Navajo Nation ( CODE talker George Smith Died ) U.S Marine

Members of the elite Navajo Code Talkers, the U.S. Marine unit that delivered unbreakable codes during World War …
A member of the famed Navajo Code Talkers, who used their rare and ancient language to outwit the Japanese during World War II, has died.
George Smith died on Oct. 30 at the Gallup Indian Medical Center in New Mexico, said Navajo Nation president Ben Shelly. Smith was 90.
"Our Navajo Code Talkers have been real life heroes to generations of Navajo people," Shelly said in a statement. "They have brought pride to our Navajo people in so many ways."
In honor of Smith, the Navajo Nation flag will be flown at half-staff until sundown on Nov. 4.
Navajo Code Talker George Smith (Paul Natonabah/Navajo Times)
Smith was part of a Marine unit of Native Americans who created a complex and secret code based on the Navajo language. Because Navajo is an unwritten language that was passed through generations, it is difficult for a non-Navajo speaker to translate, according to navajocodetalkers.org.
The words of the code, which were committed to memory by the Code Talkers, were used in communications in key battles, such as Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima, the official site of the Code Talkers notes.

The Japanese never managed to crack the code.

The 2002 movie "Windtalkers" starring Nicolas Cage is based on the Code Talkers' mission.

The identities of the Code Talkers were kept secret, even to friends and family, until 1968. Now only a handful are living, according to navajocodetalkers.org.

Smith enlisted with the Marines in 1943. He achieved the rank of corporal while serving in World War II in the Pacific Theater. He fought in battles at Siapan, Tinian, and the Ryukyu Islands, and served in places such as Hawaii and Japan.

The Code Talkers and the secret code they developed saved countless lives and helped end the war.

After his service, Smith worked as a heavy equipment mechanic with Navajo Engineering Construction Authority.

"Code Talker Smith led an honorable life. He served his country, then provided for his family," Shelly said.

Orange Ca. ( COP shoots himself in leg while drinking at BAR )

An off-duty Orange police officer, honored for making hundreds of DUI arrests, accidentally shot himself in the leg early Sunday at a local sports bar.
In what police are calling an “accidental discharge,” Officer Justin McGowan shot himself just above the right knee about 2 a.m. Sunday inside the O.C. Sports Grill, 450 N. State College Blvd., said Sgt. Fred Lopez. The bullet changed trajectory after hitting McGowan’s knee and rested in his foot, missing all major arteries, Lopez said.
Police are investigating how McGowan, 28, shot himself with his department-issued, .38-caliber back-up weapon, Lopez said. There is no indication of any criminal involvement or altercation, he said.

“We’re conducting our own investigation. Right now, what we’re concerned about is his health,” Lopez said.
A city official close to the investigation said security video taken at the bar showed that McGowan was standing, with the gun in his pocket and his hand in the same pocket, when it went off.
McGowan, an eight-year veteran at the department, had been drinking alcohol at the bar, but a blood test was not administered until hours after the incident, said the city official.
The Orange Police Department has a policy against officers carrying guns while drinking, Lopez acknowledged.
McGowan reported the shooting himself, telephoning his immediate supervisor, Lopez said.
He was driven to a hospital by his wife and friends. He is on medical leave.

7 al Qaeda killed ( DRONE strike or 'lone wolf' hits target )

Lone wolf  ' silent strike' 7 killed.

A drone strike near the southern Yemeni city of Jaar killed at least seven al Qaeda suspects at dawn on Thursday, an official in the restive region told AFP.
“A drone, likely American, fired several rockets at a group of al Qaeda members northwest of Jaar killing all of them,” said the official, adding seven bodies had so far been recovered.
The United States is the only country that operates drones in the region.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said al Qaeda militants have been trying to position themselves near Yemen’s main southern cities to carry out operations against the army and the Popular Resistance Committees, the local militias that fight alongside it.
In May, the army launched an all out offensive against al Qaeda in the southern of province Abyan, forcing them to retreat from major strongholds including Jaar and Abyan’s capital Zinjibar.
The campaign was backed by US drones which in recent months have been deployed in strikes against al Qaeda targets in the south and east of the country.
Thursday’s strike was the second such drone attack this month.
On October 4, a drone blasted two cars carrying suspected al Qaeda gunmen in the southern province of Shabwa, killing five of them.
Al Qaeda took advantage of the weakness of Yemen’s central government in an uprising last year against now ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh, seizing large swathes of territory across the south.
But after the month-long summer offensive, most militants have fled to the more lawless desert regions of the east.
Though weakened, the militants still launch hit-and-run attacks on government and civilian targets throughout the country.

ARIZONA ( Ghost seen at the Gadsden Hotel ) Call Zak "Ghost adventures"

DOUGLAS, Arizona (Reuters) - Manager Robin Brekhus was skeptical about her Arizona hotel's supernatural history until the day she went to the basement in search of candles during a power outage and glimpsed a figure in a long duster coat and cowboy hat in the beam of her flashlight.

"It was like he wanted me to make eye contact with him and acknowledge that I saw him," she said, recalling how she then sprinted up the steps to the spacious lobby with its Italianate columns and Tiffany & Co. stained glass mural - a new believer.

In its heyday in the early decades of the last century, the lobby of the Gadsden Hotel was known as the "living room" of the remote Arizona ranching town of Douglas, hosting cattle barons, cowboys and executives from the local copper mining industry.

While many hotels in the United States claim ghosts, staff and guests at the Gadsden have recorded scores of supernatural encounters from the top floor right down to the maze-like basement - not just at Halloween, but year round.

This Halloween, the hotel is embracing its haunted history as never before, with a visiting blues band from Tennessee set to play at a bash in the lobby. Guests can come dressed up or not, and ghosts are more than welcome.

SANTO DOMINGO ( EX New York Yankees pitcher killed ) Pascual Perez

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) — Police in the Dominican Republic say former major league pitcher Pascual Perez has been killed in his home during an apparent robbery.

A statement from police in the Caribbean country says Perez was attacked by several people inside his home in a town west of the capital. He had been struck in the head but the cause of death has not been released. No suspects are in custody.

The 55-year-old Perez last played in the majors with the New York Yankees in 1991. He was suspended in 1992 following two positive tests for cocaine. In recent years, he has had kidney problems.

He made his major league debut in 1980 with the Pirates and played 11 seasons, including stints with the Braves and Expos.

DUBAI ( IRANIAN women treated like DOGS in prison ) See photos

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — An Iranian opposition website says at least nine female political prisoners have begun a hunger strike in protest of snap body searches and abuse by prison guards.

 

The kaleme.org late Wednesday said the women prisoners started the strike after female guards at Evin prison in northern Tehran carried out unannounced inspections that included body searches, beating and verbal insults of the prisoners.

Freedom fighters getting hung at Evin prison

Internationally renowned human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh has been on hunger strike in the same prison since last week. She is protesting mistreatment by authorities.

A delegation from the European Union last week cancelled a visit to Tehran after Iranian authorities rejected its request to meet Sotoudeh and dissident filmmaker Jafar Panahi.

The European Parliament awarded the 2012 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to both in October.

Minnesota ( AMERICAN Boys leave to become al Qaeda members ) Traitors

Young American men continue to slip through a terrorist recruiting pipeline from the homeland to join the ranks of jihadists half a world away in East Africa, with two going as recently as three months ago, according to federal officials.

The FBI confirmed a report by Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) that in July two young men disappeared from their neighborhoods in Minneapolis and are believed to have traveled to Somalia to join al-Shabaab, the embattled al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group.

Under "Operation Rhino," for years the FBI has been investigating what has been described as a recruiting pipeline from the Twin Cities, which boast large Somali immigrant populations, to Somalia. Both top U.S. officials and at least one prominent member of al-Shabaab said Americans account for dozens of the terror group's fighters. A 2011 Congressional report put the number around 40.

"Minnesota represented!" writes American-born rapping jihadist Omar Hammami in an autobiography posted online in May, though he claimed most of the U.S. recruits were already dead. "Those Minnesota brother[s] have almost all left their mark on the [jihad] and most have received martyrdom, while the rest are still waiting."

Kyle Loven, chief division counsel for the FBI's Minneapolis field office, said recruits going to Somalia from Minnesota "continues to be a matter of grave concern and the FBI remains fully committed to resolving this situation."

The FBI said that in the recent case, two young Minnesota men, 19-year-old Mohamed Osman and 20-year-old Omar Ali Farah, left their homes for their trek to Somalia in mid-July. Osman's family told MPR he was religious, but they were stunned when he disappeared.

"It made me mad because he didn't speak to no relative about it," Osman's cousin, Jamal Salim, said. "We're heartbroken about it because he's like our sibling. Imagine not knowing what's going on with your own brother -- how he's been feeling, who he's been talking to, and what they're telling him. We lost a brother, and I don't know how to get him back."

Earlier this month some details about how exactly young men are recruited for jihad emerged during the federal trial of a man who was convicted of recruiting more than 20 fighters for al-Shabaab in America in 2007, according to The Associated Press.

At the trial of Mahamud Said Omar, three former recruits who had survived their trip to Somalia only to return to the U.S. testified that they were talked into fighting by charismatic, devout older men who promised paradise for those who died in combat against "invaders."