Two pilots were gearing up to fly from Kandahar to neighboring Helmand to support a British unit in "Warthogs" -- the A-10 Thunderbolt II fighter that's popular with the Air Force. Warthogs are slow—not supersonic—but fantastically agile. They dart like dragonflies and seem to change direction against the laws of physics.

The A-10s can turn so fast that they break the laws of healthy physiology, and can cause a pilot to pass out and crash his airplane. And so pilots wear G-suits to help counter adverse fluid dynamics. Michael Yon, former Green Beret and current war correspondent, was there to catch the action first-hand.

A-10s have more tricks than Harry Potter, writes Yon, such as the flares designed to lure heat-seeking missiles away from the engines. Over these battlefields, pilots often pop the flares as "we see you" warnings to the enemy. If the enemy is in the open and no civilians are around, they're unlikely to get a friendly flare warning, but sometimes it's better to hold off on the big weapons; the enemy might be fighting from a built-up area.

Yon watched Lt. Col Murphy gear up for flight in an A-10, its 30mm cannon loaded with 1,150 rounds. The 30mm can destroy tanks, but believe it or not, it typically won't penetrate the walls around Afghan homes. When the 30mm fires, it's almost unbelievable. The bullets don't fly in a laser-like stream, but sort of spray in a lethal mist, as if the cannon is shot-painting a swath with huge bullets. If the enemy is in the open, the cannon is like a weapon of mass destruction. When people are hit with M-16 bullets, the wound is often more like a couple of small holes, but when bodies get hit with weapons this large, they fly in pieces.

A-10 cannons are tilted down so that the pilot can fly level while strafing. This is important, Yon explains: In Mosul, in 2004, an F-14 was strafing downtown after a massive truck bombing. The pilot told me he was fixated on the target. Since the F-14 cannon is tilted up for "Top Gun" air combat, the pilot had to nose down the F-14 and was diving straight into the target -- and nearly crashed. The hard turn to avoid crashing damaged his aircraft and the pilot had difficulty landing on the aircraft carrier later that night. This doesn't happen in an A-10.

To find out more, and to view a series of wonderful photos direct from Kandahar, read the full story by Michael Yon.

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Virgin Galactic readies the first-class wonder machine at the core of the space tourism firm's suborbital fleet.

LOS ANGELES —  An earthquake east of downtown Los Angeles rippled across Southern California before dawn Tuesday, jolting millions of people awake and putting first-responders on alert but causing no damage, injuries or power outages.

The magnitude-4.4 quake, centered about 10 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, struck shortly after 4 a.m., according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The California Highway Patrol reported a buckled 10-foot stretch of concrete on Interstate 5 south of downtown, but it was unclear if the broken concrete was caused by the quake.

"It was a shake, but not bad. Our inmates slept through it and we had a few calls, but not as many as you would think," Pico Rivera sheriff's station Sgt. Jacqueline Sanchez said. Deputies were immediately dispatched to check on bridges and dams, he said.

Los Angeles County Fire Department supervising dispatcher Andre Gougis said there were no injury reports and the department was at normal operations.

Gougis said the quake was felt as his east Los Angeles headquarters.

"There was an initial jolt, then mild shaking after that," he said.

Though the quake was considered small in size, it was felt over a large swath of Southern California. People from San Bernardino County to the east and Santa Monica, about 25 miles to the west, reported feeling it.

"The building started shaking. That's it. I'm used to it," said Ruben Solis, a 25-year-old security guard who works downtown. Solis said he checked his monitors and no alarms were triggered. "I got up and went on patrol," he said.

The quake hit not far from the 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake, a magnitude 5.9 quake that killed eight people and caused more than $350 million in damage.

The latest jolt was not likely to inflict the same damage.

"I'm sure people would have felt it, but this is not an earthquake that will be damaging," said USGS geophysicist Amy Vaughan.

Tuesday's early morning jolt was probably not related to the Whittier Narrows quake because too much time has elapsed, said California Institute of Technology seismologist Kate Hutton.

Scientists have not yet determined which fault was responsible for the latest quake.

Hutton said there's a small chance that Tuesday's temblor is a precursor to a larger event, but the likelihood diminishes over time.

TOKYO  —  A strong magnitude 6.6 earthquake hit off the eastern coast of Japan on Sunday, rattling buildings across a broad swath of the country, including the crowded capital.

There were no reports of casualties, with only light damage to structures near the epicenter, according to local officials.

The quake hit at 5:08 p.m. and was felt most strongly in central Fukushima prefecture about 130 miles northeast of Tokyo, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.

Click for data from the USGS

"It was fairly strong, but didn't knock over anything in the office," said Ken Yoshida, a town official in Naraha, one of the hardest-hit areas. He said an earthen wall in town was partially toppled.

The earthquake was centered about 50 miles off the eastern coast at a depth of about 25 miles, the meteorological agency said.

The government said there was no danger of a tsunami, although slight changes to ocean levels were a possibility in some areas.

It was strong enough to gently sway large buildings in Tokyo and was felt across a broad stretch of Japan's main Honshu and northern Hokkaido islands.

Japan's early warning system predicted the earthquake just before it hit, with public broadcaster NHK interrupting a sumo match to warn residents to take cover.

The country is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries. In 1995, a magnitude-7.2 quake in the western port city of Kobe killed 6,400 people.

NEAR MARJAH, Afghanistan  —  U.S. and Afghan forces pushed Tuesday to the edge of the southern Afghan town of Marjah, poised to seize the major Taliban supply and drug-smuggling stronghold in hopes of building public support by providing aid and services once the insurgents are gone.

Instead of keeping the offensive secret, Americans have been talking about it for weeks, expecting the Taliban would flee. But the militants appear to be digging in, apparently believing that even a losing fight would rally supporters and sabotage U.S. plans if the battle proves destructive.

No date for the main attack has been announced but all signs indicate it will come soon. It will be the first major offensive since President Barack Obama announced last December that he was sending 30,000 reinforcements to Afghanistan, and will serve as a significant test of the new U.S. strategy for turning back the Taliban.

About 400 U.S. troops from the Army's 5th Stryker Brigade and about 250 Afghan soldiers moved into positions northeast of Marjah before dawn Tuesday as U.S. Marines pushed to the outskirts of the town.

Automatic rifle fire rattled in the distance as the Marines dug in for the night with temperatures below freezing. The occasional thud of mortar shells and the sharp blast of rocket-propelled grenades fired by the Taliban pierced the air.

"They're trying to bait us, don't get sucked in," yelled a Marine sergeant, warning his troops not to venture closer to the town. In the distance, Marines could see farmers and nomads gathering their livestock at sunset, seemingly indifferent to the firing.

The U.S. goal is to take control quickly of the farming community, located in a vast, irrigated swath of land in Helmand province 380 miles southwest of Kabul. That would enable the Afghan government to re-establish a presence, bringing security, electricity, clean water and other public services to the estimated 80,000 inhabitants.

Over time, American commanders believe such services will undermine the appeal of the Taliban among their fellow Pashtuns, the largest ethnic group in the country and the base of the insurgents' support.

"The military operation is phase one," Helmand Gov. Gulab Mangal told reporters Tuesday in Kabul. "In addition to that, we will have development in place, justice, good governance, bringing job opportunities to the people."

Marjah will serve as the first trial for the new strategy implemented last year by the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal. He maintains that success in the eight-year conflict cannot be achieved by killing Taliban fighters, but rather by protecting civilians and winning over their support.

Many Afghan Pashtuns are believed to have turned to the Taliban, who were driven from power in the U.S.-led invasion of 2001, because of disgust over the ineffectual and corrupt government of President Hamid Karzai.

"The success of the operation will not be in the military phase," NATO's civilian chief in Afghanistan, Mark Sedwill, told reporters Tuesday. "It will be over the next weeks and months as the people ... feel the benefits of better governance, of economic opportunities and of operating under the legitimate authorities of Afghanistan."

To accomplish that, NATO needs to take the town without causing significant damage or civilian casualties. That would risk a public backlash among residents, many of whose sons and brothers are probably among the estimated 400 to 1,000 Taliban defenders. U.S. aircraft have been dropping leaflets over the town, urging militants not to resist and warning civilians to remain indoors.

Provincial officials believe about 164 families — or about 980 people — have left the town in recent weeks, although the real figure could be higher because many of them moved in with relatives and never registered with authorities.

Residents contacted by telephone in Marjah said the Taliban were preventing civilians from leaving, warning them they have placed bombs along the roads to stop the American attack. The militants may believe the Americans will restrain their fire if they know civilians are at risk.

Mohammad Hakim said he waited until the last minute to leave Marjah with his wife, nine sons, four daughters and grandchildren because he was worried about abandoning his cotton fields in a village on the edge of town. He decided to leave Tuesday, but Taliban fighters turned him back because they said the road was mined.

"All of the people are very scared," Hakim said by telephone. "Our village is like a ghost town. The people are staying in their homes."

Sedwill said NATO hopes that when Marjah has fallen, many Taliban militants could be persuaded to join a government-promoted reintegration process.

"The message to them is accept it," he said. "The message to the people of the area is, of course, keep your heads down, stay inside when the operation is going ahead."

Mangal, the governor, said authorities believe some local Taliban are ready to renounce Al Qaeda and give the government a chance.

"I'm confident that there are a number of Taliban members who will reconcile with us and who will be under the sovereignty of the Afghan government," he said.

Ali Ahmad Jalali, a former Afghan interior minister who lectures at the National Defense University in Washington, said the U.S. had little choice but to publicize the offensive so civilians could leave and minimize casualties. He said it would have been impossible to achieve complete surprise because "an operation of this scale cannot be kept secret."

But Jalali added that publicizing the operation may have encouraged hard-core Taliban to stand and fight to show their supporters and the international community that they will not be easily swayed by promises of amnesty and reintegration.

"Normally the Taliban would leave. They would not normally decisively engage in this kind of pitched battle. They would leave and come back because they have the time to come back," Jalali told The Associated Press.

"If there's stiff resistance in Marjah, this could increase the recruiting power of the Taliban or at least retain what they have in that area," he said. "It's become the symbol of Taliban resistance. So I would suspect it's possible there would be stiff rearguard resistance. If it becomes bloody, it would affect opinion in Europe and the U.S."

Jalali also said that success would depend on whether the Afghan government can make good on its promise of services once the battle is over.

"If the coalition can stabilize Marjah, rebuild it and install good governance, that can be an example for other places," he said. "If not, it would be another problem."

Echoing this theory, McChrystal told reporters at a defense conference in Turkey last weekend that it was necessary to tell Afghans that the attack on Marjah was coming so they would know "that when the government re-establishes security, they'll have choices."

The famous Hollywood sign is expected to be replaced by an environmental message — if only for a day.

Trust for Public Lands, a nature conservation group, says it has reached a deal to protect a swath of land above the sign from being developed into luxury homes. To mark the deal, and draw attention and money to the cause, the group wants to cover up the sign for a day with a shroud reading: "Save the Peak."

The group is still waiting for permission from the city for the one-day sign change on Thursday, but the Los Angeles Police Department already has sent out an alert to neighborhood residents so they wouldn't be alarmed.

The president of Trust for Public Lands, Will Rogers, said the group secured an option to buy the 138-acre parcel for about $12 million from a Chicago-based firm. Rogers said the conservation group has already raised $6 million and is confident it can raise the rest of the money before the option expires in mid-April.

If the group succeeds, it intends to transfer the land to the city of Los Angeles, so it can be incorporated into the adjacent Griffith Park.

City officials and many residents say that building homes on the peak would ruin one of the city's most famous views.

"The city of Los Angeles wants to acquire this land, not only to maintain the view of the Hollywood sign, but also to preserve open space, hiking trails and wildlife corridors for the future health of our great city," Councilman Tom LaBonge, whose district includes Cahuenga Peak, said in a statement.

If the conservation group fails to raise the final $6 million before April 14, the property will go back for sale on the open market.

"There's always a concern when you have a deadline," Rogers said. "I'm optimistic, but there's always that chance."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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An explosion that sounded like a sonic boom blew out walls of an unfinished power plant and set off a fire during a test of natural gas lines Sunday, killing at least five workers and injuring a dozen or more.

At least 12 people were hurt in the explosion at the Kleen Energy Systems plant in Middletown, about 20 miles south of Hartford.

Deputy Fire Marshal Al Santostefano told The Associated Press on Sunday night that no one was known to be missing. Still, crews planned to spend all night going through debris in case there were any more victims. The cause of the gas explosion was unknown, and the investigation was to begin Monday morning, he said.

The explosion left huge pieces of metal that once encased the plant peeling off its sides. A large swath of the structure was blackened and surrounded by debris, but the building, its roof and its two smokestacks were still standing. Rescue crews had set up several tents alongside the site, which is a few miles from Wesleyan University.

SLIDESHOW: Deadly Connecticut Power Plant Explosion

The explosion happened around 11:15 a.m., Santostefano said. Mayor Sebastian Giuliano heard the blast.

"It felt almost like a sonic boom," Giuliano said at an evening news conference.

Santostefano said 50 to 60 people were in the area at the time of the explosion, and multiple contractors were working on the project, making it difficult to quickly account for everyone.

One of those killed was Raymond Dobratz, a 58-year-old plumber from Old Saybrook, said his son, Erik Dobratz, who called the elder man "a great dad."

The 620-megawatt plant, which was almost complete, is being built to produce energy primarily using natural gas. Santostefano said workers for the construction company, O&G Industries, were purging the gas lines, a procedure he called a "blow-down," when the explosion occurred.

Lynn Hawley, 54, of Hartland, Conn., told The Associated Press that her son, Brian Hawley, 36, is a pipefitter at the plant. He called her from his cell phone to say he was being rushed to Middlesex Hospital.

"He really couldn't say what happened to him," she said. "He was in a lot of pain, and they got him into surgery as quickly as possible."

She said he had a broken leg and was expected to survive.

Officials had not released the conditions of the other injured people by Sunday evening, although they said at least a dozen people had injuries ranging from minor to very serious.

The thundering blast shook houses for miles.

"I felt the house shake, I thought a tree fell on the house," said Middletown resident Steve Clark.

Barrett Robbins-Pianka, who lives about a mile away and has monitored the project for years, said she was running outside and heard what she called "a tremendous boom."

"I thought it might be some test or something, but it was really loud, a definite explosion," she said.

Work on the plant was 95 percent complete, the mayor said.

Kleen Energy Systems LLC began construction on it in February 2008. It had signed a capacity deal with Connecticut Light and Power for the electricity produced by the plant, which was scheduled to be completed by mid-2010.

The company is run by president and former Middletown City Council member William Corvo. A message left at Corvo's home was not immediately returned. Calls to Gordon Holk, general manager of Power Plant Management Services, which has a contract to manage the plant, weren't immediately returned.

Energy Investors Funds, a private equity fund that indirectly owns a majority share in the power plant, said it is fully cooperating with authorities investigating the explosion. In a written statement, the company offered sympathy and concern and would release more information on the explosion as it becomes available.

Plants powered by natural gas are taking on a much larger role in generating electricity for the U.S. Gas emits about half the greenhouse gases of coal-fired plants and new technology has allowed natural gas companies to begin to unlock gas supplies that could total more than 100 years at current usage levels.

Natural gas is used to make about a fifth of the nation's electricity.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell visited the scene Sunday; she earlier called out a specialized search and rescue team to help firefighters. Rell announced late Sunday that the state had imposed a temporary no-fly zone for a three-mile radius around the site, which she said was to ensure that the safety of the search and rescue workers would not be jeopardized. The restrictions were put in place until Monday evening.

The state's Emergency Operations Center in Hartford also was activated, and the Department of Public Health was called to provide tents at the scene for shelter and medical triage.

Rell said the emergency teams were expected to work through the night and into Monday.

Daniel Horowitz, a spokesman with the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, said the agency is mobilizing an investigation team from Colorado and hopes to have the workers on the scene Monday.

Safety board investigators have done extensive work on the issue of gas line purging since an explosion last year at a Slim Jim factory in North Carolina killed four people. They've identified other explosions caused by workers who were unsafely venting gas lines inside buildings.

The board voted last week to recommend that national and international code writers strengthen their guidelines to require outdoor venting of gas lines or an approved safety plan to do it indoors.

In February 2009, an explosion at a We Energies coal-fired power plant near Milwaukee burned six workers. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is still investigating.

In the past few years, an explosion at a Dominion Virginia Power coal-fired plant in Massachusetts killed three workers in November 2007, while one worker and nine others were injured at an American Electric Power plant of the same type in Beverly, Ohio, in January 2007.

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