US military hacker to be tried in the US

UK computer hacker Gary McKinnon will be tried in the United States after requests to block extradition were refused. Gary’s family has been told that the Home Office couldn’t block the move because of his medical condition. Gary is accused of hacking into networks owned by NASA, the US Army, US Navy. Department of Defence and the US Air force.

A US prosecutor claims the hack is the “biggest military computer hack of all time.” Gary said he was looking for UFO evidence. If he is convicted he will face 60 years in prison. Gary admits hacking into 97 US government computers which include NASA’s and Pentagon’s, during 2001 and 2002.

His mother Janis Sharp told the BBC she was “devastates” by the news and her son had reacted “very badly”. “To force a peaceful, vulnerable, misguided UFO fanatic like Gary thousands of miles away from his much-needed support network is barbaric”.

In my opinion although he has Asperser's syndrome he should still get a prison sentence but nothing else. We will have to see how it all comes out in the end.

Pirate Bay shuts down it’s tracker

The Pirate bay has shut down its tracker after BitTorent explained that there was no longer a need for such a tracking service. Although The Pirate Bay has continued to host files but are less directly involved in the download process. They have said that they don’t need to rely on a single server like BitTorrent that stores and distributes files. The move could be an attempt to get round legal threats on October 29^th.

These threats mean that if they still have to do what the court says The Pirate Bay will have to pay 73,000 dollars to the court if the site wasn’t closed. Four of the co-founders are appealing for a prison sentence but that has been postponed till next year. Former spokesman for The Pirate Bay posted on his Twitter “To make it totally clear, [the Pirate Bay] is not closing. (The Pirate Bay) closed the tracker because new technology has evolved to not need it. Less problems!”. The tracker has only been closed because it is no longer needed so we will have to wait to see what the court think!

Johnny Depp soon to become Hollywood's highest paid actor

Sometime soon Johnny Depp will become Hollywood’s highest paid actor for his role in the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean film. He is expected to get twenty-one million for his role in the new movie. The film called On Stranger Tides will be released in 2011. He will be paid more than Tom Cruise and Will Smith when he gets the money.

His past co-stars Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom will not be staring in this film. He earned £15 million from staring in the last Pirates of the Caribbean film called Dead man’s Chest. It’s thought that from the whole series of films he will make around £50 million which will make him very rich. Although it’s not released for another two years, he will have to wait to see how much he makes and unfortunately it also means that we will have to wait. It should be good when it comes out though, if it makes as much as the other films!

Wormonauts set off on space mission

Space shuttle Atlantis has set off on a mission but with some very strange space travellers on board. The shuttle set off on Monday night from Florida, it had around four-thousand of the little creatures on board. The creatures are so small that they can only be seen under a microscope. Some scientists hope that the worms will help them work out why astronauts’ muscles go weak when they are in space.

The worms will spend eleven days in space and will orbit more than 200 miles round Earth. In total they will travel more than four and a half million miles on the journey. Also on that mission is a painting of a lady which is part of a different experiment. Six astronauts will also be on the mission to make sure that some equipment is delivered to the International Space Station. It will be a strange mission but it will be interesting to see how it turns out and I will hopefully be reporting on that.

Disney fights over Winnie-the-Pooh royalties

A company founded by the man who had worked with creator of Winnie-the-Pooh is taking Disney to court. This is because they want to get some apparently unpaid royalties. Stephen Slesinger who had come up with the idea of the red t-shirt for the bear had been allowed by a federal judge to sue Disney for royalties. A spokesman said that Disney owed a lot of money. Stephen had purchased the distribution rights for the US and Canada from A.A Milne in 1931. Eight years after Slessingers death in 1961 Disney got the rights that meant that they could films, TV series and toys.

Eric George who was a lawyer for Stephen said that that Disney owed his family 1.5% to 2.5% in royalties. Disney has said that the latest legal action is "baffling". Judge Florence-Marie Cooper made a decision on 25th September that rejected Slessingers company's claims. We still don't know the full outcome of this case but when we do we will hopefully be doing an update on the blog so watch out for it!

Anti-bullying Week 2009 kicks off on Monday

From 16th to 20th November 2009 is Anti-Bullying week 2009. The event which happen every year aims to raise awareness of bullying of children and young people. This is mainly in schools but they have events elsewhere. This year it will focus on Cyberbullying which is increasingly becoming a problem. There slogan is 'Stay Safe in Cyberspace'.

Various TV programs will be having special programs about it. Newsround will have a program on Monday. This won't just be about cyberbullying but all sorts of types of bullying. But it's not just kids that have been bullied. In the past it has happened to celebrities as well. these include Aston Merrygold from JLS, dancer George Sampson, boxer Joe Calzaghe and CBBC presenter Gemma Hunt.

Cyberbullying can happen to almost anyone and happens online and sometimes by texts on mobiles. Online it can happen on Chat rooms, Email, Instant messaging. A Canadian study found that most of the people who said that they had been bullied by text didn't know the person who had text them. Coincidentally the event is followed the next day by Children in Need 2009 which helps children around the UK, possibly with problems due to bullying. So we will have a busy week of charity events next week. I'm looking forward to it!

First ever female Red Arrows pilot does first display

The RAF has had its first ever female Red Arrows pilot. Kirsty Moor from RAF Scampton has finished her first week of training and done her first display today. She will start being in the Red Arrows team from next year. She is staying with the team until 2012. This will mean that she will only just feature in the London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony.

Around forty pilots apply each year and only nine of those are sent to training in Cyprus. Around 60 out of 2,040 train pilots in the RAF are women. It’s the 45^th anniversary of the team this year so they do lots of displays. Kirsty said that she had been inspired to join the RAF by her father who was a Tornado navigator in the RAF. She joined in 1998 after studying aeronautical engineering at London’s Imperial College.

She had said that the day she was selected was one of the best days of her life. She has also completed combat missions in Iraq. The RAF said “we do have female aircrew in all our squadrons and this is a great way of getting the message across to women thinking of joining the Red Arrows,”

“She is very calm under pressure but Red Arrow pilots also have to be able to do the job on the ground as well as the flying job and she has a very calm and level-headed approach.”

She will join the other pilots who are based in Lincolnshire next year. She said it was an honour to be chosen. This will be a change for Kirsty as she has been based at RAF Marham in Norfolk before this. We’ll be watching out for her!