6 U.S. Soldiers Killed from a Car Bomb

In Zhari, Afghanistan, six American soldiers were killed along with over a dozen American/Afghan soldiers wounded at 9 a.m. on December 12th, 2010 from a van that was packed with explosives. These soldiers were watching a "small joint outpost" in southern Afghanistan that was considered a new strong point near the village of Sangsar which is located north of the Arghandab River. The blast was so enormous, that it is said to have sent a dusty mushroom cloud above the farm land and was heard by people within an 8-mile radius. General Abdul-Hameed, a commander in the Afghan National Army stated that his men stopped the vehicle for questioning but the driver ignored the troops and continued toward the post. When the vehicle arrived at the post, it detonated next to the building putting a hole in one of the walls; causing the roof of the building to collapse. American soldiers quickly arrived at the scene to help free trapped soldiers but were too late for some. The Taliban quickly claimed responsibility for the bombing. A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, said over the telephone, "We have killed numbers of Americans and Afghan soldiers and wrecked and ruined their security check post, we will carry out similar attacks in the future."

Rare Birds Expand Breeding Grounds

Two pairs of the short-tailed albatross have been known to be very rare and have been only found on two of the Japanese islands. Recently, this rare species of birds have been found breeding and nesting on Kure Atoll and Midway Atoll, which are American national wildlife refuges in the Hawaiian Islands. Jessica Hardesty Norris stated, "Where they breed in Japan is a pretty decent habitat, but there’s a really active and nasty volcano, it could wipe out the species, so we are excited about the prospect of another viable colony.” Although the bird once lived in the Pacific islands, many people used their magnificent feathers for hats and other decorative purposes. Due to the fact that people kill these birds for their feathers, there are only approximately 3,000 adult short-tailed albatross' left on the planet. In 1939, some of the breeding grounds in Torishima, Japan, were damaged in a volcanic eruption, and the number of nesting pairs fell to about 10 but the population has been slowly going up. With the new discovery of the birds' habitat, there is a lot more hope of this species rebuilding its population.

Mental Health Break: Killdozer

Homes for the Holidays

In the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin's largest city, the foreclosure rates have been consistently very high these past few quarters. With over 2,000 homes foreclosed and almost 6,500 foreclosure filings pending, the government decided to handle this problem with a different method this time. This method is called “Home for Holidays”, this method is an auction that will occur this weekend from 9 a.m.-2 p.m. This auction consists of less than a dozen houses being auctioned off for $0.99 at the Italian Community Center. They aim this to end the on-going list of foreclosed and vacant homes. The reason being, is that these foreclosed houses cost the city a lot of money as well as attract criminals and drug users due to the fact that these houses are completely empty. Hopefully this auction will end the rising numbers of foreclosed homes in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

iPhone for All

Apple Inc. has decided to release the iPhone for Verizon Wireless early next year. The iPhone for Verizon will be similar to other iPhone models yet different; it will be based off of previous verizon phones yet still have the basic iPhone feel and processor. This is great news for verizon due to the fact that there are many iPhone users and AT&T's only advantage was the fact that they had the iPhone. With Apple expecting to sell approximately 40 million iPhones, this is great news for Verizon but bad news for AT&T. Verizon put up a fight because they have the android based phones but with Verizon coming out with the iPhone option, many AT&T customers will switch to Verizon. Considering a good majority of AT&T customers use AT&T because they're the only carrier of the iPhone, many customers are expected to switch to Verizon which will obviously lower the AT&T stocks yet boost the Verizon stocks significantly.