WikiLeaks Threatens Its Own Leakers With $20 Million Penalty

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange now makes his associates sign a draconian nondisclosure agreement that, among other things, asserts that the organization’s huge trove of leaked material is “solely the property of WikiLeaks,” according to a report Wednesday.

“You accept and agree that the information disclosed, or to be disclosed to you pursuant to this agreement is, by its nature, valuable proprietary commercial information,” the agreement reads, “the misuse or unauthorized disclosure of which would be likely to cause us considerable damage.”

The confidentiality agreement (.pdf), revealed by the New Statesman, imposes a penalty of 12 million British pounds– nearly $20 million — on anyone responsible for a significant leak of the organization’s unpublished material. The figure is based on a “typical open-market valuation” of WikiLeaks’ collection, the agreement claims.

Interestingly, the agreement warns that any breach is likely to cause WikiLeaks to lose the “opportunity to sell the information to other news broadcasters and publishers.”

WikiLeaks is not known to have sold any of its leaked material, though Assange has discussed the possibility in the past. The organization announced in 2008 that it was auctioning off early access to thousands of e-mails belonging to a top aide to Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, but the auction ultimately fell apart.

Also protected by the agreement is “the fact and content of this agreement and all newsworthy information relating to the workings of WikiLeaks.”

The New Statesman’s copy is unsigned, so whoever leaked it might be safe from legal action by WikiLeaks.

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University of Ulster celebrates acquisition of PR2 robot by having it solve Rubik's cube

Programmed by Chris Burbridge and Lorenzo Riano of the Cognitivie Robotics Group, the PR2, in ways that look eerily human, carefully scans the cube, before slowly getting to work; though it’s not been stated as such, it appears the robot first solves the cube in its “brain” then sets to work carrying out what it’s already figured out how to do using it’s grippers to turn and manipulate the cube.

The PR2 is roughly the size of an adult human being and is comprised of a base, torso, arms and head. The base has castors below that allow it to move about, while the arms have grippers for hands that can not only manipulate an object, but can spin it as well to turn whatever it is holding. It also has multiple sensors and cameras placed strategically on its arms and head to allow it to “see” the environment around it, as well as parts of its own self so it knows what it’s doing.

Running on the Robot Operating System (ROS), the open source code originally developed at Stanford but now mostly supported by Willow Garage, the PR2 is one among several robots created by Willow Garage as a research tool designed primarily to advance the science of robotics. And while the robots are not provided free to research institutions such as Ulster, those that demonstrate a history of supporting research on robotics are given big discounts off the normal US $400,000 price tag.

The University of Ulster, like many others, hopes to use the PR2 to devise innovative ROS code that can be shared, used or manipulated by others to accelerate the pace at which software for robots is produced; in much the same way that open source code has been used to provide users the world over with free photo manipulation programs (GIMP) or music creation and generation (Audacity) software.

Such initiatives are likely to result in a slew of new robot applications that will likely trickle down over the next few years, to robots designed to do all those things we’ve been seeing for years in Sci-Fi movies, magazines and books. Stuff most of us have been impatiently waiting for.

More information:

via Willow Garage

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Six Moments When Athletes Cried

We’ve all seen athletes cry before.   Hell many of us have cried as athletes.  It’s easy to get emotional out there as tensions run high and sometimes there’s a lot on the line.

But there’s also those times you can’t help but to laugh at some athletes who cry when you kind of realize they shouldn’t have.   The videos I’m sharing here are not these types of examples.

These are moments where the athletes should have cried and had every right to……

Michael Jordan’s Championship after Dad’s Death

After all that Jordan had been through, retiring, his father’s death, un-retiring, the number change, and really having to prove he was still the same Jordan it all pretty much caught up to him that day.   I think all of us will remember him hogging the trophy but other than that you can’t blame the guy for getting emotional.

The Adam Morrison Moment

It’s kind of awesome when a player cries from the competitive desire in him/her.   When Gonzaga took that heart wrenching defeat Morrison took the floor and the entire nation watched.  It would have been a much much better story had Morrison been a half decent NBA player.   Where’s the competitive fire now buddy?  Come on!

Kevin Garnett is Pissed

In recent years I’ve grown a little tired of Kevin Garnett.   Honestly it’s because I think he’s a “little much.”   But there’s no denying this dude wants to win.  So badly that this interview was pretty famous.   I mean the guy’s a hall of famer, doesn’t have much more to prove but he’s still out there like it’s the NCAA Championship every single night (even though he skipped college)

Tiger Wins 11th Major

Similar to Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods wins one of Golf’s most difficult tournaments and gets emotional as it was his first major without his father being around.   I hope Tiger gets back into form and wins a few more.

Favre’s Retirement Speech

Honestly this is just more comedy than anything else.   If you’ll notice it’s his retirement speech from Green Bay.  Hahahaha.   Screw you Favre.  Seriously buddy, that should have been your crowning moment but everything after was completely unnecessary.

Mike Schmidt Retires

One of true greats of baseball.  It’s tough to keep your composure while watching this.   This guy truly loved the game.  P.S. he didn’t do steroids.

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NASA's Fermi Spots 'Superflares' in the Crab Nebula

The famous Crab Nebula supernova remnant has erupted in an enormous flare five times more powerful than any flare previously seen from the object. On April 12, NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope first detected the outburst, which lasted six days.

The nebula is the wreckage of an exploded star that emitted light which reached Earth in the year 1054. It is located 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Taurus. At the heart of an expanding gas cloud lies what is left of the original star's core, a superdense neutron star that spins 30 times a second. With each rotation, the star swings intense beams of radiation toward Earth, creating the pulsed emission characteristic of spinning neutron stars (also known as pulsars).

Apart from these pulses, astrophysicists believed the Crab Nebula was a virtually constant source of high-energy radiation. But in January, scientists associated with several orbiting observatories, including NASA's Fermi, Swift and Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer, reported long-term brightness changes at X-ray energies.

"The Crab Nebula hosts high-energy variability that we're only now fully appreciating," said Rolf Buehler, a member of the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) team at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, a facility jointly located at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University.

Since 2009, Fermi and the Italian Space Agency's AGILE satellite have detected several short-lived gamma-ray flares at energies greater than 100 million electron volts (eV) -- hundreds of times higher than the nebula's observed X-ray variations. For comparison, visible light has energies between 2 and 3 eV.

On April 12, Fermi's LAT, and later AGILE, detected a flare that grew about 30 times more energetic than the nebula's normal gamma-ray output and about five times more powerful than previous outbursts. On April 16, an even brighter flare erupted, but within a couple of days, the unusual activity completely faded out.

"These superflares are the most intense outbursts we've seen to date, and they are all extremely puzzling events," said Alice Harding at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "We think they are caused by sudden rearrangements of the magnetic field not far from the neutron star, but exactly where that's happening remains a mystery."

The Crab's high-energy emissions are thought to be the result of physical processes that tap into the neutron star's rapid spin. Theorists generally agree the flares must arise within about one-third of a light-year from the neutron star, but efforts to locate them more precisely have proven unsuccessful so far.

Since September 2010, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory routinely has monitored the nebula in an effort to identify X-ray emission associated with the outbursts. When Fermi scientists alerted astronomers to the onset of a new flare, Martin Weisskopf and Allyn Tennant at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., triggered a set of pre-planned observations using Chandra.

"Thanks to the Fermi alert, we were fortunate that our planned observations actually occurred when the flares were brightest in gamma rays," Weisskopf said. "Despite Chandra's excellent resolution, we detected no obvious changes in the X-ray structures in the nebula and surrounding the pulsar that could be clearly associated with the flare."

Scientists think the flares occur as the intense magnetic field near the pulsar undergoes sudden restructuring. Such changes can accelerate particles like electrons to velocities near the speed of light. As these high-speed electrons interact with the magnetic field, they emit gamma rays.

To account for the observed emission, scientists say the electrons must have energies 100 times greater than can be achieved in any particle accelerator on Earth. This makes them the highest-energy electrons known to be associated with any cosmic source. Based on the rise and fall of gamma rays during the April outbursts, scientists estimate that the size of the emitting region must be comparable in size to the solar system.

NASA's Fermi is an astrophysics and particle physics partnership managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy, with important contributions from academic institutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden and the United States.

The Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra's science and flight operations from Cambridge, Mass.

READ MORE - NASA's Fermi Spots 'Superflares' in the Crab Nebula

Obama Makes It Through Another Day Of Resisting Urge To Launch All U.S. Nuclear Weapons At Once

WASHINGTON—Despite being constantly tempted by the seductive power of having an apocalyptic arsenal at his fingertips, President Barack Obama somehow made it through another day Tuesday without unlocking the box on his desk that houses "the button" and launching all 5,113 U.S. nuclear warheads.

Though the president confirmed his schedule was packed with security briefings, public appearances, and cabinet meetings, he said he couldn't help but steal a few glances at the bright red button, which is "right there, staring at [him], all the time."

Tuesday marks the 841st-straight day Obama has withstood the button's powerful allure.

"I think I was closer to pressing the button today than I have ever been," Obama said during a press conference from the White House Rose Garden, adding that he would be lying if he said he wasn't thinking about the button right at that very moment. "Let me be clear: I do not want to start a thermonuclear war. But knowing that I could at any moment, and that it would be so easy, well, it almost feels like I'm being tested or something."

"Did you know that if you sort of put enough weight on the button with your fingertip, you can feel a little slack there before it actually clicks?" Obama added. "Thank you, and God bless America."

According to Beltway insiders, it has taken everything in Obama's power lately to distract himself from the button, which the president once told an aide is "sort of begging to be pressed, you know?" At one point Tuesday, Obama reportedly forced himself to stop glaring at the button by leaving his desk and staring silently across the White House lawn, only to return seconds later to gaze at it some more.

Obama has also been overheard asking White House staffers if they weren't just the least bit curious what would happen if he just waltzed in there right now and pushed it.

"I don't want to unleash Armageddon," said Obama, adding that there is a 50-50 chance he won't be able to get through his next day in office without pressing the button at least once. "But it's hard not to dare myself to do it. It's like I'm standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, taking it all in, and I'm one millisecond away from saying to myself, 'Fuck it, Barack. Just jump.'"

"Bravo-Delta-five-seven-three-Delta-Charlie-zero-two-Tango-Tango-eight-one-six-Echo-Foxtrot-zero-zero-nine-four-nine," Obama continued. "Those were the launch codes as of three minutes ago. They constantly change, but I memorize them."

Sources told reporters that when Obama first took office, the thought of pressing the button and launching thousands of ICBMs only crossed his mind two or three times a day. Two-and-a-half years into his term, however, the button consumes him at all times, whether he is watching basketball, playing with his children, or lying in his bed at night. During a deficit-reduction meeting last Monday with House Speaker John Boehner, the president's index finger was reportedly resting on the button the entire time without his even realizing it.

"Apropos of nothing, the president approached me one day and said, 'Think about it: There is a button 3 feet away from me, that I, a human being, could press and virtually end the human race. Tell me you wouldn't be slightly tempted to push it,'" Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) said. "Then the president said he often wondered if the exploding bombs would look like a movie in which dozens and dozens of mushroom clouds rise from Earth and can be seen from outer space."

"The way he talked about it, I think I would have pressed it by now, honestly," Conrad added. "Jesus, I'm breathing faster just thinking about it."

Historians have noted that a strong desire to press the button is not uncommon among U.S. presidents. After just one year in office, Jimmy Carter wrote in his diary, "You don't leave a man alone in a room with a button like that," and two years later the pages were simply covered with the word "button" over and over again. In 1974, Richard Nixon rapidly pressed the button 12 times just prior to his resignation, but Pentagon officials had already disconnected its triggering mechanism.

At press time, large-scale nuclear explosions had been confirmed in Pyongyang, Beijing, Moscow, Tehran, and Washington, D.C.

READ MORE - Obama Makes It Through Another Day Of Resisting Urge To Launch All U.S. Nuclear Weapons At Once

Lung transplant breathes new life into boy of four, who is youngest to have op in Britain

A boy of four has become the youngest and smallest person in the UK to have a successful lung transplant.

Surgeons at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London carried out the transplant, which has transformed Mason Lewis's quality of life within a matter of weeks.

Mason has suffered from pulmonary hypertension (PH) since birth and struggled to develop as quickly as other children his age.

Relief: Mason Lewis with his mother Rebecca enjoy playing in a playground in Atherstone, Warwickshire following Mason's operation

He was just 3ft tall when the operation took place - although surgeons do not usually operate on children under 3ft 3in.

Professor Martin Elliott, who carried out the transplant, said: 'The operation is the same as for larger people, but obviously one needs greater precision and delicacy.'

People with PH have pulmonary arteries with thicker, less elastic walls. As a result, the heart struggles to pump blood to the lungs and has to work harder than normal. The person is often breathless as a result.

Mason's consultant Dr Helen Spencer said: 'It's a bit like a traffic jam. The small vessels into the lungs are narrowed and you get a backlog of blood building up.'

Drugs can help but a lung transplant is an option when patients are on the maximum medication and are still struggling.

Mason's operation took around eight hours and the lungs he received were just 4.3ins long and each weighed 4.9oz.

Fighting fit: The transplant has transformed Mason's quality of life within a matter of weeks

Mason's consultant Dr Helen Spencer at Great Ormond Street Hospital, where the youngster underwent the eight-hour surgery

Prof Elliott said surgeons used magnifying lenses during the operation and smaller stitches which eventually dissolve, reducing the risk of creating scar tissue which could inhibit future growth.

Dr Spencer, consultant in transplant respiratory medicine, said: 'This is the first time in the UK we have seen a child this small successfully transplanted with lungs this small.

'It is a good advance in transplantation, and something which previously had only been carried out in a small number of centres in the U.S.

'At Great Ormond Street Hospital, candidates considered for lung transplant would normally be over the age of three and more than 100cm (3ft) in height.

'We hope the fact we have been able to do this in someone as small as Mason will offer hope for patients like him in the future.'

Dr Spencer added: 'Mason has done well post-operatively and we are really pleased to see his family in a position to return home. He has been incredibly lucky, not only to have a transplant but to receive one so quickly.'

Happy families: Mason with mother Rebecca, father Steven and sister Indiana at home in Atherstone. Rebecca said Mason had always been a happy child despite his illness

Mason waited only a matter of weeks after he was put on the transplant list in January.

Without a transplant, he had been expected to survive around two years. Around half of transplant patients at GOSH survive for seven years or more and some may be suitable for a second transplant.

Echocardiograms have shown the health of Mason's heart is improving since pressure on it was reduced as a result of the transplant.

Mason's mother, Rebecca Prentice, 33, of Atherstone, Warwickshire, said he is putting on weight and has much more energy.

'He's always been a happy child. His body can keep up with him now,' she said.

'We are indebted to the clinical team, especially Dr Spencer and Professor Elliott, who have given our son a wonderful opportunity to lead a good quality of life.

'We are also eternally grateful to the donor family. We cannot imagine what they went through. They lost a child and have displayed courage and selflessness.

'We would like to urge people to think about becoming donors, and to consider what they would do if tragedy hit their children, as uncomfortable and difficult as we know that is.'

Dr Spencer added: 'Unfortunately, we are still in a position where about one fifth of patients who are waiting for a lung transplant on the paediatric list will die while waiting.

'I think it's an incredibly difficult decision for any family to make in the face of terrible personal tragedy, to think about other people that you don't know.

'As a parent myself, I can only imagine the terrible angst that people go through but I think many donor families get some comfort from the way they have helped other people to have a second life.'

READ MORE - Lung transplant breathes new life into boy of four, who is youngest to have op in Britain

World of Warcraft Suffers Post-Cataclysmic Drop in Subscriptions

Avatar for Mike Fahey Mike Fahey —World of Warcraft Suffers Post-Cataclysmic Drop in Subscriptions Six months after buzz for the Cataclysm expansion drove World of Warcraft numbers to an all-time high, Blizzard reports the lowest subscription figures for the massively multiplayer game since December of 2008.

During the Activision Blizzard first quarter 2011 financial results conference call today, Blizzard president and co-founder Mike Morhaime told us that as of March of this year, World of Warcraft numbers had "returned to pre-Cataclysm levels in the West," which is a rather nice way of saying dropped considerably.

In October 2010, two months before the release of the Cataclysm expansion pack, Blizzard reported that World of Warcraft had exceeded 12 million subscribers. Today Morhaime gave a figure of 11.4 million. That's 600,000 subscribers gone.

Morhaime said that subscriptions had returned to pre-Cataclysm levels. They've nearly dropped to pre-Wrath of the Lich King levels, to be accurate. A month after the second expansion pack's November 2008 release, subscription rates hit 11.5 million. A little over two months' prior they had just hit 11 million.

Of course we've got to mind the gap. It's highly likely that in the nearly two years separating Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm the numbers dropped below 11.5 million and Blizzard simply hadn't reported it.

Still, the numbers are somewhat discouraging. Going strictly by the figures we do have, World of Warcraft lost 600,000 players shortly after the release of a major expansion pack.

I wouldn't dig a grave for World of Warcraft any time soon, however. Considering there are big-name MMO titles out there operating with one one-hundredth of the subscriber base, the world of Azeroth will be in fine shape for years to come.

READ MORE - World of Warcraft Suffers Post-Cataclysmic Drop in Subscriptions

Sexy Ladies Dressed As Characters That Were Never Meant To Be Sexy

But if we had room in our hearts to love two other things, they would easily be geekery and sexy dames. So why not combine the two? There’s nothing more attractive than a lady with a passion, especially if that passion is for some geek thrill like our favorite video game. Here are some of the sexiest women cosplaying as characters that were never meant to be attractive females. Just don't ask us to closely examine our attraction to women cross-dressing as hirsute plumbers or Harrison Ford.

We're going to one-two you here because everyone knows Mario starts off cute and adorably tiny, like this hotness toting around her geek cred bonus points in an R2-D2 backpack...

BOOM! Only to blossom into a mighty powerhouse with the consumption of magic mushrooms! This latent latex lady lurking within Mario's frame makes us want to slip on a Tanooki Suit and turn to stone, though we'd only last five seconds. On second thought, let's move on. This is getting uncomfortably close to furrydom.

Mmm-hmm, that's one fine-lookin' (wo)Mandalorian. But equally attractive? The care that went into that costume. You might find a foxy female who can put such an ensemble together and even carry it off, but how many of those have the passion for the Force that makes this picture all kinds of tingly?

Who's that hunting Boba Fett for a frisky pillow fight? Only slightly less hairy than either an Italian plumber or a plush raccoon suit is Mr. Han Solo. Now granted, the womenfolk find Harrison Ford crushworthy, but we much prefer the smoother Ms. version (though we can't imagine she'll stay Solo for long). See, this way you get spaceship stunts and sexy bad-assness. It's a very good nerd cocktail. Just try to stay away from any "Hand Solo" jokes.

Of course, you can take that smooth finish too far. Say, all the way to robotic chrome. These shimmering blondes aren't actually robots in disguise, but are in disguise as robots. And the next time you're tired of dealing with other people, remember you never had to spend an entire weekend in a convention full of guys repeating the pickup line: "Nice headlights."

Now who's that delightfully proper Riddler? It's like Agatha Christie wrote an issue of "Detective Comics." We respect class in our daily naked ogling of almost-naked ladies, and, brother, the dame's got it, with an ascot and everything. Plus, do you have any idea how hard it is to find a green cane?

There's a lot to like about Deadpool, but considering he has skin that looks like it was scraped from a frying pan full of corned beef hash, you wouldn't say "sexy" is one of those things. That's why this much improved version sports some significant upgrades, like curvature, fair beauty and not being a lunatic (we assume).

The Pokémon series is what happens when cute meets dangerous, and there's not much cuter nor more dangerous than a curvy blonde in a whole lot of mini and not a lot of skirt. This shockingly bare costume makes us want to make puns about Poké Balls, but to be honest, we're kind of speechless right now. Pikachu, we definitely choose you!

Photos: Maximum PC, Etsy, Epic Awesome, NerdyGirlLove

READ MORE - Sexy Ladies Dressed As Characters That Were Never Meant To Be Sexy

Banks Said to Offer $5 Billion to Resolve State, U.S. Foreclosures Probe

Bank of America Corp. (BAC) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), along with three other U.S. mortgage servicers, proposed paying $5 billion to settle a probe of their foreclosure practices by state and federal officials, two people familiar with the matter said.

The proposal made by banks yesterday during settlement talks in Washington came after state attorneys general and federal officials offered revised settlement terms and a proposal for banks to fund principal writedowns for homeowners.

The probe by all 50 states was triggered by claims of faulty foreclosure practices after the housing collapse, which state officials said may violate their laws. The original settlement proposal offered by states and federal agencies drew criticism from banks and Republican attorneys general opposed to a deal that would reduce principal amounts for borrowers.

In a new proposal, officials called for a fund, administered by state and federal officials, that would in part pay for principal writedowns, said Geoff Greenwood, a spokesman for Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller. Miller, a Democrat, is leading negotiations for the states. Attorneys general haven’t made a proposal for a payment by banks, Greenwood said.

The $5 billion payment proposed by the banks was reported earlier by the Wall Street Journal.

“An amount in that range would be viewed as a positive for the banks, given larger numbers have been referenced previously,” Brian Foran, an analyst with Nomura Securities International Inc. in New York, wrote in a report today. Regulators had previously suggested a $20 billion penalty.

Citigroup, Wells Fargo

State and federal officials have been negotiating with the mortgage servicers, a group that also includes Citigroup Inc. (C), Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) and Ally Financial Inc. Miller has said the five companies service 59 percent of U.S. home loans.

Rick Simon, a spokesman for Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America, and Teri Schrettenbrunner of San Francisco- based Wells Fargo didn’t return calls for comment after regular business hours yesterday.

Gina Proia, a spokeswoman for Detroit-based Ally Financial, New York-based JPMorgan Chase’s Thomas Kelly and Mark Rodgers, a spokesman for New York-based Citigroup, declined to comment.

The fund for principal reductions could pay for restitution to borrowers whose homes were improperly foreclosed on, Greenwood said.

Loans, Foreclosures

State and federal officials yesterday also revised provisions of their original March term sheet offered to mortgage servicers. That term sheet included requirements for how banks service loans and conduct home foreclosures. The changes aren’t substantially different from the original proposal and incorporate negotiations with the banks, Greenwood said. Those talks continue in Washington this week, he said.

Republican attorneys general criticized the original settlement proposal, saying the plan for principal reductions would encourage borrowers to default on loans to reduce payments. Some of those attorneys general met yesterday in Atlanta to discuss the issue, said Adam Temple of the Republican State Leadership Committee.

Bob Davis, an executive vice president with the American Bankers Association, spoke to the group in Atlanta, telling them principal reductions don’t work, he said in an interview. Loan balances must be reduced so much for borrowers struggling to make payments that it’s a better deal for lenders to foreclose instead, he said.

“Principal reductions don’t substantially improve the cash-flow problem,” Davis said. “You can’t lower principal enough to make it an attractive tool.”

Encouraging Defaults

During a conference call between state officials and the banks, some lenders said they opposed any settlement terms that would reduce loan balances, according to one of the people familiar with the talks. The banks argued a writedown plan would encourage homeowners to default, a notion some attorneys general on the call disputed, the person said.

Bank representatives said they were open to other types of loan modifications, including changing interest payments, said the person. Mortgage servicers have reached agreements with U.S. banking regulators to improve procedures for modifying loans and seizing homes.

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, a Republican, said last month that he may negotiate an alternative accord with the banks if the national settlement turns out to be “inconsistent with our conviction.”

‘Some’ Changes

Pruitt said in a letter to Miller in March that forcing lenders to reduce mortgage balances would take away incentives for banks to loan money and “destroy an already devastated housing market.”

Diane Clay, Pruitt’s spokeswoman, said in an interview that the latest settlement proposal incorporates “some” of the changes sought by the attorney general. She said she hadn’t seen the new terms.

“General Pruitt’s letter certainly helped move the negotiations along,” said Clay, who previously said several “industry representatives” had contacted with her office.

Other state attorneys general who have criticized the proposal to reduce principal balances include those from Florida, Texas, South Carolina, Virginia, Alabama, Nebraska and Georgia. Attorneys general for Florida, Georgia and Alabama were among the officials meeting in Atlanta yesterday, Temple said.

Lauren Kane, a spokeswoman for Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens, has said a bank, which she declined to identify, discussed with her office the federal regulator settlement. Adam Piper, a spokesman for South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, said last month that two banking representatives “shared research” with his office and “pointed out some concerns with certain provisions” of the original proposal.

Jennifer Meale, a spokeswoman for Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, said last month that her office has “had general discussions with banks about how the matter might be resolved.”

READ MORE - Banks Said to Offer $5 Billion to Resolve State, U.S. Foreclosures Probe

WikiLeaks: Julian Assange given peace prize

Julian Assange, the founder of whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, has been awarded an award “for exceptional courage in pursuit of human rights”.

Mr Assange was given the Sydney Peace Medal at a ceremony at the Frontline Club in central London today.

The Sydney Peace Foundation said that it was making the award to recognise Mr in recognition of the need “for greater transparency and accountability of governments”.

Professor Stuart Rees, director of the foundation, said: “By challenging centuries old practices of government secrecy and by championing people’s right to know, WikiLeaks and Julian Assange have created the potential for a new order in journalism and in the free flow of information.”

Speaking at the event, Mr Assange referred to whistleblowers as "heroes" and said it appeared the website had played a "significant role" in the recent Arab uprisings in north Africa by releasing US diplomatic cables in December that were later translated into Arabic and French.

He said WikiLeaks was part of England's historic "free speech traditions, these go back in the UK to the time of the English Civil War of the 1640s". He said: “The real value of this award, and the Sydney Peace Foundation is that it makes explicit the link between peace and justice.

“It does not take the safe feel good option of shunning controversy by uttering platitudes. Instead it goes into difficult terrain by identifying organisations and individuals who are directly engaged in struggles of one kind or another.

“With WikiLeaks we are all engaged in a struggle, a generational struggle for a proposition that citizens have a right and a duty to scrutinise the state."

WikiLeaks has caused controversy over the past year by releasing secret US Government documents including reports about detainees held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and hundreds of thousands of US diplomatic cables.

Mr Assange is currently staying in Norfolk while he fights extradition to Sweden over allegations of sexual crimes, which he denies.

telegraph.co.uk

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[RUMOR] Next iPod Nano To Reinstate a Camera

A picture claimed to show the alleged seventh-generation iPod nano appeared on Monday on the website tw.apple.pro (via Google Translate). The report claims that the camera is a low-resolution 1.3 megapixel lens.

Crediting a source named "Ray" from California, the site suggests that the next iPod nano will not include a clip as the current model does. Placing a clip on the back of the device would cover the camera lens on the supposed device.

Tuesday's picture is not the first report to suggest that Apple could add a camera to its multi-touch iPod nano. In early April, an unverified photo showed an alleged seventh-generation iPod nano frame with space in the back for a rear-facing camera.

The Taiwanese Apple blog has correctly leaked each of the previous six generations of the iPod nano. Last year, they leaked photos of a tiny touchscreen that went on to become the multi-touch display for the sixth-generation iPod nano, released in 2010.

The larger fifth-generation iPod nano, released in 2009, did have a camera, along with the classic-style iPod click wheel. But the camera was ditched in the 2010 model, allowing Apple to create an even smaller device driven by a multi-touch display.

Adding a camera to the iPod nano once again could appease some critics who were disappointed that the feature was removed last year. But removing a clip from the rear of the device would also be a detriment, as the small size and inclusion of an integrated Nike+ pedometer has made the sixth-generation iPod nano a strong choice for use at the gym.

READ MORE - [RUMOR] Next iPod Nano To Reinstate a Camera

Phil Jackson fined $35K for ref remarks

DALLAS -- Just before what could've been the last game of his coaching career, Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson was fined $35,000 for comments about the officiating.

The NBA sent a release less than an hour before tipoff of Game 4 in the Lakers-Mavericks series on Sunday saying Jackson was being punished for statements made Saturday. He complained about officials allowing defenders to lift their legs and use their knees to shove big man Pau Gasol out of position.

On Saturday, Jackson commended the "exceptional" help-side defense Gasol displayed in Game 3 and blamed some of his offensive woes on the officiating.

"I've resisted [saying] this the whole playoffs, but the NBA used to call a 'knee up the a--,' that's what they called it," Jackson said. "You couldn't lift a knee off the floor to run a guy off the post -- they've been doing that every time [against Gasol]. They're taking him out of the post and he can't get a tight post spot. We didn't complain about it against New Orleans, but the Mavs are doing the same damn thing and until the league goes back to the rules that they have about playing post play, Pau's got to move out and face the basket."

Los Angeles went into the game down 0-3 in the series, facing elimination. Jackson has said he's retiring after this postseason.

The Mavs completed the sweep of the defending champions, winning 122-86.

Information from ESPNLosAngeles.com's Dave McMenamin and The Associated Press was used in this report.

READ MORE - Phil Jackson fined $35K for ref remarks

New sensor developed by MIT chemical engineers can detect tiny traces of explosives

MIT researchers have created a new detector so sensitive it can pick up a single molecule of an explosive such as TNT.

To create the sensors, chemical engineers led by Michael Strano coated carbon nanotubes — hollow, one-atom-thick cylinders made of pure carbon — with protein fragments normally found in bee venom. This is the first time those proteins have been shown to react to explosives, specifically a class known as nitro-aromatic compounds that includes TNT.

If developed into commercial devices, such sensors would be far more sensitive than existing explosives detectors — commonly used at airports, for example — which use spectrometry to analyze charged particles as they move through the air.

“Ion mobility spectrometers are widely deployed because they are inexpensive and very reliable. However, this next generation of nanosensors can improve upon this by having the ultimate detection limit, [detecting] single molecules of explosives at room temperature and atmospheric pressure,” says Strano, the Charles (1951) and Hilda Roddey Career Development Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering.

A former graduate student in Strano’s lab, Daniel Heller (now a Damon Runyon Fellow at MIT’s David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research), is lead author of a paper describing the technology in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The paper appears online this week.

A unique fingerprint

Strano has filed for a patent on the technology, which makes use of protein fragments called bombolitins. “Scientists have studied these peptides, but as far as we know, they’ve never been shown to have an affinity for and recognize explosive molecules in any way,” he says.

In recent years, Strano’s lab has developed carbon-nanotube sensors for a variety of molecules, including nitric oxide, hydrogen peroxide and toxic agents such as the nerve gas sarin. Such sensors take advantage of carbon nanotubes’ natural fluorescence, by coupling them to a molecule that binds to a specific target. When the target is bound, the tubes’ fluorescence brightens or dims.

The new explosives sensor works in a slightly different way. When the target binds to the bee-venom proteins coating the nanotubes, it shifts the fluorescent light’s wavelength, instead of changing its intensity. The researchers built a new type of microscope to read the signal, which can’t be seen with the naked eye. This type of sensor, the first of its kind, is easier to work with because it is not influenced by ambient light.

“For a fluorescent sensor, using the intensity of the fluorescent light to read the signal is more error-prone and noisier than measuring a wavelength,” Strano says.

Each nanotube-peptide combination reacts differently to different nitro-aromatic compounds. By using several different nanotubes coated in different bombolitins, the researchers can identify a unique “fingerprint” for each explosive they might want to detect. The nanotubes can also sense the breakdown products of such explosives.

“Compounds such as TNT decompose in the environment, creating other molecule types, and those derivatives could also be identified with this type of sensor,” Strano says. “Because molecules in the environment are constantly changing into other chemicals, we need sensor platforms that can detect the entire network and classes of chemicals, instead of just one type.”

The researchers also showed that the nanotubes can detect two pesticides that are nitro-aromatic compounds as well, making them potentially useful as environmental sensors. The research was funded by the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies at MIT.

Philip Collins, a professor of physics at the University of California at Irvine, says the new approach is a novel extension of Strano’s previous work on carbon-nanotube sensors. “It’s nice what they’ve done — combined a couple of different things that are not sensitive to explosives, and shown that the combination is sensitive,” says Collins, who was not involved in this research.

The technology has already drawn commercial and military interest, Strano says. For the sensor to become practical for widespread use, it would have to be coupled with a commercially available concentrator that would bring any molecules floating in the air in contact with the carbon nanotubes.

“It doesn’t mean that we are ready to put these onto a subway and detect explosives immediately. But it does mean that now the sensor itself is no longer the bottleneck,” Strano says. “If there’s one molecule in a sample, and if you can get it to the sensor, you can now detect and quantify it.”

Other researchers from MIT involved in the work include former postdocs Nitish Nair and Paul Barone; graduate students Jingqing Zhang, Ardemis Boghossian and Nigel Reuel; George Pratt ’10 and junior Adam Hansborough.

READ MORE - New sensor developed by MIT chemical engineers can detect tiny traces of explosives

Liberals in southern Arizona seek to form new state

TUCSON, Arizona (Reuters) - A long-simmering movement by liberal stalwarts in southern Arizona to break away from the rest of the largely conservative state is at a boiling point as secession backers press to bring their longshot ambition to the forefront of Arizona politics.

A group of lawyers from the Democratic stronghold of Tucson and surrounding Pima County have launched a petition drive seeking support for a November 2012 ballot question on whether the 48th state should be divided in two.

The ultimate goal of the newly formed political action committee Start our State is to split Pima County off into what would become the nation's 51st state, tentatively dubbed Baja Arizona.

Backers have until July 5 next year to collect the 48,000 signatures required to qualify for a spot on the ballot. If they succeed, it would mark only the first hurdle in a long, circuitous process that even the most determined of supporters readily acknowledge has little chance of bearing fruit.

"We at least need to get it on the ballot, as a nonbinding resolution, to ask the people of Pima County if they want to be a part of Arizona," Tucson attorney Paul Eckerstrom, a former Pima County Democratic chairman who launched the campaign, told Reuters. "All the stars would have to align for this to happen, but it could conceivably happen by the fall of 2013."

U.S. history is replete with efforts to carve one state from another -- from the creation of Kentucky and Tennessee in the 1790s to more modern misfires like proposals to partition Long Island from New York or to split California in half.

The last successful intrastate secession movement was the formation of West Virginia during the Civil War.

SIZE MATTERS

Although Baja Arizona would be created from just a single county, it would hardly rank as the smallest territory to be granted statehood. Pima County exceeds Rhode Island, Delaware, Connecticut and New Jersey in land mass and surpasses several other states in population, including Alaska, Montana, Wyoming or the Dakotas, according to the U.S. Census.

Partisan tensions have long been a fact of life between left-leaning Pima County and a Phoenix-based political establishment that has produced such conservative giants as Barry Goldwater and John McCain.

But the rift was heightened during the past two years as Republican Governor Jan Brewer and her allies in control of the statehouse pursued a political agenda Democrats saw as extreme, including a crackdown on illegal immigration and proposals, ultimately unsuccessful, to nullify some federal laws.

State lawmaker Ted Vogt, a Republican who represents about one-fifth of Pima County residents, dismissed the breakaway movement as posturing by disgruntled Democrats who see themselves losing clout in state politics.

The county's three mostly rural, Republican-leaning House districts are growing, and so is their influence, Vogt said.

"I don't think a majority of Pima County residents want to leave Arizona," he told Reuters.

Even Tucson's best-known Democrat, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, had to fight tooth and nail to fend of a Republican challenge in her bid for a third term in November.

The ballot measure sought by Arizona secession backers is a nonbinding measure asking Pima County voters if they support petitioning state lawmakers for permission to break away.

Before secession could occur, it would have to be approved separately by the Legislature, and by a second, binding referendum by residents of the proposed state.

If the Legislature refused, organizers could try to sidestep lawmakers with a statewide referendum. If both the Legislature and Pima County voters agreed, then it would be up to the U.S. Congress to grant Baja Arizona formal statehood.

The modern concept of Baja Arizona dates back to 1965, according to Hugh Holub, a local attorney widely credited with coining the term that year during anti-war protests at the University of Arizona. He supports the current effort.

"It sure sends a message to the rest of the world that we aren't like the folks in Maricopa (County)," he said, referring to the state's population center and capital.

But a more historical precedent can be found in Arizona's origins as a U.S. territory, more than half a century before statehood was granted in 1912. The northern bulk of Arizona was ceded by Mexico to the United States in 1848, six years before the lower portion of the territory, south of the Gila River, was separately acquired in 1854 under the Gadsden Purchase.

"It should have been its own state from the get-go," Holub said.

(Editing by Steve Gorman and Greg McCune)

READ MORE - Liberals in southern Arizona seek to form new state

10 Worst States To Be a Woman

In a time of war and record unemployment, the GOP is sending a message: fertile women are the country’s number one enemy, and their freedoms must be quashed at all costs. State Republican (and some Democratic) legislators have introduced nearly 1,000 laws restricting women’s reproductive health access on the state level, and this is on top of decades of reproductive health policies that have made women second-class citizens in many states.

Here are 10 of the worst states to be a woman between puberty and menopause:

1. Mississippi. Mississippi has been such a bad state for women for so long it rarely even gets noticed in the news anymore. Legal and cultural harassment has reduced the number of abortion providers in the state to two, making the abortion rate in the state four times lower than the rest of the country. This doesn’t mean that women in Mississippi don’t need abortions; just that they go out of the state to get the services, making the actual abortion rate much closer to the national average. The demand is surely higher and not being met, as Mississippi is far from the place to go for decent sex education and birth control. Mississippi has the third highest teen birth rate in the country, the fifth highest maternal mortality rate, and fifth highest rate in STD transmissions. Because women can’t say no to childbearing easily, one in three Mississippi children live in poverty.

2. Texas. Thirty-five percent of women in their childbearing years are uninsured in Texas, making the need for subsidized family planning services especially strong in the state. Republican lawmakers responded to this need by slashing family planning funding, while leaving untouched the money the state spends on crisis pregnancy centers, even though these centers offer no real services women need. But even this isn’t enough for the Texas GOP. Republicans are currently concocting a scheme that would dismantle the entire state program dedicated to reproductive health care for low-income women. Just in case there was any doubt left in women’s minds that Texas Republicans hate them, Rick Perry will be signing an ultrasound requirement to get an abortion.

3. South Dakota. Anti-choicers in South Dakota tried to ban abortion in 2006, but the non-misogynist population turned up at the polls and beat the ban back. But searing hatred for ovulating women will not be thwarted so easily! The state then passed a law requiring women to wait 72 hours and subject themselves to a hectoring lecture at a crisis pregnancy center before they can get an abortion. Surprise! It turns out that no crisis pregnancy centers have applied to be official counseling centers. It makes sense, since by agreeing to do so, they’re allowing women to fulfill their paperwork requirements to get an abortion. Letting crisis pregnancy centers become an impassable obstacle to abortion has given misogynist legislators a way to deprive women of any ability to get an abortion while leaving abortion technically legal.

4. Indiana. Not to be outdone by South Dakota, Indiana has gone a step further and moved toward attacking both contraception and abortion access. Gov. Mitch Daniels recently signed a law banning abortions after 20 weeks, and cutting off all federal funding for family planning. Lawmakers claimed they only wanted to attack clinics that also provide abortions, but because of federal non-discrimination policy, the law basically means an end to all federal funding of contraception, as well as STD testing and treatment. Now women in Indiana who rely on Medicaid and Title X subsidies to afford contraception will have to come up with hundreds of dollars they don’t have for contraception, or go without and run the high risk of unwanted pregnancy. The Guttmacher Institute estimates that without these clinics, teen pregnancy would be 21 percent higher and there would be about 3,500 more abortions in the state a year.

5. Oklahoma. Oklahoma legislators looked at how Indiana Republicans are using the specter of abortion to cut off contraception and thinking of ways they can expand on that for brand-new ways to punish women for having working uteruses. Why stop at attacking women not giving birth, when you have women who have babies to punish, as well? With this in mind, the Oklahoma House passed a bill that would eliminate independent contractors from administering Women, Infants and Children (WIC), a federal program that distributes nutrition vouchers to low-income women with children. As usual, Planned Parenthood was cited as the reason, with the GOP claiming the organization is so evil that it’s better to starve babies than allow Planned Parenthood to receive government funding. In practice, the result is one more punishment inflicted on women, this time for having the nerve to have babies who need to eat.

6. Kansas. Kansas went from being a pretty bad place to be a woman to a hellhole rapidly, between the murder of Dr. George Tiller in 2009 and the recent election of devout misogynist Sam Brownback as governor. The murder emboldened the radical anti-choice movement, as it resulted in the closure of Tiller’s clinic and proved to them that terrorism does work. Because of this, anti-choicers in the area moved to terrorizing Dr. Mila Means, a Kansas family doctor who was discovered receiving training to provide abortion. So far, Dr. Means has been unable to find relief from the harassment campaign at her office and her home, and a federal judge refused to issue a restraining order against Angel Dilliard, an anti-choice fanatic who has been threatening Dr. Means’ life.

Despite the atmosphere of fear and violence, Gov. Brownback is giving the terrorists what they want by signing more abortion restrictions into law, and pushing to strip family planning funding from women who depend on it.

7. Minnesota. So much for “Minnesota nice.” The much-ballyooed unwillingness to be confrontational was shoved aside by Minnesota legislators who are all too willing to simply ignore court rulings that restrain misogynist legislation. Legislators sent a big F-you last week both to the supreme courts of the nation and their own state by passing two laws that have already been deemed illegal by the courts. One, a ban on abortions after 20 weeks, violates the Supreme Court’s ruling that abortions can only be banned after viability. The other, a law banning public funding of abortion, violates the Minnesota supreme court ruling that found that such a ban violates women’s right to equal treatment under the law. Minnesota Republicans may not confront you on most things, but they’re willing to take it to the mat to deprive women of basic equality.

8. Georgia. Last year, reproductive justice advocates beat back a bill that would require doctors to “screen” women of color having abortions for some kind of pressure to abort because of race. By inventing a non-existent problem (women of color aborting because of racism) legislators would have put doctors in a position where providing abortion to any woman of color could result in jail time, which could make the service only available to white women. The bill didn’t pass, but it did end up kicking off a nationwide frenzy of anti-choicers attacking the reproductive rights of women of color specifically while pretending to be concerned about racism.

In reality, Georgia is a terrible place for women of childbearing age, especially women of color. The state has the highest maternal mortality rate in the country, and maternal mortality disproportionately affects women of color. Real concern for the well-being of women of color would start with doing something about the maternal mortality rate, not feigning concern about their reasons for abortion.

9. Arizona. Race-based abortion restrictions may have failed in Georgia, but unfortunately, such a law recently passed in Arizona, a state that can’t even pretend that it’s not run by a bunch of wild-eyed racists. The “concern” for women of color aborting because of racism is laughable in a state where the legislature basically accused President Obama of not being a real citizen on no real evidence besides his appearance and in which it’s now the law for the police to harass Hispanic citizens for their papers. Of course, Arizona ignores the real problems facing women of its state -- 23 percent of women of child-bearing age are going without insurance coverage; the state has the third highest teenage pregnancy rate in the country; and 23 percent of Arizona children live in poverty. In light of all this, the safe assumption is race-based abortion laws are about making it that much harder for women of color to get abortions, which makes these laws not anti-racist, but just plain racist.

10. Louisiana. Louisiana has a ban on abortion on the books in case Roe v. Wade is overturned, as well as a host of other restrictions on abortion that have reduced the number of providers to seven in the state. Despite this, a Louisiana legislator has introduced a bill to ban abortion, apparently on the theory that if you pass the same illegal law over and over, it might just take. In addition, Gov. Jindal has indicated support for laws that would put additional restrictions in place for women of color seeking abortion, modeled on the abortion law in Arizona. As in Georgia, the concern for women of color is a centimeter deep; the state ranks 46th in maternal mortality and there’s no evidence that Republican legislators are lifting a finger to save the lives of women who do have their babies.

READ MORE - 10 Worst States To Be a Woman

New Rubiks Cube World Speed Record

New Rubiks Cube World Speed Record

READ MORE - New Rubiks Cube World Speed Record

Google Music Beta to stream 20,000 songs for free

It's not quite official but there's little doubt that Google will launch its Google Music service at its big I/O event later today. While the Wall Street Journal couldn't get a Google spokesman to admit it, Peter Kafka over at All Things D got Jamie Rosenberg, Director of Android Product Management, to spill the details a bit early. Google's service will essentially mimic the music locker functionality of Amazon's Cloud service, albeit without the ability to sell songs direct to consumers. Ouch. Unfortunately, Google's plans to launch a more feature-complete service were derailed when discussions with the labels broke down. According to Rosenberg, "A couple of the major labels were less focused on the innovative vision that we put forward, and more interested in an unreasonable and unsustainable set of business terms." So, rather than putting the service on hold, Google will launch its music service with the ability to store up to 20,000 of your own uploaded songs for free which you can then stream over the web to your desktop or Android phone or tablet -- any device that supports Flash (don't worry iOS users, your time will come). Amazon's service, by comparison, offers just 5GB of free storage for about 1,200 songs stored at a mediocre bitrate. Google will also best Amazon with a feature that automatically creates playlists. Google expects to roll out the service to its US users within "weeks" with Music Beta invites going out later today to Verizon Xoom owners (others will be able to sign up at music.google.com). Keep it right here because we'll be bringing you the announcement live.

Update: And it's officially official, called "Music Beta by Google" at this point. There's a simple presentation with artists, albums, and easy playlist creation. You can manually create them, or there's a feature called "Instant Mix" that will make you a playlist based on any single song. It'll automagically pick 25 different tracks to build a "truly ingenious mix." You know, kind of like another, similarly intelligent service. All of this syncs to the cloud, which means no wires needed to download anything.

But, more importantly, songs can be cached locally. You can pick any song, album, or playlist to download onto storage, at an unknown quality. It's the same pinning idea that's in the new movies feature. That and more is demonstrated in the video below.

The service is launching in beta today, allowing 20,000 songs, and it'll be free -- "at least while it's in beta." Also, the updated music app is available now, which will work with any music on your phone and any phone running Android 2.2 or above. To get full-featured you can request a beta and get in line, but if you happen to be reading this from I/O you're in the beta. Congrats, you lucky bums!

READ MORE - Google Music Beta to stream 20,000 songs for free

Steve Ballmer & Tony Bates Talk About Skype - Microsoft Deal

If one thing was expected from Microsoft paying $8.5 billion for Skype, it was the criticism of the deal. Given Microsoft’s history of botching previous mergers, I wouldn’t blame folks for being skeptical. I believe desperate times result in either desperate actions or heroic acts. So, we shall see.

Nonetheless, I’m betting that Microsoft knows that it is skating on thin ice and will make this Skype deal work. This morning, I spoke with Steve Ballmer and Tony Bates about the deal and what comes next. Here are my quick notes:

Steve Ballmer

• We wanted to partner with them but in late March/early April decided that we wanted to buy them and brought in a bid.
• We loved Skype’s growing consumer customer base.
• Tony Bates will report directly to Ballmer, and Skype will operate as a division of Microsoft.
• We will support the non-Microsoft platforms, and it is in our best interest to do so. That is part of the strategy. Real diversity of devices is the key value proposition of Skype franchise.
• This is about putting users first and giving them technologies they need.
• This is about communication and will be part of our communication efforts.
• Windows Phone 7, Outlook, Messenger, Kinect, X-Box Live, Hotmail and Lync are all getting Skype support.
• We want to be a scale provider of communication technologies.

Tony Bates

• The acquisition speaks to the strength of the business and the team
• I realized that while we can do it alone, the opportunities are much larger between us

READ MORE - Steve Ballmer & Tony Bates Talk About Skype - Microsoft Deal

Fear that U.S. could grab nuclear arsenal heightens Pakistani anger

Last week's U.S. raid into Pakistan is fueling one of the country's most enduring—and potentially dangerous—conspiracy theories: that the U.S. has designs on Pakistan's nuclear arsenal and is prepared to send highly trained commandos into the country to seize control of the weapons.

The pervasive Pakistani belief that the U.S. would be willing and able to effectively steal the country's nuclear weapons helps explain Islamabad's surprisingly aggressive official response to the Navy SEAL assault that killed Osama bin Laden, the world's most wanted terrorist.

Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, the head of Pakistan's armed forces, released a blistering public statement late last week condemning the U.S. assault and warning that he would order his troops to use armed force against any American troops who entered Pakistan in the future in pursuit of other wanted militants.

Kayani's statement also made explicit reference to his country's nuclear arsenal, which he promised to fully defend against any potential American-led efforts to take control of the weapons.

"As regards the possibility of similar hostile action against our strategic assets, the [Pakistani military] reaffirmed that, unlike an undefended civilian compound, our strategic assets are well protected and an elaborate defensive mechanism is in place," Kayani said in a statement put out by the military's official press office.

The remarks stunned and angered many senior Obama administration officials, who had expected Pakistan to apologize for the pervasive intelligence failures that allowed bin Laden to spend five years living in an affluent Islamabad suburb under the nose of thousands of Pakistani security officials. American officials also thought Pakistan would quickly ramp up its intelligence sharing about the whereabouts of bin Laden's likely successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, as part of a package of conciliatory gestures toward Washington, where anti-Pakistani sentiment is running at a fever pitch. Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said his staff would investigate whether elements of Pakistan's government, military, or intelligence service knew bin Laden was in their country or helped shelter him.

(U.S. and Pakistan play up ties amid popular distrust)

"I think at high levels—high levels being the intelligence service—at high levels they knew it," Levin told ABC News last week. "I can't prove it. I just think it's counterintuitive not to."

The Pakistani paranoia about the future of its nuclear arsenal is threatening to deal a new blow to the already troubled relationship between Washington and Islamabad.

Pakistan is a country consumed by conspiracy theories, mainly having to do with allegations of nefarious plots by Israel, the U.S., and India. Pakistani newspapers regularly publish breathless "scoops" about American plans to build large military bases inside the country or about so-called "Indo-Zionist" plots by Israel and India to damage Pakistan's fragile economy or weaken its currency.

But few of the purported plots have endured as long—or become as widely held across diverse swaths of Pakistani society—as the belief that the U.S. has been secretly preparing to fly commandos into Pakistan one day to seize its nuclear weapons. Pakistan is believed to have as many as 100 nuclear warheads, and the conspiracy theorists believe the U.S. will one day try to take the weapons to prevent them from falling into militant hands or being used against India.

"It's one of those conspiracy theories that has been around for a long, long time," Wendy Chamberlin, a former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, said in an interview. "My belief is that the Pakistani armed forces spread the rumor to drum up anti-American sentiment so they can gain leverage with the U.S. by saying, 'Look, our people hate you, and we're the only effective interlocutors you have.'"

Publicly, the Pakistani military has consistently told the U.S. that its nuclear weapons were safely out of the reach of the country's Islamic militants while assuring its own people that Pakistani forces could defend the weapons if American forces made any effort to capture them.

(Obama: Bin Laden likely had a 'support network')

But the ease with which elite U.S. forces jammed Pakistan's advanced air defense systems and mounted a precision operation deep inside Pakistani territory is eroding the Pakistani military's standing in the eyes of its own people and raising new questions there about whether the U.S. could one day mount a similar push to grab Pakistan's nuclear weapons.

"If Americans can attack here, they can do it anywhere," a 23-year-old medical student named Tahirullah told a reporter from The Dawn, an English-language Pakistani newspaper, last week. "This is a shameful incident for us. Our army should have shot down the U.S. choppers."

The leader of Pakistan's leading opposition party, meanwhile, said Pakistan's civilian government should resign for failing to protect the country's sovereignty from being breached by U.S. troops.

"Are we going to be the 52nd state of the U.S.?" Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan told reporters in Islamabad. "Is the world's seventh nuclear power so weak that it can't keep four helicopters from breaking the country's sovereignty?"

Chamberlin, who currently serves as the president of the Middle East Institute in Washington, said relations between the two countries were "at a crisis point" that would only improve if Pakistani leaders toned down their criticism of the U.S., pointing out that American drones had killed numerous high-ranking militants who regularly targeted Pakistani civilians.

"They need to start to change the narrative," she said. "We can't give them this kind of $3 billion a year and get this kind of crap in response."

But persuading Pakistanis to abandon their long-held mistrust of the U.S. is certain to be easier said than done. During a trip to Pakistan last summer, Defense Secretary Robert Gates faced hostile questioning from a journalist from the country's Express 24/7 television station, Quatrina Hosain, who said conspiracy theories about U.S. plots to seize Pakistan's nuclear weapons had taken "on the hue or the coloring of being real" because the American government hadn't formally shot them down. Gates told her there were no such plans and that rumors to the contrary were "all nonsense."

But the questions didn't go away then. The day after his TV interview, Gates told a crowd of stony-faced senior Pakistani military officers at the country's National Defence University that the he wanted to tell them "definitively" that the U.S. had "no desire to control Pakistan's nuclear weapons." Several of the officers shook their heads or rolled their eyes at the remark. With the U.S. demonstrating an ability to do precisely what those officers most feared—easily penetrate their country's allegedly sophisticated defenses without being spotted—the conspiracy theories about alleged American designs on Pakistan's nuclear weapons won't disappear anytime soon.

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READ MORE - Fear that U.S. could grab nuclear arsenal heightens Pakistani anger