$100 Billion

Apple reached 100 billion dollars in cash at the end of last year, an unprecedented amount of money. the nearest company is Microsoft floating around half of that amount. This led to the announcement Apple made stating that "it would at last return some of its cash pile to shareholders in the form of dividends and stock buybacks, at a cost of more than $10 billion a year for the next three years." In history such a move is usually done by large companies running out of technology and expansion, but this is not so with Apple. Apple continues to ""pump out" new technological hits, the perfect example being "late Monday, Apple said it had sold three million of its new iPads since they were introduced on Friday." Apple said it would pay a quarterly dividend of $2.65 a share beginning in its fiscal fourth quarter which starts July 1. Apple's board had authorized a $10 billion share buyback starting september 30th. Apple expects to spend about $45 billion over three years.This also opens doors for more investors as some could not or would not invest without a dividend being returned. In short, Apple is still growing like a new company.

Afghan Massacre

A veteran Army staff sergeant, a married father of two only recently deployed in Afghanistan, left his base to massacre at least 16 civilians, 9 of them children. He is 38 years old, has served 3 tours in in Iraq and was deployed in Afghanistan in December. He has served for eleven years. This decimation of defenseless people led to a "moment of unity to three major Afghan factions: civilians, insurgents and government officials." Villagers said aside from just killing them this man set fire to eleven bodies, four of them girls under the age of six. and at least five others were injured. He is to face charges under the military justice system and is currently suspended and in custody. The Afghan parliament stated, “We urge the United States government to punish the culprits and put them on trial in an open court so that the rest of those who want to shed our innocent people’s blood take a lesson from it.” Aside from just these horrible killings, five American soldiers were killed in the months of january and february.

Higgs Boson

All the physics models of today include the Higgs Boson. The Higgs Boson is supposedly responsible for endowing other elementary particles with mass. Don't ask me what that means. "The Higgs boson is the key piece of the Standard Model, an ambitious suite of equations that has ruled the universe of high-energy physics for the last few decades, explaining how three of the four fundamental forces of nature work." Basically, if this theoretical particle does not exist, scientists have to come up with a whole new set of theories for how the universe functions. The data which eludes to this particle are bumps in data collected from the most powerful accelerator around 124 and 126 billion electron volts, which are numbers favored by physicists. Announcements from two independant groups in december also agree with these results. The most powerful accelerator, the Tevatron, also shut down in september. Does it exist? I don't care ^^

Syrian Rebels Crushed, at Least for the Moment

The Syrian Army overwhelmed the main rebel stronghold in the city of Homs on Thursday. The rebels claimed it was a “tactical withdrawal”, which it definately was not. They had reportedly taken a "pounding by artillery, tank and sniper fire for nearly a month." This type of enemy would no doubt force the rebels into a "tactical retreat." The rebels claimed the retreat was because they were " unable to justify keeping thousands of civilians marooned under dire humanitarian conditions." The Syrian govenment does not have enough elite soldiers to supress all of the uprisings around the country, but they have been fighting one at a time. The Syrian force is now expected to go farther north in order to suppress other "hot spots."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/02/world/middleeast/rebels-resisting-onslaught-in-syrian-city-activists-say.html?_r=1&hp