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A new poll surveying young Americans' political attitudes released by Harvard University's Institute of Politics Tuesday found millennials have less trust in government than ever before. Harvard's poll showed millennials, which the pollsters defined as peopled aged 18 to 29, have lost trust in a variety of different major public institutions including the President, the military, Congress, the Supreme Court, and the federal government as a whole. Of all the institutions tracked by the poll, the President and the military lost the most trust among young Americans with a seven point drop. Overall, the pollsters said the level of trust...

Last year was tied for the fourth warmest year on record around the world. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Tuesday released its global temperature figures for 2013. The average world temperature was 58.12 degrees (14.52 Celsius) tying with 2003 for the fourth warmest since 1880. NASA, which calculates records in a different manner, said Tuesday that 2013 was the seventh warmest on record, with an average temperature of 58.3 degrees (14.6 Celsius). Both agencies said nine of the 10th warmest years on record have happened in the 21st century. The hottest year was 2010.

At the end of September, the federal government's fiscal year was drawing to a close, the threat of a shut down was increasing, and the State Department was shopping for art. Four contracts were awarded in the last two weeks of September, including $1,000,000 for a granite sculpture by Irish-born artist Sean Scully to be installed at the new U.S. Embassy in London. Notice of the awards was posted Sunday afternoon of Thanksgiving weekend on the Federal Business Opportunities website.

<p>Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson met his 2-year-old son for the first time while he was on life support, TMZ reports.</p> <p>The football star — whose son died on Friday after his mother’s boyfriend allegedly badly beat him — learned three months ago that he had a child with a woman living in South Dakota, the site reports.</p>

My mother Betty, 87 years young, fell and broke her leg. She's scheduled for a rod implant surgery tomorrow at 7 AM. She's a wonderful lady, active with her church and circle, and still mentally sharp. She's doing well after her fall, and was very positive when I spoke to her earlier today. I would greatly appreciate your prayers and good thoughts! God Bless!

A Washington state Democrat is accusing Republicans of “throwing American infrastructure … under the bus” after a bridge collapse there this week. The portion of Interstate 5 in Washington that runs over the Skagit River collapsed on Thursday after a truck hit an overhead support structure, but Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) cited the incident in an interview as proof Republicans were blocking infrastructure investment to hurt President Obama politically. “Well, they have clearly spent the whole last five years trying to tear the president down, but they have done it by throwing the American infrastructure and the society under the...

‘We could be in for a cooling period that lasts 200-250 years. The period of low solar activity could start in 2030-2040.’ Global warming which has been the subject of so many discussions in recent years, may give way to global cooling. According to scientists from the Pulkovo Observatory in St.Petersburg, solar activity is waning, so the average yearly temperature will begin to decline as well. Scientists from Britain and the US chime in saying that forecasts for global cooling are far from groundless. Some experts warn that a change in the climate may affect the ambitious projects for the...

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, the wealthiest American, said on “some days” he wishes the U.S. political system were like England’s, so that President Barack Obama could have “slightly more power.” Gates was asked for his assessment of President Obama’s job performance during an interview at Politico’s “Playbook Cocktails” event. “Some days I wish we had a system like the U.K. where, you know, the party in power could do a lot and you know, you’d see how it went and then fine you could un-elect them,” said Gates on Wednesday. “Now, over time, our system has worked slightly better than...

I guess you could say I started cheating on Windows back in October of 2010. That’s when Apple debuted the revamped MacBook Air. For the first time, I could resume working almost as soon as I flipped the lid on a laptop, thanks to the way the notebook leveraged its flash memory. (Intel and Ultrabook makers wouldn’t offer a similar instant-on experience until a year later.) The Air was a work of art, but it didn’t feel complete until OS X Lion arrived last year. With key time-saving features like Auto Save and Mission Control for faster multitasking, I started...

A third of people think cannabis is harmless, despite it being 20 times more carcinogenic to smoke than tobacco, according to a report published today (Wednesday). Young people are particularly ignorant of the health dangers posed by smoking cannabis, found the British Lung Foundation. The British Lung Foundation, which produced the report, said there was “an alarming disconnect” between public perception of the drug as safe, and “the serious, even fatal impact it can have”. Almost nine in 10 people think tobacco cigarettes are more damaging to health than cannabis ones, found the BLF. The charity reviewed existing scientific evidence...

Bouncing back from a rare earnings miss, Apple (AAPL: 420.41, -7.00, -1.64%) revealed first-quarter results late Tuesday that crushed Wall Street’s expectations, as the consumer-electronics heavyweight continues to capitalize on huge demand for its blockbuster products. Aside from announcing gigantic beats, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company reported all-time record sales for its iPhone, iPad and Mac devices as well as surprisingly upbeat guidance for the current quarter. Wall Street cheered Apple's impressive quarter, bidding the company's stock 8.69% higher to $457.05 in extended trading.

The US Air Force has ordered the General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Predator C Avenger for deployment to Afghanistan. A single aircraft is being procured, marking what may be the type's first order. Although termed a test aircraft, the order fulfils an urgent request by secretary of defense Leon Panetta for reconnaissance and strike assets. Several untested aircraft and systems have been purchased or deployed under urgent operational requirements, including the Northrop Grumman MQ-8B Fire Scout currently operating in Afghanistan. "This aircraft will be used as a test asset and will provide a significantly increased weapons and sensors payload capacity on...

I'm having trouble finding any FR posting guidelines showing which sites may be excerpted, which are link-only and so on. I would have thought adding a link to that information on the page that appears when you hit "Post" would be a no-brainer, but I sure don't see anything like that. I've seen people referencing such guidelines quite a bit, but I've never found 'em.

0's schedule for today, Friday July 29, 2011: 10:20 am The President delivers a statement on the status of debt ceiling negotiations Diplomatic Reception Room - Pooled Press 10:50 am The President delivers remarks on Fuel Efficiency Standards Walter E. Washington Convention Center Open Press 3:10 pm The President meets with President Boni Yayi of Benin, President Alpha Condé of Guinea, President Mahamadou Issoufou of Niger, and President Alassane Ouattara of Cote d’Ivoire Cabinet Room

Get ready for the next big bombshell in the man-made warming debate. The world’s most sophisticated particle study laboratory - CERN in Geneva - will soon announce that more cosmic rays do, indeed, create more clouds in earth’s atmosphere. More cosmic rays mean a cooler planet. Thus, the solar source of the earth’s long, moderate 1,500-year climate cycle will finally be explained. Cosmic rays and solar winds are interesting phenomena - but they are vastly more relevant when an undocumented theory is threatening to quadruple society’s energy costs. The IPCC wants $10 gasoline, and “soaring” electric bills to reduce earth’s...

Nearly every smartphone running the Google Android platform today is readily vulnerable to data snoops and cyberthieves, who can easily pluck information from them over ordinary Wi-Fi networks, German security experts discovered. [snip] The problem doesn't affect Apple's iPhones, experts noted, which don't rely upon communication with Web-based servers as heavily as Google's platform does.

The ban imposed by French President Sarkozy on wearing a face-covering veil, or niqab, is simply dangerous gesture politics, representing little more than pandering to the far right in France. The full force of the state is coming down on fewer than 2,000 Muslim women out of a population of 6.5 million French Muslim citizens. For what purpose? We are told it is for security, the preservation of "French values" and to alleviate the oppression of women. For security purposes, women who wear the veil should be ready to remove their face covering in places where security and identity checks...

The body of a soldier who died along with his record breaking sniffer dog in Afghanistan last week will be returned home to the UK. Lance Corporal Liam Tasker, from Kirkcaldy in Fife, was shot dead while on patrol in Helmand province. The ashes of the 26-year-old's dog Theo will be flown home on the same plane. L/Cpl Tasker, who was called a "rising star" by Army chiefs, was shot by Taliban snipers and Theo died of a seizure shortly after his master. The soldier and his 22-month-old dog had made 14 finds in five months while on the frontline.

The U.S. Navy said it made a breakthrough in drone technology with the first flight of the X-47B, a bat-winged unmanned jet designed to take off and land from an aircraft carrier, one of the most complex and difficult feats in aviation.

Is FR under a denial of service attack? I've had a lot of server errors trying to read and/or post an article today...