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Wreckage of F-22 found in Alaska: US Air Force

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US Air Force on Wednesday said it found the "apparent wreckage" of a F-22 fighter jet in Alaska that had failed to return from a routine training mission.

The aircraft, the most sophisticated in the US fleet of warplanes, had lost contact on Tuesday night with air traffic controllers at a base in Alaska and the pilot remained missing, the Air Force said in a statement.

"To continue searching for the missing pilot, a rescue team is being dispatched to the area, approximately 100 miles (161 kilometers) north of Anchorage," said the statement from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson.

"Finding the missing pilot is our top priority," Colonel Jack McMullen, 3rd Wing commander, said in the statement.

The US military has 187 of the radar-evading F-22 Raptors, which are produced by aerospace giant Lockheed Martin.

In 2009, a Raptor crashed in California on a test mission, killing the pilot.

Robot Wing to Reveal Hummingbird Hover Tricks

B.J. Balakumar's robotic hummingbird wing isn't as pretty as the real thing. It lacks jewel-like colors and the iridescent glint of hummingbird feathers. But what the unadorned metal wing does have is the ability to help researchers understand how the tiny fliers manage to dart, hover and dive even in gusty winds.

The work is still in the preliminary stages, Balakumar, a researcher in the Extreme Fluids Lab at Los Alamos National Laboratory, told LiveScience. However, the researchers hope that the findings will eventually be used in robotics.

The smallest hummingbirds weigh barely more than a penny, and the largest weigh in at just 0.7 ounces (20 grams). Despite their mini stature, hummingbirds are among the world's largest hovering animals.

Researchers have long known that hummingbirds don't . Instead of flapping their wings up and down, hummingbirds oscillate their wings in a figure-eight pattern. The oscillation produces lift on both . When hovering, hummingbirds generate extra lift by creating a vortex of air on the leading edge of their wings.

These wing vortices are very unstable, meaning they should vanish at the teensiest nudge, Balakumar said. But the hummingbirds have a clever way around that problem.

"Their wings create the vortex with a high angle of attack on the downstroke," Balakumar said in a statement. "Then they flip their wings around on the upstroke, so as they shed one vortex, they create another on the other side of the wing, thereby managing to maintain high lift forces."

But a gust of wind could upset this delicate balance. Balakumar and his team built their robotic hummingbird wing to find out how hummingbirds compensate for . By exposing the wing to winds in a controlled laboratory environment, Balakumar and his team hope to identify the mathematical algorithms that will allow them to transfer the feat to flying robots. Such stable hovering machines would be useful for surveillance and other applications, the researchers report.

The researchers describe theirtoday (Nov. 21) at the American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics meeting in Long Beach, Calif.

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Ex-President Bush, Maya Angelou awarded top honor

WASHINGTON – President George H.W. Bush, poet Maya Angelou and investor Warren Buffett are among the 2010 winners of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

President Barack Obama will present the awards to the 15 honorees early next year, the White House announced Wednesday.

Other winners include a civil rights hero, Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., plus St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Famer Stan "The Man" Musial, Boston Celtics legend Bill Russell, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

Obama's bipartisan gesture in picking the first President Bush for the honor is not unprecedented. Former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, awarded a Medal of Freedom to former Republican President Gerald Ford.

"These outstanding honorees come from a broad range of backgrounds and they've excelled in a broad range of fields, but all of them have lived extraordinary lives that have inspired us, enriched our culture, and made our country and our world a better place," Obama said. "I look forward to awarding them this honor."

The medal is presented to people who have made notable contributions to U.S. interests, from cultural achievements to security matters.

The full list of winners:

_George H.W. Bush was America's 41st president, and previously vice president and CIA director. He also worked with Clinton to raise money for victims Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004.

_Merkel is the first woman and first East German to serve as chancellor of a unified Germany.

_Musial is a Hall of Fame first baseman/outfielder who played 22 seasons for the St. Louis Cardinals.

_Russell is the former captain of the Boston Celtics and first black man to become an NBA head coach.

_Yo-Yo Ma is a world renowned cellist who has won 16 Grammy awards and is known for his interpretations of Bach and Beethoven. He played at Obama's inauguration.

_Lewis served as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and helped organize the first lunch-counter sit-in. In 1965 he led the Selma-to-Montgomery, Ala., march for voting rights and was brutally beaten along with others in what became known as "Bloody Sunday."

_Buffett, chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, is a famed investor known as the "Oracle of Omaha" for his prescient business sense. He is also a generous philanthropist.

_Angelou is a prominent poet, educator, filmmaker, producer and civil rights activist.

• Jasper Johns, an American artist whose work has dealt with themes of perception and identity. He is considered a major influence on pop, minimal and conceptual art.

_Gerda Weissmann Klein, a Jewish Holocaust survivor who founded Citizenship Counts, an organization that teaches students to cherish the value of their American citizenship.

_Dr. Tom Little, an optometrist murdered last August by the Taliban in Afghanistan as he and nine others returned from a mission to provide eye care in the Parun valley of Nuristan. The award is being given posthumously to Little.

_Sylvia Mendez, a civil rights activist of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent.

_Jean Kennedy Smith, a Kennedy family member who served as U.S. ambassador to Ireland and is the founder of VSA, a nonprofit organization affiliated with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts that promotes the artistic talents of children and adults with disabilities.

_John Sweeney, AFL-CIO president from 1995-2009.

_John H. Adams, who in 1970 co-founded the Natural Resources Defense Council, a prominent environmental advocacy group.

Ethics chief counsel recommends censure for Rangel

WASHINGTON – The House ethics committee's chief counsel recommended Thursday that veteran Rep. Charles Rangel be censured for financial and fundraising misconduct as lawmakers neared closure on an embarassing 2 1/2-year-long scandal.

Chief counsel Blake Chisman called for the punishment despite the veteran New York congressman's plea, in a prepared statement in advance of the hearing, for "a drop of fairness and mercy."

If Chisam's recommendation is carried out, it would be the most serious punishment short of expulsion that could be meted out by the House. Chisam and Rangel argued their positions at a public hearing on sanctions, where the 80-year-old congressman acknowledged making mistakes in handling his finances and said he wasn't there to "retry this case."

He did say he wished the committee would weigh, in considering its vote on punishment, how the House had handled previous cases involving lawmakers who were enriched by activities they undertook that were judged to be in violation of the chamber's rules.

Before Chisam commenced his remarks, Rep. Jo Bonner, R-Ala., told committee colleagues that Rangel needed only to "look in the mirror to know who to blame" for his predicament.

Chisam said Rangel "brought discredit" upon the House and that his actions "served to undermine public confidence in this institution."

The committee was poised to recess for a closed session to discuss the recommendation of censure.

Rangel also brought in Rep. John Lewis, the Georgia Democrat, to give a testimonial for the congressman to the panel. Lewis called his colleague "a good and decent man" and said he had worked tirelessly to advance civil rights.

Palestinians: 1 killed in Gaza car blast

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Hamas officials say a car explosion has killed one person and wounded four others in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas medical official Adham Abu Salmia says there is no word on the cause of the blast or the identities of the victims.

But radio stations affiliated with both Hamas and the Islamic Jihad militant groups claim there was an Israeli airstrike.

The Israeli military has not commented on the incident.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel and the United States were in a standoff Wednesday over the terms of a Washington-proposed settlement construction moratorium meant to revive Mideast peace talks.

Israeli officials had said several days ago that the U.S. had agreed that the 90-day moratorium would be the last time Israel would be asked to renew building limitations that expired in late September, after 10 months.

They also said the renewal — like the earlier moratorium — would not apply to disputed east Jerusalem, the Palestinians' hoped-for capital.

But an Israeli official said Wednesday those terms have not been finalized.

Asked whether the Americans were in fact willing to be so explicit on these two critical issues, the official replied, "It's being negotiated." He spoke on condition of anonymity because the deal was still being negotiated.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Tuesday that a ministerial vote on the deal had been held up pending the arrival of a formal U.S. letter outlining the deal's terms.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley refused to say whether the U.S. was willing to give Israel written assurances.

Israel's ultra-Orthodox Shas Party, whose vote on the deal will be crucial, said it won't support it unless the U.S. states in writing that the moratorium will not apply to east Jerusalem. Israel captured that sector of the city, home to shrines sacred to Jews, Muslims and Christians, in the 1967 Mideast war and later annexed it in a move that is not recognized internationally.

Shas also wants the U.S. to clearly state that there will be no U.S. pressure to curb building after the new 90-day moratorium is up.

Palestinians say they won't resume negotiations, which broke down three weeks after they began in early September at the White House, until Israel stops building in the West Bank and east Jerusalem — territory they claim for their future state, along with the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said there would be no formal Palestinian reaction to the plan until it is formally presented during a meeting scheduled Wednesday with a senior U.S. envoy.

The U.S. goal is to use a new moratorium to make critical progress toward delineating Israel's final borders with a future Palestinian state.

Israeli officials have said that in return for construction curbs, the U.S. has promised Israel a gift of 20 next-generation stealth warplanes and crucial diplomatic support at the United Nations.