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WICHITA, Kan. (AP) Fred VanVleet scored a career-high 27 points to lead No. 12 Wichita State to a 58-47 win over Loyola on Wednesday night. Ron Baker added 16 points as the Shockers (19-2, 9-0 Missouri Valley) shot just 41 percent from the floor and 43 percent from the free throw line. VanVleet and Baker were a combined 16 of 28 from the floor. The rest of the team was 6 of 26. Devon Turk scored nine points for Loyola (13-8, 3-6), which was held to its lowest scoring output of the season. Wichita State's shooting struggles started right away. The Shockers had 17 shots in the game's first eight minutes but made just four of them, including a VanVleet 3-pointer for a 10-6 lead. With Wichita State unable to convert shots, the Ramblers stayed close. Jeff White's baseline drive and layup gave Loyola a 16-15 lead with 6:03 remaining in the half. To make things more difficult for the Shockers, their two best interior scoring threats, Darius Carter and Shaquille Morris, each picked up two fouls in the first half. VanVleet kept Wichita State going, hitting a tie-breaking 3-pointer with 3:40 to play in the half and swishing a 3-pointer as the buzzer sounded for a 29-23 halftime lead. Wichita State made its final three shots of the half to finish 12 of 32 from the floor. VanVleet had 16 points - no one else on either team more than six - on 6-of-9 shooting. The second half started much the same way. The Shockers made only two shots in the first nine minutes, and Loyola was within 35-30 after Joe Crisman's baseline 3-pointer with 12:30 remaining. Loyola did not score again for more than six minutes. Wichita State methodically took advantage. Baker had a dunk to wake up the crowd, VanVleet converted a layup and Baker sank a 3-pointer with 6:50 remaining to make it 44-30 Wichita State. The Ramblers did not get closer than nine again. TIP-INS Loyola: The Ramblers were without Milton Doyle, last season's Missouri Valley freshman of the year, due to an injured left ankle. Doyle, who averages 11.5 points, missed his third straight game. He is likely out another three weeks. . Loyola coach Porter Moser is 1-11 against Wichita State as a head coach. Wichita State: The Shockers have won 27 straight Missouri Valley games, the longest streak since 1924. . Junior guard Evan Wessel is 40-0 in home games in which he played. . VanVleet's previous high was 22, which he scored four times last season. LONG DISTANCE Loyola entered the game leading the Missouri Valley Conference in 3-point shooting at 39.6 percent, and playing Wichita State is a big reason why. The Ramblers were 10 of 18 from the 3-point line in the first matchup. Loyola kept that going Wednesday, making 8 of 15 3-point attempts. UP NEXT Loyola: hosts to Illinois State on Saturday. Wichita State: travels to No. 18 Northern Iowa on Saturday. | 1 | 4,400 | sports |
Check out this incredible feature the Blue Devils Network put together on the day Coach K captured his 1,000th career win. Get a behind-the-scenes look at Coach K and the Blue Devils as they arrive to MSG, the big celebration after the game, as well as his family, former players and fans congratulating him on his amazing accomplishment. | 1 | 4,401 | sports |
MELBOURNE, Australia In a place where he's had abundant success, Novak Djokovic doesn't like to look to the past much especially when it includes him losing. "I haven't watched, but probably now is the time," the world No. 1 says about the highlight reel of his five-set loss to Stan Wawrinka here a year ago, a quarterfinal match that served as a springboard for Wawrinka to win his first Grand Slam title. "I will not watch the last point of that match," he adds, smiling. "Everything else is fine." Everything about Djokovic's current form is more than fine. The world No. 1 is 20-2 since the U.S. Open; he's lost just once at the Australian Open in the last five years; and he's won a staggering 70 out of 71 service games in this tournament, not dropping a set in five matches. "Novak has looked incredible throughout this event," says former player Justin Gimelstob, now a coach and TV analyst. "It's certainly the best we have seen him in the past 18 months," adds Todd Woodbridge, the doubles specialist from Australia. Friday night (3:30 a.m. ET Friday on ESPN2) Djokovic looks to exact revenge against Wawrinka in the semifinals. Moreover, a win would move Djokovic closer to a fifth title here, something he appears primed to claim. Djokovic's best has been far too strong for the top players in the world for much of the last five years in this Australian summer event, a major held three weeks into the season. Not since Andre Agassi embraced the hills of suburban Las Vegas in his training has a player arrived as fit and as geared up for the Australian Open as Djokovic, who won the title in 2008 and then three consecutive years from 2011 to 2013. "The quick conditions suit his game perfectly," says Gimelstob, coach for American John Isner. "His defensive skills; moving, neutralizing have been remarkable. Novak has been the best hard court player in men's tennis over the past four to five years." A year ago Wawrinka bucked that trend in a display of one-handed backhand glory. At 28, he emerged from behind the shadows of his country's greatest athlete, Roger Federer. Now tasked to do it again, Wawrinka, who had lost his own five-set classic to Djokovic here in 2013, doesn't wince. "We had some crazy match(es) in the Grand Slam," says Wawrinka, whose form has dipped at times in the last 12 months. "You have to play your best tennis if you want to push him." Wawrinka is 3-16 in his career against the seven-time major champion, including a 6-3, 6-0 beatdown at the ATP World Tour Finals in November. Djokovic's results here show his determination after a busy off-season. "I don't take anything for granted," says Djokovic, whose wife Jelena had the couple's first child in October. "Of course it feels good. It never gets old being in the last four of the Grand Slam." With Federer and Rafael Nadal out, Djokovic is again Melbourne's front-runner. The other men's semifinal features Andy Murray and Tomas Berdych. "Wawrinka and Berdych are playing the best tennis of their lives, but I feel Novak is more focused and confident and is the better all round player of the four," Woodbridge says. The final point a year ago against Wawrinka was a forehand volley that Djokovic missed long into the open court. The Serb missed two consecutive balls at the net to succumb 9-7 in the fifth set, an uncharacteristic display of human error. But to Djokovic, 27, it's about seeing the future and imagining a trophy lofted above his head. "This is now semifinals of a Grand Slam and (I'm) playing a top player," he says. "There is no going back now. It's the time to perform the best I can." | 1 | 4,402 | sports |
Marissa Alexander spent three years in a Florida jail for firing a shot that she says was a warning to stop her abusive ex-husband from hurting her. | 5 | 4,403 | news |
Who doesn't love avocado toast? Even in the wintertime, we're ripening avocados by our radiators so we can get our avo on. Avocados are essentially nature's butter, making them superversatile. We're going to show you all the different ways avocado toast can be enjoyed, from savory to sweet. | 7 | 4,404 | health |
(Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc. surged to a tie for the world's biggest smartphone vendor for the first time since 2011 as booming sales of iPhones with larger screens helped gain ground on Samsung Electronics Co. Both companies shipped 74.5 million smartphones in the fourth quarter for 19.6 percent market share each, Strategy Analytics said in an e-mailed statement Thursday. Lenovo Group Ltd. was third with market share of 6.5 percent after its acquisition of Motorola Mobility. Apple's move into larger screens hit Samsung in an area it pioneered as the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus were hits in markets including China, where consumers prefer a bigger device to perform the role of a phone and tablet computer. The maker of Galaxy devices saw its market share plunge 10 percentage points as Lenovo and Huawei Technologies Co. snare budget buyers in the world's largest market. Cupertino, California-based Apple this week posted a 38 percent surge in net income for the December quarter, while profit at Samsung slumped 27 percent. Global smartphone shipments in the quarter rose 31 percent to 380.1 million units, with the total for 2014 reaching a record 1.3 billion, Strategy Analytics said. Apple hasn't been the biggest vendor globally since the fourth quarter of 2011, according to Strategy Analytics. Shipments of all mobile phones, including those with limited Internet access, rose 7 percent last year to a record 1.8 billion units. Samsung shipped 405 million mobile phones for a 22.4 percent share, followed by Microsoft Corp.-Nokia Oyj with 11 percent. Apple was third with 10.6 percent. To contact the reporter on this story: Robert Fenner in Melbourne at [email protected] To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael Tighe at [email protected] Robert Fenner | 3 | 4,405 | finance |
CNN legal analyst Danny Cevallos explains how jurors get selected to sit on a trial -- and why it can take such a long time. | 5 | 4,406 | news |
CANONSBURG, Pa. A Pennsylvania candy maker is getting a big kick out of the New England Patriots' scandal over some deflated footballs. The (Washington) Observer-Reporter (http://bit.ly/1wzxQsz ) reports that Bill Sarris had his Canonsburg staff make a chocolate football with a big dent in the side. It's not for sale, but he posted it on Facebook as a joke. It's named the Bradie ball. That's B-R-A-D-I-E to avoid any legal issues. The picture's caption says, "Net weight 13 lbs ... Oops! We meant 11.2 lbs." The Patriots and quarterback Tom Brady have been accused of using underinflated footballs in the AFC Championship game. They play Sunday in the Super Bowl. Sarris won't explain how the chocolate got its deflated appearance. He says only, "You'll have to ask the Patriots how they did it." ___ Information from: Observer-Reporter, http://www.observer-reporter.com | 5 | 4,407 | news |
NEW YORK Langston Galloway and Lance Thomas are winning over fans and helping the Knicks win games. Maybe this is the start of Lansanity. BOX SCORE: KNICKS 100, THUNDER 92 Carmelo Anthony had 31 points and 10 rebounds, Thomas scored a season-high 17 points against his former team and New York beat the Oklahoma City Thunder 100-92 on Wednesday night. Galloway added 18 points and his fearless shotmaking had Anthony recalling Jeremy Lin, another unheralded player who made a big impact during the brief run of Linsanity in 2012. "Everybody loves the underdog story," Anthony said. Tim Hardaway Jr. hit three 3-pointers in the fourth quarter, finishing with 14 for the Knicks, who won for the fourth time in five games, representing nearly half of their nine victories on the season. "In this league everybody's a professional, so I feel like if you bring it then you have a chance to beat anybody in the NBA," Thomas said. "And with the effort we're putting forward, we're keeping ourselves in games." Russell Westbrook scored 40 points on 13-of-30 shooting for the Thunder, who were without Kevin Durant for a second straight game because of a sprained big toe on his left foot. "I just had to play my game," Westbrook said. "Tried to help us find a way to win the game. I didn't do a good job of that." Westbrook blitzed the Knicks in his return from injury in November, leading the Thunder to a 27-point romp. But behind players such as Galloway and Thomas, who weren't around then, the Knicks continued their best stretch of the season. Thomas was originally acquired earlier this month from Oklahoma City as part of a three-team trade with Cleveland, then waived and later re-signed. He is on his second 10-day contract and making a good case to stick around, as Galloway will after signing for the remainder of the season on Tuesday. "Lance plays hard. He plays every possession like it's Game 7 of a championship series." Thunder coach Scott Brooks said. "That's why he's in the league and that's why he's going to play another 10 years. When you have guys like that, you win." The Knicks had an 82-73 lead after Hardaway made consecutive 3-pointers, then fed Thomas for a basket. Westbrook scored seven straight to make it a two-point game, but Anthony had a pair of baskets before Hardaway nailed another 3 to cap a 10-0 spurt that extended it to 92-80. Oklahoma City would get it down to 95-90 before Thomas knocked down a jumper with 46 seconds to play. The Thunder didn't make another field goal. Westbrook had stretches of brilliance, including a 3-pointer just before halftime where he essentially landed on top of Galloway, believing he was fouled. But without Durant, the Thunder didn't have nearly enough balance and fell to 23-23. Perry Jones, starting in the league MVP's place, missed all five shots and was scoreless. Jason Smith had 11 points, 11 rebounds and six assists for the Knicks. TIP-INS Thunder: Center Steven Adams was chosen Wednesday to play in the Rising Stars Challenge at All-Star weekend. The New Zealand product will play for the World team against the U.S. in the game featuring rookies and second-year players. ... Oklahoma City opened a two-game trip after playing its only home game in the final two weeks of January on Monday. Brooks said it feels like the Thunder have been on the road since the new year. They will practice in New York on Thursday and visit Memphis on Saturday. Knicks: Besides his previous knee problems, Amare Stoudemire was also bothered by ankle and wrist injuries, coach Derek Fisher said. ... The game was originally scheduled to be broadcast on ESPN. It is one of eight Knicks games that have been removed from the NBA's national TV schedule. ANTHONY'S ACHES Battling knee soreness for much of the season, Anthony has said he would need to evaluate his availability for back-to-backs, but wasn't ready to do that after Wednesday's game. The Knicks play Thursday in Indiana. "I'll see tomorrow," he said. "When I get up I'll see how everything reacts and we'll go from there." UP NEXT Thunder: Visit Memphis on Saturday. Knicks: Visit Indiana on Thursday. | 1 | 4,408 | sports |
Sports Weekly takes an in-depth look at each major league organization during the offseason, from the major leagues to the farm system. We start with teams with the worst records and move up. *** After posting back-to-back playoff appearances, the Cincinnati Reds took a step backward last season, finishing with a 76-86 record and 14 fewer wins than they had in 2013. An offense that ranked 28th in scoring was a major reason why. So this offseason, improving the everyday lineup was the team's No. 1 priority. "We felt we needed a right-handed power hitter in the middle of our lineup," general manager Walt Jocketty says. "We were looking at either a player like that or a potential on-base guy to hit behind (leadoff man Billy) Hamilton." But to do it, the club had to clear payroll space. After trading starting pitchers Mat Latos and Alfredo Simon, the Reds were finally able to add that impact bat in veteran slugger Marlon Byrd. "We've had an interest in Marlon for a couple years," Jocketty says. "We just felt he would be a great influence on our younger players, not that much different than (former third baseman) Scott Rolen was when we brought him in a true professional who plays the game the right way and leads by example." Byrd, 37, hit a career-high 25 home runs last season for the Philadelphia Phillies. He gives the Reds something that has been in great demand this offseason right-handed power. At the same time, he strikes out frequently and won't do much to address the Reds' need to improve their on-base percentage after finishing 29th in the majors last season. If the offense is going to make significant improvement, the Reds will need first baseman Joey Votto and right fielder Jay Bruce fully healthy. A leg injury limited Votto to 62 games, and Jocketty said Bruce probably came back too soon from knee surgery, which led to career lows in batting average (.217) and home runs (18). With those two lefty sluggers joining Byrd, Hamilton and 2014 All-Stars Todd Frazier and Devin Mesoraco, the Reds are optimistic their offensive woes are over. The pitching staff revolves around ace Johnny Cueto, who finished second to Clayton Kershaw in the 2014 National League Cy Young Award voting after tying for the league lead in strikeouts with 242. But with four of the five starters from last year's rotation (including Cueto) entering the final year of their contracts, the Reds had difficult decisions to make this offseason. "We needed to create some payroll flexibility, so we could add a guy like Byrd and try to do some other things," Jocketty says. "We felt that we could probably run the risk of keeping a couple of them, but we felt it was best to do something with a couple of them now." The result was a pair of trades that shipped Latos to the Miami Marlins and Simon to the Detroit Tigers for a collection of prospects. One of them, right-handed pitcher Anthony DeSclafani, appeared in 13 games for the Marlins in 2014 and posted a 6.27 ERA in 33 innings. DeSclafani, 24, is the front-runner to fill one of the rotation vacancies, but he has only 591/3 innings of minor league experience above Class AA. Jocketty says the team is looking at lower-tier starting pitchers on the free agent market but will focus mostly on potential bullpen and bench upgrades. Closer Aroldis Chapman (36 saves, 2.00 ERA) is a given after striking out more than half of the batters he faced (106 Ks in 202 plate appearances) for a record rate of 17.7 strikeouts per nine innings. But his dominance only helps to illustrate the rest of the bullpen's shortcomings. The Reds led the majors with 38 one-run losses in 2014 as the other relievers combined for a 4.42 ERA. In the second half of the season, they were a collective 1-16. "The bullpen is a big concern because it really hurt us last year and cost us a lot of games we should have won," Jocketty says. The one wild card for the pitching staff could be 24-year-old right-hander Raisel Iglesias. Like Chapman, Iglesias defected from Cuba. But he isn't as advanced as Chapman was when he signed. By midseason, Iglesias could be an important addition, either as a starter or a reliever. *** POSITION-BY-POSITION (*prospect): Catcher: Turning full-time catching duties over to Mesoraco was one of the best moves the Reds made in 2014. Although he missed time early in the season, he led all catchers with 25 home runs and was named to the NL All-Star team. Veteran Brayan Pena alternated between catcher and first base last season and is a reliable option at either position. Switch-hitting Tucker Barnhart, 24, made his MLB debut last season and has shown a decent batting eye in his minor league career but has yet to display much power. Depth chart: Mesoraco, Pena, *Barnhart. First base: Votto, the 2010 NL MVP and four-time All-Star, had the worst season of his career in 2014, battling a leg injury that limited him to 62 games. He managed to get on base at a .390 clip, but his power was nowhere to be found. A healthy Votto in the order's No. 3 spot is critical to the Reds' success on offense both now and in the future. He's signed through 2023. Depth chart: Votto, Pena, Frazier, Donald Lutz, Josh Satin, Neftali Soto. Second base: At 33, Brandon Phillips seems to be on the downside of his career. A torn thumb ligament sidelined him for 33 games in the middle of the season. When he came back, he hit one home run over the entire second half and ended up with his worst season in a Reds uniform. If there was a silver lining to Phillips' injury, it was the job Kristopher Negron did filling in. He proved to be a capable short-term replacement, and the experience he gained at both second and third will make him a valuable utility man in 2015 possibly at veteran Skip Schumaker's expense. Depth chart: Phillips, Negron, Schumaker. Shortstop: Defensive metrics credited Zack Cozart with the best season of his career, but his numbers on offense were the polar opposite. His starting job could even be in jeopardy as a result. Eugenio Suarez, 23, came over from the Tigers in the Simon trade. Though he might not be as steady as Cozart on defense, he has shown extra-base pop in the minors. Depth chart: Cozart, Negron, * Suarez. Third base: Perhaps the brightest spot for the Reds on offense last season was the breakout performance from Frazier. He rebounded from a disappointing sophomore season to lead the team in home runs and runs and earn his first All-Star berth. Showing his versatility, Frazier stole a career-best 20 bases and also made 37 starts at first base while Votto was on the disabled list. Depth chart: Frazier, Negron, Satin. Left field: The Reds had a .233/.288/.339 slash line (batting average/on-base percentage/slugging percentage) and a major-league-low 51 runs from their left fielders last season. That's why the trade for Byrd was almost a necessity. He has enjoyed a late-career renaissance as a swing-for-the-fences hitter. Youngster Lutz and free agent signee Brennan Boesch will likely compete for a backup spot with top prospect Jesse Winker not far away. Depth chart: Byrd, Lutz, Schumaker, Boesch, *Winker. Center field: Hamilton won a starting job in spring training and was the front-runner for NL rookie of the year until he faded down the stretch. One of the fastest players in the majors, he can cover tremendous ground in the outfield and stole 56 bases out of the leadoff spot. However, his .292 on-base percentage must improve for him to be the offensive catalyst the Reds need. Schumaker's ability to play second base and center is an advantage in his bid to win the fifth outfield spot. Depth chart: Hamilton, Schumaker, Jason Bourgeois. Right field: A knee injury that required arthroscopic surgery in May took a toll on Bruce's power numbers as he failed to hit at least 20 home runs for the first time in his seven major league seasons. An offseason of rehab and recovery should help him rebound. Bourgeois, 33, can play all three outfield positions, but he'll have to hold off youngster Yorman Rodriguez, who made his major league debut in September at 22. Depth chart: Bruce, Bourgeois, *Rodriguez, *Kyle Waldrop. Starting pitchers: Cueto is coming off the best season of his career, one in which he led the NL with 34 starts and held hitters to a major-league-low .194 batting average. Homer Bailey had a torn flexor mass tendon near his forearm repaired in September but is on target with his rehab program and should be ready for the start of the season. Mike Leake has been a reliable No. 5 starter, but with the departures of Latos and Simon he'll move up to the No.3 spot. Shoulder issues ended Tony Cingrani's 2014 season in June, but he should be ready for spring training. The Reds also have a promising group of pitchers in the minor leagues and enough depth to trade one (Ben Lively) to acquire left fielder Byrd. Depth chart: RHP Cueto, RHP Bailey, RHP Leake, LHP Cingrani, RHP DeSclafani, LHP David Holmberg, RHP Dylan Axelrod, RHP Daniel Corcino, RHP Matt Magill, *RHP Iglesias, *RHP Robert Stephenson, *RHP Michael Lorenzen. Bullpen: Chapman is one of the majors' top closers, but his supporting cast led him down last season as the Reds finished 26th in bullpen ERA (4.11). Primary setup man Jonathan Broxton (1.80 ERA) was traded in July, so it will be critical for the Reds to find dependable arms for the seventh and eighth innings. Sean Marshall is returning from June shoulder surgery and should be ready for spring training. J.J. Hoover has a power arm (10.8 strikeouts per nine innings) but will need to regain his confidence after going 1-10 with a 4.88 ERA. One or more relievers could be added. Depth chart: LHP Chapman, RHP Sam LeCure, RHP Hoover, LHP Marshall, LHP Manny Parra, RHP Jumbo Diaz, RHP Pedro Villareal, RHP Axelrod, *RHP Iglesias. *** PROSPECTS TO WATCH RHP Robert Stephenson: A first-round pick in 2011 out of high school, Stephenson, 21, posted a 7-10 record and 4.74 ERA at Class AA Pensacola (Fla.), where he was one of the youngest players in the Southern League. He has a big-time fastball that can touch 100 mph, but his control was a bit erratic as he walked 4.9 batters per nine innings. He'll likely return to Pensacola but should soon move up to Class AAA. OF Jesse Winker: The organization's top hitting prospect, Winker batted .317/.426/.580 (batting average/on-base percentage/slugging percentage) with 13 homers at high Class A Bakersfield (Calif.) to earn a promotion to the Southern League. He started in left field for the USA in the All-Star Futures Game but saw his season end early when he injured his wrist in a car accident. He returned to lead the Arizona Fall League with a .999 OPS (on-base-plus-slugging percentage). Winker, 21, is expected to start at Class AAA Louisville but could reach the majors this year. OF-1B Kyle Waldrop: Added to the team's 40-man roster in November, Waldrop posted a combined .338/.385/.516 line for Bakersfield and Pensacola. He hit .300 in the Arizona Fall League while seeing action at first base after playing mostly in the outfield during the regular season. He has been slightly overshadowed by Winker as they've progressed through the minors together, but at age 23, Waldrop is a solid prospect in his own right. RHP Raisel Iglesias: Iglesias did not play in 2014 after defecting from Cuba, but the Reds have been impressed by what they've seen after signing him to a seven-year, $27 million contract in June. Iglesias, 24, throws his fastball in the low- to mid-90s. He also has a forkball and occasionally will alter his arm angle to further deceive hitters. A reliever in Cuba, Iglesias is projected as a candidate for the starting rotation, possibly at some point in 2015. | 1 | 4,409 | sports |
WE ALL SCREAM FOR ICE CREAM! | 8 | 4,410 | video |
Cristiano Ronaldo has been given a two-match ban for kicking out at an opponent during a La Liga game on Saturday. The Real Madrid star will miss the next two La Liga games against Real Sociedad and Sevilla but will be available for the derby against Atletico Madrid. | 8 | 4,411 | video |
By Steve Lassan Attrition and finding replacements are key parts of any college football offseason. A coaching staff may find answers through the junior college ranks for a quick fix, or they may feel comfortable with a replacement that's been on the roster waiting for his turn to step into the starting lineup. Regardless of how the player is replaced, all-conference and All-America talent departs every year, leaving big shoes to fill for coaching staffs at all 128 FBS teams. The Pac-12 has made significant progress in catching the SEC in overall conference hierarchy over the last few seasons and is one of the deepest leagues in the nation. However, all of the expected frontrunners have key personnel voids to fill in 2015. Oregon heads into spring practice looking for a replacement for quarterback Marcus Mariota, while each of the key contenders on the South Division have question marks to address on both sides of the ball. 5 Players Replacing the Biggest Names in the Pac-12 for 2015 Jeff Lockie, QB, Oregon Replacing: Marcus Mariota (2014 Heisman Trophy Winner) 2015 Year of Eligibility: Junior There's no doubt Lockie has the biggest shoes to fill of any player on this list. Needless to say, following a Heisman winner and replacing Mariota's production will be nearly impossible for the Ducks in 2015. The quarterback battle in Eugene is up for grabs, but Lockie has to have a slight edge based on his experience for the last two seasons as the backup. In his brief Oregon career (2013-14) Lockie has completed 29 of 41 passes for 264 yards and one score, while adding 32 yards and one touchdown on the ground. Although Lockie enters the spring at the top of the depth chart, the battle to replace Mariota is far from finished. Freshmen Travis Waller and Morgan Mahalak are expected to push for time, while sophomore Ty Griffin is eligible after sitting out 2014 due to NCAA transfer rules. Could the Ducks pursue a graduate transfer? Kyle Murphy, OT, Stanford Replacing: LT Andrus Peat (first-team All-Pac-12 in 2014) 2015 Year of Eligibility: Senior Stanford's offensive line has been one of the Pac-12's top units in recent years, placing a lineman on the first-team for all-conference honors for seven consecutive seasons. The Cardinal return four starters in 2015, but there's a huge hole to replace on the left side. Peat finished his career with 27 consecutive starts at left tackle and should be a first-round pick in the 2015 draft after leaving with one season of eligibility remaining. Murphy started all 14 games at right tackle in 2014 and is a candidate to flip to the left side to replace Peat. Murphy earned second-team All-Pac-12 honors in 2014 and will be counted upon to replace Peat, as well as be the lead blocker for a Stanford ground attack that averaged 4.4 yards per carry in conference games last year. Elijah Qualls, NT, Washington Replacing: Danny Shelton (first-team All-Pac-12 in 2014) 2015 Year of Eligibility: Sophomore Replacing Danny Shelton's production from the nose tackle position (93 tackles, 16.5 TFL and nine sacks) will be a tough assignment for coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski. Shelton was a key cog in a rush defense that held Pac-12 opponents to 125.5 yards per game in 2014. He was also selected to the Athlon Sports first-team All-American squad and earned first-team All-Pac-12 honors in 2014. Needless to say, Qualls has big shoes to fill in replacing the 339-pound nose tackle. In 14 appearances last season, Qualls recorded 13 tackles (two for a loss) and registered one quarterback hurry. The California native rated as the No. 116 recruit in the 2013 247 Sports Composite, and the Washington defensive line needs him to emerge as a force in 2015. Josh Rosen, QB, UCLA Replacing: Brett Hundley (second team All-Pac-12 in 2014) 2015 Year of Eligibility: Freshman A true freshman quarterback starting for UCLA? It's certainly possible next season. Brett Hundley capped a standout career with the Bruins by recording second-team All-Pac-12 honors in 2014. Hundley threw for at least 3,000 yards in each of his three years at UCLA and tossed 75 touchdown passes to just 25 interceptions. The battle to replace Hundley will begin this spring, with Jerry Neuheisel and Asiantii Woulard competing with Rosen for the starting job. Neuheisel has the edge in experience, but there's a clear talent edge to Rosen. The California native ranked as a five-star prospect and the No. 12 recruit in the 247Sports Composite and enrolled in time to compete in spring practice. How quickly can Rosen get acclimated to the collegiate level? If he picks up the offense this spring, there's a good chance he takes the first snap for the Bruins in 2015. JuJu Smith, WR, USC Replacing: Nelson Agholor (first-team All-Pac-12 in 2014) 2015 Year of Eligibility: Sophomore USC is pegged as the early favorite in the Pac-12 South , but for coach Steve Sarkisian's team to claim the conference title, the offense has to find a replacement for standout receiver Nelson Agholor. The first-team All-Pac-12 performer isn't the only loss for USC, as top end Leonard Williams also must be replaced. Both sides of the ball have key holes to fill, but Smith is one of the Pac-12's rising stars and caught 54 passes for 724 yards and five scores in his first season with the Trojans. The California native was a five-star prospect in the 2014 247Sports Composite and may play a few snaps on defense next year. Regardless of whether Smith is on offense or defense, he's one of USC's top playmakers and will play a key role in replacing Agholor. | 1 | 4,412 | sports |
The U.S. Air Force on Wednesday awarded a $383 million contract for more launch services to United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Boeing Co (BA.N) and Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N), bringing the total value of the contract to $4.08 billion. The Air Force said it was adding three pre-priced launches to the existing contract, including the launch of a National Reconnaissance Office satellite that privately held company Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, had hoped to win. The modified contract is due to be completed by Aug. 28, 2017, it said in a daily digest of major Pentagon contracts. United Launch Alliance said its "100 percent mission success record" with 92 consecutive launches made it "the unquestionable choice for reliable, affordable launches." SpaceX declined comment. SpaceX last week agreed to drop a lawsuit it had filed in a federal claims court under a settlement reached with the Air Force, which agreed to complete the process of certifying SpaceX for national security launches in an "efficient and expedient manner." Under the agreement, the Air Force also agreed to expand the number of competitive opportunities for launch services under the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program while honoring existing contractual obligations. Air Force officials have said they hope to complete the process of certifying SpaceX to launch military and spy satellites by this summer. (Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Chris Reese) | 3 | 4,413 | finance |
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Alex Ovechkin scored goals. Sidney Crosby lost faceoffs. Lots and lots of faceoffs. The latest Ovi-Sid showdown was a no-contest. Ovechkin netted twice to take the NHL lead in goals, and Crosby struggled mightily in his return from his latest injury as the Washington Capitals snapped a four-game losing streak with a 4-0 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Wednesday night. "That was more of the team that I'm used to seeing," said Capitals coach Barry Trotz, clearly relieved after a recent spate of too much finesse and too many blown leads. Ovechkin had a tip-in goal in the first period and then scored from his customary spot in the left circle with a one-timer on a power play in the second. His 29 goals are one more than Rick Nash and Tyler Seguin. Eric Fehr and Mike Green scored in the third, and Braden Holtby recovered from a mini-slump to get his fifth shutout of the season. But nothing was more jarring than the sight of Crosby lining up again and again in the faceoff circle and having the puck go the opposite way time after time. He lost 15 of his first 18 faceoffs and finished 17 of 24, a 29 percent success rate that is among the worst in his 594 NHL games. "I'm not sure what it was," Penguins coach Mike Johnston said. "But I know after the first period and partway through the second we were monitoring faceoffs and we weren't doing too well as a team on draws. Usually on nights like that it's help from your wingers on draws. It's not always the centers." It was Crosby's first appearance since receiving an injection last week to treat a lower-body injury that caused him to miss one game as well as the NHL All-Star game. Crosby didn't seem fazed much by the faceoff struggles. He said there are nights that "for whatever reason, bounces and stuff like that" don't go a center's way. "I thought we wanted to win them," he said. "It's a matter of executing it." The chief beneficiary was Fehr, who is getting more comfortable as a center and won 17 of 22 draws. When the teams met in Pittsburgh last month, both Crosby and Fehr were 7 for 18. "He got me pretty good in Pittsburgh," Fehr said, "so maybe just the home-ice advantage helped. ... I was confident in the circle today and felt good." The Penguins also played their third straight without franchise stalwart Evgeni Malkin, who also has a lower-body injury. Pittsburgh has lost five of six. Holtby had been the stabilizing force that helped the Capitals recover from a slow start to the season, but had allowed four goals in each of his last three starts. On Wednesday he was back to his reliable self, stopping 27 shots to blank the Penguins for the second time in a little over a month. Pittsburgh hasn't scored on Washington in 120 minutes this season. "You can't just keep saying there's more time left in the season. You want to fix these things as soon as they happen," Pittsburgh defenseman Rob Scuderi said. "I don't think it's certainly any time to panic yet, but we certainly would like to get our fingers on the problem immediately." NOTES: Ovechkin has 43 points in 37 regular-season games vs. the Penguins. ... The Capitals have earned a point in 10 consecutive home games. ... Looking to shake things up because of the losing streak, Trotz played Michael Latta after sitting the young center for nine of the previous 10 games. Latta's most noticeable contribution was a tussle with Steve Downie in a fight-filled third period. Andre Burakovsky was scratched for the first time since New Year's Day. ... Johnston said Malkin might return for next week's Canada road trip: "If he gets on the ice (for practice) this weekend, then we would plan on probably taking him out west." | 1 | 4,414 | sports |
LOS ANGELES When pet owners dress up their dogs in miniature white dresses and tiny tuxes, some believe the barks that signal "I do" reveal true puppy love. These animal lovers say their pooches can feel real longing for other pets, but experts aren't so sure. Most people agree a wedding is just for fun or charity when the groom is drooling and the bride's gown needs tailoring for her tail. After all, "you may now lick the bride" doesn't have quite the same ring to it. The doggy nuptials are gaining attention as Valentine's Day approaches and people find new and unique ways to pamper their pets. "Pet marriage or weddings are for people," said Dr. Bonnie Beaver, executive director of the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists and a professor at Texas A&M University's College of Veterinary Medicine. Owners host weddings because it makes them feel good, she said, though most get planned for dogs instead of cats. People can't know what dogs are thinking, but studies have shown they do experience emotion, Beaver said. "Fear is a classic example," she said. "But we don't know if they experience it as you or I would." Others say it's all about the animals even if that means the first dance is a walk around a patch of grass instead a waltz. "The weddings are for the dogs," said Adina Slotsky, the owner and CEO of Hollywood Pet Parties. Though birthday parties, dubbed "barkdays," are much more popular, she said. When owners plan doggy nuptials, aka "puptials," they can go all out. There are groomsmen and bridesmaids of every breed and even some people who get down on all fours flowers, music and a reception with food both people and pooches can enjoy, ranging from apple slices to baby back ribs with spinach. All pet weddings move quickly because of short animal attention spans. With all the distractions, dogs spend lots of time on leashes. A simple wedding costs about $300, Slotsky said. But it can easily grow to thousands of dollars if guests are plentiful, the venue is top-notch, the food is extravagant, a band plays and a florist creates centerpieces, she said. The most lavish pet wedding took place in New York in 2012 when Baby Hope Diamond, a fluffy white Coton de Tulear, married a poodle named Chilly Pasternak as a charity fundraiser. It was a ceremony for the ages, complete with limos, a $6,000 designer dress, a sushi chef, mixologist to create "puptails," florist, orchestra, wedding planner and parking valets. Ellen DeGeneres' pet food company furnished a dog food buffet. The event raised $158,187.26 for the Humane Society of New York and earned a place in Guinness World Records for the most expensive pet wedding. Everything was donated, and guests spent up to $10,000 for a table of 10. One thing pet owners don't have to worry about is divorce. But because animals have unique personalities just like people, there is no guarantee two animals will get along, Beaver said. No studies show pets like or love one another, but "it is very common for two or more individual animals to spend a great amount of time together and show signs of stress if separated," she said. But some stick by the belief that dogs love, including Carol Bryant, co-founder of Wigglebutt Warriors, the fundraising division of dog health website Fidose of Reality. "I do believe that dogs can love and be in love with each other," said Bryant, whose cocker spaniel married another dog for a company fundraiser. ___ Online: www.dacvb.org www.hollywoodpetparties.com www.fidoseofreality.com | 5 | 4,415 | news |
Kevin Egan breaks down Chile's 3-2 win over Team USA in Wednesday's international friendly match. | 1 | 4,416 | sports |
MELBOURNE, Australia Serena Williams weathered a barrage of big serves and heavy groundstrokes early and needed nine match points before beating Madison Keys 7-6 (5), 6-2 to set up an Australian Open final against second-seeded Maria Sharapova. Top-ranked Williams, bothered by a cold in recent days, dominated the second set of the all-American semifinal, breaking Keys' serve twice. The 19-year-old Keys, playing in her first Grand Slam semifinal, saved seven match points on serve in a penultimate game that lasted more than 11 minutes. Williams kept her cool, wasting one match point on her serve before closing with an ace to reach her 23rd major final. "She pushed me really hard the first set ... and I had to really dig deep mentally to get through that," Williams said, pausing to cough. "It was a little frustrating, I had like nine or 10 match points and couldn't close it out. That doesn't happen so much. She played like she didn't have anything to lose." Sharapova, who beat No. 10-seeded Ekaterina Makarova 6-3, 6-2 in an all-Russian semifinal earlier Thursday to reach her fourth Australian Open final, has lost her last 15 head-to-head matches to Williams. Her only two wins in their 18 career meetings were at Wimbledon and the tour-ending championship in 2004. "I think my confidence should be pretty high going into a final of a Grand Slam no matter who I'm facing and whether I've had a terrible record, to say the least, against someone," Sharapova said. "It doesn't matter. I got there for a reason. I belong in that spot. I will do everything I can to get the title." Williams, an 18-time major winner, is back in the final here for the first time since winning her fifth Australian title in 2010. And her semifinal win ensured she will retain the top ranking, regardless of the outcome of the final. The 33-year-old American said she was nervous at the start, and it showed. Keys broke her serve to open and dictated many of the longer rallies with her heavy ground strokes, forcing Williams to defend more than usual. Keys, who beat Venus Williams in the quarterfinals to reach a Grand Slam semifinal for the first time, had control until she was broken in the sixth game. She held in the 12th game, closing with an ace to force a tiebreaker, but quickly fell behind 4-1 with Serena firing two aces. She saved two set points with aces but had no chance of extending the tiebreaker when Williams hit another unreturnable serve, and started jumping for joy behind the baseline. Williams broke early in the second set and raced to a 5-1 lead before Keys held, denying victory for one more game the woman who inspired her to take up tennis. Sharapova needed 10 minutes to hold in her opening service game, fending off two break points, in the earlier semifinals. She responded to the only service break against her in the first set by winning six straight games and seizing control of the match from the 10th-seeded Makarova, who had only taken one set off her in five previous matches. Sharapova won the Australia Open title in 2008 but was comprehensively beaten in the championship matches in 2007, by then unseeded Williams, and in 2012 by Victoria Azarenka. The five-time major winner opened the 2015 season in confident style by winning the Brisbane International title but had a close call in the second round here, having to save match points against No. 150-ranked Russian qualifier Alexandra Panova. Since then, she hasn't faced a set point. "It's been a strange road for me to get to the finals, but I'm happy," said Sharapova, who is now into her 10th Grand Slam final. "Came from behind in a few, really behind in one saving match points. I felt like I was given a second chance. I just wanted to take my chances." | 1 | 4,417 | sports |
INDIAN WELLS, Calif. (AP) Defending champion Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal headline the field for the BNP Paribas Open in March, giving the tournament the top three men's players in the world during its 40th anniversary in the Southern California desert. Among the other men's entries are the rest of the top-10 ranked men's players: Stan Wawrinka, Kei Nishikori, Andy Murray, Tomas Berdych, Milos Raonic, Marin Cilic and David Ferrer. Two-time Indian Wells champion Maria Sharapova headlines the women's field, which includes Ana Ivanovic, Caroline Wozniacki, defending champion Flavia Pennetta, Jelena Jankovic, Victoria Azarenka, Daniela Hantuchova and Vera Zvonareva. Other top-10 women include Simona Halep, Petra Kvitova, Agnieszka Radwanska, Angelique Kerber and Dominika Cibulkova. The remaining spots in men's and women's draws will be filled by qualifiers and wild cards, which will be announced later. | 1 | 4,418 | sports |
By Craig Lyndall The tale of Trent Richardson gets stranger by the day. No, I'm not talking about him getting traded or his continual disappointment between the lines on an NFL field. I'm talking about his very standing in the league and with his current team, the Indianapolis Colts. Richardson missed the Colts' final two playoff games and all indications were that it was for "personal reasons," but it has since come out that the Colts suspended T-Rich for conduct detrimental to the team. One thing that doesn't seem in doubt is that Richardson missed a Saturday walk-through the day before the AFC title game. Everything else is mired in a fog that seems destined to end up in a fight between Richardson and the Colts. With the Colts claiming that they suspended Richardson for conduct detrimental to the team, they're also claiming that they can void the guaranteed final year of Richardson's rookie contract. That contract was once a fully-guaranteed four-year, $20.5 million deal. If the Colts are right and they get to void the final year $3.18 million Richardson will only have collected about $17.3 million of what he negotiated. And you can be sure that Richardson and the NFL Player's Association will fight the Colts on this. Richardson told Mike Wells of ESPN that he was dealing with a family emergency . "I had to miss walk-through," Richardson told ESPN.com on Sunday. "I'm dealing with a very serious family emergency. I'm still at the hospital. I wouldn't purposely just miss walk-through." Meanwhile, the Colts experienced some success using former Buckeye Daniel "Boom" Herron in T-Rich's place. I don't want to pretend like Herron was at risk of taking over in Marshawn Lynch fashion, but he scored two touchdowns, rushed for 170 yards and had almost 130 receiving yards over the Colts' three-game playoff run. Herron is a restricted free agent and I'm sure the Colts would love to use some of that Richardson money elsewhere. The Colts have some cap space available to them according to Spotrac.com , with just over $9 million to spend. At the same time, 2015 is the final year of Andrew Luck's rookie deal. The Colts have to start thinking hard about the salary cap because they're blessed with a quarterback who is going to be deserving of some serious money, at least in the realm of what Colin Kaepernick got with his six-year $114 million dollar deal that guarantees $61 million. For reference, that cap number is set to be in the $15-20 million range for the next five years. In a league with complex financials, including "rollovers," how much motivation to save that cap space is driving their suspension of Trent Richardson? If he was a player they wanted to keep, would they have suspended him? It's tough to say without knowing all the details, but it's safe to say NFL teams apply rules and standards differently to different players. From an outsider's perspective, it would seem Richardson's performance for the team warrants him none of that leeway. | 1 | 4,419 | sports |
Guest Sarah Chovncik provides details of a recent flight diverted by a bomb threat | 2 | 4,420 | travel |
By Jason Rowan A story from the halcyon days from the NBA's storied past has been dug up from the archives. What makes it so interesting is that it creates a historical context for the Deflategate controversy that continues to swirl around the New England Patriots and unfortunately has distracted from the buildup to what should be a fantastic Super Bowl. Current New York Knicks president Phil Jackson once related a tale from a time when he was playing for the team he now runs that is particularly compelling in light of Deflategate. It revolves around his admission that his Knicks teams in the 1970s a wild and crazy time, as illustrated by this photo of a nude Jackson in the locker room circa 1973 used to deflate basketballs before games to gain an edge. Jackson's comments were included in a Chicago Tribune article reprinted by the Bangor Daily News in December 1986. Phil Jackson, quoted in 1986, saying that championship New York Knicks teams intentionally deflated basketballs: pic.twitter.com/wJqAnC6fRQ Todd Radom (@ToddRadom) January 28, 2015 Jackson's recollection of the events about how the Knicks believed an under-inflated ball helped the height-challenged Knicks squads of the 1970s are as follows ( via the New York Post ): "What we used to do was deflate the ball," Jackson, a reserve power forward on the Knicks second and last title team, says in the story. "We were a short team with our big guys like Willis [Reed], our center, only about 6-8 and Jerry Lucas also 6-8. DeBusschere, 6-6. So what we had to rely on was boxing out and hoping the rebound didn't go long. "To help ensure that, we'd try to take some air out of the ball. You see, on the ball it says something like 'inflate to 7 to 9 pounds.' We'd all carry pins and take the air out to deaden the ball. "It also helped our offense because we were a team that liked to pass the ball without dribbling it, so it didn't matter how much air was in the ball. It also kept other teams from running on us because when they'd dribble the ball, it wouldn't come up so fast." While Jackson's comments regarding acts of questionably unethical acts of gamesmanship from a bygone era in a different sport may not change anyone's opinion about Deflategate, his recollection of those events certainly puts the current ball-deflating controversy in a historical perspective. Not only that, it demonstrates that players and teams have been trying to pull off tricks to gain a competitive advantage for ages. | 1 | 4,421 | sports |
(Bloomberg) -- Carl Icahn, one of Apple Inc.'s largest shareholders, said the iPhone maker's stock is undervalued after it posted record earnings, and said his $203 target price was too low. Icahn also suggested buying back more shares. "I don't recommend too many stocks unless I think it's a no-brainer," Icahn said Wednesday on CNBC. "Apple, I think, is one of the best buys in the last couple of decades." Apple reported a record $18 billion quarterly profit on Tuesday, fueled by holiday sales and the new, larger-screened iPhones. Shares of the Cupertino, California-based company rose 5.7 percent to $115.31 at the close in New York, the biggest daily gain since April 24. Icahn also said he had been too conservative on Netflix Inc., the top performer this year in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index, with a 30 percent increase. "Netflix has had a great almost oligopoly position," he said. "I wish I had bought more." Apple today is comparable with dominant companies such as Polaroid and Xerox decades ago, which traded at 40 to 50 times earnings at their peak, Icahn said in an interview with Bloomberg News. He likened Apple's valuation to investors ignoring the value of Nabisco after it was spun off by RJ Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc. in the 1990s. "A great deal of money was made by investors who bought Nabisco at that time and held it for only three to four months," Icahn said by telephone. "Companies as good as Apple eventually get to an equilibrium and find their way up," Icahn said in a phone interview. "When you find these -- and you can afford it and you have the staying power -- you must go in as big as you possibly can." Icahn told CNBC he bet conservatively on Los Gatos, California-based Netflix because of net neutrality concerns, referring to his October 2013 sale of more than half his stake. When the investor parted with 2.99 million Netflix shares, his son, Brett Icahn, 35, was one of the biggest critics. The younger Icahn and fund co-manager David Schechter revised their contracts so they would be compensated based on the performance of the shares even after they were sold. Carl Icahn, 78, is the 30th-richest person in the world, with a $23.8 billion net worth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. To contact the reporters on this story: Danielle Burger in New York at [email protected]; Beth Jinks in San Francisco at [email protected] To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Palazzo at [email protected] Rob Golum, John Lear | 3 | 4,422 | finance |
PHILADELPHIA Michael Carter-Williams got winded sooner than he usually does and had difficulty breathing well throughout the game. It didn't seem to matter. BOX SCORE: 76ERS 89, PISTONS 69 Carter-Williams had 14 points and 10 assists, Robert Covington scored 19 points and the Philadelphia 76ers snapped a six-game losing streak with an 89-69 win over the Detroit Pistons on Wednesday night. Carter-Williams, back after missing the Sixers' last game due to an upper-respiratory infection, finished one rebound shy of a triple-double. "I'm a little stuffed up, but as soon I was out there, all that really is blocked out," Carter-Williams said. "I got a little fatigued and (backup point guard Larry Drew) came in and did a great job." JaKarr Sampson had a career-high 13 points and Luc Mbah a Moute added 12 for the Sixers (9-37), who had six players score in double figures. Greg Monroe led the Pistons (17-30) with 20 points and 11 rebounds, and Jodie Meeks scored 19 on 4-for-16 shooting off the bench. Detroit shot just 2 of 20 from 3-point range in a matchup of slumping squads missing their top scorers. The Pistons have lost four straight, and three since leading scorer Brandon Jennings ruptured his left Achilles in a 101-86 loss to Milwaukee on Saturday. Before Jennings' season-ending injury, Detroit had won 12 of 15 behind the play of their star point guard. "We weren't ready to play," Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy said. "I don't think I've ever coached a game where one team's effort was that much better than my team's effort. I mean, it was a joke." Sixers guard Tony Wroten, who partially tore his ACL two weeks ago, said before the game that he plans to have knee surgery and will likely miss the remainder of the season. But playing their ninth straight game without their leading scorer, the Sixers held a comfortable lead throughout against the equally short-handed Pistons. Detroit tried to mount a comeback in the third quarter, slicing Philly's lead to 59-50 on five straight points from Jonas Jerebko. But Carter-Williams drained a big 3-pointer before Jerebko was posterized on a highlight-reel jam from Jerami Grant. The Pistons cut it to nine twice more early in the fourth quarter, but that was as close as they would come as the Sixers closed on a 17-6 run. "You try to teach these young guys to never take their foot off the pedal," Sixers coach Brett Brown said. "We have no right to be complacent at any point." The Sixers took control early, going on an 18-0 run to take a 24-4 lead with 5:39 left in the first quarter. Rookie K.J. McDaniels capped the spurt by picking off an errant pass by Anthony Tolliver and coasting uncontested down the floor for a thunderous dunk. Sampson, making his first start since Dec. 30, kickstarted the spurt with a 3-pointer. The undrafted rookie finished shot 5 for 6 from the field and finished with a career-high eight rebounds. "His energy, his toughness and athleticism really complemented the starting group," Brown said. The Pistons closed the first quarter on an 8-0 run to slice Philly's lead to 28-16, and Monroe hit two straight buckets inside to bring Detroit within 48-37 at the half. But the Pistons shot just 30.7 percent from the field and committed 17 turnovers in a game they were never in and one their coach would quickly like to forget. "It was embarrassing and humiliating, and I told them in there that I'm embarrassed as a coach that I did that poor of a job," Van Gundy said. "And if they're not embarrassed, they don't belong in the NBA." TIP-INS Pistons: Detroit has dropped four straight on the road, matching a season high. ... The Pistons missed two of their first 19 shots and 12 straight during one stretch in the first quarter. ... Detroit was 1 for 10 from 3-point range in both the first and the second halves. 76ers: Carter-Williams and Nerlens Noel were both selected for the Rising Stars Challenge during All-Star weekend, marking the second time in team history that Philadelphia had two representatives in the event. ... Philadelphia has won five of its last seven home games against Detroit. ... The Sixers shot 51.1 percent from the field in the first half. TRIPLE-DOUBLE SECRETS When Carter-Williams returned to the locker room, his teammates told him that he was only one rebound shy of a triple-double. The second-year point guard only wished they had told him sooner like during the game. "I didn't even know," he laughed. "They didn't tell me. It's crazy." RUNNING MEN The Sixers were well aware that the Pistons were playing their fourth game in five days, and they tried to use that to their advantage by running like crazy up and down the floor. "We wanted to turn this into a track meet as much as we could," Brown said. UP NEXT Pistons: Host Houston on Saturday. 76ers: Host Minnesota on Friday. | 1 | 4,423 | sports |
The top two seeds will meet in the 2015 Australian Open final, after No. 1 Serena Williams and No. 2 Maria Sharapova prevailed in semifinal action on Wednesday night and early Thursday morning. Down a break in the first set, Williams rebounded to beat 19-year-old upstart Madison Keys 7-6 (7-5), 6-2, reaching her first Australian Open final since winning the tournament in 2010. Williams, a five-time winner of the Australian Open (2003, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2010), has 18 grand slam singles titles in her career. Williams ended the impressive run for Keys, who advanced past the third round in a grand slam for the first time in her career. Keys, under the tutelage of new coach Lindsay Davenport who lost to Williams in the 2005 Australian Open final 10 years ago to the day beat No. 4 Petra Kvitova in straight sets in the third round then, despite a leg injury beat No. 18 Venus Williams in three sets in the quarterfinals. Keys fought off eight match points in the second set before finally succumbing. Sharapova beat No. 10 seed and fellow Russian Ekaterina Makarova 6-3, 6-2 in Thursday's first semifinal action, on Wednesday evening Eastern time. It is the first Australian Open final since 2012 for Sharapova, who is seeking her sixth grand slam title. She won the crown down under in 2008. "It's been a strange road to the final, but I'm happy to be here," Sharapova said after her semifinal victory . "Like every athlete, you question when you're going to be back, how and at at what level. I just hoped one day I would experience it again." Sharapova had three aces against Marakova, and won a phenomenal 26-of-32 (81.3 percent) of points on her first serve. Sharapova has lost only one set in the tournament, and has only dropped 15 games in her last four matches. Williams is 16-2 all-time against Sharapova, including 15 straight victories. The last time Sharapova beat Williams was in 2004, with Williams dropping only three sets to Sharapova in the last 11 years. This will be the fourth grand slam final meeting between the two stars. Sharapova beat Williams to capture the 2004 WImbledon title, her first grand slam championship. Williams prevailed in the 2007 Australian Open final and in the 2013 French Open final at Roland Garros. | 1 | 4,424 | sports |
Hearing her mother's return home, a 9-year-old girl emerged from her bedroom Nov. 21 to see her parents brawling. Her father, Terrence McCarthren, threw a cellphone and her mother, Alyssa Hogan-McCarthren, responded with a punch, the girl recalled later. She watched as her father and half-brother struggled over one of her dance-troupe trophies. The fight escalated and, as the little girl looked on, her mother stabbed both men before leaving her father to die in their home on Mable Butler Avenue in Orlando, prosecutors say. The girl's harrowing account is detailed among hundreds of pages of newly-released evidence in the case against Hogan-McCarthren, a pre-K teacher at Pine Hills Elementary School, who is charged with second-degree murder. Other than the accused, the records show there are only two eyewitnesses: the couple's 9-year-old, who described her father as the aggressor, and her half-brother, McCarthren's 18-year-old son, who faulted Hogan-McCarthren. Meanwhile, an interview transcript shows Hogan-McCarthren told police she never intended to stab anyone. "I was trying to get out the door. He was still blocking me. Still hitting me," she said. "And then I just looked at him and he was like, 'I'm bleeding.' And I could hear my daughter in the background... just screaming, 'Stop.'" Self-defense claim likely Hogan-McCarthren told Orlando police Detective Mike Moreschi the conflict with her husband that night began as a minor domestic squabble fueled by alcohol. En-route to a family member's house, she said, they began to argue and he demanded to be driven home. She obliged, then left for a while to let him fall asleep. She said she arrived home later to find him still awake, still angry. He ordered her to leave, but then blocked her way, she said, leading to a fight. Eventually, she armed herself with a large Mastercarver knife from the kitchen. "He continued hitting me," she said. "Even when I had the weapon, and I thought the weapon was going to ... you know how you scare somebody and say, 'OK, back up.'" Though both McCarthren and his son, who intervened in the fight, were wounded by the knife, Hogan-McCarthren told Moreschi she couldn't remember stabbing anyone. The son needed stitches on his arms; McCarthren's jugular and carotid arteries were severed by a stab to the neck. Citing her "inability to articulate a clear case of self-defense," Moreschi authored a second-degree-murder arrest warrant. Hogan-McCarthren's lawyer, Roger Weeden, said Wednesday he was early in the process of preparing his case, but "clearly it will be a self-defense argument." Richard Hornsby, an Orlando attorney and TV legal analyst, said her inability to remember the stabbing could make a self-defense claim "more difficult, because she has to establish that she acted in self-defense and it was reasonable." Violence in the family? In February 2012, Hogan-McCarthren filed paperwork for a restraining order, accusing her husband of striking her and sending dozens of abusive text messages, including at least one wishing her death. "I am very afraid of him and I don't know what he will do," she wrote. According to the newly released evidence records, she is not the first woman to accuse McCarthren of abuse. He was twice arrested in the late '90s, accused of battering a woman in a prior relationship, Daisy Lopez. At the time of one of those incidents, Lopez was pregnant - with the son who later tried to intervene the night McCarthren was killed. Hornsby said a history of violence by McCarthren against Hogan-McCarthren could support a "battered spouse" defense: the theory that long-term abuse caused her to fear for her life. Said Weeden: "Certainly, her state of mind is relevant to a self-defense argument, and prior domestic violence is certainly an issue." McCarthren's son and the couple's 9-year-old daughter could be key witnesses, and they gave conflicting accounts: -The 18-year-old told detectives he intervened after he saw his father grab a trophy. Crime-scene photos show it was a small, purple-and-gold trophy with a stone base, awarded to the 9-year-old for making the honor roll with her dance troupe. After the teen took the trophy from his father, he said Hogan-McCarthren approached from behind him and started stabbing. Moreschi noted, however, that the boy's wounds suggested he was facing his attacker. -The 9-year-old said the 18-year-old tried to break up the fight, but grabbed the trophy from McCarthren and "tried to hit" Hogan-McCarthren with it, at which point she said Hogan-McCarthren retrieved the knife. She said her father "started" the fight. In a summary of the girl's statement, Moreschi wrote that "it became apparent during her testimony she had witnessed previous acts of violence between her parents." The 9-year-old girl is the oldest of three children the couple share. Records show a judge on Friday formally granted temporary custody to an uncle, with whom they have been staying since the killing. [email protected] or 407-420-5171 | 5 | 4,425 | news |
Hear from Kyrie Irving after a stellar, 55-point performance against Portland. | 1 | 4,426 | sports |
No matter how many cool movies , music videos , or lightsaber simulators we see, virtual reality is still going to be a hard sell for the mainstream not only do the headsets look weird, they require you to actively block out the world and people around you. But Samsung might just have hit upon the perfect use case by hooking up with Australia's biggest airline; the Gear VR will be offered to first-class passengers on certain Qantas flights from mid-March, and in airport lounges a month earlier. The most socially acceptable VR location ever Think about it. Not only are airplanes and airports terrible places filled with strangers that you will feel absolutely no guilt whatsoever in shutting out of your life for all eternity, they're also maybe the only public location where it's socially acceptable to strap an opaque black mask to your eyes and zone out for several hours. I can't think of any other place in the world I'd feel less awkward wearing an Oculus Rift. Unfortunately, the entertainment lineup so far appears largely limited to first-person VR tours of the LAX first-class lounge, footage of an A380 landing, and sponsored content from tourism partners in Qantas destinations you won't be deflecting lasers in your seat just yet. (And, thinking about it, it might be kind of hard to turn around 180 degrees when you're forced to keep your seatbelt on mid-turbulence anyway.) But really, this is just the first step to an inevitable future where the brutal realities of long-haul travel can be virtually switched off in an instant. Bring it on. | 3 | 4,427 | finance |
Selena Gomez's friends are reportedly "a little bit wary" of her new romance with Zedd. The 22-year-old singer, who split from Justin Bieber last October after almost five years of dating, is "having fun" with the DJ, but her friends are worried she could get her heart broken again. An insider said: "Selena's friends are a little bit wary while remaining hopeful, but ultimately right now he is making Selena happy and he is not Justin Bieber so that's a good thing." The 'Rudderless' actress is "really happy" to be dating the Russian-German music producer, 25. The source told E! News: "Everything is going great with him. She is really happy and they are having fun." The pair, who are collaborating in the recording studio together, first sparked dating rumors when they were spotted holding hands at a Golden Globe Awards after-party earlier this month. Zedd - real name Anton Zaslavski - flew to Atlanta, Georgia last weekend to spend time with the actress while she shoots her upcoming film, 'The Fundamentals of Caregiving,' alongside Paul Rudd and Craig Roberts. The 'The Heart Wants What It Wants' hitmaker was also spotted signing autographs for fans who showed up to the set during a break. An eyewitness said: "At one point, Selena walked off set and interacted with her fans. There are about 16 young girls there, Selena was nice to each person. She took photos and said hi to them. She was really sweet." | 6 | 4,428 | entertainment |
CLEVELAND Kyrie Irving put on a spectacular show and LeBron James watched it from a front-row seat. Irving scored a career-high 55 points, breaking the arena record as James sat out with an injury to lead the Cleveland Cavaliers to their eighth straight win, 99-94 over the Portland Trail Blazers on Wednesday night. With James sidelined because of a sprained right wrist, Irving delivered a dazzling, tour-de-force performance. One day before the NBA names its All-Star reserves, Irving put an exclamation point on his resume. Irving, who scored 38 on Tuesday in a win at Detroit, made a team record 11 3-pointers and finished 10 of 10 from the free-throw line. He scored 24 of Cleveland's final 28 points and 16 of the Cavs' 20 in the fourth quarter. But it was his long jumper with 6.4 seconds left that shook Quicken Loans Arena. Irving buried a 3-pointer to break a 94-94 tie, then grabbed a rebound off a missed 3-pointer by Portland's Damian Lillard. And as many in the crowd chanted "M-V-P" and James danced near the bench, Irving dropped two free throws with 2.1 seconds remaining to seal the win. "It was a total team effort," Irving said, trying to spread praise to his teammates. James knew better. The four-time MVP politely declined to speak to reporters, saying the focus should be only on Irving. "This is his night," James said. No doubt. Irving, who missed his first seven shots, broke the previous arena scoring mark set by Allen Iverson on Jan. 6, 2001. His point total was also the highest in the league this season, bettering the 52 scored by Golden State's Klay Thompson and Minnesota's Mo Williams. Irving was at his best at the end of quarters, scoring Cleveland's last 11 points in the first, the final eight in the second and third and 10 of the Cavs' last 12. His final shot was magnificent in so many ways. Dribbling the ball on the right side as the clock ticked down, Irving froze 6-foot-8 forward Nicolas Batum with a move toward the basket before stopping and sinking his 11th 3-pointer. After the Trail Blazers called timeout, and as 20,562 fans screamed, James ran onto the floor and greeted his teammate with a chest bump. Batum felt he had done all he could to stop Irving. "He's so quick you don't want to get too close," Batum said. "You have to control the drive. I tried to contest the shot. I was on him, but he made a big shot." James sprained his wrist Tuesday, when he fell hard after trying to block a shot against Detroit. James reached out with both arms to brace his fall and said afterward he was scared after breaking his left wrist on a similar play while in high school. The team said an MRI revealed the sprain and that James is doubtful for Friday's game against Sacramento. Until he's ready, Irving can carry the load. LaMarcus Aldridge, playing his second game since deciding to delay thumb surgery until after the season, scored 38 to lead the Trail Blazers, who have dropped six of seven. Lillard added 14 on just 4 of 19 shooting and was unable to do much defending Irving. "He played great," Lillard said. "I've seen him get on streaks before, but usually they're mid-range pull-ups and nice layups, not 11 3s. He's in a good rhythm." Irving was nearly unstoppable in the first half. He scored 11 points in the final 1:39 of the first quarter, a mere appetizer for his scoring spree. He drove past Lillard for several layups and when Portland's speedy guard gave him some space Irving made him pay by dropping six 3-pointers. LOVE LOST Cleveland's Kevin Love had another off night. He shot just 3 of 15 from the field, missing his last 11 attempts. In the past two games, he's 6 of 26. Love left briefly in the fourth quarter after banging knees with Portland's Chris Kaman. TIP-INS Trail Blazers: Portland spent two days in Cleveland, arriving earlier than planned after Monday night's game in New York was postponed by the massive snowstorm in the Northeast. "I was glad we could get out of New York when we did," coach Terry Stotts said. "The travel could have been much worse. With the way the forecasts were, if we had played the game we would have been in New York for a little bit longer." ... Stotts said Aldridge's decision to delay surgery didn't surprise him. "He's been a consummate pro since I've been here," he said. "I like the fact he was very aggressive. He didn't shy away from contact. He didn't show any ill effects of the hand bothering him at all." Cavaliers: Once James returns, coach David Blatt intends to keep a close eye on the minutes he plays going forward. "We're doing our best to keep him fresh," Blatt said. "We will try not to overplay him in any game." ... The Cavs improved to 2-8 without James. UP NEXT Trail Blazers: At Atlanta on Friday. Cavaliers: Host Sacramento on Friday. | 1 | 4,429 | sports |
Speculation surrounds controversial case | 8 | 4,430 | video |
When vacation days are so limited the pressure is on to get the most possible enjoyment out of your holiday. Hotel rooms can be a make-or-break situation and you only have a few precious moments before you check in to secure yourself a quality pick. We asked the top travel bloggers what key questions help them snap up the best rooms. How far is it from the elevator? This depends whether you want to be in a quiet corner of the hotel or in the midst of the action. Knowing elevator distance also helps you register ease and speed of access to and from your room. When was the last time the room was renovated? Hotel renovations are done in stages. You don't want a room or area of the hotel that hasn't been touched in years. What is the view? In places like Hawaii this question is the difference between stunning ocean scenes and a dark room facing another building. You may have to pay a bit extra for a scenic view but make it a conscious choice rather than an unpleasant surprise. What floor is the room on? Rooms on higher floors are generally quieter and if a view is involved, normally it's more dramatic from a higher level. Can I get late check out? Most hotels want you out at 11am but many will let you stay a few hours extra at no charge if you ask beforehand. Just a few of the right questions can eliminate the majority of unpleasant hotel room surprises and secure you a winner. | 2 | 4,431 | travel |
Anthony Davis, donning a cowboy hat and a cigar, starred in a bizarre New Orleans Pelicans commercial. | 1 | 4,432 | sports |
Two high-ranking political advisors are calling on Beijing to start offering women-only subway cars during rush hour as a way to protect women from sexual harassment. Beijing city transport authorities said that so far there is no "specific plan" to adopt the proposal, according to the state-run news agency Xinhua, but the suggestions made to a Communist Party political committee could soon change that stance. China's capital is one of several cities around the world to consider women-only public transportation, but they should know that it's no cure: more than 100 years after the world's first gender-segregated transit option was introduced, women are still being harassed and groped more than ever often in the same cities that have introduced such policies. The biggest flaw in women-only transit options are that they "put the onus on women to keep themselves safe," as feminist writer Jessica Valenti wrote earlier this month. As Quartz has reported, the general compartment in the Delhi metro has started to become known as the "men's compartment," where women are targeted and harassed for not taking the designated female cars. This is a particular problem when up to 25% of the metro's daily commuters are female but only one of every eight carriages are designated as safe cars for women. In Beijing, women-only cars would be difficult to enforce in its increasingly overcrowded and chaotic metro system. The number of annual passengers jumped six-fold to 3.2 billion in the decade to 2013, making it one of the world's busiest subways. The idea of women-only transit option, no matter how ill-advised it might be, is still is a welcome departure from Beijing's previous approach: advising women to "not wear minimal clothing, such as miniskirts, hot pants or skimpy clothing when taking public transportation." But for the cities that have had women's only transportation options for years, there's little to suggest it has helped. A survey by Thomson Reuters and YouGov said last year ranked Mexico City, which has had women-only buses since 2008, Tokyo, where such trains were reintroduced in 2000, and Delhi, which introduced female-only carriages in 2010, as among the five worst cities for harassment. A better measure might be raising the penalty for sexually harassing women. China only enacted its first law prohibiting sexual harassment in 2005. It took three more years for anyone to be prosecuted: a manager who held a female employee by her neck while he kissed her received five months in jail. A change in attitudes toward sexual harassment might help even more. In July, a video capturing a man groping a woman in a subway car in Chengdu was circulated widely. In an interview with Chinese media, the woman who took the video blamed the assaulted female passenger for not speaking up. | 2 | 4,433 | travel |
Both Japan and Jordan are analyzing a newly released audio clip from IS regarding possible prisoner swap. Julie Noce reports. | 5 | 4,434 | news |
An inquest into the Sydney cafe siege has begun and aims to establish exactly how the hostages died and whether their deaths could have been avoided. | 8 | 4,435 | video |
NEW YORK Super Bowl advertisers are being careful not to offend. GoDaddy decided not to run an ad that showed a dog being sold online so as not to offend dog lovers. The Victoria's Secret angels are fully clothed in its teaser spot, at least, although they reveal more in their actual Super Bowl ad. And an anti-domestic abuse commercial will have a high profile-spot during the game after a year of domestic violence scandals in the NFL. Advertisers have to find a balance between grabbing people's attention and not going too far to shock or offend a broad base of more than 110 million viewers. They want to be sure to make the estimated $4.5 million they're spending for a 30-second Super Bowl ad worth it. This year, that seems to mean erring on the side of caution. "Companies are being more prudent," said MediaPost columnist Barbara LIppert. "It's also a very weird atmosphere with all the coverage about deflated balls and domestic abuse. Maybe advertisers want to be a little more careful in that climate." It's a far cry from the dot.com commercial attempts in 2000, when an E(asterisk)Trade ad showed a monkey in a garage and touted the fact that the company had just wasted $2 million dollars, but MediaPost's Lippert says it makes sense to be restrained. Even GoDaddy, which made its name with racy Super Bowl spots since it began advertising 11 years ago, has been moving away from being edgy; last year one of its Super Bowl ads focused on a woman running a small business. This year, they promised a warm and fuzzy ad featuring a puppy, spoofing a Budweiser ad from last year that also featured a puppy. But the twist at the end of GoDaddy's spot showed the puppy was being sold online via a web site created with Godaddy.com. After it debuted early, a social media storm erupted, with pet lovers finding the ad offensive. GoDaddy said late Tuesday it wouldn't air the ad. "At the end of the day, our purpose at GoDaddy is to help small businesses around the world build a successful online presence," said CEO Blake Irving. "We underestimated the emotional response." GoDaddy says it has another ad it plans to run. Wix.com, which helps people build web sites, has taken a lesson from GoDaddy. Instead of debuting as a Super Bowl advertiser with a racy spot like GoDaddy did when it was a new advertiser, Wix.com went for non-edgy laughs with an ad that shows retired football players coming up with funny fictional businesses. Brett Favre, for instance, invents a charcuteries business called "Favre and Carve"). Other companies appear to be playing it safer too by not focusing so much on bare skin and sophomoric humor. A Victoria's Secret 90-second teaser ad showed supermodels fully dressed as football players. The actual Super Bowl ad shows the models dressed in Victoria's Secret lingerie, though. And the NFL is airing a public service announcement from NoMore, a coalition of anti-domestic abuse organizations. The ad depicts a chilling 911 call from a battered woman to demonstrate the terror of domestic abuse. | 3 | 4,436 | finance |
MINNEAPOLIS -- The left-wing 3 felt perfect coming off Kevin Martin's trigger-happy fingertips. Swish. And a smile from Martin toward Flip Saunders on the Timberwolves bench. The next time down the floor, Martin pulled a classic Kevin Martin move, leaning into Boston's Marcus Thornton, drawing a chintzy foul and chucking the ball straight at the rim. In. This time, Martin strutted toward his teammates, puffed out his chest and slapped a couple hands on the sidelines before connecting on another 3 Minnesota's next possession. This time, Martin just trotted back down the floor -- business as usual. "Back off the shelf," Martin grinned before the Wolves' 110-98 victory over Boston on Wednesday at the Target Center. Martin returned to the lineup after a 35-game absence, but he wasn't fully back until the fourth quarter. That's when the 31-year-old, 11th-year vet went off for 12 of his game-high 21 points, including a nonet of them consecutively that helped secure Minnesota's eighth win of the season. Since Martin went down Nov. 19 with a fractured right (shooting) wrist, the Wolves (8-37) had tasted victory just four times. "It's a confidence level," said coach and president of basketball operations Flip Saunders, whose team snapped a 10-game home losing streak dating back to Dec. 10. "In this league, winning, a lot of it's trust. "Our guys know that K-Mart can make big shots. They know he's great at the free-throw line. They know he knows how to get fouled. All those things played in tonight in big-play situations." Said guard Zach LaVine, who had 17 points, six assists, four rebounds and three steals: "Big difference. He's a huge scoring threat." And LaVine's fellow rookie Andrew Wiggins, who notched half of his 12 points in the fourth: "That's K-Mart. That's what he does." What he does is give Minnesota, which still has the NBA's worst record, two of its three missing starters back. Nikola Pekovic (wrist, ankle) made his third straight start Wednesday, and Ricky Rubio (ankle) could be back by the end of next week, Saunders said. Like Martin, that pair had been out since November. "This is an emotional game," Martin said, "just seeing what your guys have been through in the past couple months, what people say about your squad and certain players. That's always a feel-good type of thing when you're a big part of a win." He wasn't the only cog, though. Despite missing Rubio and Mo Williams, who was out attending the funeral of a close friend and mentor, the Wolves got solid point guard play for 48 minutes -- a rarity since Rubio rolled his ankle Nov. 7 at Orlando. LaVine came out attacking in the third, scoring eight straight points to start the frame. That sparked a 15-3 Minnesota run after it trailed 49-48 at the break. The fourth belonged to Lorenzo Brown, who had just arrived in town and signed a 10-day contract with the team that drafted him in the second round in 2013 but waived him before the start of that season. In his first NBA game since March 4, 2014, Brown scored 11 points -- his first-ever double-digit outing -- and handed out three assists. He played the entire fourth quarter. "I've been on the road for like two weeks already," said Brown, who came straight from the NBA Developmental League's Grand Rapids Drive following that squad's seven-game road trip. "I'm a little tired, but it's nothing." Said Saunders: "Considering the guy went through just a walk-through today, he was great. We thought about putting Zach back in because he played so well, but offensively, we were flowing so well and getting the ball to people, we thought it was just best to go with what we had and let those guys try to finish the game." Starting alongside Pekovic for the third straight contest, Gorgui Dieng had 16 points and 14 rebounds for his 12th double-double. Pekovic scored 14 points, and Thaddeus Young and Andrew Wiggins finished with 12 apiece. The Celtics (16-28) kept things close with a series of 3-pointers, making 4 of 6 in the third quarter. Trailing by as many as 13, they'd cut it to 86-82 four minutes into the fourth before Martin "knocked some rust off" and took over. "I'm just a scorer, at the end of the day," said Martin, who averages 19.2 points per game since signing with Minnesota in 2013. "I can put the thing in the hole." Moreover, he's the kind of go-to guy the Wolves have been missing in another lost season characterized by young players' development and derailed by injury. There's a sense of opportunity setting in as the lineup regains health, albeit in piecemeal fashion. Rubio is still out indefinitely, and Robbie Hummel (broken finger) and Shabazz Muhammad (outer oblique strain) are both facing weeks out of the lineup. Williams has been battling some hip pain to boot. But 11,434 fans and a floundering franchise clinging only to future hope saw Wednesday what a more healthy, experienced group can do. "We're good with those (starters) back," Wiggins said. "It opens up so much more. They're vets. They've been in this game for a long time, so it makes things easier on all of us." Follow Phil Ervin on Twitter | 1 | 4,437 | sports |
BMW brought back footage of famed journalists Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel confused by the Internet, and as Mara Montalbano (@maramontalbano) shows us, gave them something else to be confused about with its new all-electric vehicle. | 8 | 4,438 | video |
How could you resist saying "I do" to these endearing efforts? Hurry Up, Lady "I don't get a treat until you say yes." Gonna Have to Share "If you do marry my daddy, don't you dare steal our snuggle time." Prior Confirmation The thought of picking out the ring alone was too stressful. Under the Sea OK, so dolphins aren't pets. But they sure are helpful! Balancing Act "Don't sneeze, don't sneeze, don't sneeze ..." Haz Ring for Hooman "Say yes and then we get cheezeburgers?" This Is How You Do It "OK, human. Just like we practiced." Look Closer "It's really romantic, I promise!" Just So You Know "We're a package deal." Puppy Bling "If you don't want this sparkler, I'd be happy to wear it on my collar." | 4 | 4,439 | lifestyle |
PARK CITY, Utah (AP) After the $40 million digital release of "The Interview," video-on-demand may seem like all the rage. Particularly for independent films, VOD is seen by some as a better pathway to moviegoers than trying to lure them to theaters. But many of the breakout hits at this year's Sundance Film Festival are still opting for a traditional theatrical rollout, even if filmmakers, stars and distributors see the tides changing down the line. For many distributors, the classic theatrical window simply still works. Magnolia Pictures President Eamonn Bowles is looking at a possible summertime theatrical release for Sean Baker's "Tangerine," the iPhone-shot film starring newcomers Mya Taylor and Kitana Kiki Rodriguez that follows a transgender prostitute and her friend over one Christmas Eve in Los Angeles. Day-and-date, in which a film is released simultaneously in theaters and on video-on-demand, doesn't make sense for "Tangerine," Bowles said. "If there's a film with a big star or a large amount of awareness or a genre that's familiar to people, those can be better day-and-date or VOD candidates. But for a film like this, where there are really no stars in it? You have to establish its credentials prior to going on VOD," he said. Bowles hopes a theatrical rollout will help "get the reviews and the features and people gushing about it to establish its credibility first." Michael Barker, co-president of Sony Pictures Classics, is also planning a traditional rollout for Sundance acquisitions "The Diary of a Teenage Girl," the '70s coming-of-age story with Kristin Wiig, Alexander Skarsgard and newcomer Bel Powley, and "Grandma," starring Lily Tomlin, but for different reasons. "For the movies we're pursuing, the VOD model doesn't really work," said Barker. "Can you imagine if we'd done day-and-date with 'Whiplash' as opposed to staying on the screen for five months? Staying on the screen for five months is what gives it that word-of-mouth that gets it the best picture nomination." The raised profile that comes with an Oscar nomination can also mean increased ticket sales and revenue streams down the line. "When the Academy Award nominations were announced, our box office gross was $6.7 million," said Barker of "Whiplash," which premiered at Sundance in 2014. "Since they were announced, the box office has boomed. This week alone, we're going to do $1.2 million or more in the box office and that is going to happen every week until and through the Oscars ... that would not be achievable if we did the VOD model," he said. Although Barker said Sony Pictures Classics has yet to have a film that is day-and-date, "we will eventually have one. It just doesn't seem to fit with the movies we've either acquired or made." Jeff Deutchman, vice president of acquisitions for Alchemy, believes there isn't a one-size-fits-all distribution model. "We think that you have to see a movie and figure out what the best release strategy is," he said. Alchemy acquired "Strangerland," starring Nicole Kidman, Joseph Fiennes and Hugo Weaving for a day-and-date release later this year. "It's a beautiful film that is going to be polarizing in a good way," Deutchman said. In other words, some people will want the theatrical experience for "Strangerland," and some will want to watch it in their living room. He thinks that although most filmmakers likely want a theatrical release, they're also amenable to hearing all options, thanks in part to "blockbuster success stories" like "The Interview," ''Snowpiercer" and "Veronica Mars." "Equally encouraging are some of the smaller success stories that have come out this year, with movies like 'The Babadook' and 'Elsa & Fred,' smaller films that both overperformed theatrically and on VOD," Deutchman said. The actors in Sundance films tended to think more about the consumer experience. "I am all about VOD. I'm a new mom. I don't leave my apartment," said Cobie Smulders, who has roles in both "Results," a rom-com about personal trainers (also a Magnolia acquisition), and "Unexpected." She did acknowledge, though, that nothing compares to collectively experiencing a film in a theater. "I think eventually everything will be released simultaneously on VOD and in theaters at the same time. I think we're headed in that direction. We're already there with a lot of films," added Brooklyn Decker, who has a bit part in "Results." Kickstarter CEO Yancey Strickler says filmmakers should be looking for alternative ways to release their movies. "The Internet is becoming more and more legitimized. A premiere with Vimeo or going straight to Netflix can have real meaning. I think those are very positive things," Strickler said. ___ Twitter: www.twitter.com/ldbahr | 6 | 4,440 | entertainment |
On the anniversary of the 1986 Challenger disaster, revisit Mike Pride's tribute to teacher Christa McAuliffe, who perished in the explosion. This story was originally published in the February 10, 1986, issue of Newsweek . In the journal I keep, the entry for July 20, 1985, begins: "Yesterday was an incredible day to be editor of the local paper." The day before at the White House, Christa McAuliffe, from my hometown, Concord, New Hampshire, had been named the teacher in space. Near the end of my journal is this quotation from her: "I think the students will say that an ordinary person is contributing to history, and if they can make that connection, they are going to get excited about history and about the future." Christa made the future space an area we covered in the small newspaper I edit. From before that July day until the moment she disappeared in a pink-white puff on the newsroom television screen, we helped her neighbors follow her odyssey. Last week we had a different job. There had been a death in the family, and we groped, with our readers, for what it meant. Christa made Concord proud. The people in our city saw in her the best that we have to offer. Concord is a family town, and it cares about education. A mother, a wife and a teacher, Christa spoke out for her profession. She was robust and confident; she played volleyball and loved the outdoors. She was a volunteer in a city that seems at times to be run by volunteers. She also taught what Roman Catholics used to call a catechism class. She let no one forget that when she was growing up, teaching was one of the few fields open to women. She was a role model, bringing home the message again and again: If I can do this, think what you can do. And she became a media darling. In front of a semicircle of TV cameras, she would describe deadpan how the shuttle's toilet worked. The people of Concord, of course, knew that Christa was not performing for the media. The camera didn't lie, and Christa didn't act. This was the real her. Whether she was waving Paul Gile's baton to conduct the Nevers' Band it dates back to the Civil War or chatting with her son's hockey teammates at Everett Arena, she was the same vibrant, positive person the rest of America saw on TV. Crazy About Christa It is assumed in our society that people who capture the nation, as Christa had, go on to fame and fortune. Those who knew her best knew that Christa had no such intention. She would have used her celebrity to advocate causes she believed in, but she could hardly wait to get back to her classroom at Concord High. She had chosen the profession and chosen Concord, and her selection as teacher in space had done nothing but affirm those choices. If Christa liked Concord, Concord was crazy about Christa. It made her the grand marshal in a parade. It gave her a day. Her high school sent her off to Houston with a banner that read, "Good luck from the Class of '86...Mrs. McAuliffe.... Have a blast!" A committee made big plans for her homecoming. New Year's Eve, the city featured ice sculptures of rocket ships and stars on the New Hampshire State House lawn. Bob Hohler, our paper's columnist, became Christa's shadow, sending back dispatches from Washington, Houston and, finally, Cape Canaveral. Her beaming face graced our front page countless times, floating weightless during training, dwarfed by the Challenger before an earlier launch, grinning with her husband, Steve. Her story always seemed too good to be true, and too American. No one is really the girl next door. No one rides in a parade down Main Street on a bright, sunny Saturday afternoon. No one equates a modern venture with the pioneers crossing the plains in Conestoga wagons. In a journal I keep, the entry for January 28, 1986, begins: "What a tragic day for Concord." Tears have flowed in my city for days long, wearying days. Words have flowed, too, in verse, in letters to the editor, on radio talk shows. Intense and Personal All the media people who have interviewed me and others at the newspaper want to know how it feels here. Our pain is more intense and personal, I tell them, but we know we are not alone; nearly everyone I know was consoled by a call from someone. Ordinary people, the kind McAuliffe's mission had intended to reach, have called from out of the blue. One man in Alberta, Canada, told me that his family felt terrible and needed to speak with someone here because if they felt that bad, we must feel much worse. I thought at first that Christa's death would be hardest on the children. They had learned all about the shuttle, and in an age without heroes, they had found one in her. Most had witnessed the dreadful moment. Yet times like these remind us that children are resilient. Age robs us of the instinct to go forward without a backward glance. I even suspect now that we have tried too hard to make our children feel what we want them to feel. It is the adults in Concord who still have swollen eyes and stricken looks. They comprehend what was lost, and what was lost was a part of them. It is not a myth to say that everyone in town knew Christa. She was easy to meet, easy to talk to. Even those who never had the chance felt as though they had. Since we picked up Christa McAuliffe's trail, our town has traversed from the green, fertile days of midsummer to the cold heart of winter. The subtle daily changes of nature have played tricks on us; sometimes, at this time of year, it can seem as if summer might never come again. Many people have compared Christa's death with the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the inspiration of her youth. There are differences, but for the people of Concord even for the nation as a whole the comparison is valid. She stood for what was best in us at a time when we wanted to believe that the American spirit was reborn. That makes her death hard. | 5 | 4,441 | news |
After launching on iOS to much acclaim in 2013 , the dark and wonderful Badland has since made its way to all the major mobile platforms you can even pick it up for your BlackBerry. Two years later, the game is expanding to even more devices, and soon you'll be able to play it on your big screen as Badland makes its way to just about every console out there. "We always wanted to bring Badland on to the consoles, but that required more resources," says Frogmind COO Teemu Mäki-Patola. "Thanks to its success on tablets we can finally make that dream a reality." No specific release date has been announced you can expect to see the game on consoles this spring but it's coming to a huge range of platforms. That includes the PS3, PS4, Vita, Xbox One, and Wii U, along with Windows, Mac, and Linux via Steam. At first glance, it might not seem like the most natural fit: one of Badland 's defining characteristics is that it's designed to work perfectly with a touchscreen. "It wasn't the easiest thing, but it needed to be done." In the game, you guide a strange, flapping creature through a dark alien world using just one finger, tapping the screen to keep it in the air and out of danger. Badland is one of those games that just feels right on your smartphone. According to Mäki-Patola, the new big-screen version officially dubbed Badland: Game of the Year Edition has expanded controls that let you do a lot more than just float; now you can move backwards and even control your speed. "This type of control felt best to us, but it broke a lot of puzzles and levels that depended on the player being able to do less," he says. "The solution was to modify every level in the game to accommodate the more expressive control scheme and that's what we ended up doing. It wasn't the easiest thing, but it needed to be done and it was worth it." The console version also features local multiplayer and co-operative modes, for a total of nearly 15 hours worth of gameplay across 100 different single-player levels, 100 co-op missions, and more. While we've seen plenty of console games eventually get ported to mobile , it's less common for games to move in the other direction and aside from a few big names like Threes , mobile-to-console ports haven't seen much success. Mäki-Patola is hoping that the deeper controls and additional content will make the game feel like something meant for your television, and not just another forgettable mobile port. "It is a surprisingly big game," he says. "If you saw the console version first, you would not suspect that it wasn't initially made for [mobile]." | 5 | 4,442 | news |
A grandfather who raped his 11-year-old granddaughter and got her pregnant has been sentenced to 200 years in prison. Mikeal Shane Pruett, of Stevensville, Mont., also molested the girl's younger sister. A judge sentenced him to 100 years each on two incest charges. Ravalli County District Judge Jeffrey Langton said the 55-year-old man had little potential for rehabilitation because he had a history of being a sexual predator, according to WTVR-TV . "You seem to lack any semblance of a conscience," the judge said last week, the Missoulian reported. The girl gave birth in August. She told child welfare authorities that her grandfather had prompted her to say she had a boyfriend who was responsible for her pregnancy. She didn't know she was pregnant until a doctor diagnosed her at 32 weeks, she said. "I didn't know what pregnant felt like. So I didn't know," she told child advocates. She also said she had seen her grandfather molest her sister at age 9. | 5 | 4,443 | news |
Launched on Wednesday, the government website, which has the subtitle "Act against terrorism," says it aims to provide an informative and preventative means to "demystify the process of sectarian indoctrination." "We must educate young people about this. It's a way to protect the youth and others," said Minister of the Interior Bernard Cazeneuve on Wednesay. The French government estimates that some 1,300 French nationals are currently working in jihadist sectors in Syria and Iraq or plan to join them. 'Unhealthy interest' Sections featured on the website include "Understanding the terrorist threat" and "Decrypting jihadist propaganda," as well as advice to young people about ways of spotting early signs of an unhealthy interest in jihadism. In an attempt to bring down the arguments of Jihadist recruiters, the website also introduces common slogans from jihadist propaganda along with counterarguments from the French government. A two-minute video on the site shows scenes of jubilant fighters celebrating in Syria or Iraq, which are interspersed with images of the harsh reality of the conflict in Syria and Iraq. Black and white images emblazoned with the words warning of "hell on earth" show men being crucified, thrown over a cliff and dragged along behind a truck. "They tell you: 'Sacrifice yourself to us, you will defend a just cause.' In reality you will discover hell on earth; you will die alone, far from home," warns the video. "They tell you: 'Join us and come help Syrian children.' In reality you will be an accomplice in the killing of civilians." 'We hope it will shock them' The launch of the website on Wednesday came just three weeks after attacks by home-grown jihadists in Paris at the headquarters of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a Kosher supermarket. Over three days, 17 people were killed. "We will broadcast this video widely on social networks in order to reach the maximum number of young people vulnerable to these calls. We hope it will shock them," head of the government's communications department Christian Gravel told AFP news agency, adding that the site also "offers solutions and help for young people, their families and their friends." ksb/gsw (AFP) | 5 | 4,444 | news |
We've got nothing against bold smoky eyes (in fact, we're quite for them), but sometimes it's nice to look like you really were born with it. "It" in this case, being big, beautiful, Disney princess eyes. Here, four steps to making your eyes look bigger in a supersubtle way (as told by Sophia Panych in the February issue of Allure ). Skip the beige shadow. "Smooth foundation over your lids instead," says makeup artist Diane Kendal. "It already matches your skin tone, and the point is to make your eyes seem larger without looking as if you're wearing makeup." Enhance the creases. They're naturally darker than your lids, so brush on a color that's a smidge deeper than your skin tone. Cool light taupes look good on pale skin (try NYX Nude Matte in Bare My Soul ). Medium browns (like L'Oréal Paris Studio Secrets Singles in Smooth Latte ) are perfect for olive skin. And espresso is ideal for dark skin (we like Maybelline New York Eyeshadow Singles in Made for Mocha ). Line your eyes. Run an angled eyeliner brush over the tip of an eyeliner pencil, then press it along the roots of your upper lashes. Make three dots along your lower lash line and smudge them together with a cotton swab. Go with a brown pencil if your skin is fair to medium (try Wet n Wild Color Icon Kohl Eyeliner in Simma Brown Now ) or a black-brown shade if your skin is dark (try Urban Decay 24/7 Glide-On Eye Pencil in Demolition ). Wiggle lengthening mascara into just the roots of your lashes. If your lashes are pale, don't stop there; brush one coat through to the tips. Make everyone think your brows are that good. Comb on a tinted brow gel, like Benefit Gimme Brow, focusing the most color on your arches (where brows are naturally darkest). Like Allure on Facebook and get more beauty news and daily tips in your feed. | 4 | 4,445 | lifestyle |
By now we're all familiar with no-makeup makeup. We saw it at more than half of the spring 2015 fashion shows, with a few designers taking it to the extreme and sending models down the runway with literally no makeup. Let's get real, though. Appearing as if you're not wearing a speck of makeup isn't the same as not wearing a speck of makeup. Especially if you're not a 16-year-old Eastern European who won the genetic lottery. When I leave the house without anything on my face, I look pretty rough. Like, I-just-raged-all-night-with-a-bottle-of-tequila rough. (OK, maybe not that bad, but you get the picture.) The right tricks, however, can make you look like you rolled out of bed with flawless skin, bright eyes, and naturally rosy lips. Lucky for you, we've got them all right here. Start fresh. "This look is 50 percent makeup, 50 percent skin care, because well-hydrated skin looks so luminous," makeup artist Tom Pecheux once told me backstage at a Balmain show. And Pecheux's prep routine is no joke. He starts by massaging the skin with a few drops of Rodin Olio Lusso, followed by a serum and a classic moisturizer. It sounds crazy, but there's actually a method to his madness: Dermatologists say layering multiple skin-care products traps more active ingredients against your skin, so every product you use works better (which means better-looking skin). Even things out. Before you reach for the foundation, try a primer with a hint of pink for fair skin (like Maybelline New York Instant Age Rewind Primer ) or lavender for medium to dark skin (such as Clinique Superprimer for Sallowness ). If redness is your problem (like me) go for a green-tinted primer (I use Make Up For Ever HD Microperfecting Primer in Green ). If you're in your 20s, a thin layer all over may be all you need. If you're old enough to no longer get carded, you'll still be able to wear less foundation if you start with primer. Use foundation as concealer. Since foundation is more sheer than concealer, it will give you coverage without looking too makeup-y. "Smooth a dot or two under your eyes and around your nostrils," says makeup artist Susie Sobol. Then blend it around the inner corners of your eyes, where the bridge of your nose can cast shadows. If the idea of going out with this little makeup gives you a panic attack, put one more drop of foundation on your sponge or fingertip and press it over any areas that need more coverage. "The dabbing motion adds more pigment than spreading," says Pecheux. Glow, don't flush. If your skin is normal to dry, go for a cream blush without any shimmer. If your skin is oily, use powder blush and a domed, densely packed brush. Either way, look for a muted pink or berry tone that looks a little dull in the pot. Trust us, on your skin it's the best option. Choose a pinkish-nude for fair skin (like Aerin Multi Color for Lips and Cheeks ), a coral-brown for olive skin (try Stila Convertible Color in Camellia ), or a deep burgundy for dark skin (we like Bobbi Brown Pot Rouge in Chocolate Cherry ). In a pinch, you can always swirl blush and matte bronzer together to create a more natural-looking shade. Rethink highlighter. Pick cream over powder; the latter tends to look chalky. Choose champagne for fair skin, gold for olive skin, or copper or bronze for dark complexions. Spread it over your cheekbones with your fingers, then brush a light layer of translucent powder on top a trick makeup artist Pat McGrath uses to make skin look dewy, not shimmery. If that sounds like a lot of work, tap a clear balm over your cheekbones. "It reflects the light and creates a pretty glow without any sparkle or color," says makeup artist Lucia Pieroni. Don't forget your lips. A sheer tinted balm, like Smith's Rosebud Salve, is the easiest way to boost your natural lip color. But if your lips are naturally quite pale, try a sheer lip crayon or a lipstick a touch darker than your natural lip color. However, don't apply lipstick straight from the tube. It will look too intense when you want to look bare-faced. Instead, swipe a finger over the top of the bullet and press the color on your mouth. Like Allure on Facebook and get more beauty news and daily tips in your feed. | 4 | 4,446 | lifestyle |
General Motors Co (GM.N) on Wednesday said it does not plan to extend a Jan. 31 deadline to file claims in its faulty ignition switch compensation program, rejecting pleas from two U.S. senators to extend the cutoff. GM in a statement said it had already extended the deadline once to Jan. 31 and does not plan to make another extension. As of Jan. 23, the compensation program had received 3,068 claims. The head of the compensation fund has determined that 50 of the claims for deceased people have been found eligible for compensation. GM has recalled 2.6 million cars due to defective ignition switches that have been the subject of several Congressional hearings and numerous lawsuits. Two senators, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Edward Markey of Massachusetts, who have been most vocal in criticism of GM, on Wednesday sent a letter to GM Chief Executive Mary Barra urging her to extend the deadline. In that letter, the senators said they wanted GM to extend it to allow the U.S. Department of Justice to complete its investigation over possible criminal conduct in GM's handling of the ignition switch defect. The rejection is another step in GM's efforts to put the issue behind it. In a statement, GM said, "We have conducted extensive outreach about the program and contacted more than 5 million current and former owners of the recalled vehicles." | 3 | 4,447 | finance |
If Facebook were a country, it would be the most populous nation on earth. The huge social network said Wednesday that 1.39 billion people log in to Facebook each month to scroll their News Feeds, communicate with friends and look at photos. That's more than the entire population of China , the world's most populous country, which the CIA last estimated to have 1.36 billion people. The comparison to China is somewhat ironic, since Facebook is largely blocked there . But that didn't stop Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg from visiting last fall, where he met with Chinese business executives and conducted an interview in Mandarin. Although Facebook's user base is still expanding, growth has slowed in recent quarters because there simply aren't as many people left to join the site. Data for chart courtesy of Statista . That's one of the reasons Zuckerberg has been pushing Internet.org , an initiative backed by a handful of tech companies, including Facebook, Samsung, Ericsson and Qualcomm, that aims to get Internet access to the two-thirds of the world not yet online. Facebook reported revenue of $3.85 billion for the three months ending in December, up 49 percent over the same period last year. The company's stock is trading at $76.24, up nearly 22 percent over the last 12 months. | 5 | 4,448 | news |
PHOENIX Marshawn Lynch can be funny, engaging, even chatty. When it suits his purposes, that is. Lynch's standoff with the media has become the cause celebre of Super Bowl week. He does the five minutes that's required every day of him, giving the same answer to every question Wednesday's phrase of choice was "You know why I'm here" and the Seattle Seahawks give him their full support. The Seahawks say Lynch is "uncomfortable" in the media spotlight. They say he feels like a zoo animal with all those eyes on him, and reporters just waiting to bait him into saying something that will get blown out of proportion. Perhaps the Seahawks should sell "Free Marshawn" T-shirts, or hold a fund-raiser for him. That way Lynch could blow off his obligations without fear that the NFL is going to take more of his money. "He's trying to do the best job he can of being him, and maybe you don't feel that that's what he should do, but that is what is going on," coach Pete Carroll said. "I understand that people would like to see him do different things. He's not comfortable with that, so that's what he's telling you. He's doing it exactly the way he knows how to do it best. "He's an incredible team member," Carroll added. "This environment just isn't one that you get to see him in the way you want to see him." What Carroll failed to mention is that media duties are part of Lynch's contract. He is getting paid for these daily sessions with the NFL media, same as he got paid to do fake interviews in his new Skittles and Progressive commercials. Therein lies the hypocrisy of Lynch's shtick: If he's so uncomfortable, shy away from all forms of public attention. But he wouldn't dare shut out his sponsors. Whether Lynch likes the media, or vice versa, isn't the point. Nor is the fact that most of the public probably doesn't care. Even in an age when Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and individual websites have made players seem more accessible than ever, it's their interview sessions and day-to-day dealings with reporters that give a window into who these guys are off the field. New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick is a well-known curmudgeon, and the three-ring circus that is media day can't be high on his list of favorite activities. But his hour-long session showed a much different, far more likeable side. He wore flip-flops. He admitted to being a Home Alone fan -- the original AND the sequel. He let it be known that he golfs and he's played Pebble Beach. They're small details, but they humanize the people who are on the field and along the sidelines. They give a face to players who are normally hidden behind helmets. They provide a connection to fans you know, the folks who keep this money mint running at full speed. Seahawks owner Paul Allen may sign Lynch's paycheck, but it's the fans who buy his jersey and Beast Mode gear. Shell out hundreds to watch him play. Support the companies who sponsor him, his team and the NFL. Pay the subscription fees for DirecTV and NFL Network. And on and on. Lynch said last year that he didn't like talking because the NFL was forcing him to do it, making his silent act seem more like an act of civil disobedience. "If you're forced to do something, it's not as good as if you choose to do it," Lynch told NFL Media before last year's Super Bowl. "When you're forced to do something and you know it, it kind of just takes away from the whole experience of what it could be if (it were) natural." But there are aspects of all of our jobs that we don't like, and we do them anyway because we have to. I'm sure Lynch doesn't like sitting through endless hours of meetings, either, but we don't see him skipping out on those. The funny thing is there are athletes in other sports who would love to have Lynch's spotlight, even for one day. But the NFL has become so big that Lynch and some others have lost sight of the people who made them the stars and millionaires that they are. Lynch doesn't owe the media anything. But he does owe the fans, and they deserve better than the silent treatment. Follow Nancy Armour on Twitter @nrarmour . | 1 | 4,449 | sports |
US online giant Amazon announced plans Wednesday to offer a cloud-based email and calendar service to directly compete with Microsoft Outlook and others. The service dubbed Amazon WorkMail "enables users to send and receive email, manage contacts, share calendars, and book resources using the same email applications they use today" including Outlook and services like Google Apps. The service appears aimed at corporate customers that currently pay for Microsoft Outlook or other services. Amazon, offering the service through its cloud unit Amazon Web Services, will charge $4 per user per month and include 50 gigabytes of mailbox storage for each user. The service may also be bundled with Amazon WorkDocs, a file storage service previously known as Zocalo. The service "is fully compatible with Microsoft Outlook, and customers can quickly integrate Amazon WorkMail with their existing corporate directory, choose encryption keys, select the location where they want their data to reside, and pay only for the mailboxes they create," Amazon said in a statement. "Customers have repeatedly asked us for a business email and calendaring service that is more cost-effective and simpler to manage than their on-premises solution, more secure than the cloud-based offerings available today, and that is backed by the same best-in-class infrastructure platform on which they're reliably running so many of their current (and future) workloads," said Peter De Santis, vice president at Amazon Web Services. "We built Amazon WorkMail to address these requests and to help businesses achieve agility and cost savings." | 3 | 4,450 | finance |
It's hard work to sell 30 seconds for $4.5 million. But NBC says it overcame a "challenging ad sales marketplace" to sell all available slots during Super Bowl XLIX on Wednesday. The three networks with NFL deals alternate hosting the big game and typically hold some spots back to the last minute when scarcity drives higher prices. Seth Winter, the executive vice president of advertising sales for NBC's sports and media group told reporters Wednesday that all available ad units for the Super Bowl telecast and postgame had been sold out, and that only a handful of units remained for the pregame coverage. Winter added that all digital ad inventory had been sold as well. "This was not the easiest exercise I've ever been through," Winter said. Fifteen first-time advertisers will have spots air during the big game this year, the highest total since 2000, when 19 newcomers, many of them Silicon Valley startups like Pets.com, debuted spots. This year, some of the new advertisers, including the adhesive brand Loctite and the foot cream brand Jublia , have been the source of media intrigue . "I don't look at Loctite or Jublia as anything other than a premium advertiser," Winter said. Both brands certainly had money to spend. NBC's asking price was $4.5 million per 30 seconds of air time this year, a not-insignificant increase from the $4.2 million advertisers paid in 2014. Last-minute advertisers are more likely to pay full-freight, while returning advertisers or those buying many spots would get a discount. Winter told reporters that the network had not been forced to lower its price point. "We've been able to maintain the premium pricing we set out to," he said. Digital growth Eighteen of the advertisers that bought airtime during the game also opted to buy digital ads that will appear on NBC's livestream. Winter told reporters that NBC more than tripled the amount of digital revenue it generated in 2012, the last time the network broathe Super Bowl. Though Winter enthusiastically pointed out that NBC had sold out all of its digital inventory for the game, he declined to get into specifics about how many units he had sold, what they cost, or how much total revenue the digital ads had generated, saying only that they had amassed an amount in the eight figure range. "The issue is how many people are watching the stream," Winter told reporters. "We can't monetize it in the same manner as we could on-air." NBC begins its coverage of Super Bowl XLIX at 12:00pm, on Sunday, Feb. 1. | 3 | 4,451 | finance |
Our spy photographers caught a glimpse of the third-generation Pilot testing on city streets before its big debut at the Chicago auto show next month. What a difference seven years makes. The new Pilot sports a much rounder body than its blocky predecessor, which debuted for the 2008 model year. Up front, the large crossover sports a redesigned grille with honeycomb inserts, and on the side, bold character lines give the Pilot a newly-athletic appeal. A raked rear window and spoiler make it look like an entirely different vehicle from the back too. Also expect entirely new lighting for the 2016 model year. Three sets of lights can be seen in front, including the large headlights at the top, round fog lamps, and thin lights in between the two. It is possible Honda is going for a lighting package similar to what is available on the Jeep Cherokee. In the rear, C-shaped LED headlights give the Pilot a refined look. Along with an updated interior and large touchscreen, expect significant mechanical changes. The 2016 Honda Pilot will share a chassis with the Acura MDX and will be offered in front-wheel drive and all-wheel drive. Under the hood, look for an updated version of the current Pilot's 3.5-liter V-6 with more power than the current model's 250 horses. The engine should also get direct-injection, stop-start tech, and improved fuel economy. The Pilot goes into production later this summer. In the meantime, look for it at the 2015 Chicago auto show February 12 alongside the Acura RDX and a styling preview of the new Ridgeline pickup . Photo Source: Chris Doane Automotive | 9 | 4,452 | autos |
A New York computer consultant testified on Wednesday about how a heroin addiction led him to become a prolific drug dealer on Silk Road, as prosecutors moved closer to finishing their case against the underground website's alleged operator. The testimony in Manhattan federal court by Michael Duch, 40, marked the first time jurors weighing the fate of suspected Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbricht heard from a vendor on the website, where drugs and other illicit goods could be secretly bought with bitcoins. Duch, who has been incarcerated since pleading guilty and came dressed in jail garb, told jurors a heroin habit that cost him up to $3,500 a week led him to deal the drug on Silk Road, where he previously bought pain killers. "I saw the ease that came with it," Duch said. "There was a perceived level of safety as well as anonymity." Duch, who in 2012 earned $75,000 through computer consulting, said he earned $60,000 to $70,000 a month selling ultimately 3.18 kilograms of heroin on Silk Road under the alias "deezletime" from April 2013 until his arrest in October 2013. The testimony came in the third week of trial of Ulbricht, 30, who has pleaded not guilty to charges, including conspiracy to commit narcotics trafficking. Prosecutors expect to rest their case by Monday. Prosecutors say Ulbricht operated Silk Road under the alias "Dread Pirate Roberts" in a scheme that generated $200 million in drug sales until authorities shut it down. Duch, 40, was arrested in Warwick, New York, the same day as Ulbricht, although court records suggest the investigations were initially not related. Duch pleaded guilty in December to conspiracy to sell drugs, including heroin. While he faces 40 years maximum, he testified that he hopes to avoid a five-year mandatory minimum by cooperating with prosecutors. Duch, who said he did not know the identity of Dread Pirate Roberts, was the second cooperating witness to testify against Ulbricht. Richard Bates, a college friend of Ulbricht's, previously testified under a non-prosecution agreement that Ulbricht told him he created and ran Silk Road. Prosecutors said on Monday they decided not to call a third cooperator, Andrew Michael Jones, one of three alleged Silk Road staff members indicted in 2013. Jones had been in plea talks as of September, although court records give no indication of any change of plea since. His lawyer declined comment. The case is U.S. v. Ulbricht, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 13-06919. (Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York. Editing by Andre Grenon) | 5 | 4,453 | news |
North Korea may be trying to restart a nuclear reactor that can yield plutonium for atomic bombs, a U.S. security think tank said on Wednesday, citing new satellite imagery. An analysis issued by 38 North, a North Korea monitoring project at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, said it was too early to reach a definitive explanation for signs of activity at the Yongbyon reactor, including steam and indications that snow had melted on the reactor roof. "One possibility is that the North Koreans are in the early stages of an effort to restart the reactor after an almost five-month hiatus in operations," it said, basing its observations on commercial satellite images from Dec. 24 to Jan. 11. "However, since the facility has been recently observed over a period of only a few weeks, it remains too soon to reach a definitive conclusion on this and also on whether that effort is moving forward or encountering problems." It said there were clear differences between the latest 2014-1015 imagery and that from more than a year earlier when the reactor was known to have been operating. Imagery from December 2013 showed snow had melted off the roofs of all the buildings related to the reactor and foam could be seen at the end of the turbine building's steam and wastewater drainpipe. It said the absence of the foam in recent images could be related to the installation of new piping. North Korea announced in April 2013 that it would revive the aged five-megawatt research reactor at the Yongbyon nuclear complex, saying it was seeking a deterrent capacity, a move condemned by members states of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency. The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security think tank said last year that satellite imagery from late August and late September 2014 indicated the reactor may have been partially or completely shut down, while images from September 2013 until June last year had shown it was operating. It said the purpose of the shutdown may have been for it to partially refuel the reactor's core, or for maintenance or renovation. North Korea is under an array of international sanctions for repeated nuclear bomb and ballistic missile tests. It said this month it was willing to suspend nuclear tests if the United States called off annual military drills with South Korea. Washington rejected the proposal as a veiled threat. (Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Bernard Orr) | 5 | 4,454 | news |
Short sellers are taking aim at the world's longest-running equity rally. Short interest in the iShares MSCI Malaysia exchange-traded fund more than doubled in the past month to 20 percent of outstanding shares as of Monday, and reached an eight-year peak of 23 percent on Jan. 9. That's the highest level among 89 U.S.- listed ETFs focused on emerging-market countries, according to data compiled by Markit Group Ltd. and Bloomberg. Bears are stepping up wagers against Malaysia after the benchmark equity index advanced 116 percent from its October 2008 low in the longest bull market worldwide. Oil's 58 percent tumble since June has weighed on the crude-producing nation, with analysts predicting the weakest profit growth since at least 2009 and overseas investors pulling money from the $449 billion market at the fastest pace in six years. "Investors are worried Malaysia's economy will be affected by lower oil prices," said Alan Richardson, whose Samsung Asean Equity Fund outperformed 96 percent of peers tracked by Bloomberg during the past five years and has an underweight position in Malaysian shares. "These participants are shorting in anticipation of deteriorating fundamentals, which have not yet been fully discounted in market valuations." The fortunes of Asia's only major oil exporter have worsened as oil's retreat to a five-year low near $45 a barrel dragged down the ringgit to its weakest level since 2009. That's adding pressure on an economy already grappling with rising interbank rates, elevated household debt and the country's worst floods in a decade. Growth Target The FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI Index lost 0.5 percent at 9:34 a.m. local time, set for its biggest two-day loss in three weeks. The government cut its 2015 economic growth forecast to as little as 4.5 percent on Jan. 20 and predicted a bigger budget deficit than initially targeted. Oil and gas products account for about 20 percent of the nation's exports. "With less revenue, the government will have fewer options to stimulate the economy," Daphne Roth, the head of Asian equity research at ABN Amro Private Banking, which manages about $218 billion, said by phone from Singapore. She has had an underweight position in Malaysian shares since May and now has zero holdings in the country. The last time short interest in the Malaysian ETF was this high, in October 2006, the bears got burned. The KLCI index rose about 38 percent in the following 12 months, versus a 55 percent gain for the MSCI Emerging Markets Index. In a short sale, traders borrow shares and sell them, hoping to repurchase the securities later at a lower price and return them to the original holder, pocketing the difference. Estimates Fall "Those who shorted in 2006 all got killed," said Raymond Tang, chief investment officer for the Asean region at Kuala Lumpur-based CIMB-Principal Asset Management Bhd., which manages about $17 billion. "We are still fairly comfortable with our holdings in Malaysia." Analysts are cutting earnings estimates as the nation's economic outlook worsens. Profits in the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI Index are projected to increase 2.1 percent in the next 12 months, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That compares with a projected gain of 16 percent for both Thailand and the Philippines, and 54 percent for Indonesia. Morgan Stanley reduced its recommendation on Malaysian shares to equalweight from overweight on Jan. 26, citing continued weakness in earnings forecasts and the country's exposure to falling fuel prices. Sime Darby Bhd., which owns palm-oil plantations, and SapuraKencana Petroleum Bhd., Malaysia's biggest oil and gas services company, have suffered the biggest earnings-estimate downgrades in the KLCI index during the past three months, underscoring the impact of the rout in commodity prices. While the valuation of Malaysia's benchmark index has fallen to the lowest level since March 2013 versus the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, the nation's shares still trade at a 33 percent premium, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Foreign investors sold a net 6.9 billion ringgit ($1.9 billion) of Malaysian stocks in 2014, the biggest outflow since 2008, according to stock exchange data compiled by MIDF Amanah Investment Bank Bhd. "Earnings expectations are still too high," ABN Amro's Roth said. "The market might continue to de-rate." --With assistance from Elena Popina in New York. To contact the reporter on this story: Choong En Han in Kuala Lumpur at [email protected] To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael Patterson at [email protected] Chan Tien Hin | 3 | 4,455 | finance |
South Korea's top web portal operator Naver Corp said fourth-quarter profits climbed 30.3 percent from a year earlier, mostly in line with expectations on firm revenue growth from its messaging app unit Line Corp. Operating profit came in at 196.1 billion won ($180.70 million) for the October-December period, compared with an average estimate of 223 billion won profit from a Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S survey of 24 analysts. Net revenue for Japan-based Line rose 61.9 percent to 221.7 billion won ($204.29 million), a stronger pace of growth than the previous quarter when revenue rose 57.1 percent. "This year, we will launch new services currently under preparation that will strengthen user convenience," Naver said in its press release. Investors are closely monitoring progress for Line, which has launched new offerings such as mobile payments and taxi-hailing services to capitalize on its growing user base. Naver opted not to list the subsidiary last year, saying that Line would get a better valuation if it built up the business further. Line is one of the few messaging app operators that disclose some earnings figures. While it has earned plaudits for being profitable, it lags Facebook Inc's WhatsApp and Tencent Holding Ltd's WeChat in terms of monthly active users. Line had 170 million monthly active users as of October. By comparison, WhatsApp had more than 700 million as of early January while WeChat had 468 million as of the third quarter. Naver says it has the financial capacity to help Line grow but many analysts and investors believe the messaging app unit may need to attract a major strategic investor or pursue an initial public offering to keep up with its bigger rivals. Line could list in Japan, the United States or in both markets, Naver has said. (Reporting by Joyce Lee; Writing by Se Young Lee; Editing by Chris Reese and Lisa Shumaker) | 3 | 4,456 | finance |
Cuba has demanded the US hand back the Guantanamo Bay military base before relations with Washington are normalised. In a speech, President Raul Castro also called for the lifting of the US trade embargo and Cuba's removal from a terror list. Last month the two countries announced a thaw in relations, agreeing to restore diplomatic ties. They were severed in 1961. High-level talks were held last week. A Congressional delegation arrived in Havana to begin negotiations aimed at reopening embassies in the two countries' capitals. Meanwhile, former Cuban leader Fidel Castro appeared to signal his approval for the political rapprochement. Cuba's state-run newspaper published a letter on Tuesday in which he wrote: "We will always defend co-operation and friendship with all the people of the world, including with our political adversaries." He wrote that although he did not "trust the policy of the US", it did not mean he rejected a "peaceful solution to conflicts". 'Illegally occupied' His brother Raul, who succeeded him as president in 2008, made his demands at the summit of Community of Latin American and Caribbean States in Costa Rica. "The reestablishment of diplomatic relations is the start of a process of normalising bilateral relations," he said. "But this will not be possible while the blockade still exists, while they don't give back the territory illegally occupied by the Guantanamo naval base." The land on which the base stands was leased to the US government in 1903 by Cuba's then-rulers. US officials have so far not responded to Mr Castro's remarks. President Barack Obama has called on Congress to put an end to the trade embargo, which has been in place since 1962. Earlier this month he also used his executive powers to loosen trade and restrictions on travel to the Caribbean island. | 5 | 4,457 | news |
Terrorist group ISIS says it is behind fatal hotel siege in Libya. CNN's Jim Sciutto reports. | 8 | 4,458 | video |
Marshawn Lynch may not be getting fined for his repetitive response at media day but could be in hot water for the hat he wore during the event. Can Marshawn Lynch just not win? | 1 | 4,459 | sports |
I'm leaving the Sundance Film Festival feeling a little conflicted. The good news: I found a movie that felt close to being "mine", in that I felt that kind of heart-tugging urgency one feels after encountering a work of art that finds some little click of affinity inside you. It's a wild, slightly manic, not unpleasant feeling: you find yourself wandering in a loopy, Family Circus- esque trajectory as you leave the venue; you nearly text several people about your excitement before thinking better of it; you feel the need both to talk to someone immediately and to greedily horde the experience for yourself; you feel an inexplicable longing to live inside the good thing you just saw, or better yet, to somehow become it. Philosophical implications worthy of a Black Mirror Mother's Day special That was me, bumbling around the outside of the Library Center Theatre after the premiere screening of Advantageous. Jennifer Phang's second feature was the first sci-fi film I had seen at the festival, as well as the first genre film in general. It's a quiet, deliberately paced story of a woman, her daughter and a medical procedure with philosophical implications worthy of a Black Mirror Mother's Day special. Gwen (Jacqueline Kim, who also co-wrote the film) is a spokeswoman for a new-fangled body swapping procedure, who must undergo the procedure herself in order to keep her job and be able to ensure a good future for her daughter, Jules (Samantha Kim.) It's moody and specific and is a rare SF film to nail its human emotion - particularly the mother-daughter relationship at its center - just as expertly, if not more so, as its more lofty philosophical questions. And here was the conflict I knew even before the lights came up that this film would not receive the three-minute long standing ovation that Me, Earl and the Dying Girl had received at its premiere. Park City moms would not be gushing about it on the shuttle back to Main Street. Its dearth of recognizable stars (aside from perhaps Ken Jeong, who produced the film and has a small supporting role) would mean a dearth of press cameras on its red carpet, and a proportional lack of pictweets from trade reporters. I can't point to any specific thing that made me sure of this (aside from the general persecution complex I tend to project onto things that I feel passionately about; don't worry, I'm completely self-aware about this particular maladjustment of mine) other than two things Advantageous had done to put itself at an, ahem, disadvantage. It dared to be a science fiction film on a budget, It dared to star a nearly entirely Asian cast despite having a plot that has nothing specifically to do with being Asian. The thing that's crazy about this is that when you talk about Sundance bait, Advantageous has it all: compelling parental drama, a thoughtful inquiry into the role of women in modern society, the support/star power of someone who's been on Community. But it had to go and muck it up by having the gall to imagine a world outside our current day contemporary one; to lay out its moralistic dilemma on a stage of its own invention. Advantageous takes place in an unspecified American city (looks vaguely like Brooklyn, so that's another checkmark on the Sundance bait list) in the year 2041. It's a world where gleaming, Dubai-like towers extend toward the clouds, overprogrammed school children practice meditation in bucolic public green spaces, and daily terrorist attacks have become commonplace - citizens look over their shoulders and shrugging as another plume of smoke rises over the city. Aside from its unexplained scant population (a trope of the indie sci-fi; hordes of extras in future-couture are expensive) it's a terribly plausible future, and like any good speculative fiction, lets its world-building unravel like a kind of mystery that plays out over the first half. World-building that unravels like a mystery For lovers of science fiction, new fictional worlds are like delightful puzzles, and figuring out how they work and how they are similar or prophetic about our own is half the fun of watching a film or reading a book for the first time. But not every audience member approaches sci-fi like that. It seems contradictory at an "indie" film festival, but much of the Sundance audience does not care to go along for a ride that they don't fully and immediately understand (unless Kristen Wiig is involved.) A kind of familiarity is key, which of course is different than pleasantness - the faintest whiff of something sordid or edgy (but not unheard-of) is something Sundance audiences perennially get off on, like so many Sorel boot-wearing moths to a heat lamp. Alexander Skarsgard copulating with a 15 year old? Bring it on. Hovercrafts in the background? Cringe. Building a sci-fi premise is more like registering a patent than getting a script optioned It is fair and logical that science fiction get evaluated by a different yardstick than standard dramatic films; building and conceiving of one is more like registering a patent than getting a script optioned. You've got to be first in your area of expertise - sorry, anyone who wants to do a Technological Singularity film after Transcendence - but it also has to function well enough to scare away imitators (and even then, you may never be safe - it took over a decade, but a small wave of Primer clones is finally upon us.) But for so many people that yardstick for science fiction exists arbitrarily below the human-interest drama, instead of parallel to it. And when a film like Advantageous comes along and manages to score high on both scales, oftentimes nobody's checking for it. I had an urge the type I almost never get to go up to Phang after the screening and tell her how much I appreciated her film; maybe that accounted for my loopy freestyle walking. It wouldn't be a conversation; I'd just tell her how much I admired its assured pacing, its matter-of-fact brand of dystopia, its unshowy dedication to the uniquely female struggle of its protagonist. Aside from all that, it was terribly exciting to see a film full of Asian American actors presented to us without explanation or apology. As Jules, Samantha Kim in particular struck me as an incredibly promising young talent; convincingly whip-smart, yet depressive and insecure in a way anyone who's ever been a thirteen year old girl can identify with. Even now, I can barely think about the relationship between Gwen and Jules without getting emotional, something I can't say for the myriad fictional relationship constructs that have been presented to me on screen this week. And that's even before Gwen has her brain cloned into a new body. I sincerely hope Advantageous is able to find a distribution deal that will grant it a bigger audience an online audience perhaps, more open minded about its kind of worldbuilding. But more than its choice of genre or the ethnicity of its cast, I fear something even stupider may stand in the film's: water. Specifically, the thoroughly B-grade CGI water that appears in two different establishing shots of futuristic, waterfall-adorned architecture. The mere possibility that all of Advantageous ' rich ideas and emotions could be undercut by a few seconds of sub-par CGI fills one with a different kind of dystopian despair, but I'm also hard pressed to think of a much more apt metaphor for contemporary Hollywood. | 5 | 4,460 | news |
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (AP) Tiger Woods returned to the Phoenix Open and received cheers, boos and gasps. All on one hole. There is rarely a dull moment with golf's biggest star, especially at the PGA Tour's rowdiest venue. Even though Woods has played at TPC Scottsdale only three times, what defines his experience at the Phoenix Open is not a trophy, rather it's some beer, a boulder, an orange and a gun. So a typical pro-am Wednesday was anything but that - especially at the par-3 16th hole. Woods managed to deliver another memory. His 9-iron was just left of the pin when it turned enough left that it tumbled into a bunker. The cheers turned to boos, and Woods tugged the bill of his cap in mock shame. Seconds later, the cheers returned from the full house. And then the gasp - instead of blasting out of the sand, Woods bladed the shot over the green and into the front row of the gallery. It was quite a scene, and this was not lost on John Wood, the caddie for Hunter Mahan, who was in the group ahead of Woods on the 16th. The caddie looked around at the enclosed arena, where it was hard to find an empty seat. And this was for a pro-am. ''This is usually about one-third full,'' Wood said. ''I have never seen it this packed on a Wednesday. Never.'' The difference? He looked over his shoulder at Woods on the tee box and pointed his thumb in that direction. Record crowds are expected this week at the TPC Scottsdale, though the forecast is for cold and rain on Saturday, the biggest day. The Super Bowl is in town. Woods is playing for the first time in 14 years. The field includes Phil Mickelson, Masters champion Bubba Watson, Jordan Spieth and Rickie Fowler. All eyes, however, are on Woods. There's too much history with him, even at a tournament he rarely plays. Of the three aces Woods has made as a pro, none gets replayed as much as his debut in the Phoenix Open in 1997. When the ball disappeared into the cup, it set off a celebration so wild that fans began throwing beer cups onto the tee. Woods was so excited he missed the high-five with Omar Uresti. ''Then on top of that, just smelling and hearing the beer hit behind me on the tee box,'' he said. ''The more eerie part was when we were playing 17 and 18, everybody didn't really care. They were walking in, because they had seen what they wanted to see and 16 was empty. So we looked back on 16. You see all these beer cups everywhere on the tee box, and probably maybe an eighth of the people there.'' Two years later, Woods had a chance to win while playing the in the final group with Rocco Mediate. What stood out that day was a tee shot left into the desert scrub and his ball landing just short of a waist-high boulder. It might have been the heaviest loose impediment ever moved - with help. Woods summoned help from the gallery, and they heaved with all their might to get the boulder out of the way of his swing on the par-5 13th. ''I thought it was lighter than it was,'' Woods said. ''I thought I could move it. Evidently it took like five other dudes to do it.'' He added a twist to the tale this week. They moved it the wrong way. ''They moved it in the direction which I didn't want to have it moved,'' he said. ''So that means I had to start the ball off to the right, because I hit the ball in the right bunker. But I wasn't going to have them go back in there in the cactus and move it back the other way.'' Later in the day, a fan who had been heckling Woods was found to have a gun in his fanny pack. The gun was registered. Woods never felt threatened, though it let to headlines as far away as New Jersey and Britain. The final year in 2001 was thought to be the final straw. Woods finished 15 shots behind the runaway Mark Calcavecchia, but a young fan threw an orange onto the green as Woods was getting ready to putt. Those close to Woods said that was a big reason why he never returned until this year. There were other factors, such as the appearance money he used to get for going to Dubai and then Abu Dhabi, along with the extended winter break that meant also skipping Kapalua. He's back in Phoenix, and the buzz is louder than ever. Woods didn't make a hole-in-one on the 16th hole. He hit into a bunker. No one showered the tee box with beer cups. There were no high-fives. But as he was playing the 17th hole, fans began filing out of the bleachers behind the green, and the front row of stands were half-empty. They saw what they wanted. | 1 | 4,461 | sports |
By Larry Brown Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao appear to be serious about finally fighting. The two boxers met at halftime of the Miami Heat-Milwaukee Bucks game on Tuesday by chance ( video here ); Mayweather attends Heat games regularly, and Pacquiao happened to be in town because he judged a beauty pageant over the weekend. Pac-Man's flight plans were delayed, so he ended up staying in Miami an extra day and went to the game. Pacquiao's advisor Michael Koncz says he approached Floyd about talking with Pacquiao, and Mayweather was obviously receptive and came over to talk to the Filipino fighter during halftime. Koncz told media outlets that the two fighters later met privately in Pacquiao's hotel room for over an hour. He described the talks in positive terms. "Then we got a call later that night, asking me if he could come to our hotel to speak with me and Manny, which we allowed. [Floyd] was very pleasant, very professional. He indicated he was very eager to make the fight, which I believe as of last night he is. Whether or not that's the same tomorrow I don't know," Koncz told Boxing Scene. Koncz says Mayweather's major concern had to do with TV networks. Floyd has two fights left on his six-fight deal with CBS/Showtime, while Pacquiao is tied to HBO. "The major discussion revolved around broadcast issues. Manny and I both told him 'if those are the only issues, those are simple and we can have those fixed in the morning.' And in fact I've confirmed that they've been resolved." Network executives got involved in the meeting via phone and worked things out, apparently. Two of Mayweather's concerns reportedly have to do with the broadcasting crews and who will air the reality shows leading up to the fight (24/7 for HBO and "All Access" for Showtime). The networks worked together in 2002 to put on the Mike Tyson-Lennox Lewis fight, so there is no reason they should not be able to do the same to make this fight happen. Now the real question is whether Floyd will stop teasing fans and actually come through. Pacquiao's side apparently feels there is a good chance a May 2nd fight between them can happen. We have our doubts but hope the two will fight. | 1 | 4,462 | sports |
The explosive new documentary "Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief," debuted at the Sundance Film Festival on January 25. In these three clips from the film, former members describe joining the controversial religion and their attempts to escape. The documentary premieres on HBO on March 16. | 8 | 4,463 | video |
Add New York Islanders forward Cal Clutterbuck to the list of confirmed divers. He was fined $2,000 on Wednesday after being tagged twice for embellishing calls to draw the attention of referees. While the fine isn't much for a player making $2.5 million, the public shame is what is supposed to stop the practice. There's also the possibility of greater fines for future incidents: $1,000 extra for each case, capped out at $5,000 for a fifth offense and beyond. Clutterbuck was first flagged on Dec. 6. The incident that triggered the fine was an exaggeration of hooking call by Philadelphia Flyers winger Jakub Voracek. The Islanders scored on the power play. Also fined for embellishment this season are the Nashville Predators' James Neal, Detroit Red Wings' Gustav Nyquist and Florida Panthers' Vincent Trocheck. | 1 | 4,464 | sports |
Johnny Depp claims he was "attacked" by a "Chupacabra" in Tokyo, Japan. The 'Mortdecai' star was forced to miss a press conference for the new film in the city on 27 January, because had the flu, but has joked a vicious attack by the mythical creature, whose name translates to "goat sucker" in Spanish, was the real reason for his absence. Speaking at the rescheduled event on 28 January, the 51-year-old star said: "I would love to apologize to you all for not being here yesterday." I was at the tail end of a cold or a flu or something. But that's not the reason I wasn't here." I was attacked yesterday morning by a very rarely seen or experienced animal called 'Chupacabra.' I fought with it for hours. They're very persistent, very mean. And I'm pretty sure it came into my suitcase. I threw him off the 23rd floor. So we'll never see him again." The crowd burst into applause following his amusing excuse and the goofy star added: "Thank you, thank you for understanding. I appreciate it." Several people claim to have spotted Chupacabra, whose name comes from its alleged love of attacking livestock and drinking their blood, in parts of Russia, Puerto Rico, Chile and The Philippines in the past, but its existence has never been officially verified. | 6 | 4,465 | entertainment |
Kobe Bryant's NBA season effectively ended on Wednesday after he had surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff in his right shoulder that will sideline him for nine months, the Los Angeles Lakers said. The five-time National Basketball Association champion, who injured his shoulder last week in a loss to the Pelicans in New Orleans, underwent a procedure lasting two hours, the team said in a statement. "I expect Kobe to make a full recovery and if all goes as expected, he should be ready for the start of the season," Dr. Neal ElAttrache, who performed the surgery, said. Bryant was averaging 22.3 points in 35 games this season for a struggling Lakers team that is last in the Pacific Division with a 12-34 record. The 36-year-old guard, who earned his 17th All-Star selection last week, had sat out eight of the Lakers' previous 16 games for "rest" reasons. Fourth on the NBA's all-time scoring list, he played in only six games last season due to knee and Achilles tendon injuries as Los Angeles posted a 27-55 record. The former league most valuable player, who joined the Lakers as a first-round pick out of high school as an 18-year-old in 1996, is signed through next season after agreeing to a two-year extension in 2013 for $48.5 million. | 1 | 4,466 | sports |
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) Sam Hornish Jr. is finally back in the Sprint Cup Series after a four-year absence, in a ride Richard Petty Motorsports insists it is committed to fielding for the entire year. RPM has 26 unsponsored races as it heads into next month's season-opener. Twisted Tea will sponsor the Daytona 500 and the July race at Daytona International Raceway, and team co-owner Andrew Murstein is willing to provide some funding through his Medallion Bank. Hornish replaced Marcos Ambrose in the No. 9 Ford, and is teammates with Aric Almirola, who made the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship last season. RPM director of operations Sammy Johns said he's moving forward as if the organization will have two full-time cars all season, despite the lack of sponsorship for Hornish. RPM said Almirola's car is fully funded. ''If we do our job, the rest of it will take care of itself,'' he said. ''Richard and Andy have not told me to check up, and I'm not checking up. We've added new employees, we've made huge investments in equipment, we are moving forward.'' RPM recently hired 35 employees and moved into its former shop in Mooresville, north of Charlotte. Hornish, a three-time IndyCar champion and the 2006 Indianapolis 500 winner, has not had the same success since Roger Penske brought him to NASCAR following the 2007 IndyCar season. He struggled through three disappointing Cup seasons with Penske, but was out of a full-time job in 2011. He was brought back as a fill-in driver at Penske following AJ Allmendinger's 2012 suspension, ran two full seasons in the Xfinity Series, but ran just nine races last year. Hornish's goal was always to return to the Cup Series, and he got his chance when Ambrose returned to his native Australia to run V8 Supercars for Penske. He said he's not concerned about the sponsorship situation. ''There's no concern on my mind on whether or not they're going to go out and do what they said they were going to do this year,'' Hornish said. ''Hopefully, they're bringing me in for the performance, competition side of it, but I'm also doing everything that I can help them do on the sponsorship side.'' Team co-owner Richard Petty believes Hornish is ready to make a mark in NASCAR after his failed run with Penske. ''When he came in from IndyCar, they just put him in the Cup racing and it was just overwhelming for him and the crew to figure out what was going on,'' Petty said. ''Talking to the Penske people, they thought they raced him into a little too quick. Going back and watching him, how he's matured, he's settled down and he's old enough that he knows what he wants and what he can do, and that's going to be a big plus for us.'' | 1 | 4,467 | sports |
Tabata is the ultimate fitness trifecta. It's fast. It's fun. It's effective. We've tweaked the standard structure a bit turning each Tabata into a superset. Rather than doing one exercise for four minutes, you alternate between two complementary moves for eight minutes. This modification gives your working muscles a bit more rest time between sets, which translates into better form for all your reps during in each Tabata. Get set to burn major calories: print out this workout and get your timer ready (we like the free programable app SIT - simple interval timer). Hope you dig this workout as much as we do. Tabata One Jumping jacks: This classic calisthenic move gets the heart rate going; add in some cross jacks for variety. Walkouts: This full-body move takes you slowly from standing, through plank, to a deep lunge stretch, and back to standing. One-Minute Rest: Standing leg cradle Tabata Two Squats with reach: Take your basic squat, lift your arms overhead, and you've increased the core strength needed for each rep. Up-down planks: Move steadily and smoothly between plank and elbow plank, which works your arms and your core. One-Minute Rest : Standing quad stretch (30 seconds each leg) Tabata Three Alternating backward lunges: Step backward into a lunge and alternate legs with each rep. Mountain climbers: Holding a plank position, move your legs like you're running in place to work your arms and abs. One-Minute Rest: Deep hip flexor stretch (30 seconds each side) Tabata Four Alternating side lunges: Keep your chest high as you step wide to the side. Return to standing and repeat the lunge on the other side. Bicycle crunches: Don't blast through your reps of this classic ab exercise. Keep your shoulder blades off the ground and twist through your ribs to bring your elbow to your opposite knee. | 7 | 4,468 | health |
The world was caught completely unprepared for what's become the largest Ebola outbreak since the virus was discovered in 1976. Since the outbreak began last March, it's killed 8,810 of the 22,092 people who've fallen sick, mostly in West Africa. The outbreak caused widespread panic not only in the regions hardest hit but in almost every corner of the world too, from Europe to Australia to the United States. Hoping to circumvent any future outbreaks, Bill Gates said this week that we must begin using new technology to prepare for future outbreaks. "A more difficult pathogen (than Ebola) could come along; a form of the flu, a form of SARS, or some type of virus that we haven't seen before," he told AFP . "We don't know [if] it will happen, but it's a high enough change that one of the lessons of Ebola should be to ask ourselves: Are we as ready for that as we should be? A good comparison is that we prepare ourselves for war we have planes and training and practice." Pointing to work his organization, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has done in the field, Gates says it's important that this preparation include building teams of volunteers that are ready to mobilize the moment there's a public health emergency. "We use satellite photos to find out where people are living, we use a GPS tracker with a cellphone so that we can see if the vaccine team is going to every place they're supposed to go, we do statistical analysis within a few days to see if there's any kids that we missed," he said. Gates' recommendations come a day after World Bank President Jim Yong Kim warned that the world is " dangerously unprepared " for another deadly pandemic not only have thousands of lives been lost, but the economic growth West Africa has enjoyed after years of war has basically been upturned. "We must learn the lessons from the Ebola outbreak because there is no doubt we will be faced with other pandemics in the years to come." Studies have already shown that when it comes to new technology, social media is a reliable indicator of outbreaks. One 2012 report from the University of Rochester found that using geotagged tweets from 4.4 million Twitter users could reliably predict who would get sick with the flu up to eight days beforehand. Another study from last year used an algorithm on Twitter users to determine who was at a higher risk of HIV and other STDs. When researchers compared risk-associated tweets regarding drugs and HIV-risk behaviors to HIV prevalence rates, they found the two tended to come from the same areas. New technology is everywhere. Africa's population basically skipped using computers altogether and went straight to mobile phones, making it a larger market than North America, with 400 million subscribers. Social media may be a good starting place for preparing for outbreaks, but a lot more must be done. Thankfully, Bill Gates is on it. | 7 | 4,469 | health |
(Bloomberg) -- Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV reported profit that missed analysts' estimates as costs for recalling faulty vehicles blunted the benefits from a stronger dollar and sales of Ram pickups and Jeep SUVs in the U.S. Warranty- and recall-related costs totaled about 650 million euros ($740 million) last year, dragging North America profit margins to 4 percent in the fourth quarter from 4.7 percent a year earlier. That took the air out of the London- based company reporting its first profit in Europe since 2007. Earnings before interest and taxes and excluding one-time items rose 14 percent to 1.08 billion euros ($1.23 billion), missing the 1.11 billion-euro average of five analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Chief Executive Officer Sergio Marchionne said the industry is adjusting to the "new state of affairs" that emerged with last year's record recalls in the U.S. and predicted those repair costs will come down. "The machine will continue to make progress and we should see black numbers across all regions," Marchionne said on a conference call to discuss 2014 results. "We've laid a foundation for a set of objectives in 2015, a very clear milestone toward our 2016 and 2018 objectives." European operations were profitable for the first time since 2007, and Marchionne predicted a "significant" recovery there this year. The company is targeting adjusted Ebit to rise this year to between 4.1 billion euros and 4.5 billion euros from 3.65 billion euros last year, when profit in Latin America dropped 64 percent amid slumping demand in Argentina and Brazil. Watching Forecasts "Latin America could remain an issue," said Vincenzo Longo, a strategist at IG Markets in Milan. The guidance for 2015 is "not too aggressive." Fiat Chrysler slid 2.2 percent to $12.91 at Wednesday's close in New York, where it has its primary listing. The shares have gained 11 percent in New York this year. The company forecast net industrial debt this year to be in the range of 7.5 billion euros to 8 billion euros. That could mean a rise from 7.65 billion euros in debt at the end of the quarter. Marchionne is seeking to fund a 48 billion-euro investment program aimed at boosting sales 52 percent to 7 million cars in 2018. To help funding the expansion of Jeep, Alfa Romeo and Maserati into global brands, Fiat Chrysler plans to spin off Ferrari later this year. Dollar Gain The automaker generates more than half its sales and profit from North America, mostly from the U.S. The dollar's gain versus the euro enhances the margin coming from U.S.-made SUVs and trucks when Fiat Chrysler converts the currency into euros. Foreign exchange fluctuations yielded a gain of 1.3 billion euros for the company's liquidity last year. Falling gasoline prices have helped increase demand for large vehicles in the U.S., where consumers bought more trucks than cars throughout 2014. That's something that hadn't happened in a decade and bolstered deliveries of Ram pickups. Even with revenue in North America jumping 15 percent, profit margins slipped because of the costs of repairs. Those margins should improve this year, Chief Financial Officer Richard Palmer said on the call. Fiat Chrysler targets sales of 4.8 million to 5 million autos in 2015, up from 4.6 million last year. The growth is backed by plans to bring 20 new models to the market by 2016. Vehicle sales rose 256,000 last year led by the Jeep brand's increase of 285,000. The expansion will be partially financed by the spinoff of Ferrari, which will help raise about $4.7 billion. Fiat Chrysler will list 10 percent of Ferrari and distribute its remaining holding to the company's investors. The automaker, created last year by the merger of Fiat SpA with its U.S. unit, plans to complete Ferrari's initial public offering by June. To contact the reporters on this story: Mark Clothier in Southfield, Michigan, at [email protected]; Tommaso Ebhardt in Milan at [email protected] To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jamie Butters at [email protected]; Chris Reiter at [email protected] Chris Reiter | 3 | 4,470 | finance |
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (AP) Phil Mickelson majored in psychology at Arizona State. He joked that he still uses those lessons on Keegan Bradley. ''I find it very easy to get in his head,'' Mickelson said. Bradley tried to bait his mentor Wednesday in the Phoenix Open pro-am. ''When I outdrove him today by 30 yards, I left him a note in the fairway, letting him know the senior tees are not that far off,'' Bradley said. Mickelson figured Bradley was still smarting after losing a long-drive contest last week at an outing before the tournament in La Quinta, California. ''I flew it by him 25 yards,'' Mickelson said. ''I have gotten a lot more speed in the offseason. That really bothered him. So the 14th hole is a dogleg right to left. I guess he really hammered one. I had not played the hole before. I just hit a little stock cut. ... He was 11 yards by me. If that's what it takes to stroke his ego, then that's what it takes. Had I known that he was going to make a big deal about it, I would have swung a fraction harder and put it past him.'' Mickelson might need years of study to analyze Bradley's superstitions. For instance, Bradley still hasn't unpacked his bag from the United States' 2012 loss to Europe and he travels with a belly putter than he no longer uses. ''I can't explain it,'' Bradley said. ''You don't have a clue how many superstitions I've got.'' The superstitions apply to his beloved New England Patriots, too. ''This is really embarrassing, but I have a set of wide receiver Patriots gloves I put on now and then,'' Bradley said. ''I had them on the last time they were losing against the Ravens. I took them off and I left them at home. I didn't bring them. I get a lot of weird stuff I do.'' The 44-year-old Mickelson tied for 24th last week in La Quinta in his first start since the Ryder Cup in September. He's winless since the 2013 British Open. ''I feel like my game is where I want it to be,'' Mickelson said. ''I just have to now shoot the scores. Last week was pretty encouraging. I didn't do all the things I want as well as I believe I can, and yet it was pretty close.'' Mickelson won at TPC Scottsdale in 1996, 2005 and 2013. In 2013, Lefty shot 60-65-64-67 to match the tournament record of 28-under 256. He's making his 26th appearance in the event. ''It's a wonderful test on the back side with some risk reward that really makes for an exciting event,'' Mickelson said. --- STREAKING SPIETH: Jordan Spieth is making his first start since winning the Australian Open and Tiger Woods' Hero World Challenge in consecutive weeks in December. ''It doesn't feel like I'm going for three in a row, but it's kind of cool to say that,'' Spieth said. ''That was a long time in between.'' The 21-year-old Spieth is making his first start in the tournament. ''It's a cool atmosphere,'' Spieth said. ''It's unlike any other event. It's been a lot of fun the last couple of days. ... I came out here Friday because the weather has been rough in Dallas. It's been tough sitting on the couch watching these tournaments and not playing in them and watching my peers get out there and compete. I want to get back at it.'' He won the 2013 John Deere Classic as a rookie. --- PARTY PLACE: The par-3 16th was the center of the action Wednesday in the pro-am, with more than 15,000 filling the stadium hole early in the afternoon. Former Chicago Bears quarterback Jim McMahon was a hit with the rowdy fans when he emerged from the tunnel barefoot and carrying a beer can that he lifted to salute the crowd. McMahon drew more cheers when he hit on the green and two-putted for par. Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger threw mini footballs into the stands, taking five tosses to finally get one to a kid in the third deck. He was booed when he missed the green. Amateur Dave Wood drew the loudest cheer with a hole-in-one. Wood is a former University Arizona defensive tackle who spent two seasons in the NFL with San Francisco. Sons Carter and Trevor play football at Arizona. --- TEE TIMES: Tiger Woods will open Thursday at 12:07 p.m. on the 10th tee in a group with Patrick Reed and Jordan Spieth. On Friday, they will start on No. 1 at 7:57 a.m. Phil Mickelson is in the other half of the draw. His group with Hunter Mahan and Rickie Fowler will start Thursday at 7:57 a.m. on No. 1 and Friday at 12:07 p.m. on No. 10. In other featured groups, Matt Kuchar, Jason Dufner and Keegan Bradley are playing together, and Bubba Watson is grouped with Billy Horschel and Hideki Matsuyama. --- TIGER DEAL: Tiger Woods has a new endorsement deal with headphone and speaker company Sol Republic. The Oregon-based company announced the agreement Wednesday. Woods also has deals with MusclePharm, which now is on his golf bag, and India-based Hero MotoCorp. Hero is the title sponsor of Woods' World Challenge tournament. --- DIVOTS: Bubba Watson is the top-ranked player in the field at No. 4. Ninth-ranked Jordan Spieth and No. 10 Matt Kuchar are the only others in the top 10. Tiger Woods is 47th. No. 1 Rory McIlroy, No. 2 Henrik Stenson and No. 6 Sergio Garcia are playing the European Tour's Dubai Desert Classic. ... Woods played the pro-am Wednesday in a group with Hall of Fame running back Marcus Allen. ... Kevin Stadler, the winner last year, is sidelined by a wrist injury. | 1 | 4,471 | sports |
Roxanne Rimer was arrested for shoplifting, but was later charged with a lot more after she tried to flee in a police cruiser while her hands were still cuffed behind her back. Mara Montalbano (@maramontalbano) shows us. | 8 | 4,472 | video |
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) took aim at Michael Moore on Wednesday, saying the documentary maker's comments on military snipers were "idiotic." Conservatives have slammed the controversial filmmaker after he tweeted earlier this month that his uncle was killed by a sniper during World War II and "we were taught snipers were cowards." He mentioned snipers may shoot their targets in the back and "aren't heroes." "Sometimes when I hear an idiotic statement like that from someone like Michael Moore I don't want to dignify it with a response because it's so outrageous," McCain, the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman, said in an interview with CNBC on Wednesday. "That's like saying we should not use airplanes, we should not use tanks, we should not use any other weapon. What does he want us to do, go back to hand-to-hand fighting?" McCain said. Moore's tweet caused a firestorm last week amid praise for the blockbuster hit "American Sniper," which tells the story of the late Chris Kyle. The Navy SEAL is credited with the most kills in American history, and the movie follows his work as a sniper during four tours in Iraq. Moore defended himself in a Facebook post Sunday, writing that "only 'haters' of our brave young men and women would recklessly send them into harm's way for something that had absolutely nothing to do with defending the United States of America." In a statement on Monday, McCain praised the controversial film, congratulating director Clint Eastwood and his cast for "an outstanding cinematic achievement." "This film depicts with subtlety and compassion those brave few who serve our nation in uniform, their experiences in the horror of war, the burdens they often bear upon returning home, and the untold sacrifices of their families," he wrote. "It is deeply regrettable that obsessive critics of U.S. foreign policy have sought to disparage this film and denigrate the memory of a noble American warrior," he added. Asked Wednesday on CNBC's "Squawk Box" if he had seen the film, McCain said he hasn't yet but intends to "as soon as possible." The Oscar-nominated film earned $200.1 million in the box office through Sunday and has been a hit among audiences, scoring a 7.7 out of 10 stars on IMDB and 72 percent approval on the Rotten Tomatoes review site. McCain explained that snipers "save the lives of others of their comrades because they are able to neutralize or take out an enemy that's been destroying them." The veteran lawmaker, who was held as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, said regarding Moore's tweet that it was "a great disservice to say that about so many of our young men and women who are serving in the Marines, in the Army, and many of them are scout snipers, so it's almost insulting to them." | 5 | 4,473 | news |
Normally, it is not advisable to vacation in a mall -- unless Auntie Anne's and discount shoes are your idea of a stimulating trip, we advise you visit an island instead. But there is an exception to this rule, and it's the Mall of America. Let's start with numbers: at seven Yankee Stadiums in size, this place is HUGE. You could fit 258 Statues of Liberty in there, or 32 Boeing 747s. In a place so big, there are shenanigans for every type of traveler, from foodies to sports buffs to shopaholics and fitness fiends. Oh, and there are plenty of quirky tidbits that make this place even more weird-slash-exciting. We never thought we'd say this, but... we're considering a mall vacation. 1. Um, there's no sales tax on clothing in Minnesota. Which means the mall's 4.3 miles of store fronts are all ripe for the picking. 2. The mall's aquarium has 1.2 million gallons of water. It takes more than 100 pounds of food per day to sustain the sharks, stingrays and turtles that roam the mall's underwater wonderland. Oh, and of course you can sleep or scuba there. 3. It's basically LEGO paradise. You'll know where to find the LEGO Store, because it's guarded by a 34-foot-tall LEGO robot. Feel free to pick your favorite from the wall of 180 LEGO varieties. 4. ...and it's definitely Nickelodeon paradise. The Nickelodeon Universe has rides -- including a drop tower and roller coaster -- as well as hangouts with SpongeBob and all your favorite characters. 5. It's pretty much the capital of celeb appearances. Kendall Jenner, Sarah Palin and the cast of "The Hunger Games" have all swung by recently to appease hoards of fans and/or sign their books. 6. There's a curfew for 16-year-olds. On Friday and Saturday nights, mall-goers aged 16 and younger must be with someone who's at least 21 years old from 4 p.m. through closing. Oh, and you might need to show I.D. if asked (high school identification cards do NOT count). 7. Even though it's in Minnesota, the mall does NOT use central heating. ...and yet somehow (thanks to skylights, light fixtures and body heat), it's always a toasty 70 degrees. 8. If you love it so much, you can get married there. The mall's Chapel of Love has been the ultimate destination wedding.for thousands of couples. 9. The mall used to be a stadium, and you'll find some sneaky tributes if you know where to look. Metropolitan Stadium, home of the Minnesota Twins (and the Vikings) used to stand on the mall land so shoppers might see a small red stadium chair on the wall beside the mall's log chute ride. The chair is said to mark the spot where Harmon Killebrew hit a homer in 1967. Home plate is marked off, too. 10. There's literally a train station inside the parking ramp. You can hop a train from the airport! 11. A walking club teams up to walk the mall. Hey, it can be cold in Minnesota, so why not exercise indoors? Members of the Mall Stars program follow 5k and 10k routes around the mall, while meeting regularly for coffee and motivational speakers. 12. The food is actually pretty amazing. BBQ. Burgers. Ramen. The mall's 50+ restaurants are epic, especially during happy hour. 13. And there's an IKEA across the street. So if you decide you want to live at the Mall of America (which duh, you do), it'll be easy to buy a bed and set up camp inside (not that it's legal, but you get the picture). | 2 | 4,474 | travel |
GoPro has a huge lead over its competition these days we found out just how big when we pitted the best action cameras against each other last fall. Now, a new firmware update is about to widen the gap even further. Set to release in February, the update will add the ability to record 720p footage at 240 frames per second 10 times slower than the standard framerate to the Hero 4 Black, GoPro's 4K action camera. Gizmodo got an early version of the update and shot some footage with it at and around the X-Games last weekend. The results are a mixed bag. Basically any action looks awesome slowed down this much, but the wide field of view that GoPros are known for gets narrowed to just 65 degrees and the quality isn't as clear at the maximum 720p resolution. It's better than it was before when the maximum resolution was 480p, but it's still not great even iPhones can shoot 720p video at this framerate. The new firmware update will add other features, too. On both the Hero 4 Black and Silver editions, users will now have the option to convert time-lapse stills into a video right in the camera (instead of needing to do that on their computers afterward). The cameras will also now use the internal accelerometers to auto-rotate videos, which saves another post-processing step for users who have to mount the cameras upside down . These are nice changes, but they're not where the action camera war will be won. Those battles are being fought with features like battery life and framerates both things that Sony promises to match (or beat) GoPro on when it releases its new 4K action camera later this year. | 5 | 4,475 | news |
NEW YORK (AP) The "Ghostbusters" reboot has set its all-female leads with Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig and a pair of "Saturday Night Live" performers. Director Paul Feig announced his stars by posting their pictures on Twitter on Tuesday. Joining McCarthy and Wiig are Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones. Feig tweeted that Sony Pictures will release the film in July 2016. Production is expected to begin later this year. The new "Ghostbusters" updates the original 1984 film and the 1989 sequel. Wiig and McCarthy both starred in "Bridesmaids," which Feig directed. He has since worked with McCarthy on all of his films, including their upcoming action comedy "Spy." McKinnon joined "SNL" in 2012. Jones first came to the show as a writer and transitioned into a featured player last fall. | 6 | 4,476 | entertainment |
One recent post on Hacker's List , a site dedicated to matching up hackers with those who need something hacked, was headed "FB [Facebook] Account Hack for Justice." "Scumbag guy I met at a bar over the weekend followed me home and assaulted me," it read. "Thankfully the police caught him and he's thinking long and hard about what he did in a county jail. This is apparently not the first time he's done this, but he got off free of charge the last time. I want to hit him where it hurts." The poster offered between $200-$300 for access to the man's account. Since being profiled in The New York Times two weeks ago, Hacker's List has buckled under a deluge of traffic and still goes up and down on a regular basis. Upon registering for an account, the site reminds users that it is "intended for legal and ethical use" and that "if you feel a project violates our terms of service, please report the listing immediately." But a search through the last few weeks of job postings on the site shows an almost total absence of "legal and ethical" requests. More common are obviously illegal gigs. "Need the Mass (usa) RMV/DOT [driving] records deleted and my license reinstated there with a motorcycle endorsement (class D/M)," wrote one poster, offering $300-$500. "I would like a clean, spotless record there and in the federal drivers' registry. If you can do it send me a message." Another poster, who claims to attend a satellite campus of Moberly Area Community College in Missouri, wanted some "grades changed on my gradebook and my transcript" so his father didn't kick him out of the house. His need was urgent because he "had someone employed previously, but due to the events in Paris, I hAve [sic] lost all contact with them." He offered to pay any hacker who had technical skills but lacked a moral compass somewhere between $50 and $245. No matter the job, bidders regularly claim that they can do the work quickly and easily. "Hi, i can hack the database where your grades are stored (you need to give me URL) in few days," wrote one aspiring hacker, who wanted $200. "Add me on Skype [username redacted] and we can talk about details." Another hacker quickly underbid him, offering to do the job for just $75. "This can be done within a few days," he wrote. "I just need the specifications of what you would like done. Let me know if you would like to discuss more. Email me! Note: I can make fix your grades free for the whole year." Though many of the jobs are dubious, a few are just flat-out dangerous. "Hi I need some help ordering a few things from the deep web paying you to either order it (will provide money upfront for items) and will pay you to order it," wrote another poster. The $100-$1,000 on offer hardly seems worth the risk of having weapons or drugs arrive in one's mailbox. It's impossible to tell how legitimate the job posts are or how skilled the hackers responding to them might be, but the hundreds of postings do collectively paint a compelling picture of current anxieties around the Internet. If Hacker's List job postings are any indication, people largely want to hack the social media or e-mail accounts of lovers and ex-lovers, remove negative personal and professional feedback posts from the 'Net, and alter the databases that guide so much of our lives including grades, DMV records, and even hotel rewards programs. What follows is a curated selection of Hacker's List job postings from the last several weeks, along with the amounts of money on offer. Job postings "I am in a custody/safety situation with my three year old daughter and my alcoholic ex-husband. He continues to defy safety restrictions and court orders, and I need to be able to know where he is in order to catch him drinking in her presence. (he still has visitation). I have his cell information as well as two email addresses. I want to be able to track his phone. If I could monitor his text messages/calls it would also be useful in court. (I know information gained in this manner would not be [?], but it could be crucial in a case.)" ($200-$300) "Would like to get my status changed to Diamond Level with Hilton and Marriot" ($200-$300) "Install, troubleshoot and maintain a Gps bug on the car of x girl i suspect is lying to me. Please See project name. Pretty self explanatory. If u have contacts you may succest in the mtl region that would be much appreciated." ($300-$500) "I've been getting malicious emails from an anonymous sender. They keep creating new gmail accounts and sending me and my family emails about me to make me look bad. They also created a fake facebook account in my name and starting writing bad things about me. Facebook ultimately took down the site. I've also received calls and texts from several unrecognized numbers. I think its one person who is doing this to me. I really need to figure the name and location of the person." ($300-$500) "Can anyone make me a fake website intended to mimic another that I can actually log onto and have specific data show up there?" ($300-$1,500) "hello to every body. i am looking for someone who can give me the list of all conversation on whats app of my girlfriend's account and if it is possible to get her sms or incoming/outgoing calls and her location..... so this mean maybe a spy ware." ($500-$2,000) "crack my spouse's pwd on 'badoo.com/it/' dating site. email available" ($150) "Need access to a certain xhamster [porn site] account and videos associated with the account." ($100-$1,000) "need a hack for an Android Game called 'Iron Force' developed by 'Chillingo.' it's a dynamic Server game, frequently updated. very hard to hack. i need a hack that give diamonds and cash on this game and if possible a auto-play robot system for my account. ($300-$500) "Iphone/Icloud and Facebook. This has to be done remotely. I don't have access to phone or computer. I need access to the phone to edit/block a number that is calling. I also need access to the facebook account." ($100-$500) "Defamatory Blog Post Removal De-indexing. A blogspot.com blog comes up #1 on Google. It quoted defamatory information from 20 yrs ago and now costing me jobs, business & my kids to be bullied. Need this permanently solved by being dropped from #1 on search, removed/erased from blog. ONLY bid if have proven track record of success in this area." ($100-$1,000) "hack a friend pc. hack a website and database. i would like to have some body who really can complite the project . looking farword all of u." ($500-$2,000) "Hotmail Hack For Justice. In need of email account password of ex-in-hiding. Goal is to find leads to: 1. Confirm her location and/or activity 2. So family courts can serve her 3. Bring her to justice and retrieve my child." ($200-$400) "Retrieve gmail password from fiancé, the father of my child, to find out whether he's cheating." ($40-$400) "Iphone hack. ASAP. I'd like to get the watsapp messages, and if possible create a duplicate app on another device. Also I'd like to track the phone." ($300-$500) "Seeking authentic professional with capabilities for two things: 1) Remove content & image from online OR 2) De-index online report. Either of these will be acceptable. This assignment is VERY VERY crucial to me & as such ONLY individuals with experience & capabilities should contact this ad. NO SCAMMERS, please!!!" ($300-$4,000) "looking for someone who can clear up my negative credit history, all three reports. Looking to improve my FICO score to the 800's." ($500-$2,000) "I´d like to delete a comment on my profile of couchsurfing that was posted by another member. I guess the way to do it is entering in her profile and deleting it from there. I don't have email nor fb profile of her." ($50-$125) "I've some troubles with ex employees that are defaming me online. I'm looking for someone to delete a page from a blog using WordPress." ($200-$300) "Need some quiet and discrete work done on a .org website in the usa. Basically hack the website access the data base and change a grade and remove a failure off the records. ( please contact me and I will give the website address and then we can discuss the matter privately).Can only be done online! Cheers." ($300-$2,000) "Tel-Aviv university decided to close its preparatory program for disadvantage youth, after 45 years helping poor youngsters. I would [like] a message supporting the continue of the operation of the program to be posted on the TAU website." ($300-$500) "For some reasons, I am looking for a hacker who can help me to enter the game server, identify my character, and modify a number. Whoever can make it, I am willing to pay high rewards. Please kindly contact me for the further details. Thanks!" ($1,000-$3,000) "I would like to crack the passwords of 3 Tripadvisor user accounts simply for the purpose of removing their bad reviews about my business. I am resorting to this because these users actually wrote poor but untrue reviews after trying to extort me and Tripadvisor chose to do nothing. And many of my competitors actually could remove poor reviews easily since last year which is very unfair to my business." ($300-$500) "Need to change university grade from last semester to have better gpa." ($500-$2,000) The best of the worst Most of the Hacker's List posts are cryptic and quite brief, but occasionally someone believes in the virtues of repetition, as evidenced in this job offering $200-$300. "i need Amazon giftcard generator 2015 i need a working amazon generator software i need a working amazon generator software i need a working amazon generator software i need a working amazon generator software i need a working amazon generator software i need a working amazon generator software i need a working amazon generator software i need a working amazon generator software i need a working amazon generator software i need a working amazon generator software i need a working amazon generator software i need a working amazon generator software i need a working amazon generator software i need a working amazon generator software i need a working amazon generator software i need a working amazon generator software" | 5 | 4,477 | news |
The selfie stick is becoming quite a popular accessory to smartphones, allowing people to attach their phone to the end of a $30 metal rod to improve their ability to take photos of themselves. Some say it's the newest symbol of millennial narcissism and self-absorption; others merely claim it's convenient. Jesse Fox, an assistant professor of communications at the Ohio State University, believes the selfie stick will further isolate this generation and those to come. "It's a thing that couples and families are using so that they can fit everyone and the full background in their photo without passing their phone off to a stranger," Fox told The Lantern , OSU's student newspaper. "But it's definitely cutting down that social interaction of 'Oh, will you take a photo for us if we take one for you?' among people." Fox also examined selfie narcissism in a recent study. She found that men who spend a lot of time editing and posting selfies had a higher score on the narcissism scale and create self-objectification, which involves posters to value themselves only for their appearance rather than other personality or character traits. This led to the conclusion that selfie-taking men were more likely to exhibit psychopathic qualities. Certainly not positive news for those Internet kids who share moments of their lives on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr. "It really comes down to people wanting other people to approve how smart and beautiful and wonderful they are by 'liking' their Facebook or Instagram photos," Fox said, according to The Lantern . But perhaps it's not always about isolation, insecurities, and narcissism just because millennials are on Instagram doesn't mean they're too self-absorbed to accomplish anything (and if anything, there have always been and will always be narcissists; selfies and selfie sticks just make it easier to spot them). It's true that this generation is notorious for sharing thoughts about themselves and their lives (and bragging via status update and delectable travel photos on Instagram), but nothing about fundamental human character has changed since ancient times. 50 years ago, people collected physical film photos and placed them in photo albums to look at fondly; today, the Internet and technology allow us to share these things in a communal space that assists in the exchange of ideas. That being said, maybe it's time for selfie-takers to step outside of themselves and take a look at the world around them. Besides, selfie sticks are becoming the quickest way to spot a tourist: "They're the new fanny pack," Sarah Kinling told NOLA.com . "The more I saw them in use, the more I saw how much focus people were putting on selfies, and not turning around to see what they were there to see." | 7 | 4,478 | health |
You'll be shocked at what they go for on eBay Teddy Ruxpin: $1,000 Who didn't love Teddy Ruxpin? This animatronic pal was state-of-the-art at the time (though looking back, he was totally creepy). Turn him on, and his eyes blinked, he talked to you, and even told stories all by way of a little cassette in his back. Considering this guy was named the bestselling toy of 1985 and 1986, we're not surprised to see him earning major bucks as a collector's item. Hot Wheels: $20,000 If your brother had an extensive Matchbox car collection back in the day, we bet he's kicking himself now over how much it could go for. The Hot Wheels collection in particular which launched in 1968 and became an instant hit among boys has been a hot commodity for years, as rare and limited-edition models have been put up for sale. Super Soaker: $600 The Super Soaker was pretty much the best thing to happen to summer ever. (Though it also meant your big brother had a new reason to chase you around the yard for hours.)While it's hard to believe an original of this supped-up water gun is actually worth quite a bit these days, we have to admit it is pretty awesome. Pokemon Cards, $5,500 Yes, you read that price tag right. The Japanese trading cards that spiked in popularity during the late '90s can now fetch up to $5,500. For one card! This one, featuring the character Charizard, is said to be rare. But unless you're a 7-year-old millionaire, we're not sure who would be clamoring to buy it at that cost. Lite-Brite: $200 With colorful plastic pegs, a simple, back-lit "canvas" and a little imagination, the Lite-Brite really brought out your inner artiste. Remember how fun it was to create colorful, light-up designs, over and over again? Believe it or not, this toy was first introduced in 1967, and managed to stay a kid-favorite for decades. Furbies: $499 While it looks rather primitive now, this Gremlin-esque toy was actually pretty state-of-the-art at the time of its launch in 1998. The Furby was the first attempt to market an in-home robot that could talk to you. And boy, did it. While it starts off speaking "Furbish" (its own "native language"), it's smart enough to slowly switch into English the more you talk to it. Pretty cool. 'Jurrassic Park' Young T-Rex: $425 Steven Spielberg's epic dinosaur movie was totally captivating as a kid in the '90s. And when they started coming out with "Jurassic Park" toys? Forget about it. This cool T-Rex featured a very realistic wound from another dino, and roared when you pressed a hidden button, which made the whole thing feel even more authentic. Power Rangers: $4,000 The popular '90s kid show "Power Rangers" spawned everything from movies to lunch boxes, but their super-cool action figures whose heads magically spun around and switched into helmets as they "transformed" are all anybody wants these days. At $4,000 a pop, we guess there are still a few hard-core fans lingering out there?... Go, go Power Rangers! Tamagotchi: $460 Doesn't it seem like just yesterday that you were begging your parents for one of these strange little digi pets? Only to get immediately bored with it, forget to give it food and water, and lose it under a couch cushion somewhere. Well it's time to root around in your parent's couches, because this little guy now goes for one pretty penny. Fisher-Price Skates: $157 Who can forget the sound of a kid shuffling along in these little sneaker traps roller skates? All you had to do was pop your LA Gears into these bad boys, and you were off! Just kidding it would take an entire 15 minutes to travel all of 10 feet... but man was the trip worth it.) Fisher-Price Castle: $320 On guard! This full-featured Medieval castle from Fisher-Price had just about everything you could ask for from daring knight figurines (armed with a sword and shield) to a draw bridge that lowered for peasants to storm the castle. Yep, it was cool. And now, it goes for way more than your Mom ever threw down on it. Hit Clips: $56 Long before we'd ever heard of the iPod, there was another cool way to carry all of your favorite tunes in your back pocket: Hit Clips. The mini mP3 player was created back in 1999, which doesn't even sound that long ago, until you realize how much has changed in the last 15 years. While you could pop in NSYNC's or Britney Spears's latest single and rock out on your way to school, there was one catch: each clip only lasted one minute, so you'd never hear the whole song. (The torture!) Sky Dancer: $80 The Sky Dancer was one of those toys you quickly lost interest in, until you invented some other purpose for her. Wind her up and let her go, and the sky dancer could be launched into the air, whipping through the room until she inevitably hit the wall (or your kid sister's head ... accidentally, of course). Moon Shoes: $140 Ah, yes. Moon shoes. One of the many toys of your childhood that you begged your parents for, only to later wonder why the kids in the commercial looked so much cooler than you using them. Called "mini trampolines for your feet," these funny little shoe attachments essentially propelled you into the air so that you could jump around in your back yard and thoroughly weird out the neighbors. Crossfire: $200 ... Ready for a duel? "Crossfire" was the ultimate rapid-fire game that had two players duke it out with just two plastic guns and some fast-finger action. Standing on opposite ends of the board, each player would shoot small metal balls through the gun, while trying to hit the other player's puck. The player who knocked the other's puck into their goal faster, won. While all that doesn't sound too intense, this commercial for the game certainly made it look like a fierce battle to behold. Digimon: $60 The Digimon was similar to your Tamagotchi in that it was a virtual pet on the end of a keychain.But unlike the Tamagotchi, which mainly existed to be cared for, the Digimon had a slightly different purpose. "Digimon" stood for "digital monsters" or "fighting pets." Digimon owners could actually connect with each other through the device, so their pets could battle it out.(It all sounds pretty strange looking back, doesn't it?) Gameboy Color: $1,689 When it first hit stores in 1996, the Gameboy Color was an instant hit. (And how could it not be look how cool it is with its transparent case and extendable light.) Its main claim to fame? The handheld gaming device now featured a screen that could display color in greater detail, giving kids a more realistic experience (while they were sneaking in games underneath the dinner table). Dream Phone: $193 Is Johnny your soulmate or Paul? Only the Dream Phone can tell you, of course. With 24 possible secret admirers and one sweet cordless phone, this board game was the perfect sleepover game. All you had to do was dial a special number, suppress your giggles and follow the clues your "admirer" gives to reveal himself. (Some choice hints include: "He's not at the snack shop!") Though we still don't really know why, all we remember is we went absolutely nuts over this game. Skip It: $119 Who didn't love the Skip It?! A summer-party staple, young girls everywhere could spend hours whipping that plastic sphere around and around their ankle, with impressive skill. (Now? We get seriously winded just thinking about it.) They apparently still make these things, though now they light up and have a "rave" theme. Talkboy: $400 If girls of the '90s had their Dear Diary, then boys had the TalkBoy, a stealth recording device inspired by the movie "Home Alone 2." With a compact, handheld design, built-in microphone and cassette player, kids could record and play back conversations and even alter their voice, just like Kevin McAllister. How's that for cool? LEGO Pirate Ship: $750 LEGO sets got pretty complex in the '90s. Take this intricate pirate ship, which features a full pirate crew, skull and cross bone flags, and (of course) a plank to walk. With all that to play with, you could easily have yourself a mini-adventure. Easy Bake Oven: $305 Chances are, if you were a girl under 10 when the Easy Bake Oven came out, you made it your life's mission to get your hands on one. Even if it meant having to play over at the house of that weird girl up the street. (Anything to bake some of those fun sprinkle-covered brownies!) Then, inevitably, you finally did play with one and your entire batch of treats tasted terrible. Definitely not the same as Mom's. (What a sham!) Dear Diary: $99 Writing down all your innermost thoughts on pen and paper? Pfff, that's so '80s. This high-tech journal was the ultimate secret-keeper for girls of the digital age. Simply type in all your innermost thoughts, set a password, and you'd be able to hide all your secrets from your big brother. And now? Your hot pink digi-diary can fetch a cool 100 bucks on eBay. (Just make sure you delete all those entries about your 4th grade love interest first.) Polly Pocket: $380 Pop open one of these pocket-sized toys, and you'd find a whole tiny world inside. There was the itty bitty Polly Pocket herself, a few of her friends and a slew of extremely tiny furniture that you always managed to somehow lose about five minutes after opening.We don't know about you, but we can still hear the Polly Pocket theme song playing in our heads... | 4 | 4,479 | lifestyle |
Could You Afford to Rent in These 10 Cities? In Boston, a solo renter would have to earn $50 an hour to afford a median-priced apartment; in St. Louis, just $17 an hour. Singles often prefer renting to owning, but the financial case for renting is becoming tenuous. Zillow's latest affordability report found that solo U.S. renters can expect to spend 30 percent of their income on rent. By comparison, homeowners spend just 15 percent of their income on mortgages. Homeownership isn't as simple as a monthly payment, however, and you should run affordability calculations for yourself and consider your own circumstances. To put the market in perspective, Zillow calculated the hourly wage a solo renter would have to make to afford the median rent in the following markets. Boston: $50/hour Beacon St, Boston, MA Rent: $2,500 Boston median: $2,497 This studio near Boston Common has 1 bedroom, high ceilings and a renovated bathroom with a walk-in shower plus bathtub. It includes a washer/dryer, and heat and hot water are included in the rent. Check out more rentals in Boston . Chicago: $34/hour 1655 W Carmen Ave # 1, Chicago, IL Rent: $1,650 Chicago median: $1,695 In Chicago, you'd have to make about $67,800 a year as a solo renter to spend just 30 percent of your income on this 3-bedroom, 1.5-bath apartment. It's in the heart of Chicago's popular Andersonville neighborhood and allows cats. See what else is up for rent in Chicago . Dallas: $25/hour 5920 E University Blvd, Dallas, TX Rent: $1,224+ Dallas median: $1,232 In Dallas, the median rent will get you a 597-square-foot, 1-bedroom apartment in a complex like this with a swimming pool and a fitness center. See more apartments on the market in Dallas . Las Vegas: $24/hour 3608 Tertulia Ave, North Las Vegas, NV Rent: $1,150 Las Vegas median: $1,176 To spend just 30 percent of your income on rent for a 2,159-square-foot house like this in Las Vegas, you'd need to make $47,040 a year. It has 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms and a kitchen with granite countertops, a double oven and a walk-in pantry. Check out more Las Vegas rental listings . St. Louis: $17/hour 2020 Delmar Blvd, Saint Louis, MO Rent: $858+ St. Louis median: $870 This St. Louis loft has 2 bedrooms, 1 bath and a washer/dryer. It includes concrete floors, high ceilings and exposed beams, brick and timbers. See more St. Louis rentals . Orlando: $24/hour 668 N Orange Ave, Orlando, FL Rent: $1,159+ Orlando median: $1,181 In the home of Disney World and Epcot Center, an annual income of $47,240 can get a single renter the most basic version of this 1-bedroom, 1-bath apartment with 9-foot ceilings and an oversized shower. See more Orlando rentals . San Francisco: $79/hour 1160 Mission St Unit 2211, San Francisco CA Rent: $3,950 San Francisco median: $3,949 You'd have to earn $157,960 a year as a single renter to spend just 30 percent of your income on a median-priced apartment like this in trendy San Francisco. This pad with a view measures 758 square feet and has 1 bedroom and 1 bathroom. The building has 24-hour security, a hot tub, an outdoor deck, fire pit, clubhouse and fitness center. Look at more San Francisco rentals . Denver: $35/hour 8501 E Alameda Ave, Denver CO Rent: $1,760+ Denver median: $1,753 The least expensive apartment in this Denver complex is what a single renter making $70,120 a year could afford for just 30 percent of his or her income to go toward rent. The 1,099-square-foot unit has 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a fireplace and vaulted ceilings. Check out more rentals in Denver . Portland, OR: $31/hour 4216 N Mississippi Ave, Portland OR Rent: $1,575+ Portland median: $1,570 This 730-square-foot apartment is about the price of the median rent in Portland's Mississippi Historic District. It has 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom and a complex with 76 parking spaces for bicycles. See what else you can rent in Portland . Washington, D.C.: $49/hour 450 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington, D.C. Rent: $2,425+ DC median: $2,471 With income of $98,840 a year, a solo renter would spend about 30 percent of their earnings on rent for this 773-square-foot apartment just a mile from the White House. Check out more rentals in Washington D.C. | 3 | 4,480 | finance |
Drone pilot admits he had been drinking. CNN's Jim Acosta reports. | 8 | 4,481 | video |
Maybe you've noticed that we're fascinated by Amal Clooney. While we're naturally impressed with her education, activism, and her enviable C.V., we're also intrigued by her style. We can't help it: We're fashion writers, and the idea of a powerful woman who's so seemingly together in every way and unafraid to express herself through clothing is catnip to us. That said, we'd never argue that Clooney's fashion sense (or husband, for that matter) should define her as it often does in the tabloid media. But it's the tendency to ask such questions which resulted in Clooney most awesome rebuttal. And, with that, Clooney gracefully turned the attention back to her work, and her purpose for appearing in court. Add a quick, dry wit to the list of things we like about her. "I ask Amal Clooney about the fashion speculation. She laughed & pointed to her robes, "I'm wearing Ede & Ravenscroft" Bruno Waterfield (@BrunoBrussels) January 28, 2015 | 4 | 4,482 | lifestyle |
OCALA, Fla. (AP) -- Jessica Korda pulled a hand warmer out of each jacket pocket, showing just how cold she was during the opening round of the LPGA opener. Her scoreboard told a much different story. The 21-year-old American shot a 6-under 66 in the opening round of the Coates Golf Championship on Wednesday and was in a three-way tie with fellow American Stacy Lewis and Azahara Munoz of Spain. All three teed off in windy conditions and finished in chilly temperatures just before dark. "I can't feel my fingers right now," Korda said. She might be in for more of the same Thursday morning, with temperatures expected to be the mid- to late-30s for the early tee times. Twenty players failed to complete the opening round at Golden Ocala Golf & Equestrian Club, which boasts eight tribute holes from famed courses around the world. They will finish up beginning at 7:30 a.m. Thursday, just before Korda, Lewis and Munoz tee off in the second round. Only 26 of 120 players were under par when play was halted. American Austin Ernst and Ha Na Jang of South Korea finished at 5 under, one stroke ahead of New Zealand's Lydia Ko and South Korea's Na Yeon Choi. Nineteen-year-old American Lexi Thompson and Mi Jung Hur of South Korea were 3 under. Top-ranked Inbee Park was 1 under, one shot ahead of reigning U.S. Women's Open champion Michelle Wie. Cheyenne Woods, the niece of Tiger Woods, was 4 over through 17 holes. Ernst was maybe the most surprising name on the leaderboard. She hit 16 of 18 greens in regulation and made just about every putt inside of 10 feet. "I've had rounds in the past where you've hit it close and then you can't get anything to go in," Ernst said. "But today everything was going in so I was really confident with everything." Korda, Lewis and Munoz were feeling it, too. Korda straightened out an errant driver on the front nine and birdied six of her final 13 holes. Considering she's won two of the last three LPGA season openers -- in Australia in 2012 and in the Bahamas last year -- starting fast is nothing new. "I just feel like I'm refreshed and ready to go," she said. "I try and bring the mentality with me all the time, every time I try to play, but for some reason it just shines brighter the first event of the season. Honestly, I don't know what it is about it. I'm just happy to be back. It's so much fun. It's like the first day of school; you're always happy to be back the first week of school." Lewis birdied five of her final six holes, the last coming on an uphill, 6-footer just after the horn blew. "I stayed patient out there," Lewis said. "Finally, on the back nine, I got more comfortable with being back playing again and just started hitting golf shots. It was a good day. I almost wish we didn't have darkness and I could keep going since I finally got into a rhythm there. " Munoz was solid throughout, hitting 17 of 18 greens in regulation, and closed with consecutive birdies to make it a three-way tie at the top. The only green she missed was at the par-4 13th, her approach shot coming up just a few feet short and rolling off the front. "I gave myself a lot of opportunities and I made them, too," she said. "If I didn't hit a really good shot, I made a couple nice 5-, 6-footers for par, so that was nice." | 1 | 4,483 | sports |
PHOENIX (AP) Give Pete Carroll the opportunity to campaign for someone or something he believes in and he'll gladly jump at the chance. Usually it's for a player, or a cause. But Carroll's drive this year was getting recognition for general manager John Schneider, the co-architect of the Seattle Seahawks' rise who usually tries to avoid the spotlight. ''He has just worked tirelessly to continue to compete, to find guys to make this a healthy, competitive roster,'' Carroll said. ''I mean the hundreds of changes in the first year was just trying to find guys. The continuation of that, it changed in terms of the numbers, but the attitude, the approach, John just continued to battle for it. ''I don't know how he couldn't be recognized with the drafts that he's had, with the free agency success he's had, with the success of our lower draft picks that have come through.'' Five years after being selected by Carroll to be the second piece of the Seahawks hierarchy, Seattle is in a second consecutive Super Bowl thanks largely to a roster constructed by Schneider. He's received little recognition for what Seattle has accomplished during his tenure and while Schneider doesn't care, Carroll would like to see him honored. ''His insight and his ability and really the creativity that he brings couldn't have been more obvious,'' Carroll said. ''But the rest of us, I don't know. We're just playing a game and we're a team. But I think his situation here really should stand out and should be recognized.'' The 43-year-old Schneider has not rested on what Seattle has accomplished during his tenure, to the point where the Seahawks were holding pre-draft meetings this week in Arizona leading up to Sunday's game against New England. Asked recently if he could have imagined Seattle's success after five years, Schneider said he can't look at two conference titles and four playoff appearances from a broad perspective. ''We are so focused and consumed about getting better in every area on a daily basis that it has just built like that over the years,'' Schneider said. ''I know you guys have heard me talk about being a consistent championship-caliber team. And with that comes really tough decisions, like, every day. Obviously, it's what you strive for. Everybody just kind of knows that. We don't talk about it. Yeah, of course everybody wants to be a world champion, everybody wants to win Super Bowls. But the manner in which we did it was a blast, the whole group. The culture that we are in is just awesome.'' While Schneider and Carroll are 20 years apart in age, they often act like brothers. That relationship developed in the first few months of their partnership when Seattle went through hundreds of roster transactions trying to remodel its team. They often pull lines from movies like ''Step Brothers'' in meetings to lighten the mood. ''It's a cool relationship because John will come through and check with coach all the time, every move he's going to make. Coach will go ahead and say `I agree with you,' but at the same time they'll have their differences and they always come to an agreement and they're always on the same page,'' said Nate Carroll, an assistant coach for Seattle and Pete's son. ''It's very powerful. It's a comfortable setting to work in. Those guys are great.'' What Schneider has constructed relies on a mix of elements: Hitting on gems in the draft more often than not; discovering undrafted free agents that can contribute; and sprinkling in key free agents when it fits the Seahawks' financial structure. Schneider knows time is running out for having so many key contributors playing for cheap by NFL standards. Richard Sherman, Earl Thomas, Kam Chancellor, K.J. Wright and Michael Bennett are all taken care of for at least a few more seasons. But looming is an expected new deal for quarterback Russell Wilson this offseason. ''It presents challenges, there is no question. We haven't sat down with his representatives,'' Schneider said. ''We are still going to be drafting young players and playing young players, so we might not be able to dip into free agency like you may want to here and there or compensate somebody else that you want to compensate that is already on your team. But just the fact that we're going to continue to keep drafting players and playing young players should help us compensate for whatever level of compensation (Wilson's contract) is.'' --- AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org and www.twitter.com/AP-NFL | 1 | 4,484 | sports |
Sen. Rand Paul has a low tolerance for low-flying objects. Reacting Wednesday to the recent security scare at the White House where a quad-copter drone crashed on the South Lawn earlier this week the Kentucky Republican said he would have never put up with such a situation. "If they fly over my house," Paul told CNN , referring to drones and drone operators, "they better beware because I've got a shotgun." "Drones should only be used according to the Constitution," he added. Paul, who many expect will launch a 2016 bid, made the comments in an interview with CNN conducted over Snapchat the first ever such occurrence with a lawmaker on the up-and-coming social media network. His comments come just days after a two-foot-long helicopter-style drone crash-landed on the White House grounds, prompting a security lockdown of the premises and raising serious questions about presidential security. A hobbyist later got in touch with authorities to notify them that it was his device and that he had merely been playing with it when it crashed. The unnamed man, identified as an employee of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency by The New York Times, had reportedly been drinking before flying the craft later in the evening. | 5 | 4,485 | news |
Cat lets his owner know it's time to do the laundry! | 8 | 4,486 | video |
Fresh updates on icons from the past from Bobbie Gentry to Bobby Vinton who now keep a low profile Still Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree Little Miss Dynamite lived up to her nickname back in the early '60s, when the Beatles were her opening act, and several decades later she still does even though you don't hear much about her. Here, to mark her 74th birthday, is more on Brenda Lee and 14 other stars who, for various reasons, are no longer in the limelight. Brenda Lee Only Elvis, Ray Charles and the Beatles had more hits than she did in the '60s. In fact, Brenda Lee began the decade with what would become her signature song ("I'm Sorry"), and the Beatles opened for her when she toured the U.K. in 1963. And the four-foot-nine singer known as Little Miss Dynamite hasn't fizzled. Now 74, she recently performed in Las Vegas and her recording of "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" remains a holiday standard six decades after its release. Olivia de Havilland Born in Tokyo in 1916, the actress who played Melanie in "Gone With the Wind" has lived in Paris since 1960. Jimmy Stewart proposed to her and Bette Davis was her best friend, but de Havilland feuded for decades with her sister, Joan Fontaine, who said: "I married first, won the Oscar before Olivia did, and if I die first, she'll undoubtedly be livid because I beat her to it!" Fontaine died in 2013 at 96. Olivia de Havilland is 101. Robert "Rusty" Stevens You know him better as Larry Mondello. After brilliantly playing Theodore Cleaver's slightly dim-witted pal on "Leave It to Beaver," he seemed to disappear. A private eye tracked him down in the '80s, when CBS wanted Stevens for its sequel "Still the Beaver," but his wife assured the detective he had the wrong house. Stevens, who sold insurance in New Jersey, hadn't told her he'd been a child actor. He's now 69. Honor Blackman She was great in "The Avengers," but will always be best remembered as Pussy Galore, the hot lesbian stunt pilot and judo expert in "Goldfinger" (1964). Although Honor Blackman flies under the radar in the U.S., the 92-year-old singer-actress is better known in the U.K. In recent years she blasted Sean Connery, the original James Bond, for accepting a knighthood while living as a tax exile in the Bahamas. Pete Best "Pete forever, Ringo never!" fans yelled after the Fab Three fired him in 1962. There were reasons producer George Martin viewed the Beatles' original drummer as a weak link but the dismissal was handled poorly. Still, life goes on: Best, 76, supported his family as a civil servant, enjoys touring off and on with the Pete Best Band, and has been married for 55 years. Some say he's the happiest Beatle of all. Doris Day Although she's kept a low profile for decades, Doris Day still holds the title of the biggest female box-office draw in Hollywood history. She shared top billing with stars like James Stewart and Cary Grant (but turned down an offer to play Mrs. Robinson in "The Graduate") and recorded 20 albums. Now 95, Day enjoys a "que sera sera" life in Carmel-by-the-Sea, Calif., where she has adopted many pets and devotes herself to animal rights. Max Baer Jr. Max Baer Jr. (his father was the heavyweight champ portrayed in "The Cinderella Man") bought the rights to "Ode to Billy Joe" and turned it into a movie in 1976, five years after finishing his long run as Jethro on "The Beverly Hillbillies." He later got into the gambling business and in recent years planned to open a "Beverly Hillbillies" theme hotel and casino in Nevada, complete with Jethro's All You Can Et Buffet. He's now 80 and that plan is currently on hold. Stella Stevens As Miss Purdy in Jerry Lewis' "The Nutty Professor" (1963), Stella Stevens established herself as a blond bombshell with a heart of gold. The former Playmate of the Month later opened an art gallery and bakery in rural Washington state. Today Stevens, 79, lives quietly in Beverly Hills. She had a long-term relationship with Bob Kulick, a guitarist on albums by Kiss, Meat Loaf and Lou Reed. Bobbie Gentry Her haunting "Ode to Billy Joe" soared to No. 1 in July 1967, edging out the Beatles' "All You Need Is Love." Bobbie Gentry, who studied philosophy at UCLA, later settled in Los Angeles, where she avoided the public eye for more than three decades. Now 73, she currently lives just a couple of hours away from the Tallahatchie Bridge. Dwayne Hickman The child actor who grew up to star on "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis" (1959-1963) is now 83. On that series, Dwayne Hickman played straight man to Bob Denver as Maynard G. Krebbs, TV's first beatnik. Although Denver, who died in 2005, moved on to "Gilligan's Island," the two remained close friends. "In 50 years, we never had a harsh word," said Hickman, who has turned from acting to art and sells his paintings online. Millie Small The Jamaican singer-songwriter's career took off with her 1964 cover of "My Boy Lollipop," which she turned into one of the best-selling ska tunes of all time. But in the early '70s Millie Small moved to Singapore, quit performing and seemed to drop off the face of the earth. Now 71, she lives in the U.K. and last year told the London's Express, "I enjoy cooking anything with chicken, pork and fish with rice and watching documentaries. I've got five beautiful cats, too." Bobby Vinton He looked and sounded great in "Goodfellas" but that was actually Bobby Vinton's son Robbie. Not that the original Polish Prince is unable to hold his own. From 1962 to 1972, he had more No. 1 hits than any other male solo artist. Today, at 82, he lives on Florida's Gulf Coast with his wife, Dolly. They've been married since 1962, the year Vinton recorded "Roses Are Red (My Love)," his first single. John Astin The actor who played Gomez on "The Addams Family" was always a class act. Now 87 and a practicing Buddhist, he teaches method acting at Johns Hopkins, where he studied math in the early '50s. Carolyn Jones, aka Morticia Addams, married actor Peter Baily-Britton in 1981 while being treated for cancer, and Astin remained a close friend, attending her wedding and delivering the eulogy at her funeral in 1983. Sue Lyon Stanley Kubrick gave her the title role in 1962's "Lolita" when she was just 14, after which she sang background on Nelson Riddle's "Lolita Ya Ya." But as Sue Lyon grew older, her parts got smaller. She married a Colorado prison inmate in 1973, but divorced him after he escaped from prison and robbed a bank. Now 71, Lyons quit show business in 1980 and has lived quietly in Los Angeles ever since. Billy Gray Busted for marijuana possession in 1962, Billy Gray didn't seem to be taking the straight-and-narrow path you might expect from the boy he played on the wholesome sitcom "Father Knows Best." Maybe just as well. Today Gray, a diehard motorcycle collector at 79, co-owns BigRock Engineering, which markets various products that he invented, including ergonomic guitar picks. His Topanga, California, home has been described as a "motorcycle museum." | 6 | 4,487 | entertainment |
Hollywood is known for physical transformations, and stars often take pride in losing tons of weight - sometimes for a role and other times just to get healthier. But for a few actors, the results of the rapid weight-loss are downright startling. | 8 | 4,488 | video |
McDonald's CEO Don Thompson is retiring, the fast food chain announced in a press release Wednesday. Steve Easterbrook will take over as president and CEO. Thompson was one of a very small number of black Fortune 500 CEOs. He has worked at McDonald's for nearly 25 years and was CEO since 2012. "It's tough to say goodbye to the McFamily, but there is a time and season for everything," Thompson said in a McDonald's press release. This story is developing. Check back for updates. | 3 | 4,489 | finance |
Atletico Madrid ace Arda Turan was booked for throwing his boot at the assistant referee during the club's Copa del Rey encounter with Barcelona on Wednesday evening. The Turkey international lost his boot in a tackle three minutes into the second half of the game at the Vicente Calderon and then, seemingly incensed at not being awarded a free kick, launched it at the linesman, only narrowly missing the official's head. It was the most controversial incident in a fiery encounter in the Spanish capital, with Atletico having been infuriated by the referee's failure to award them a penalty for an alleged Jordi Alba handball just seconds before Barca broke to make it 3-2 through Neymar in the 41st minute. In addition, Fernando Torres and Neymar squared up when the halftime whistile blew, while Raul Garcia was embroiled in an angry exchange with the Blaugrana coaching team before Gabi was dismissed for a separate off-field incident during the interval. | 1 | 4,490 | sports |
The New Zealand dollar slumped to four-year lows on Thursday as investors priced in a greater chance of rate cuts there, while U.S. dollar bulls focused on the positive in the Federal Reserve's latest policy statement. The kiwi skidded to $0.7320 (NZD=D4) after the Reserve Bank of New Zealand opened the door to a possible cut in rates, having only last month flagged that further tightening was needed. Traders said the move to a neutral stance was expected, but giving an allowance for rate cuts was not. "For the NZ dollar, a further repricing of RBNZ rate expectations will imply a period of under performance against the G10 crosses, especially given that a number of markets have already undergone a significant repricing of policy expectations in recent months," JPMorgan analyst Sally Auld said. The kiwi last stood at $0.7323, hovering at lows not seen since March 2011. Against the yen, it slid to its lowest levels in three months at 85.88 (NZDJPY=R). While the RBNZ was unambiguously dovish, the Fed had something for everyone. The hawks latched onto its upbeat outlook for the economy, while the doves interpreted a reference to global markets as suggesting it might delay any interest rate hike. The Fed said it would take "financial and international developments" into account when determining when to raise rates, referring to global markets for the first time since January 2013. Treasury yields fell to fresh lows and Fed funds futures rallied on the statement. But the dollar held its ground against most of its peers. The euro, already under renewed pressure on worries about Greece, dipped to $1.1275 (EUR=) and toward an 11-year trough of $1.1098 set first thing this week. Greece's newly installed leftist prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, challenged international creditors on Wednesday by halting privatization plans agreed under the country's bailout deal, prompting a third day of heavy losses on financial markets. The dollar also climbed against sterling (GBP=D4) and reached a 5-1/2-year high on the Canadian dollar (CAD=D4). On the yen, the greenback eased to 117.45 (JPY=), near the bottom-end of the prevailing 117.00-119.00 range. All that left the dollar index (.DXY) slightly firmer at 94.665 and not far from an 11-year peak of 95.481 set on Friday. Traders expect the major currencies to consolidate overnight moves, given the Asian calendar is bare of major economic data. (ECONASIA) (Editing by Leslie Adler) | 3 | 4,491 | finance |
Sen. Ted Cruz called attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch's immigration views "dangerous" Wednesday and questioned whether Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., should even have the chamber consider her nomination. "That is the decision the majority leader is going to have to make. I believe we should use every constitutional tool available to stop the president's unconstitutional executive action. That's what Republicans, Republican candidates all over the country said over and over again last year," the Texas Republican said in a brief interview with CQ Roll Call as the daylong Judiciary Committee hearing on Lynch's nomination neared conclusion. Given that Judiciary Chairman Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, said that committee members will have a week to submit questions in writing once the hearing portion with outside witnesses concludes, it's unlikely Lynch would be lined up for time on the floor before the Presidents Day recess next month. The timing could coincide with the expiration in funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which is also caught up in Republican opposition to President Barack Obama's action on immigration. "For several months now, I've called for us to use every constitutional check and balance we have to rein in the president's illegal action. That includes using the confirmation power given by the Constitution as a direct check on the executive," Cruz said. "In my view the majority leader should announce the Senate will not confirm any executive or judicial nominees in this Congress, other than vital national security positions, unless and until the president rescinds" the executive actions granting deferred action to almost 5 million of undocumented individuals. While the attorney general position is exempt from that proposed blockade, Cruz nonetheless sounded skeptical that Lynch in particular should be allowed to advance. "This attorney general nominee has a separate set of concerns, namely that she has now explicitly embraced the president's unconstitutional action, has pledged to help him implement that unconstitutional action and indeed she refused to delineate any limits whatsoever on the president's authority," Cruz said. "She could not give any instance of a limit on the president's authority. That is profoundly dangerous to have an attorney general, who by her own testimony is prepared to rubber stamp unconstitutional conduct by the president." A senior GOP aide responded to the Cruz comments by saying that they could not recall any instances of a Cabinet-level nomination being denied at least a cloture vote. The aide also noted that forestalling Lynch's nomination would have effect of keeping Eric H. Holder Jr., in office. Related: Lynch Hearing Gives Senators a Chance to Vent The 114th: CQ Roll Call's Guide to the New Congress Get breaking news alerts and more from Roll Call in your inbox or on your iPhone . | 5 | 4,492 | news |
Cleveland Cavaliers All-Star LeBron James sat out Wednesday's game against the Portland Trail Blazers with a sprained right wrist, and the Cavs called him doubtful for Friday's game against the Sacramento Kings. James possibly sustained the injury during a hard fall in the second half of Cleveland's 103-95 victory against the Detroit Pistons on Tuesday. James had 32 points, seven assists and six rebounds. Cavs forward Shawn Marion started in place of James against the Blazers. James recently missed two weeks with a strains in his lower back and left knee, and the Cavaliers were 1-7 without him during that stretch. They are 1-8 without him in the lineup overall this season. Since James returned from the two-week absence, the Cavaliers are 7-1 with seven consecutive victories before Wednesday's game against the Portland. James has been fantastic too after healing and resting. He averaged 30.5 points, 6.8 rebounds, 6.4 assists, two steals and shot 50.6% from the field in that stretch. Cleveland is 26-20 and in fifth place in the Eastern Conference, 3½ games behind the Chicago Bulls. | 1 | 4,493 | sports |
Lauren Blanchard checks out a chef baking up some weird donut flavors | 8 | 4,494 | video |
PHOENIX (AP) -- Marshawn Lynch found a new way to say nothing. A day after giving the same one-sentence response at Super Bowl Media Day, the Seattle Seahawks' running back had another scripted answer to any questions. "You know why I'm here," Lynch replied to every question except one on Wednesday. Lynch came out to a podium instead of his original assigned spot where a large group of reporters and cameraman had gathered. He stayed for five minutes before leaving. The only time Lynch had a different answer was when he was asked what music he'll listen to pregame before facing the New England Patriots on Sunday at the Super Bowl. He said: "It's a new song. Marshawn. You know why I'm here." On Tuesday, Lynch repeated: "I'm just here so I don't get fined" while talking to reporters at the US Airways Center. Some of the questions Lynch refused to answer Wednesday included: -- "Why do you have to be a jerk to all of us?" -- "Do you have a message for your fans?" -- "Can you talk about your charity foundation?" -- "Isn't this whole act a selfish move?" In November, the NFL fined Lynch $50,000 for violations of the league's media policy in addition to collecting the $50,000 fine that was imposed against Lynch for violations last season. The fine from 2013 was held in anticipation of future cooperation from Lynch. The Professional Football Writers of America complained to the league about Tuesday's session and Lynch had been apprised of a potential fine. A league spokesman declined comment. Teammates continued defending Lynch, saying he's a different person off camera and away from microphones. "The Marshawn that we know obviously tries to be different to media," center Max Unger said. "Unfortunately you guys don't get a really good picture of who he is in the locker room and as a guy. He is the best. I think if you ask anybody in that locker room they will say the same thing, one of the best guys to be around. He has his own relationship with the media and you just have to leave it at that. He gets up there and says something and that's what the NFL wants. You can't regulate the quality of the response and that's the thing." | 1 | 4,495 | sports |
The European Union's Counter-Terrorism chief Gilles De Kerchove called on member states today to help flag extremist content on YouTube, AP reports . In a Parliament meeting of the liberal ALDE party, De Kerchove urged governments to create trained units to weed terror-related videos from the Google-owned website. Sweeping YouTube of terrorist content is a monumental task. Google's public policy manager Verity Harding said flagging after the fact is the only way to police content. Nearly 300 minutes of video is uploaded to the site every minute, she said. "To pre-screen those videos before they are uploaded would be like screening a phone call before it's made." "Like screening a phone call before it's made" De Kerchove said states are generally more successful than individuals at effecting change online. When a Scotland Yard unit recently complained to YouTube about certain material, De Kerchove said YouTube removed around 93 percent of the offending content. When individuals flag content, it usually results in a removal of 33 percent. This suggestion comes one day after the French government announced a plan to hold companies like Google and Facebook accountable for hosting extremist messages . As with that plan, De Kerchove's suggestion didn't mention exactly what would make a video worthy of flagging. As of now, De Kerchove presents this as a moral decision rather than a legal obligation. "We can contemplate legislation," he said, "but I suspect it would be an awfully monumental exercise." | 5 | 4,496 | news |
Gym junkies, this is the research you've been waiting for: Weight training whittles down stomach fat (and keeps it off) better than aerobic exercise. So keep clanking those weights, and let beer bellies be bygones. According to a 2014 Harvard School of Public Health study , published in the journal Obesity, lifting is more effective for maintaining a flat stomach than running or cycling, especially for middle-aged men, the Huffington Post reports . Researchers studied the physical activity, waist circumference, and body weight of nearly 11,000 healthy American men age 40 and over. After comparing the participants' change in activity levels over a 12-year period, they analyzed which activities had the greatest effect on their waistlines. Men who spent 20 minutes of daily weight training gained less abdominal fat as they aged, compared with men who spent the same time hitting the pavement or pushing pedals. The key, though, is not to become sedentary after losing the weight. A new study published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise shows that non-exercise activity thermogenesis (N.E.A.T), a measure of how much energy people use to stand, walk to their car, and simply move around, often declines after weight loss. And this increase in N.E.A.T. is most common in those who weight train. Weight training after weight loss prompts people to move more throughout the day. As a result, they burn more calories, and should thwart weight regain with the help of a disciplined diet. Throw some yard work, stair climbing, and moderate-to-vigorous aerobic exercise into your weight training routine and you'll keep a svelte stomach well into your golden years. | 7 | 4,497 | health |
The blizzard has come to an end, but now hard hit New England faces the tough task of digging out from underneath feet of snow. Brian Todd reports. | 8 | 4,498 | video |
A Spanish judge charged 10 Catholic priests over the alleged sexual abuse of a teenage altar boy, court papers showed Wednesday, in a case in which Pope Francis intervened. Their accuser, now aged 25, says he was raped and made to perform sex acts with priests at a villa with a swimming pool, according to a written ruling by the judge in the southern city of Granada. It is the latest in a series of paedophilia scandals involving members of the Catholic Church, and the biggest such legal case known so far in Spain. Judge Antonio Moreno formally accused 10 priests and two lay people of sexually abusing the boy or being complicit in such acts from 2004 to 2007. The victim alleges "continuous sexual abuse by a group of priests of the diocese of Granada, from 2004 when he was 14 to 2007 when he was 17." The young man said he became an altar boy at the age of seven at the church presided by the leader of the group and was later invited to houses run by the priests. The lead priest made the boy give him massages, which led to a series of acts of sexual abuse, the ruling said. The victim said the group's leader told him he had a promising career as a priest ahead of him and chided him for resisting, according to the ruling. It said the priest described himself as being like a father to the boy. The young man, identified in the ruling as a member of the Catholic institution Opus Dei, now suffers anxiety and is undergoing psychological treatment, it said. It is the most serious such case ever in Spain "in terms of the numbers of abusers and the system of abuse," said Jose Manuel Vidal, head of religious news website Religion Digital, which first reported the affair. "They set up a kind of sect within the church itself." Pope steps in The case was opened in early November and the judge had ordered investigations to be kept secret until he issued the ruling indicting the suspects. He has yet to rule whether some of the alleged deeds happened too long ago to be tried. Pope Francis revealed after the case was launched that he had ordered a Church investigation when the unidentified man wrote a letter telling him of the abuse. "I called the person and I told him, 'Go to the bishop tomorrow,' and then I wrote to the bishop and told him to start an investigation," Francis told reporters on November 25. The Argentine pontiff said the case cause him "very great pain, but the truth is the truth and we should not hide it." At least one other person now aged 44 has also accused one of the priests of abuse in the early 1990s. The Archdiocese of Granada said in mid-November that it had suspended a number of priests pending the court probe. The Archbishop of Granada Francisco Javier Martinez and several other priests prostrated themselves on the floor of the city's cathedral during a mass in November in a gesture of apology to victims of abuse. Pope Francis has taken a tough stance on clerical child abuse since taking over in 2013 from Benedict XVI. But a victims' support group, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said the pope should be tougher. "The judge in the case has made it clear that covering up child rape is a despicable crime," it said in a statement on Wednesday reacting to the Granada ruling. "Pope Francis should send the message that this behaviour is not going to be tolerated in his Church by immediately firing Granada's Archbishop." | 5 | 4,499 | news |
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