Faster than a speeding bullet? Meet the world's first 1,000 mph car

(CNN) -- What has a jet engine, a rocket booster and travels on a set of aluminum wheels? It's the Bloodhound SuperSonic Car (SSC) and it has plans to hit the world land speed record at 1,000 mph.
Made of titanium, carbon fiber and, like superman, is designed to go faster than a speeding bullet, the Bloodhound SSC has been painstakingly put together and tested over the better part of six years. In 2016, the UK-based team plan to take the 42-foot (8.9m) vehicle to Hakskeen Pan, a dry lake bed in South Africa, for a crack at the record breaking attempt.

Former fighter jet pilot Royal Air Force (RAF) Wing Commander Andy Green said even designing a car that can hold together at these blistering speeds has been a triumph of the engineer's art.
"No rubber," he told CNN from The Bloodhound Project headquarters in Bristol, UK. "Beyond about 450mph it's really, really hard to keep a tire on - they just get flung off. So we have solid aluminum.

"We've been through a huge evolution of finding something that's tough enough that would do the job. Basically this car goes faster than a speeding bullet, so anything that hits this is like being shot at from a gun."

The former jet ace, who has flown combat missions over Iraq, Bosnia and Afghanistan, can lay claim to be the only man to have broken the sound barrier in the air and on land. In 1997, he hit 763 mph or Mach 1 in the vehicle ThrustSSC to become the first man to break the sound barrier on land.

The Bloodhound Project takes the land speed record a step further in a car that is part jet fighter, part Formula 1 racer and part space rocket.
"A thousand miles an hour at ground level is faster than any jet fighter has ever traveled in history, so there are going to be some major challenges," Green said.
Besides three engines delivering 135,000 horsepower, the Bloodhound is equipped with rocket boosters to deliver the thrust necessary to get it to 1,000 mph.
"(The jet engines) on their own will take us to 600mph or thereabouts,but to get a land speed record, at about 350 miles an hour we turn on a rocket engine to take us all the way through to a 1000mph," said lead designer Mark Chapman. "The rocket is the key -- that's the difference between 750 mph and 1,000 mph."
The Bloodhound team scoured the globe to find a desert run that could accommodate a vehicle which, at 1,000 mph, is likely to run out of road in a matter of seconds. The requirements were a perfectly flat landscape, at least 12 miles long and two miles wide.

They eventually selected Hakskeen Pan, in Northern Cape, South Africa where Bloodhound SSC will cover a mile in 3.6 seconds --equivalent to 4.5 football pitches laid end to end every second.

Having already set the land speed record, Green is in a good place to describe what it is like in the cockpit of the world's fastest cars. Even so, the new challenges presented by Bloodhound SSC sometimes leave him lost for words.

"The best single description I've ever heard was from the late, great Art Arfons who set three world records in the 1960s and got up to almost 600 mph.
"Somebody asked him one day what it was like and he
said: 'What is it like to drive a land-speed (record)? To
drive a jet car to do 600 miles an hour over the ground?
"And he said: 'It's a bit like the taste of chocolate. If
you've never had a bar of chocolate I am really going to
struggle to explain what it is like'."Ultimately, he said, the cockpit is place of tremendous G forces, heat and vibration.

"In a land-speed car, that's just a normal day in the office.
Uncomfortable, but that's what it's like. It's hugely busy, it's very hot,it's very noisy. Apart from all those things, it should be fairly simple."While the aim of the project is to crack the magic 1,000 mph mark (the closest yet has been an American F104 jet fighter which flew just above ground level at 988mph), Green said the ultimately the record attempt is about instilling a sense of engineering progress in future generations.

"This about developing technology. This is about finding out new things. This is about exploring," he said. "And the story of engineering exploration is about the failures and the challenges, not just about the successes."

BOKO HARAM SHAKEN NIGERIA

Kano, Nigeria (WN) -- A suicide bomber killed at least six people in the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri on Monday, while Boko Haram militants attacked the town of Damaturu to the west but were driven out after a 10-hour battle.
The sector commander for Maiduguri's civilian task force told CNN a female bomber had carried out the attack on the city's market at 11:00 a.m. At least six people had died and the toll was expected to rise,Cmdr. Abba Aji Kalli said. More than 20 people had been taken to hospitals, many in critical condition, he said.
Police gave a slightly different account, saying two female bombers had targeted the main gate of the market, killing five.
A source at the Maiduguri General Hospital said 48 injured had been taken to the hospital from the scene of the attack.
Last week, another suicide attack in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, killed at least 78 people.
Meanwhile, battle sounds roared in Damaturu in
neighboring Yobe state early Monday as Islamist Boko
Haram fighters poured in, an eyewitness said.
"I was in bed around 4:40 a.m., when I was jolted out of
sleep with huge explosions and sounds of gunfire," said
resident Buka Girema. Girema fled with his family into nearby brush land. Neighbors have fled their homes as well, he said."After some phone calls, I realized Boko Haram gunmenwere on the attack. They came in several trucks and vans,"he said. They set fire to a police checkpoint, he said.

Militants pushed toward the center of town, and the sound of gunfire spread to compounds that house government
workers, residents said.

A nurse working in the town spoke to CNN by telephone as gunshots rang out in the background.
She said she was hiding in her home, and then concluded
quietly, "They have entered my house. Please pray for me," before hanging up the phone. 'Heinous and barbaric'

The attack on Damaturu ended in midafternoon. Yobe
state spokesman Mohammed Hassan said the Boko
Haram fighters were forced out of the town.
"The insurgents were not able to come in full force. They
were not able to operate as they wanted. The authorities
pushed them out. Many civilians also helped," Hassan
said. Yobe Gov. Ibrahim Gaidam condemned the attack on Damaturu as "heinous and barbaric" and praised security forces for their efforts repelling the militants.
"His Excellency the governor has also been told that the security effort is still ongoing. Security agents will continue to track and pursue any remnants of the attackers who might still be hiding in town.

"The governor urges people in Damaturu and all across our State to continue to remain vigilant and pray to Almighty Allah for His intervention," state spokesman Abdullahi Bego said in a statement.

Campaign of violence
Boko Haram has terrorized northern Nigeria regularly since 2009,attacking police, schools, churches and civilians and bombing government buildings.

On Friday, two suicide bombers and gunmen attacked a Muslim congregation during prayers in the central mosque in northern Nigeria's largest city, Kano, officials said. A third bomb exploded outside the mosque.

Officials said more than 100 people were killed in the attack.It came two weeks after the emir of Kano, Muhammad Sanusi II, one of Nigeria's most influential monarchs, called for self-defense, urging people to procure arms and fight Boko Haram, which has a significant presence in the area.
The emir made the call at the same mosque where Friday's attack occurred.

In April, Boko Haram militants drew international condemnation when they kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls, many of whom they later
said they sold into slavery.
At least 5,000 people have died at Boko Haram's hands, according to a U.S. Congressional Research Service report, making it one of the
world's deadliest terrorist organizations.

Eric Garner protesters march for another day -- this time with a list of demands

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Red tail lights snaked for hundreds of yards down
an interstate in Oakland, California, as motorists stood still for protesters blocking traffic for a few minutes.
The marchers were making a statement about alleged unchecked police brutality and racially uneven justice in America on the third day of marches, sit-ins and die-ins over a grand jury decision in the death of African-American Eric Garner in Staten Island, New York.
Many people around the country have been as shocked by the decision not to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo, who put Garner in a chokehold, as they have been horrified by the cell phone video of it
that went viral.

The outrage has weighed heavily especially after the police shooting
of unarmed teen Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. When the jury announced it will not indict Pantaleo, protests dotted the American
map.

A coast away in New York City, protesters attempted to block traffic on FDR Drive -- a six-lane thoroughfare that hugs eastern Manhattan-- and on the iron trellised Manhattan Bridge, which connects the
island to Brooklyn.
But at the end of a long, cold, wet Friday, police had had enough and pulled up in detention buses. The sight of them alone was a deterrent
to most protesters.
After a handful were arrested, the remaining group called it a night.

NEW YORK MULTITUDES
Nowhere in the country have streets overflowed with as many outraged people as in New York City.
Friday's crowds appeared to be smaller than previous nights', as cold rain trickled down jackets and hats. But marchers were still passionate about being heard. Some passed out a list of demands to
the media regarding Garner's death.

All officers involved should be fired, they demanded, and a special prosecutor should investigate complaints of excessive force. The state
legislature should make chokeholds punishable.
Earlier, Eric Garner's daughter, Erica, told CNN's "The Lead with Jake Tapper" that she wanted to see people punished for her father's
killing.
"Justice to me is basically doing what's right," she said. "I wouldn't
be happy with (Pantaleo) just losing his job or being suspended or still getting paid. I wouldn't want that. I would want him to face time
in jail."

She said that anyone who contributed to her father's death should go
to prison.

Christmas tree die-ins
At Herald Square, where Broadway cuts an elegantly slanted path through streets and avenues to create a picturesque gathering place,
protesters flooded Macy's century old flagship store -- a nationalhistoric landmark.
Store management allowed them to stage a die-in under the eyes ofholiday shoppers and ceilings decked with Christmas cheer.They marched up a few blocks to Times Square and blocked traffic for
10 minutes, then turned down 42nd Street chanting, "This is whatdemocracy looks like."
They stopped again in Bryant Park and encircled some shops. Many of the workers in those stores came out and, in support, raised their
hands in the air.The crowd set off up Sixth Avenue, traversing against the flow of
yellow cabs and other cars. A cacophony of horns greeted them, and cab drivers held their hands out of their windows in approval.Chuck Helms, 67 and white, clad in a union-issue hard hat and satin Occupy Wall Street jacket, wore a sign around his neck.

"Remembering my brothers. BLACK LIVES MATTER," it read. The faces of Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice and Akai Gurley -- all black men whose controversial deaths made headlines -- looked out from photos.
Helms said, "It's a shame that people have to die for us to become
focused."

All over America
Protests dotted the American map, and crowds were diverse.Signs floated over the heads of crowds reading "Black lives matter" in North Carolina, Ohio, California and Louisiana.
It was personal for a young black man in Washington who held a sign reading, "I could be next."
Students lay down on campus walkways for dozens of yards in a die- in at Emory University in Atlanta on Friday.
Protesters littered the pavement in Washington in the darkness, where they lay on the ground for 4.5 minutes symbolizing the 4.5 hours the body of Michael Brown lay on a Ferguson street.
"I'm not an angry black man. I'm an outraged, hurt black man," one protest organizer there said.

1,000 marchers, MLK Jr.
Near Boston -- site of one of the largest demonstrations of the night-- several dozen people blocked an intersection by lying on the road.
About 1,000 people marched Friday evening from Tufts University in
Somerville, Massachusetts, to Harvard Square, according to a police estimate.

"People who don't already realize what is happening, maybe they will
open their minds a little bit, or people that do realize and don't care will realize that people are angry and it's not OK," a protesting woman told CNN affiliate WHDH.
In Chicago, Elizabeth Huston, a paralegal, joined in for the first time."So many people realize this is a problem. This is disproportionally affecting black men and women," she said.

Cleveland cop who shot 12-year-old slammed for 'immaturity' in past job.

In Cleveland, protesters marched over the death of Tamir Rice, 12, who police say had a lifelike air gun and didn't comply with an officer's commands.
"CPD what do you say? How many kids have you killed today," they yelled.

The boy's family filed a wrongful death suit Friday against police over the killing, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
At a historic spot in the history of American civil rights, at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center in Memphis, Tennessee, a dozen or more people sprawled out on a walkway.
Feet away was the second floor motel balcony, where an assassin's bullet stuck down Dr. King, the quintessential father figure of the American civil rights movement, in 1968.
Brooklyn DA: Grand jury to investigate shooting of unarmed man Reported improvements
Meanwhile, New York officials said complaints against police officers had fallen significantly in the second half of the year, compared with July to November 2013.

A report that tallied complaints said 1,813 were made so far since July 1 of this year, 26% less than the number of complaints filed with the Civilian Complaint Review Board in the same period of the prior year. Excessive force allegations fell by 29%.
The dip followed a slight rise in the first six months of the year, the report said, but, overall, allegations have declined in 2014.

Us,yemen attempts to recue american hostage luk somers

A joint military operation to free American hostage Luke Somers has taken place in Yemen Saturday, local officials said - but the status of the 33-year-old was not immediately clear. The operation took place in Shabwa province, a Yemen interior ministry official told NBC News, adding that 10 militants were killed.

The move came two days after the Pentagon acknowledged an earlier U.S. commando mission to rescue Somers had failed. Teacher and photographer Somers, a British-born U.S. citizen, was abducted a year ago in Sanaa where he had been working as a freelance photographer for the Yemen Times.

Al Qaeda posted a video Thursday that showed Somers and a local militant commander threatening that thwe hostage would meet his fate in three days if the U.S. didn't meet the group's demands.

This is a breaking news story.

- Charlene Gubash and Alastair Jamieson