Three shot on Army base - CNN

The gunman was shot and killed by law enforcement officers on the base, officials say.The shooting occurred at a convenience store on the Army baseTwo women were shot by a man and wounded, authorities sayThe man was shot and killed by police

(CNN) -- The FBI is on its way to Fort Bliss in west Texas to investigate a shooting at a convenience store on the base that left a man dead and two women wounded, according to base spokesman Dieter Jester.

The man, who authorities say shot the females, was shot and killed by law enforcement officers on the base.

It's unclear what may have been the motive for the shooting or even if the man or his victims are in the military, or are civilians.

The police officers who killed the alleged gunman responded within three to four minutes because their offices are very near the base shopping area.

Fort Bliss is located close to the Mexican border near El Paso, Texas, but straddles the Texas-New Mexico border. Most of the base is located in New Mexico, but the main headquarters is in Texas.

The base is home to the First Armored Division. President Barack Obama visited there last month to meet the troops and mark the end of the official combat mission in Iraq.

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PG&E releases list of 100 highest-risk sites - San Jose Mercury News

Print   Email   Font ResizeBy Pete Carey

pcarey@mercurynews.com

Posted: 09/20/2010 04:55:43 PM PDTUpdated: 09/20/2010 05:03:02 PM PDT

Bowing to public pressure, PG&E released a long-awaited list of the "Top 100" riskiest natural gas pipeline segments and their locations along its 6,700 miles of gas transmission lines Monday.

A handful of the locations, some of which contain multiple segments, are in or near Silicon Valley, including the Peninsula, Fremont, Milpitas, Sunol and Livermore.

The California Public Utilities Commission asked for the list following the Sept. 9 San Bruno pipeline blast that killed four and left three unaccounted for. The utility said the document is used for planning purposes and shows problems ranging from corrosion to land issues, rather than problems that pose an immediate danger to the public.

PG&E President Chris Johns was grilled by reporters at a press conference about why the San Bruno line was not on the list.

He said the cause of the blast is still being investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board. But if there's an issue involving safety it is addressed immediately, he said.

"We don't put it on some list of 100," he said. If there's a safety issue, "we immediately send a team out to address that. Nothing is more important."

The transmission pipeline is divided into 20,000 segments, some a mile long, some only a few feet long. Johns said the segments were prioritized according to a complicated algorithm that takes into account population, age of the pipeline and other factors. A segment could be

high on the list because construction is being done near it. When the construction is done, the segment moves down the list and another one moves up, he explained.

"In some instances, all we're doing is monitoring that segment of pipeline," he said.

There are two sites in San Jose, one near the Milpitas border and another near North First Street near Nicholson Lane. Milpitas has several segments near 237 and Ranch Drive. Other locations runs along Foothill expressway next to the Stanford University campus. and near Dumbarton and Donahoe streets in East Palo Alto.

Still another is at El Camino Real and Brittan Avenue in San Carlos. Another one runs through central Fremont. Four of sites were in Livermore, and two others were in Sunol.

The company set up a hotline for customers to find out if their home is near a transmission line. There is also a Web site containing maps and a list of the Top 100 segments.

The hotline number is 1-888-743-7431

The web site is www.pge.com/pipelineplanning.

Contact Pete Carey at 408-920-5419.

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Woman faces theft charge in acid hoax - msnbc.com

A Vancouver woman is being charged with a crime after she admitted faking an attack in which her face was doused in acid, NBC affiliate KGW TV of Portland, Ore., reported on Monday.

Bethany Storro was set to be charged with three counts of theft with aggravating circumstances in connection with fundraisers after the Aug. 30 incident, Clark County prosecutors told KGW TV.

An investigation into the reported acid attack showed it was self-inflicted, Vancouver police said last week. Storro had claimed said she was splashed in the face with the liquid near the Esther Park area of downtown Vancouver.

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"I thought there would be no evidence of me doing it to myself," Storro told police, according to KGW TV. "And then you guys — I thought that you guys would give up on trying to find the person and it would be done," court documents showed.

Court documents showed Storro said she self-administered the acid to her face with drain cleaner purchased in a local hardware store. Storro bought a pair of gloves at the time, records showed, according to KGW TV's report.

Storro told a detective that at first, she was trying to kill herself. Secondly, she stated, if that proved not to be fatal, then she could get her face redone, KGW TV reported.

"Then when I realized it wasn't killing me, I thought maybe this was the answer to all my problems. To have a completely different face," she said.

She said she bought the gloves to wear while using towels to apply the caustic substance to her face in a restroom of a park near Clark college, hours before she reported being attacked.

Storro originally claimed a black woman with a ponytail threw acid in her face at night as she was celebrating a new job and had just bought a pair of sunglasses.

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Splash patterns and other parts of the story, like the wearing of sunglasses at night, led to the unraveling of Storro's story, police said.

Police said it was important to get the word of Storro's confession out immediately to assure the public knew that the Esther Park area of downtown Vancouver, scene of the alleged attack, was safe.

Just a week earlier, KGW TV reported that a remarkably upbeat and candid Storro sat in front of reporters at Legacy Emanuel Hospital and described how she was injured.

She claimed her attacker said "Hey pretty girl, do you want to drink this?" before splashing the acid that burned her face.

Storro said she held the news conference then to draw attention to efforts to find the attacker, but also to talk about her faith.

"I'm here today because of Jesus Christ," she said at the time, adding that the strength of her faith would allow her to move forward.

However, doubts about Storro's veracity were already spreading.

Media analyses, including a posting in The Vancouver Voice, questioned why in her photograph acid burns were absent from her face along her hairline, eyes or lips and none were reported on her neck, shoulders or hair or inside her nose or mouth.

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The Vancouver Voice also had reported that homeless witnesses claimed Storro was alone when she fell to the ground screaming.

Chats on The Columbian newspaper website had also questioned the veracity of Storro's tale.

Storro said that while in the hospital, a Safeway representative gave her a check for $3,000, which was placed into her personal account, KGW TV reported.

She said she spent about $1,500 of the money on dinners for her parents, a train ticket for her sister, "stuff at Target" clothes for herself and round-trip train tickets to Seattle for her and her mother for the weekend of Sept. 12. She also used the money to pay off a $620 bill to a Portland clinic where she had a laser peel on Aug. 30, according to KGW TV.

A fund set up at Umpqua Bank for Storro, in the name of her mother Nancy Neuwelt, has accumulated $4,596.04. That included $800 from a fundraiser at Anytime Fitness.

An account at Riverview Savings Bank in Vancouver has $20,000 in Storro's name. The bank had held a fundraising golf tournament for her.

Nancy and Joseph Neuwelt said last week they didn't know why their daughter lied.

"Our hope is the medical community can find the answer," Nancy Neuwelt said at a Friday news conference outside their Vancouver home. "She’s obviously dealing with some deep internal psychological problems we had no knowledge of. She has a long road ahead of her, and we are going to walk it with her."

The couple said Storro, 28, was "extremely sorry" for causing the community pain.

The Neuwelts said they each believed "as any good parent would" that their daughter had been the victim of an attack. They said did not know until Thursday that the ordeal was a hoax.

Joseph Neuwelt said all money donated to his daughter's relief fund will be returned through the proper channels.

© 2010 msnbc.com

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Spot Forex Trading, Part 1 - Trading With the Trend

There are a lot of books available on trading the markets in general. Many of the books focus on always trading with the trends of the market. The book by Michael Covel titled "Trend Following" is excellent and I strongly recommend reading it.

If anyone attempts to trade the spot forex the very first task at hand is to determine if they currency pair they are considering buying or selling is in a trend. The next step would be to wait for an entry point into the existing trend and ride the trends of the forex as far as possible.

How far is as far as possible? Well, the stronger the trend and the trends on the larger timeframes the longer you ride it. Short term trends are fine too but the length of the move will not be as far and your trade entries will be more frequent. If you trade larger trends and timeframes of the spot forex you will trade less frequently and ride each trade much longer. The larger trends of the spot forex have a higher reward of pips for each given entry and you tend to trade less frequently

Forex trend indicators and forex trend tools are available in commercial charting packages, trading platforms and software packages. Many of them are good but not well understood.

If you always trade with the trends of the spot forex you will always enjoy some level of success. I can equate trading with the trends of the spot forex to sailing with the wind instead of against it.

On the other hand ignorance of the forex market trends will cause an insurmountable obstacle to profitable forex trading. If you don't know what the trend is for the currency pair you are trading you will never consistently make money trading the spot forex.

What is worse is that if you make a trade on the spot forex and have a profitable trade or losing trade you wont be able to pinpoint why if you don't know the primary trend of the currency pair you are trading.

Always know the trends of the spot forex market and always trade in the direction of the trend.

Being a trend trader on the spot forex is NOT scalping, and it is NOT trading the news. If you choose to scalp the spot forex knowing the trend is still extremely beneficial. Most forex scalpers eventually quit scalping because it is too tiresome, mentally exhausting and eventually they all become forex trend traders anyway, so why not start out where you are going to wind up??

Also if you trade the forex news you can also do this in the direction of the trend and it is amazing how often the forex trends are right about an expected news event, so why risk ever trading against the trend at all?

Trading with the trends of the spot forex is also common sense. Trading against the trend or when there is no established trend will only cause grief and losses.

If no trend is present on a currency pair it is usually range bound or oscillating up and down. This means that the pair is trading in a small or large pip range and appears to be bouncing up and down or cycling up and down within the range. The currency pair cannot move higher or lower because it is stuck in the range.

When the currency pair moves up and down within the range two things are possible. One possibility is that the pair is bouncing up and down in a ragged fashion that is difficult to trade. The second possibility is that the pair is oscillating in clear smooth cycles up and down within the range. When a currency pair is oscillating it can be traded fairly easily. Just wait until it reaches the top or bottom of a cycle and trade it when it starts going the other direction. This occurs very frequently in the spot forex. When a currency pair is in a smooth oscillation even a beginner trader can trade these oscillating pairs very safely.

So now we have our foundation for trading the spot forex. We must always trade with the trend. Traders who trade with the trends of the forex market will always have some level of success. Consistently trading against the trend or ignorance of the trend will result in consistent losing trades.

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Forex Market - News Trading, Part One

The methodology for predicting and trading these trends is simple and straightforward: monitor the economic calendar and trade the news.

Complicated Forex Trading Formulas and Technical Indicators

Tired of complicated, proprietary Forex trading formulas and the endless barrage of technical indicators no one seems to understand? You are certainly not alone. The Foreign Exchange Market, in its most basic form, is really quite simple. It doesn't consist of magic wands, potions, or secret handshakes. You do not have to be an economist, political analyst, or mathematician to grasp it. There is no Holy Grail of Forex trading. There is, however, a better way. Thankfully, it is also the most basic, elemental form of trading on the Foreign Exchange. If a country's economy is in a growth trend, the obvious conclusion is that its currency will grow in strength versus a country whose economy is holding steady or in decline. The methodology for predicting and trading these trends is simple and straightforward: monitor the economic calendar and trade the news.

Is Trading the News Risky Business?

While some will consider this too risky, the facts just do not support their fears. Certain news releases consistently produce 30 to 50 pip moves in a predictable direction. Knowing and following a solid strategy is essential to successful news trading in the Forex Market.

News Releases consistently move the market upon their release.

We are talking about news releases that come directly from government agencies and other research departments devoted to studying and monitoring economic trends. It is critical to know the various news releases and how they typically move the market. Not all releases are created equally. Some are very consistent and predictable. These A-list news releases provide rewarding trade opportunities, provided,

1. you know the expected number;

2. you know how much deviation is required to move the market enough to gain a profit;

3. you know how the market will react if a number comes out higher or lower than expected.

As simple as one, two, three... Knowing the three key factors listed above is not as difficult or mysterious as it may seem. Number one is taken care of in the related news releases. Number two can be ascertained, either through personal trial and error, or by learning from a verified market expert like Dustin Pass, whose extensive research and work in trading the news has made him a recognized authority. Number three is much less difficult a hurdle than it appears. When the numbers do not meet expectation, when they are higher or lower, they will affect each release in a particular way. In Part Two, we will share the A List and B List news releases, talk about their required deviations, and explain how variances in the numbers affect each.

Obtaining News on Foreign Exchange Trading

When you go into the business of trading currencies, one of the most important things you need to consider is how often you get your news on foreign exchange. Because the industry is so highly volatile and currencies change their values every so often. You need to keep updated with the ongoing trends in forex so you can plot out your next move much better and without the same high risks you might otherwise experience.

In the old days, people rely on papers and the traditional television and radio media to be updated with currency values. But these days it's easier to get your news on foreign exchange matters. The internet has made it tons easier than what it was like before. You no longer have to purchase dailies or even wait for the next issue of your foreign currency or financial magazine. All the information you need can be retrieved in just a few clicks.

Online News on Foreign Exchange

All of the major media channels and companies have also ridden the online bandwagon. There are no major media stations out there who do not have their own website where they can post every news that they have set out to cover. The reason why they did this is because people have basically been more attuned to going online when obtaining their news. It's easier to get and faster because you only need to log on the internet and have very good connection to get your dose of forex news. You can also simply hide it in tabs if you are currently doing something else.

News companies have also found that it's easier to upload things on the internet. The system works pretty much like a blogsite does, with the only difference being that online news still needed to pass through content editors before they are finally posted. But at least there's no need to layout the entire issue first and have it printed or published on paper before it comes out. Some reporters may even write down their news as it happens and directly upload it on site. Now that's what you call breaking news.

Possible Topics of News on Foreign Exchange

Aside from the changing values, there are also many other possible topics or information that you can obtain from reading news on foreign exchange. You just have to consider the fact that there are plenty of different factors that actually affect the results of currency values in the first place. Both the public and private sector are known to affect currency values in such that whatever happens to these institutions may cause inflations, among many others.

National issues may also have a profound effect on currency exchange values. People tend to hold off remittances when instabilization occurs in a particular country for fear that the economy may also be affected by the event. Things like these would very well be reported on foreign currency news and you can also expect that media would expound on this, even including insights from industry experts to shed more light on the subject.