Military

Max Schreck relaxing behind the scenes of Nosferatu, 1922

Little is known about Max Schreck’s life and film career, a fact to which his biographer, Stefan Eickhoff, can attest. According to Eickhoff, the actor’s colleagues regarded him as a “loyal, conscientious loner with an offbeat sense of humor and a talent for playing the grotesque.” The star of over 40 motion pictures, Schreck is best remembered for his haunting portrayal of Orlok in Nosferatu.

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The US Marines are testing flying, remote-controlled drone grenades

Images shared online by the United States Marine Corps this week show Marines conducting training exercises with the Drone40, a miniaturized, low-cost, expendable drone that can be deployed by hand or launched from a 40mm grenade launcher. While other nations have deployed the Drone40 in overseas operations, this is the first time U.S. troops have been seen training with the versatile, potentially game-changing unmanned systems, which can carry a wide variety of payloads, including various sensors or small high-explosive warheads.

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Soldier survives 15,000 ft fall as parachute fails to open correctly. The soldier did not suffer any serious or life-threatening injuries.

The incident occurred in the late afternoon of July 7 when residents of the neighborhood saw the parachutist falling toward their homes under a partially-open canopy. The paratrooper reportedly hit the tile roof of the home and fell right through. The home’s residents were out at the time, but he was quickly found by a neighbor who immediately called emergency services

The paratrooper was found conscious, though stunned, and while he complained of some pain, he had no visible injuries, according to a statement from the Atascadero Police Department. The city’s fire and emergency services personnel treated the parachutist and transported him to a nearby hospital.

The paratrooper was purportedly taking part in a High Altitude Low Opening (HALO) jump. Designed as an infiltration technique, a HALO jump typically involves a parachutist in full gear jumping out of an airplane at high altitudes and then opening their parachute once they’re closer to the ground.

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Lieutenant Commander Woody Lee stands on Red Square with the “nuclear football” attached to his wrist with a leather strap to prevent it from being seized or lost during US President Ronald Reagan’s visit to Moscow with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in May 1988

There are four things in the Football. The Black Book containing the retaliatory options, a book listing classified site locations, a manila folder with eight or ten pages stapled together giving a description of procedures for the Emergency Broadcast System, and a three-by-five-inch [7.5 × 13 cm] card with authentication codes. The Black Book was about 9 by 12 inches [23 × 30 cm] and had 75 loose-leaf pages printed in black and red. The book with classified site locations was about the same size as the Black Book, and was black. It contained information on sites around the country where the president could be taken in an emergency.