WASHINGTON (AP) -- TheAmerican economy and job mar-ket are moving in the right direc-tion, just not very quickly.

The news Friday that U.S.employers added a solid 165,000jobs in April and unemployment fellto a four-year low of 7.5 percentcame as a relief.

The Dow Jones industrialaverage surged 142 points, or 1percent, on the news to close at arecord 14,973. The better-than-expected April numbers erasedworries that the U.S. economywas stalling for the fourth year in a row - a fear that hademerged after a disappointing jobs report for March. Friday'sreport also showed job growth in March and February wasstronger than first estimated.

Nearly four years after a devastating recession, the U.S.economy and job market are far from a full recovery, but theyhave made steady progress. Here is an overview of America'seconomic health:

-HIRING: PICKING UP BUT FACING A LONG SLOG

The U.S. economy has been adding 196,000 jobs amonth this year, up from a monthly average of 179,000 in 2011and 2012. Given how far it needs to go, the job market is recov-ering more slowly than people had hoped. The U.S. still has 2.6million fewer jobs than it had when the Great Recession beganin December 2007. At the current pace of hiring, total U.S. jobswon't reach the pre-recession level of 138 million for more thananother year.

Account for population growth, and the jobs ditch is evendeeper: Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the liberal EconomicPolicy Institute, says the economy needs to add 8.6 millionjobs, not 2.6 million, to keep up with a rising population.

-UNEMPLOYMENT: FALLING - BUT STILL HIGH

Unemployment has improved dramatically since peakingat 10 percent in October 2009. But by any normal standard,April's 7.5 percent unemployment was still a recession-level fig-ure - higher, for example, than it ever got in the short recessionof 2001. The Federal Reserve doesn't expect the unemploy-

Circulated Weekly In Florida Volume 002 Issue 19 Established 2012 May 6, 2013

W H Y T H E U S E C O N O M Y I S

TA K I N G S O L O N G T O R E C O V E Rment rate to reach a healthy level - 6percent or lower - any sooner than2015.

At least unemployment fell lastmonth from 7.6 percent in March forthe right reasons: More Americansreported having jobs and fewer report-ed being unemployed.

A big part of the drop in unem-ployment the past 3 1/2 years hascome because people have given uplooking for work. Only 63.3 percent ofworking-age Americans were workingor looking for work last month and inMarch. That is the lowest "labor force

participation rate" since May 1979. People without a job whostop looking for one are no longer counted as unemployed. Ifthe participation rate were at the pre-recession level of 66 per-cent, the unemployment rate could have reached 11.3 percentlast month.

-THE ECONOMY: GROWING SLOWLY

The economic recovery from the Great Recession is theslowest since World War II. Growth has been hobbled by lin-gering damage from a housing bust and financial crisis. Theeconomy expanded just 2.4 percent in 2010, 1.8 percent in2011 and 2.2 percent in 2012. It grew at an annual pace of 2.5percent in the January-March quarter this year.

If the economy were healthy, 2.5 percent growth would befine. But generating enough jobs to bring unemployment downquickly requires faster growth.

Economists had originally hoped the economy wouldexpand at a brisker pace this year - 3 percent or 4 percent. Butacross-the-board government spending cuts, which began tak-ing effect March 1, are forcing federal agencies to furloughworkers, reducing spending on public projects and makingbusinesses nervous about investing and hiring.

Growth is expected to slow to 2 percent in the April-Junequarter.

Budget cuts have already been a drag on the economy.Government spending at the local, state and federal levels fellat an annual rate of 4.1 percent from January through March

WEEKLY NEWS DIGESTTH

E

People fill out applications at the Green MountainFlagging table at the annual Central Vermont JobFair in Montpelier, Vt. The American economy andjob market are moving in the right direction, just notvery quickly. The news Friday, May 3, 2013, thatU.S. employers added a solid 165,000 jobs in Apriland unemployment fell to a four-year low 7.5 per-cent came as a relief

O B A M A D A R E S G R A D U A T E S T OREJECT CYNICAL VOICES

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- A yearto the day after kicking off his vic-torious re-election campaign onthis college campus, PresidentBarack Obama returned to OhioState University and told gradu-ates that only through vigorousparticipation in their democracy can they right an ill-func-tioning government and break through relentless cyni-cism about the nation's future.

"I dare you, Class of 2013, to do better. I dare you todream bigger," Obama said.

In a sunbaked stadium filled with more than 57,000 stu-dents, friends and relatives, Obama lamented anAmerican political system that gets consumed by "smallthings" and works for the benefit of society's elite. Hecalled graduates to duty to "accomplish great things,"like rebuilding a still-feeble economy and fighting pover-ty and climate change.

FREE

VIENNA, Ill. (AP) -- This is theIllinois that many people neversee - the sparsely populatedsouthern tip where flat farm-land gives way to rolling hills,rocky outcrops, thick forestsand cypress swamps.

Blacktopped county roadswend through no-stoplight towns. Locals speak in soft drawls andtalk of generations who've lived on the same land or in the samevillages. The remote and rugged Shawnee National Forestattracts hikers, campers and horseback riders, and offers a starkcontrast to the rest of a state that largely has been plowed, pavedor suburbanized.

But many here are beginning to brace for change as the IllinoisLegislature considers regulations that could set off a rush amongenergy companies to drill deep in the southern Illinois bedrock foroil and natural gas. The crews would be using a process knownas high-volume hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," that has trans-formed the landscape in places like North Dakota andPennsylvania.

After drilling intensively in many states in the last few years, theindustry is now preparing to push into new territory, hoping to tapdeposits long considered out of reach. Residents here - andstates like New York and California that also are part of this nextfrontier - have heard the angry clamor over fracking elsewhere,but most have little experience with the oil industry.

Already, drillers have leased hundreds of thousands of acresthroughout southern Illinois, including in scenic Johnson andPope counties, which hasn't seen conventional drilling and wherepeople aren't sure what to expect if a fracking rush becomes areality.

Some envision the kind of economic boom they've heard about inother states: tens of thousands of workers drilling for oil and gas,local businesses barely keeping up with demand and manymunicipal coffers flush with cash.

Others are spooked by stories of housing shortages, towns over-run with strangers, torn-up roads and claims of polluted water -and worry that drilling would forever alter the serenity, beauty andvery character of an area they consider special.

"This really is a double-edged sword," says Ron Duncan,Johnson County's economic development director, standing on acorner in downtown Vienna, the once-bustling county seat thatnow has just a handful of businesses and government offices.

"This town could use an economic infusion," he says, pausing towave to an elderly man riding his lawnmower around the court-house square. "But it's also where people love the rural life, thenatural beauty and knowing their neighbors."

Fracking uses high-pressure mixtures of water, sand or graveland chemicals to crack rock formations and release oil and natu-ral gas deep underground. Combined with horizontal drilling, itallows access to formerly out-of-reach deposits and has openedlarge areas of the country for exploration. It has pushed U.S. oil

S T R U G G L I N G

S . I L L I N O I S B R A C E S

F O R O I L R U S H

I S R A E L I A I R S T R I K E S O N S Y R I A

P R O M P T T H R E A T S , A N G E RBEIRUT (AP) --Israel rushed to beefup its rocket defens-es on its northernborder Sunday toshield against possi-ble retaliation after

carrying out twoairstrikes in Syria

over 48 hours - an unprecedented escalation of Israeliinvolvement in the Syrian civil war.

Syria and its patron Iran hinted at possible retribution,though the rhetoric in official statements appeared relativelymuted.

Despite new concerns about a regional war, Israeli officialssignaled they will keep trying to block what they see as aneffort by Iran to send sophisticated weapons to Lebanon'sHezbollah militia ahead of a possible collapse of SyrianPresident Bashar Assad's regime.

Israel has repeatedly threatened to intervene in the Syriancivil war to stop the transfer of what it calls "game-chang-ing" weapons to Hezbollah, a Syrian-backed group that bat-tled Israel to a stalemate during a monthlong war in 2006.

Since carrying out a lone airstrike in January that reportedly

destroyed a shipment of anti-aircraft missiles headed toHezbollah, Israel had largely stayed on the sidelines. Thatchanged over the weekend with a pair of airstrikes, includ-ing an attack near a sprawling military complex close to theSyrian capital of Damascus early Sunday that set off aseries of powerful explosions.

The Israeli government and military refused to comment.But a senior Israeli official said both airstrikes targetedshipments of Fateh-110 missiles bound for Hezbollah. TheIranian-made guided missiles can fly deep into Israel anddeliver powerful half-ton bombs with pinpoint accuracy. Theofficial spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasdiscussing a covert military operation.

Syria's government called the attacks a "flagrant violationof international law" that has made the Middle East "moredangerous." It also claimed the Israeli strikes proved theJewish state's links to rebel groups trying to overthrowAssad's regime.

Syria's information minister, Omran al-Zoubi, reading aCabinet statement after an emergency government meet-ing, said Syria has the right and duty "to defend its peopleby all available means."

Israeli defense officials believe Assad has little desire to

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E X P E R T S W A R N A B O U T

DONATION DRIVES AFTER BOMBINGBOSTON (AP) -- At least

two online campaigns aimed to

help David Henneberry buy a new

boat after his was shot up while a

Boston Marathon bombing sus-

pect hid inside. And a handful of

drives have cropped up to help the

family of Martin Richard, the 8-

year-old killed in the attack.

Neither recipient had any-

thing to do with setting up those

fundraisers.

That didn't stop the sites

from raising tens of thousands of

dollars, while campaigns on simi-

lar "crowdfunding" sites have

raised millions combined for

other victims.

That's on top of the $28 mil-

lion given to The One Fund, a more traditional relief fund

established by top state officials.

Such giving is the reliable flipside to tragic events, with

the Internet bringing heightened levels of immediacy, public-

ity and generosity. But charity watchdog groups warn not all

giving opportunities are equal, with online drives more prone

to confusion, scams or misuse of money.

An advantage to crowdfunding sites, which essentially

provide a platform for individuals to set up their own

fundraising efforts, is the speed at which they can start solic-

iting donations. For instance, the site GoFundMe had

marathon victim relief campaigns going by 10 a.m. the day

after the bombings. It now hosts more than 40 individual

marathon-related campaigns that have raised $2.7 million.

But that ease of setting up a fund drive means less scruti-

ny of the fundraisers using the sites, which may be known

only by a picture and a short testimonial.

"There may be little oversight going in, in terms of how

the money is actually spent, and whether it's going to the

appropriate parties," said Bennett Weiner, chief operating

officer of the Better Business Bureau's Wise Giving Alliance.

Examples of fraud after tragedy are plentiful. After

Hurricane Katrina the FBI found 4,000 bogus websites that

stole donors' money and personal identification.

And it raises questions when the beneficiary of an online

campaign doesn't even know about it.

Henneberry, of Watertown, said he had "nothing, noth-

ing, nothing" to do with any drives to raise money for a new

boat.

A spokesman for the Martin family said it has approved

only The Richard Family Fund, which has its own site.

The lack of an initial connection with a fundraiser does-

n't mean the money won't eventually get to the intended

recipient. A spokesman for Crowdtilt, where a campaign

raised more than $50,000 for Henneberry, said they sent him

the payment Friday.

And bombing victims say the sites offer a convenient

way for people to directly give to their specific needs, and can

be tremendously encouraging.

"My sisters and mother would read the comments (from

donors) to me while I was in the hospital, and it really helped

me in my recovery there," said Brittany Loring, the benefici-

ary of a campaign on the GiveForward site. Loring required

three operations after her left leg was badly injured by shrap-

nel from the first blast.

Massachusetts Attorney

General Martha Coakley's office

is checking out fundraisers and

has yet to find fraud, said

spokesman Brad Puffer. But it's

promoting vigilance.

"We simply encourage peo-

ple to do their homework and give

wisely," Puffer said,

Ken Berger of the watchdog

group Charity Navigator prefers

well-established charities or cred-

ibly backed efforts like The One

Fund, founded by the governor of

Massachusetts and mayor of

Boston.

Such groups leave long paper

trials and do robust vetting before they distribute money, he

said. The tradeoff is the process takes weeks, which can be a

lot less satisfying than an instant Internet donation, he said.

Berger added, "The faster you go, the greater the risk."

Dan Borochoff, of Charity Watch, said the same emo-

tions that spur remarkable giving are used to take advantage

of people. Ultimately, Borochoff said, people are free to

throw their money away, but they shouldn't make it easy for

the people trying to take it.

"Ignorant bliss is what they are going for," he said. "If

you really care, you're going to be more responsible."

Brad Damphousse, chief of executive of GoFundMe,

said his site takes significant steps to verify campaign organ-

izers, including checking the linked Facebook account and

affirming account payment information.

He added there's a natural social safeguard, since

strangers usually won't donate to a site until they see dollars

from an organizer's closest family and friends first.

"The earliest donors are essentially vouching for the

authenticity of a given campaign," said Damphousse, whose

company charges a fee of 5 percent of each donation.

Tom Teves, whose oldest son, Alex, was one of 12 killed

during the 2012 movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colo., said

raising money is an irrelevancy to someone in the midst of

grief. But he and other family members of mass murder vic-

tims are pushing a National Compassion Fund, which he

described as similar to The One Fund, to increase equity and

transparency for victims.

Having a primary entity collecting and distributing

money transparently can simplify things for people going

through the unthinkable.

"You don't understand where you're at," Teves said.

"You're just trying to literally figure out how you are going to

stand up and keep breathing."

Erika and Leonardo Galvis, whose parents were badly

injured in the marathon bombings, said they didn't think to set

up a campaign on GiveForward until days after the bomb-

ings, and then only after their parents had been through sur-

geries that pointed to a long recovery with large and uncer-

tain costs.

It's not easy to think in such practical terms amid the

shock and disbelief over what happened, Erika said.

"It's very hard to focus on the fund," she said. "But we

have to do it."

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Kenneth Feinberg, an attorney who managed the 9/11Victim Compensation Fund, speaks at a news confer-ence in Boston as Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick,right, listens. The One Fund was established byPatrick and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino as a cen-tral place to gather donations for the Boston Marathonbombing victims. While giving is the reliable flip side totragic events, charity watchdog groups recommendseeking out well-established charities or crediblybacked efforts like The One Fund

h t t p : / / w w w . n a t u r e . o r g

F O R I N D I A ' S P O O R , A S C H O O LU N D E R A R A I L W A Y B R I D G E

The Weekly News Digest, April 29, 2013 3

on assessments of about 700,000 children across thecountry.

The government needs to focus not just on hiring newteachers and building new schools but on providing agood education to Indian children, said Rukmini Banerji,a Pratham official.

"It looks like we are far from getting there," she said.

Government officials say their own surveys show someimprovement, though overall learning levels remain low.

"The rapid expansion of primary education and introduc-tion of a large number of first-generation learners in theschool system has posed a major challenge for learningoutcomes," India's Human Resource DevelopmentMinister M. Mangapati Pallam Raju told Parliament lastmonth.

Kumar's school under a bridge stands as proof of thehunger for learning among those either left out of thesystem or disappointed by it.

One day in 2008, Kumar said, he spotted children play-ing in the dirt as he walked to the train station and askedtheir parents why they weren't in school. They com-plained the school was too far and their children wouldhave to cross a dangerous highway to get there. If hewas concerned about their education, he should teachthem, they said.

The next morning, he came back to teach his first lessonto five excited children. Within six weeks, there were140, he said. They were the children of constructionworkers and bicycle rickshaw drivers, of farm laborersand roadside vendors, the poorest of migrant workerswho came to the capital because opportunities in theirvillages were even worse. Many of the parents were illit-erate and couldn't even sign their names, he said.

"To change the future of these children, education is theonly weapon," Kumar said. "If they go anywhere in the

O B A M A D A R E S

Rajesh Kumar, the founder of a free school for slum children, sec-ond right, and Laxmi Chandra, right, use improvised blackboardsto teach pupils under a mass transit bridge in New Delhi, India.Kumar, a shop owner with no formal training, says that educationis their only hope

world, if they have education, they can achieve anything.And without education, they can do nothing."

An Indian donor, seeing an Associated Press photoessay on the school, gave the children socks, shoes andAngry Birds backpacks. He hired workers to level theground under the bridge and bought the foam mats thepupils sit on.

On a recent spring day, the kids sat attentively, practicingreading and writing with workbooks. A second volunteerteacher whom Kumar recruited chalked algebra equa-tions on a blackboard. A college student on break helpedtutor the children.

Kumar, 42, who teaches Monday through Saturday and

MOER ATTACKS

NEW DELHI (AP) -- Their classroom is a flattened patchof dirt and rocks under the elevated rail tracks. Theirblackboards are rectangles painted on a chipped con-crete wall. Their teacher is a shop owner with no formaltraining, but a conviction that education is their onlyhope.

For some of these dozens of children of poor migrantworkers in India's capital, this makeshift, open-air schoolunder the rumble of mass transit is the only school theyhave. Others who attend overcrowded and dismal gov-ernment schools come here as well - to actually learn.

India's Right To Education Act promising free, compulso-ry schooling to all children ages 6 to 14 was supposed totake full effect March 31, but millions of children still don'tgo to school and many who do are getting only thebarest of educations.

So every morning, more than 50 children gather underthe bridge for two hours of lessons at Rajesh Kumar'sinformal school. They sweep the dirt flat and roll outfoam mats to sit on, just meters (yards) from the busheswere several men had been squatting and defecatingminutes earlier.

The students, ages 4 to 14, study everything from basicreading and writing to the Pythagorean Theorem.

Those who also attend government schools say class-rooms there are packed and that teachers, when theyshow up, just come in, write a problem on the board, andleave.

"They teach much better here," said Raju, 12, the child offlower pickers. He also attends fifth grade at a govern-ment school in a class with 61 other students. There"they hardly teach anything," he said.

Under the Right to Education Act, passed in 2010, enroll-ment has increased from 193 million to 199 million, andthe government has invested more than $11 billion extradollars in upgrading the school system.

Still, about 3 million children remain out of school,according to the government; Private groups put thatnumber at about 8 million. There also remain at least700,000 teacher vacancies, and many of those who areemployed don't have the proper training, according to thegovernment.

Despite the new investments, schools appear to be get-ting worse.

According to the 2012 report by the non-profit educationgroup Pratham, nearly 68 percent of third graders in gov-ernment schools can't read at a first-grade level, up 10percent from two years ago. Math proficiency had simi-larly plummeted, according to the report, which is based

market has been bouncing back. New-home sales in Marchwere up 18.5 percent from a year earlier. Sales of previouslyoccupied homes were up 10.3 percent. For the first time in fiveyears, homebuilders started work on more than 1 millionhomes in March at a seasonally adjusted annual rate.

Investors have celebrated rising corporate profits andother good news. The Dow Jones industrial average is up1,870 points, or more than 14 percent, so far this year, includ-ing Friday's gain.

Rising stock and home prices help feed consumer spend-ing by making people feel wealthier and more willing to spend.

-EUROPE: MAKING THE U.S. ECONOMY LOOKGOOD

The American economy and job market look a lot betterwhen you compare them with Europe's. Across the Atlantic,governments have been cutting spending and raising taxeseven more aggressively. The 17 European Union countriesthat use the euro currency slid back into recession in the fall of2011 and have been stuck there since.

h t t p : / / w w w . c h r i s t o p h e r r e e v e . o r g

and 7 percent the last three months of 2012. Normally, gov-ernment spending contributes to economic recoveries.

The damage from government austerity has been offsetin part by the Federal Reserve, which has kept short-term inter-est rates near zero since the end of 2008 and has been pump-ing $85 billion a month into the economy by buying bonds.

-CONSUMERS, HOUSING AND THE STOCK MAR-KET: LOOKING UP

Some of the U.S. economy's fundamentals are lookinghealthier.

Consumers have shrugged off an increase in their SocialSecurity taxes this year and the budget shenanigans inWashington: From January through March, they spent at thestrongest pace in two years. That's good news because con-sumers account for 70 percent of U.S. economic activity.

Fueled by near-record low mortgage rates, the housing

h t t p : / / w w w . n a t u r e . o r g

"Only you can ultimately break that cycle. Only you canmake sure the democracy you inherit is as good as weknow it can be," Obama told more than 10,000 cap-and-gown-clad graduates gathered for the rite of passage."But it requires your dedicated, informed and engagedcitizenship."

The visit to Ohio State - the first of three commencementaddresses Obama will give this season - was a home-coming of sorts for Obama, who has visited the campusfive times over little more than a year, starting with hisfirst official campaign rally here last May. He made manymore stops elsewhere in Ohio as he and Republican MittRomney dueled for the Buckeye State, and its 18 elec-toral votes were pivotal to Obama's victories in both2008 and 2012.

There was little direct mention of party politics Sunday,but ample allusion to the partisan battles that crampedmany of Obama's legislative efforts in his first term andhave continued unabated into his second.

In an apparent reference to his failed push on gun con-trol, he bemoaned that a small minority in Congress findexcuses to oppose things that most Americans support.

"This is a joyous occasion, so let me put it charitably: Ithink it's fair to say our democracy isn't working as wellas we know it can," Obama said.

Invoking the end of the Cold War, 9/11 and the econom-ic recession, Obama said this generation had been test-ed beyond what their parents could have imagined. Buthe said young Americans have responded with a deepcommitment to service and a conviction that they canimprove their surroundings. He urged graduates to runfor office, start a business or join a cause, contendingthat the health of their democracy "requires your dedi-cated, informed and engaged citizenship."

"You've grown up hearing voices that incessantly warnof government as nothing more than some separate,sinister entity that's at the root of all our problems,"Obama said. "You should reject these voices. Becausewhat these suggest is that somehow our brave, creative,unique experiment in self-rule is just a sham with whichwe can't be trusted."

Among the 10,143 students receiving diplomas at thissprawling state university Sunday were 130 veterans,including the first class to benefit from the new GI Billthat Congress passed after 9/11, university officials said.

Ohio State also bestowed an honorary doctorate onObama, applauding his "unwavering belief in the abilityto unite people around a politics of purpose." Also hon-ored was photographer Annie Leibovitz, whose imagesof Obama and his family have become iconic reflectionson the nation's first black president.

Obama's other two commencement speeches this sea-son will be later in May at the U.S. Naval Academy inAnnapolis, Md., and at Morehouse College, an all-male

Continued from page 1

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4 The Weekly News Digest, May 6, 2013 ___________________________________________________________

F L O R I D A A C C I D E N T S T A T I S T I C SData From the Official Website of the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. www.flhsmv.gov

______________________________________ The Weekly News Digest, April 29, 2013 5

F L O R I D A A C C I D E N T S T A T I S T I C S

http://www.aging-research.org

Age of Drivers in Crashes*

One day, she brought her son to school and the teacheryelled at her for not sending him before. He's here everyday, she responded, it's you who are never here,Noorbano recounted.

She still sends her children to Kumar, and now hasdreams almost unthinkable for the offspring of manuallaborers attending government schools.

One son will be an engineer, another will be a police offi-cer, a third will be a doctor and so will her daughter, shesaid.

"For my children, there's God, and there is him," shesaid, pointing to Kumar.

But Kumar fears his project is precarious.

He needs more volunteer teachers because of the massof students, but doesn't know where to find them. And hisunregistered school is squatting on railroad property.

"Whenever I am asked to leave this place, I will have to,"he said. "Right now, the children are studying. We willtake each day as it comes. As long as it remains possi-ble, let's take advantage of it."

6 The Weekly News Digest, May 6, 2013________________________________________________________

gives no vacations, stood at the blackboard and in asingsong voice led the younger children in math prob-lems. He called students up to the wall to do simple sub-traction and gently patted one girl on the cheek whenshe got an answer right. She ran back to her seat, beam-ing.

Every few minutes a train passed overhead, largelyignored by the school below.

Pammi, a 12-year-old girl who, like many of India's poor,uses only one name, was illiterate and had never beento school until she came here six months ago. Now, shecan read and write, she said.

Nishu, 5, went to a government school for one month,but cried all the time and told her family the teacher beather. Her family, unhappy that the little girl had to cross ahighway to get to school, pulled her out, said her grand-mother, Rekha, 60, who sells vegetables from a basketshe carries on her head.

"My granddaughter is very, very smart," Rekha said asNishu practiced writing her ABCs on a slate. "I don't wanther to go anywhere else. I want her to stay and read andwrite here."

F O R I N D I A ' S P O O R , A S C H O O LU N D E R A R A I L W A Y B R I D G E

open a new front with Israel when he is preoccupied withthe survival of his regime. More than 70,000 people havebeen killed since the uprising against Assad erupted inMarch 2011, and Israeli officials believe it is only a matterof time before Assad is toppled.

Still, Israel seemed to be taking the Syrian threats serious-ly. Israel's military deployed two batteries of its Iron Domerocket defense system to the north of the country Sunday.It described the move as part of "ongoing situationalassessments."

Israel says the Iron Dome shot down hundreds of incomingshort-range rockets during eight days of fighting againstHamas militants in the Gaza Strip last November.Hezbollah fired some 4,000 rockets into Israel during the2006 war, and Israel believes the group now possessestens of thousands of rockets and missiles.

The Iron Dome deployment followed a surprise Israeli drilllast week in which several thousand reservists simulatedconflict in the north. In another possible sign of concern,Israel closed the airspace over northern Israel to civilianflights on Sunday and tightened security at embassiesoverseas, Israeli media reported. Israeli officials would notconfirm either measure.

Reflecting fears of ordinary Israelis, the country's postalservice, which helps distribute government-issue gasmasks, said demand jumped to four times the normal levelSunday.

Israel's deputy defense minister, Danny Danon, would nei-ther confirm nor deny the airstrikes. He said, however, thatIsrael "is guarding its interests and will continue to do so inthe future."

"Israel cannot allow weapons, dangerous weapons, to getinto the hands of terror organizations," he told Army Radio.

Israeli defense officials have identified several strategicweapons that they say cannot be allowed to reachHezbollah. They include Syrian chemical weapons, theIranian Fateh-110s, long-range Scud missiles, Yakhont mis-siles capable of attacking naval ships from the coast, andRussian SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles. Israel's airstrike inJanuary destroyed a shipment of SA-17s meant forHezbollah, according to U.S. officials.

Israeli officials said Sunday they believe that Iran is step-ping up its efforts to smuggle weapons through Syria toHezbollah because of concerns that Assad's days are num-bered.

They said the Fateh-110s reached Syria last week. Friday'sairstrike struck a site at the Damascus airport where themissiles were being stored, while the second series ofairstrikes early Sunday targeted the remnants of the ship-ment, which had been moved to three nearby locations, theofficials said.

None of the Iranian missiles are believed to have reachedLebanon, said the officials, who spoke on condition ofanonymity because they were discussing a classified intelli-gence assessment.

The attacks pose a dilemma for the embattled Assad

ISRAELI AIRSTRIKESContinued from page 1

Kumar works to enroll the students in governmentschools and said he got 130 into the state education sys-tem.

"They can get a degree there. I can't give them that," hesaid.

But many of those kids come back to study with him aswell.

Bharat Mandal, 15, wakes up at 3 a.m. to help his par-ents farm roses for four hours, and he goes to govern-ment school in the afternoon, but he still attends Kumar'sschool in the morning because "I get to learn," he said.

"I get answers to my questions here. In school there aretoo many students and the teachers just come and thenleave, so my questions aren't answered," he said.

Noorbano, 32, had no idea how to register her four chil-dren in school when her family moved from the state ofUttar Pradesh to a shack surrounded by a sea of orangemarigolds and pink roses near the banks of Delhi's fetidYamuna River.

Noorbano, a flower picker, sent them to Kumar's schoolin 2008 and a year later he got them into an officialschool. Their mother was not impressed.

production to its highest level in 20 years, the Energy Departmentsays, and natural gas production to an all-time high, with newestimates that the nation has almost 2,400 trillion cubic feet ofrecoverable natural gas.

In Illinois, the industry is eyeing the New Albany Shale formation,and could begin drilling as soon as this summer if the legislaturepasses regulations introduced in February. That's not a problemfor many people in Illinois counties where conventional oil andgas drilling has been going on for over a century.

"Where we operate now, people aren't afraid," said BradRichards, executive vice president of the Illinois Oil and GasAssociation, who says fracking is safe and concerns about itsenvironmental impact overblown.

But those in Pope and Johnson counties, areas Richard saidmight hold significant oil reserves, are divided.

The Pope County Board of Commissioners recently voted to sup-port a 2-year drilling moratorium; bills filed in the Illinois Houseand Senate calling for a drilling delay have gotten little support.

"We need jobs," says board Chairman Larry Richards. "But willthey just bring their own people in, tear our county up, destroy itand then pack up and leave us with a mess?"

Even so, many locals have leased land to oil companies, regard-ing it as a quick infusion of cash - a onetime payment of about$50 per acre - though they'll receive royalties if oil production issuccessful.

"I don't care whether I get (a well) or not," says 69-year-oldJohnson County farmer Thomas Trover, who leased more than1,300 acres to a Kansas oil company. "I got my $60,000."

Duncan, who raises cattle and hay on about 150 acres, says healso signed a lease, but only to protect himself: His neighborswere leasing, so the drillers could have fracked underneath hisland anyway. Plus, he wanted to try to protect a creek that flowsthrough his property.

He worries that fracking could deplete local water supplies, thatthere already is a shortage of rental housing and that a largestream of strangers might be more than some locals bargainedfor. But he also understands the wider economic benefit thatcould come if fracking creates jobs where there are no factoriesor Wal-Marts -the biggest employers are two prisons near Viennaand the school systems.

The poverty rate in Johnson County is about 15 percent, but it'salmost 20 percent among Pope County's 4,400 residents.

So, fracking is a gamble that many are willing to take.

"It could be a real good thing," says 23-year-old Frank Johnson,who lives in the Pope County seat of Golconda, a shrinking OhioRiver town of 670. He drives an hour each way to his job as amechanic, but says many of his friends, "had to go in the militaryto get out of town," and get a job.

John Towns, who opened the Sweetwater Saloon in Golcondathree years ago after a long career as a river captain, says frack-ing "sure enough wouldn't hurt nothing."

"It wouldn't bother me a bit," says Towns, a 62-year-old who'slived here all his life and watched friends and neighbors moveaway. "And maybe some of the workers would want to drink abeer."

But 68-year-old Barney Bush, chairman of a Shawnee Indian set-tlement in northeastern Pope County, near the Garden of the

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Continued from page

regime.

If it fails to respond, it looks weak and opens the door tomore airstrikes. But any military retaliation against Israelwould risk dragging the Jewish state and its powerful armyinto a broader conflict. With few exceptions, Israel andSyria have not engaged in direct fighting in roughly 40years.

The airstrikes come as Washington considers how torespond to indications the Syrian regime may have usedchemical weapons in its civil war. President Barack Obamahas described the use of such weapons as a "red line," andthe administration is weighing its options.

The White House declined for a second day to commentdirectly on Israel's air strikes in Syria, but said Obamabelieves Israel, as a sovereign nation, has the right todefend itself against threats from Hezbollah.

"The Israelis are justifiably concerned about the threatposed by Hezbollah obtaining advanced weapons systems,including some long-range missiles," said White Housespokesman Josh Earnest. He said the U.S. was in "closecoordination" with Israel but would not elaborate.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague also seemed toback Israel, telling Sky News that "all countries have to lookafter their own national security."

Iran condemned the airstrikes, and a senior official hintedat possible retribution from Hezbollah.

Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, assistant to the Iranian chief ofstaff, told Iran's state-run Arabic-language Al-Alam TV thatTehran "will not allow the enemy (Israel) to harm the securi-ty of the region." He added that "the resistance will retaliateto the Israeli aggression against Syria." "Resistance" is aterm used for Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas, anoth-er anti-Israel militant group supported by Iran.

Iran has provided both financial and military support toHezbollah for decades and has used Syria as a conduit forboth. If Assad were to fall, that pipeline could be cut, deal-ing a serious blow to Hezbollah's ability to confront Israel.

Israel appears to be taking a calculated risk that its strikeswill not invite retaliation from Syria, Hezbollah or even Iran.

But Salman Shaikh of the Brookings Doha Center in Qatarwarned: "All this could lead us into a wider conflict."

_____________________________________________________The Weekly News Digest, April 29, 2013 7

C A S I N O B O S S E S T R A N S F O R M

S I N C I T Y I N T O C L U B C I T YLAS VEGAS (AP) -- To step into club XS at theWynn Las Vegas is to enter the dreamscape of amodern artist with fetishes for gold and bronzeand bodies in motion.

A golden-plated frieze made from casts of nudewomen sits atop a shimmering staircase. Wavesof electronic dance music grow louder with eachdownward step toward a pulsating, football field-sized club where lasers cut the air above thou-sands of dancers.

The revelers take their cues from the famous DJsonstage who are known to surf the crowd in inflat-able rafts, throw sheet cakes at clubbers' facesand spray vintage champagne into their mouths.

In Sin City, where over-the-top is always thesales pitch, lavish nightclubs featuring a heart-pounding party have become the backbone of a billion-dollarindustry that is soaring while gambling revenue slips.

"We learned a long time ago that in order to continue to attractpeople from around the world, we have to provide things thatare hard to find anywhere else," said Jim Murren, CEO ofMGM Resorts International, which operates nine Strip hotel-casinos boasting their own dance scenes. "These clubs, ifdone correctly, are tremendous magnets."

A $100 million temple to revelry, XS is the top-earning night-club in the country, joining six other Vegas venues in the top10. Its estimated annual revenue hovers somewhere near $90million, according to the trade publication Nightclub & Bar.

The city now boasts more than 50 such clubs. New additionsare coming all the time, including the five-story Hakkasan atthe MGM Grand, which debuted last month, and Light atMandalay Bay, Cirque du Soleil's first foray into the disco busi-ness, opening Memorial Day weekend.

The rise of the Vegas super-club coincides with the decline ofthe town's gambling supremacy. The tiny Chinese enclave ofMacau surpassed the desert oasis as the world's top gamblingdestination in 2006. Singapore is on track to claim the No. 2spot.

During the heart of the recession, when overall Strip revenuestumbled by 16 percent, nightclubs saw more profit than ever.By 2011, Las Vegas was clubbing all the way to the bank, withStrip beverage departments earning more than $1 billion, andcasino tycoons began remaking the Strip into the club capitalof the world.

With extravagantly paid DJs, larger-than-life venues and bill-board ads that stretch beyond the Strip to HollywoodBoulevard and Miami, casinos are trying to pull off a tricky bal-ancing act: keeping the kitschy core that draws older genera-tions while finding a way to make the city hip enough to attracta younger, big-spending set - emphasis on big-spending.

"We're not interested in competing against everyone to get the21-year-olds that are going to spend little to no money and aregoing to clog up the hallways," Murren said.

The 10-minute taxi ride from the airport to the Strip takes visi-tors past dozens of billboards promoting top DJs from Hollandand beyond. Celine Dion and Elton John now take their placeon marquees alongside names that recall Internet handles,such as "deadmau5" and "Kaskade."

Las Vegas, long known for catching performers on the down-swing of their careers, finally appears to have embraced amusical trend at the height of its popularity. Globe-trottingDutch DJ Afrojack, 25, said he has come to consider the Striphis home because it's the one place he believes is as dance-music-focused as he is.

"When you exit the airport, you see (the face of President

Barack) Obama - and then you see me," said Afrojack, a Wynncasino favorite.

Perhaps no place exemplifies the new culture on the glitteryStrip better than XS. And for most wannabe Vegas party peo-ple, the night at XS starts in line.

Casinos snake these queues past well-traveled areas -entrances, slot banks and restaurant corridors - turning thegussied-up partiers into one more piece of visual spectacle. AtXS, clubbers line up in a central hallway near the luxury storesHermes and Chanel.

Women pay $25 and men pay $55 just to get in, but prettygirls who out-dress the dress code are admitted for free. Thedoor charge is mostly there to weed out people who won'tspend on drinks, said nightlife baron Sean Christie, managingparner of another Wynn club, Surrender.

When it first opened in 2008, XS was lucky to be filled halfwayto its 5,000-person capacity, even when featuring an act suchas Tiesto, the world's highest-paid DJ, according to Forbes,pulling down $250,000 a set and making $22 million a year.

Now, the club may see 8,000 people come and go over thecourse of a night. That's nearly half of the capacity of MadisonSquare Garden.

As the clock edged toward 2 a.m. on a Saturday earlier thisspring, superstar DJ David Guetta stood at the control boardlike a mad king, commanding his people.

A wiry, hollow-faced Frenchman with a curtain of blond hair,Guetta has been churning out electronic music since thegenre's infancy in the world of underground raves 25 yearsago. Now, at 45, he makes hits for pop music stars includingRihanna, Usher and Nicki Minaj - and conducts the crowd atXS.

At the flick of his upraised palms, Guetta had thousands ofrevelers whooping, jumping and punching their fists in the air.When he added a drumbeat into a chorus, metallic streamersdropped from the ceiling and a fog machine churned.

"Nothing compares with this," said 23-year-old Katie Kelly, astudent in San Louis Obispo, Calif., as she bobbed her indexfingers skyward. "You just release and don't care about any-thing."

XS boasts that its layout is modeled on "the sexy curves of thehuman body." In practice, the design steers people to the barson a back wall.

Female bartenders, their long hair draped over sequined black

corsets, serve $15 shots of Jack Danielswhiskey, coordinating their pouring to theskull-rattling bass and synthetic blares vibrat-ing around them. A supermarket a few milesaway sells a bottle of Jack containing 17shots for $16.

When newbies push through the swayingcrowd to grab a table, they find that Vegashas monetized sitting, too. Patrons pay a$10,000 beverage minimum upfront to claimany of the dozen plush banquettes nearestthe dance floor.

By the time Guetta hit his stride on this night,all of the club's 95 tables were full, includingthe cheaper seats away from the action andone uber-VIP table on stage. Near the big-ger-than-your-apartment, 1,100-square-foot

dance floor, four scantily clad girls gyrated in front of threemen wearing suits and skinny ties.

One of them, Thomas Park, had filled the table with 2004 vin-tage Perrier-Jouet champagne and Gray Goose magnums -for $700 and $1,300 a pop.

"We have a lot to spend," said Park, who is in his mid-30s andworks as a relator in Canada. "That's why we have all thegirls."

Casinos learned long ago that some VIPs don't see the pointof being VIPs unless everyone can see them being VIPs, soclubs oblige big spenders with spotlights and velvet ropes cor-doning off their mini-empires.

But not everyone at a table is a high roller. Some are splurg-ing, or sharing the cost with their friends. Superstar DJKaskade, a Vegas regular, said he hears from fans who savedfor months to pay for a table and a weekend of fun in Vegas.

"It's because they see videos of this stuff and they say: `This isnuts.'"

Today, the club craze is moving beyond the dance floor.

XS opens into an open-air adult playground complete withtable games, food and a huge circular pool. Around 3 a.m. onthis particular night - still several hours from closing time -women in bachelorette sashes waded toward floating whiteplatforms as crescendos drifted over the water.

Beckoning from the other side of the pool, past clumps ofpartiers, is the upscale "vibe-dining" restaurant Andrea's,where DJs spin lounge music. Hakkasan is taking the vibe-din-ing concept further, importing a London-based, Michelin-starred Cantonese restaurant to serve as the foundation for itsfive-story complex.

Most casinos have also incorporated nightclubs during the day- a way to infuse the dance scene into an otherwise typicalsummer pool party.

At Andrea's, while taking in a production he helped create,Christie confessed he worries about what might happen toVegas now that it's banking so heavily on an indulgent clubscene - especially if 20- and 30-somethings develop a taste fora new indulgence.

But then he quickly corrected himself, saying he'd be just ashappy to lure patrons with country western stars.

"Whatever they want, I just serve up. Hopefully, I serve it upthe best," he said. "I'm not one to care about that kind of stuff.I'm just here to make money and throw great parties."

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a crowd dances to the music played by DJ Afrojack at the XS nightclub in Las Vegas. The rise ofthe Vegas super-club coincides with the decline of the town's gambling supremacy. During theheart of the recession, when overall Strip revenues tumbled, nightclubs saw more profit than ever

Gods - ancient rock formations and cliffs in the Shawnee NationalForest - says this area is too special to put at risk for what couldbe short-term gain.

"This is still a hard place to live in, but it's everything that's left tome," says Bush, who draws his water from a natural spring andhunts the hardwood forests for wild onions, mushrooms andherbs. He fears fracking fluid would spill during drilling and pollutethe water, that the sites would destroy forests and bring hundredsof tanker trucks rumbling through the hills.

"If they poison the water here, that's not just for a week, that's foreternity as far as we know," Bush says.

A regulatory bill setting rules for drilling is lingering in a Housecommittee while industry and lawmakers hash out last-minutedetails.

Wayne Woolsey, the owner of Wichita, Kan.-based WoolseyEnergy Corp., has staked out his land, buying leases in Johnson,Pope and eight other counties.

He says he's ready to get going: "If this is as good as I think it is,it will be a tremendous opportunity for the state of Illinois - which,by the way is in great debt."

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WA R R E N B U F F E T T L E A D S A N N U A L

M E E T I N G L I K E N O O T H E R

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OMAHA, Neb. (AP) -- Part rock concert, part investmentworkshop, the annual gathering of Berkshire Hathawayshareholders is an odd mix.

But that's just how the faithful crowd of more than 30,000who attended Saturday's version likes it.

Getting the chance to learn about business and life fromBerkshire CEO Warren Buffett and spend the day withlike-minded investors made it worthwhile to braveSaturday's cool, rainy weather in Omaha, Nebraska.

The level of appreciation shareholders have for Buffettbecomes clear as he tours the meeting's 200,000-square-foot exhibit hall each year.

Admirers held their cell phones and iPads in the air asthey surrounded the billionaire Saturday morning. A packof security guards created a buffer around Buffett as hevisited displays selling Berkshire's See's Candy,explained BNSF railroad's virtues and highlighted someof the company's other 80-plus subsidiaries.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Technology created an energy revolu-

tion over the past decade - just not the one we expected.

By now, cars were supposed to be running on fuel made

from plant waste or algae - or powered by hydrogen or

cheap batteries that burned nothing at all. Electricity would

be generated with solar panels and wind turbines. When the

sun didn't shine or the wind didn't blow, power would flow

out of batteries the size of tractor-trailers.

Fossil fuels? They were going to be expensive and scarce,

relics of an earlier, dirtier age.

But in the race to conquer energy technology, Old Energy is

winning.

Oil companies big and small have used technology to find a

bounty of oil and natural gas so large that worries about run-

ning out have melted away. New imaging technologies let

drillers find oil and gas trapped miles underground and

undersea. Oil rigs "walk" from one drill site to the next. And

engineers in Houston use remote-controlled equipment to

drill for gas in Pennsylvania.

The result is an abundance that has put the United States

on track to become the world's largest producer of oil and

gas in a few years. As domestic production as soared, oil

imports have fallen to a 17-year low, the U.S. government

reported Thursday.

And the gushers aren't limited to Texas, North Dakota and

the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Overseas, enormous

reserves have been found in East and West Africa,

Australia, South America and the Mediterranean.

"Suddenly, out of nowhere, the world seems to be awash in

hydrocarbons," says Michael Greenstone, an environmental

economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of

Technology.

The consequences are enormous. A looming energy crisis

has turned into a boom. These additional fossil fuels may

pose a more acute threat to the earth's climate. And for

renewable energy sources, the sunny forecast of last

decade has turned overcast.

Technological advances drove a revolution no one in the

energy industry expected. One that is just beginning.

The new century brought deep concerns the world's oil

reserves were increasingly concentrated in the Middle East -

and beginning to run out. Energy prices rose to record

highs. Climate scientists showed that reliance on fossil fuels

was causing troubling changes to the environment.

"The general belief was that the end of the oil era was at

hand," says Daniel Yergin, an energy historian and author of

"The Quest: Energy, Security and the Remaking of the

Modern World."

As a result, Wall Street, Silicon Valley and governments

were pouring money into new companies developing alter-

native forms of energy that promised to supply the world's

needs without polluting.

But while the national focus was on alternatives, the oil and

gas industry was innovating too. New technology allowed

drillers to do two crucial things: find more places where oil

and gas is hidden and bring it to the surface economically.

Large oil companies such as Exxon, Chevron, Shell and BP

turned up huge discoveries offshore in ultra-deep water with

the help of faster computers and better sensors that allowed

them to see once-hidden oil deposits.

Onshore, small drillers learned how to pull oil and gas out of

previously inaccessible underground rock formations.

For most of the oil age, drillers have looked for large under-

ground pools of oil and gas that were easy to tap. These

pools had grown over millions of years as oil and gas oozed

out of what is known as source rock. Source rock is a wide,

thin layer of sedimentary rock - like frosting in the middle of

a layer cake - that is interspersed with oil and gas.

An engineer named George Mitchell and his company,

Mitchell Energy, spent years searching for a way to free nat-

ural gas from this source rock. He finally succeeded when

he figured how to drill horizontally, into and then along a

layer of source rock. That allowed him to access the gas

throughout a layer of source rock with a single well. Then he

used a process known as hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking,"

to create tiny cracks in the rock that would allow natural gas

to flow into and up the well.

The United States, which was facing a gas shortage five

years ago, now has such enormous supplies it is looking to

export the fuel in large volumes for the first time.

The common wisdom in the industry was that the process

Mitchell had invented for natural gas wouldn't work for oil.

Oil molecules are bigger and stickier than gas molecules, so

petroleum engineers believed it would be impossible to get

them to flow from source rock, even if the rock were cracked

by fracking. But Mark Papa, the CEO of a small oil and gas

company called EOG Resources, didn't accept that.

"The numbers were too intriguing, the prize was so big," he

remembered.

He thought there could be as much as a billion barrels of oil

within reach in Texas, North Dakota and elsewhere - if only

he could squeeze it out.

In 2003, he had a "eureka!" moment while poring over pic-

tures of rock. Sections of a 40-foot-long column of source

rock had been run through a CT scanner, the same type

used to peer into the human body.

He saw something in the source rock sections the rest of the

industry didn't know was there: a network of passageways

big enough for oil molecules to pass through. Papa believed

the passageways could act like rural roads for the oil to trav-

el through. Fracking could then create superhighways for

the oil to gather and feed into a pipe and up to the surface.

EOG began drilling test wells, and in 2005, Papa got some

results from one in North Dakota that made him realize oil

could flow fast enough to pay off.

"It was kind of like holy cow," he says. "My first thought was

we need to replicate this, make sure it's not a freak result."

It wasn't.

Papa thought the Eagle Ford might hold 500,000 barrels of

oil. The Department of Energy now predicts it holds 3.4 bil-

lion. Some even expect 10 billion, which would make it the

biggest oil field in U.S. history.

But even after drillers figured out how to find oil and gas

deep offshore and in onshore source rock, they still needed

to develop technology that would make it economical.

8 The Weekly News Digest, May 6, 2013 ___________________________________________________________

N E W T E C H N O L O G Y

P R O P E L S ' O L D E N E R G Y ' B O O MAt the tip of every oil or gas drill is a rotating mouth of sharp

teeth that chews through rock. In the past, these drill bits

could only dig straight down. Now they are agile enough to

find and follow narrow horizontal seams of rock.

And behind the drill bit, attached to a long line of steel

known as the "drill string," is an array of sensors that collect

data about the rock and underground fluids. The data, which

is sent to engineers via fiber-optic cables, is run through

supercomputers as powerful as 30,000 laptops to create a

picture of the earth thousands of feet below the surface.

"To the layman, it looks like dumb iron, but you'd be shocked

about what's inside," says Art Soucy, president of global

products and services at Baker Hughes.

When the drilling is done, the rig itself can "walk" a hundred

feet or so to another location and start drilling again. In the

past, rigs had to be taken down and reassembled, which

could take days.

"It has made possible things that were unthinkable 10 years

ago," says Claudi Santiago, managing director at First

Reserve Corp., a private-equity firm that invests in energy

companies.

Renewable technologies have had their successes. Solar

now generates six times more electricity in the U.S. than it

did a decade ago, and wind produces 18 times more. Most

major automakers offer some type of electric vehicle.

But the outlook for wind, batteries and biofuels is as dim as

it's been in a decade. Global greenhouse gas agreements

have fizzled. Dazzling discoveries have been made in labo-

ratories, and some of these may yet develop into transfor-

mative products, but alternative energy technologies haven't

become cheaper or more useful than fossil fuels.

It's certainly possible the world will change direction again in

the next five years. After all, experts didn't see the oil and

gas boom coming five years ago.

There are hundreds of companies, including fossil fuel

giants, working on renewable-energy projects. And despite

growing supplies of oil, prices remain high because develop-

ing nations are consuming more.

But EOG's Papa says oil and gas companies will just invest

in even more sophisticated technology. He estimates that

current techniques pull only 6 percent of the oil trapped in

source rock to the surface. Learning to double that would

yield yet another enormous trove of hydrocarbons.

"Now we go into the next phase of technology," he says.

"How are we going to get the rest of it out of the ground?"

E U A I M S T O B E T T E R P R O T E C TB E E S F R O M P E S T I C I D E S

Though the WaveRider was designed to reach Mach 6, orsix times the speed of sound, program officials were satis-fied with its performance in the latest test.

"It was a full mission success," program manager CharlieBrink of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base said in a statement.

The sleek, missile-shaped WaveRider was released from aB-52 bomber 50,000 feet above the Pacific and was initiallyaccelerated by a rocket before the scramjet kicked in.

It reached Mach 4.8 in less than half a minute powered by asolid rocket booster. After separating from the booster, thescramjet engine was ignited, accelerating the aircraft toMach 5.1 at 60,000 feet.

The flight ended with a planned plunge into the ocean.

The WaveRider traveled more than 230 miles in six minutes,making it the longest hypersonic flight of its kind. Engineersgathered data before it splashed down.

Darryl Davis, president of Boeing Phantom Works, whichbuilt the WaveRider, called the test "a historic achievementthat has been years in the making."

"This test proves the technology has matured to the pointthat it opens the door to practical applications," Davis said ina statement.

While the Air Force did not have immediate plans for a suc-cessor to the X-51A, it said it will continue hypersonic flightresearch.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- An experimental, unmanned aircraftdeveloped for the U.S. Air Force went hypersonic during atest off the Southern California coast, traveling at more than3,000 mph, the Air Force said Friday.

The X-51A WaveRider flew for more than three minutesunder power from its exotic scramjet engine and hit a speedof Mach 5.1, or more than five times the speed of sound.

The test on Wednesday marked the fourth and final flight ofan X-51A by the Air Force, which has spent $300 millionstudying scramjet technology that it hopes can be used todeliver strikes around the globe within minutes.

The previous three flights ended in failure or didn't reach theintended speed.

In this Wednesday, May 1, 2013 photo released by the U.S. AirForce, the X-51A Waverider, carried under the wing of a B-52HStratofortress bomber, prepares to launch for its fourth and finalflight over the Pacific Ocean. The X-51A, an experimental,unmanned aircraft developed for the U.S. Air Force, went hyper-sonic during a test off the Southern California coast, traveling atmore than 3,000 mph, the Air Force said Friday. The Air Force hasspent $300 million studying scramjet technology that it hopes canbe used to deliver strikes around the globe within minutes.

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