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UTTAR PRADESH, India (CNN) -- On World Population Day this year India's new health and welfare minister came out with an idea on how to tackle the population issue: Bring electricity to every Indian village so that people would watch television until late at night and therefore be too tired to make babies.
Could the remote control be a birth control method?
1 of 2 That statement raised eyebrows across this vast country -- but what are the realities and reactions from families who make up the second largest population in the world?
At 80-plus years old Omar Mohammed has never heard of population control.
He lives in India's most populous state Uttar Pradesh and has certainly done his part in contributing to India's burgeoning population.
"Now you see I have 24 children, 13 boys and 11 girls," Omar says.
Omar believes only God can decide how many children you should have. He lifts his hands to the sky and says: "This is His command. It's not my doing, it's His doing."
On the other hand there's the Arora family in the capital city of Delhi. They have two children.
"You can't even get enough water or electricity now. So its advisable that people have only two children and then they should stop having more kids." mother Anjana Arora says.
The Aroras know a little something about population issues; their daughter was given the official title of India's one billionth citizen when she was born in 2000.
With family planning and free contraceptive programs the Indian government has long tried to encourage families to have only two children.
Overall government statistics show the birth rate is coming down. The numbers show 14 of India's 35 states have reached the two child per family target.
But the push is failing in other states, especially in villages and among the poor and illiterate where the fertility rate is as high as 3.5 children per woman. source: cnn.com

Jamaica's Usain Bolt remains on track for a World Championships sprint double after easing into the 200m semi-finals in Berlin's Olympic Stadium.
Bolt, fresh from winning the 100m, won his second-round heat in 20.42 seconds.
Britain's Marlon Devonish and Ireland's Paul Hession also qualified after Tyson Gay pulled out with a groin injury.
In the 400m, defending champion Jeremy Wariner and Olympic champion Lashawn Merritt sauntered into the semi-finals by comfortably winning their heats.
Gay's withdrawal from the 200m before the first round had already increased Bolt's chance of repeating his Beijing double, with the semi-finals scheduled for Wednesday at 1825 BST and the final on Thursday.
Bolt looked tired in his morning heat and, despite cruising through the first 100m, the 22-year-old was forced to up his pace to ensure he qualified first in a time of in 20.70.
But he seemed far more relaxed in the second round and cruised to victory after a few hours' sleep in between races.
606: DEBATE What a man. Charisma, personality, the build of a superhuman, his banter to the camera before the gun... downtownchris
"I think the 100m took a lot more out of me than it did in Beijing," said Bolt. "I wasn't in the best of shape, like I was in Beijing, but a good night's sleep should make sure I'm OK.
"I got three hours sleep after my morning heat and that was enough for me." source: bbc.com

South Korea's Yang Yong-Eun's historic victory over Tiger Woods in the U.S. PGA Championship ensured he became the first Asian-born male winner of a major and prompted an excited reaction across the world of golf.
Yang Yong-Eun became the first Asian-born male to win a major after his victory in the U.S. PGA Championship.
more photos » The 37-year-old was two shots adrift of overnight leader Woods but kept his cool to card 70 to the American's 75 to win by three on the final green at the Hazeltine National Golf Club in Chaska, Minnesota.
South Korea's president, Lee Myung-bak got up before sunrise to watch Yang become the first player to defeat Woods at a major in which the American held a lead entering the last round and his office confirmed he telephoned Yang to offer his congratulations.
"I woke up at dawn today to watch the broadcast, and you played in a calm manner," Lee is reported by South Korean media to have said to Yang in the call.
"You have enhanced our people's morale by winning the major title for the first time as an Asian."
A handful of Asian players have just been edged out in the majors with Taiwan's Liang-Huan Lu finishing a shot behind Lee Trevino at the 1971 British Open while compatriot Tze-Chung Chen was runner-up to Andy North at the U.S. Open in 1985.
Reiko Takekawa, a writer for the Japanese publication Sports Graphic Number admitted that despite the progress in the women's game it is a real boost for the men's game in Asia.
"We all think it's much, much more difficult for the men. We figured something like this wouldn't happen for another five or 10 years," he told the PGA Web site. source: cnn.com

An Australian radio show on which a teenager revealed she had been raped has returned to the airwaves.
DJs Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O'Neil resumed their breakfast show with an apology, saying the segment had been a "disaster from start to finish".
It featured a 14-year-old strapped to a lie detector and quizzed about her sexual history by her mother. She said she had been raped as a 12-year-old.
Some sections of the show will now be pre-recorded, broadcaster 2Day FM said.
The programme will also be subject to a seven second delay, allowing producers to cut away from any offensive or inappropriate material.
'Distressed' The DJs had been off the air since 3 August, shortly after the original segment aired.
The teenage girl was strapped to a polygraph machine as her mother - who had volunteered to be on air - quizzed her, despite her daughter's claims that she had already been told about an assault two years earlier.
Sandilands was accused of further insensitivity when, after the revelation, he asked: "Right, and is that the only sexual experience you've had?"
Co-host O'Neil put an end to any further discussions when she realised the conversation had crossed a line. source: bbc.com

"Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better" -- Albert Einstein
This galaxy, as seen by Hubble, is 50 million light years away. The new telescopes promise even sharper images.
1 of 3 (CNN) -- It may not be possible to travel back in time, but seeing stars and galaxies as they looked millions or even billions of years ago is no problem thanks to telescopes, the closest thing we have to time machines.
Now, astronomers are holding their breath to see what they'll observe and discover with a new generation of huge telescopes set to be built around the world.
Peering ever deeper into space and further back in time, the powerful devices will be able to show what the universe was like when it was just a few hundred million years old and emerging from a period of total darkness after the Big Bang.
"[We'll be] looking at the first generation of stars forming in the universe, which is kind of a cool idea: The time when the lights went on in the universe. There was no light before that time," said Daniel Fabricant, associate director of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
His institution is one of several research organizations and universities developing the Giant Magellan Telescope, to be built in Las Campanas, Chile, by 2018. source:cnn.com

The 33m-high KLSLV-1 is South Korea's first space rocket
South Korea is preparing to launch its first rocket into space.
The two-stage vehicle, which has been developed with the assistance of Russia, will blast off from the Naro space complex, 475km south of Seoul.
The rocket, named the Korea Space Launch Vehicle-1 (KSLV-1), will seek to place in orbit a 100kg satellite.
The event will be monitored by rival North Korea, which has been criticised by the international community for pursuing its own rocket programme.
Earlier this year, the North announced that it had successfully orbited a satellite of its own; but the claim was dismissed by the US, Japan and South Korea who called the April flight a cover for a test of ballistic missile technology.
The KSLV-1 launch is scheduled to take place between 0740 and 0920GMT.
The rocket is 33m long and weighs some 140 tonnes. Its Russian liquid-fuelled first-stage is said to produce 1,700 kilonewtons of thrust at launch.
The second stage, which burns a solid fuel, was produced by South Korean engineers. It is intended to generate 80kN of thrust and is designed to place the Earth observation satellite into its final orbit.
South Korea wants to develop an advanced space programme to compete with other Asian space-faring nations - China, Japan and India.
It has already launched 10 indigenously produced satellites on other countries' rockets.
In April last year, Seoul sent its first astronaut into space aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket.
Yi So-Yeon spent 11 days on the International Space Station (ISS), carrying out experiments for the government and industry. source: bbc.com

Sony Entertainment has announced it is reducing the price of its PlayStation 3 games consoles.
In Europe the price has been lowered to 299 euros, in the US to $299 and in the UK to £249.99.
Sony made the announcement at a press conference ahead of the 2009 games convention - Games Com - in Cologne.
It also announced it was ending production of its current PlayStation 3 console in favour of a new lighter, slimmer model with a 120GB hard drive.
Growth of the PlayStation 3 has been slow compared to previous launches, which critics put down, in part, to an expensive price tag compared with its rivals, Microsoft's Xbox 360 at £149 and the Nintendo Wii at £169.
Speaking at Games Com, Sony Entertainment's head, Kaz Hirai, said the change in price for existing PlayStation 3 stock would happen immediately and that the new slim-line PS3 would be available from the first week of September.
"It has the same features and functionality [as the old PS3], but now it is 32% smaller, 36% lighter and consumes 34% less power," he said.
Mr Hirai said Cologne's Game Con was now the third major date for the games industry, ranking up alongside E3 in Los Angeles and the Tokyo games show.
Sony said there were now more than 23.7m PS3 installed worldwide, with just over 10m of those in Europe. Comics reader
Sony also said it was expanding its catch-up TV service - which includes the BBC iPlayer.
It announced it was about to launch a video delivery service, via the Play Station Network, that would allow PS3 or Play Station Portable (PSP) users to rent or purchase movies - both blockbuster and local market - in either standard or high definition.
That service goes live in the UK, France, Germany and Spain this November and rolls out across Europe throughout 2010.
The event also provided a first look at a new digital reader for the PSP - called Digital Comics - that will allow users to read Spiderman, Fantastic 4 and other DC comics on their portable, along with a range of graphic novels.
However, the new motion Sony Controller - which made its debut at the E3 Expo in Los Angeles in June this year - was not on show, with Sony saying people will have to wait until the Tokyo games show in September before it gets another public viewing. source: bbc.com

BANGKOK, Thailand (CNN) -- John Yettaw, the American convicted in Myanmar of illegally entering the country to visit pro-democracy leader and Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, left Thailand Wednesday, authorities and government officials said.
John Yettaw is shown this past weekend sitting inside a van at a military airport in Bangkok, Thailand.
Although the Thai Foreign Ministry and immigration police confirmed his exit from Bangkok, his destination was not immediately known.
Yettaw, a diabetic, had arrived to Thailand from Myanmar on Sunday aboard a military plane and then taken to a hospital for observation.
Yettaw, a 53-year-old former military serviceman from Falcon, Missouri, was sentenced last week for a May 3 incident when he swam, uninvited, to the house of Suu Kyi and stayed for two days.
U.S. Sen. Jim Webb obtained Yettaw's release on Saturday in Myanmar. There Webb met separately with both Suu Kyi and Myanmar's top official, junta leader Senior Gen. Than Shwe.
"He was not a well man," Webb said without elaborating about Yettaw. "He had a medical emergency this morning when they read him his orders of deportation."
Webb, who chairs the East Asia and Pacific affairs subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was the first member of Congress to visit Myanmar in more than a decade. He also was the first U.S. official to meet with Than Shwe. source: cnn.com

Presidential elections in Afghanistan must be accompanied by major reforms in governance and aid, a leading international agency has warned.
Oxfam said that despite massive investment a third of Afghans still faced hunger and poverty.
The warning comes a day before presidential elections which the Taliban have vowed to disrupt.
Meanwhile fresh violence erupted in Kabul as troops exchanged fire with armed men who stormed a bank building.
The Taliban, which has vowed to disrupt to elections, claimed it was behind the raid, but the authorities warned that the incident could simply be a bank robbery.
AFP news agency quoted a police spokesman as saying that three of the attackers had been killed.
On Tuesday more than 20 people were killed in attacks across the country, including a suicide blast in Kabul.
The government has asked the media not to report on violence on poll day to avoid deterring people from voting. source: bbc.com

Pakistan's army has arrested a man it believes to be the chief spokesman for the country's Taliban, officials say.
Maulvi Omar was a spokesman for the Tehrik Taliban Pakistan (TTP), one of the main Taliban groups in the country.
He was reportedly picked up in the Mohmand tribal area close to the border with Afghanistan, while travelling in a car with two associates.
Mr Omar is said to have been a key aide of Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, thought to have been killed recently.
Pakistani officials say they will produce Mr Omar before journalists later on Tuesday.
"A very, very important militant has been arrested," Maj Fazal Ur Rehman told the AFP news agency.
Despite that statement, correspondents say Maulvi Omar's importance has diminished in recent weeks because of army advances in his stronghold of Bajaur, in north-western Pakistan.
His arrest came as a senior Pakistani army officer said that it would take months to prepare an offensive against the Taliban in South Waziristan, where they are strongest. source: bbc.com

A study has shown that having a particular gene variant causes some macaque monkeys to drink more alcohol in experiments.
The gene, known as the corticotrophin releasing factor (CRF) gene, is an important part of how we respond to everyday stress.
Sometimes it can become overactive and lead to stress-related problems such as anxiety, depression and alcoholism.
The findings may eventually lead to new treatments for alcoholism.
Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the scientists found that some monkeys with the gene variant drank more alcohol, possibly to relieve their anxiety.
In particular the "T" form of the gene was associated with increased voluntary consumption of alcohol in drinks equivalent to the strength of strong beer.
Some were drinking "well over the limit, maybe up to four or five drinks in one hour. They're not drinking it because it's tasty, it smelt like rubbing alcohol". suorce: bbc.com

The recent closure of 32 privately owned radio stations and a proposed law to punish "media crimes" are signs that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is moving to quash criticism of his government, according to a recent U.S. intelligence report.
A group of pro-Hugo Chavez rioters beats Venezuelan journalists in downtown Caracas on August 13.
1 of 3 Chavez's government is "moving forcefully to silence critics," said the unclassified U.S. analysis prepared by the Open Source Center, a government intelligence center.
The relationship between privately owned media in Venezuela and the leftist Chavez have never been rosy. Chavez has accused private television stations of supporting his brief ouster in 2002, and the president was a driving force behind denying a license renewal in 2007 to one broadcaster he said cooperated with the opposition.
But the decisions this month by the Chavez government to close 32 radio stations and two television broadcasters and to support legislation that would create prison sentences for people who commit "media crimes" have created a new level of scrutiny from outside Venezuela.
"The media crimes bill is the most blatant example of the government's steady encroachment on media freedom in an effort to establish a media monopoly and stifle freedom of expression," said the unclassified intelligence report, dated August 3.
The Venezuelan government denies that the media crimes law and the closure of the radio stations are related, and maintains that each initiative was grounded in Venezuelan law.
"As usual, much disinformation has shaped the debate surrounding these developments," the Venezuelan Embassy said in a fact sheet about the developments.
At the same time Chavez was extolling these two measures, supporters of his government attacked the Globovision television studio, one of few remaining networks that gives a voice to the opposition.
In the August 3 attack, more than 30 members of a pro-government party threw tear gas at the studio and injured three people.source: cnn.com

A 53-year-old man who has been charged with attempting to stalk teen pop star and actress Miley Cyrus is to appear in a US court on Tuesday.
Mark McLeod was arrested earlier this month after trying to contact the 16-year-old while on a film set on Tybee Island, on Georgia's coast.
He had been previously arrested in June on charges of attempted stalking, disorderly conduct and obstruction.
Cyrus finished work on new Disney film, The Last Song, last week.
Police said Mr McLeod visited Tybee Island twice in June looking for the Hannah Montana actress and tried to breach a security perimeter around the movie set.
"Secret messages"
Mr McLeod claimed he had met Cyrus 18 months earlier and that she had accepted his marriage proposal.
He is said to have told police that Cyrus's father, country singer Billy Ray Cyrus, approved of their relationship and that Cyrus had sent him "secret messages" through her TV show.
McLeod was arrested at his home in Appling, Georgia on Tuesday
He was arrested again on 4 August after security men reported he had returned to the beachside movie set.
Cyrus has become a global superstar since first appearing in Disney's Hannah Montana TV show in 2006. The singer embarks on her first UK tour later this year, beginning at London's O2 Arena in December. She is about to begin a 45-date north American tour which kicks off on 14 September in Oregon.source: bbc.com

LOS ANGELES, CaliforniaThere is a "maker's movement" gaining prominence on a global scale.
Mister Jalopy works out of converted hot-rod repair shop. This is where he builds "the stuff of my dreams."
1 of 3 One of its pied pipers is a man known by his pen name, Mister Jalopy. His agenda is simple. "You need to be able to modify, hack, repair, rebuild and reuse the stuff that you buy."
Mister Jalopy's name comes from a blog he started years ago.
From his Web site:
"When I started the Hooptyrides blog, I pictured a modest used car lot of broken-down, flat-tired junkers that represented great promise and little else. Lit with strings of bare light bulbs, I dreamed of a little desert lot of plucky automobiles and a faded neon sign that erratically blinked 'Mister Jalopy's Hooptyrides.' "
Mister Jalopy owns a laundromat and a used-bicycle store, and he operates out of a converted hot-rod repair shop along an industrial strip of land in the shadow of Interstate 5.
He calls his workshop "Hooptyrides World Headquarters." "It's my personal shop where I do my writing, think up my crackpot business schemes, repair bicycles and do my auto maintenance ... where I build the stuff of my dreams." source: cnn.com
It's brimming with high-quality tools, odds and ends from 20 years of harvesting garage sales, and machines like a lathe and welder that would delight a working tradesman.

A prominent judge in Texas has gone on trial accused of refusing to let lawyers for a convicted murderer on death row lodge a last-minute appeal. Sharon Keller is charged with professional misconduct.
The prisoner, Michael Wayne Richard, was put to death hours after she allegedly shut the court, despite being told an appeal was imminent.
Half of all executions in the US last year were in Texas where critics have dubbed Judge Keller "Sharon Killer".
She is known for her tough stance on the death penalty.
Just hours before his scheduled execution in September 2007, lawyers for Richard tried to lodge an appeal with Judge Keller, the presiding judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
Their efforts were delayed by computer glitches and when they phoned the court to request extra time, they say they were told court closes at 5pm.
Richard, convicted of sexually assaulting and murdering a woman 20 years ago, was put to death by lethal injection some three hours later. He became the 26th person to be executed in Texas that year. source: bbc.com

When Christjohn Batters looks around the dance studio where he works in Atlanta, Georgia, he notices something different these days.
Dance shows are sparking interest in events like this one at Stepping Out Studios in New York.
1 of 2 "I've been at this studio for eight years, and I would definitely say that there has been a steady increase and an influx of people wanting to learn how to dance," said Batters, an instructor and assistant manager at the Ballroom Dance Clubs of Atlanta.
"People see dance on TV, and they see people learning to dance ... and they think, 'OK, this is something I could learn to do.' "
Shows like ABC's "Dancing with the Stars," Fox's "So You Think You Can Dance," MTV's "America's Best Dance Crew" and Oxygen's "Dance Your Ass Off" are drawing millions of viewers and helping expose audiences to the art of dance.
Be it hip-hop, salsa, tango or ballet, viewers are learning that dancing is no longer just for the enjoyment of the Lawrence Welk set.
Batters said a lot more younger couples -- and men -- are venturing to his studio to kick up their heels.
He also said he's tickled that professional ballroom dancers such as "Stars' " Julianne Hough, Maksim Chmerkovskiy and Karina Smirnoff are staring out from magazine covers usually dominated by celebrities.
"Professional ballroom dancers, we were always like an underground club for a long time," Batters said. "Now, all of a sudden, ballroom dancers are household names."
"DWTS" has proven to be the most popular of TV's dance shows. Its two weekly episodes finished third and fourth in the year-end ratings, after "American Idol's" two weekly episodes. The show links celebrities with professional ballroom dancers who put them through their paces in a weekly competition.
On "SYTYCD," a summer hit, amateur and professional dancers perform in pairs and compete for the title.
"America's Best Dance Crew," which premiered its new season on Sunday, pits dance crews from across the world against each other, performing in various styles. source: cnn.com

Former England forward and Harlequins director of rugby Dean Richards has been banned from coaching for three years for his part in masterminding a fake blood injury to one of his players.
Dean Richards faces a three-year coaching ban for his role in masterminding "bloodgate."
The 46-year-old was hit with disciplinary action after a hearing by an independent European Rugby Cup (ERC) panel found he had "organized the fabrication of a blood injury" on wing Tom Williams during a European Cup quarterfinal match against Leinster.
With his side trailing by one point Williams, under instructions from Richards, faked a cut in his mouth with a capsule of fake blood, thereby allowing goal-kicker Nick Evans to return to the field of play.
The plan may have worked if Williams had not winked to the oncoming player as he left the pitch, an action that infuriated their opponents Leinster. Don't Miss
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The ERC confirmed in a statement on their official Web site that Richards had acknowledged his role as the orchestrator of the plan that has since been dubbed "bloodgate," and the subsequent cover up of the injury.
Richards was initially cleared of improper conduct by a hearing in July in which Williams was given a 12-month ban, but the verdict was challenged by ERC disciplinary officer Roger O'Connor.
Further evidence came to light in an appeal made by Williams before an admission of guilt by Dean Richards, who recently resigned from his position with Harlequins, prompted the ban.
The ERC appeal committee chairman Rod McKenzie said details of four other incidents of Harlequins faking injuries had been passed to the relevant authorities.
Williams's ban was reduced to four months and the fine imposed on Harlequins has been increased from $340,000 to $425,000 -- the club still awaits to hear whether they will be expelled from this season's European Cup.
The physiotherapist for the London-based club, Steph Brennan, has also been banned for two-years.
Richards had not decided whether to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport but reacted to his ban by telling reporters: "I'm surprised. Three years is a long time but I'll reflect on it overnight. "I took full responsibility for it. It was a farcical situation, it really was. It didn't pan out particularly well on the day. Everybody looked at it and thought, 'That's unreal', which is what I thought on the touchline as well. "But I had to hold my hands up," Richards added.
source: cnn.com

Arsene Wenger believes financial demands will mean there will be no Champions League in a decade because there will be a European Super League.
The Arsenal manager is preparing for Tuesday's first leg of the Champions League play-off against Celtic, with the winners going to the group stages.
Wenger said: "Maybe in 10 years you will have a European league.
"The way we are going, the money coming in from the Champions League, for some clubs, will not be enough any more."
The Frenchman added: "I'm not sure 100% that I am right but I feel that there are some voices behind the scenes in our game aiming to do something about a European league, especially if the rules become too restrictive for the big clubs as things currently stand."
However, Wenger does not want a European Super League to take the place of domestic leagues. He continued: "If a European league does happen the question is whether clubs will transfer from a national league or whether it is a franchised European league.
"That's the question people will have to answer.
"I personally believe only in sporting merit, so if one league is created there has to be promotion up and down but that would be, practically, very difficult to resolve. 606: DEBATE
Could you see teams playing the 'kids' in the Premier League and saving their best players for the Euro League? BBC Sport's Peter Scrivener
"I do not want to kill the national leagues so each team should have to play in the national league and in Europe. "That means the Euro league taking place in midweek and the national league over the weekend.
"All this would mean having two teams, basically." source: bbc.com

MIAMI,Florida Hurricane Bill blew toward land early Tuesday, edging closer to the West Indies with near 100 mph winds and the potential for developing into a major hurricane.
Hurricane Bill is edging closer to the West Indies with winds near 100 mph.
The National Hurricane Center expected Bill to strengthen over the next 48 hours. Various weather models showed the storm either missing or grazing the west side of Bermuda as it heads toward the U.S. East Coast, CNN meteorologists said Tuesday.
The models showed Bill's path moving dangerously close to the Carolina coast and the Northeast, with the best scenario showing the storm turning back to sea before reaching the United States. Track Hurricane Bill's path across the Atlantic »
Bill is the first hurricane of the 2009 Atlantic season.
About 5 a.m. Tuesday, Bill was heading west-northwest near 17 mph and was predicted to follow that path for the next two days. The storm was centered about 810 miles east of the Leeward Islands, a chain located where the Caribbean meets the western Atlantic.
Hurricane-force winds extended outward up to 30 miles from the center, and tropical storm-force winds extended outward up to 150 miles.
With sustained winds of near 100 mph, and higher gusts, Bill was a Category 2 storm in the classification system used by the hurricane center. It will become a major hurricane if its sustained winds top 111 mph. source: cnn.com

Russian officials have warned it is unlikely any of the 64 workers trapped within Russia's largest hydro-electric power plant after a blast will survive.
Twelve people are already confirmed dead after the explosion at the Sayano-Shushenskaya power plant in Siberia.
Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu said groups of divers were searching for survivors in the flooded turbine hall.
The blast's cause is unknown but reports said investigators believed a transformer exploded during repairs.
Unfortunately we have no comforting news
Sergei Shoigu
Ministry of Emergency Situations
In pictures: Power plant blast
The plant's owner said the flooding had occurred due to a pressure surge in water pipes.
"Unfortunately we have no comforting news. We still do not know the fate of over 60 people," Mr Shoigu told Russian state TV.
"The territory above water and under the water is being searched. We are awaiting a robot, which is able to work underwater," he said.
The plant's owners, RusHydro, said a detailed 3-D map of where its employees were at the time was being used during rescue efforts. source: bbc.com

PHOENIX, Arizona A man toting an assault rifle was among a dozen protesters carrying weapons while demonstrating outside President Obama's speech to veterans on Monday, but no laws were broken. It was the second instance in recent days in which weapons have been seen near presidential events.
A man is shown legally carrying a rifle at a protest against President Obama on Monday in Phoenix, Arizona.
Video from the protest in Phoenix, Arizona, shows the man standing with other protesters, with the rifle slung over his right shoulder.
Phoenix police said authorities monitored about a dozen people carrying weapons while peacefully demonstrating.
"It was a group interested in exercising the right to bear arms," police spokesman Sgt. Andy Hill said.
Arizona law has nothing in the books regulating assault rifles, and only requires permits for carrying concealed weapons. So despite the man's proximity to the president, there were no charges or arrests to be made. Hill said officers explained the law to some people who were upset about the presence of weapons at the protest. Watch the rifle being legally carried at rally »
"I come from another state where 'open carry' is legal, but no one does it, so the police don't really know about it and they harass people, arrest people falsely," the man, who wasn't identified, said in an interview aired by CNN affiliate KNVX. "I think that people need to get out and do it more so that they get kind of conditioned to it."
Gun-toting protesters have demonstrated around the president before. Last week, a man protesting outside Obama's town hall meeting in New Hampshire had a gun strapped to his thigh. That state also doesn't require a license for open carry.U.S. Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan acknowledged the incidents in New Hampshire and Arizona, but said he was not aware of any other recent events where protesters attended with open weapons. He said there was no indication that anyone had organized the incidents.
Asked whether the individuals carrying weapons jeopardized the safety of the president, Donovan said, "Of course not."
The individuals would never have gotten in close proximity to the president, regardless of any state laws on openly carrying weapons, he said. A venue is considered a federal site when the Secret Service is protecting the president and weapons are not allowed on a federal site, he added. source:cnn.com

A Scottish court has formally allowed Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi to abandon his second appeal against his conviction over the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, in which 270 people were killed when an airliner was blown out of the sky.
Convicted bomber Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, pictured in 1992, has terminal cancer.
Last week, al Megrahi lodged a "minute of abandonment" with the Scottish Court Service, which is a legal move to drop an appeal. The Scottish Court of Appeal in Edinburgh confirmed Tuesday it had accepted the request.
Analysts say the move may be part of a deal al Megrahi is seeking with Scottish authorities to be released on compassionate grounds.
A compassionate release could allow al Megrahi, who has maintained his innocence, to return to his native Libya.
Megrahi, 57, who is suffering from terminal prostate cancer, is currently serving a life sentence for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in 1988 which killed 189 U.S. citizens and 270 people in total.
The court announcement follows increasing pressure from the U.S. for Al Megrahi to remain imprisoned in Scotland.
On Monday, seven U.S. senators wrote to the Scottish government urging that al Megrahi be kept in prison indefinitely. source: cnn.com

Eight people have been arrested for hijacking the cargo ship Arctic Sea, Russia's defence minister says.
Anatoly Serdyukov said the group of suspects included Russian, Estonian and Latvian nationals.
The Arctic Sea went off the radar after passing through the English Channel in late July, but was found late on Sunday far south in the Atlantic.
Speculation about what happened to the ship included suggestions of piracy, a mafia dispute or a commercial row.
The ship's owners had reported that the vessel was attacked 24 July in Swedish waters.
Click here for a map charting reported sightings of the Arctic Sea
The hijackers had approached the Arctic Sea in a dinghy, claiming they needed help to repair their vessel, Russia's Interfax news agency quoted Mr Serdyukov as saying.
But once on board the cargo ship, they threatened the crew with guns and forced them to sail south, the defence minister said.
Second attack?
The suspects include four Estonians, two Latvians and two Russians.
What happened to the Arctic Sea?
Mr Serdyukov said an investigation was under way aboard the Russian warship Ladny, where the Arctic Sea's 15-strong crew members and the suspected pirates were being questioned.
The Ladny joined the hunt for the missing ship last week after Moscow deployed the strength of its Atlantic fleet to find the Maltese-flagged ship.
Carrying timber reportedly worth $1.8m (£1.1m), the 4,000-tonne Arctic Sea sailed from Finland and had been scheduled to dock in the Algerian port of Bejaia on 4 August.
The crew reported having been boarded by up to 10 armed men as the ship sailed through the Baltic Sea, but the intruders were reported to have left the vessel on an inflatable boat after 12 hours. source: bbc.com

A bomb attack apparently targeting a Nato convoy in Afghanistan has killed at least seven people, two days before the country's presidential election.
The dead include Nato soldiers and Afghans working for the UN, officials in Kabul say.
Dozens were also hurt in the blast on the outskirts of Kabul - the second suicide attack in three days.
Militants had threatened to disrupt Thursday's vote in which Hamid Karzai is tipped to be re-elected president.
The BBC's Hugh Sykes, in Kabul, says the attacks demonstrate that determined militants can penetrate Kabul's election security.
He says the bombings are likely to make people nervous about going to vote on Thursday.
Witnesses said the bomb detonated near a bustling market, and children were among the wounded.
"It was a suicide attack... targeting a supply convoy of foreign forces," Kabul police chief Sayed Abdul Ghafar Sayedzada said, according to AFP news agency.
Correspondents say Thursday's vote is taking place amid an upsurge in violence across the country.
It is Afghanistan's second presidential election since the US-led invasion in 2001 toppled the Taliban regime. source: bbc.com