| Oorah! A woman is set to become a Marine Corps infantry officer for the first time |
| Take that glass ceiling. For the first time in the Marine Corps' 242-year history, a woman will become an infantry officer. Her accomplishment: Completing a physically grueling 13-week training course, the first of more than 30 woman to do so since the course opened to females in 2012. And this course is no joke. About 25% of men end up not completing the challenge that involves long hikes with heavy equipment and brutal obstacle courses meant to resemble the stressful conditions of combat. While women have served extensively in combat before, it wasn't until 2013 that jobs in infantry, tanks and artillery divisions were opened to them. |
| This is why people are so frustrated with Equifax |
| Equifax can't seem to get it right. In the wake of the credit bureau's massive data breach, the company admitted Thursday that it had been sending victims seeking help to a bogus website . After the breach, which exposed the personal data of 143 million Americans, the company set up the help website equifaxsecurity2017.com. Developer Nick Sweeting thought that was a bad idea, increasing the risk that consumers would be fooled by fakes. To prove the point, he set up the similarly named securityequifax2017.com. Sure enough, Equifax's support team directed customers to Sweeting's URL over Twitter — three times. Equifax apologized in a statement to USA TODAY: "Consumers should be aware of fake websites purporting to be operated by Equifax." Thanks, Equifax. |
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| Trump to go after 'Rocket Man's' pocketbook |
| It's not quite the "fire and fury" President Trump has threatened before, but the commander in chief is looking to up the pressure on North Korea in another way. After saying earlier this week the U.S. would have "no choice but to totally destroy " the rogue nation if it did not stop developing its nuclear weapons program, Trump said Thursday that he is seeking to ramp up economic pressure against North Korea with an executive order that would allow the government to target the country's business partners. Trump demanded "complete de-nuclearization" of North Korea but left open the possibility of negotiating with Kim Jong Un's government. "Why not," Trump answered when asked if diplomacy was still possible. |
| Puerto Rico picks up the pieces after Maria's devastation |
| Hurricane Maria was by far the worst storm Victor Ramirez has ever seen on Puerto Rico — and he's 78. "You could hear people crying, they were scared," the San Juan resident said. "This one was devastating." A day after Maria smashed the island with 150-mph winds, drivers swerved around toppled trees and power lines and navigated flooded streets. The entire island was without power. After moving off Puerto Rico, Maria was lashing the Dominican Republic as a Category 3 storm and was expected to hit the Turks and Caicos. From there, forecasters say, the storm is likely to stay offshore, but a direct hit on the U.S. isn't out of the question. |
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| Petrified poop reveals dino diet bombshell |
| We've known for eons that many dinosaurs were vegetarians, right? Hold the salad dressing: A new study of fossilized dinosaur poop shows that hadrosaurs, or duckbilled dinosaurs, also ate shellfish. Scientists studying dino deposits in Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument found that some contained pieces of shell from a crustacean such as a crayfish or crab. Crustaceans are rich in protein and calcium, which may have made them irresistible to animals about to lay eggs, much as a pregnant woman might seek out steak. Study co-author Karen Chin said the hadrosaurs' apparent crustacean craving is something she "had never imagined." |
| Will the world end Saturday? |
| No, it won't ... probably. But David Meade, a Christian and self-published author of end-of-the-world survival guides, thinks so. Laying out his case with astronomy, science, the Book of Revelations and geopolitics in his book "Planet X — The 2017 Arrival," Meade believes that "Planet Nibiru" will collide with the Earth this week. Yikes. Meade definitely isn't the first to make an end of the world prediction. In fact, end-times theories can date back to as far as the year 66 and ancient Judea, with the first American-born doomsday prediction coming in 1697 from Cotton Mather. So, Meade most likely won't be the last, either — unless of course his theory ends up panning out this weekend. |
| What else is happening this week? Bookmark our calendar. |
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