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The experimental four-legged, pack-hauling robots aren’t gonna be ready for duty at the front anytime soon. So the Army is considering a big step backward in front-line logistics. In place of the ultra-sophisticated BigDog cargo ‘bots that have been slowly trudging their way through the development process, the ground-combat branch wants more flesh-and-blood mules and donkeys. The Army is even considering the revival of a long-defunct headquarters, the “Animal Corps,” to oversee the four-legged recruits. The goal is to take some of the weight off soldiers’ backs during long war-zone foot patrols. In Afghanistan, it’s not uncommon for soldiers to...

SALT LAKE CITY - As Hans Borbonus walked into the sculptor's studio, he got his first glimpse of his son's smile crafted in clay. "It does something to you," he said, visibly moved by the moment. When it is cast in bronze, the statue of the young American soldier killed in Baghdad will stand as a lasting memorial near his hometown of Boise.

IRAQ NOTEBOOK: Witches, Bollywood at grad party REBECCA SANTANA, Associated Press Updated 09:01 a.m., Tuesday, May 24, 2011 BAGHDAD (AP) - Harry Potter-inspired witches in flowing black satin gowns and pointed hats shimmied onstage as young warlocks in black-and-red capes looked on. Nearby, Indian-themed music blared from a boom box at a Baghdad version of a Bollywood movie set. Fun and frivolity aren't the first things that come to mind when someone mentions Baghdad. But this is college graduation season and time for a tradition that has survived the upheaval of war, kidnappings and bombs: masquerade parties. Students here like...

It's no secret that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas plans to lobby the U.N. General Assembly this September for a resolution that will predetermine the results of any Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on borders. He made clear in a New York Times op-ed this week that he will insist that member states recognize a Palestinian state on 1967 lines, meaning Israel's boundaries before the Six Day War. Unfortunately, even President Barack Obama appears to have been influenced by this thinking. He asserted in a speech Thursday that Israel's future borders with a Palestinian state "should be based on the 1967 lines," a...

<p>CANNES, France (AP) — In a remote village in North Africa, women use the only weapon they have — sex — and go on a "love strike" that challenges traditional gender roles.</p> <p>Director Radu Mihaileanu says he sees the fictional gender revolt depicted in his new movie "The Source" as crucial to the success of popular uprisings that have toppled dictators in Tunisia and Egypt this year and still smolder across the Arab world.</p>

Yemen opposition signs transition of power deal SANAA (Reuters) - Yemen's opposition signed a Gulf-brokered transition deal on Saturday that will ease President Ali Abdullah Saleh out of power within a month, provided he ratifies the agreement as promised on Sunday. Saleh, a shrewd political survivor who has outlasted previous challenges to his nearly 33-year rule, faces mounting diplomatic pressure to sign after backing out twice before over technical details at the last minute. "We signed the initiative in the presence of envoys from the U.S., Britain, the European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council secretary-general Abdullatif al-Zayani," the opposition...

President Obama’s latest thoughts about the Middle East add to the confusion that seems to be his special contribution to American policy. It is right to support Arabs and Muslims who are in the street demanding justice and freedom. Unfortunately, Obama is too late in the day to have much practical effect. He should have spoken out two years ago, when the Iranian extremists rigged their election and fired on demonstrators, just as he should have spoken out two or three months ago when the Syrian president Bashar Assad started to kill his people. In both cases, silence indicated that...

At a time when many Americans can barely afford Burger King and a movie, Obama boasts of spending a billion dollars on his re-election campaign. Questioned at a recent appearance about the spiraling fuel costs, Obama said, "Get used to it" – and with an insouciant grin and chortle, he told another person at the event, who complained about the effect high fuel prices were having on his family, to "get a more fuel-efficient car."

Angelina Jolie put a smile on the faces of some wounded warriors she met with last week at Ramstein Air Base in Germany as they prepared to travel back to the U.S. for the first time since being injured. And they clearly put one on hers, too!

ABC News Transcript 556 words WORLDWIDE MANHUNT; THE BIN LADEN FILES DIANE SAWYER PIERRE THOMAS (WASHINGTON, DC USA) CONTENT: AL QAEDA MEMBERS, OSAMA BIN LADEN GRAPHICS: WORLDWIDE MANHUNT DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS) (Off-camera) Good evening. We are just learning tonight that an urgent worldwide manhunt is under way, including in this country, triggered by the documents found in Osama bin Laden's hideout. It turns out that most secretive terrorist on the globe surprisingly kept a list of al Qaeda operatives by name, discovered in those files brought back home by Navy SEALs. And Pierre Thomas now brings us his exclusive...

A plucky dog called Molly spearheaded a five-day blitz by Scottish soldiers on the Taliban's tribal heartland. The five-year-old spaniel led the strike by troops of 4 Scots, The Highlanders, into one of the deadliest parts of Helmand province in Afghanistan. Molly was drafted in to sniff out booby trap bombs - the biggest killer of coalition troops - ahead of soldiers as they moved into the infamous Loy Check region of Helmand. Loy Check is notorious for heroin production and Taliban activity. Dog handler Private Charlotte Cook, 21, said: "As you can imagine, Molly, like the rest of us,...

A punishment in which an Iranian man was to be blinded by having acid dropped into his eyes has been postponed after international condemnation. Majid Movahedi was convicted and sentenced for pouring a bucket of acid over Ameneh Bahrami after she rejected his marriage proposals.

In Kandahar, a city with a population of about 500,000, and other towns, dance parties are a popular -- often weekly -- pastime. Young boys dress up as females, wearing makeup and jewelry on their feet, and dance for a dozen or more leering middle-aged men who throw money at them and then take them home.

LAS VEGAS (MarketWatch) -- Silver has been manipulated down in recent weeks, Eric Sprott, head of Sprott Asset Management, said Thursday. Silver slumped by $6 in 13 minutes late on a recent Sunday, when the market was thinnest, Sprott noted during the SkyBridge Alternatives Conference in Las Vegas. That was followed by four margin increases, Sprott added. Sprott recently launched a silver fund and has been a gold bull for at least a decade. Despite the recent drop in precious metals, Sprott reckons they are a good way to protect against trouble in the banking system and a potential devaluation...

Time to Prepare for the Coming Rout The end of the second round of quantitative easing (QE II) is going to be a complete disaster for the paper markets -- specifically commodities, stocks, and then finally bonds, in that order, with losses of 20% to 50% by the end of October. The only thing that will arrest the plunge will be QE III, although we should remain alert to the likelihood that it will be named something else in an attempt to obscure what it really is. Perhaps it will be known as the "Muni Asset Trust Term Liquidity Facility"...

LONDON—Precious metals are under pressure in Europe amid another broad commodities sell-off as concerns over further Chinese monetary tightening, a weaker euro and further commodity-margin increases weighed on prices. Thursday morning, spot gold traded at $1,484.08 a troy ounce, compared with bids of $1500.90 late in New York on Wednesday, while spot silver was at $33.115 per ounce, from $35.07.

Did Yemen man yell 'Allahu Akbar' in incident outside cockpit door near San Francisco Airport? Police said Almurisi had no known ties to terrorist organizations. He was subdued by flight attendants and passengers who assisted the flight attendants in handcuffing the man to a seat. The incident happened as the jet was over Modesto, about 15 minutes outside of San Francisco. Almurisi was arrested when the plane landed at San Francisco International. He was taken to San Mateo County Medical Center where he was treated for abrasions to his elbow and chin that he got as the result of being...

When Lara Logan traveled to Egypt to cover the Tahrir Square protests, she was unaware that she was going to be working in a country where sexual harassment rates of women and especially foreign women are so high as to be universal. In a politically correct profession, such truths are politically incorrect. And even now all of the coverage studiously avoids mentioning one dangerous word. Islam. Muslim rape culture did not begin in Tahrir Square and it won't end there. Not when it actually began in the year 624 when Mohammed came up with an ingenious means of rewarding his...

May 3, 2011, 10:19 p.m. EDT Soros, Burbank selling off gold, silver Michael Kitchen LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) -- Funds led by well-known investors such as George Soros and John Burbank have been selling off their gold and silver holdings recently, helping fuel the metals' price falls, The Wall Street Journal reported late Tuesday, citing people close to the matter.

In their recent paper, “Has the Fed Been a Failure?,” George A. Selgin, William D. Lastrapes, and Lawrence H. White conclude that over nearly 100 years the Federal Reserve’s performance has been mostly awful. Unfortunately, the Fed is currently engaged in a policy that will likely make a nice addition to their article. This policy, known as Quantitative Easing (QE), consists of buying longer-term financial instruments, notably U.S. Treasury bonds and private mortgage-backed securities. Since the Fed engaged in one round of quantitative easing in 2008–10, the current round (announced last November, but signaled for months prior) has been labeled...