North Dakota woman plans to give obese kids letters on Halloween

By David Bailey

(Reuters) - A North Dakota woman told a local radio station that on Halloween she will give children she considers obese a sternly-worded letter for their parents along with candy.

The woman, who gave her name only as "Cheryl," said she would still hand out candy but planned to give some trick-or-treaters a sealed envelope with a letter for their parents, she said Tuesday in a call to a radio station in Fargo.

"I am not denying any of the kids candy," she said. "I am just hoping the parents are going to read this and think about it while they watch their kids get into bigger and bigger sizes of clothes," according to a recording of the radio show.

"As far as we know Cheryl is a local Fargo woman that thinks it is her mission to watch out for the overweight children of Fargo," radio host Corey Schaffer said Wednesday.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control has said the percentage of children and adolescents aged 2-19 years in the United States who were obese in 2010 was 17 percent.

Schaffer, who goes by Zero as a host of the Y94 show, said the woman exchanged emails with the station for a couple of days and was scheduled in advance to call in Tuesday.

Schaffer said Cheryl's Halloween plan has sparked some "nasty, nasty responses."

Among the responses was "Ready, Eggs, FIRE." Others suggested she pass out healthier treats or not answer her door.

Cheryl's letter reads in part, "Your child is, in my opinion, moderately obese and should not be consuming sugar and treats to the extent of some children this Halloween season.

"My hope is that you will step up as a parent and ration candy this Halloween and not allow your child to continue these unhealthy eating habits."

Halloween has been a season of radio pranks since Orson Welles radio broadcast adaptation of "War of the Worlds" sparked fears of an East Coast alien invasion 75 years ago, but Schaffer said the station was not perpetrating a hoax and he did not believe Cheryl was either.

In the radio appearance, the woman said, "I just think that parents should take more responsibility for their kids becoming little fat kids."

Cheryl added, "I don't want to be the mean lady. I don't want to be the lady that everybody avoids."

(Reporting by David Bailey; Editing by Greg McCune and Kenneth Barry)

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North Dakota town pushes back against white supremacist takeover try

A small town in North Dakota has reportedly formed a legal defense fund to stop a longtime white supremacist from taking over the town-- population 24-- and turning it into an all-white enclave.

"We need people from across the state to come alongside of us and show support that they don’t believe in what this guy is doing," Lee Cook, a Leith City Council member told The Bismarck Tribune. "There are a lot of people who could speak up. It’s not tricky. Silence, to me, means that whatever he’s doing is OK."

Cook was talking about Craig Cobb, a 61 year old, self-described white supremacist, who moved into a house in Leith in Grant County. The county has a 97 percent white population.

"I only need 17 people. You have to have a majority to win an election. If we get 22 we've got a landslide."

- Craig Cobb, a 61 year old, self-described white supremacist

The Southern Poverty Law Center says Cobb has been on something of a real estate shopping spree, buying more than a dozen lots in the town for a few hundred dollars each.

The report says Cobb announced his plans last year on Vanguard News Network, which was described as a white supremacist online forum.

Cobb, who is wanted in Canada for willfully promoting hatred, even made a sales pitch to the like-minded. He praised the area's good paying jobs and the selection of satellite TV providers.

Some white supremacists have already been buying up property from Cobb.

This weekend, state residents have planned a "peaceful show of solidarity" with the town.

"We cannot accept this racist hatred they are bringing here. Leith is in a crisis and is crying out for help," Jeremy Kelly, a resident of Bismarck told The Tribune.

Cobb spends his days in his ramshackle two-story home with no running water, posting online comments advocating for white supremacists to join his settlement.

"I only need 17 people," he said with a chuckle. "You have to have a majority to win an election. If we get 22 we've got a landslide."

Cobb's neighbors across a back alley are Sherrill Harper, who is white, and her husband Bobby, who is black. Bobby Harper, a 52-year-old welder, said he has spoken to Cobb only once, and that Cobb's plans don't bother him much.

"The most extreme thing you can do is hate another man because of the color of his skin, (but) I don't think we should get too excited," he said. "I believe right will prevail."

Ryan Lenz, a writer with the Alabama-based nonprofit law center, said his organization has long tracked Cobb, who is wanted in Canada for willfully promoting hatred in Vancouver in 2010 via a blog.

"It's a pipe dream for white nationalists to have an entire area in which their neighbors are Aryan," Lenz said.

That's hard to achieve, Lenz said, but Cobb has made strides because he has gobbled up land — even transferring some to Tom Metzger, a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and founder of the White Aryan Resistance.

That doesn't mean he's any closer to enacting his plan. Metzger said he likes Cobb but that declared plans for white enclaves never work and that he will not be joining Cobb in Leith.

"I think it's better just to have people move in quietly, have a job, operate a regular daily life and get along with their neighbors," he said. "I wouldn't go into a town pushing my weight around."

Cobb, a native of Missouri, fled prosecution in Canada and chased the promise of high-paying jobs in the booming western North Dakota oil fields. He said he was fired from a job because of a dispute with a co-worker and that he lost a job with a Fargo-based paving company after media coverage of his settlement plans.

Canadian authorities have not approached the U.S. to extradite Cobb. Cpl. Normandie Levas of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said the white supremacist can't be extradited because the charge against him in Canada doesn't exist under U.S. law.

Deputy North Dakota Attorney General Tom Trenbeath said authorities are aware of Cobb, and the Grant County Sheriff's Office has increased patrols in the area. But Cobb hasn't broken any laws there, and Schock acknowledges that he has a right to live in Leith, no matter his views.

Cobb's comments and writings indicate he believes in a superior white race, distrusts both Jews and Christians, and questions the intelligence of women. He declines to talk about his upbringing and gives no indication as to why he adopted his supremacist platform.

In an interview outside his house, he was calm, cheerful and even jovial, making comments that raised questions about whether he believes his plan could succeed — or if he's just seeking publicity.

"If I'm the only one in Leith forever, white consciousness has already been raised," he said.

Click for more from The Bismarck Tribune

The Associated Press contributed to this report

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Atomic bomb nearly exploded over North Carolina in 1961, report says

FILE Aug. 6, 1945: Photo released by the U.S. Army, a mushroom cloud billows about one hour after an atomic bomb was detonated above Hiroshima, western Japan.AP

The U.S. Air Force nearly detonated an atomic bomb over North Carolina in 1961 that would have been 260 times more powerful than the device that destroyed Hiroshima, according to a declassified report published Friday in The Guardian.

The 1969 document, obtained by investigative journalist Eric Schlosser under the Freedom of Information Act, details the Jan. 23, 1961, B-52 crash near Goldsboro, North Carolina, that saw two Mark 39 hydrogen bombs break up in mid-air.

The report said that one of the two bombs behaved exactly as nuclear weapon is designed to function in wartime and that only a single low-voltage switch prevented detonation. Fallout could have been deposited over Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York City, according to the report.

Parker Jones, a senior engineer in the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., wrote in the report that "one simple, dynamo-technology, low voltage switch stood between the United States and a major catastrophe".

Jones, analyzing a book by physicist Ralph Lapp on the crash, found that the bombs "did not possess adequate safety for the airborne alert role in the B-52" and concluded that the detonation "would have been bad news – in spades."

Three of the eight crew members died in the crash. In July 2012, the state of North Carolina placed a historic marker in the town of Eureka with the words "nuclear mishap," according to the Raleigh News and Observer.

The Guardian reported that Schlosser obtained the document while conducting research for a new book on the nuclear arms race, "Command and Control."

"The US government has consistently tried to withhold information from the American people in order to prevent questions being asked about our nuclear weapons policy," Schlosser told the newspaper. "We were told there was no possibility of these weapons accidentally detonating, yet here's one that very nearly did."

Click here for more from The Guardian.

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Instagram videos provide a glimpse of life inside North Korea

For decades, the outside world has largely been left to wonder what life looks like in North Korea. But a number of videos taken inside the country and recently uploaded to Instagram provide an intimate, and often surreal, look at daily life in the isolated nation.

Associated Press photographer David Guttenfelder has been uploading photos and video to his personal Instagram account.

As Gizmodo notes, any images originating from inside the North must be viewed through a certain lens, considering the heavy hand of propaganda and state media control in North Korea. In other words, we’re not likely to see firsthand images confirming secondhand reports of starving citizens in the streets of Pyongyang.

Nonetheless, these images give the rest of the world an unprecedented look inside the country.

What do you think? Could North Korea’s recent decision to allow foreigners access to a 3G network inside the country accelerate change? Back in February, Associated Press reporter Jean H. Lee transmitted the first known tweet from inside North Korea. Or are moves like this interesting but ultimately inconsequential when it comes to actual policy towards Kim Jong Un’s hereditary dictatorship?

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North Korean leader Kim praises military sings, oungum-style

SEOUL (Reuters)-forget "Hail to the Chief". In North Korea, the army sing their Praises leaders with a chorus of "we'll defend Gen. Kim Jong-un at the Cost of Our Lives", or the catchy accordion and Tap Dancing tune, "The Naval port in the evening".

Kim, the third of his rule in North Korea, praised musical instruments made from 1.2 million-strong army of the North on Sunday, the State News Agency KCNA reported.

Tensions have risen on the Korean peninsula as new UN sanctions were imposed after the North carried out its third nuclear test in February. Pyongyang has threatened to destroy the United States with nuclear weapons, bombing its bases Pacific and South Korea by shell in response.

Putting aside the rhetoric rising, Kim inspected guitars and drums made by the army and said it was important to make the quality tools so soldiers could "spend their days worth in the army filled with joy and militant optimism," said the KCNA.

Kim, "Supreme Commander" of the North's armed forces, inspected also coats for students at the best military schools in the country and suggested improvements, the KCNA reported.

According to independent observers, huge North Korea's military, believed to be the fourth largest in the world, spend most of their time in activities such as manufacture or for fishing for crabs because Drills are too expensive for the country impoverished and need feeding.

Kim field guide follows the example of his father, Kim Jong-il, who gave advice to factories and farmers, as well as the army.

Kim Jong-un, 30, still has some way to go in emulating the accomplishments reported by his father.

Feats of his father, according to the KCNA, including inventing the oungum, a musical instrument like banjo that is "popular" in North Korea and scored 11 holes-in-one in a single round of golf.

(Reporting by Somang Yang; Editing by Paul Tait)

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North Korea dreams of an American city in flames

SEOUL (Reuters)-New York under missile attack is a remote dream for North Korea's impoverished, yet that is precisely what the latest propaganda video from isolated State shows how to prepare a third nuclear test.

The video, posted on the website of semi-official Uriminzokkiri (http://www.uriminzokkiri.com/) and quickly becoming a viral Internet success, shows a United States city ablaze in scenes reminiscent of 9/11-part of a dream sequence in which a photographer around the Earth in a fictional North Korean space shuttle.
Rocket portrayed in crude animation, whose backing track is an instrumental version of "We Are the World", is labeled Unha-9, and the satellite shown is the Kwangmyongsong-21, as the young man's dreams of photographing the Earth from space.
"Black smoke is seen somewhere in America," says the video Korean text. "It seems that the nest of evil is on fire with the fire that started".
The video was removed from YouTube due to a copyright claim by Activision Games Inc., hence "Call of Duty" title pictures of burning city appeared to have been taken, but it was still accessible elsewhere on the Web.
So far, North Korea launched the rocket Unha-3 and is also on the third version of its satellite, which finally made it into space in December last year at the third attempt, triggering new United Nations sanctions.
The North is banned by the United Nations in the development of missiles and nuclear technology but says it has the sovereign right to a peaceful space program.
A North Korean space shuttle is beyond the wildest dreams of a country where the economy is smaller than 20 years ago and where about a third of children are malnourished.
Despite his bluster and threats to the United States, which the North labels a "hostile", Pyongyang is remotely capable of carrying a warhead of any kind capable of hitting an American city, although his rocket Unha-3 have a range of 10,000 kilometres (6,200 miles) that could reach the American continent.
North Korea has pulled plans to carry out a third nuclear test, which experts believe is imminent. You could use highly enriched uranium for the first time in an attempt to preserve his limited stock of plutonium used in tests in 2006 and 2009.
Washington has warned that a third test could trigger further sanctions against Pyongyang, but took a conservative line on the latest agitprop video from North Korea.
I've seen it, "State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland told a press conference in Washington, referring to the video that was released this past weekend. "Clearly I'm not going to dignify and talk about it here."
North Korea remains technically at war with South Korea and the United States after the Korea war of 1950-53 ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty.
The propaganda machine of hyper-active threatened on several occasions to turn the South Korean capital Seoul into a "sea of fire" and has also labelled South Korean President Lee Myung-bak a "rat bastard" and staged fake kills him.
The latest video, which by Wednesday had been viewed more than 100,000 times on Live Leak, denouncing the "imperialist schemes to isolate and oppress us." (http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=203_1360053143)
"They won't be able to stop our journey towards the final victory," it says.
(Additional reporting by Paul Eckert in WASHINGTON; Written by David Chance; Editing by Alex Richardson)

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