2010

Dozens of U.S. banks will fail in the next two years as losses from soured loans mount and regulators crack down on lenders that take too much risk, especially in real estate and construction, an analyst said.

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) - Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson said Wednesday that 2008 will be a year of violence worldwide and a recession in the United States, followed by a major stock-market crash by 2010. Praying about events in the coming year and sharing what he believes God has told him is an annual

MemeBox.com announces the Public Beta release of its first application, the Future Scanner (futurescanner.net), a community-powered app that organizes info about the future by year and category. Dedicated to the cutting-edge stories shaping our tomorrow, the MemeBox Future Scanner is an essential part of every forward-thinking person's toolkit.

The Bush administration's plan to increase the size of the Army and the Marine Corps by 92,000 troops over the next five years is running into trouble. In January, Defense Secretary Robert Gates proposed adding 65,000 soldiers and 27,000 marines to bring the Army's total to 547,000 troops and the Marines' to 202,000. The idea was to relieve pressure on today's overstressed ground forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and to better equip the military to deal with similar unconventional wars in the future. The move, designed to provide six more combat brigade teams and their support units, complements President Bush's order late last year to boost U.S. troop strength temporarily for the current "surge" in Iraq.

Soviet era foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze on Wednesday warned world leaders not to let the row over US plans to place a missile shield in Europe escalate into another Cold War. "We must not repeat the mistakes of the past, we must not allow another Cold War to happen," Shevardnadze said as he presented the German version of his political memoirs, "Thoughts on the Past and the Future", at the Frankfurt Book Fair. "It is my moral duty to make this warning. We must not allow the upset about missiles and anti-missile systems to escalate.

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has released a video animation of the planned Oblique Flying Wing X-plane demonstrator now being designed by Northrop Grumman. The animation shows the asymmetric flying wing sweeping from 0° to 65° as the unmanned demonstrator accelerates Mach 0.6 to Mach 1.2.

New York City's Lower Manhattan Security Initiative -- which includes plans for 3,000 surveillance cameras -- is modeled after London's network of street-viewing cameras, which, along with roadblocks and other measures, is dubbed the Ring of Steel. It is intended to deter terrorist attacks or to help with capture if an attack occurs.

MOODY AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. - The military calls its new weapon an ''active denial system,'' but that's an understatement. It's a ray gun that shoots a beam that makes people feel as if they are about to catch fire.

Apart from causing that terrifying sensation, the technology is supposed to be harmless _ a non-lethal way to get enemies to drop their weapons.