been waiting for four days to hear the whereabouts of Zander.

Mindy McCready disappeared with him Tuesday after she took him from her dad's house in Cape Coral.

A Florida judge signed an order on Thursday allowing authorities to take custody of country and bring him back to Florida if they could find him.

The order came a day after Florida officials said a missing person's report had been filed for Zander and that McCready had been ordered to return the boy. But the singer had countered that her son was safe with her.

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The singer said Thursday she would not bring her son back from Tennessee to Florida, despite violating a custody arrangement and a judge's order.

It's not yet clear whether she could face criminal charges.

"I'm doing all this to protect Zander, not stay out of trouble," McCready wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press on Thursday. "I don't think I should be in trouble for protecting my son in the first place."

McCready, who turned 36 Wednesday, said she could not travel because she's nearly seven months pregnant with twins.

Representatives for the singer said on Wednesday that Zander has been with her for more than 30 days, and that he was safe and healthy, adding that law enforcement officials spoke with Zander and saw him on Tuesday via the online video conferencing program Skype.

McCready and her mother have had a long custody battle over the boy. Until recently, the boy was living with McCready's mother. Her mother was awarded guardianship in 2007. McCready says her son has suffered abuse at her mother's house; Gayle Inge denies the abuse allegations.

Ex: McCready not a fit mother, right now

Durdaller said any criminal charges would come at the discretion of law enforcement or the Lee County (Fla.) State Attorney's office.

McCready provided a series of e-mails to the AP with Lee County Judge James Seals' ruling to return the boy and correspondence with her attorney. Seals wrote to McCready's lawyer that once the boy is back in Florida "we'll pick up the pieces."

"Mom has violated the court's custody order and we are simply restoring the child back into our custody," the judge wrote. "Nothing more. Nothing less. The court makes no judgment about whether Mom will or will not competently care for the child while in her custody. It only wants the child back where the court placed him."

McCready was born in Florida and found fame in Nashville as a singer in the mid-1990s, including a No. 1 hit, "Guys Do It All the Time." She has lived a complicated life in recent years.

In August, she filed the libel suit in Palm Beach County against her mother and the National Enquirer's parent company, American Media Inc., over a story published in the tabloid newspaper that quoted Inge.

In July 2007, she was accused of scuffling with Inge and resisting arrest at her mother's home in Florida. She was sentenced to jail for 60 days for a probation violation and released; she served 30 days in jail. She also lost custody of her son.

And in 2008, McCready was admitted to a Nashville hospital after police said she cut her wrists and took several pills in a suicide attempt.

During the TV show "Celebrity Rehab 3" in 2010, McCready came off as a sympathetic figure, and host Dr. Drew Pinsky called her an angel in the season finale.

Also in 2010, police went to Inge's home for a report of an overdose, and McCready was taken to a Florida hospital. However, neither the hospital nor McCready's publicist would say why the singer was hospitalized.

McCready also fought the release of a tape in which she reportedly talked about former Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees pitcher Roger Clemens, with whom she had an affair as a teenager.

NBC station WBBH, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45532312/ns/today-entertainment/

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Republican Presidential Candidates on the National Debt Crisis (ContributorNetwork)

One of the greatest challenges the next president will face is the national debt crisis. According USdebtclock.org, which provides live updates on the national debt and federal budget, the U.S. public debt is now about $15 trillion, or more than $48,000 for person in America.

To make matters worse, the debt is growing at an alarming rate and is compounded by devastating levels of interest. For these reasons, the candidates seeking the Republican presidential nomination were asked what their solutions for the debt crisis are at a recent CBS News-sponsored GOP debate.

Here is what they said:

* Michele Bachmann: "We are in a terrible debt spiral, so much so that, just in the month of October, we just added another $203 billion in debt. ? So what would I cut? ?Take a look at Lyndon Baines Johnson's The Great Society. The Great Society has not worked, and it's put us into the modern welfare state. If you look at China, they don't have food stamps. ?They don't have the modern welfare state. And China's growing. And so what I would do is look at the programs that LBJ gave us with The Great Society, and they'd be gone."

* Mitt Romney: "Right now, we're spending about 25 percent of the economy at the federal level. And that has to be brought down to a cap of 20 percent. I'll get that done within my first term, if I'm lucky enough to get elected. How do you do that? One, it's eliminating programs. A lot of programs we like, but we simply can't afford. The first we will eliminate, however, we're happy to get rid of. That's Obamacare. Other programs we like the Endowment for Humanities and Arts. ? These are wonderful features that we have of the government. But we simply can't go out and borrow money from China to pay for them. They're not that essential. In terms of returning programs to the states, Medicaid, a program for the poor, should be returned to the states. Let the states manage it."

* Jon Huntsman: "If we're gonna get this nation moving in the right direction, we need to recognize that debt, as 70 percent of our GDP and moving up, becomes a national security problem. You look where Japan is, well over 100 percent debt to GDP. Greece, 170 percent to GDP. Italy, 120 percent. So you get a sense of where our tomorrow is if we don't tackle the debt and spending. My speech was a very short one on debt and spending. It's three words: The Ryan Plan. Medicaid. ? I'd send back to the states. Education, I wanna move closer to the states. You move education closer to the decision makers, the school boards, the families, you're a whole lot better off."

* Newt Gingrich: "There are four interlocking national security problems. Debt and the deficit's one. Energy is a second one. Manufacturing is a third one. And science and technology's a fourth. And you need to have solutions that fit all four. I helped balance the budget for four consecutive years. I'm not very concerned, if we're serious, what you wanna do is fundamentally reform and overhaul the federal government, fundamentally. While, at the same time, accelerating economic growth to bring unemployment down to four percent. That combination gets you back to a balanced budget."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20111201/us_ac/10565311_republican_presidential_candidates_on_the_national_debt_crisis

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Is Child Sexual Abuse on the Rise? (LiveScience.com)

With the stream of accusations of child sexual abuse not losing any gusto lately, from the ever-growing charges against former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky to allegations of such behaviors by assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine, it'd be easy to assume a real upsurge in such abuse.

But that may not be the case.?

First, Sandusky was accused of sexually molesting at least eight boys over the past 15 years; he has pleaded not guilty to the more than 40 charges against him.

Then last week Fine of Syracuse University was fired amid accusations of sexual abuse. So far three men, including two former Syracuse ball-boys, have come forward stating that Fine molested them as minors.

Neither Sandusky nor Fine has been found guilty of any crime, but these are only the latest in what seems to be a year filled with news reports about sexual harassment and sexual abuse. Earlier this year an ABC News investigation revealed that USA Swimming (the governing body for the sport up to and including the U.S. Olympic team) has banned for life nearly 40 swimming coaches over the last decade because of sexual misconduct. [Child Abuse: Why People Look the Other Way]

So what's going on?

According to the nation's top experts, children are actually safer from physical and sexual abuse than they have been for decades. A National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect issued by the Department of Health and Human Services found that both physical and sexual abuse of children have dropped significantly over the past 20 years: From 2005 to 2006, an estimated 553,000 children suffered physical, sexual or emotional abuse, down 26 percent from the estimated 743,200 abuse victims in 1993. And between 1993 and 2005, the number of sexually abused children dropped 38 percent, while number of children who experienced physical abuse fell by 15 percent and those who were emotionally abused declined by 27 percent.

In fact, incidence of sexual abuse of children began to drop two decades ago, according to Dr. David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire.

In his book "Childhood Victimization: Violence, Crime and Abuse in the Lives of Young People" (Oxford 2008), Dr. Finkelhor notes, "The child victimization declines of the 1990s were something new, and not simply the extension of trend lines from the past. For example, available data on child abuse show strong increases in all forms of maltreatment from the mid-1970s into the 1990s. After a short plateau, the sexual abuse decline seemed to start in 1992, and the physical abuse decline gained momentum after 1996. Many analysts did not interpret the earlier rise as necessarily indicative of a real increase in child maltreatment but rather as the result of a new public and professional mobilization to identify and report cases. But some data suggested real increases in the 1980s."

Overall, Dr. Finkelhor told LiveScience.com, "There is very little evidence that child sexual abuse is on the rise in the U.S., and considerable evidence that it is declining, including data from law enforcement, child protection and surveys of victims themselves." He added that though the prevalence of child sexual abuse worldwide is hard to assess, "there are some indicators of decline in other countries such as Canada and the United Kingdom."

Many of the recent accusations of sexual abuse date back many years; just because the public is hearing more about it now doesn't mean that it's on the increase. Thus while the barrage of news reports about sexual abuse of children may make parents fearful, the reality is that kids today are safer than ever.

Causes of the drop in child sexual abuse are complex and not completely understood. Some experts point out that the overall crime rate dropped significantly during the same time, and that child abuse rates fell along with murder and assault rates. Other analyses credit the economic prosperity of the 1980s and 1990s as improving overall social conditions, while still others note that tougher penalties for sex crimes led to higher numbers of offenders being jailed. It's also likely that greater social awareness of child abuse through television news (and even Hollywood films such as "Mystic River") resulted in parents taking more precautions for their children's safety. Like most social problems, there's no simple answer.

Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer science magazine and author of Media Mythmakers: How Journalists, Activists, and Advertisers Mislead Us. His Web site is www.BenjaminRadford.com.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20111202/sc_livescience/ischildsexualabuseontherise

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ADATA S101 flash drive brings USB 3.0 speeds, shrugs off shocks and splashes

USB flash drives may not be the hottest tech hardware out there, but that doesn't mean they can't look good. ADATA's latest thumb drive refresh packs the same military-spec rough and tumble credentials of last year's S007, but this time it's guarding some USB 3.0 goodness. While the design of the S107 is nigh-on identical to its predecessor, it's now capable of read speeds of up to 100MB per second. The rubberized storage sticks, available in red and blue, will be available in 8GB, 16GB and 32GB sizes, although ADATA is still keeping schtum on pricing and release dates.

Continue reading ADATA S101 flash drive brings USB 3.0 speeds, shrugs off shocks and splashes

ADATA S101 flash drive brings USB 3.0 speeds, shrugs off shocks and splashes originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Dec 2011 13:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/01/adata-s101-flash-drive-brings-usb-3-0-speeds-shrugs-off-shocks/

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Skywatcher Snaps Photos of Stranded Russian Mars Probe (SPACE.com)

A skywatcher has photographed a troubled Russian Mars probe that remains stuck in Earth orbit three weeks after its launch.

Astrophotographer and veteran satellite spotter Ralf Vandebergh tracked Russia's Phobos-Grunt spacecraft as it passed over the southern Netherlands yesterday (Nov. 29). Using a 10-inch (25-centimeter) telescope and a video camera, he snapped a series of images at a range of about 170 miles (274 kilometers).

"It was bright in my tracking scope, I think it was clearly visible naked-eye as well with sun at -6 degrees," Vandebergh told SPACE.com in an email. "Striking was a kind of reddish-yellowish color I saw in the tracking scope."

Despite the distance, the photos capture the broad shape and structure of the probe.

"In the images, considerable detail is visible, and I checked the detail on many frames to know [for] sure it is real detail," Vandebergh added. [Photos: Russia's Mars Moon Mission]

Troubled Mars moon probe

The $163 million Phobos-Grunt probe launched Nov. 8 on a mission to grab samples of the Martian moon Phobos and return them to Earth in 2014 ("grunt" means "soil" in Russian). The spacecraft reached Earth orbit as planned, but got stranded there when its thrusters didn't fire to send it zipping toward the Red Planet.

Russia has been trying to establish contact with Phobos-Grunt for the last three weeks in an attempt to salvage the probe's mission. Those efforts have been in vain.

In a rare piece of good news, the European Space Agency announced last week that a ground station in Perth, Australia, had managed to pick up signals from the beleaguered spacecraft. Since then, however, repeated efforts to hail Phobos-Grunt ? and get it to fire its thrusters ? have failed, including another attempt yesterday.

Even if Russian officials manage to regain control of the probe, it may be too little, too late. The window to send Phobos-Grunt on to Mars, which is based on a favorable alignment between the Red Planet and Earth, may already have closed, experts say.

Coming back to Earth?

If the 14-ton probe remains incommunicado, it's doomed to a fiery death. Phobos-Grunt's orbit will decay, and it will come crashing back into Earth's atmosphere. Experts aren't sure when exactly that might happen, but some predictions point to mid-January.

The prospect of an uncontrolled Phobos-Grunt re-entry makes some observers nervous, because the spacecraft is carrying about 8 tons of toxic hydrazine fuel. However, Russian officials have said that this fuel shouldn't make it to Earth's surface.

Phobos-Grunt is also carrying a small satellite called Yinghuo 1, China's first attempt at a Mars orbiter. And the U.S.-based Planetary Society has an experiment onboard Phobos-Grunt that aims to test how journeys through deep space affect tiny organisms.

Phobos-Grunt is the 19th spacecraft Russia has launched toward Mars since 1960. None has achieved full mission success.

You can follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter: @michaeldwall. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/space/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/space/20111130/sc_space/skywatchersnapsphotosofstrandedrussianmarsprobe

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VP Biden, Iraqi leaders praise troops' sacrifices (AP)

CAMP VICTORY, Iraq ? Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday thanked U.S. and Iraqi troops for sacrifices that he said allowed for the end of the nearly nine-year-long war, even as attacks around the country killed 20 people, underscoring the security challenges Iraq still faces.

Biden's comments came during a special ceremony at Camp Victory, one of the last American bases in this country where the U.S. military footprint is swiftly shrinking. The ceremony was hosted by the Iraqi government as a way to commemorate the sacrifices of U.S., Iraqi and coalition forces during the nearly nine-year-long war.

"Because of you and the work that those of you in uniform have done, we are now able to end this war," Biden told the hundreds of American and Iraqi service members assembled at Al Faw palace, which was built by Saddam Hussein.

Joined by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani, Biden said the United States takes "immense" pride in what American troops have done in Iraq. He said they are leaving with their heads held high.

By the symbolism at Al Faw, which has served as the U.S. military's headquarters almost since the first U.S. troops battled their way through here in 2003, it was apparent who was on the way in and who was on the way out.

Iraqi flags and tinsel, a favorite Iraqi decoration for festive occasions, replaced the American flags that used to line the driveway to the palace. Iraqi flags hung from the palace walls. After the ceremony was over, the Iraqi band members took out their packs and started smoking ? almost unheard of in U.S. military facilities.

Talabani, referring at times to "our friends, the Americans," praised the troops for their sacrifices and said that based on the "joint efforts" of the coalition and Iraqi forces, stability in the country has been restored.

Biden's eighth visit to Iraq since being elected started on Tuesday and was meant to chart a path for a new U.S. relationship with a country that is home to billions of barrels of oil reserves and more closely aligned with neighboring Iran than the U.S. would like.

But even as the remaining American troops prepare to leave by the end of the year, violence and instability are still a constant in Iraq, albeit dramatically less so than at the height of the conflict.

Two separate attacks on Thursday in Iraq's northeast killed 20 people and wounded 32.

A parked car bomb exploded at an open marketplace in the town of Khalis as morning shoppers were starting to arrive, killing 13 and wounding 28 people, according to the police and Faris al-Azawi, the spokesman of Diyala's health directorate.

Khalis, a Shiite enclave 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Baghdad, lies in the largely Sunni province of Diyala that was a hotbed of al-Qaida in Iraq during the height of the country's violence in 2004-2007.

Earlier at dawn ? also in Diyala ? gunmen stormed the home of an anti-al-Qaida Sunni fighter in the town of Buhris, killing him and six of his family members, said al-Azawi. Buhriz is located about 35 miles (60 kilometers) north of Baghdad.

Iraqi security officials maintain that they are fully prepared for the American withdrawal, which is required under a 2008 security pact between the U.S. and Iraq. About 13,000 U.S. troops are still in the country, down from a one-time high of about 170,000. All of those troops will be out of the country by the end of December.

But many Iraqis are concerned that insurgents may use the transition period to launch more attacks in a bid to regain their former prominence and destabilize the country.

Thursday's deaths bring to at least 56 the number of Iraqis killed in separate attacks across the country in the past eight days, a warning that even more violence may be in the offing ahead of the American withdrawal.

Biden did not address the day's violence directly, but emphasized that Iraqi security forces would be able to protect the country without their one-time American military backers.

"It doesn't mean that the threats are over. Far from it. Violent extremists continue to launch appalling attacks against innocent civilians, fire deadly rockets at diplomats merely trying to do their jobs and threaten Iraqi troops and police," Biden said.

"But Iraqi security forces have been well-trained, prepared and you are fully capable of meeting the challenges," he said.

The vice president also alluded to the threat of neighboring Iran, which U.S. officials have repeatedly accused of financing Shiite militias who then attack American troops and diplomats. In what appeared to be a warning to Iran ? perhaps Iraq as well ? Biden described the Iraqi spirit as "independent."

"The Iraqi people will not, have not, and will not again yield to any external domination, and they would never abide another nation violating their sovereignty by funding and directing militias that use Iraqi terrain for proxy battles that kill innocent Iraqi civilians," he said.

___

Associated Press Writer Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report from Baghdad.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iraq/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111201/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq

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Blow the Best Bubbles

What makes the very best bubbles?: Explore different solutions to uncover some of the secrets of surface tension. Image: iStockphoto/yuhirao

Key concepts
Chemistry
Water
Fluids
Surface tension

Introduction
Have you ever wondered what makes a bubble form? The secret to making bubbles is surface tension. Adding soap (such as the kind you use to wash dishes in the sink) to water changes the surface tension of that water, and this creates a great solution to make bubbles from.

If you try to make bubbles using normal water, you will quickly see that it doesn't work very well. This is because the surface tension?the forces holding the molecules of a liquid together?of water is too high. When detergent is added to water, it lowers the surface tension so that bubbles can form. Add other things, such as corn syrup or glycerin, to improve the bubbles. Which solution will create the best bubbles?

Background
In a container of water, the tiny water molecules are attracted to each other, which means that they're constantly pulling on each other. At the surface of the water, these water molecules are attracted to the water molecules around and below them. But they have no water molecules above them to be attracted to (since it is just air up there). This is what creates the force known as surface tension. The water molecules at the surface of the water do not want to move up, away from other water molecules to which they are attracted. This gives plain old water a high surface tension. In fact, it's too high to allow big bubbles to form.

When a soapy dish detergent is added to water, it lowers the surface tension so that bubbles can form. The detergent molecules increase the distance between water molecules and reduce those molecules' ability to interact with each other. This decreases the pull?or attraction?that the water molecules exert on each other, lowering the surface tension of the solution. Other substances, such as corn syrup or glycerin, can be added to the solution of water and detergent to make even better bubbles.

Materials
??? ?Three large cups or jars with a wide opening
??? ?One-cup measuring cup
??? ?Tablespoon measurer
??? ?Three cups of distilled water (which can be purchased at the supermarket)
??? ?Spoon
??? ?Liquid dishwashing soap (for example, Dawn or Joy brand)
??? ?Glycerin, small bottle (available at a drugstore or pharmacy)
??? ?Light corn syrup
??? ?Three pipe cleaners
??? ?Permanent marker
??? ?Timer

Preparation
??? ?Label the three cups "Detergent Only," "Glycerin," and "Corn Syrup," respectively.
??? ?To all three cups, add one cup of distilled water.
??? ?To the "Detergent Only" cup, add an extra one tablespoon of water.
??? ?Make a pipe cleaner wand by pinching a pipe cleaner in the middle and bending half of it into a circle, twisting a little bit of the end to secure it. Make two more pipe cleaner wands this way, making sure their diameters are all the same.

Procedure
??? ?To all three cups, add two tablespoons of detergent. Mix the detergent in each cup with a spoon. You should see small bubbles forming as you mix in the detergent. Why do you think you need detergent in every solution?
??? ?To the "Glycerin" cup, add one tablespoon of glycerin. And to the "Corn Syrup" cup, add one tablespoon of corn syrup. What is the consistency of the glycerin and corn syrup? Does one seem more viscous (thick and sticky) than the other, or do they have about the same viscosity? Mix the contents of the "Glycerin" and "Corn Syrup" cups.
??? ?Blow a bubble from one of the solutions (outside is best, but over a kitchen sink or any other place that can stand to get a little sticky is okay). Try to catch the bubble on your wand and time how long the bubble lasts before it pops. This can be difficult to do, so you may need to practice it first. Also, it might be helpful to have another person time you.
??? ?Catch and time at least four bubbles from each solution and write the times down. Calculate the average bubble life span for each solution. To do this, add the recorded times for each bubble type separately, then divide each total by the number of times you recorded that bubble (for example, if your "Detergent Only" bubble times were 5.1 seconds, 4.5 seconds, 5.2 seconds and 5.7 seconds, the average would be 5.1 seconds). Which solution makes bubbles that last the longest? Which solution makes the shortest-lived bubbles? Why do you think this is? Did some solutions make larger bubbles than others?
??? ?Extra: How does the concentration of glycerin or corn syrup in the bubble solution change how long the bubbles last? You can try this activity again, using different amounts of glycerin or corn syrup in the solutions. How little is too little, and how much is too much to add? Can you make a bubble solution that results in bubbles that last longer than the ones in the original activity?
??? ?Extra: Do bubbles always make a spherical shape? Try twisting pipe cleaners into different shapes, such as stars, squares or triangles. What shape are the bubbles made from these differently shaped pipe cleaner wands?

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=472ec763274abea33c356e7132543078

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