Thursday, April 4, 2013

U.S.: N. Korea poses 'real and clear danger'

By Jack Kim and Phil Stewart

SEOUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said it would soon send a missile defense system to Guam to defend it from North Korea, as the U.S. military adjusts to what Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel called a "real and clear danger" from Pyongyang.

Hours later, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said North Korea had moved what appeared to be a mid-range Musudan missile to its east coast. It was not clear if the North planned to fire the rocket or was just putting it on display as a show of force, one South Korean government source was quoted as saying.

North Korea also barred entry to a joint industrial complex it shares with the South for a second day on Thursday and said it would shut the zone if Seoul continued to insult it.

Events on the Korean peninsula have begun to unnerve global financial markets long used to the rhetoric North Korea routinely hurls at Seoul and Washington.

"The assumption remains that this is more bluster ...," said Rob Ryan, a strategist with RBS in Singapore. "But from here, we've reached a level of tensions that say things can't get too much worse without an actual exchange of fire."

The broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.6 percent, dragged down by a 2 percent slump in South Korean shares, while the South Korean won slid 0.7 percent against the U.S. dollar.

U.S. stocks sank on Wednesday after Hagel's comments and the Guam deployment news.

North Korea also repeated its threat to launch a nuclear attack on the United States. Pyongyang said it had ratified a potential strike because of U.S. military deployments around the Korean peninsula that it claimed were a prelude to a possible nuclear attack on the North.

Washington had been informed of the potential attack by North Korea, a spokesman for its army said in a statement carried by the English-language service of state news agency KCNA. It was unclear how such a warning was given since North Korea does not have diplomatic ties with Washington.

The report from KCNA appeared to re-state many of the month-long fusillade of threats emanating from Pyongyang.

Experts say North Korea is years away from being able to hit the continental United States with a nuclear weapon, despite having worked for decades to achieve nuclear-arms capability.

North Korea has previously threatened a nuclear strike on the United States and missile attacks on its Pacific bases, including in Guam, a U.S. territory in the Pacific.

Those threats followed new U.N. sanctions imposed on the North after it carried out its third nuclear test in February.

"Some of the actions they've taken over the last few weeks present a real and clear danger," Hagel told an audience at the National Defense University in Washington.

Despite the rhetoric, Pyongyang has not taken any military action and has shown no sign of preparing its 1.2 million-strong armed forces for war, the White House said on Monday.

That indicates its threats are partly intended for domestic consumption to bolster young leader Kim Jong-un ahead of celebrations marking the anniversary of the April 15 birthday of Kim Il-sung, the state's founder and the younger Kim's grandfather.

Caitlin Hayden, spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council, criticized the latest North Korean statement.

"It is yet another offering in a long line of provocative statements that only serve to further isolate North Korea from the rest of the international community and undermine its goal of economic development," Hayden said.

HAGEL: TAKE THREATS SERIOUSLY

Hagel said he had to take the threats seriously, language he has used in recent weeks as the United States has revamped its missile defense plans and positioned two guided-missile destroyers in the western Pacific.

The United States has also flexed its muscles during annual military drills with South Korea, flying two radar-evading stealth bombers on a first-of-its-kind practice bombing run over South Korea.

In the latest move, the Pentagon said it was deploying a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system to Guam in the coming weeks. The THAAD system includes a truck-mounted launcher, interceptor missiles and an AN/TPY-2 tracking radar.

Last month, Hagel said the Pentagon would add 14 new anti-missile interceptors in Alaska and move ahead with the deployment of a second missile-defense radar in Japan.

Yonhap quoted multiple government sources privy to intelligence from U.S. and South Korean authorities as saying North Korea had moved what appeared to be a Musudan missile to its east coast.

The missile is believed to have a range of 3,000 km (1,865 miles) or more, which would put all of South Korea and Japan in range and possibly also Guam. North Korea is not believed to have tested the Musudan mid-range missiles, according to most independent experts

South Korea's defense ministry declined to comment.

The missile was moved to the coast by train. The North has a missile launch site on its northeastern coast, which it has used to unsuccessfully test-fire long-range rockets in the past.

The Yonhap report did not say if the missile had been moved to the missile site.

The South Korean government said the North would allow 222 South Korean workers to leave the Kaesong industrial zone on Thursday. That would leave another 606 South Koreans in the complex. Seoul has urged its citizens to get out.

North Korea has threatened to shut the complex, one of the impoverished North's few sources of ready cash.

The industrial park, just inside the border with North Korea, has not formally stopped operations since it was inaugurated in 2000. It houses 123 companies and employs 50,000 North Koreans making cheap goods such as clothing.

(Additional reporting by Christine Kim in SEOUL, Ju-min Park in PAJU, David Alexander in WASHINGTON and Vidya Rangananthan in SINGAPORE; Writing by Dean Yates; Editing by Paul Tait)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-send-missile-defenses-guam-over-north-korea-011546394.html

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Invasive crabs help Cape Cod marshes

Invasive crabs help Cape Cod marshes [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 3-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: David Orenstein
david_orenstein@brown.edu
401-863-1862
Brown University

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] Long vilified, invasive species can sometimes become an ecosystem asset. New Brown University research published online in the journal Ecology reports exactly such a situation in the distressed salt marshes of Cape Cod. There, the invasive green crab Carcinus maenas is helping to restore the marsh by driving away the Sesarma reticulatum crabs that have been depleting the marsh grasses.

The observations and experiments of the research show that the green crab has filled the void left by the decline of native predators of sesarma crabs, the authors said. In previous research they showed that predator decline has come about because of recreational fishing.

"Humans have had far-reaching impacts on ecosystems," said author Tyler Coverdale, a researcher in the lab of lead author Mark Bertness, chair of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. "Some of those impacts, like overfishing, cause species to decline in their native ranges. Others, like shipping and trade, cause species to become more common outside of their native ranges. Most of the time these opposing types of impacts have negative results. In this case, an invasive species is potentially restoring a lost ecological function."

Bertness and his group have been working on the marshes for years to trace the extent and cause of the damage, which includes grass die-offs and subsequent erosion. A few years ago, they started noticing that where there was still soil, grasses were sometimes growing back somewhat, although far short of full recovery.

"When we started seeing the marshes recover, we were baffled," Bertness said. "To see very quickly the marshes start to come back, at least this veneer of cordgrass, it seemed pretty impressive. When we started seeing this recovery we started seeing loads of green crabs at the marshes that were recovering. We went out and quantified that."

Crab vs. Crab

The most elementary finding of the paper is that the green crabs are much more abundant (as many as 2.8 green crabs per square meter) in distressed-but-healing marsh areas where can they take over sesarma burrows. In healthy marsh areas with few sesarma burrows, the green crabs found no quarter (there were only 0.2 per square meter).

Bertness and Coverdale's measurements of cordgrass regrowth also showed that locations with high green crab density correlated positively with locations of grass regrowth.

The next steps were experiments to test whether all this was a mere coincidence of coexistence or whether there was a dynamic between the green crabs and the sesarma crabs that would plausibly defend the grass.

At select sites, Bertness and Coverdale enclosed the two crabs together within a wire cage at a burrow. After a set period of time they came back to observe the results and always found the same story. Green crabs won the struggle for the burrows. In fact sesarma crabs survived the tussle only 15 percent of the time. As a control they caged in other sesarma crabs without green crabs, and those sesarma crabs always survived.

Finally they tested whether green crabs had to eat the sesarma crabs to protect the grass or whether their mere presence had a deterrent effect. They did this by fencing in some sesarma crabs by themselves, some with a free roaming green crab (a clear and present danger) and some with a caged green crab (physically harmless but still plainly evident).

Sesarma left alone ate lots of grass in their fenced in area. Sesarma who faced a free-roaming or a caged green crab both ate far less grass. In other words, the presence of a green crab was as effective a deterrent to sesarma herbivory as actual attacks by green crabs.

Bertness likened the green crabs to scarecrows, which model what ecologists have recently begun to account for as "non-consumptive effects." Lay people already call that effect "scaring things away."

"Non-consumptive effects can be much more powerful because whereas a consumptive effect is one crab eats another crab, a non-consumptive effect is one crab scares dozens of crabs," Bertness said. "The ecological effect can be much greater much quicker."

In two ways, therefore, the new study provides evidence for two newer views in ecology, Bertness said. One is that invasive species can sometimes turn out to be helpful. The other is that ecologists should account for the power of a predator's threat, not just its actual attacks.

As for the marshes, however, Bertness said they need more help than the green crab alone can deliver.

"The marshes are slowly coming back but they were destroyed much faster than they are going to be able to rebuild," he said.

###

The National Science Foundation funded the research (grant OCE-0927090).


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Invasive crabs help Cape Cod marshes [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 3-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: David Orenstein
david_orenstein@brown.edu
401-863-1862
Brown University

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] Long vilified, invasive species can sometimes become an ecosystem asset. New Brown University research published online in the journal Ecology reports exactly such a situation in the distressed salt marshes of Cape Cod. There, the invasive green crab Carcinus maenas is helping to restore the marsh by driving away the Sesarma reticulatum crabs that have been depleting the marsh grasses.

The observations and experiments of the research show that the green crab has filled the void left by the decline of native predators of sesarma crabs, the authors said. In previous research they showed that predator decline has come about because of recreational fishing.

"Humans have had far-reaching impacts on ecosystems," said author Tyler Coverdale, a researcher in the lab of lead author Mark Bertness, chair of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. "Some of those impacts, like overfishing, cause species to decline in their native ranges. Others, like shipping and trade, cause species to become more common outside of their native ranges. Most of the time these opposing types of impacts have negative results. In this case, an invasive species is potentially restoring a lost ecological function."

Bertness and his group have been working on the marshes for years to trace the extent and cause of the damage, which includes grass die-offs and subsequent erosion. A few years ago, they started noticing that where there was still soil, grasses were sometimes growing back somewhat, although far short of full recovery.

"When we started seeing the marshes recover, we were baffled," Bertness said. "To see very quickly the marshes start to come back, at least this veneer of cordgrass, it seemed pretty impressive. When we started seeing this recovery we started seeing loads of green crabs at the marshes that were recovering. We went out and quantified that."

Crab vs. Crab

The most elementary finding of the paper is that the green crabs are much more abundant (as many as 2.8 green crabs per square meter) in distressed-but-healing marsh areas where can they take over sesarma burrows. In healthy marsh areas with few sesarma burrows, the green crabs found no quarter (there were only 0.2 per square meter).

Bertness and Coverdale's measurements of cordgrass regrowth also showed that locations with high green crab density correlated positively with locations of grass regrowth.

The next steps were experiments to test whether all this was a mere coincidence of coexistence or whether there was a dynamic between the green crabs and the sesarma crabs that would plausibly defend the grass.

At select sites, Bertness and Coverdale enclosed the two crabs together within a wire cage at a burrow. After a set period of time they came back to observe the results and always found the same story. Green crabs won the struggle for the burrows. In fact sesarma crabs survived the tussle only 15 percent of the time. As a control they caged in other sesarma crabs without green crabs, and those sesarma crabs always survived.

Finally they tested whether green crabs had to eat the sesarma crabs to protect the grass or whether their mere presence had a deterrent effect. They did this by fencing in some sesarma crabs by themselves, some with a free roaming green crab (a clear and present danger) and some with a caged green crab (physically harmless but still plainly evident).

Sesarma left alone ate lots of grass in their fenced in area. Sesarma who faced a free-roaming or a caged green crab both ate far less grass. In other words, the presence of a green crab was as effective a deterrent to sesarma herbivory as actual attacks by green crabs.

Bertness likened the green crabs to scarecrows, which model what ecologists have recently begun to account for as "non-consumptive effects." Lay people already call that effect "scaring things away."

"Non-consumptive effects can be much more powerful because whereas a consumptive effect is one crab eats another crab, a non-consumptive effect is one crab scares dozens of crabs," Bertness said. "The ecological effect can be much greater much quicker."

In two ways, therefore, the new study provides evidence for two newer views in ecology, Bertness said. One is that invasive species can sometimes turn out to be helpful. The other is that ecologists should account for the power of a predator's threat, not just its actual attacks.

As for the marshes, however, Bertness said they need more help than the green crab alone can deliver.

"The marshes are slowly coming back but they were destroyed much faster than they are going to be able to rebuild," he said.

###

The National Science Foundation funded the research (grant OCE-0927090).


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/bu-ich040313.php

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Brooklyn Judge Slams Birther Lawsuit as 'Fanciful, Delusional and Irrational' and Orders Theorist to Pay $177G (Little green footballs)

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MLB stamps partnership with Qualcomm, hopes it leads to improved connectivity at ballparks

MLB stamps partnership with Qualcomm, hopes it leads to improved connectivity at ballparks

Companies like Cisco have tried lending Major League Baseball a hand in its quest to serve better internet connectivity to game attendees, but Bud Selig & Co. know that a little more has to be done if the proper results are to be achieved. Now, through its own MLB Advanced Media branch, the league is teaming up with Qualcomm Technologies (a subsidiary of the chip-maker) to launch a collaboration that'll "survey, plan and optimize network connectivity for fans at supported MLB parks." According to the terms of the partnership, Qualcomm engineers will provide a detailed plan and assessment on how to improve wireless access at baseball fields, and that's taking into consideration 3G, 4G and, of course, WiFi. Here's to hoping the MLB / Qualcomm alliance plays out well for the sake of those who enjoy an IRL version of America's national pastime -- because we all know how important it is to be able to quickly share that "I can see Rudy Giulani from where I'm sitting" tweet.

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Source: Major League Baseball

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/TDGpdVWYrwE/

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Monday, April 1, 2013

Justice Department to monitor Kansas, Nebraska elections (reuters)

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Mexican drug cartels send agents north

CHICAGO (AP) ? Mexican drug cartels whose operatives once rarely ventured beyond the U.S. border are dispatching some of their most trusted agents to live and work deep inside the United States ? an emboldened presence that experts believe is meant to tighten their grip on the world's most lucrative narcotics market and maximize profits.

If left unchecked, authorities say, the cartels' move into the American interior could render the syndicates harder than ever to dislodge and pave the way for them to expand into other criminal enterprises such as prostitution, kidnapping-and-extortion rackets and money laundering.

Cartel activity in the U.S. is certainly not new. Starting in the 1990s, the ruthless syndicates became the nation's No. 1 supplier of illegal drugs, using unaffiliated middlemen to smuggle cocaine, marijuana and heroin beyond the border or even to grow pot here.

But a wide-ranging Associated Press review of federal court cases and government drug-enforcement data, plus interviews with many top law enforcement officials, indicate the groups have begun deploying agents from their inner circles to the U.S. Cartel operatives are suspected of running drug-distribution networks in at least nine non-border states, often in middle-class suburbs in the Midwest, South and Northeast.

"It's probably the most serious threat the United States has faced from organized crime," said Jack Riley, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Chicago office.

The cartel threat looms so large that one of Mexico's most notorious drug kingpins ? a man who has never set foot in Chicago ? was recently named the city's Public Enemy No. 1, the same notorious label once assigned to Al Capone.

The Chicago Crime Commission, a non-government agency that tracks crime trends in the region, said it considers Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman even more menacing than Capone because Guzman leads the deadly Sinaloa cartel, which supplies most of the narcotics sold in Chicago and in many cities across the U.S.

Years ago, Mexico faced the same problem ? of then-nascent cartels expanding their power ? "and didn't nip the problem in the bud," said Jack Killorin, head of an anti-trafficking program in Atlanta for the Office of National Drug Control Policy. "And see where they are now."

Riley sounds a similar alarm: "People think, 'The border's 1,700 miles away. This isn't our problem.' Well, it is. These days, we operate as if Chicago is on the border."

Border states from Texas to California have long grappled with a cartel presence. But cases involving cartel members have now emerged in the suburbs of Chicago and Atlanta, as well as Columbus, Ohio, Louisville, Ky., and rural North Carolina. Suspects have also surfaced in Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania.

Mexican drug cartels "are taking over our neighborhoods," Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane warned a legislative committee in February. State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan disputed her claim, saying cartels are primarily drug suppliers, not the ones trafficking drugs on the ground.

For years, cartels were more inclined to make deals in Mexico with American traffickers, who would then handle transportation to and distribution within major cities, said Art Bilek, a former organized crime investigator who is now executive vice president of the crime commission.

As their organizations grew more sophisticated, the cartels began scheming to keep more profits for themselves. So leaders sought to cut out middlemen and assume more direct control, pushing aside American traffickers, he said.

Beginning two or three years ago, authorities noticed that cartels were putting "deputies on the ground here," Bilek said. "Chicago became such a massive market ... it was critical that they had firm control."

To help fight the syndicates, Chicago recently opened a first-of-its-kind facility at a secret location where 70 federal agents work side-by-side with police and prosecutors. Their primary focus is the point of contact between suburban-based cartel operatives and city street gangs who act as retail salesmen. That is when both sides are most vulnerable to detection, when they are most likely to meet in the open or use cellphones that can be wiretapped.

Others are skeptical about claims cartels are expanding their presence, saying law-enforcement agencies are prone to exaggerating threats to justify bigger budgets.

David Shirk, of the University of San Diego's Trans-Border Institute, said there is a dearth of reliable intelligence that cartels are dispatching operatives from Mexico on a large scale.

"We know astonishingly little about the structure and dynamics of cartels north of the border," Shirk said. "We need to be very cautious about the assumptions we make."

Statistics from the DEA suggest a heightened cartel presence in more U.S. cities. In 2008, around 230 American communities reported some level of cartel presence. That number climbed to more than 1,200 in 2011, the most recent year for which information is available, though the increase is partly due to better reporting.

Dozens of federal agents and local police interviewed by the AP said they have identified cartel members or operatives using wiretapped conversations, informants or confessions. Hundreds of court documents reviewed by the AP appear to support those statements.

"This is the first time we've been seeing it ? cartels who have their operatives actually sent here," said Richard Pearson, a lieutenant with the Louisville Metropolitan Police Department, which arrested four alleged operatives of the Zetas cartel in November in the suburb of Okolona.

People who live on the tree-lined street where authorities seized more than 2,400 pounds of marijuana and more than $1 million in cash were shocked to learn their low-key neighbors were accused of working for one of Mexico's most violent drug syndicates, Pearson said.

One of the best documented cases is Jose Gonzalez-Zavala, who was dispatched to the U.S. by the La Familia cartel, according to court filings.

In 2008, the former taxi driver and father of five moved into a spacious home at 1416 Brookfield Drive in a middle-class neighborhood of Joliet, southwest of Chicago. From there, court papers indicate, he oversaw wholesale shipments of cocaine in Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana.

Wiretap transcripts reveal he called an unidentified cartel boss in Mexico almost every day, displaying the deference any midlevel executive might show to someone higher up the corporate ladder. Once he stammered as he explained that one customer would not pay a debt until after a trip.

"No," snaps the boss. "What we need is for him to pay."

The same cartel assigned Jorge Guadalupe Ayala-German to guard a Chicago-area stash house for $300 a week, plus a promised $35,000 lump-sum payment once he returned to Mexico after a year or two, according to court documents.

Ayala-German brought his wife and child to help give the house the appearance of an ordinary family residence. But he was arrested before he could return home and pleaded guilty to multiple trafficking charges. He will be sentenced later this year.

Socorro Hernandez-Rodriguez was convicted in 2011 of heading a massive drug operation in suburban Atlanta's Gwinnett County. The chief prosecutor said he and his associates were high-ranking figures in the La Familia cartel ? an allegation defense lawyers denied.

And at the end of February outside Columbus, Ohio, authorities arrested 34-year-old Isaac Eli Perez Neri, who allegedly told investigators he was a debt collector for the Sinaloa cartel.

An Atlanta attorney who has represented reputed cartel members says authorities sometimes overstate the threat such men pose.

"Often, you have a kid whose first time leaving Mexico is sleeping on a mattress at a stash house playing Game Boy, eating Burger King, just checking drugs or money in and out," said Bruce Harvey. "Then he's arrested and gets a gargantuan sentence. It's sad."

Because cartels accumulate houses full of cash, they run the constant risk associates will skim off the top. That points to the main reason cartels prefer their own people: Trust is hard to come by in their cutthroat world. There's also a fear factor. Cartels can exert more control on their operatives than on middlemen, often by threatening to torture or kill loved ones back home.

Danny Porter, chief prosecutor in Gwinnett County, Ga., said he has tried to entice dozens of suspected cartel members to cooperate with American authorities. Nearly all declined. Some laughed in his face.

"They say, 'We are more scared of them (the cartels) than we are of you. We talk and they'll boil our family in acid,'" Porter said. "Their families are essentially hostages."

Citing the safety of his own family, Gonzalez-Zavala declined to cooperate with authorities in exchange for years being shaved off his 40-year sentence.

In other cases, cartel brass send their own family members to the U.S.

"They're sometimes married or related to people in the cartels," Porter said. "They don't hire casual labor." So meticulous have cartels become that some even have operatives fill out job applications before being dispatched to the U.S., Riley added.

In Mexico, the cartels are known for a staggering number of killings ? more than 50,000, according to one tally. Beheadings are sometimes a signature.

So far, cartels don't appear to be directly responsible for large numbers of slayings in the United States, though the Texas Department of Public Safety reported 22 killings and five kidnappings in Texas at the hands of Mexican cartels from 2010 through mid- 2011.

Still, police worry that increased cartel activity could fuel heightened violence.

In Chicago, the police commander who oversees narcotics investigations, James O'Grady, said street-gang disputes over turf account for most of the city's uptick in murders last year, when slayings topped 500 for the first time since 2008. Although the cartels aren't dictating the territorial wars, they are the source of drugs.

Riley's assessment is stark: He argues that the cartels should be seen as an underlying cause of Chicago's disturbingly high murder rate.

"They are the puppeteers," he said. "Maybe the shooter didn't know and maybe the victim didn't know that. But if you follow it down the line, the cartels are ultimately responsible."

___

Follow Michael Tarm at www.twitter.com/mtarm .

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ap-impact-cartels-dispatch-agents-deep-inside-us-082126639.html

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Cops: Man tasered NYC woman, attempted to sexually assault her

Police are searching for a man who allegedly tasered and then attempted to sexually assault a 23-year-old woman in a park in New York's Queens.

Authorities say the victim was jogging in Forest Park around 7:30 p.m. Friday night when the man grabbed her from behind, threw her to the ground and began to remove her clothing.

A couple walking their dog came upon the attack in progress, startling the man, who then ran off.

Read more stories at NBCNewYork.com

The victim was taken to a local hospital for wounds to her neck, officials said.

The woman told police that the man used a taser in the attack and also took her iPhone, officials said.

By NBCNewYork.com

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653381/s/2a2ec8d0/l/0Lusnews0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A30C310C175386770Ecops0Eman0Etasered0Enyc0Ewoman0Eattempted0Eto0Esexually0Eassault0Eher0Dlite/story01.htm

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