Author: Sunfire

RT News

A new offer is available for fans of the Game of Thrones series, and it’s simply to die for. GoT author George RR Martin is raising money for charity, and for $20,000 he’ll write you in — and kill you off — in a future book.

The 65-year-old writer announced this week that he’s raising donations for the Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary in Candy Kitchen, New Mexico, and the top award offered on his crowdfunding site is letting fans get involved with his smash series like never before.   Continue reading “George Martin is ready to kill you for $20k”

RT News

Elon Musk, the inventor and technology billionaire who recently debuted a rocket that he hopes will travel to Mars, has filed suit against the US Air Force claiming the military currently relies on an unfair billing process that costs taxpayers millions.

Musk, the founder and CEO of SpaceX, first announced that he would file suit during a press conference last month in which he said he was launching an effort to change what he perceives as a process that has essentially created a monopoly for United Launch Alliance (ULA), one of SpaceX’s principal competitors. ULA is a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, which won a combined 36 launches from the Air Force over a five year span ending in 2012.   Continue reading “SpaceX sues US Air Force, citing unfair contractor monopoly”

RT News

Though the US Central Intelligence Agency may use Facebook, Twitter, and the like to keep tabs on targets of interest, the spy agency has only now officially joined social media–a move hastened by an imposter who was using the agency’s name online.

The agency’s first tweet, which earned the CIA nearly 200,000 Twitter followers in just a few hours, was the appropriately sarcastic, “We can neither confirm nor deny that this is our first tweet.” There were already 40,000 followers after just a single hour online, with the agency’s debut on Facebook sparking a similar conversation on that platform.   Continue reading “CIA joins social media, is immediately trolled”

Mail.com

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. (AP) — Actor and comedian Tracy Morgan was critically injured in a fatal six-vehicle pileup on the New Jersey Turnpike on Saturday, hours after performing a standup routine at a show in Delaware, authorities said.

A limousine bus carrying the former “Saturday Night Live” and “30 Rock” cast member and six others overturned near Cranbury Township at about 1 a.m., Sgt. 1st Class Greg Williams told The Associated Press.   Continue reading “Tracy Morgan in intensive care after 6-car crash”

Mail.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy has finally regained the jobs lost to the Great Recession. But go easy on the hallelujahs. The comeback is far from complete.

Friday’s report from the government revealed an economy healing yet marked by deep and lasting scars. The downturn that began 6½ years ago accelerated wrenching changes that have left many Americans feeling worse off than they did the last time the economy had roughly the same number of jobs it does now.   Continue reading “US job market recovers losses yet appears weaker”

RT News

As President Obama inches closer to entering the final half of his second term, speculation is emerging that the current first lady may pull a Hillary Clinton and run for a Senate seat.

In a Thursday column for Reuters, Keith Koffler writes that it shouldn’t be a surprise if Michelle Obama decides she wants to take a run at incumbent Illinois Republican Mark Kirk in 2016. Not only would she immediately deliver the kind of star power that would elevate her above her opponent, he writes, but her increasingly “bold profile” suggests she is placing herself in a position to at least seriously consider a Senate campaign.   Continue reading “Hillary 2.0? Rumors build on Michelle Obama’s Senate run”

RT News

For the first time, scientists have discovered evidence backing up the theory that the moon was created when a separate planet crashed into the Earth.

Published in the journal Science, the study states that researchers found the evidence by analyzing lunar rocks brought back to Earth during the Apollo mission more than 40 years ago. Scientists said they identified small chemical differences between some moon rocks and the rocks found on the Earth, suggesting that another world must have contributed to the lunar body’s creation.   Continue reading “Moon formed after Earth collided with another world, study says”

Mail.com

MONCTON, New Brunswick (AP) — Royal Canadian Mounted Police combed the streets and woods of this normally tranquil city Thursday in search of a man suspected of killing three officers in the deadliest attack on their ranks in nearly a decade.

The suspect, 24-year-old Justin Bourque, was armed with high-powered long firearms. He was spotted three times while eluding the massive manhunt that emptied roads and kept families hunkered in their homes in Moncton, an east coast city where gun violence is rare.   Continue reading “Hunt on for Canadian suspected in police killings”

Mail.com

WARREN, Mich. (AP) — General Motors said Thursday that it has forced out 15 employees for their role in the deadly ignition-switch scandal and will set up a compensation fund for crash victims, as an internal investigation blamed the debacle on engineering ignorance and bureaucratic dithering, not a deliberate cover-up.

GM took more than a decade to recall 2.6 million cars with bad switches that are now linked to at least 13 deaths by the automaker’s count. “Group after group and committee after committee within GM that reviewed the issue failed to take action or acted too slowly,” Anton Valukas, the former federal prosecutor hired by the automaker to investigate the reason for the delay, said in a 315-page report. “Although everyone had responsibility to fix the problem, nobody took responsibility.”   Continue reading “GM ousts 15 employees over ignition-switch scandal”

Mail.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — An additional 18 veterans in the Phoenix area whose names were kept off an official electronic Veterans Affairs appointment list have died, the agency’s acting secretary said Thursday — the latest revelation in a growing scandal over long patient waits for care and falsified records covering up the delays at VA hospitals and clinics nationwide.

Acting VA Secretary Sloan Gibson said he does not know whether the 18 new deaths were related to long waiting times for appointments but said they were in addition to the 17 reported last month by the VA’s inspector general. The announcement of the deaths came as senior senators reached agreement Thursday on the framework for a bipartisan bill making it easier for veterans to get health care outside VA hospitals and clinics.   Continue reading “VA chief: 18 vets left off waiting list have died”

RT News

Landing humans on Mars is unattainable for NASA if the space agency’s current strategy and level of funding are not modified in the near future, according to a new congressionally-mandated report.

The US National Research Council’s 18-month, $3.2 million investigation of NASA projects outlines three potential paths NASA could take it if want to have any chance of landing on Mars.   Continue reading “NASA could not deliver humans to Mars, says new strategy report”

Mail.com

DOVER, Del. (AP) — Delaware transportation department officials have examined aerial images as they investigate a mountain of dirt that grew to about two stories high and 100 yards long over the past few years, possibly causing an interstate bridge just a few yards away to tilt.

Engineers think that as a contractor dumped more and more dirt next to Interstate 495 bridge, the ground shifted under the weight and caused the bridge columns to start tilting. The bridge, a bypass that helps alleviate congestion on I-95 through Wilmington, Delaware, and normally carries about 90,000 vehicles daily, has been closed since Monday. It will be at least several weeks before it is reopened.   Continue reading “Questions grow about bridge closure, dirt mountain”

Mail.com

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — Gray wolves roaming into California from Oregon will have added protections now that a state board has listed the species as endangered despite other parts of the country relaxing rules on hunting the iconic predator.

The California Fish and Game Commission’s vote Wednesday came as biologists announced that an Oregon wolf famous for hopscotching between the two states has fathered pups within about 50 miles of the border, making it a matter of time before more wolves make California home.   Continue reading “State board votes to protect California wolf”

Mail.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — The married couple with a taste for exotic travel set out for Central Asia in the summer of 2012, moving as tourists through a region not normally visited by Westerners.

It was a risky venture by any standards, not least because the young travelers were expecting their first child. They crossed into Afghanistan, and at one point, Joshua Boyle emailed relatives from a part of the country he said was unsafe.   Continue reading “Pair in Afghanistan video plea say they’re parents”

My answer to this question:  NO!

RT News

Google has released code of its new open source End-to-End encryption extension to be tested for bugs and back doors by security experts. While it claims to be an effective privacy guard, it leaves the main question of whether it’s NSA-proof open.

The Google team believes that its new End-to-End tool will allow users to easily encrypt their emails on the go.   Continue reading “Will Google’s new email encryption tool save us from the NSA?”

RT News

A 5.7 magnitude earthquake rocked southeastern Alaska, about 73km from Haines, near Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve.

The earthquake hit on Wednesday at 11:58 GMT southwest of Haines, which has a population of over 2,500 people. The epicenter was 10km deep, according to United States Geological Survey.   Continue reading “5.7 magnitude earthquake hits Alaska”

Mail.com

NEW YORK (AP) — Private elevators, personal shopping assistants, six-bedroom suites with their own postal codes. Even helipads. This is what the super-rich have come to expect from hotels.

For others, vacation now means renting someone’s apartment, a spare room, maybe just a couch — anything to save on the cost of a hotel. As the gap between the wealthiest travelers and everyone else has widened, so has the way people are experiencing vacations. The wealthy are looking for ever-more pampering. Many others are seeking new ways to economize.   Continue reading “Will that be a 6-bedroom suite or just a couch?”