Drinkers tell of 'huge bang' before collapse at Glasgow pub..

Scottish Fire and Rescue services look at the exposed part of the helicopter tail fin and rotor at the scene on Saturday, Nov. 30, 2013, following the helicopter crash at the Clutha Bar in Glasgow, Scotland. Scottish emergency workers were sifting through wreckage Saturday for survivors of a police helicopter crash onto a crowded Glasgow pub that has killed several people and injured dozens. The Clutha pub, near the banks of the River Clyde, was packed Friday night and a ska band was in full swing when the chopper slammed through the roof. The number of fatalities is expected to rise, officials said. (AP Photo/Scott Heppell)

Glasgow (AFP) - Pubgoers inside The Clutha bar in Glasgow told Saturday how the roof collapsed shortly after they heard a giant thud, as a police helicopter plummeted onto the crowded bar.

In the initial confusion, "I thought 'has the band blown something electrical like a speaker?' said client William Byrne.
He and others recounted how customers and passers-by helped pull the wounded from the wreckage and tried to shift debris to allow others to escape.
At least one person was killed and 32 others taken by ambulance to city hospitals, police said, as the search for more possible victims continued.
Revellers in the one-storey pub, by the River Clyde in the city centre, were watching Glaswegian ska band Esperanza play when the chopper hit the one-storey bar at around 10:25pm (2225 GMT) on a busy Friday night.
Byrne, 45, from Coatbridge, east of the city, was in the bar with his brother and a friend, when the helicopter hit.
"I was just coming back from the other side of the pub and there was a huge bang," he told BBC television.
"There was a couple of seconds of almost stillness after this bang and then the whole other side of the pub collapsed in on itself, the roof and the gantry of the bar collapsed.
"The side we were in was covered in dust but, from debris, relatively unscathed," he said, with the bar going dark.
"The left hand side of the pub just collapsed. People on our side of the pub were so, so lucky.
"I went outside, we held the door open, trying to make people to file out one by one.
"We've gone back in and helped lift the gantry up and get a few people out."
Brendan Riordan, said it had been tough to move in the bar with the amount of people enjoying the concert.
He told the BBC he heard "a very loud bang" before a cloud of dust filled the pub.
"I was on the right side of the pub where the band were performing", adding that the central and left sides had caved in.
"After I exited the pub I saw people coming out covered in blood and covered in dust.
"There were people quite desperate and just before I left the inside of the pub I noticed that the ceiling had fallen towards the bar.
"People were not aware that a helicopter had crash-landed on the pub."
Retired firefighter Edward Waltham ran inside to help with the rescue effort.
"I helped grab a couple of people. One gentleman in particular who was completely covered in dust, who had very shallow breathing and appeared to be quite badly injured." he told the BBC.
"My initial reaction for him from my experience was to try not to move him because he had been in a crush situation.
"But as we were lying there other people were literally being pulled out of the pub and more or less thrown on top of us."
Esperanza, the nine-piece group playing a free gig in the venue, said the group was safe and well.
"Our only concern now is for the safety and welfare of those less fortunate than ourselves," they said on their Facebook page.
"Waking up and realising that it is all definitely horribly real," said Jessica Combe, the band's bassist and general manager.
"Despite the situation everyone was so helpful and caring of each other. The police, ambulances, firefighters all did a stellar job and continue to do so today in extremely difficult conditions."

Va. gov ending term with scandal-stained year..

                 

FILE - In this Oct. 12, 2012, file photo Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, right, shakes hand with Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, left, as he arrives for a rally in Richmond, Va. McDonnell is preparing to leave office after a four-year term that saw his rising national profile fade under the cloud of a federal investigation. McDonnell, once mentioned as a possible vice presidential pick, is leaving in January because of term limits. He told The Associated Press in an interview that he has no plans to seek another office but that he expects to remain engage in policies he cares about. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File)

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Bob McDonnell's national profile ascended fast in four years as Virginia governor.

He delivered the 2010 Republican response to the State of the Union Address. He became chairman of the Republican Governors Association in 2011 and was widely mentioned as a possible vice presidential pick just over a year ago. Even on the day he was passed over in favor of Rep. Paul Ryan, McDonnell introduced Mitt Romney at a Norfolk naval museum and basked in the Republican candidate's public praise.
"What a great governor you have," Romney told cheering Virginians. "What a terrific man and a terrific leader. Way to go."
That was then.
McDonnell, 59, leaves office in January under the cloud of a federal investigation that has overshadowed his accomplishments, risks tarnishing his legacy and perhaps has crippled beyond repair a once-promising political future.
He hasn't ruled out a return to politics — though his options seem limited. He told The Associated Press in a recent interview that he would remain engaged in "compassionate conservative" policies he values, including perhaps homelessness or prisoners' rights, but wouldn't disclose specifics.
The governor's seat has opened the door to higher office since Thomas Jefferson held it from 1779 to 1781. McDonnell's two immediate predecessors — Democrats Tim Kaine and Mark Warner — are now U.S. senators. Even so, McDonnell said he has no interest in the Senate and has never thought seriously about the White House. He brushed aside questions about whether an investigation into his relationship with a donor had derailed his political career, saying he's never looked beyond his current position.
"The thought of doing something beyond being governor of Virginia is something the press mentioned and other people mentioned, but until I finished this office, I really wasn't going to engage seriously in thinking what else could that be," said McDonnell, a former legislator, state attorney general and retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel.
Like all Virginia governors, he's barred from seeking a consecutive term. After being governor, he said, "There really aren't a whole lot of offices that excite you."
McDonnell's departure comes as federal prosecutors investigate whether he and wife Maureen gave special treatment to Star Scientific Inc., a dietary supplement-maker whose chief executive helped cover catering costs for their daughter's wedding and gave the first couple other gifts, including a Rolex watch for the governor.
McDonnell apologized in July and said he had returned more than $120,000 in loans, as well as other gifts. He repeated in the interview that he had done nothing illegal on Star Scientific's behalf but said he'd do "things differently today than choices I made a couple of years ago."
"This has been a difficult year," he said. "In 37 years (of service), never has anyone ever even insinuated that I have done anything improper in my professional life."
A Justice Department spokesman and a spokesman for McDonnell's legal team declined to comment on the investigation, which surprised many in the state.
"If you said Bob McDonnell, the first words out of my mouth would be Boy Scout, Eagle Scout, just beyond reproach," said Democratic state Sen. Chap Petersen, who served alongside McDonnell in the House of Delegates. "You just could not imagine him getting caught up in something like that."
As governor, McDonnell has actively lobbied for select policy initiatives — for instance, delivering detailed PowerPoint presentations at town-hall meetings in support of an unsuccessful effort to privatize state-owned liquor states — and engaged directly with lawmakers on issues, including transportation, he's prioritized. But he's also invited staffers and subordinates to collaborate on strategy and to help sort out specifics of implementing big-picture goals, said former state Education Secretary Laura Fornash.
Whatever the investigation's outcome, the scandal represents a precipitous fall for a highly visible Republican governor whose centrist appeal in a critical swing state made him a key Romney spokesman. Though he took office with nearly 59 percent of the vote, exit polling conducted at this year's election for AP and television networks show that a slight majority of Virginians — 52 percent — approve of his job performance, while 41 percent disapprove.
As McDonnell ends his term, many remain mindful of the scandal.
"I think the overall performance was good, but he pulled the rug out from under him by any involvement in the Star (Scientific) business," Eric Willis, 86, of Lake Ridge, Va., said this month.
Elected at the dawn of the tea party era, McDonnell modeled himself as a social conservative — a Roman Catholic, he is anti-abortion— but also a job-creating consensus-builder. Once in office, he grappled with weighing his own bipartisan outreach efforts against the platform of his party's conservative wing.
He leaned heavily on Democratic support in securing approval for an $880-million-per-year bill to overhaul Virginia's transportation system. It was a signature accomplishment in a traffic-clogged state fixated on infrastructure, though it dismayed some Republicans with its tax increases.
McDonnell said he's especially proud of his fiscal management, including four consecutive budget surpluses and a near-quadrupling of Virginia's rainy-day fund, and of education changes that tightened high school graduation standards and established a grading system for schools. He also attracted attention for efforts to restore civil rights to nonviolent felons who've done their time.
"People perceived him as a capable, mainstream, competent governor. He did a good job. That's going to be the assessment of his administration — and what a damn shame about this scandal," said George Mason University political scientist Mark Rozell.
But there were missteps along the way.
In 2010, he publicly apologized after omitting mention of slavery in declaring April "Confederate History Month" in Virginia, later amending the proclamation to denounce slavery and calling the oversight an "error of haste, not of heart."
And he initially offered support for legislation that would have mandated vaginally invasive ultrasound exams for women seeking abortions but withdrew his backing amid national ridicule and signed into law a much-revised version.
"That disaster brought back the Democratic party of Virginia. It was down, it was out, it allowed the Democrats to mobilize its base, particularly women voters," said James Madison University political scientist Robert Roberts.
But the biggest drama of the administration was the Star Scientific investigation.
It unfolded in the final year of his term, around the same time as a separate politically embarrassing case involving a former executive mansion chef who was accused of embezzlement and, in turn, accused McDonnell's children of taking mansion food and supplies for personal use. The governor later reimbursed the state.
The fallout seeped into the general election, with McDonnell playing a low-key role in support of Republican Ken Cuccinelli, who lost to Democrat Terry McAuliffe. Asked why he hadn't been more visible, McDonnell replied, "That's a question for the candidate."
McDonnell said he believed Virginians recognized the decision to return the gifts as a sign of repentance, but more broadly, that the scandal underscored the need to amend ethics laws generally rated as among America's weakest. He said he expected to present proposals during his final days in office.
"I wouldn't want anybody else to go through some of the things that I've been through, where people have insinuated things that I think are flat wrong," he said.

Lions captured in up-close photos by remote control camera buggy..

Video shows amusing reaction from eight curious lions in Botswana, Africa, as photographer Chris McLennan of New Zealand clicks away         

 

A pride of lions were lounging around in the shade of a tree in the wilds of Botswana, Africa, minding their own business when a mysterious object rolled their way and stopped. Curiosity aroused, all eight lions got up and approached the odd-looking contraption with four wheels.
As the felines moved in, New Zealand photographer Chris McLennan captured amazing, hard-to-get, close-up photos via his remote control camera buggy, the object of the lions’ attention. Using another camera, he also got photos of the curious lions checking out his 4×4 buggy.
The humorous reaction from the lions is what you might expect playing cat and mouse with the family cat. Perhaps just as amusing is the “whoa” reaction by McLennan and his friends as they viewed the amazing photos the remote control camera buggy captured. McLennan caught it all on video. The action starts soon after he explains how he set up the camera:



As you can see, eventually McLennan backed up the buggy with the lions following. One started chewing on it before another grabbed a wheel by his jaws and ran away with the camera buggy.
McLennan said at the beginning of the video his goal was to “get close to the animal and see if we can get that special shot that you can’t get any other way, and hopefully at the end of it all we’ll get the camera back and have something to look at.”
Fortunately, he did get the camera back and definitely had something to look at.
“That was amazing,” said McLennan, who snapped off photos from a safe distance with the remote-controlled camera. “I think the buggy’s dead, but let’s see what we’ve got out of this.”
The photo at the top is the one that produced a “whoa!” That night, the three sat around a campfire and once again marveled at the photos taken by his contraption he called “Car-L.”
By the way, the buggy didn’t die after all, McLennan reporting on his YouTube post, “‘Car-L’ survived his injuries and is ready for his next adventure!”
We can’t wait.
Photos are screen grabs from the video

 

IAEA not ready to verify Iran nuclear deal...

 

                          

Vienna (AFP) - The UN nuclear watchdog said Thursday it was not yet ready to verify Iran's compliance with the recent deal with world powers, as Tehran invited inspectors to the key Arak site.

"We need to study the agreement (struck in Geneva on Sunday) and we have to identify the ways in which the elements relevant to the IAEA be put into practice," International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yuyika Amano said.
"It will take time because it is a quite complicated task and we would like to properly prepare and do the job properly.... I cannot tell when we will be ready," he told reporters.
He added that the Vienna-based body would need more money to carry out the enlarged inspection role foreseen in Iran's breakthrough deal with the United States, China, Britain, France and Germany -- the P5+1.
"This requires a significant amount of money and manpower.... The IAEA's budget is very, very tight. I don't think we can cover everything from our own budget," Amano said.
Under the terms of the deal, Iran will freeze certain activities for six months in exchange for minor relief from UN and Western sanctions that have hit its economy hard.

View gallery."

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Yukiya Amano arrives at the UN atomic agency headqua …

The temporary freeze is meant to make it more difficult for Iran to develop a nuclear weapon and to build confidence while Tehran and the P5+1 hammer out a long-term accord.
This six-month period has not yet begun. The start-date will be negotiated in upcoming technical discussions that will include the IAEA. There are expectations that it will begin in January or possibly December.
Iran has pledged to limit uranium enrichment to low fissile purities. It will also lower the purity of its stockpile of medium-enriched material, which is relatively easy to convert to weapons-grade, or convert it to another form.
Iran also committed for six months "not to make further advances" at its Fordo and Natanz uranium enrichment sites and at the Arak heavy water reactor, which could provide Iran with weapons-grade plutonium once operating.
This will all have to be verified by the IAEA, meaning a considerably bigger strain on its financial and human resources.

View gallery."

The reactor building at the Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power plant in southern Iran (AFP Photo/Ma …

Joseph Macmanus, US ambassador to the IAEA, said Thursday that he was "very confident that the funding will be clearly understood (by member states)... and then will be provided".
The IAEA already keeps close tabs on Iran's nuclear work, with personnel almost constantly in the country inspecting machinery and measuring stockpiles.
But under Sunday's deal this will go further, with daily IAEA visits to enrichment sites and access to centrifuge assembly sites, uranium mines, and more frequent trips to Arak -- in addition to verifying the enrichment freeze.
Iran will also have to provide information on plans for new nuclear facilities, descriptions of every building at nuclear sites and updated design information on the Arak reactor, according to the text of Sunday's agreement.
Amano also said on Thursday that Iran has invited the agency to visit the heavy water production plant at Arak on December 8 for the first inspection there since August 2011.
He said the IAEA would formally accept the invitation, saying: "I don't see a reason why we would not go there... on that date."
The IAEA already conducts regular visits of the actual reactor site at Arak, but says it has not received updated detailed design information since 2006.

Amano said the invitation was the "first concrete proposal" following the signing of a separate "joint statement on a framework for cooperation" between the IAEA and Iran signed in Tehran on November 11.

Afghan president condemns U.S. airstrike that killed a child...

 

Afghan President Hamid Karzai speaks during the last day of the Loya Jirga, in Kabul November 24, 2013. …

KABUL (Reuters) - President Hamid Karzai said U.S. forces had bombed a home in southern Afghanistan, killing a small child and wounding two women, and condemned the attack as a sign of disregard for civilian lives, his spokesman said on Thursday.
The strike could not have come at a worse time, as Karzai is engaged in a stand-off with the U.S. government over a bilateral security agreement that will decide whether U.S. troop stay in Afghanistan beyond 2014.
"It shows that U.S. forces have no respect for the decisions of the Loya Jirga and life of civilians in Afghanistan," said Karzai's spokesman, Aimal Faizi.
"If such operations continue, there will be no agreement."
The United States has threatened to pull its troops out of Afghanistan after 2014 - an outcome known as the "zero option", as it did in Iraq two years ago - unless a deal is clinched by the end of this year,
Karzai, however, has so far refused to sign, despite getting approval from the Loya Jirga last week. The council almost unanimously advised him to seal the agreement promptly, saying this was in the national interest.
Karzai instead has refused and made additional demands on the United States, including the return of all Afghan prisoners from its prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The child killed in Thursday's bombing was two or three years old, Faizi said, adding that the attack took place after the targeted individual ran into a home for safety.
"They give no importance to the life of civilians. They are killing civilians like flies," Faizi said.
"That should have been a red line for them... Even if he was an insurgent they shouldn't have fired on the house."
A man was killed in a separate strike in the same province on Thursday afternoon, Faizi added. Local officials had yet to confirm whether the victim was an insurgent or not.
(Reporting by Jessica Donati and Mirwais Harooni; editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Balloons, spirits soar at NYC Thanksgiving parade...

                    

The Snoopy and Woodstock balloon floats in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York in New York, Thursday, Nov. 28, 2013. (Yahoo News/Gordon Donovan)

NEW YORK (AP) — The big balloons soared along with the crowd's spirits Thursday as the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade made its way through the streets of New York City.

There'd been some concerns about whether the wind could keep 16 giant balloons grounded, but the cherished tradition prevailed.
"We thought they'd find a way to pull it off," said parade-goer John Mispagel, of San Jose, Calif. "It's really fun seeing so many people having such a great time."
Balloon handlers were keeping a tight grip on their inflated characters and held them fairly close to the ground in tree-lined areas. The wind was around 26 mph.
Mispagel and his wife, Susan, said Sonic the Hedgehog got caught on a tree while rounding a corner near the start of the parade route; handlers used cutters on a rope to free the balloon.
The cheering throngs were bundled against a 30-degree chill, but the sun was shining. Some in the crowd lifted small children onto their shoulders.
An excited 9-year-old Lily Thomolaris, of Pittsburgh, was delighted to "see all the balloons." But she especially thought a big turkey was really cool.
Matthew Ragbe, 11, lives in the neighborhood and came out to enjoy the sights. His twin brother decided not to leave their warm apartment.
"He's probably watching the parade on TV," Matthew said. "Loser."
"Lazy is more like the operative word," joked their mother, Alison Ragbe.
The Ragbe family was on 77th Street, where a director of sorts merged floats and balloons with bands and clowns by shouting cheerful instructions through a loudspeaker. He called out to the Wicked Witch.
"Please join the parade! We don't want you to miss your moment!" And merge she did.
"I don't see Toto," Michael Tellone, 19, of Pelham, shouted from behind the police barricades.
Farther down the more-than-40-block parade route, 11-year-old Ema Kelly, of Manhasset, was protecting confetti buried 4 inches deep in her knitted hat as she awaited the parade pinnacle for many children: "the end with Santa."
She shared confetti collection duties with her neighborhood friend, 10-year-old Matthew O'Connor.
"He forgot his hat so he's helping me collect it, and then we're going to split it on the bus ride home," she said.
Nearby, Columbia Law School student Andrew Leff said he had arrived at 5 a.m. to get a first-row spot to watch the parade for the 23rd time in his 24 years.
"I've never known it any other way and wouldn't want to," he said of his prime viewing spot.
Some were already looking forward to the rest of the day.
Christina Margiotta, of Elmsford, said she was heading home immediately afterward to finish cooking the big meal.
"We left grandma home cooking the turkey, so we're good," she said.
And Greg Packer, of Huntington, said he would be at the stores as soon as they open.
"I expect turkey, and I expect shopping," he said. A few blocks away, a line had already formed outside a Best Buy store, which was scheduled to open at 6 p.m.
In Philadelphia, gusty winds of 28 mph limited use of balloons during the city's Thanksgiving Day Parade, with officials citing concern for the safety of participants and spectators. Instead of flying along the entire route, the balloons soared only around Eakins Oval and the broadcast area near the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Elsewhere in the country, Thanksgiving traditions were largely unaffected by the weather.
Jim Leyland, former manager of the Detroit Tigers, served as grand marshal of that city's Thanksgiving Day parade, which is billed as the nation's second largest, behind New York's. Revelers braved snow showers and slick roads to attend the festivities, which included about two dozen floats and a performance by singer Ruben Studdard.
In Washington, President Barack Obama and his family paused to celebrate a quiet holiday at the White House. Their menu was quintessential Thanksgiving, including turkey, honey-baked ham, cornbread stuffing, greens and six choices of pie.
In New York City, volunteers from Citymeals-on-Wheels helped escort dozens of elderly residents from neighborhoods affected by Superstorm Sandy to a restaurant feast in Manhattan. The organization funded almost 20,500 Thanksgiving meals, including 13,000 delivered in advance to homebound elderly.
On Wednesday, two American astronauts on board the International Space Station, Mike Hopkins and Rick Mastracchio, released a video from 260 miles above Earth showing off their traditional Thanksgiving meal: irradiated smoked turkey, thermostabilized yams, cornbread dressing, potatoes, freeze-dried asparagus, baked beans, bread, cobbler and dehydrated green bean casserole.
___
Associated Press writers Jake Pearson and Seth Borenstein in New York, Jim Kuhnhenn and Darlene Superville in Washington, and Jeff Karoub in Detroit contributed to this report.

China sends warplanes into air defense zone...

       

FILE - In this Sept. 2, 2012 file photo, the survey ship Koyo Maru, left, chartered by Tokyo city officials, sails around Minamikojima, foreground, Kitakojima, middle right, and Uotsuri, background, the tiny islands in the East China Sea, called Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese. South Korean and Japanese flights through China’s new maritime air defense zone added to the international defiance Thursday, Nov. 28, 2013, of rules Beijing says it has imposed in East China Sea but that neighbors and the U.S. have vowed to ignore. (AP Photo/Kyodo News, File) JAPAN OUT, MANDATORY CREDIT

BEIJING (AP) — China said it sent warplanes into its newly declared maritime air defense zone Thursday, days after the U.S., South Korea and Japan all sent flights through the airspace in defiance of rules Beijing says it has imposed in the East China Sea.
China's air force sent several fighter jets and an early warning aircraft on normal air patrols in the zone, the Xinhua agency reported, citing air force spokesman Shen Jinke.
The report did not specify exactly when the flights were sent or whether they had encountered foreign aircraft. The United States, Japan and South Korea have said they have sent flights through the zone without encountering any Chinese response since Beijing announced the creation of the zone last week.
Shen described Thursday's flights as "a defensive measure and in line with international common practices." He said China's air force would remain on high alert and will take measures to protect the country's airspace.
While China's surprise announcement last week to create the zone initially raised some tensions in the region, analysts say Beijing's motive is not to trigger an aerial confrontation but is a more long-term strategy to solidify claims to disputed territory by simply marking the area as its own.
China's lack of efforts to stop the foreign flights — including two U.S. B-52s that flew through the zone on Tuesday — has been an embarrassment for Beijing. Even some Chinese state media outlets suggested Thursday that Beijing may have mishandled the episodes.
"Beijing needs to reform its information release mechanism to win the psychological battles waged by Washington and Tokyo," the Global Times, a nationalist tabloid published by the Communist Party's flagship People's Daily, said in an editorial.
Without prior notice, Beijing began demanding Saturday that passing aircraft identify themselves and accept Chinese instructions or face consequences in an East China Sea zone that overlaps a similar air defense identification zone overseen by Japan since 1969 and initially part of one set up by the U.S. military.
But when tested just days later by U.S. B-52 flights — with Washington saying it made no effort to comply with China's rules, and would not do so in the future — Beijing merely noted, belatedly, that it had seen the flights and taken no further action.
South Korea's military said Thursday its planes flew through the zone this week without informing China and with no apparent interference. Japan also said its planes have been continuing to fly through it after the Chinese announcement, while the Philippines, locked in an increasingly bitter dispute with Beijing over South China Sea islands, said it also was rejecting China's declaration.
Analysts question China's technical ability to enforce the zone due to a shortage of early warning radar aircraft and in-flight refueling capability. However, many believe that China has a long-term plan to win recognition for the zone with a gradual ratcheting-up of warnings and possibly also eventual enforcement action.
"With regard to activity within the zone, nothing will happen — for a while," said June Teufel Dreyer, a China expert at the University of Miami. "Then the zone will become gradually enforced more strictly. The Japanese will continue to protest, but not much more, to challenge it."
That may wear down Japan and effectively change the status quo, she said.
The zone is seen primarily as China's latest bid to bolster its claim over a string of uninhabited Japanese-controlled islands in the East China Sea — known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. Beijing has been ratcheting up its sovereignty claims since Tokyo's privatization of the islands last year.
But the most immediate spark for the zone likely was Japan's threat last month to shoot down drones that China says it will send to the islands for mapping expeditions, said Dennis Blasko, an Asia analyst at think tank CNA's China Security Affairs Group and a former Army attache in Beijing.
The zone comes an awkward time. Although Beijing's ties with Tokyo are at rock bottom, it was building good will and mutual trust with Washington following a pair of successful meetings between President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping. However, the zone feud now threatens to overshadow both the visit by Vice President Joe Biden to Beijing next week and one by Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop expected before the end of the year.
China's defense and foreign ministries offered no additional clarification Thursday as to why Beijing failed to respond to the U.S. Air Force flights. Alliance partners the U.S. and Japan together have hundreds of military aircraft in the immediate vicinity.
China on Saturday issued a list of requirements for all foreign aircraft passing through the area, regardless of whether they were headed into Chinese airspace, and said its armed forces would adopt "defensive emergency measures" against aircraft that don't comply.
Beijing said the notifications are needed to help maintain air safety in the zone. However, the fact that China said it had identified and monitored the two U.S. bombers during their Tuesday flight seems to discredit that justification for the zone, said Rory Medcalf, director of the international security program at Australia's Lowy Institute
"This suggests the zone is principally a political move," Medcalf said. "It signals a kind of creeping extension of authority."
Along with concerns about confrontations or accidents involving Chinese fighters and foreign aircraft, the zone's establishment fuels fears of further aggressive moves to assert China's territorial claims — especially in the hotly disputed South China Sea, which Beijing says belongs entirely to it.
Defense Ministry spokesman Yang Yujun confirmed those concerns on Saturday by saying China would establish additional air defense identification zones "at an appropriate time."
For now, however, China's regional strategy is focused mostly on Japan and the island dispute, according to government-backed Chinese scholars.
China will continue piling the pressure on Tokyo until it reverses the decision to nationalize the islands, concedes they are in dispute, and opens up negotiations with Beijing, said Shen Dingli, a regional security expert and director of the Center for American Studies at Shanghai's Fudan University.

"China has no choice but to take counter measures," Shen said. "If Japan continues to reject admitting the disputes, it's most likely that China will take further measures."

Michelle Obama Responds to Kanye West's Recent Comments..

SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty

Kanye West recently spoke to Ryan Seacrest about a number of things. Here's one of the things he said.

There’s no way Kim Kardashian shouldn’t be on the cover of Vogue. She’s like the most intriguing woman right now. She’s got Barbara Walters calling her like everyday … and collectively we’re the most influential with clothing. No one is looking at what [President] Obama is wearing. Michelle Obama cannot Instagram a [bikini] pic like what my girl Instagrammed the other day … so it’s to say when we are there and [editor-in-chief of French Vogue] Carine Roitfeld supports my girl, that’s a breakthrough … there’s a wall of classism that we are breaking through.”

I can only imagine this is what Michelle Obama had to say in response.

---

Dear Kanye,
Hi, it's Michelle. Michelle Obama, Barack's wife. Barack Obama, the President of the United States of America.
That makes me the First Lady of the United States of America. Me = Michelle Obama.
I hope all is well.
You know, Kanye, I woke up this morning. In the White House. And one of my aides told me she had something to show me. Something that would make me laugh. A "cute" thing, if you will.
It was a series of quotes, Kanye. About my husband and me. About my Vogue magazine cover. And fashion. And classism.
They were your quotes. You were the cute thing, Kanye. And my aide was right. It did make me laugh. Oh, what a hearty White House laugh it was.
Keep my name out your mouth, ya heard.
Tell me, Kanye, what's your goal with this? Why us? Are you still mad about my husband calling you a jackass a few times? Is that why you're focusing on me instead of on all the other women who have been on the cover of Vogue?
That's what this is all about, isn't it? You're out here all mad simply because we're stylin' on you? I know Barack never did apologize for the name-calling, because you know how you men are with your stubbornness.
But it's more than that. It's bigger than fashion. To you, this has become a couple vs. couple thing.
I once overheard some of our summer interns talking about you — about how mad you get when you're compared to other rappers, because your peers are Jesus and Jobs and Walt Disney. I heard it and actually respected that. It shows you have some drive to be a great man. You should fight to get your respect. I see my husband, the President of the Free World, get disrespected every day. And it tears me apart.
So you have to understand where I'm coming from when I say it's laughable for my 21-year marriage to be mentioned on the same website as your thing with Kim.
Imagine if someone compared you to Papoose, Kanye. Well, you're Barack's Papoose. And yes, Kim is my Remy Ma.
My husband's not moving our family out the country so you can't see where we stay. Because he runs the country, you see.
And, again, we live in the White House. Very visible.
Look, Kanye, I'm a fan. You had me the second you brought along Uncle Charlie Wilson, and there's no turning back. I don't think you're crazy at all, and in fact fully think you're saying things that other people are scared to articulate. And, of course, Chicago will always bring us together.
Knowing that, never think that I'm not from Chicago for one second. Barack may be from Hawaii, but I will always be from that 312.
As a woman who loves fashion but never sought to be an iconic figure of some sort, I understand where you're coming from. And your frustrations. You're both deeply embedded in fashion, you and Kim, and daring to match, with the man skirts and silly string bikinis. I hear you even have a little pop-up store next to hers that sells nice Confederate flags.
And there's me, a semi-conservative dresser with my fashion not at the center of my life, and somehow I still ended up on the Vogue cover. And, to make matters worse, I didn't even ask.
They came to me. And get this, I actually had to think about it.
But next time, Kanye, if we can agree to squash this, I will decline and tell them to ask Kim. Will that make you happy? Will that end classism? Will the inclusion of your born-rich future wife break down the walls that my trailblazing old-ladyness seeks to build up? Just let me know.
Because, at the end of the day, who really needs to be on the cover of Vogue for a third time?
In the meantime, there's always Terry Richardson.
Jackass.
Send my love to Kim and baby Nori.
—Michelle

Vienna zoo names baby panda 'Happy Leopard'..

            

Vienna's new baby panda, seen on November 26, 2013, will be named Fu Bao, or Happy Leopard in Mandarin, the city's Schoenbrunn Zoo announced on November 28, 2013, three months after he was born (AFP Photo/Daniel Zupanc)

Vienna (AFP) - Vienna's new baby panda will be named Fu Bao, or Happy Leopard in Mandarin, the city's Schoenbrunn Zoo announced on Thursday, three months after he was born.

The tiny furball caused a sensation when he was born on August 14, giving the zoo its third panda birth in six years.
Schoenbrun is the only zoo in Europe where pandas -- notoriously picky partners -- have reproduced naturally, without artificial insemination.
Mother Yang Yang and father Long Hui had a first cub in 2007, later named Fu Long, or Happy Dragon in Chinese.
His brother Fu Hu -- Happy Tiger -- followed exactly three years later on August 23, 2010.
Both cubs have been returned to China, which only lends pandas to foreign zoos and claims ownership of any cubs born abroad.
According to Chinese tradition, Schoenbrunn Zoo waited 100 days before naming the new cub. The Chinese authorities were also consulted on the name.
"The leopard is considered a courageous and very strong animal in China, alongside the dragon and the tiger," zoo director Dagmar Schratter said Thursday to explain the choice.
At just over three months old, Fu Bao measures over 60 centimetres (two feet) and weighs six kilogrammes (13 pounds). The cub has remained mostly hidden from sight so far, cared for by its mother.

The zoo will hold a naming ceremony on Sunday -- without the still shy Fu Bao, it said.

US offering to destroy Syrian chemicals at sea..

        

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is offering to destroy some of Syria's deadliest chemical weapons in international waters aboard a nearly 700-foot, U.S. government-owned ship, U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The plan, still subject to final approval, would involve destroying the weapons, likely aboard the MV Cape Ray in the Mediterranean Sea, with U.S. Navy warships patrolling nearby.
This approach would avoid the vexing diplomatic, environmental and security problems posed by disposing of the materials on any nation's soil.
The Obama administration has used international oceans in other sensitive cases where land-based options were precluded. The U.S. Navy buried al-Qadia leader Osama bin Laden at sea to avoid his tomb becoming an attraction for extremists. The government has been questioning terror suspects for as long as it takes aboard Navy ships since the CIA closed its secret prisons overseas and President Barack Obama has refused to send more prisoners to the detention center at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The decision to proceed with the chemical disposal plan would be made by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, a global chemical weapons watchdog agency with 190 member states.
In a statement Wednesday in the Netherlands, the watchdog agency said the effort to ship Syria's chemical arsenal out of the country "continues to pose challenges due to the security situation on the ground."
No country has committed to disposing of the chemical weapons on its own soil, which is why the U.S. offer to destroy the deadliest of the chemical components at sea is seen as a likely option.
The U.S. officials who disclosed aspects of the U.S. portion of the plan spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about it by name.
The MV Cape Ray is a Virginia-based ship owned by the Transportation Department. It would host the destruction of some of the deadliest of Syria's chemical materials using a process developed by the Pentagon but never employed in an actual operation.
The U.S. would use what it calls a mobile Field Deployable Hydrolysis System to neutralize the chemical material, making it unusable as weapons. The system was developed by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, which is an arm of the Pentagon. The titanium reactor uses heated water and other chemicals to make the chemical warfare material inert.
According to several U.S. officials, two of the hydrolysis units would be mounted on the Cape Ray. It will take some time to retrofit the ship and conduct training to insure that the process can be done successfully at sea.
Once the mission is finalized and the Cape Ray is ready, it would be transferred to control of the Defense Department's Military Sealift Command. The ship is owned by the Transportation Department's Maritime Administration and is currently based in Portsmouth, Va. It would have a civilian crew.
U.S. officials said they expect to use U.S. Navy ships to provide an escort and security for the operation. There are already a number of Navy warships in the Mediterranean.
As of Wednesday, U.S. officials said they are still trying to determine how the chemical warfare materials would be moved from Syria to the U.S. ship. They said they expect that another country will provide a ship for that part of the task.
Officials said they expect a final decision soon and the operation would begin by the end of the year.
___

Associated Press writers Robert Burns and Deb Riechmann contributed to this report.

Storms upending some holiday travel on East Coast...

                 

                           

CHICAGO (AP) — Bands of heavy rain, ice and snow were upending some holiday travel plans on the East Coast as millions of Americans took to the roads, skies and rails Wednesday for Thanksgiving, but the wintry mix was not causing the widespread gridlock that had been feared.

So far, the storms barreling over the mid-Atlantic and Northeast have not sent flight delays or cancellations rippling out beyond the region to other parts of the nation's air network, and forecasters said the storm would start to loosen its grip on the East Coast as the day wore on.
"Yes, I'm worried," said Sylvia Faban, an 18-year-old college freshman waiting to launch into the heart of the wintry mess in New York from Chicago, where skies were a clear crystal blue. She and a few travel buddies could do little more than slump down on top of their bags at O'Hare International Airport and wait.
"I'm checking the weather in New York," she said as her fingers pecked at her smartphone.
As of early Wednesday, more than 230 flights to, from or within the United States had been canceled, according to the air tracking website FlightAware.com. Most of the scrapped flights were in or out of three major Northeast hubs: Newark Liberty International, Philadelphia International and LaGuardia.
Some of the longest delays were affecting Philadelphia-bound flights, which were being held up at their points of origin for an average of about two hours because of the weather, according to website. The Philadelphia area was under a flood watch with 2-3 inches of rain forecast to fall before colder temperatures turn precipitation to snow.

Holiday Travelers Contend With Wind, Rain, SnowPlay video."

Roads there were snarled. A multi-vehicle crash closed the westbound lanes of the Schuylkill Expressway — Interstate 76 — in the Philadelphia area after eastbound lanes were closed due to flooding on what is traditionally the year's busiest travel day. One lane was later reopened in both directions.
The storm system that developed in the West over the weekend has been blamed in at least 11 deaths, five of them in Texas. But as the storm moved east it wasn't as bad as feared.
A large area of rain was spreading over the Northeast and was expected to gradually move out into the Atlantic and the Canadian Maritimes as the day wore on. Wind was a concern, especially Wednesday morning in Boston. Parts of southeast New England were under a high-wind warning with the potential for wind gusts of up to 60 mph, said Chris Vaccaro, spokesman for the National Weather Service headquarters in Silver Spring, Md.
There was a residual band of snow behind the storm that, as of Wednesday morning, was stretching from western Pennsylvania to West Virginia and into parts of the southeast. It was expected to pivot into parts of the Mid-Atlantic by Wednesday night.
"This is a fairly typical storm for this time of year," Vaccaro said. "Obviously, it's ill-timed because you have a lot of rain and snowfall in areas where people are trying to move around town or fly or drive out of town ... but fortunately, we're at this point going to start seeing a steady improvement in conditions across the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast."

Storm Threatens Holiday Travel in East Play video."

More than 43 million people are to travel over the long holiday weekend, according to AAA. About 39 million of those will be on the roads, while more than 3 million people are expected to filter through airports. The weather could snarl takeoffs and landings at some of the busiest hubs on the East Coast, including New York, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Boston and Charlotte, N.C.
Transportation officials advised travelers to check with their airlines and reduce speed on highways. Travel experts suggested airline passengers might be able to have penalty fees waived if they wanted to change their bookings because of the weather.
Weather woes aside, there were some things for travelers to be happy about this year. The Federal Aviation Administration last month lifted restrictions on the use of most personal electronic devices during takeoffs and landings, and some airlines, including American, have already begun allowing passengers to stay powered up from gate to gate.
"I'm always down for Wi-Fi," said a jazzed-up Chris Reichert, a 20-year-old film student at Northwestern University who was headed from Chicago to Baltimore.
His excitement was lost in the generational gap with some older passengers such as Phyllis Dolinko, 79, of Highland Park, Ill., who was bound for LaGuardia.

View gallery."

Graphic looks at the precipitation forecast for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday; 2c x 3 1/2 inches …

"I have a cellphone (but) I really wouldn't do that anyway," she said of using in-flight services to browse the Web. "That's discourteous," she sniffed.
Her main weather concern was not that she wouldn't be able to make it to New York City to see her family (her flight was listed on time), but rather that high winds on turkey day might prevent the city from sending up giant balloons for the parade.
Most of the country was spared by the weather, and many travelers were pre-occupied by nothing more than whether they'd make a tight connection. Travelers at O'Hare were even surprised by how quiet and orderly it was.
Others, like Pat Wilson in suburban Detroit, were just excited to set off on a new journey.
She and her immediate family have never ventured from home before for Thanksgiving, but decided to get on an Amtrak train from Dearborn to Chicago after her 9-year-old granddaughter said she really wanted to go there.
"She requested it," said Wilson, 65, adding that the visit will almost certainly include a stop at the city's American Girl store, a mecca for girls who are fans of the specialty dolls.
___
Associated Press Writers Don Babwin in Chicago, Jeff Karoub in Dearborn, Mich., and Kristi Eaton in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.

"Dog of the Year," After Massive Recovery and Adoption, Helped Autistic Boy Overcome Fears..

Xena, the "Warrior Dog," is a Staffordshire terrier mix who was rescued from the brink of death by veterinarians and a loving family. Jonny Hickey, part of that family, is an autistic 8-year-old boy who had problems coming out of his shell.

Xena was 4 lbs when she entered the shelter.

The way the two have helped each other is nothing short of remarkable. Xena was taken to the Dekalb Animal Services Shelter in March of this year at just four pounds, deeply malnourished. Veterinarians were able to bring her slowly back to health, and she was shortly thereafter adopted by the Hickey family.

Xena and Jonny became fast friends

Jonny's mother, Linda Hickey, says that immediately, Jonny and Xena were pals. She says that Jonny went from being "painfully shy" to being an "outgoing chatterbox." She added, "These two were destined to be together, to save each other at a level that humans just can't understand."
The pair's relationship got some attention from the ASPCA, which at its annual awards show on Thursday crowned (literally, with a tiara) Xena "Dog of the Year." Of course, Jonny was in tow to help accept the award. Linda Hickey said that he would never have been able to attend something as nerve-racking as an awards show before Xena came into his life. In a photo, Xena wears a sign reading, "Who Rescued Who." In this case, it looks like the answer is: both.
How has an animal helped you through difficulties? Tell your story on our Facebook page or by following us on Twitter @YahooTrending.

 

Central African Republic says France to boost troops..

 

A French soldier conducts reconnaissance on the roof of the Mpoko airport in Bangui November 23, 2013. …

By John Irish

PARIS (Reuters) - France will triple the number of its soldiers in the Central African Republic to 1,200 to bolster security after months of violence, the war-torn nation's prime minister said on Monday.
The mineral-rich but impoverished nation of 4.6 million people has descended into chaos since Seleka rebels, many of them from neighboring Chad and Sudan, ousted President Francois Bozize in March.
Prime Minister Nicolas Tiangaye said French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius had told him the reinforcements would arrive once the U.N. Security Council had voted on a resolution backing he force over the next week.
"We spoke about the security question. France has 410 soldiers now in Bangui and that will be strengthened by 800, to take the number to 1,200. More if needed," Tiangaye told Reuters after meeting Fabius in Paris.
The U.S. State Department estimates that nearly 400,000 people have been displaced and 68,000 have fled to neighboring countries since Seleka leader and interim president Michel Djotodia lost control of his loose coalition of warlords.
The violence has increasingly pitted Seleka's mainly Muslim fighters against Christian militias. Christians make up half the population and Muslims 15 percent.
Tiangaye said the new troops would help secure the road from neighboring Cameroon to the riverside capital Bangui, allowing supply trucks into the landlocked country.
The deployment was expected to begin in December after the passing of a Security Council resolution authorizing French-backed African troops to intervene, Tiangaye said.
"What is unacceptable is that the situation has become worse and there are multiple crimes against humanity in the country and my concern is to put an end to this as quickly as possible," he added.
SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL
Rights group Amnesty International warned on Monday that the Central African Republic crisis was spinning out of control.
"People are dying in the Central African Republic as we speak," said Amnesty Secretary General Salil Shetty in a statement.
The African Union plans to deploy a 3,600-member peacekeeping mission, known as MISCA, in the country.
A draft resolution to authorize the AU force could be circulated among the 15 members of the Security Council as early as this week, U.N. diplomats said, ahead of the planned adoption in early December.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this month said he had also ordered officials to start preparing for the likely deployment of a larger U.N. peacekeeping mission.
The initial strength of the force should be 6,000 troops and 1,700 police, with an option of increasing the size to 9,000 troops if the situation worsened, Ban added.
U.N. Deputy-Secretary-General Jan Eliasson told the 15-member Security Council on Monday that the transfer of MISCA to a U.N. peacekeeping operation would take some time.
"We therefore urge the international community to now support MISCA in as comprehensive and predictable manner as possible, but to also begin considering the option of a United Nations peacekeeping operation," he said.
Eliasson said Central African Republic was becoming a breeding ground for extremists and armed groups.
"If this situation is left to fester, it may develop into a religious and ethnic conflict with longstanding consequences, even a civil war that could spread into neighboring countries," he added.

(Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols in New York; Writing by Bate Felix)

Flickr fall-color photo contest winners...

 

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In the foreground of Jane Wei's "Golden Autumn" photo, the fiery yellow tufts of leaves perch atop stark-white aspen trunks. Far in the background, the cold-blue snow-crusted peaks of Colorado's Kebler Pass offer a contrast to fall's changing colors on the mountains' slopes.

The amazing melange of vivid autumn hues and breathtaking scenery helped Wei's photo capture the top spot in the first joint Yahoo News and Flickr photography contest.

Said one of the contest's judges: "Jane's image is technically superb! The contrast of the brilliant fall colors against the deep blues of the impending winter presents this magnificent surreal landscape. Her composition pulls the viewer deep into the image and invites one to ponder what lies beyond the snow-capped mountains. Well done!"

Wei shared more about her photo: "This was my first time seeing fall color in Colorado. Driving 14-plus hours from San Diego to Colorado was not as hard as I thought. After I slept in the car for a couple of hours the first night, I was overwhelmed for the next seven days by the beauty of Colorado, whether it is the snow on the mountains, the aspens or running creeks. This particular shot captured the prime time of Colorado's colorful trees with the snowy mountains."

Our four runners-up were Bob Gundersen's "Beneath the Japanese Feather Maple," Barry Nardone's "Covered Up," William O'Shea's "River one," and Sairam Saravanan's "Fall House."

We received 1,138 photos from 586 entrants and saw some dazzling displays of fall foliage from across the globe. See all the entries in our Flickr group.

Wei won a $500 Visa gift card. The four runners-up each received a $100 Amazon.com gift card. They will all receive Flickr T-shirts. If you missed this contest, don't worry. We'll announce a second contest soon in our Yahoo News: Your Photos group on Flickr.

Past and present: balloons of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade..

 

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A storm bearing down on the East Coast with a messy mix of snow, rain and wind is threatening to ground giant balloon versions of Snoopy and SpongeBob SquarePants in the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

The iconic characters that soar between the Manhattan skyscrapers every year may not lift off Thursday if sustained winds exceed 23 mph and gusts exceed 34 mph, according to city rules enacted after fierce winds in 1997 caused a Cat in the Hat balloon to topple a light pole and seriously injure a woman spectator. (AP)

New Housecat-Size Feline Species Discovered...

                    

 

An oncilla (Leopardus guttulus) found in southern Brazil. They are one of the smallest cats in South …

Don't judge a cat by its cover.

Oncillas are housecat-size felines found throughout much of South America, and are also known as little tiger cats, little spotted cats or tigrinas. But not all oncillas are the same: New research suggests that little tiger cats in northeastern Brazil belong to a different species from those elsewhere on the continent, although they look virtually identical.
Researchers analyzed the genetic material of oncillas in northeastern Brazil, and compared them with nearby populations in the south. They found that there was no flow of genes between the two populations of oncillas, and hasn't been any for millennia, according to the study, published today (Nov. 27) in the journal Current Biology.
This, along with other genetic differences, led researchers to conclude the two populations do not interbreed and are in fact different species, said study co-author Eduardo Eizirik, a researcher at Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. [In Photos: Tiger Species of the World]
The study "illustrates how much is still unknown about the natural world, even in groups that are supposed to be well-characterized, such as cats," Eizirik told LiveScience. "In fact, there are many basic aspects that we still don't know about wild cats, from their precise geographic distribution and their diets to even species-level delimitation, as in this case."
Since this population of oncillas is a unique new species, there is an urgent need to learn more about it and its rarity; for example, whether or not it may need protection under conservation laws, Eizirik added.
Both species of little tiger cats live in rainforests and savannahs, and sport yellowish-ochre fur with a black rosettelike pattern. Though the cats primarily live on the ground, they are agile tree climbers, and feed on birds and small mammals like rodents, according to the University of Michigan. They are one of the smallest cats in South America, maxing out at 3 kilograms (about 6.5 lbs.).

Eizirik and colleagues have given the species in the south a new name, Leopardus guttulus, while the species in the northeast shall be known as Leopardus tigrina. The authors found that in the distant past, the northeastern species interbred, or hybridized, with an entirely different species known as the Pampas cat. This interbreeding may have helped the two oncilla species diverge, Eizirik said.

Giant spinning ice circle discovered in North Dakota’s Sheyenne River..

Retired engineer videotapes event he describes as 'an amazing wonder'; disc measured 50 feet in diameter         

North Dakota’s giant spinning ice circle; photo is a screen shot

Just about everyone has heard of crop circles, but ice circles?
A retired engineer this week discovered an enormous circle of ice spinning slowly down North Dakota’s Sheyenne River (video posted below).
George Loegering described the rare phenomenon as “an amazing wonder” and can be heard in the video saying that the perfectly round, alien-like disc measured about 50 feet in diameter.

These ice circles, or ice discs, are believed to be formed by eddy currents, and are found only in slow-moving water. Rotational sheer is a scientific explanation of the event. (Picture a large chunk of surface ice breaking free atop a whirlpool eddy, and venturing downstream.)
While the phenomenon is considered rare, ice discs have been documented several times in recent years, in such locations as England, Russia, and the northern United States.
Most of those, however, were small by comparison.
According to Science Frontiers, a spinning ice disc with a diameter of 160 feet was discovered in Sweden’s Pite River in 1987.
The publication stated: “The fringe literature has made much of the huge, slowly spinning discs of ice seen on some rivers in northern climes. UFOs are connected somehow. Or, more recently, they must be associated with the infamous crop circles!”
Presumably, there is no UFO connection to ice circles. But they’re pretty mysterious-looking.

American Regional English dictionary going online...

  

                           

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — University of Wisconsin students and researchers set out in "word wagons" nearly 50 years ago to record the ways Americans spoke in various parts of the country.

Now, they're doing it again, only virtually.
This time they won't be lugging reel-to-reel tape recorders or sleeping in vans specially equipped with beds, stoves and sinks. Instead, work to update the Dictionary of American Regional English is being done in front of computers, reading online survey results.
"Of course, language changes and a lot of people have the notion that American English is becoming homogenized," said Joan Houston Hall, who has worked on the dictionary since 1975 and served as its editor since 2000.
The only way to determine if that is true, though, is to do more research, she said.
The dictionary, known as DARE, has more than 60,000 entries exposing variances in the words, phrases, pronunciations, and pieces of grammar and syntax used throughout the country. Linguists consider it a national treasure, and it has been used by everyone from a criminal investigator in the 1990s tracking down the Unabomber to Hollywood dialect coaches trying to be as authentic as possible.

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File - In this Feb. 6, 2012 file photo Joan Houston Hall, editor of the Dictionary of American Regio …

The dictionary can help explain why skeezicks (an affectionate term for rascally children used mainly in the northern Mid-Atlantic region) play hopscotch in most places, except Manhattan where it may be called potsy or in Chicago where it's known as sky blue.
Usually, when people each bring a dish to share it's a potluck dinner. Except in Indiana, where it may be called a pitch-in. In northern Illinois it's a scramble.
And then there's the bubbler, the Wisconsin way (common in the southeast corner of the state) of referring to a drinking fountain.
The dictionary chronicles American English words and phrases like those, while also giving readers a broad history of how English is spoken in the U.S. It traces popular, and not-so-popular, words and phrases to their origins. Then it breaks down how they've been used, with maps showing their geographic range.
"Think of every language as being a country," said Erin McKean, founder and leader of the online dictionary Wordnik and a past editor of the New Oxford American Dictionary. "DARE is the only map of American English that shows where the words live and how they're used by whom."

View gallery."

In this March 3, 2009 file photo are volumes 1 through 4 of the Dictionary of American Regional Engl …

She called DARE one of the 10 most important dictionary projects ever undertaken.
The first of five print volumes, which only covered A through C, came out in 1985. The final one, covering "Slab" through "Zydeco," was released in 2012. Along with a sixth volume that contains maps and other data, the collection takes up 14 inches on a book shelf, spans 6,624 pages, and weighs about 33 pounds.
And soon, anyone who has been searching hell-for-leather (in great haste, mainly used in the West) for an electronic version of the dictionary will be able to get one. Harvard University Press, which publishes the dictionary, plans to put out a Web-based version of it Monday that allows users to hear the original field recordings of words and phrases being spoken, to customize their use of the data and to view maps showing different uses of words throughout the country.
Subscribing to the online site will cost $150 a year. Buying all six volumes of the book version will set you back $740.
Even though no new research has been done for the dictionary since 1970, Hall said she hopes it can now be updated more frequently now that it is going online. The key will be gathering new data tracking how language has changed, or stayed the same, since the first round of field work ended 43 years ago.
But why not break out the 21st century version of the "word wagon" and head out in the field again?
"Because it would be way too expensive and time-consuming," Hall said, laughing.
So, instead, Hall is loading up the virtual "word wagon" also known as the online survey.
The survey, based largely on the original questionnaire but updated to remove outdated references like farming with wooden plows, will only gather information from the original 22 Wisconsin communities where the first field work was done. It will also be administered to people living in 30 other communities chosen to reflect the state's current demographics.
That survey work, which began this week, is scheduled to be done by June 2015. The results will be used to make adjustments to the survey's methodology before attempting to use it nationwide to show changes in language from the original survey, Hall said.
Maybe when the next phase is done, it will be hog-killing time (a southern term for a loud, boisterous party).