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"PositiveID (PSID) is to begin a study of its Health Link implantable microchip in diabetic, hypertensive and obese patients. The study -like everything else associated with the company formerly known as VeriChip - is bound to be controversial. The Health Link chip is implanted under a patient's skin. It can be scanned to access the patient's online medical records. The company's critics fear the chip will one day become mandatory, leading to a complete loss of medical privacy, or that Americans will be unable to receive healthcare unless they get chipped. BNET has noted that PositiveID also owns a credit monitoring and identity-theft prevention company, Steel Vault, and that it envisions its chips being linked to Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT) and employers. PositiveID linked credit monitoring and the Health Link chip in its most recent 10-Q. While PositiveID's press release gives few specifics, it indicates that the study will have something to do with the Health Link chip and customers of HealthScreenDirect, a company that offers screening for diabetes and high cholesterol. Its says the study will be: … a prospective, randomized, comparative clinical study that will seek to address improving disease management through the use of appropriate, concise, and up-to-date patient health information available to both practitioners caring for diabetic, hypertensive and obese patients and the patients themselves through the utilization of PositiveID's personal health record (Health Link) and an electronic medical records system. PositiveID CEO Scott R. Silverman said in the statement that the study will also advance the company's in-development glucose-sensing chip. Silverman is doubtless hoping that patients with the chip - and with their health records online - will have better outcomes in terms of managing their diabetes than those doing it the old-fashioned way. The unanswered question is why health record access - or even a microchip

"MONTPELIER, Vt. - Snow falling like New Year's confetti joined forces with a chill that dipped deep to the South on Monday to close schools, delay commuters, threaten fruit farmers and shut down at least one nuclear power plant. A weekend snowstorm dumped an all-time record of more than 33 inches on Burlington, the largest city in Vermont. That broke a single-storm record of nearly 30 inches set in 1969. "It just dropped a tremendous amount of snow," said Steve Goodkind, public works director for the city of Burlington, which had a dozen plows and nine sidewalk snow removers out Monday. "It looks like mid-January, after we'd have a bunch of smaller storms." Most Vermonters took it in stride. Others took it too far: Vermont State Police cited a man after stopping him pulling a sled - with a rider in it - behind his car on Interstate 89 on Sunday. The driver was cited for driving with a suspended license. In upstate New York, it was a similar scene. So-called "lake effect snow" blanketed parts of the state with more than 3 feet. Fulton, in Oswego County, had received 42 inches since last Friday night, while Williamson, which is on Lake Ontario east of Rochester, got nearly 27 inches, according to the National Weather Service."

"Would you ever accept government welfare? Would you look down on someone who does? Well, if you would look down on a fellow American who receives food stamps then get ready to look down on a massive sea of people. The truth is that over 37 million Americans now receive food stamps, and the program is expanding at a pace of about 20,000 people a day. As hordes of Americans have been forced out of their jobs and their homes, millions are finding that the only way they can make it is to accept food stamps. For many it is a tremendously humbling moment to turn to the government for help, and for so many millions to be dependent on the food stamps program is yet another indication of how deep the economic despair in America has gotten. Most of the time you won't even notice them being used at the checkout counters. Today food stamps take the form of inconspicuous plastic cards and they can be used to purchase a wide variety of food items. A record 37.2 million people, which is approximately one out of every eight Americans, received food stamps in September, and that number is growing rapidly. In particular, children are being enrolled in this program in staggering numbers. One out of every four children in America now gets assistance from food stamps each month. In fact, it is projected that half of all U.S. kids will be on food stamps at some point in their lives. So if nobody in your family has ever had to go on food stamps consider yourself to be very fortunate. Things are particularly bad in rural areas such as Tennessee. Nearly 1,186,000 people who live in Tennessee, or more than one in six residents, currently receive some kind of food stamp assistance and that number is rapidly increasing. But there are places where things are even worse. In fact, there are 239 counties in the United States where at least a quarter of the population now receives food stamps. Not only that, but it has now come out that about one in 50 Americans lives in a hous

"PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - The largest earthquake ever recorded in the area shook Haiti on Tuesday, collapsing a hospital where people screamed for help. Other buildings also were damaged and scientists said they expected "substantial damage and casualties." With communications disrupted there were no reports of deaths or injuries soon after the quake, as powerful aftershocks shook the country. The earthquake had a preliminary magnitude of 7.0 and was centered about 10 miles (15 kilometers) west of the capital of Port-au-Prince, the U.S. Geological Survey said. It had a depth of 5 miles (8 kilometers). It was the largest quake recorded in the area, said USGS analyst Dale Grant, and the last major one since a magnitude-6.7 temblor in 1984. An Associated Press videographer saw the wrecked hospital in Petionville, a hillside Port-au-Prince district that is home to many diplomats and wealthy Haitians. Elsewhere, a U.S. government official reported seeing houses that had tumbled into a ravine. Haiti's ambassador to the U.S., Raymond Joseph, said from his Washington office that he spoke to President Rene Preval's chief of staff, Fritz Longchamp, just after the quake hit. He said Longchamp told him that "buildings were crumbling right and left" near the national palace. He said he has not gotten through by phone to Haiti since. Don Blakeman, an analyst at the USGS in Golden, Colorado, said such a strong quake carried the potential for widespread damage."

"I spent twenty-two years serving in the Colorado criminal justice arena. I worked as a municipal police patrolman, a police detective, a patrol sergeant, and as a uniformed county sheriff's deputy and detective. Following twenty years as a cop, I also spent two years on the other side of t he Courtroom as an Investigator for the Colorado State Public Defender's Office. So, I saw crime and punishment from both sides of the Courtroom. I spent my share of time at crime scenes gathering facts and evidence, then in Courts of Law, presenting the evidence and testifying under oath in trials. Sometimes, warrant in hand, I actually kicked in doors and made arrests at gunpoint, but not exactly like this Clint Eastwood "Dirty Harry" operation. Real cops don't get to do business like Dirty Harry did - but it is fun to watch his movies. To convince a judge to sign a search or arrest warrant I had to first make sure that in preparing my affidavit for arrest or search warrant I had jumped through all of the hoops within the Fourth Amendment, which guarantees protection from unreasonable police searches of our homes, and capricious or illegal arrests. All of my reports, photos, and collected evidence were a matter of public record, available to defense attorneys through motions for discovery, to lay members of the public, and to members of the press via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Imagine now a foreign international police department that does not have to worry about the constraints of the Fourth Amendment, an agency that has license to bypass American Courts of Law, can investigate and arrest American citizens within our own borders, haul them off to Court in a foreign land, and does not have to reveal any records or documents to anyone in the United States. Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. I can foresee American military officers and enlisted personnel, CIA agents, former White House policy makers, even Dick Cheney and George Bush in jeo

"Almost 1,500 earthquakes have been recorded in Yellowstone National Park during a recent swarm over the last two weeks. Since Jan. 17 when the swarm began, there have been 1,497 earthquakes with magnitude 0.4 to 3.8 recorded on the west side of the park through 9 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 28, the park said in a news release. Over the last couple days, a pair of earthquakes of magnitude 3.1 and 3.2 occurred in the park, according to the University of Utah Seismograph Stations. The magnitude 3.1 event occurred at 12:52 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 27. The magnitude 3.2 occurred at 1:46 a.m. Jan. 28. Both shocks happened about nine miles to the southeast of West Yellowstone and about 10 miles to the northwest of Old Faithful. Both quakes were reported felt in the park. The largest earthquake in the swarm as of 9 a.m. Jan. 28 was a magnitude 3.8. Of the 1,497 located earthquakes, 12 events were of magnitude larger than 3, 111 events were of magnitude 2 to 3, and 1,374 events were of magnitude less than 2. There have been multiple personal reports of ground shaking from observers inside the park and in surrounding areas for some of the larger events, according to the park. Earthquake swarms are relatively common in Yellowstone, the park said. "Yellowstone Volcano Observatory scientists still consider that the swarm events are likely the result of slip on pre-existing faults and are not thought to be caused by underground movement of magma. Currently there is no indication of premonitory volcanic or hydrothermal activity, but ongoing observations and analyses will continue to evaluate these different sources," the park said in the news release. Click here for felt reports."

"A little-discussed executive order from President Obama giving foreign cops new police powers in the United States by exempting them from such drudgery as compliance with the Freedom of Information Act is raising alarm among commentators who say INTERPOL already had most of the same privileges as diplomats. At David Horowitz's Newsreal, Michael van der Galien said the issue is Obama's expansion of President Ronald Reagan's order from 1983 that originally granted those diplomatic privileges. Reagan's order carried certain exemptions requiring that INTERPOL operations be subject to several U.S. laws such as the Freedom of Information Act. Obama, however, removed those restrictions in his Dec. 16 amendment to Executive Order 12425. That means, van der Galien wrote today, "this foreign law enforcement organization can operate free of an important safeguard against government and abuse." Get "Hope of the Wicked: Master Plan to Rule the World" from the WND Superstore! "'Property and assets,' including the organization's records, cannot be searched or seized. Their physical locations are now immune from U.S. legal or investigative authorities," he wrote. Obama's order said he was removing the Reagan limitations on INTERPOL:"

"Saturday's 6.5 temblor off California's remote North Coast was the strongest to hit the state in six years, but it caused few injuries and little major damage aside from downed chimneys, broken windows and rattled nerves. But experts say it could have been far worse. Because the epicenter was located in solid rock about 25 miles offshore - and the rural region's population is scattered and resides primarily in wood-frame housing - damage was minimal for a quake of that size. The quake was also a powerful reminder that the area is the seismic capital of our state, yet its turbulence receives far less attention than quakes in the Bay Area and Los Angeles Basin. Every year at least 80 temblors with magnitudes over 3 are recorded off the Cape Mendocino coast, according to the University of California-Berkeley Seismology Laboratory. Humboldt County officials reported that more than two dozen residents sought emergency medical care, with only one serious injury - a broken hip. The picturesque city of Eureka, the hardest-hit community in the region, reported $12.5 million in structural damage, with 14 residents displaced. "On the whole, I think we dodged a bullet," said state Assemblyman Wesley Chesbro, D-Eureka. Most Californians are anxious about the San Andreas Fault, yet the so-called Cascadia subduction zone - which created Mount Lassen - is twice the length of the San Andreas and is believed capable Advertisement Quantcast of generating larger quakes than our notorious fault."

"A powerful earthquake shook Haiti on Tuesday, leveling buildings in the capital, Port-au-Prince, and sending panicked residents into the streets, as beleaguered authorities braced for major casualties. The quake, which had a preliminary magnitude of 7.0, occurred about 4:45 p.m. and was centered about 10 miles west of the capital. The U.S. Geological Survey said it was the largest temblor ever recorded in Haiti, and witnesses reported a series of strong aftershocks. "People are out in the streets, crying, screaming, shouting," said Karel Zelenka, director of the Catholic Relief Services office in Haiti. "They see the extent of the damage," he said, but could do little to rescue people trapped under rubble because night had fallen. "There are a lot of collapsed buildings," Zelenka said in a telephone interview from Port-au-Prince. "This will be a major, major disaster." He reported that poorly constructed shantytowns and other buildings had crumbled in huge clouds of dust. Near the CRS headquarters, a supermarket was "completely razed," he said, and a gasoline station and a church were reduced to rubble. Among the worst-hit areas was the impoverished Carrefour section of Port-au-Prince near the sea. "

"That type of rocket launcher has been used in Iraq and Afghanistan. The renter of the apartment didn't want to talk to KPRC Local 2. "This is my house," the woman said. " Get away from here. I don't want to talk to nobody." The woman did tell police that the rocket launcher belonged to Nabilaye I. Yansane, someone whom she allowed to store items at her apartment. Police records show that she didn't want Yansane at her apartment, so she called them. According to court documents, officers also found Jihadist writings that allegedly belonged to Yansane. The woman didn't want to talk to KPRC Local 2 about that, either. "I don't know," she said. "You'll have to ask the police." Yansane was charged with criminal trespassing and pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to three days in jail, which he has already served. No charges related to the rocket launcher or writings were filed. "Other people could have had access to the apartment, so maybe if a rocket launcher was located there, as is stated in the offense report, maybe it belonged to somebody else," attorney Garl Polland said. Prosecutors said there are no state charges for having the unarmed launcher or possessing Jihadist writings, unless they contain some type of threat. The former director of Houston's FBI office said rocket launchers can be dangerous if they're in the wrong hands."

Jan. 2 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. East Coast faces the coldest night of the season as frigid air spills south and threatens agriculture in Georgia, Alabama and the orange crop in Florida. Freeze warnings were posted by the National Weather Service as far south as the Orlando area, which may be as many as 20 degrees below normal tonight, the National Weather Service said. The advisory alerts growers that subfreezing temperatures are imminent and may kill crops or other sensitive vegetation. Tampa and others cities in the central part of the state are under a freeze warning from 1 a.m. to 9 a.m. local time tomorrow. Temperatures may fall below 32 degrees Fahrenheit (zero Celsius) for more than three consecutive hours, the National Weather Service in Tampa said on its Web site. "This is a pretty significant cold snap," Matt Keefe, a meteorologist with AccuWeather.com Inc. in State College, Pennsylvania, said in a telephone interview. "This could really put a hurting on the citrus crop." He said the jet stream, which normally keeps the coldest air north of the Hudson Bay in Canada, is centered over parts of Alabama and Mississippi. "The cold temperatures could last for a good part of the week," he said. Jacksonville, Florida, may see a record low tonight, Keefe said. The Miami area will see temperatures 12 degrees to 13 degrees below normal for this time of year, Keefe said. Tonight will be the coldest and offer the greatest danger of crop damage, Keefe said. The next chance for freezing will come next week.

"A California judge today tentatively scheduled a trial for Jan. 26, 2010, for a case that challenges Barack Obama's eligibility to be president based on questions over his qualifications under the requirements of the U.S. Constitution. If the case actually goes to arguments before U.S. District Judge David Carter, it will be the first time the merits of the dispute have been argued in open court, according to one of the attorneys working on the issue. In a highly anticipated hearing today before Carter, several motions were heard, including a resolution to long-standing questions about whether attorney Orly Taitz properly served notice on the defendants, which she had. In a second ruling, Carter ordered that attorney Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation can be added to the case to represent plaintiffs Wiley Drake and Markham Robinson, who had been removed by an earlier court order. Drake, the vice presidential candidate for the American Independent Party, and Robinson, the party's chairman, also were restored to the case. Want to know for certain where Obama was born? Demand the truth by joining the petition campaign to make President Obama reveal his long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate! But the judge did not immediately rule on Taitz' motion to be granted discovery - that is the right to see the president's still-concealed records. Nor did Carter rule immediately on a motion to dismiss the case, submitted by the U.S. government, following discussion over Taitz' challenge to the work of a magistrate in the case. The judge did comment that if there are legitimate constitutional questions regarding Obama's eligibility, they need to be addressed and resolved. Carter ordered a hearing Oct. 5 on the motion to dismiss and ordered arguments submitted on the issue of discovery. If the case survives that challenge, a pretrial hearing has been scheduled for Jan. 11 and the trial for two weeks later. The case would be the first time, accor

"A 19-year-old man was fatally shot in the face and two men were arrested on drug charges after fleeing police in separate incidents that occurred near the route for Monday's Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade, according to Baltimore police. About 2:30 p.m., after the parade had finished but with roads still shut down, an off-duty officer near the 600 block of W. Hoffman St. said he heard gunshots. Officers found a man inside an apartment in the 1000 block of Pennsylvania Ave., about two blocks from Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds to his face and chest. He was taken by ambulance to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he was listed in critical condition, police said. The man, identified as Darius Goines of the 600 block of Murphy Lane, was pronounced dead at about 8:30 p.m. last night, according to Nicole Monroe, a police spokeswoman. A motive is not known, though court records show Goines was on probation for a drug distribution conviction in April 2009. Authorities were looking for a silver Toyota with a driver wearing a ski mask. He was last seen heading east on Preston Street. Earlier, about 1 p.m., two men were sitting in a vehicle on Lombard Street just west of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard when a traffic officer approached. Donny Moses, a city police spokesman, said the driver "got spooked" and put the car in reverse. Moses said the driver sped east on Lombard, then turned onto the 800 block of West Baltimore St., all while in reverse, and struck a parked University of Maryland police car. The occupants ran but were caught and arrested, Moses said. He said about two ounces of marijuana was found in the vehicle. Antonio Wilkens, 31, and Corey Wilkens, 30, both of the 5900 block of Fenwick Ave., were charged, Moses said."

"PARIS (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Friday proposed setting up a group of 28 countries to guide global negotiations on climate change and avoid a repetition of last year's chaotic talks in Copenhagen. In a New Year address to the diplomatic community, Sarkozy said United Nations climate negotiations in Copenhagen in December had failed because of the huge number of countries involved in preparing the accord. "The main lesson from Copenhagen is that you can't negotiate in a round of 192," Sarkozy said, arguing that national leaders had arrived in the Danish capital to sign the accord only to find an illegible text full of disputed clauses. He proposed forming a "balanced, representative" group of 28 countries that would provide ideas and prepare for the next round of negotiations in Cancun. He did not name any of the proposed participants. "The wisest option would be to pursue a twin strategy -- talks among the 192, as that involves the whole international community, and among ministers and sherpas from the Group of 28," he said. Sarkozy said he wanted the Group of 28 to hold monthly meetings, starting in March, in New York or Bonn. Last month's Copenhagen talks ended with a bare-minimum agreement when delegates "noted" a deal struck by the United States, China and other emerging powers that fell short of the conference's original goals. Mexico will host the next talks in Cancun in November/December, building on the Copenhagen deal which seeks to limit the rise in temperature to 2 Celsius above the average recorded in pre-industrial times. The Copenhagen accord did not spell out how to achieve that goal."

"LONDON (Reuters) - China and India sharply raised defence spending in 2009 despite the economic crisis but most European NATO members face a squeeze on defence budgets as they rein in gaping deficits, a report said on Wednesday. The impact of the global financial crisis on defence and security spending varied across regions and countries, the International Institute for Strategic Studies thinktank said in its annual report "The Military Balance". U.S. defence spending almost doubled under former President George W. Bush but President Barack Obama had signalled that the need to tackle a big budget deficit would require "a dramatic reprioritisation within defence spending," it said. Obama asked Congress this week to approve a record $708 billion in defence spending for fiscal 2011 -- including a 3.4 percent increase in the Pentagon's base budget -- but said he would continue his drive to eliminate wasteful programmes. A sharp recession had led the Russian government effectively to abandon a comprehensive military re-equipment plan due to run from 2007-15 and to replace it with a new 10-year plan starting in 2011, the report said. "In contrast to developments in advanced economies, both India and China have maintained their recent trend of double-digit increases in defence spending," it said. India boosted defence spending by 21 percent in 2009 after the 2008 Mumbai attacks killed 166 people, it said."

"January 25, 2010 | LIKE THIS ARTICLE ? Join our mailing list: Sign up to stay up to date on the latest headlines via email. Advertisement One moment there was the hum of a motor in the sky above. The next, on a recent morning in Afghanistan's Helmand province, a missile blasted a home, killing 13 people. Days later, the same increasingly familiar mechanical whine preceded a two-missile salvo that slammed into a compound in Degan village in the tribal North Waziristan district of Pakistan, killing three. What were once unacknowledged, relatively infrequent targeted killings of suspected militants or terrorists in the Bush years have become commonplace under the Obama administration. And since a devastating December 30th suicide attack by a Jordanian double agent on a CIA forward operating base in Afghanistan, unmanned aerial drones have been hunting humans in the Af-Pak war zone at a record pace. In Pakistan, an "unprecedented number" of strikes -- which have killed armed guerrillas and civilians alike -- have led to more fear, anger, and outrage in the tribal areas, as the CIA, with help from the U.S. Air Force, wages the most public "secret" war of modern times. In neighboring Afghanistan, unmanned aircraft, for years in short supply and tasked primarily with surveillance missions, have increasingly been used to assassinate suspected militants as part of an aerial surge that has significantly outpaced the highly publicized "surge" of ground forces now underway. And yet, unprecedented as it may be in size and scope, the present ramping up of the drone war is only the opening salvo in a planned 40-year Pentagon surge to create fleets of ultra-advanced, heavily-armed, increasingly autonomous, all-seeing, hypersonic unmanned aerial systems (UAS). Today's Surge Drones are the hot weapons of the moment and the upcoming Quadrennial Defense Review -- a soon-to-be-released four-year outline of Department of Defense strategies, capabi

"DES MOINES, Iowa - Snow was piled so high in Iowa that drivers couldn't see across intersections and a North Dakota snowblower repair shop was overwhelmed with business as heavy snow and wind chills as low as 52 below zero blasted much of the Midwest on Thursday. Frigid weather also gripped the South, where a rare cold snap was expected to bring snow and ice Thursday to states from South Carolina to Louisiana. Forecasters said wind chills could drop to near zero at night in some areas. In Bowbells, in northwestern North Dakota, the wind chill hit 52-below zero Thursday morning. "The air freezes your nostrils, your eyes water and your chest burns from breathing - and that's just going from the house to your vehicle," said Jane Tetrault, the Burke County deputy auditor. Her vehicle started, but the tires were frozen. "It was bump, bump, bump all the way to work with the flat spots on my tires," Tetrault said. "It was a pretty rough ride." Other parts of the Midwest also had dangerously cold wind chills, including negative 40 in parts of South Dakota and minus 27 in northeast Nebraska, according to the National Weather Service. Equally disturbing chills were expected overnight Friday."

"The snow is expected to start falling during the late afternoon in the South East and get very heavy by the evening. With Arctic temperatures affecting the whole of the country the National Grid was forced to issue an alert for just the SECOND time in history. The National Grid warned power suppliers to use less gas after seeing a 30 per cent rise on normal seasonal demand during the cold snap. But Prime Minister Gordon Brown today denied the country was facing a gas supply crisis. During a visit to the London Gateway port construction site, near Thurrock, Essex, the PM said: "I think Britain can deal with these problems. "There are always difficulties when we have a long spell of bad weather. But we can cope." "