Trio accused of making petrol bombs and plotting attacks, but supporters say suspect materials were beer-making kit. Three protesters arrested in a late-night raid days before the start of this weekend's 60-nation NATO summit in Chicago have been charged with terrorism for possession of explosive devices, police and their attorney have said. The men have been accused of making petrol bombs and planning to attack US President Barack Obama's campaign headquarters, the home of the Chicago mayor, Rahm Emanuel, and other targets during this weekend's conference, prosecutors said on Saturday. The three were arrested on Wednesday night in a raid of an apartment in the city's South Side Bridgeport neighbourhood ahead of the two-day meeting. The Chicago Police Department (CPD) said the men were charged with conspiracy to commit terrorism, providing material support for terrorism, and possession of an explosive incendiary device. The trio was charged with providing material support for terrorism, conspiracy to commit terrorism and possession of explosives. The suspects were each being held on $1.5m bond. They are believed to have come to Chicago late last month to take part in May Day protests. Six others arrested on Wednesday in the raid were released on Friday without being charged.

Chicago, Illinois -- Nan Wigmore brought her walker and packed her sign, "Grateful Great Grandmas Circle The Wagons, Support Occupy," and rode on a bus for some three days, sleeping in the same clothes, to make it to the NATO protests in Chicago. The 75-year-old from Portland, Ore., says she couldn't imagine being anywhere else despite the discomfort of her journey. "My feelings are too deep to keep me in my old comfortable place, so I had to learn some new things and that means to move out of my comfort zone," Wigmore said as she sipped a hot chocolate late Friday after a few hundred protesters met at a downtown Chicago plaza in the lead-up to the two-day summit that begins Sunday.

Are the worldwide protests helping or hurting? That is the question. As Alexander Haig once stated "they can protest all they want so long as they pay their taxes". This statement is pretty telling in my opinion. Now accompany that statement with the question, has protesting and hitting the streets really brought any change in policy, banking, wars etc.? Unfortunately, the answer clearly is no. Let us take a look at some examples: The Civil Rights Movement The civil rights movement was a political movement for equality. Between 1950 and 1980 the movement took the form of campaigns of civil resistance. The aim was to achieve change by means of nonviolent forms of resistance. But the campaign of "nonviolent forms of resistance" was accompanied, or followed, by civil unrest. In some cases armed rebellion. When one thinks "civil rights movement" a few things probably comes to mind right away. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, sit-ins, and the hosing of black demonstrators, just to name a few. I have a lot of respect for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and the numerous students that stood tall against oppression. I want to make clear that I am questioning the effectiveness of demonstrating/protesting to bring about change. I am in no way saying that these individuals are "dumb" for the actions they took against oppression.

The police state's framework for suppressing information and opinion arguably threatens all forms of independent thought and appears poised to intensify as the "war on terror" continues. As the recent emergence of US plans for indoctrination in reeducation camps reveals, Western governments' actual enemy is the capacity for a people to exercise critical thought en route to intervening in and altering political-economic processes. Public opinion - defined by 19th century English political thinker William MacKinnon as "that sentiment on any given subject which is entertained by the best informed, most intelligent, and most moral persons in the community" - is fundamentally at odds with police state prerogatives also exemplified in recent US Department of Homeland Security documents. The technocratic mindset of agencies such as the DHS and Federal Bureau of Investigation that oversee federal, state, and local policing procedures seeks to short-circuit and quell dissent by identifying transgressive thought that deviates from an assumed normalcy, then interlinking it with perceived threats or violent actions against the state. In a grand governmental exercise of Freudian-style projection, the DHS's usage of inflammatory terms such as "terrorist" and "extremist" are routinely utilized to emphasize the nature and degree of various activist groups' alleged deviant ideologies. This practice proceeds in light of the fact that most every "terrorist" act within the US since 9/11 has been carefully guided by the FBI or, as was the case with the initial "underwear bomber, Western intelligence agencies likely working in concert. A November 2011 DHS document, "Domestic Terrorism and Homegrown Violent Extremism Lexicon", is the agency's recent codification of terms intended to instruct and aid government officials in recognizing "threats of terrorism against the United States by facilitating a common understanding of the terms and conditions that describe terrorist threats to the United States [sic]." Then, in a fashion that will be familiar to those who understand the tactics of groups such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, an untenable array of activist pursuits spanning the political spectrum - "Anarchist Extremists", "Animal Rights Extremists", "Anti-Abortion Extremists", "Environmental Rights Extremists" - are libelously lobbed together and defined alongside designations including "Racist Skinhead Extremists", "Homegrown Violent Extremist", "Radicalization", and "Terrorism".

Under cover of the night around twelve police cars stopped five journalists when they were heading back to where they are staying in Chicago during the NATO summit. All five have been covering protests against the NATO summit for the past few days. The five journalists included Luke Rudkowksi, who streams as @Lukewearechange, Tim Pool, who streams as @Timcast, Jeoff Shively (@Jiraffa), Dustin & Jess. They are known for their work livestreaming and tweeting out regular coverage of Occupy protests. Rudkowski of We Are Change managed to record the Chicago police approaching the journalists in the car. The police have their guns drawn. They shout, "Hands! Hands! Get your hands up!" And then, "F**kin' hands!" Then Pool's voice can be heard saying, "We're being raided. For folks who are watching, we are being raided by the CPD right now as we speak." There is some trouble with the door. The door is locked and the police are knocking on the windows of the car. The door is opened. A police officer can be heard telling one of the journalists, "Put your coffee down so you don't burn your crotch." Police officers ask a journalist, who I presume is Rudkowski, if he has anything on him. He then is told to leave the camera on the seat of the car. The video cuts and then we see Shively and Rudkowski recounting what happened. They say police are following them. They add the police would not explain why they were stopped, they were pulled over by unmarked police cars and Rudkowski and Dustin were cuffed together.

NBC 9:00 p.m. EST/8:00 p.m. CST Davy Anthony must protect his happily unaware family from a rogue skeet that could fly out from any direction at any time.

Few beverages on this planet are as biocompatible to the human body and its hydration needs as coconut water. Indeed, coconut water was been reported to be used for intravenous hydration and resuscitation of critically ill patients in remote regions of the world for over half a century. [1] It is also an excellent preserving medium for avulsed teeth (and semen!), besting even Hank's balanced salt solution, a commonly used medical solution. [2] While some are concerned about the sugar content of this slightly sweet beverage, recent research shows it actually exhibits blood sugar lowering properties in an experimental model of diabetes.[3] Additional animal research shows coconut water prevents and reverses high blood pressure associated with fructose feeding-induced hypertension, as well being able to reduce oxidative stress and insulin resistance. [4] Perhaps one of the most amazing properties of coconut water is its superior lipid modulating activity in the animal model vis-à-vis the cholesterol-lowering statin drug known as lovastatin. [5] Which means we can, in clear conscience, modify Hippocrates' famous saying to: "Let What You Drink Be Your Medicine."

Jessica Tanley married Rodney Holl beneath a beautiful evening sky, hoping for a shooting star at the moment of their “I Do’s,” but of course that didn’t happen because Rodney always screws everything up.

2011 KP36 was originally discovered as an asteroid by T. H. Bressi of Spacewatch survey on 2011, May 21. Its orbit was unusual (actually a=38.6 AU, e=0.87, i=19°), belonging to the outer Solar System. Its T3 parameter (respect to Jupiter) is 2.64, so it entered our T3 internal list of targets. During observations of NEO 1998 OK1 with the 0.81-m f/4 of ARI Observatory (Westfield, code H21) on Apr. 19 Tomas Vorobjov serendipitously detected also 2011 KP36 in the same FOV. Stacking all the images together (totalling 30 minutes) with its proper motion vector, Tomas Vorobjov firstly noted its cometary appearance, with a coma 6″ wide and a possible tail 9″ long in PA around 10°. Its FWHM was 4.4″ while stars nearby were 3.5″. Here is an animation from two cropped stacks (30×30 seconds each). After his alert, Sergio Foglia and myself observed it the following day with the 2.0-m f/10 Faulkes Telescope North at Haleakala. Conditions were nearly the best possible and stacking 4×180 seconds images its cometary activity was quite clear. FWHM was 1.3″ while stars 1.1″, but the real confirmation was the presence (visually) of a round faint coma at least 7″ wide. Here is the image:

Bryce Harper Asks Manager Where Bats Come From

Following the posting on the Central Bureau's Transient Object Confirmation Page about a possible Nova in Oph (TOCP Designation: J17395600-2447420) we performed some follow-up of this object remotely through the 0.43-m f/6.8 astrograph + CCD of ITelescope network (MPC Code - H06). On our images taken on May 20.3, 2012 we can confirm the presence of an optical counterpart with unfiltered CCD magnitude 9.5 at coordinates: R.A. = 17 39 57.00, Decl.= -24 47 07.3 (equinox 2000.0; CMC-14 catalogue reference stars). Here you can see an animation showing a comparison between our confirmation image and the archive POSS2/UKSTU plate (R Filter - 1996). Our confirmation image.

Date-Time: Sunday, May 20, 2012 at 07:19:55 UTC Sunday, May 20, 2012 at 05:19:55 PM at epicenter Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones Location: 39.597°N, 143.242°E Depth: 10 km (6.2 miles) Region: OFF THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN Distances: 179 km (111 miles) E of Morioka, Honshu, Japan 181 km (112 miles) SE of Hachinohe, Honshu, Japan 251 km (155 miles) ESE of Aomori, Honshu, Japan 532 km (330 miles) NE of TOKYO, Japan

JOPLIN, MO—If Trevor Mahoney had reserved the U-Haul like he said he would, we wouldn't even be having this conversation in the first place, dick.

Binyamin Netanyahu reignites row over fate of thousands of African migrants in Israel The Israeli prime minister has stoked a volatile debate about refugees and migrant workers from Africa, warning that "illegal infiltrators flooding the country" were threatening the security and identity of the Jewish state. "If we don't stop their entry, the problem that currently stands at 60,000 could grow to 600,000, and that threatens our existence as a Jewish and democratic state," Binyamin Netanyahu said at Sunday's cabinet meeting. "This phenomenon is very grave and threatens the social fabric of society, our national security and our national identity." Israel's population is 7.8 million. Comment: These words are very interesting. Why should immigrants - whether illegal or not - threaten the identity of a democratic country? We are not talking about the economic or social repercusions of a mass of people entering another country, but about the self-image of the country. Is not democracy a government of the people in which all cultures and races are embraced as they enrich the national identity? Not in Israel, it seems. Netanyahu's words simply highlight the contradiction between declaring a country "democratic" yet "Jewish", and reveal the barely disguised racism of Israel. Jewish, that is, at the expense of everyone else, as any Arab Israeli "second class" citizen could explain. His comments follow media reports of rising crime, including two gang rapes, in southern Tel Aviv, where many African migrants are concentrated. However, Micky Rosenfeld, spokesman for the Israeli police, said the overall crime rate in Israel had fallen. There had been one alleged rape of a teenage girl connected to the migrant community, for which three suspects were in custody, he added.

Militarized Chicago - Next month in Baltimore they're going to celebrate the War of 1812. That's what we do with wars. We say they're the last resort. We say they're hell. We say they're for the purpose of eliminating themselves: we fight wars for peace. Although we never keep peace for wars. We claim to wage only wars we have been forced into despite all possible effort to find a better way. And then we celebrate the wars. We keep the wars going for their own sake after all the excuses we used to get them started have expired. The WMDs have not been found. Osama bin Laden's been killed. Al Qaeda is gone from the country where we're fighting it. Nobody's threatening Benghazi anymore. But the wars must go on! And then we'll celebrate them. And we'll celebrate the old ones too, the ones that were fought here, the ones that were in their day not quite so heavily painted as last resorts or humanitarian missions. Last year Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee persuaded Congress to create an Iraq-Afghanistan Wars holiday. It's on our calendars now along with Loyalty Day (formerly May Day), Veterans Day (formerly Armistice Day), Memorial Day, Yellow Ribbon Day, Patriots Day, Independence Day, Flag Day, Pearl Harbor Day, and of course September 11th, among many others. Last week there was an Armed Forces Spouses Appreciation Day. The military holiday calendar is like the Catholic saints' days now: there's something every day of the year. But there's no celebration of the times we avoided war. We claim to prefer peace to war, but we don't make heroes of those presidents or Congresses who most avoided war. In fact, we erase them. Our history books jump from war to war as if nothing happened in between. Nobody celebrates 1811, only 1812. Even the peace movement doesn't celebrate the past decade's prevention, thus far, of a war on Iran.

A private door opens from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office in central Jerusalem directly into a long, modestly furnished, half-paneled room decorated with modern paintings by Israeli artists and a copy of Israel's 1948 declaration of independence. It contains little more than a long wooden table, brown leather chairs and a single old-fashioned white projector screen. This inner sanctum at the end of a corridor between Netanyahu's private room and the office of his top military adviser, is where one of the decade's most momentous military decisions could soon be taken: to launch an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear program. Time for that decision is fast running out and the mood in Jerusalem is hardening. Iran continues to enrich uranium in defiance of international pressure, saying it needs the fuel for its civilian nuclear program. The West is convinced that Tehran's real objective is to build an atomic bomb - something which the Jewish state will never accept because its leaders consider a nuclear armed-Iran a threat to its very existence. Comment: Rather, the West is convinced it should do as Israel says, and Israel will never accept that any of its neighbours challenge its regional hegemony, which rests in part on an arsenal of 200-400 nuclear warheads. Funny how no one mentions that it is the rest of Middle Eastern countries and not Israel who are under existential threat. Adding to the international pressure, U.S. ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro said this week American military plans to strike Iran were "ready" and the option was "fully available".

The biggest bear of all, Dr. Doom (Marc Faber), discusses the future of the euro and whether a global catastrophe is on the way

SEATTLE—A string of independent bakeries in the Seattle area apparently provided enough material to warrant a 73-minute documentary titled Rise: The Resurgence Of The Artisanal Bakery, 27-year-old Netflix browser Cyrus Wall observed Sunday.

This week we bring back Alasdair Macleod, publisher of Finance and economics.org, because, as he puts it "every horror that we discussed last time we spoke is coming about". Especially scary since our previous conversation with him was less than three weeks ago... Today's interview continues building on his excellent synopsis from last month that detailed the origins of the Eurozone crisis. The fundamental shortcomings warned of at the Euro's creation in 1997, combined with the excessive sovereign debts run up since then, have finally expressed themselves at a scale too large to be contained any longer. Today, Alasdair details in-depth the huge and serious challenges facing Greece and the major Eurozone countries, and the likely impacts of the fast-dwindling options left remaining. He sees no happy ending to this story, no outcome in which serious pain and permanent behavior change can be avoided. And for those looking for shelter from the unfolding economic storm, he sees few options besides the precious metals (which he believes are severely under priced at the moment):

Never-Used Bike Still In Pretty Good Shape