August 4, 2010 - There is probably no more horrific and frightening incurable disease than Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). Also known as the human form of mad cow disease, this degenerative, always fatal brain disorder strikes about one person in every million worldwide each year, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). CJD results in the brain literally being turned into sponge-like, hole-filled tissue (the reason the disease is also known as spongiform encephalopathy). It usually runs a rapid course, causing failing memory, hallucinations, lack of coordination and visual disturbances followed by total mental deterioration, involuntary movements, blindness and coma.

COXSACKIE, New York - August 5, 2010 - The following speech was delivered by top of the class student Erica Goldson during the graduation ceremony at Coxsackie-Athens High School on June 25, 2010. [Abridged]

I am graduating. I should look at this as a positive experience, especially being at the top of my class. However, in retrospect, I cannot say that I am any more intelligent than my peers. I can attest that I am only the best at doing what I am told and working the system.

Yet, here I stand, and I am supposed to be proud that I have completed this period of indoctrination. I will leave in the fall to go on to the next phase expected of me, in order to receive a paper document that certifies that I am capable of work.

But I contest that I am a human being, a thinker, an adventurer - not a worker. A worker is someone who is trapped within repetition - a slave of the system set up before him. But now, I have successfully shown that I was the best slave. I did what I was told to the extreme. While others sat in class and doodled to later become great artists, I sat in class to take notes and become a great test-taker.

July 26, 2010 - Many of the freedoms we enjoy here in the U.S. are quickly eroding as the nation transforms from the land of the free into the land of the enslaved, but what I'm about to share with you takes the assault on our freedoms to a whole new level. You may not be aware of this, but many Western states, including Utah, Washington and Colorado, have long outlawed individuals from collecting rainwater on their own properties because, according to officials, that rain belongs to someone else.

July 24, 2010 - In 1892 Edvard Munch witnessed a blood-red sunset over Oslo, Norway. Shaken by it, he wrote in his diary that he felt "a great, unending scream piercing through nature". The incident inspired him to create his most famous painting, The Scream.

The striking sunset was probably caused by the eruption of Krakatoa, which sent a massive plume of ash and gas into the upper atmosphere, turning sunsets red around the globe and cooling the Earth by more than a degree.

LAS VEGAS, Nevada - July 31, 2010 - A computer security researcher has built a device for just $1,500 that can intercept some kinds of cell phone calls and record everything that's said.

The attack Chris Paget showed Saturday illustrates weaknesses in GSM, one of the world's most widely used cellular communications technologies.

PHOENIX, Arizona - August 2, 2010 - Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu is hopping mad at the federal government.

Babeu told CNSNews.com that rather than help law enforcement in Arizona stop the hundreds of thousands of people who come into the United States illegally, the federal government is targeting the state and its law enforcement personnel.

“What’s very troubling is the fact that at a time when we in law enforcement and our state need help from the federal government, instead of sending help they put up billboard-size signs warning our citizens to stay out of the desert in my county because of dangerous drug and human smuggling and weapons and bandits and all these other things and then, behind that, they drag us into court with the ACLU,” Babeu said.

LONDON, England - July 25, 2010 - Software that can predict when and where future violent crimes will be committed is being used in Britain for the first time.

Two police forces have begun trialing the sophisticated program, which has echoes of the Tom Cruise film Minority Report, where psychics are used to stop criminals before they commit a crime.

The system, known as Crush (Criminal Reduction Utilising Statistical History) evaluates crime records, intelligence briefings, offender profiles and even weather reports, to identify potential flashpoints where a crime is most likely to occur.

CAMP HILL, Pennsylvania - August 2, 2010 - According to police in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, a prison guard allegedly killed a lawyer and stole his custom rifle - part of a plan, the guard reportedly admitted, to steal guns in preparation for an armed coup.

BOSTON, Massachusetts - July 20, 2010 - Scientists have used a computer program to decipher a written language that is more than three thousand years old.

The program automatically translated the ancient written language of Ugaritic within just a few hours.

Scientists hope the breakthrough could help them decipher the few ancient languages that they have been unable to translate so far.

LAREDO, Texas - July 24, 2010 - In what could be deemed an act of war against the sovereign borders of the United States, Mexican drug cartels have seized control of at least two Amerikan ranches inside the U.S. territory near Laredo, Texas.