Fire rages, Colo. town braces for long evacuation

DEL NORTE, Colo. (AP) ? A colossal wildfire near a popular summer retreat in southern Colorado continues to be driven by winds and fueled by dead trees in a drought-stricken area, authorities said Sunday.

The weather has prevented fire crews from making progress on the blaze, which grew overnight to 108 square miles, up from 100 on Saturday. The speed with which the fire has spread is exceptional: It was just below 50 square miles Friday evening.

No structures have been lost in the fire, and no injuries have been reported.

It is doubtful fire crews could establish any containment lines until there's a break in the weather, possibly Tuesday, officials said. They remained optimistic they can protect the town, however.

As of Sunday, officials firefighters remained focused on protecting South Fork, the Wolf Creek ski area and homes along Highway 149.

Crews hoped to get aircraft up to drop water over the fire before afternoon winds of 30 to 40 miles an hour returned Sunday. Pete Blume, a commander with the Rocky Mountain Type 1 Incident Command Team, said the wildfire is the worst ever known to hit the Rio Grande National Forest.

"It's not typical to have these kinds of fires here," said Blume. "But beetle kill and drought is also not the norm."

Firefighters are hoping for a break in the high winds as well as the anticipated July monsoons to help them fight back the flames. Until then, Blume said, "with that much beetle kill and drought we could have every resource in the country here and still not put in a containment line."

Still, fire officials believe portions of the blaze will likely burn all summer in forested, nonresidential areas, with full extinguishment probably months away.

The lightning-sparked blaze started June 5, but its rapid advance Friday prompted the evacuation of hundreds of visitors and the town's 400 permanent residents.

Residents and tourists were settling in for a long wait before they can return to their homes, cabins and RV parks.

"They just said they had no idea how long it would be before we could back in South Fork," said Mike Duffy, who owns the South Fork Lodge.

Duffy said he and his wife, Mary, were able to get their personal possessions before fleeing fast-advancing flames that officials initially feared would overtake the town. But with the fire still within three miles of South Fork, they are worried about the long-term impact of a prolong evacuation and news reports about the fire raging around the tourism-dependent town.

Summer visitors include many retirees from Texas and Oklahoma who come to the mountains to flee the heat.

South Fork Mayor Kenneth Brooke estimates that between 1,000 to 1,500 people had to flee, including the summer visitors and permanent residents.

More than 600 firefighters were battling the blaze, and more are coming every day. They also focused on newest arm of the fire as it crept through beetle kill toward the historic mining town of Creede, the last silver boom town in Colorado before the industry went bust in the late 1800s.

Elsewhere in Colorado, about a dozen fires also continued to burn. Firefighters were making progress on a 19-square-mile wildfire near Walsenburg in southern Colorado. The fire was 10 percent contained.

And a wildfire in foothills about 30 miles southwest of Denver was expected to be fully contained Sunday evening. That fire burned 511 acres and forced 100 people to leave their homes.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fire-rages-colo-town-braces-long-evacuation-192730333.html

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Pakistanis kill 10 tourists, including American

ISLAMABAD (AP) ? At least a dozen Islamic militants wearing police uniforms shot to death overnight a Pakistani and 10 foreign tourists, including an American, who were visiting one of the world's highest mountains in a remote area of northern Pakistan that has been largely peaceful, officials said Sunday.

The shooting was one of the worst attacks on foreigners in Pakistan in recent years and is likely to damage the country's already struggling tourism industry. Pakistan's mountainous north ? considered until now relatively safe ? is one of the main attractions in a country beset with insurgency and other political instability.

The local branch of the Taliban took responsibility for the killings, saying it was to avenge the death of a leader killed in a recent U.S. drone strike.

The 10 foreigners who were killed included two Chinese, one Chinese-American and one Nepalese, said Attaur Rehman, home secretary in the Gilgit-Baltistan area where the attack took place. The other six have not been identified. One Pakistani was also killed, Rehman said.

Matt Boland, the acting spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, confirmed that a U.S. citizen was among the dead, but could not say whether it was a dual Chinese national.

"The U.S. Embassy Islamabad expresses its deepest condolences to the family and friends of the U.S. citizen and the other innocent tourists who were killed in the Northern Areas of Pakistan," Boland said in a statement sent to reporters.

Pakistan's interior minister, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, said earlier that nine foreigners and one Pakistani were killed. He said the dead included five Ukrainians, three Chinese and one Russian. One Chinese tourist was wounded in the attack and was rescued, said Khan.

It's unclear what caused the discrepancy between the two accounts.

The attack took place at the base camp of Nanga Parbat, the ninth highest mountain in the world at 8,126 meters (26,660 feet). Nanga Parbat is notoriously difficult to climb and is known as the "killer mountain" because of numerous mountaineering deaths in the past. It's unclear if the tourists were planning to climb the mountain or were just visiting the base camp, which is located in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan.

The gunmen were wearing uniforms used by the Gilgit Scouts, a paramilitary police force that patrols the area, said the interior minister. The attackers abducted two local guides to find their way to the remote base camp. One of the guides was killed in the shooting, and the other has been detained and is being questioned, said Khan.

"The purpose of this attack was to give a message to the world that Pakistan is unsafe for travel," said the interior minister in a speech in the National Assembly, which passed a resolution condemning the incident. "The government will take all measures to ensure the safety of foreign tourists."

Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan claimed responsibility for the attack, saying their Jundul Hafsa group carried out the shooting as retaliation for the death of the Taliban's deputy leader, Waliur Rehman, in a U.S. drone attack on May 29.

"By killing foreigners, we wanted to give a message to the world to play their role in bringing an end to the drone attacks," Ahsan told The Associated Press by telephone from an undisclosed location.

At least a dozen gunmen were involved in the attack, local police officer Jahangir Khan said.

The attackers beat up the Pakistanis who were accompanying the tourists, took their money and tied them up, said a senior local government official. They checked the identities of the Pakistanis and shot to death one of them, possibly because he was a minority Shiite Muslim, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.

Although Gilgit-Baltistan is a relatively peaceful area, it has experienced attacks by radical Sunni Muslims on Shiites in recent years.

The attackers took the money and passports from the foreigners and then gunned them down, said the official. It's unclear how the Chinese tourist who was rescued managed to avoid being killed. The base camp has basic wooden huts, but most tourists choose to sleep in their own tents.

Local police chief Barkat Ali said they first learned of the attack when one of the local guides called the police station around 1 a.m. on Sunday. The military airlifted the bodies to Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, Sunday afternoon.

"We hope Pakistani authorities will do their best to find the culprits of this crime," the Ukrainian ambassador to Pakistan, Volodymyr Lakomov, told reporters outside the hospital where the bodies were taken.

The Pakistani government condemned the "brutal act of terrorism" in a statement sent to reporters.

"Those who have committed this heinous crime seem to be attempting to disrupt the growing relations of Pakistan with China and other friendly countries," said a statement issued by the Foreign Ministry.

Pakistan has very close ties with neighboring China and is sensitive to any issue that could harm the relationship. Pakistani officials have reached out to representatives from China and Ukraine to convey their sympathies, the Foreign Ministry said.

Many foreign tourists stay away from Pakistan because of the perceived danger of visiting a country that is home to a large number of Islamic militant groups, such as the Taliban and al-Qaida, which mostly reside in the northwest near the Afghan border. A relatively small number of intrepid foreigners visit Gilgit-Baltistan during the summer to marvel at the peaks of the Himalayan and Karakoram ranges, including K2, the second highest mountain in the world.

Syed Mehdi Shah, the chief minister of Gilgit-Baltistan, condemned the attack and expressed fear that it would seriously damage the region's tourism industry.

"A lot of tourists come to this area in the summer, and our local people work to earn money from these people," said Shah. "This will not only affect our area, but will adversely affect all of Pakistan."

The area has been cordoned off by police and paramilitary soldiers, and a military helicopter was searching the area, said Shah.

"God willing we will find the perpetrators of this tragic incident," said Shah.

The government suspended the chief secretary and top police chief in Gilgit-Baltistan following the attack and ordered an inquiry into the incident, said Khan, the interior minister.

___

Associated Press writer Rasool Dawar contributed to this report from Peshawar, Pakistan.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pakistanis-kill-10-tourists-including-american-165447640.html

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Kim Kardashian: Breastfeeding North West Like Crazy!

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/06/kim-kardashian-breastfeeding-north-west-like-crazy/

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Are Dogs 'Kids?': Owner-dog relationships share striking similarities to parent-child relationships

June 21, 2013 ? People have an innate need to establish close relationships with other people. But this natural bonding behaviour is not confined to humans: many animals also seem to need relationships with others of their kind. For domesticated animals the situation is even more complex and pets may enter deep relationships not only with conspecifics but also with their owners. Scientists at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna (Vetmeduni Vienna) have investigated the bond between dogs and their owners and have found striking similarities to the parent-child relationship in humans.

Their findings are published in the journal PLOS ONE.

Domestic dogs have been closely associated with humans for about 15,000 years. The animals are so well adapted to living with human beings that in many cases the owner replaces conspecifics and assumes the role of the dog's main social partner. The relationship between pet owners and dogs turns out to be highly similar to the deep connection between young children and their parents.

The importance of the owner to the dog

One aspect of the bond between humans and dogs is the so-called "secure base effect." This effect is also found in parent-child bonding: human infants use their caregivers as a secure base when it comes to interacting with the environment. Until recently the "secure base effect" had not been well examined in dogs. Lisa Horn from the Vetmeduni's Messerli Research Institute therefore decided to take a closer look at the behaviour of dogs and their owners. She examined the dogs' reactions under three different conditions: "absent owner," "silent owner" and "encouraging owner." The dogs could earn a food reward, by manipulating interactive dog toys. Surprisingly, they seemed much less keen on working for food, when their caregivers were not there than when they were. Whether an owner additionally encouraged the dog during the task or remained silent, had little influence on the animal's level of motivation.

When the owner is replaced by a stranger

In a follow-up experiment, Horn and her colleagues replaced the owner with an unfamiliar person. The scientists observed that dogs hardly interacted with the strangers and were not much more interested in trying to get the food reward than when this person was not there. The dogs were much more motivated only when their owner was present. The researchers concluded that the owner's presence is important for the animal to behave in a confident manner.

Why do adult dogs behave like human children?

The study provides the first evidence for the similarity between the "secure base effect" found in dog-owner and child-caregiver relationships. This striking parallel will be further investigated in direct comparative studies on dogs and children. As Horn says, "One of the things that really surprised us is, that adult dogs behave towards their caregivers like human children do. It will be really interesting to try to find out how this behaviour evolved in the dogs with direct comparisons."

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/mind_brain/child_development/~3/8SeaNXWOkGA/130621095502.htm

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US Military Presence in Africa Grows With Terror Threat (Voice Of America)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/314439375?client_source=feed&format=rss

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802.11ac Airport Extreme Time Capsule unboxing and first impressions

Extruded. That's the word Apple's SVP of Marketing, Phil Schiller, used to describe the new 802.11ac Airport Extreme and Time Capsule at WWDC 2013. Tall also came to mind immediately. It's footprint is smaller now, like the redesigned Airport Express, but for am internet router and base station, its height is significantly exaggerated. 3.85-inches square, it juts 6.6 inches up now. So, is it both less and more...?

The biggest advantage to the new design, as far as I'm concerned, is that the power supply is now built-in, and I have one less brick dangling behind the gear table. The Airport Extreme and Time Capsule (which is an Airport Extreme with built-in hard drive) now also share the same exact body. There's enough space to fit 2TB or 3TB of platters inside the tiny tower, if you want super simple Time Machine backups, or simply remote storage along for the ride. (Though you can't add an internal drive to an Airport Extreme later, so you'll need to decide that up front.)

Apple claims the new form factor takes up less desk space, which is true provided you weren't trying to cram it under something, but also puts the antennas at the top, giving them a slightly higher profile. There are six of those antennas now, by the way, 3 each for the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. There's also 3-stream 802.11ac, which Apple says maxes out at 1.3Gbps, and double the channel bandwidth, at 80MHz.

Lastly, Phil Schiller's favorite new feature -- and admittedly my own -- is beamforming. That means instead of blanketing an area in coverage, it detects 802.11ac devices coming onto the network and then shoots its signal directly at them. Think of it like a lightbulb that can turn into a flashlight. Or, you know, the Eye of Sauron.

I've also picked up one of the new 2013 MacBook Air's and will be putting the two parts through their paces together. The new air is currently the only device Apple makes that supports 802.11ac but it's hard to imagine the next generation of Mac and iOS devices both won't ship with this speedy new technology as well.

So, in the meantime, if you have any questions or want to make sure something specific gets covered, hit the comments.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/rBAJ8PgGZCw/story01.htm

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Lil Snupe Dead At 18: New Shooting Details Emerge

Meek Mill protégé was shot twice in the torso, Winnfield, Louisiana, police confirm to MTV News.
By Maurice Bobb

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1709386/lil-snupe-dead-shooting-details.jhtml

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