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WASHINGTON, Oct. 3, 2008 – Affectionately known as “Big Jim,” James McCrindle had a Paul Bunyan-sized heart when it came time for taking care of soldiers and their families as general manager of the Armed Forces Recreation Center’s “Shades of Green” facility on the Walt Disney World resort in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. Affectionately known as “Big Jim,” Shades of Green general manager James McCrindle had a Paul Bunyan-sized heart when it came time for taking care of soldiers and their families at the Armed Forces Recreation Center. His battle with cancer ended June 1, 2008, at the age...

Once upon a time, there was a country called the United States of America. This fairy tale land was founded by giants. But these giants were unlike those mean giants who grind men’s bones to make their bread. These giants respected all men’s bones, no matter how very small they were. In fact, these giants went to war against a wicked King who lived across an ocean, a King who was stealing the money of the little men to pay for things he wanted. When the good giants won the war, the little men were so grateful that they offered...

Giant pythons capable of swallowing a dog and even an alligator are rapidly making south Florida their home, potentially threatening other southeastern states, a study said. "Pythons are likely to colonize anywhere alligators live, including north Florida, Georgia and Louisiana," said Frank Mazzotti, University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences professor, in his two-year study. The pythons thriving in Florida are mostly Burmese pythons from Myanmar that were brought over as pets and then turned loose in the wild. From 2002-2005, 201 of the beasts were caught by state authorities, but in the last two years the number...

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan, Feb. 4, 2008 – As millions of Americans gathered around their televisions to watch Super Bowl XLII last night, servicemembers here rolled out of beds, cots or sleeping bags to watch the big game in the early morning hours. The New York Giants and New England Patriots each had plenty of rooters here, but one soldier assigned to Combined Joint Task Force 82 took special pride in the Giants’ stunning 17-14 upset of the previously unbeaten Patriots. Before he joined the Army, Lt. Col. Nate Rivers, CJTF 82’s logistics maintenance chief, played in the National Football...

"Skeleton of Giant" Is Internet Photo Hoax James Owen for National Geographic News December 14, 2007 The National Geographic Society has not discovered ancient giant humans, despite rampant reports and pictures. The hoax began with a doctored photo and later found a receptive online audience—thanks perhaps to the image's unintended religious connotations. A digitally altered photograph created in 2002 shows a reclining giant surrounded by a wooden platform—with a shovel-wielding archaeologist thrown in for scale. (Photo Gallery: "Giant Skeletons" Fuel Web Hoax) By 2004 the "discovery" was being blogged and emailed all over the world—"Giant Skeleton Unearthed!"—and it's been enjoying...

Islamists damage giant rock Buddha By Ben Quinn Last Updated: 2:11am BST 11/10/2007 Islamist radicals in Pakistan have attempted to destroy an ancient carving of Buddha by drilling holes in the rock and filling them with dynamite.The Buddha is thought to date from the seventh century AD The 23ft high image was damaged during the attack, which brought back memories of the Taliban's destruction six years ago of the giant Buddhas at Bamiyan, in neighbouring Afghanistan. The Buddha, in the Swat district of north-west Pakistan, is thought to date from the seventh century AD and was considered the largest in...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 9, 2007 – As part of its continued commitment to honoring troops and their families, software giant Microsoft Corp. announced today that it has become a corporate supporter of the Defense Department’s America Supports You program. The America Supports You program connects citizens and corporations with military personnel and their families serving at home and abroad. “As the demands of service continue to challenge and strain America’s armed forces, domestic efforts to support soldiers and their families grow increasingly important,” said Curt Kolcun, vice president of Microsoft’s Federal Division. “Joining America Supports You is a key part of...

Giant-pumpkin growers at the Topsfield Fair broke the world record this weekend for heaviest pumpkin - twice. For just a moment, Bill Rodonis, of Litchfield, N.H., held the title with a 1,566-pound pumpkin. Then Joe Jutras, of Scituate, R.I., crushed it with a pumpkin weighing 1,689 pounds. Both men beat last year's record of 1,502 pounds, but only Jutras will make it in the Guinness Book of Records. "To be that much over the world record from last year is incredible," Jutras said. He also received a $3,500 check for first place and he will probably make double that amount...

Giant bones challenged 18th-century intellectuals By Dan Hurley Post columnist Today, the valley is dry, dusty and unremarkable, but 250 years ago it was one of the most fascinating spots ever discovered in the North America. From the very first time in 1739 that local Indians led a contingent of French explorers to the salt licks near the Ohio River in what is today Boone County, Ky., the spot raised intellectually troubling questions. European and American scientists understood the importance of salt licks and why thousands of modern buffalo, deer and elk beat broad paths to the marshy lick, but...

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A giant, smiling Lego man was fished out of the sea in the Dutch resort of Zandvoort on Tuesday. Workers at a drinks stall rescued the 2.5-metre (8-foot) tall model with a yellow head and blue torso. "We saw something bobbing about in the sea and we decided to take it out of the water," said a stall worker. "It was a life-sized Lego toy." A woman nearby added: "I saw the Lego toy floating towards the beach from the direction of England." The toy was later placed in front of the drinks stall.

Deep in the Congolese jungle is a band of apes that, according to local legend, kill lions, catch fish and even howl at the moon. Local hunters speak of massive creatures that seem to be some sort of hybrid between a chimp and a gorilla. Their location at the centre of one of the bloodiest conflicts on the planet, the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, has meant that the mystery apes have been little studied by western scientists. Reaching the region means negotiating the shifting fortunes of warring rebel factions, and the heart of the animals' range...

May 2, 2007—Jupiter's most turbulent moon, Io, is renowned among scientists for its flashy volcanic displays. But even experts were surprised when they saw this plume of gas vaulting nearly 200 miles (320 kilometers) over the moon's north pole. The giant frozen jet—about as tall as the state of New Hampshire is long—spewed from a volcano known as Tvashtar in February, just as NASA's New Horizons spacecraft was cruising by on its way to Pluto. The passing craft captured several images of the event, providing an unprecedented view of volcanism on Io, the most geologically active body in the solar...

A WOMAN'S email to the help desk of Telecom New Zealand was rejected by a computer system because her name was Gay and "inappropriate for business-like communication". Gay Hamilton, from the northern South Island town of Nelson, said while she was actually gay, she was concerned that the country's biggest public company was spending its time and resources on trifling issues, the Herald on Sunday reported. "If they do have to put content filters on, then maybe they should ensure that it only gets genuinely abusive words," she said.

NEW YORK — A quick-thinking commuter saved a teenager who fell on the subway tracks by pushing him down into a furrow between the rails, allowing an approaching train to pass right over them, police said. An 18-year-old man had some kind of medical problem Tuesday and fell onto the tracks, which are a few feet below platform level, police said. Wesley Autrey saw him fall, jumped down onto the tracks after him and rolled with him into the rut between the rails as a southbound train was coming in.- snip-

December 22, 2006—Like pulling a shadow from the darkness, researchers in Japan have captured and filmed a live giant squid—likely for the first time—shedding new light on the famously elusive creatures. Tsunemi Kubodera, a scientist with Japan's National Science Museum, caught the 24-foot (7-meter) animal earlier this month near the island of Chichijima, some 600 miles (960 kilometers) southeast of Tokyo (see Japan map). His team snared the animal using a line baited with small squid and shot video of the russet-colored giant as it was hauled to the surface. The squid, a young female, "put up quite a fight"...

Oil Sinks $2.50 for Lowest Level in Year Nov 16 4:26 PM US/Eastern By BRAD FOSS Associated Press Writer The price of oil sank by more than $2 a barrel Thursday, settling at its lowest level in a year as traders focused on the bearish aspects of conflicting market trends. OPEC is cutting output, but the U.S. economy is slowing; winter is near, but the country has an abundance of home heating fuels. These mixed signals help explain why crude futures have settled in a range roughly between $57 and $61 since the beginning of October. The retail price of...

Biologists have discovered giant invasive oysters that could threaten efforts to restore native oyster species in San Francisco Bay. Government staffers and volunteers removed 256 of the exotic mollusks last week after searching the mudflats between the Dumbarton Bridge and the San Leandro Marina, biologists said Thursday. Scientists have not identified the species, which grow up to 9 inches long and in a variety of shapes. They don't know how the exotic oysters got here or how they could affect the bay if their population expands. Biologists are concerned the monster oysters could take over the best habitat and form...

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) - July 19, 2006 - A University of Illinois researcher had discovered a fourth copy of a rare letter Abraham Lincoln had written by to the nation's governors in 1861. The letter John Lupton found Tuesday in the Lehigh County Historical Society's holdings was one Lincoln wrote as part of an unsuccessful ratification process for a constitutional amendment Congress adopted during the term of his predecessor, President James Buchanan, that would have made slavery the law of the land. The president remembered for abolishing slavery had been willing to push the amendment as "kind of a carrot...

Scientists said Monday they have found the first widespread evidence of giant hydrocarbon lakes on the surface of Saturn's planet-size moon Titan. The cluster of hydrocarbon lakes was spotted near Titan's frigid north pole during a weekend flyby by the international Cassini spacecraft, which flew within 590 miles of the moon. Researchers counted about a dozen lakes ranging from 6 miles to 62 miles wide. Some lakes, which appeared as dark patches in radar images, were connected by channels while others had tributaries flowing into them. Several were dried up, but the ones that contained liquid were most likely a...

NEW YORK (AP) — Arif Mardin, the legendary Grammy Award-winning producer who worked with stars including Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan and Norah Jones, has died. Mardin, 74, died Sunday, said his publicist, Lydia Sherwood. He had been suffering from pancreatic cancer.Born in Turkey, Mardin came to the United States in 1958 after a meeting with Dizzy Gillespie and Quincy Jones convinced him to make music his career. He attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston, graduating in 1961. Mardin started working at Atlantic Records in 1963, subsequently became a producer and arranger, and ultimately a senior vice president. He...