America's first female astronaut Sally Ride dies

Sally Ride, who blazed trails into orbit as the first American woman in space, died Monday of pancreatic cancer. She was 61.

Ride died at her home in the San Diego suburb of La Jolla, said Terry McEntee, a spokeswoman for her company, Sally Ride Science. She was a private person and the details of her illness were kept to just a few people, she said.

Ride rode into space on the space shuttle Challenger in 1983 when she was 32. After her flight, more than 42 other American women flew in space, NASA said.

"Sally was a national hero and a powerful role model. She inspired generations of young girls to reach for the stars," President Barack Obama said in a statement.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, a former astronaut, said Ride "broke barriers with grace and professionalism -- and literally changed the face of America's space program."

"The nation has lost one of its finest leaders, teachers and explorers," he said in a statement.

Ride was a physicist, writer of five science books for children and president of her own company. She had also been a professor of physics at the University of California in San Diego.

She was selected as an astronaut candidate in 1978, the same year she earned her doctorate in physics from Stanford University. She beat out five women to be the first American female in space. Her first flight came two decades after the Soviets sent a woman into space

"On launch day, there was so much excitement and so much happening around us in crew quarters, even on the way to the launch pad," Ride recalled in a NASA interview for the 25th anniversary of her flight in 2008. "I didn't really think about it that much at the time -- but I came to appreciate what an honor it was to be selected to be the first to get a chance to go into space."

Ride flew in space twice, both times on Challenger in 1983 and in 1984, logging 343 hours in space. A third flight was cancelled when Challenger exploded in 1986. She was on the commission investigating that accident and later served on the panel for the 2003 Columbia shuttle accident, the only person on both boards.

She also was on the president's committee of science advisers.

The 20th anniversary of her first flight also coincided with the loss of Columbia, a bittersweet time for Ride, who discussed it in a 2003 interview with The Associated Press. She acknowledged it was depressing to spend the anniversary investigating the accident, which killed seven astronauts.

"But in another sense, it's rewarding because it's an opportunity to be part of the solution and part of the changes that will occur and will make the program better," she said.

Later in the interview, she focused on science education and talked about "being a role model and being very visible."

"She was very smart," said former astronaut Norman Thagard, who was on Ride's first flight. "We did have a good time."

It was all work on that first flight, except for a first-in-space sprint around the inside of the shuttle, Thagard recalled by phone on Monday. He didn't know who won.

One of Ride's last legacies was allowing middle school students to take their own pictures of the moon using cameras aboard NASA's twin Grail spacecraft in a project spearheaded by her company.

"Sally literally could have done anything with her life. She decided to devote her life to education and to inspiring young people. To me, that's such a powerful thing. It's extraordinarily admirable," said Maria Zuber, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who heads the Grail mission.

Ride's office said she is survived by Tam O'Shaughnessy, her partner of 27 years; her mother, Joyce; her sister, Bear, a niece and a nephew.

Facebook warns hundreds of thousands may lose Internet in July

Facebook announced Tuesday that it had joined a consortium of other companies and security experts to help alert hundreds of thousands of websurfers of a computer infection called DNSChanger that may knock their computers off the Internet this summer.
Unknown to most of them, their problem began when international hackers ran an online advertising scam to take control of infected computers around the world. In a highly unusual response, the FBI set up a safety net months ago using government computers to prevent Internet disruptions for those infected users. But that system will be shut down July 9 -- killing connections for those people.
The FBI has run an impressive campaign for months, encouraging people to visit a website that will inform them whether they're infected and explain how to fix the problem. After July 9, infected users won't be able to connect to the Internet.


Infected Facebook users will now be treated to a special message when visiting the social network that informing them of their potential risk as well as helping them clean it up.
"Facebook's Product Security Team is working constantly to protect users from malicious content and malware like viruses, trojans, and worms," Facebook wrote in a blog post Tuesday, June 4.


"As a result of our work with the DNSChanger Working Group, Facebook is now able to notify users likely infected with DNSChanger malware and direct them to instructions on how to clean their computer or networks."
Facebook followed in the footsteps of Google, who on May 22, announced that it would throw its weight into the awareness campaign, rolling out alerts to users via a special message that will appear at the top of the Google search results page for users with affected computers.
“We believe directly messaging affected users on a trusted site and in their preferred language will produce the best possible results,” wrote Google security engineer Damian Menscher in a post on the company’s security blog.
“If more devices are cleaned and steps are taken to better secure the machines against further abuse, the notification effort will be well worth it,” he wrote.
The challenge, and the reason for the awareness campaigns: Most victims don't even know their computers have been infected, although the malicious software probably has slowed their web surfing and disabled their antivirus software, making their machines more vulnerable to other problems.
Last November, when the FBI and other authorities were preparing to take down a hacker ring that had been running an Internet ad scam on a massive network of infected computers, the agency realized this may become an issue.
"We started to realize that we might have a little bit of a problem on our hands because ... if we just pulled the plug on their criminal infrastructure and threw everybody in jail, the victims of this were going to be without Internet service," said Tom Grasso, an FBI supervisory special agent. "The average user would open up Internet Explorer and get `page not found' and think the Internet is broken."
On the night of the arrests, the agency brought in Paul Vixie, chairman and founder of Internet Systems Consortium, to install two Internet servers to take the place of the truckload of impounded rogue servers that infected computers were using. Federal officials planned to keep their servers online until March, giving everyone opportunity to clean their computers.


But it wasn't enough time.
A federal judge in New York extended the deadline until July.
Now, said Grasso, "the full court press is on to get people to address this problem." And it's up to computer users to check their PCs.
'We started to realize that we might have a little bit of a problem on our hands...'
- Tom Grasso, an FBI supervisory special agent
This is what happened:
Hackers infected a network of probably more than 570,000 computers worldwide. They took advantage of vulnerabilities in the Microsoft Windows operating system to install malicious software on the victim computers. This turned off antivirus updates and changed the way the computers reconcile website addresses behind the scenes on the Internet's domain name system.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un speaks publicly for the first time

PYONGYANG, North Korea –  North Korean leader Kim Jong Un spoke publicly for the first time Sunday, just two days after a failed rocket launch, praising his father Kim Jong Il's "military first" policy during celebrations marking the 100th birthday of the nation's late founder.

Kim, who has been seen but not publicly heard since taking over after Kim Jong Il's death in December, stepped to the podium to speak before tens of thousands of people gathered in Pyongyang's main square for meticulously choreographed festivities meant to glorify his grandfather, North Korea founder Kim Il Sung.

Kim Jong Un said the era when nuclear arms could be used to threaten his country was "forever over." He called for strengthening the country's "military first" policy by placing the "first, second and third" priorities on military might.

He said his country had built a "mighty military" capable of both offense and defense in any type of modern warfare.

"Superiority in military technology is no longer monopolized by imperialists," he said.

Soldiers are more important than rockets and artillery, Kim said, and military officers should treat their troops "like brothers and sisters."

He said he is "heartbroken" that the rival Koreas have been divided for decades, and said North Korea "will cooperate with anyone" who truly wishes for reunification.

North Korea defied the U.S. and others Friday by firing a long-range rocket that space officials said was mounted with an observational satellite despite warnings against pushing ahead with the provocative launch. Washington and others say it was a covert test of long-range missile technology.

Hours after the rocket splintered into pieces over the Yellow Sea, the country made an unusual admission of failure, but Kim did not mention the launch in his remarks Sunday.

Kim Jong Un has since underlined the country's "military first" policy with a budget that allocates a sizable chunk of funding to defense spending.

International condemnation of the rocket firing was swift, including the suspension of U.S. food aid, and there are worries that the North's next move could be an even more provocative nuclear test.

The U.N. Security Council denounced the launch as a violation of resolutions that prohibit North Korea from developing its nuclear and missile programs. The council imposed sanctions on North Korea after its first nuclear test in 2006 and stepped up sanctions after its second in 2009.

Whitney Houston's erratic behavior had been building over a week, source says

As fans, friends and family come to terms with the sudden death of singer Whitney Houston, more details are emerging about her behavior in the days prior to her passing.

"She was a total wreck. She drank cognac and champagne, and seemed completely out of it from the moment she arrived until the moment she left," an insider told FOX411's Pop Tarts column. "Yet at the same time she seemed like she was enjoying herself with her friends. She went to the smoking patio a few times throughout the night and was also seen roaming around throughout the club and even ventured walking upstairs to the smaller room."

Apparently Houston, who stayed until 2.30am, continually left her VIP booth, although it was unclear why or what she was doing while in the club. According to our insider, Houston was still very close to Ray J, his sister Brandy Norwood, and their family.

A week later, in the days before her death, similar scenes were reported.

People.com reported that Houston, notoriously plagued by drug demons in recent years, raised eyebrows after checking into the Beverly Hills Hilton on Wednesday, and appeared "out of it." Over the course of the next few days, the pop diva was spotted looking noticeably disheveled with wet hair and mismatched clothes, waving her arms around frantically and wandering aimlessly through the hotel, all while smelling of alcohol and cigarettes.

Houston behaved similarly Thursday night when she helped coach Ray J's sister Brandy for her upcoming Grammy performance, according to the L.A. Times.

And in what turned out to be her last ever performance on Thursday night, Houston was seen acting erratically, looking worse for wear with blood dripping down her leg, at a pre-Grammy bash for Kelly Price at the club Tru Hollywood. Multiple reports suggested she got into a tequila-fueled confrontation with former "X-Factor" star Stacy Francis after finding Ray J chatting with Francis.

TMZ also reported that Houston and her personal posse "partied heavily" on Friday night in the bar at the Beverly Hills Hilton, where she was found dead in her room the next day.

"Everyone was saying they thought she was getting better," added a source. "And now this."