The US military achieves another scientific feat as its robotic co-pilot flies and lands Boeing 737 simulator aircraft

The US military achieves another scientific feat as its robotic co-pilot flies and lands Boeing 737 simulator aircraft

World Unknown   08:57

Another scientific breakthrough emerges from the US military, as its funded project invents a robotic co-pilot which managed to fly and land an aircraft Boeing 737 in flight simulator. The robotic project is named ALIAS (Aircrew Labour In-Cockpit Automation System), the robotic system can help a pilot fly and even land a Boeing 737.

The scientific feat was designed by Aurora Flight Sciences which is one of its research projects to support more automation on existing aircraft

The project was embarked on due to how expensive both civilian and military aircraft operations are, as it needs extreme and skilled experts are needed to react in the right direction during unforeseeable circumstances.

Taking the seat of the co-pilot, ALIAS makes use of machine vision to enable the computer running the automated system take and understand visual feedback as humans. Just like human beings, it can as well manipulate the flight control.

Just like the Amazon Alexa voice command assistant, it has the ability to recognise speech and synthesis, formulating responses to communicate with the pilot.

"Having successfully demonstrated on a variety of aircraft, ALIAS has proven its versatile automated flight capabilities," said John Wissler, Aurora's vice president of research and development.

"As we move towards fully automated flight from take-off to landing, we can reliably say that we have developed an automation system that enables significant reduction of crew workload."

The work was completed for a project for the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in the US.

DARPA, is the US military's research wing, which supported projects that have been useful in non-military situations, including the ARPANET, the earliest predecessor of the internet.

The aims for ALIAS include it ultimately supporting the execution of an entire mission from take-off to landing, even in the face of serious aircraft system failures.

Contrary to speculation, the US economy is growing and 235,000 jobs created in February

Contrary to speculation, the US economy is growing and 235,000 jobs created in February

World Unknown   10:59

Contrary to all the negative projections made by anti-Trump media houses to scuttle his ascendancy to the US presidency, recent data has revealed that the US economy has been experiencing steady growth. As a result, the government is now set to adjust the cost of borrowing to suit the current trend in order to keep the economy booming.

The Federal Reserve has now put interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point - the second rise in three months, due to improvements in key sectors of the US economy. Report shows that about 235,000 jobs were created in February, a growth which has proved all the project fear campaigners to shame.

Within the period, US shares experienced some gains, while the USD fall abruptly due to lack of plan that rates might rise.

The Fed's forecasts also saw the US economy developing by 2.1% in 2017, unchanged from its December forecast.

The latest rise in rates was due to the official jobs figures published on Friday, which were better than what was projected.

Steadily increasing rates are a sign that the US is gradually being weaned off the stimulus of cheap borrowing costs that helped nurse it back to health after the recession.

Fed chair Janet Yellen said: "The economy continues to expand at a moderate pace."

Economists think the next Fed hike will come no earlier than June as the central bank will want time to assess the likelihood that Mr Trump's plans will be passed by Congress.

However, Rising US rates have some kind of global consequences especially for developing countries most susceptible to higher dollar borrowing costs.

It contrasts with the UK, where rates were slashed to 0.5% in 2009 and cut further to 0.25% in the wake of last year's Brexit vote.

Lucy O'Carroll, chief economist at Aberdeen Asset Management, told Sky News it would have been an "enormous surprise" if the Fed had not raised rates in its latest policy announcement.

She said policymakers did not seem too worried about the possibility of soaring inflation.

"I think it was a very measured and reassuring message," she said.

Green card checks at Subway increases deportation tension in New York

Green card checks at Subway increases deportation tension in New York

World Unknown   10:14

With President Trump fully ready to implement his electioneering promises, of which immigration is one, immigrants living all over New York fasten their seatbelt for harsher immigration status checks over the past week.

Information reaching us has it that New York is experiencing rising number of unplanned immigration status checks being done by men of the Department of Homeland Security, namely on the city’s subway system.

Officials from the Homeland Security disclosed two memos last Tuesday which detailed wild stretching directives centred on both interior implementation and the US-Mexico border crackdown.

According to the report, it was indicated in the memo that there would be recruitment of thousands new enforcement agents, and the empowerment of officials to “immediately deport” any detained individual who had been in the country for less than two years.

Accordingly, it has been confirmed by ICE operation that 41 arrests have been recorded in the New York City area.

Over the past 10 days, various occurrences of green card spot checks apparently happened in immigrant-heavy boroughs of New York, namely Queens and Brooklyn.

Graphic designer Jason Shelowtiz took to Twitter to document his wife's experience on a train.

He said: "Wife's coworker held up on subway in Queens because police were checking for green cards. This is not bull****. Racial profiling."

In subsequent tweets he added: "7 train at Junction Blvd was stopped. Police came on asking to see Green Cards.

"They're also stopping R trains asking to see Green Cards. This is scary."

The Twitter allegations have been denied by New York's Police Department, who told local media: "The police department does not check anybody's green card. Period."

Nearly 40 per cent of the city’s 8.2million population are foreign-born, according to a 2013 study by the City Planning Commission. In at least nine neighbourhoods, more than half the residents are foreign-born.

Elsewhere in Chicago, public transport users expressed their confusion and concern after encountering random security checkpoints set up at Addison Ted Lime stations on the city’s subway system.

Locals described the scenes as “peculiar” and “worrying” after Homeland Security personnel carried out bag searches in ticket halls.

Student Abby Seitz tweeted: "Stopped at the Addison CTA stop by Homeland Security for a "random bag check." ...what?"

She told local media that she had encountered at least seven or eight officers, all of whom wore Homeland Security badges and vests.

She said: “I did not see a single CPD [Chicago Police Department] officer in the line. They all had visible Homeland Security credentials."

President Trump now receives loads of accolades from people who had hitherto reviled him

President Trump now receives loads of accolades from people who had hitherto reviled him

World Unknown   10:01

Despite all the media blackmail against President Donald Trump, it is becoming clearer that, he is gradually becoming accepted by most of the people who fought against his presidential election.

The latest is coming from a formerly hostile audience of Conservatives as they cheered his plans in office to the rafters. As they all gave him a rousing welcome for his political plan for the country.

According to sources, Mr Trump received rounds of praise as he outlined the proposals he matched to his shared "values" with the right-wing and staunchly religious crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

They included pledges for the "greatest" build-up of the US military, the repeal of Barack Obama's signature healthcare programme and the renegotiation of Democrat-negotiated trade deals.

He also established the building of the US-Mexico border wall will begin "real soon" and "way ahead of schedule", while earning large cheers for plans to "keep radical Islamic terrorists the hell out" of America.

The biggest of the ovation was given to him for his backing for the constitution’s rights to gun ownership, telling them almost in passing: "And by the way we will protect our second amendment."

The support was in marked contrast to his controversial last appearance on the same stage in 2015 when the presidential hopeful was booed when he doubted then crowd favourite Texas congressman Ron Paul's chances of winning office.

Trump was then heckled by one member who shouted: "You have zero chance of getting elected."

Two years on, as a returning president, Mr Trump enjoyed near universal support, though at least one audience member was taken out of the auditorium in National Harbor, Maryland after briefly shouting out insults.

Mr Trump began by showing his gratitude to the CPAC crowd, saying "I love this place", before thanking them for helping get him into power, telling them: "It's patriots like you that did it."

After reiterating many of his key campaign promises, he told the audience: "The future belongs to you. It's going to be bigger and better and stronger than ever before."

The president also urged the fully standing crowd to sit down and rise again to give him a standing ovation, joking that in its absence "the media" would have played down their support for him.

President Donald Trump set to revoke transgender right to use any bathroom of their choice

President Donald Trump set to revoke transgender right to use any bathroom of their choice

World Unknown   11:33

US President Donald J. Trump appears to fully ready to implement most/all of his campaign promises during the last concluded US presidential election, irrespective of who such implementation affects or not in a bid to bring morality values and sanity back to the United States.

The latest of such is his resolve to revoke former president Obama’s guidelines which gave some kind of preferential treatment to transgender students to make use of any bathroom of their choice, which so many persons have said gave sexual predators a upper hand to cause more harms to innocent people.

The proposed document reveals that President Trump will reverse an initiative that poses threats to schools with the pulling out of federal funding if they force transgender students to use particular bathrooms against their will as was introduced by the Obama administration in May 2016.

Though during his campaign to become the Republican presidential nominee, Mr Trump stated that transgender people "should be able to use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate".

However, the President changed his position after coming under criticism from fellow Republicans.

On Tuesday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Mr Trump's "view has been for a long time that this is not something the federal government should be involved in, this is a states' rights issue".

Statistics shows that some 150,000 American children (0.7%) aged between 13 and 17 identify as transgender, according to a study by The Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

Abdel-Rahman who was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment dies while in prison

Abdel-Rahman who was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment dies while in prison

World Unknown   10:22

Report reaching us has it the Omar Abdel-Rahman who was convicted for masterminding the bombing of the World Trade Centre in 1993 has given up the ghost in a US prison.

Abdel-Rahman who is otherwise known as the Blind Sheikh died while serving his life sentence for the heinous crime against humanity and the United States, the attack brought about the death of six people.

The death of Abdel-Rahman was conveyed by his son, after the family received a call a spokesman from the US concerning the death of his father.

Prior to his conviction and incarceration, Abdel-Rahman was known as the leader of the Egyptian Islamist militant group called al-Gamaa al-Islamiyya.

In addition to the 1993 attack on the World Trade Centre Abdel-Rahman was also accused of planning to blow up other major buildings in New York City, which also includes the UN headquarters.