Scientists have designed a brain implant that sharpened decision making and restoredlost mental capacity in monkeys, providing the first demonstration in primates of the sort of brain prosthesis that could eventuallyhelp people with damage from dementia , strokes orother brain injuries.
The device, though years away from commercial development, gives researchers a model for how to support and enhance fairly advanced mental skills in the frontal cortex of the brain, the seat of thinking and planning.

As violence spread in the Arab world over a video on YouTube ridiculing the Prophet Muhammad, Google , the owner of YouTube, blocked access to it in two of the countries in turmoil, Egypt and Libya , but did not remove the video from its Web site.
The company said its decision was unusual, made because of the exceptional circumstances. Its policy is to remove content only if it is hate speech, violating its terms ofservice, or if it is responding to valid court orders or government requests. And it said it had determined that under its own guidelines, the videowas not hate speech.
Should the companies themselves decide what standards govern what is seen on the Internet? How consistently should these policiesbe applied?

A drifter who hailed from the South and spent most of his adult life in and out of prison on a grab bag of felonies, including kidnapping and abduction, was arrested on Thursday and charged with the rape, beating and robbery of a 73-year-old woman in Central Park.
The suspect, David Albert Mitchell, 42, was nothing if not distinctive. His body was a canvas of dark, mythical tattoos: a grim reaper, dragons, Nordic warriors, castles and “some kind of deadly insect,” said Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman. Other tattoos included twoteardrops under Mr. Mitchell’s left eye and one small teardrop below his right.

A drifter who hailed from the South and spent most of his adult life in and out of prison on a grab bag of felonies, including kidnapping and abduction, was arrested on Thursday and charged with the rape, beating and robbery of a 73-year-old woman in Central Park.
The suspect, David Albert Mitchell, 42, was nothing if not distinctive. His body was a canvas of dark, mythical tattoos: a grim reaper, dragons, Nordic warriors, castles and “some kind of deadly insect,” said Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman. Other tattoos included twoteardrops under Mr. Mitchell’s left eye and one small teardrop below his right.

Updated.
Investigators were questioning a person of interest onThursday in the rapeand beating of a 73-year-old woman in Central Park, the police said.
The attack happenedjust before noon on Wednesday, the police said, and the attacker’s assault was preceded by a chilling question: “Do you remember me?”
The woman, a bird-watcher who goes to the park every day, had indeed encountered the man before. About a week and a half ago, she had seen him masturbating in the Ramble area and taken a photograph of him. The man demanded that the woman delete the photo at the time, and when she refused, he tried unsuccessfully to take her camera, thePolice Department’s chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne, said.
Around 11:50 a.m., the woman was birding along a wooded path near West 74th Street andStrawberry Fields when the man, whom she described as white, stocky and clean shaven, with a Russian or Ukrainian accent and in his 40s or 50s, appeared again.
After asking her if she remembered him, the suspect threw the woman tothe ground, raped her and stole her backpack, which contained a digital camera with a professional lens. He also broke her wristwatch while attempting to steal it. It was not clear if the camera was the one that she had used earlier or if she had kept the photos from the earlier encounter, which she never reported to the police, Mr. Browne said.
The woman was taken to a hospital, where she was interviewed by investigators with the Special Victims Unit, as police officers spread out across the park in search of the suspect.
N.Y.P.D.
Another photo of the Central Park rapesuspect.
Eric Ozawa, a writinginstructor at New York University, said that he had been bird-watching in the park when he saw a person’s legs sticking out onto thewood-chip path, andat first thought the person was sleeping.Then he saw the woman sit up on thepath, which is lined with shrubs and trees.
The woman had mulch sticking to parts of her face, which was badly bruised, Mr. Ozawa said. Her forehead was swollen; the area around her right eye was turning blue. She waved him over and told him that she had been raped, he said.
Mr. Ozawa said he called 911 and handed her the phone.
“She was very lucid, given the circumstances,” Mr. Ozawa said. “She was able to describe what had happened.”
But she struggled to provide the dispatcher with her exact park location, so she handed the phone back to Mr. Ozawa, who then guided uniformed officers to the victim,he said.
“I went and got them and brought them over,” Mr. Ozawa said. “They were in a different part of Strawberry Fields.”
Mr. Ozawa said that the area was crowded at the time.Just before reaching the path where he encountered the victim, he had threaded through a cluster of tourists at the nearby “Imagine” memorial,to John Lennon, he said.
“For something like this to happen in broad daylight is particularly horrifying, and to someone of her age,” Mr. Ozawa said. “It took me a while, I think, to really register what had happened. It was such a shock. The park has seemedso safe for so long.”
Mr. Ozawa said he had arrived on the path just moments after the attack. “I wish I had been ableto do something to stop it, if only I had come a little earlier.”
Police officials released two blurry images of the suspect, captured by surveillance cameras;he appeared to be wearing a dark-colored polo shirt and light-colored sneakers, and was carrying two knapsacks.
Andres Fontanez, a maintenance operator for the park who often works around Strawberry Fields, said detectives showed him a photoof a white man, possibly in his 30s or 40s with longish, dark hair. He said he thought he recognized the man as a Strawberry Fields regular, but could not be certain.
Mr. Fontanez said he also believed that heknew the victim, based on the police’sdescription of her. He described her as afrequent Strawberry Fields visitor and bird-watcher who had a favorite bench,and often pestered him to clean up more litter. He said he always addressedher as “Moms.”
“She’s a nice, old lady, she don’t bother no one,” he said. “She’s always in there, sitting down on the same bench, trying to make sure the park is as nice as it shouldbe.”

man-made. I AM SURE.

A 73-year-old woman was raped and beaten in Central Park just before noon on Wednesday, the police said, and the attacker’s assault was preceded by a chilling question: “Do you remember me?”
The woman, a bird-watcher who goes to the park every day, had indeed encountered the man before. About a week and a half ago, she had seen him masturbating in the Ramble area and taken a photograph of him. The man demanded that the woman delete the photo at the time, and when she refused, he tried unsuccessfully to take her camera, thePolice Department’s chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne, said. Late Wednesday, thepolice said investigators were questioning of person of interest.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/12/woman-73-sexually-assaulted-in-central-park/?ref=todayspaper&gwh=6B8E5F0415C4FE60294B5D60B2BFA47D

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel inserted himself into the mostcontentious foreign policy issue of the American presidential campaign on Tuesday, criticizing the Obama administration for refusing to set clear “red lines” on Iran’s nuclear progress thatwould prompt the United States to undertake a military strike. As a result, he said, the administration has no “moral right” to restrain Israel from taking military actionof its own.
Mr. Netanyahu’s unusually harsh public comments about Israel’s most important ally, whichclosely track what he has reportedly said invivid terms to American officials visiting Jerusalem, laid bare the tension between him and President Obama over how to handle Iran. They also suggested that he is willing to use the pressure of the presidential election to try to force Mr. Obama to commit to attack Iran under certain conditions.
He appeared to be responding to a weekend statement by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that the United States was “not setting deadlines” beyond which it would turn to a military solution.
Mr. Netanyahu, speaking at a news conference in Jerusalem, said, “Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don’t have a moral right to place a red light before Israel.”
In another sign of tensions, the Israeli Embassy in Washington said late Tuesday that the Obama administration had declined a request from Mr. Netanyahu’soffice for a meeting with Mr. Obama when the Israeli leader attends the United Nations General Assembly thismonth. The Obama administration said the decision was due to a scheduling problem and had been conveyed to Israel long ago.
On Tuesday night, Mr.Obama called Mr. Netanyahu to try to calm the situation. The two talked for a full hour, hashing through the Iran confrontation and their misunderstandings.
“President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu reaffirmed that they are united in their determination to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and agreed to continue their close consultations going forward,” the White House said in astatement after the phone call.
The White House alsotried to tamp down controversy over the request for a meeting, saying that after a possible New York encounter was ruled out, Mr. Netanyahu did not request a meeting in Washington. “Contrary to reports in the press, there was never a request for Prime Minister Netanyahu to meet with President Obama in Washington, nor wasa request for a meeting ever denied,” the statement said.
The United States says it has no evidence that Iranianleaders have made a final decision to builda bomb. However, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s latest report says the country has amassed a stockpile of low- and medium-enriched uranium that, with further enrichment, could fuel as many as six nuclear weapons.
The United States concluded several years ago that Iran had suspended its nuclear weapons development program at the end of 2003, though there has been evidence of sporadic work since. The Israelis say Iran is quietly reconstitutinga much larger effort.
In demanding that Mr. Obama effectivelyissue an ultimatum to Iran, Mr. Netanyahu appeared to be making maximum use of his political leverage at atime when Mr. Obama’s Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, has sought to make an issue of what Mr. Romney says is the administration’s lack of support for Israel.
It is not clear what level of development in Iran’s nuclear program would constitute a “red line” in Israeli eyes. Dore Gold, president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a research institute, and a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, said in an interview last week, “It is very important to draw a line about the quantities of enriched uranium and the levels of enrichment.”
One option that has been widely discussed among experts advising the United States government is capping Iran’s uranium enrichment at a reactor-grade level. Also, Iran would be permitted to stockpile no more than 1,764 pounds of that uranium, less than is required, if further enriched, to make a single bomb.

O n the eastern side of the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of the southern-most Japanese Island of Yanaguni, the remaining of a civilization has been recently found under the sea. It is known to have been submerged by the melting of the last Ice Age.
About ten years ago, a local fisherman, looking for sharks, found a massive structure under the sea. Few geologists actually know of this site and as such, articles on the findings are rare. The structure has the height of a six storied building and the length of the Great Pyramid in Egypt. It is very well designed and organized showing the work of intelligence. Professor Masaaki Kimura, a Marine Biologist of Okinawa University who has been studying the monument for six years, confirms that the monument is man-made. Based on his tests, he is able toproclaim that the monument is about nine to ten thousand years old. The last time the sea level was that low was during the last Ice Age. However, the monument itself could be around 13 to 14 thousand years old. The structure points south and a major east-west feature runs through it suggesting of an astronomical value.
10,500 years ago, this monument stoodprecisely on the ancient Tropic of Cancer. Over 10,000 years, the Earth’s tilt has shifted the positions of the tropics by about one degree. To determinethe tropics, one must have detailed knowledge of astronomy. This knowledge was possessed by the Greeks in relatively recent times. The presence of the monument thus suggests of an immensely advanced civilization in a very early day.
The following is a collection of photos taken by a team of scientists who are currently researching the site. The group iscalled Team Atlantis and for further information on them,please visit thire website.
http://sanisoft.tripod.com/lostciv/yanaguni.htm
As one can deduct, the under-water monuments are man-made and are not caused by nature.
http://www.morien-institute.org/yonaguni.html

An unidentified detainee at the American prison at Guantánamo Bay , Cuba, died over the weekend, the UnitedStates military announced on Monday. It said that guards discovered the man unconsciousin his cell on Saturday afternoon, and that efforts to revive him were unsuccessful.
He was the ninth detainee known to have died while imprisoned at Guantánamo. The United States Southern Command in Miami, which oversees Guantánamo Bay, did not immediately release the name or nationality of the dead prisoner, saying it would first notify his government and his family.
“The guards immediately performed first aid and summoned medical personnel tothe scene,” the military said in a statement . “The corpsmen provided emergency medical treatment and quickly transported the detainee to Naval Hospital Guantánamo. After extensive lifesaving measures had been performed, the detainee was pronounced dead by a physician. The remains of the deceased detainee are being treated with respect for Islamic culture and traditions.”
The Naval Criminal Investigative Serviceis investigating the death, as is standardprocedure, the military statement said, and the detainee’s remains will undergo an autopsy before they are repatriated.
The military provided no immediate details about the scene of the death, including whether there were any signs that the death may have resulted from something other than natural causes. Press officials at the base and at the Southern Command did not immediately respond to a requestfor such information.
Before this weekend, eight detainees were known to have died while imprisoned at Guantánamo. Several apparently committed suicide , while others apparently died from natural causes .
The death lowers the publicly known detainee population at Guantánamo to 167.

KEY WEST, Fla. — For more than 24 hours last September, a Coast Guard helicopter and speedboat pursued drug traffickers and their contraband across the Caribbean Sea. Finally they caught up with the improbable vessel, the latest innovation in the decades-old drug war. It was a submarine.
The low-slung, diesel-propelled vessel, painted a darkshade to blend with the water, was believed to be carrying several tons of cocaine. But after the submersible’s crew scuttled the vessel and abandoned ship, the Coast Guard was able to salvage only two 66-pound bales of narcotics.
This is the new challenge faced by the United States andLatin American countries as narcoticsorganizations bankroll machine shops operating under cover of South America’s triple-canopy jungles to build diesel-poweredsubmarines that would be the envy of all but a few nations.
After years of detecting these craft in the less trafficked Pacific Ocean, officialshave seen a spike in their use in the Caribbean over the last year. American authorities have discovered at least three models of a new and sophisticated drug-trafficking submarine capable oftraveling completely underwater from South America to the coast of the United States.
The vessel involved in the September chase was an older model that was only semi-submersible. That model presents a silhouette above water barely larger than a kitchen table, but requires a snorkel to bring in airfor the diesel engine,which has a range of about 3,000 miles. The three newer, fully submersible vessels already captured were capable of hauling 10tons of cocaine and, by surfacing at night to charge their batteries off the onboard diesel engine, could sail beneath the surface all the way from Ecuador to Los Angeles.
With the use of thesecraft on the rise, American officials saythey fear that the trafficking networks are moving away from so-called fast boats, the high-powered fishingand leisure boats that can carry about a ton of cocaine and are easier to spot, to semi-submersible and fully submersiblevessels that can surreptitiously carry many more tons of drugs, which are unloaded in shallow waters or transported to shore by small boats.
More troubling for American officials is their belief that these vessels could be used by terrorists to transport attackers or weapons, though they emphasize that no use of submersibles by militants has been detected.
Drug networks historically were organized to combine the tasks of production, transportation and distribution, and they have seen little reason to cooperate with terrorists. But these new advanced submarines are built in some cases by independent contractors who may be more willing to sell the vessels to anybody offering the right price.
“These vessels are seaworthy enough that I have no doubt in my mind that if they had enough fuel, they could easilysail into a port in the United States,” said Cmdr. Mark J. Fedor of the Coast Guard, who commands the cutter Mohawk, the 200-foot vessel whose fast boat and helicopter interdictedthe submersible in the Caribbean last September .
In addition to the Coast Guard ships and aircraft patrolling the seas, the American effort includes a sophisticated command center thatcombines intelligence from across the United States government and from nations in the region, which areincreasingly cooperating to battlecocaine trafficking.
This growing American counternarcotics effort is part of a larger shift to new missions for the nation’s security and intelligence agencies after a decade spent focused on the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
That mission to sort and analyze intelligence on drug trafficking and then coordinate the response occurs around the clock behind the walls of an interagency task force in Key West, which sent the intelligence report toCommander Fedor’s ship and coordinatedits response.
The intelligence report, based on surveillance from a Coast Guard plane over the Caribbean and intelligence tidbits from nations in Latin America, saidthe submersible had left Colombia headedfor Honduras.
Although the craft was 300 miles away, the Mohawk was the closest American vessel to it. So Commander Fedor immediately ordered his 100 crew members to direct the ship off Hondurasto intercept the craft.
Cocaine-filled submarines and semi-submersible crafts “are the Super Bowl of counternarcotics,” Commander Fedor said. “When you hearone is moving, you say: ‘Wow. Game on.’”
After a day’s travel, the cutter got within a few miles of the craft and deployed the cutter’s fast boat and a helicopter.

Donte Jamar Sims, 21, was arrested for making threats against President Barack Obama on Twitter.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Donte Jamar Sims lives in Charlotte, siteof Democratic convention
Officials say Sims sentfive tweets threatening to kill the president
"Sims asserted that he was high on marijuana when he made the threats," affidavit says
Washington (CNN) -- A North Carolina manwas arrested Wednesday and accused of threatening to kill President Barack Obama in a series of Twitter messages, including one saying,"The Secret Service is gonna be defenselessonce I aim the Assault Rifle at Barack's Forehead."
Donte Jamar Sims, 21, had an initial court appearance in Charlotte on Thursday and remains in custody.
According to a criminal complaint, Sims sent five Twittermessages Monday morning threatening the president. "Ima hit president Obama with that Lee Harvey Oswald swag," said one tweet. "Well IMA Assassinate presidentObama this evening," said another message. President Obama did not arrivein town until two days later.
Protester jailed, denies he's a terrorist
Charlotte is the city hosting the Democratic National Convention. President Obama arrived there Wednesday afternoon in advanceof his Thursday night acceptance speech.
The court document states a Secret Service intelligence research specialist saw the messages onTwitter, which led to an agent going to Sims' home to interview him on Wednesday.
In the affidavit, the Secret Service agent who interviewed Sims said the suspect admitted to having the Twitter account associated with the messages and wrote that Sims smiled when the threatening statements were read aloud to him.
"Sims stated that he published the statements because he hated President Obama," the agent wrote in the affidavit. "Sims asserted that he was high on marijuana when he made the threats but that he understood what he was doing and that itwas wrong."
According to the court document, the agent then arrested Sims on several outstanding warrants. The officer said Sims later waived his Miranda rights and said his demeanor changed."He asserted that he was sorry he sent themessages threatening to kill the president of the United States and provided me with a written apology," wrote the agent.
The court document makes no mention ofSims having any weapons in his possession. It also does not provide details on the previous arrest warrants for Sims.
Kevin Tate, a federal public defender representing Sims, would not comment on the case in advance of a detention hearing scheduled for September 11.
If convicted of threatening the president, Sims faces a maximum of five years in prison and a$250,000 fine.
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/09/06/justice/obama-threat-arrest/index.html
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/obama-twitter-death-threats-486712
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/blackberry/p.html?id=1863065

Hundreds are gathering for a march through Charlotte's central business district ahead of the Democratic National Convention to protest what they say is a corporate takeover of the nation's political process.
Late Sunday morning, about 250 demonstrators had gathered at Frazier Park on the outskirtsof Charlotte's Uptown district for the march that was set to begin at 1 p.m. Organizers havesaid they were expecting thousands.
Demonstrators had signs indicating that some were union workers, anti-war veterans and undocumented immigrants.
The route of Sunday's March on Wall Street South will go past the corporate headquarters of Bank of America and a major office hub for Wells Fargo. Theyare two of the nation's largest financial institutions.
Organizers say the protest will be peaceful, but hundreds of police officers will also be on the streets.

Transparency International ranked Kazakhstan 122nd (tied with several
other nations) in its listing of 146 countries by level of corruption .
The usual contenders of corruption are public and private officials. These are persons who hold positions of trust, and who the citizens must hold to account.

A gay couple is suing United Airlines after retrieving their luggage and finding a sex toy which had been taken from one of their bags, coveredin a dirty oily substance, and"taped prominently" to the top of the bag, NBC News reports :
Christopher Bridgeman and Martin Borger of Norfolk, Va., are seeking damages for intentional infliction of emotional distress,invasion of privacy and negligence in a lawsuit filed against the airline on Friday in the District Court of Harris County, Texas.
“It still brings butterflies to my stomach,” Borger, 35,told NBC News when recalling the episode.
United countered that it has conducted a thorough investigation and determined that there is no support for the allegations, spokeswoman Christen David said ina statement.
“United does not tolerate discrimination of anykind,” David said. “We will vigorously defend ourselves andour employees.”
The couple was returning from a vacation to Costa Rica:
“I knew exactly what it was when I saw it,”he told NBC News. “I was absolutely and utterly shocked and embarrassed and humiliated and I didn’t even know what to do at the time.”
Onlookers began laughing when they saw the bag, causing the men severe emotional trauma, according to the lawsuit. Bridgeman speculated an airline employee went through the bag — which was closed with a simple zipper — found the sex toy, saw that it belonged to a man and decidedto humiliate the owner.
“I absolutely, fervently believe thatthis was intentional,”Bridgeman, 34, told NBC News. “It was very sick and it was very wrong and it was just maliciously taped to the top and targeted because we’re gay.”
http://www.towleroad.com/2012/08/gay-couple-sues-united-airlines-after-finding-dirty-sex-toy-taped-to-their-luggage.html

Tampa, Florida has more homeless people per capita than any city in America. Yet you won't hear much -- if any -- talk from the podium on the Frank Lloyd Wright-inspiredconvention set aboutAmerica's poverty crisis.
And this lack of attention won't be exclusive to the GOP. You can expect more of the same (or is that actually less of the same?) when the Democrats descend on Charlotte next week -- after all, President Obama hasn't devoted even one speech to the subject of poverty since he moved into the White House.
This bipartisan back-turning is why we are reviving the Shadow Conventions
a national conversation on three issues that neither party was seriously addressing: the corrupting influence of money on our politics, the persistence of poverty in America, and the disastrous war on drugs.
Twelve years later, both parties are still largely ignoring these issues. As a result, each of these problems has gotten worse:
In 2000, 31 million Americans lived below the poverty line. In 2010, it was over 46 million -- including 16.4 millionchildren -- a figure that is expected to rise when the new census figures are released this fall. Thisis the largest number of people living in poverty in over half acentury.
The drug war numbers are similarlytroubling: There are over 100,000 more arrests per year for possession of marijuana than therewere in 2000 -- yet over 6 million more Americans are using illicit drugs today. A quarter of all prisoners in U.S. jails are there because of a nonviolent drug offense. And while African Americans represent just 12 percent of all drug users, they make up 59 percent of those in state prison for a drug offense.
As for the increasing role money plays in our political campaigns, the founding democratic principle of "one man, one vote" has been replaced by the arithmetic of special interest politics: Thousands of lobbyists plus billionsof dollars equal access and influence out of the reach of ordinary Americans. While $54 million wasspent by outside groups on the 2000 presidential race, that number has already reached $318million in 2012. And, thanks to Citizens United, that includes large piles of money funneled through super PACS and "dark money" groups.

A seemingly mild-mannered Houston man is awaiting sentencing in what authorities say was a bizarre international murder-for-hire plot whose target was a would-be Ukrainian Internet bride.
David Sartin, 49, was so incensed when he found out the Ukrainian beauty he'd met through a website had taken him to the cleaners that he tried to have her kidnapped and shipped to his home, according to the Houston Chronicle. The unemployed man planned to keepElena Barykina imprisoned in a fortified room in his house while he slowly killed her withlead poisoning, according to authorities. Last week, Sartin pleaded guilty to attempted kidnapping and brandishing a firearm in connectionwith the case.
Taped conversations between Sartin and an undercover Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent recorded in January and February captured Sartin agreeing to pay$50,000 to the agent to abduct Barykina inKiev and have her"shipped in a crate" to the U.S. He told the agent he would"take care of her," killing her with "lead poisoning," according to authorities.
"It was all a fraud from the beginning."
- David Sartin, who pleaded guilty to attempted kidnapping of Internet 'bride.'
Sartin's father told the paper he doesn't think his son was ever going to kill anyone, but Sartin did express his heartbreak and anger last year in a letter to the website InternetScamsWatch.com, in which he named Barykina and detailed the jewels and cash he'd given her on a half-dozen trips to see her in theUkraine.
"I have learned that all during this two years I have been sending her money by wire transfer as she as requested she is also doing the same to many other men," Sartin wrote."It was all a fraud from the beginning."
Sartin, who lived in a trailer in Hankamer, 25 miles east of Houston, first came across Barykina in 2009, when he found a website called dream-marriage.com, that touts itself as the place to meet"beautiful Russian women and sexy Ukrainian brides to be." He was instantly attracted to Barykina’s profile and made contact with her even though his father warned him not to.
"But my son was lonely, and she was prettier and could talk sweeter than me," Cecil Sartin told the Chronicle.
Barykina could not be reached for comment. Calls and an email to dream-marriage.comwere not returned. But the site, which claims to be legitimate, has a section warning that con artists can use it to dupe the lovelorn and warns visitors to be careful.
"A scammer is any member, whether male or female, who intentionally uses oursite for ulterior purposes," a warningon the site states. "A scammer has no intention of engaging in a meaningful relationship with the other members on our site. In short, a scammer is a deceiver and only communicates with the other members to fulfill some other need. Unfortunately, this need is usually some type of personal and/or financial gain."
Over the next two years, after making contact with Barykina, Sartin, wholived off disability checks and a divorce settlement, claims hemade nearly half-a-dozen trips overseas to see Barykina, showering her with$15,000 worth of jewelry and spendingthousands more taking her on lavish trips and funding herliving and school expenses as well as her attempts at a singing career. During one trip, he claims he discovered Barykina, who had refused to consummate their relationship, had a boyfriend in the Ukraine.
Sartin, who claimed in his letter to InternetScamsWatch.comthathe spend more than$57,000 on Barykina, told the site he considered suicide.
"I had no idea I was being scammed, as I believed in this girl with all of my heart and she knew this," he wrote. "This is a very cruel thing to doto a person. My first thought upon arriving back home was to put an end to myself, but I was feared of not hitting the right spot and the pain would be bad."
Instead, authorities say, he plotted revenge. Court records show he asked the undercoveragent to deliver Barykina to him and said he wanted to"eliminate" her Russian boyfriend, too. In March, Sartin bought supplies he used to build a fortified room onto his trailer and paid the undercover agenta $25,000 down payment for the kidnapping, records said. Two weeks later, Sartin went to meet the agent in a Beaumont parking lot, where he expected Barykina to be turned over to him.
Federal agents arrested him, federal prosecutor Joe Batte told the Chronicle. In his truck, they found an envelope with thefinal $25,000 payment, handcuffs, stun gun and a pistol.
But Cecil Sartin told the paper his son justwanted to get his money back.
"He just wanted to get her over here so he could sue her," theelder Sartin said."And in the back of his heart, I think he was still hoping they might have a life together."
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/08/27/texas-man-jailed-in-plot-to-kidnap-murder-russian-internet-bride/

Weapons sales by the United States tripled in 2011 to a record high, driven by major arms sales to Persian Gulf allies concerned about Iran ’s regional ambitions, accordingto a new study for Congress.
Overseas weapons sales by the United States totaled $66.3 billion last year, or more than three-quarters of the global arms market, valued at $85.3 billion in 2011. Russia was a distant second, with $4.8 billion in deals.
The American weapons sales total was an “extraordinary increase” over the$21.4 billion in deals for 2010, the study found, and was the largest single-year sales total in the history of United States arms exports. The previous high was in fiscal year 2009, when American weapons sales overseas totaled nearly $31 billion.
A worldwide economic decline had suppressed armssales over recent years. But increasingtensions with Iran drove a set of Persian Gulf nations — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emiratesand Oman — to purchase American weapons at record levels.
These Gulf states do not share a border with Iran, and their arms purchases focused on expensive warplanesand complex missile defense systems.
The report was prepared by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, a division of the Library of Congress. The annual study, written by Richard F.Grimmett and Paul K.Kerr and delivered toCongress on Friday, is considered the most detailed collection of unclassified arms sales data available to the public.
The agreements with Saudi Arabia included the purchase of 84 advanced F-15 fighters, a variety of ammunition, missiles and logisticssupport, and upgrades of 70 of the F-15 fighters in the current fleet.
Sales to Saudi Arabialast year also included dozens of Apache and Black Hawk helicopters, allcontributing to a total Saudi weapons deal from the UnitedStates of $33.4 billion, according to the study.
The United Arab Emirates purchased a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, an advanced antimissileshield that includes radars and is valued at $3.49 billion, as well as 16 Chinook helicopters for $939 million.
Oman bought 18 F-16 fighters for $1.4 billion.
In keeping with recent trends, most of the weapons purchases, worth about $71.5 billion, were made by developing nations, with about $56.3 billion of that from the United States.
Other significant weapons deals by the United States last year included a$4.1 billion agreement with India for 10 C-17 transport planes andwith Taiwan for Patriot antimissile batteries valued at$2 billion — an arms deal that outraged officials in Beijing.
To compare weapons sales over various years, the study used figures in2011 dollars, with amounts for previous years adjusted for inflation to provide a consistent measurement.
A policy goal of the United States has been to work with Arab allies in the Persian Gulf to knit together a regional missile defense system to protect cities, oil refineries, pipelines and military bases from an Iranian attack.
The effort has included deploying radars to increase the range of early warning coverage across the Persian Gulf, as well as introducing command, control and communicationssystems that could exchange that information with new batteries of missile interceptors sold to the individual nations.
The missile shield in the Persian Gulf is being built on a country-by-country basis — with these costly arms sales negotiated bilaterally between the United States and individual nations.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/27/world/middleeast/us-foreign-arms-sales-reach-66-3-billion-in-2011.html?smid=tw-nytimes

17-Year-Old Found Guilty Of Raping His 2-Year-Old Sister.
"A Memphis jury has found 17-year-old James Prindle guilty of raping a 23-month-old girl. The jury took all day on Friday to convict Prindle on all counts. Prosecutors claimed Prindle committed the disturbing act against the toddler while babysitting at Cordova Creek Apartments in Augustof 2010. Though just 15 at the time, he was later charged and indicted as an adult. "There's no DNA, no semen, no blood stain. You'll hear how the child was bleeding but nothing links James to the sexual assault," said Prindle's defense during opening arguments. Prindle was accused of bathing the child before running to a neighbor for help. Prosecutors say he told that neighbor a lie that a "large blackman wearing a mask broke into the apartment," that police later disproved. The next story Prindle told, according to prosecutors, was thathis friends were responsible for the rape. His defense attorney says he lied about the robber because he was trying to stay out of trouble with his mother for having friends over when hewas supposed to be babysitting. "He's hanging out with friends, high, runningthe apartment complex. That's whathe was doing, making up stories lying about being in the apartment every time he was left alone for hours," claimed the defense. Prindle's attorney says Prindle, who hadnot only smoked marijuana but had taken Xanex, wasn't home at the time of the rape and says once he found the little girl beaten and bruised he did everything he could to help her" - Memphis