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Filming got under way in San Francisco on a new biopic about Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, with Hollywood's Michael Fassbender playing the role of the mercurial computer pioneer. Sources told AFP on Thursday that the German-Irish Fassbender, 37, took on the title role in the movie "Steve Jobs" after it was turned down by Leonardo DiCaprio and Christian Bale. Bale, Oscar-winning British star of "The Dark Knight" pulled out of the project in November, news reports said, after deciding he wasn't right for the part. The screenplay for "Steve Jobs" is being written by Aaron Sorkin, who won an Academy Award for his script for "The Social Network," about Facebook and its co-founder Mark Zuckerberg. Fassbender, one of Hollywood's most accomplished actors, is best-known for dark and intense dramatic roles in movies by British director Steve McQueen, including "Hunger," "Shame," and "Twelve Years a Slave." He also appears in "X-Men: Days of Future Past." The movie is being directed by Danny Boyle, best known for "Slumdog Millionaire" and "Trainspotting," and is scheduled for release next year. Jobs' sidekick at Apple, Steve Wozniak, is to be played by Seth Rogen, most recently seen on the big screen in the controversial movie "The Interview," about a US plot to enlist a pair of American journalists to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un. Other actors with major roles in "Steve Jobs" include Jeff Daniels and Kate Winslet. The Apple inventor's storied life already has been rendered on the big screen in 2013's "Jobs" starring Ashton Kutcher, a film that received tepid reviews. | 6 | 4,800 | entertainment |
Google's Chief Financial Officer Patrick Pichette wasn't too optimistic about the future of Google Glass on today's Google earnings call for Q4 2014. The executive took some time to highlight the project as an example of when Google is willing to take a step back and rethink something that isn't working out, even when they've made a considerable investment in the tech. "When teams aren't able to [leap] hurdles, but we think there's still a lot of promise, we might ask them to take a pause and take the time to reset their strategy, as we recently did in the case of Glass," Pichette said. "[A]nd in those situations where projects don't have the impact we hope for, we do take the tough calls, we make the decision to cancel them, and you've seen us do this time and time again." Google discontinued the Glass Explorer program back on January 19, after announcing it would shut down and be reassigned to Tony Fadell's consumer hardware department within the company. Google is still encouraging developers to develop for the platform, and a repositioning under Fadell also doesn't indicate a finality of its fate, but Pichette's comments today are the most concreate statement we've heard on the Glass program's outcome from a top executive, and they certainly don't suggest an imminent consumer launch. Glass might live on as something else, but Pichette's statements today suggest we might not recognize the form it takes when it does eventually re-emerge. | 5 | 4,801 | news |
As Japan's Honda Motor Co (7267.T) pays hundreds of millions of dollars to replace potentially deadly air bags, hitting earnings, a new headache lies around the bend - cheaper U.S. petrol could lure buyers away from its fuel-efficient cars. The country's third-largest automaker reports income for the October-December quarter later on Friday that analysts see falling 17 percent from a year earlier, squeezed by the cost of voluntary recalls involving air bag inflators made by top supplier Takata Corp (7312.T). The hit may be enough to trigger a full-year profit warning. Still, Honda, like other affected automakers, expects to get those costs back eventually if investigations find Takata at fault. And many analysts say reputational damage seems minimal, including in the United States, Honda's most important market. Potentially a bigger near-term concern is cheaper fuel as global oil prices slide, with U.S. sales of light trucks up 10 percent in 2014 against a 1.8 percent rise for passenger cars. That's a red flag for Honda, which excels in cars that have attracted buyers concerned about fuel economy. "The fall in fuel prices represents a body blow to Japanese automakers," said Merrill Lynch analyst Kei Nihonyanagi. Whatever the current quarter has in store for Honda, the earnings it reports for the third quarter of its fiscal year, due at 0600 GMT, will be hit by the Takata-related recalls. The United States accounts for most of Honda's 13 million-vehicle air bag recalls and four of the five deaths - all on Honda's cars - linked to Takata's inflators, which can explode too forcefully and send metal shards into the car. Analysts estimate quality-related costs, including a $70 million fine by the U.S. government, will drag Honda's profit down by hundreds of millions of dollars in the latest quarter. A poll of 10 analysts put October-December operating profit at 189.11 billion yen ($1.61 billion), down 17 percent from the year before according to Thomson Reuters SmartEstimate. But analysts see Honda bouncing back quickly from the recalls in terms of brand image. "The impact on Honda's sales has been limited," said Takaki Nakanishi, analyst and CEO of Nakanishi Research Institute. "I think it can recover relatively quickly at this rate." For the year though March, SmartEstimate forecast profit at 760.5 billion yen, short of Honda's guidance of 770 billion yen. While the weak yen may boost the value of overseas sales, Honda will benefit less than others since it has virtually no exports from Japan. (Editing by Kenneth Maxwell) | 3 | 4,802 | finance |
Amazon.com Inc reported stronger than expected earnings on Thursday as North American sales surged during the crucial holiday quarter, sending its shares up 9 percent. The online commerce giant, which gets about a third of its revenue from October to December, reported earnings of 45 cents a share, trouncing Wall Street's average prediction for 17 cents. Revenue climbed 15 percent to $29.3 billion in the quarter, compared to an average analyst estimate of nearly $30 billion. However, revenue rose 18 percent if $895 million in an unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates were excluded, executives said on a conference call. The sharply higher profit was a welcome surprise for Wall Street, which has clamored for Amazon to come to grips with its growing investments in everything from Hollywood-style television productions, and cloud computing and consumer devices with mixed success. In a conference call with reporters, Chief Financial Officer Tom Szkutak said Amazon is putting "a lot more energy around making sure we get great productivity around our various fixed and variable assets." Even so, few analysts expect Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos will rein in his spending significantly this year, especially as Amazon beefs up its $99-a-year Prime membership program, which offers standard two-day shipping, streaming video and unlimited photo storage among other perks. "I did see some signs of expense control but it was more or less driven by top line growth into the holiday season," S&P Capital IQ analyst Tuna Amobi said. They haven't indicated any kind of shift in terms of investments. "It just seems like foreign exchange was not as much of a headwind as believed." Worldwide, paying Prime membership rose 53 percent in 2014, and 50 percent in the U.S. market. In 2014, Amazon paid billions for Prime shipping and put $1.3 billion into its Prime video service, Bezos said in a statement. Net sales leapt 22 percent in North America, compared to 3 percent for everywhere else. Overall operating expenses rose 14.6 percent in the quarter to $28.7 billion. Net shipping costs represented 4.6 percent of worldwide net sales, slightly lower than the previous four quarters. (Reporting by Deepa Seetharaman; additional reporting by Edwin Chan; Editing by Bernard Orr) | 3 | 4,803 | finance |
Jeff Bezos showed Amazon.com Inc. can still pull out a profit, though the chief executive officer made no promises that he'll do it again next quarter. Amazon on Thursday posted a fourth-quarter profit of $214 million on sales of $29.3 billion, following two straight periods of losses. The results sent the online retailer's shares soaring in extended trading and helped blunt investor concerns that Bezos was spending too much on initiatives including speedier package delivery and original video programming -- instead of making money. Amazon still ended 2014 with its first annual loss in at least 12 years. Executives said the spending would continue, with plans to keep building data centers for the cloud-computing division and fulfillment centers for faster delivery of goods. For the first quarter, Amazon forecast an operating loss of $450 million to a gain of $50 million, which even at the high end is less than the $146 million profit from the first quarter of 2014. Still, "it's great for them to show profitability," said Colin Gillis, a New York-based analyst for BGC Partners. "The market is obviously loving that." Shares surged more than 12 percent in extended trading after earlier closing at $311.78 in New York. The stock fell 22 percent last year, compared with an 11 percent gain in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index. Operating Expenses For the fourth quarter -- typically the most lucrative for the Web retailer because of the holiday shopping season -- net income declined 12 percent from $239 million a year earlier while sales rose 15 percent from $25.6 billion. Operating expenses climbed 15 percent to $28.7 billion, which was a slower rate of increase than the 20 percent jump a year earlier. Excluding an $895 million hit from foreign exchange rates, net sales increased 18 percent from a year ago, the company said. Gross margin was 29.5 percent, up from 26.5 percent. Amazon also forecast first-quarter sales of $20.9 billion to $22.9 billion, falling short of analysts' average projection of $23 billion. "It felt like Amazon had a great holiday because they started early and they carried strong through," said Scot Wingo, CEO of ChannelAdvisor, which helps third-party merchants sell on Amazon. Heavy Spending Big spending from Web companies has been a theme this earnings season. Facebook Inc. this week said spending will jump 55 percent to 70 percent in 2015 as CEO Mark Zuckerberg invests in messaging, hiring and new technologies such as artificial intelligence. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. posted quarterly revenue that missed estimates as the Chinese e-commerce company's push into mobile curbed its advertising sales growth. Google Inc. reported its operating expenses jumped 35 percent from a year ago. Amazon has long invested heavily to tie people to the e- commerce website. Most recently, the company built new warehouses and sorting centers to speed delivery times, unveiled interactive speaker Echo and pushed deeper into corporate technology with an e-mail and calendar service for professionals dubbed WorkMail. To help with spending, Amazon obtained a $2 billion credit line with Bank of America Corp. in September and last month sold $6 billion in debt in its biggest bond offering. No Brakes Chief Financial Officer Tom Szkutak said on a conference call that Amazon will break out the cloud-computing unit, called Amazon Web Services, into its own category when it reports results next quarter. The business has traditionally been grouped within the "North America, Other" division. "We just think it's an appropriate way to look at our business in 2015," Szkutak said. He said investors should anticipate more spending on data centers and fulfillment centers this year. The spending is paying off, he added. Amazon's Prime fast-shipping program, which costs $99 annually, experienced 53 percent growth in 2014, on a base of tens of millions of people, the company said. Amazon has also been putting money into original video programming for its Prime streaming service, including recently announcing it will begin making feature-length movies for theaters and hiring director Woody Allen to helm a new half-hour TV series. The programming has attracted more people to Amazon, who are then becoming e-commerce customers and buying goods from the website. "What we see is customers who come in through our Prime pipeline for video for a free trial, and those customers are converting at a faster rate," Szkutak said. To contact the reporter on this story: Spencer Soper in San Francisco at [email protected] To contact the editors responsible for this story: Pui-Wing Tam at [email protected] Stephen West | 3 | 4,804 | finance |
NEW YORK Shares of Amazon.com jumped over 8 percent in aftermarket trading after the e-commerce giant beat quarterly profit expectations by a mile. Amazon's strategy always has been to spend a big chunk of the money it makes to grow and expand into new areas like cloud computing, streaming video and hardware and that has affected profitability to investors' sometime chagrin. But Thursday's results seem to show the company has the reins in hand when it comes to spending big and being profitable. Investors sent shares up $26.92, or 8.6 percent, to $338.60 in aftermarket trading. Amazon Prime membership surged 53 percent during 2014, even though the Seattle-based company raised prices. Amazon earned 45 cents per share for the three months ended in December, easily topping Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 24 cents per share. The online retailer posted revenue of $29.33 billion in the period, missing Street forecasts. Analysts expected $29.84 billion, according to Zacks. Amazon said the strong dollar pared nearly $900 million from revenue during the quarter. For the current period ending in March, Amazon forecast revenue in the range of $20.9 billion to $22.9 billion. Analysts surveyed by Zacks expected revenue of $23.23 billion. Amazon shares have increased slightly since the beginning of the year, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index has decreased almost 2 percent. In the final minutes of trading on Thursday, shares hit $311.87, a decrease of 19 percent in the last 12 months. _____ Elements of this story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on AMZN at http://www.zacks.com/ap/AMZN _____ Keywords: Amazon, Earnings Report, Priority Earnings | 5 | 4,805 | news |
Hear what Bill Belichick had to say on the last media day before taking on the Seattle Seahawks at Super Bowl XLIX. To see more Patriots videos download the Patriots DeskSite. | 1 | 4,806 | sports |
Our resident hoops coach sits down with Campus Insiders' Shae Peppler to discuss how the Irish's star guard has become one of the most versatile and valuable players in the nation. | 1 | 4,807 | sports |
Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks they're all amazingly dynamic, award-winning actors, but there's just one (hilarious) issue they all have in common -- they can't help but do the exact same thing in every movie. | 8 | 4,808 | video |
A congressionally appointed panel on U.S. military compensation recommended overhauling retirement and healthcare benefits on Thursday to improve services offered to troops and families while cutting costs by up to $12.6 billion annually. The nine-member panel, including former military leaders and lawmakers, recommended the Pentagon broaden its retirement benefits to provide 401(K)-style savings plans for most service members while retaining a slimmed-down version of its current 20-year retirement plan. It also recommended reforming the health system for military families and younger retirees, replacing much of the current Tricare system with commercial insurance that would improve access to care. Implementing those two recommendations plus 13 others detailed in a 280-page report would save $31.8 billion over the next five years and $12.6 billion annually by the time they are fully into force in 2053, the report said. More broadly the panel said the military's overall pay structure was sound and not in need of reform. The report's release drew a muted response, with President Barack Obama and other senior leaders thanking the panel and promising to study its findings. Military service groups were slightly more skeptical. John Stroud, head of the 1.9 million member Veterans of Foreign Wars, said the report contained recommendations to increase the fees that retirees pay for the military's Tricare health system. "But the devil is always in the details, and the VFW will now review the entire report in detail and address our concerns with the United States Congress," he said in a statement. Military compensation has become a hot-button budget issue at a time of declining U.S. defense spending. The pay and benefits of uniformed and civilian defense personnel consumes about half of the department's $496 billion budget. Efforts by the Pentagon to reduce military personnel costs have run into opposition in Congress, where lawmakers have often rejected efforts to slow the rate of increase in base pay, increase healthcare fees for retirees or impose other curbs. The release of the report could give Congress the impetus to implement some cost-savings reforms it has balked at in the past. The compensation commission insisted, however, that cost-cutting was not the driving factor in their deliberations. "These recommendations respond to the preferences of a new generation of service members by improving choice and flexibility within their compensation package," the panel said, and "offer efficiencies that substantially reduce government expenditures." (Reporting by David Alexander) | 5 | 4,809 | news |
LOS ANGELES A convicted drug dealer was charged Thursday with the murder of a 20th Century Fox executive, who mysteriously disappeared more than two years ago and whose remains were found in a northern Los Angeles County desert area in October. John Lenzie Creech, 42, was charged Thursday with 57-year-old Gavin Smith's death, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney's office. Smith was last seen leaving a female friend's home in Ventura County's Oak Park neighborhood on May 1, 2012. Hikers discovered the remains about 70 miles away, near Palmdale in the Antelope Valley, on Oct. 26, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said. Smith was with Fox's movie distribution department for nearly 18 years and was a branch manager for several theaters. He was also a former UCLA basketball player and had three children. Authorities said earlier they had found Smith's Mercedes-Benz at a Simi Valley storage facility nine months after his disappearance. Its condition along with witness statements led them to believe Smith was killed. Investigators found Smith's blood and body tissue, including skin stuck to the car's seat. Creech has been a longtime person of interest in the Sheriff's Department investigation. The storage facility where Smith's car was found was linked to Creech, who is serving an eight-year jail sentence after pleading no contest to one count of transportation for sale of a controlled substance in September 2012. A law enforcement official previously told the AP that Smith was believed to have had a romantic relationship with Creech's wife, Chandrika, after meeting her in drug rehabilitation several years earlier. Creech is scheduled to be arraigned on the new felony charge Monday. If convicted, he faces 25 years to life in state prison. | 6 | 4,810 | entertainment |
We're fans of Facebook's Paper here at TUAW. It's a handy alternative to Facebook's main iPhone app, which lets you bypass downloading the Messenger app. Paper has just received a new update which makes finding and sharing your favorite photos easier. Version 1.2.5 introduces an improved camera roll which organizes your photos and videos by the date they were taken, and adds support for iOS 8's Favorites album within Photos. Now you'll be able to search your Favorites folder, which includes the photos you've stored in the camera roll outside the app. In addition, you should find that the entire experience of posting a photo is faster after updating. You can find the newest version of Paper right now in the App Store . | 5 | 4,811 | news |
Gino Cordero recalls high school weekends in front of the TV, working his way through Final Fantasy VII on his old Sony PlayStation. "Grinding was just part of the experience," Cordero says of the slog through various game levels. "You'd get together with friends and say, 'It took me four hours to beat that wizard, because I had to get to Level 15 first.' " Today, the 34-year-old cook from Austin, Texas, has had it with building up points or strength by "level grinding." Cordero is intrigued by an offer for Evolve, a shooter title from Take- Two Interactive Software that goes on sale on Feb. 10. Fans who order the $60 game digitally using their Xbox One get to start further along in the game. If enough gamers bite, Take-Two could shake up the $27 billion console games market. On a $60 game, the company, which also makes the hit Grand Theft Auto series, may earn a bigger gross profit from an online sale ($42) than from a store purchase ($33.75), according to Mike Hickey, an analyst at investment bank Benchmark. By downloading a title online, gamers lose the chance to sell used discs back to stores, usually for about $20. That also shrinks the resale disc market, forcing more fans to buy new full-price games. Take-Two's strategy is "steering you in the direction of going in the digital download channel as opposed to through retail," says International Development Group Senior Vice President Yoshio Osaki. Piper Jaffray analyst Michael Olson forecasts Evolve will take in $194 million in total sales through March. Global digital sales of console games more than tripled, to an estimated $7.1 billion, in 2014 from 2009 and will rise 16 percent a year, to $11.9 billion, by 2018, forecasts PricewaterhouseCoopers. In-store sales will grow less than 1 percent a year, to $20 billion. Activision Blizzard, the largest U.S. game company, may have hit the industry high mark for online sales of a major game with the October release of its shooter title Destiny. The game got almost 20 percent of its early revenue online, helped by a preload feature that installs the game to consoles before its release date. Such titles are then ready to play on the day of their official release no waiting for discs to install or updates to download. Hickey estimates that Take-Two, which is promoting preloads of Evolve, could get more than 25 percent of that game's sales digitally, and in the process save $5 per game in manufacturing and packaging costs. The game maker is offering the advance download to Xbox, PlayStation, and PC users. "If they're successful in terms of driving digital adoption, then everyone takes note, and you can expect other publishers to follow," he says. Stores such as Wal-Mart and GameStop keep about 25 percent of the average $60 retail price, and about a quarter of the remainder goes to console makers as a licensing fee, Hickey estimates. Still, Strauss Zelnick, Take-Two's chief executive officer, says retailers will remain key partners. "Our most paramount goal," Zelnick said in an e-mail, "is to provide the highest quality entertainment experiences and deliver them to consumers when and how they want them." The bottom line: Take-Two Interactive's Evolve game could win sales of $194 million by March. Digital purchases will be most profitable. To contact the author on this story: Danielle Burger at [email protected] To contact the editors on this story: James Ellis at [email protected] Dimitra Kessenides at [email protected] | 3 | 4,812 | finance |
CHARLOTTE Jeff Gordon's final lap around the Sprint Cup circuit will be about winning races and a championship, not parting gifts and photographs. The four-time Sprint Cup champion promises he will come back for all that in 2016, when Chase Elliott has taken over the No. 24 Chevrolet he's already used to win 92 races since 1992. "I am concerned," Gordon said of potential distractions involved in typical pre-retirement tours. "I have seen others go through it and through those experiences you take a mental note of what you think was good and what wasn't. "Statements and comments and accolades and already the things that have been put out there are very overwhelming to me and much appreciated, but I want to race hard and be competitive and focus at the race track." Gordon's publicity team and Hendrick Motorsports plan to assert their wishes to promoters and NASCAR, he said, with the assurance of a return engagement in 2016. "I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to be around," he said. "It only makes sense for me to really commit myself to the fans and the tracks and all the sport has given me. I can't do all that and try to go be competitive on the race track." Gordon still says only that he has retired from full-time driving and has no current plans to compete after this season. The one definite: the 2015 Daytona 500 will be his last. "I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt this will be my last Daytona 500," he said of the event he has won three times. "That is not a race I will come back and do, if I do any at all. I don't have any plans to do any right now, but the Daytona 500 will definitely not be one of them." Gordon is also hoping to avoid weekly plaudits in drivers meetings, but teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr. believes that's unrealistic. "It's going to be emotional as he goes through that process. It's going to be fun to watch him get this acknowledgement week after week after week," he said. "He's dreading some of it like in the drivers meetings. He doesn't want any acknowledgement. They're going to get us up and clapping at every drivers meeting, send him off right." It remains to be seen whether Gordon will complete the transformation of the modern race car driver by forcing them to re-think how they end their careers. Few have the opportunity to leave having been as successful on the track and beyond it. And fewer leave as competitive as Gordon, who won four races and finished sixth in points last season. "A lot of guys admit they hung around too long. Everybody wants it to be as glorious and awesome as it can be, right?" Earnhardt Jr. "But we all don't get to choose that. It's chosen for us a lot of times, more often than not." Gordon also chose the timing of his announcement, displaying a message security unheard of in chatty NASCAR. Though he made his decision midway through last season, he kept it a secret until Hendrick Motorsports released a statement last Thursday. But he hinted to teammate Jimmie Johnson this New Year's Eve that something was afoot. "There was a party going on and a ton of people everywhere, and it was just one of those moments where it was like, 'Did he just suggest (that it might be his last year)?' " Johnson said. "He didn't say it outright, but he just hinted around at it." On the day of Gordon's announcement, he called Johnson to break the news -- but Johnson missed the call. He listened to Gordon's voicemail later. "Just letting you know that here in a few minutes, I'm going to go in front of my team and let them know that '15 will be my last year in the 24 car," Johnson recalled Gordon saying. "Just wanted to let you know and hopefully we can catch up soon and kick the tires on everything." Johnson said every time he had asked Gordon in the past, the four-time champion would always tell him, "I have about three more years." But not at the New Year's party. "I remember thinking, 'This isn't a three-year deal,' " Johnson said. "I remember thinking, 'There's no way '15 could be his last year. He just came off this killer '14. (I thought) 'I didn't hear him right, it's loud, had a couple drinks.' "And then I got the voicemail. I was like, 'Wow, it really is happening.' " And Chase Elliott, son of former series champion and 2015 Hall of Fame inductee Bill Elliott, will slide into a race car with a '24' on the side, in keeping with Gordon's wishes, even though team owner Rick Hendrick wanted to retire the number at least temporarily. Gordon called Elliott earlier this week seeking his opinion on keeping the digit. "I personally just think it's an honor," he said. "It's more special to have a guy like Jeff Gordon call and say he wanted it to stay the same number and ask me to be in it and ask if it is ok. I think it's cool. That's Jeff Gordon's number and it will still be his number." Follow James on Twitter @brantjames | 1 | 4,813 | sports |
Forever 21 has been pirating photoshop, according to a new lawsuit from Adobe, and it's facing serious fines as a result. The suit was filed yesterday in California District Court, alleging that Forever 21 pirated 63 different instances of Adobe software including copies of Photoshop, Acrobat, and Illustrator. Autodesk and Corel also joined Adobe in the suit, based on pirated copies of Autodesk, WinZip and PaintShopPro, among others. According to the complaint, Forever 21 "continued their infringing activities even after being contacted by Adobe regarding the infringement." It's not yet clear how Adobe traced back the violations, but it has thoroughly documented them, providing registration numbers and dates for each instance. The result, according to Adobe, is "willful, intentional, and malicious copyright infringement," and they're asking the court to issue an injunction and compensate the companies for lost revenue, court costs, and additional damages. Adobe moved towards cloud-based versions of Photoshop and other software in 2013, and many responded to the shift by seeking out pirated versions of the software . In response, Adobe has actively encouraged employees to turn in employers using unauthorized versions of the software. | 5 | 4,814 | news |
NEW YORK McDonald's new boss must feel like a freshly crowned king under siege. The world's biggest hamburger chain is facing an onslaught of competition, from better-burger chains like Five Guys to brands like Chipotle that tout the superior quality of their ingredients. Supermarkets and convenience stores are selling more on-the-go food, too. Last year, visits to convenience stores for prepared foods rose 3 percent, while visits to supermarkets were up 1 percent, representing millions of visits, according to The NPD Group. After seeing its own customer visits decline at established U.S. locations for two straight years, McDonald's Corp. said Wednesday it was replacing CEO Don Thompson with its chief brand officer, Steve Easterbrook. It was the latest in a string of changes the company has announced in hopes of appeasing investors and winning back customers. In addition to plans to simplify its menu and improve service, McDonald's recently launched a marketing campaign intended to associate its brand with the positive emotion of loving. And in early March, it's planning a "Turnaround Summit" for franchisees in Las Vegas. But even if McDonald's gets its house in order, its rivals aren't going away. Here's a look at what it's up against in its flagship U.S. market: PROBLEM? BURGER BOOMLET McDonald's is facing new burger competition. Shake Shack, which is expected to make its much anticipated debut on the New York Stock Exchange, promotes its use of hormone- and antibiotic-free beef and is emblematic of the "better burger" trend. The company has grown to 63 locations around the world, including 36 in the U.S. Over time, it sees potential for at least 450 U.S. locations. That's tiny when compared with McDonald's, which has more than 36,000 locations around the world, including more than 14,000 in the U.S. But Shake Shack isn't the only one rushing into the burger market. Five Guys, for instance, has more than 1,000 U.S. locations and more than 1,500 in development, according to its website. BurgerFi, which was founded in 2011 and has 63 locations, says it plans to add up to another 50 this year. Traditional rivals also are pressuring McDonald's. Burger King in 2012 rolled out a new menu and marketing in hopes of revitalizing its brand. It has since introduced items that compete more directly with McDonald's, including a "Big King" sandwich that resembles a Big Mac. Wendy's, meanwhile, is trying to position itself as a more premium fast-food chain with burgers and sandwiches made with specialty bread and remodeled stores with more inviting decor. MCDONALD'S ANSWER: To step up its own game, McDonald's plans to roll out an option that lets people build their own burgers at 2,000 stores by later this year. PROBLEM? CHIPOTLE FACTOR The gravitation toward places that promise better ingredients doesn't end with burger rivals. Chipotle, for instance, is often cited as the successful contrast whenever McDonald's troubles are mentioned. A big part of Chipotle's draw is that people can walk down a line and watch their food being assembled quickly, exactly as dictated. Since McDonald's sold its stake in the chain in 2006, Chipotle has grown to more than 1,700 locations. In the latest quarter, sales surged 19.8 percent at established locations. It's not just the format that attracts people, however. Chipotle also burnishes its image with its "Food with Integrity" slogan. That ethos around good ingredients is turning up throughout the industry. Subway this month rolled out new chicken strips that it says doesn't have artificial flavors or preservatives, and says it's working on improving other ingredients. MCDONALD'S ANSWER: McDonald's is taking note. Mike Andres, president of McDonald's USA, said last month the company is also looking at shrinking the ingredients it uses. PROBLEM? COFFEE AND BREAKFAST COMPETITION For established coffee chains like Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts, a key way of driving sales is becoming more of a destination for food. Already, Starbucks says about a third of its transactions include a food item, and the company is pushing hard to increase that figure. It's introducing new salads and sandwiches that can be heated up in an oven. And to attract customers in the evenings, it's rolling out wine, beer and "small bites" like chicken skewers to thousands of locations in coming years. Dunkin' Donuts is trying to boost food sales as well, and has expanded sandwich offerings for the breakfast and lunch hours. Like Starbucks, it's trying to make more use of its stores in the afternoons, when the morning rush dies down. Meanwhile, Taco Bell, which is owned by Yum Brands, last year launched a national breakfast menu in hopes of stealing some McDonald's customers. The Mexican-style food chain targeted the breakfast leader by featuring real-life people named Ronald McDonald professing their love for items like the waffle taco. ANSWER: McDonald's has said it plans to play up its coffee offerings, which can be a draw for people who end up spending more on food. It's also playing up the fresh eggs it uses for its popular Egg McMuffin. ___ Follow Candice Choi at www.twitter.com/candicechoi | 3 | 4,815 | finance |
After the last couple of days, we've had a considerable amount of discussion about the 49ers' recent offensive hires -- most notably Geep Chryst as the new offensive coordinator and Steve Logan as the QB coach. Chryst is an internal hire; Logan is from the radio. Literally. On his radio show, Logan recently had some comments about the importance of mobility for quarterbacks. The MUST SEE quotation is here : But I'll still take the mobility at the sacrifice of accuracy. You can have the accuracy and lose the mobility, and now you've got Tom Brady. that's good. But guess what, Rex Ryan , the Baltimore Ravens , go look at Tom Brady's numbers against those two defenses, they fall dramatically. I still want a mobile quarterback. For a larger context about Logan's views, see the audio that accompanies that quotation. Ultimately, these hires raise an important question: how will these coaches affect Colin Kaepernick's development? I think it's fair to be skeptical of Logan's experience. Additionally, it seems really bizarre to cite Kaepernick's lack of development as one reason why Jim Harbaugh was let go before hiring his old QB coach. So, we are confronted with the question about Kaepernick's development. Harbaugh had a reputation as a QB-whisperer. Do you think that Logan and Chryst can reproduce the same environment? There's a lot of debate about what sort of development Kaepernick needs. I tend to think that the pocket presence and mental side of the game is what needs work. I understand, though, that some people would like for Kaepernick to utilize his mobility a bit more (Logan cites Matt Ryan as an example of mobility, by the way). While I think a balance can (and should) be struck, it's pretty clear to me that Kaepernick already has the mobility down. What he needs is a coach who can elevate his reads to the next level and show him how to master an offense. This is the summer in which Kaepernick was supposed to take the leap forward in the pocket and in the film room. Kurt Warner had some recent comments about his development, and it sounds like there's been a good start to the offseason. Will Kaepernick be able to carry what he learns into the offseason? Will his coaches help Kaepernick take the next step that we want him to take? | 1 | 4,816 | sports |
Wall Ball is a CrossFit staple, a multi-part exercise consisting of a full squat to launch a medicine ball vertically up the wall. You catch the ball in front of your face and then repeat the whole thing, squatting and launching again and again, often in multiples of 500, or so it seems. I'm not especially new to CrossFit, and I'm not all that uncoordinated, and yet I can't seem to Wall Ball without scraping the medicine ball against my face, often on the way up and then again on the way back down. When I think about what exactly I'm repeatedly brushing my mouth against not just the well-worn ball but also everything that has touched the wall, the floor (where it rested before the workout began), my hands, and the hands of whomever handled the ball before me… well, you can see why I try not to think about it. If you assumed plane travel had the lock on germ incubation, you'll want to consider what happens at your gym this winter, and particularly at your CrossFit box, where packed classes of gung-ho athletes work with multiple forms of shared surfaces and hand held equipment, catching them, wheezing on them (or maybe that's just me), and tossing them up again. At my CrossFit box, we're given antibacterial wipes to clean up our sweat after we're done, but that doesn't do much to protect you during class, or in the case of partner WODs that have you sharing kettlebells with the neighborhood anti-vaxxer. What's more, your body may be more susceptible to invasion during and post-workout, when it's in recovery mode from all the physical exertion, while CrossFitters a particularly type A lot are often reluctant to take a day off from the gym even if they're not feeling 100 percent. One way to ward off illness, out of the gym, is to get a solid eight hours of sleep a night and take a daily probiotic. "Probiotics can help restore our own healthy bacteria so it can do its job in supporting our immune system in the midst of taxing environmental factors, like cold winters or sweaty equipment," says Karen Katsirubas, a nurse practitioner in Durham, N.C. It's also important to stay hydrated, especially during the months of dry indoor heat. "When mucous membranes dry out, they develop cracks in their barrier against infections," says Austin internist Amy Siegel, M.D. Some other preventative measures seem obvious, and you should be doing them already: Among these, says Boston-area M.D. Jack Cornwell, are getting a flu shot, avoiding touching your face, and bringing your own water bottle (and being sure the bottle you swig from is, in fact, yours). "And don't refill at the water fountain; the moist environment makes it one of the germ-iest places in the gym," adds Manhattan personal trainer Amie Hoff, who was so grossed out by gym germs that she invented tags to help her clients remember which towel was theirs and which side of it was safe to rub on their faces. If your gym doesn't have anti-bacterial wipes, bring your own, and use them on equipment and in lockers both before and after your workout anywhere, basically, you plan to put your appendages or belongings. Bring your own equipment when possible (maybe even invest in your own wall ball). Post-workout, always wash your hands and change immediately, since tight fabric can trap bacteria and sweat in its fibers, making germs more likely to stick to your skin. If you carry your sneakers in your gym bag, be sure to slip them into a plastic bag before throwing them back in. "This prevents germs you pick up on the bottom of your shoes from transferring to other items in your gym bag, or to the inside of the bag itself," says Hoff. Most of all, don't be afraid to take a day off, even if you're feeling fine. While moderate exercise is beneficial to the immune system and can also help you recover from a virus more quickly too much high-intensity exercise can compromise it, says Siegel. Your WOD-mates might think you're lazy but they'll catch on soon enough, like when they're sitting on their couch under a pile of blankets while you crush them in the 5-3-1. | 7 | 4,817 | health |
The Milwaukee Brewers have agreed to a one-year, $3 million contract with free-agent left-hander Neal Cotts, FOXSports.com's Ken Rosenthal has confirmed. Despite his history of injuries, Cotts passed his physical with the Brewers on Thursday, according to Rosenthal. The club is expected to officially announce the signing Friday. Cotts joins the Brewers after spending the past two seasons as a member of the Texas Rangers. The 34-year-old went 10-12 with a 2.84 ERA in 131 appearances with the Rangers, but his ERA jumped from 1.11 in 2013 to 4.32 in 2014. Selected by Oakland in the second round of the 2001 first-year player draft, Cotts made his major-league debut with the Chicago White Sox in 2003. He pitched parts of four seasons out of the bullpen for the White Sox before he was traded to the Chicago Cubs prior to the 2007 season. Cotts posted a 4.97 ERA in 48 games over three years with the Cubs, battling numerous injuries along the way. Cotts underwent Tommy John surgery on his left elbow in 2009 and has had four surgeries on his right hip since 2010. The Yankees released Cotts in 2011 after a failed physical, but he received another chance when Texas signed him to a minor-league contract in February of 2012. He spent all of 2012 in Triple-A after a strained left lat muscle during the final week of spring training cost him a chance at earning a spot in Texas' bullpen. Cotts began 2013 in Triple-A but was called up to the big leagues in late May. He ended up going 8-3 with a 1.11 ERA in 58 relief appearances for the Rangers, striking out 63 batters and walking 23 in 57 innings. A bad ending to last season inflated his ERA to 4.32 in 2014. Cotts had a 3.36 ERA on Aug. 24 but allowed 11 earned runs over his last 11 1/3 innings. Cotts will likely join Will Smith as the two left-handed relievers in Milwaukee's bullpen. The Brewers lost left-handers Zach Duke and Tom Gorzelanny in free agency and plan to use Smith in a late-innings role, leaving a need for an additional lefty. Right-handed hitters have hit .237 against Cotts in his career, while left-handed hitters hold a .248 batting average. In his dominant 2013 season, lefties hit .204 and righties hit .157. The Brewers now have five relievers who seem like a safe bet to make the Opening Day roster, if healthy, as Cotts joins Smith, Jonathan Broxton, Jeremy Jeffress and Brandon Kintzler. Follow Andrew Gruman on Twitter | 1 | 4,818 | sports |
It wasn't long ago that everybody wondered whether Apple Inc. could effectively compete against a tough bunch of homegrown smartphone makers in China. Then came the company's blowout earnings report this week, which included a stunning 70% year-over-year increase in its China region revenue, driven by its new iPhones. That answered the question in the affirmative - but it doesn't mean Apple can breathe easy. Chinese smartphone makers are growing fast, led by an aggressive company hardly anyone in the U.S. had heard of until recently: Xiaomi. Based in Beijing, Xiaomi is fast emerging as the Apple rival to watch - not just in China, but around the world. Last year it sold 61 million smartphones, more than three times its 2013 total. A few weeks ago, the 5-year-old company raised $1.1 billion in new funding at a valuation of $45 billion. "The trend over the last couple of years has been for local vendors, plus Samsung, to dominate the market and make it hard for others," said Chris Jones, principal analyst on the mobile team at research firm Canalys. "They've been driving down the prices of smartphones and driving up the screen sizes and quality." Xiaomi sells smartphones at about half the cost of the iPhone. That's a big deal in a country such as China, where average incomes are a fraction of those in the U.S. Besides selling relatively inexpensive phones, Xiaomi's strategy has been to primarily sell its phones online, which boosts profit margins by taking expensive real estate out of the equation. It also uses a savvy "pre-order" system, manufacturing the phone after an order is placed and paid for by the user; with the price of smartphone components constantly declining, Xiaomi ends up benefiting because the cost to produce the phone ends up being cheaper than when the phone first went on sale, said Wang Jun of Analysys International in Beijing. Xiaomi's chief executive, Lei Jun, has often been called "China's Steve Jobs," although he protests the comparison. The company has won over millions of Chinese consumers, and, like Apple, enjoys strong brand loyalty among its fans. "I have three Xiaomi phones," said Hao Ran, a sales manager at a Beijing theater. "The iPhone is just too expensive and isn't worth the money." In a way, that serves both companies well, because each appeals to a different segment of the market: Premium shoppers for Apple and price-conscious ones for Xiaomi. "Xiaomi's user base doesn't really overlap with iPhone users that much, especially with loyal Xiaomi and Apple fans who would never buy a smartphone from a different brand," Wang Jun said. For some Chinese consumers, there's more than just the price consideration. Ran, 27, also said he worried about his privacy being compromised by Apple and Samsung. "I trust Chinese smartphone makers more," he said. In recent months, the Chinese government has been ramping up its restrictions on foreign hardware and software makers as well as Internet giants. U.S. companies have complained of a protectionist regime, saying such rules stifle innovation and make it increasingly difficult to do business in China. So far, that hasn't seemed to hamper Apple. Revenue in the company's "Greater China" region - encompassing China, Taiwan and Hong Kong - totaled $16.1 billion for the October-December quarter. The 70% increase was by far the biggest percentage jump by region for Apple; in comparison, its Americas revenue rose 23% compared with a year earlier. Apple's success in China was largely due to the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, which finally gave Chinese consumers what they know and love: large-screen smartphones. Many Chinese consumers use their phones as their primary - and oftentimes only - Internet-connected device, so big screen sizes are a huge draw. There are also socioeconomic factors in play. As millions of Chinese become more affluent and join the swelling middle class, status and brands have become more important - and Apple fits right into that, said Murillo Campello, a professor of management and finance at Cornell University. "You get a cachet: Made in California," he said. "With Xiaomi, you get the functionality of having a smartphone, but it's just not as impressive." That sentiment was echoed by Gan Yu, 20, who lives in Beijing. "When the iPhone 6 Plus was released, I immediately got one," she said. "People around me told me nice things about the Xiaomi phones. They sounded like a good bargain.... But for myself, almost all my friends are using iPhones. So if I own a Chinese-brand phone like Xiaomi, I'll be too embarrassed to take it out." The frenzy for new iPhones was so pronounced that year-over-year iPhone sales doubled last quarter in mainland China. Apple didn't specify how many units were sold there. In a call with analysts, Chief Executive Tim Cook called the growth "absolutely stunning." "The local competition was obviously there this quarter and it has been there for many quarters," Cook said. "I think we did really well." As a result, the Cupertino, Calif., company - which just one quarter earlier had been in seventh place among smartphone vendors in China - rocketed to No. 1 for smartphone shipments during the last three months of last year, a first for the company, according to Canalys. Xiaomi was No. 2, followed by Samsung and Huawei. "This is an amazing result," Canalys said in its report. "While Chinese smartphone vendors are quickly gaining ground internationally, Apple has turned the tables on them in their home market." By mid-2016, Apple plans to more than double its number of greater China retail locations, to 40 in all. It already opened two stores in the region this month. To get the stores up and running, Apple has reportedly been wooing store employees to relocate to China. Apple may be on top right now, but China is a volatile, relatively young market. To stay ahead, the company will have to constantly innovate while maintaining its status as the desirable "it" brand - not only in China, but in other emerging markets where price is a strong consideration. In the meantime, other major tech players will continue to jostle for position, and analysts say they expect big fluctuations in the months to come. "The market share between the top vendors is pretty close, so if the winds blow in the right direction, any one of them can move into the leadership position," Canalys' Jones said. "Xiaomi, Samsung, Lenovo, Huawei, Apple - they're all in there." [email protected] [email protected] Twitter: @byandreachang, @JulieMakLAT Chang reported from Los Angeles and Makinen from Beijing. Tommy Yang in the Times' Beijing bureau contributed to this report. | 3 | 4,819 | finance |
Land Rover is selling loads of SUVs. Total sales of JLR products for 2014 exceeded those of 2013 by 9 percent, and 2013 was a great year. Moreover, that increase is weighed down by Jaguar, which sold just more than 81,000 cars worldwide. In total, Land Rover moved 381,108 units this past year, with more than 51,000 of those sales coming to the United States, a market since China ain't doing too hot that has returned front and center to prominence and dominance in the eyes of the world's carmakers. A luxury car dealer I know recently told me that Land Rover is the hot brand, explaining that he can't keep Range Rover s or Range Rover Sport s on the lot. Pretty good for a company founded to address the lack of Jeeps in postwar Wales. The amazing part of the story is that Land Rover has managed to do all this without a volume model. Or should I say without a decent volume model. The sexy little Evoque our 2012 SUV of the Year is a niche product, and when is the last time you saw an LR2 (called the Freelander in other markets), let alone heard anyone discussing one? The old (but still good) and about to be replaced LR4/Discovery's price starts just above $51,000 hardly mainstream. As for the Range Rovers, if you have to ask … However, there's a new Land Rover on the horizon and it's a replacement for the moribund LR2 /Freelander. Land Rover is calling it the Discovery Sport, the price starts at a reasonable $37,995, and they invited yours truly to the unreal country of Iceland to have a drive. Why Iceland? Aside from pure exoticism, what better place to show off what Land Rover is pitching as a true go-anywhere, small, premium crossover? The tiny volcanic country isn't even finished forming yet, and not only does the landscape change completely every 10 kilometers, the weather changes every 10 minutes. We flew into Reykjavik late in January, the dead of winter, when temperatures just off the ring road that envelops the island hovered right around freezing. Meaning snow and ice glaciers of it. One caveat -- and this has been bugging me since I encountered the 18 or so Discovery Sports parked on the heated driveway of the Ion Hotel where our journey began Land Rover equipped all of them with studded tires. True, we did some fairly hairy off-roading, but it's impossible for me to say how much of the Disco Sport's capability came down to engineering chops, and how much was a result of the little metal spikes. Guess we'll have to wait until one comes Stateside so we can perform a proper evaluation on real tires. C'est la vie. Jerry McGovern is the head of Land Rover design, and he ranks up with the most talented metal-molders out there. Give the man a chassis and he hands you back a classic. Evoque , Ranger Rover, Range Rover Sport all are attractive SUVs. No easy feat. The Discovery Sport carries on that recent tradition, especially when the roof is painted a contrasting color. Tight, athletic, purposeful, it's difficult to find fault with this medium-size ute's design. Even the cover that hides the hood-mounted airbag (for pedestrian safety not coming to the U.S.) looks pretty much OK. The interior design is functional. Composed of mostly leather and soft plastic with controls that feel medium-quality, it's not a game-changer. Neither is Jaguar Land Rover's new, colorful infotainment head unit, which looks worlds better than the all-gray affair we're used to. Still, the map functionality is second tier and the whole system isn't as good as what you'd get in, say, an Audi. Under the hood sits the familiar, Ford-developed, 2.0-liter turbocharged I-4. You know this engine from the Evoque and various Jaguar sedans (as well as some Fords). Power is adequate 240 horsepower and 251 lb-ft of torque on paper. It's difficult to say how well the turbo mill suits the Discovery Sport because not only are speed limits low in Iceland, but my normal default jackass setting for car launches was also dialed back a few clicks because of the near-treacherous icy conditions. Land Rover is claiming 7.8 seconds to 60 mph, and I have no basis to argue in either direction. I will mention that a fellow journalist snuck a Discovery Sport onto a truck scale and it rang up a total of 1,970 kilograms 4,343 pounds, or 386 pounds heavier than the 3,957 pounds Land Rover's claiming. Please note that's without a full tank of gas, how we normally weigh vehicles. With four adult males onboard the interior space is impressive, especially as the rear seats slide slide back to provide the back passengers with plenty of legroom. In a pinch, the seats can be slid forward and an optional third row seat can be deployed. Land Rover describes the seating as 5+2, which I'll amend to five adults and two small, uncomfortable children. Like certain other aspects of the drive, it's tough to say much about the ride quality because of the studded tires (and Iceland's weather-ravaged pavement, plus icy, snowy dirt). That said, I felt nothing that would lead me to believe the Discovery Sport will be a large departure from Land Rover's typical excellent-for-an-SUV ride quality. The same is true for handling. No one on the mini Icelandic saga felt like pushing the Discovery Sport hard through corners, because those corners were mostly covered in ice and bordered by water. We did plunge the Discovery Sport into 2 feet of fast-flowing water that came midway up the doors. As you would expect from the brand, the capable rig had no issue whatsoever fording the nearly frozen river. That is why you're spending the extra money on a Land Rover product -- the promise of go-anywhere capability. And go anywhere we did. Up snow-covered volcanic hills and down icy, cragged trails, the Discovery Sport never so much as hinted at getting stuck. Again, the studded tires no doubt helped, but so did Land Rover's patented Terrain Response system that we had locked into Mud, Gravel and Snow the entire time (save for some ice ballet/donuts I performed in a frozen church parking lot with every single system switched off). Land Rover was obsessed with us using the Hill Descent Control feature, but with the amount of grip on hand, I much preferred paddle shifting the nine-speed ZF transmission down a couple of gears when encountering a steep grade. Of note: This is the first nine-speed-equipped vehicle I've driven where the transmission felt properly tuned. Eventually, the Discovery Sport will get JLR's new family of small engines, called Ingenium. You'll be able to choose between gasoline and diesel. It might behoove you to wait for the new motors because they'll no doubt be more powerful, more efficient, and lighter. Until that time, the Discovery Sport looks to be the vehicle Land Rover needed to have on sale last year. Small, premium SUVs represent a major profit center for manufacturers and this space is filling up quickly. The competition is thick Audi Q5 , BMW X3 , Lincoln MKC , Mercedes-Benz GLK (soon to be renamed GLC), Porsche Macan , Lexus NX / RX , and even the old Cadillac SRX are selling like sweet tea on a hot Georgia day. The Discovery Sport separates itself from that pack by offering true off-road chops. Even if you never venture past where the sidewalk ends, knowing you could is oftentimes enough. Put another way, would you dream of taking the others on a trip across the wild, untamed, and indescribably beautiful fjords of Iceland? Land Rover, for one, hopes not. 2015 Land Rover Discovery Sport BASE PRICE $37,995-$42,495 VEHICLE LAYOUT front-engine, AWD 5/7-pass, 4-door, SUV ENGINE 2.0-L/240-hp/251-lb-ft turbocharged DOHC 16-valve I-4 TRANSMISSION 9-speed automatic CURB WEIGHT 3,950-4,350 lb (est) WHEELBASE 107.9 in LENGTH X WIDTH X HEIGHT 180.7 x 74.6 x 67.9 in 0-60 MPH 7.8 sec (mfr est) EPA CITY/HWY FUEL ECON 21/28 (est) ENERGY CONSUMPTION, CITY/HWY 160 / 120 kW-hrs/100 miles (est) CO2 EMISSIONS 0.82 lb/mile (est) ON SALE IN U.S. April, 2015 | 9 | 4,820 | autos |
OCALA, Fla. (AP) Ha Na Jang went from qualifier to leader in just a few days at the LPGA season opener. And it surprised no one. The 22-year-old South Korean, ranked 21st in the world, shot a 7-under 65 in the second round of the Coates Golf Championship on Thursday and opened up a four-shot lead over Stacy Lewis heading into the third round. Jang has full status on the LPGA Tour. But because the opener isn't a full-field event, she had to qualify last Saturday. Her extra time at Golden Golf & Ocala Equestrian Club certainly paid dividends. She made one bogey in two rounds, and responded to that miscue with birdies on two of the next three holes. "I hope to play well these next two days so people get to know who I am," Jang said through an interpreter. The start of the second round was delayed 90 minutes because of frost, and the interruption prevented 50 players from completing 18 holes. They will return Friday morning to finish. Jang might not want to wait to get back on the course. She sank a curl-in, 25-footer on her final hole in near-dark conditions to get to 12-under 132. Although Jang is technically a rookie, she has plenty of experience. Her best LPGA finish was third in the 2014 Evian Championship last year. She also won six tournaments in five seasons on the KLPGA Tour and finished tied for 42nd at the Korean Women's Open as a 12-year-old. Lewis, one of three players to shoot 66 in the opening round, was 8 under heading into Friday's third round. "I just didn't play quite as well today," said Lewis, the first American since Betsy King in 1993 to sweep the Rolex player of the year award, the Vare Trophy and the money list title last season. World No. 2 Lydia Ko and Azahara Munoz were five back at 7 under. So were Angela Stanford and Austin Ernst, but they had holes to finish. "I was super rusty," said Ko, who played with her left thumb taped. "For a moment, I didn't even know if I would be able to play ... I had zero feel. It's kind of good that it's back to normal. I tried to work hard in the three weeks I had to prepare for this." Much of the attention -- the opener drew big crowds in horse country -- was focused on players off the leaderboard. Cheyenne Woods, the niece of Tiger Woods, likely made the cut. She birdied No. 18th to get to 4 over, which is expected to be safe. Woods is playing her first tournament with full-time status, although she got in on a sponsor's exemption because she didn't have enough priority to make the 120-player field. "It's definitely important for me to play well this week and get started off good," Woods said. Woods would be in much better shape if not for the par-4 13th, one of eight tribute holes at Golden Ocala. No. 13 resembles the 17th at St. Andrews, the Road Hole, and it's gotten the best of Woods in two rounds. She's 3 over on No. 13, including a double-bogey Thursday. "That hole kicked my butt this week," she said. "If I play it (Friday), I'm definitely going to get revenge on it." Paula Creamer had no trouble with the par-3 sixth, a replica of No. 16 at Augusta National. Using a 5-iron from 162 yards, Creamer notched her second ace in tour play. It didn't come with any bonus gifts, though. "I made my hole-in-one at Augusta," she said. "I go, `Where's my car?' But I guess having a hole-in-one at Augusta is better than a car. ... That's why you play. You play for that perfect moment." Reigning U.S. Women's Open champion Michelle Wie rebounded from even par in the first round with a 2-under 70 on Thursday. "A lot of stupid mistakes," Wie said. "But at the same time, you know, I just felt like it's kind of good to get it out of the way. You make the mistakes and `OK, I'm not going to do that next time.' ... Just stupid errors here and there, but I'm excited for the weekend." | 1 | 4,821 | sports |
ST. LOUIS (AP) Missouri athletic director Mike Alden is stepping down after a 17-year tenure marked by several high-profile coaching hires, significant facility upgrades and the school's 2012 move from the Big 12 Conference to the SEC. Alden plans to leave in August but will remain at Mizzou as an instructor in its College of Education and an administrator in a new global service-learning program. The school announced the move on Thursday and is planning a Friday morning news conference. The Chicago-area native with roots on a family farm outside Columbia took charge of Missouri athletics in 1998 after working as Texas State's athletic director in San Marcos. In 2000, he hired Gary Pinkel, a little-known coach at Toledo. Pinkel became the school's winningest football coach and led Missouri to two consecutive East Division titles in its first three years in the Southeastern Conference. Alden had less success trying to find the winning formula in men's basketball, hiring four head coaches since Norm Stewart's contentious retirement early in Alden's tenure. That group includes Quin Snyder, under whom the NCAA cited Missouri for recruiting violations and placed the school on three years' probation; Mike Anderson, who flirted with the top job at several other schools before leaving to coach at Arkansas, where he was an assistant under Nolan Richardson; and Frank Haith, who left Missouri for Tulsa in what many saw as a downward move just two years after being named national coach of the year. Alden's official campus bio is littered with what it calls ''history-making landmarks'' under his leadership, from improved graduation rates to spearheading more than $265 million in private donations for projects such as the current Memorial Stadium expansion. He held several NCAA leadership roles and is a former president of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics. SEC Commissioner Mike Slive called Alden ''a transformative leader'' who ''commanded national respect across the college athletics landscape.'' Alden signed a seven-year contract extension in 2012 that pays a base salary of $301,917, with the possibility of earning up to $777,976 through performance incentives. Among Missouri athletic directors, his time in office trails only Don Faurot - who presided over the program a total of 27 years in two stints interrupted by World War II and for whom the school's football field is named. In a letter to athletic department employees and Mizzou fans released soon after he announced the move at a Thursday afternoon staff meeting, Alden called his time in Columbia ''a lifetime for an athletics administrator.'' Alden has spent the past year working for Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin, the former Texas A&M president who succeeded Brady Deaton, Alden's boss the previous 10 years. Loftin said the school has already begun a national search for Alden's replacement. --- Follow Alan Scher Zagier on Twitter at http://twitter.com/azagier | 1 | 4,822 | sports |
The measles outbreak that originated at Disneyland in mid-December has risen to 79 confirmed cases in California, and 16 cases in seven other states and Mexico. As the numbers continue to rise, there have been a lot questions about measles, vaccinations and whether or not to get a booster shot. Dr. James Cherry , a UCLA research professor and an author and editor of the "Feigin and Cherry's Textbook of Pediatric Infectious Diseases," offers up some much-needed answers. Some of the confirmed cases involved people who had been vaccinated. How can that happen? "One dose of vaccine gives you 95 percent protection; two doses, over 99 percent protection. The two people at Disneyland had two doses," he said. But they fell into that 1 percent of people who can still get it." What is measles like for people who have been vaccinated? "The good thing about it is the measles [those who are vaccinated] get is modified; it's not so severe. That was the situation of Disney people. They kept working. They didn't realize their rash was measles." People used to get measles all the time. Why is it so bad for a child to get measles? "In the United States, 1 in 500 people who get measles die. One in 1,000 get inflammation of the brain (encephalitis). A percentage of those will go on to have permanent brain damage. A more common complication is pneumonia." How easy is it to get measles if you're not vaccinated? "Measles is one of the most contagious diseases." The virus is airborne and can live in a space for up to two hours, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , which means that if someone with measles coughs or sneezes in a space, measles can be contracted long after the person has left. What would happen if there were no vaccinations? "If we didn't vaccinate, there would be 8,000 deaths from measles each year and there would be 4,000 (cases of) inflammation of the brain." And of those 4,000 with inflammation of the brain, 1,000 would be left with brain damage similar to autism, he said. What does it mean for babies that are too young to be immunized and kids who can't receive the vaccine if there are multiple children in our community who are not vaccinated? "It's a definite risk. How much of the population needs to be protected so that if a case is introduced it won't spread? The idea of herd immunity is simple but not simple. If the overall population is immunized above 95 percent, the likelihood of someone with measles running into one of the 5 people out of 100 who are not vaccinated is low." We need herd immunity because there are people ( including babies and those with HIV, cancer or severe allergic reactions ) who we can't vaccinate. Are you seeing more people who are getting their children vaccinated? "I think the good news is that a lot of these people who have not vaccinated are going back to their doctor ... Pediatricians in practice are (seeing parents) coming in and asking (for their child) to be vaccinated." Do adults need to get the vaccine if we were vaccinated as children? "Adults can get a blood test to determine if they are protected or not. Many adults received one dose. There's nothing wrong with getting another dose." If we had measles as a child, should we get the vaccine? "If you had natural measles, you'd be protected for life." | 7 | 4,823 | health |
CNN's Susan Candiotti recaps the beginning of the Aaron Hernandez trial. The NFL player is accused of murdering Odin Lloyd. | 8 | 4,824 | video |
Gap Inc (GPS.N) said on Thursday it has eliminated the role of creative director Rebekka Bay, the latest in a slew of changes in strategy as the apparel retailer attempts to revive sagging sales. Last week, the company announced plans to shut down its Piperlime brand, which sold designer shoes and clothing, by the end of April. Piperlime generated less than $100 million in annual sales. The company, whose namesake brand saw a 4 percent drop in store sales in November and a 5 percent drop in December, said Bay will leave the company immediately. Instead of a new creative director, Scott Key will become senior vice-president, customer experience, overseeing a newly combined e-commerce and marketing business. Key is currently a senior executive with Gap. The changes were announced after the company's "Dress Normal" campaign failed to resonate with consumers last fall and analysts panned the company's designs as unexciting. Despite being one of the more popular apparel brands in the United States, the retail chain's buyers have eluded its relatively expensive Gap and Banana Republic brands, for fast fashion brands like Zara, Hennes & Mauritz AB H&M (HMb.ST) and Forever 21. Gap has nearly tripled its international store numbers in the last nine years while its U.S. core store count has declined around 7 percent, analysts say. Analysts said the changes will bring a much needed fresh perspective to the brand and help re-engage customer demand. "This announcement is further evidence of the management's commitment to right the fashion and marketing problems of the Gap brand and that they will exercise little patience in the process," Morningstar analyst Bridget Weishaar said. In October last year, the company said it would replace chief executive Glenn Murphy, who ran the company for seven years. Gap's new Chief Executive Art Peck starts on Feb. 1. (Reporting by Nandita Bose; editing by Andrew Hay) | 3 | 4,825 | finance |
PHOENIX Tim Brown is once again a finalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, now for the sixth time since he became eligible in 2010. Once again, the former Raiders wide receiver great is hoping it will finally be his turn to get the call to Canton when the latest class for 2015 is announced Saturday. "It's hard to be oblivious to things that are going on, because it's too big to say 'I'm not going to think about it or worry about it," said Brown, who talked to Sporting News as a representative for Sony's new Xperia Z2 tablet. MORE: Hall of Fame finalists | Cardinals close to heart of oldest Hall of Famer | 2014 class "It's too big of an event in your life. You just have to manage your expectations and those of the people around you. If you can find a way to do that, it makes it go a little smoother so whatever happens, you keep going on." There's a notion that it will keep getting more difficult for Brown to get in the Hall, as modern receivers keep putting up more prolific numbers in pass-happier schemes than when Brown played for the Raiders, between 1998 and 2002. Brown thinks that won't be the case. "What I don't understand is, is how what we did has been diminished by what the guys are doing today," Brown said. "You would think it would be tougher for those guys to get into the Hall of Fame. Back in our day, we only had to throw the ball 22, 23, 25 times a game. Now they're throwing 45 times a game. It's harder for the guys today because everyone's going to have incredible numbers." Brown had numbers to stack up against anyone who ever played. He's fourth in both career receptions and receiving yardage with 1,094 and 14,394, respectively. He had 100 receiving touchdowns and was very durable, going to nine Pro Bowls in his 16 seasons. He should be in. Brown thinks NFL fans and observers, many of them fantasy football players, are just more aware of statistics than they were back then. "Nowadays, it's about the numbers," Brown said. "It's not whether you win a game or what your effect was on the game. That's the unfortunate part that has happened. I would have friends who got mad at me, too, when I scored a touchdown, because they wanted Tyrone Wheatley to score a touchdown. That's just one of the things you had to deal with. It's just a sign of the times." Brown has become patient, learning from other contemporaries who had to wait their turn for Canton. Former Bills great Andre Reed got in after eight tries in the 2014 class. " Andre Reed , a good friend of mine, I watched him go through this for years," he said. "From that standpoint, you understand it's something you have to grin and bear. You just pray that your time is coming up, and you can put the process behind you." As for his chances of getting in with the 2015 class, Brown likes them. "I do feel good because I'm the old guy in the group now," he said. "If they put a receiver in, hopefully they'll put the old guy in. From that sense, it would make sense so they can deal with the younger receivers who have been coming through the league." Brown starred in a day before the NFL''s current technology. He can only imagine how much his life as a football player would have been easier if had something as cool as the Xperia he now owns during his playing days. "It's been an incredible piece of equipment for me," Brown said. "This would have been great to have instead of all the papers. It would have been amazing to show coaches what exactly what I'm seeing instead of telling them, 'Hey, look at this'. It shows you where the game is evolving, and where it will keep evolving." | 1 | 4,826 | sports |
A man named Michael posted an ad on Craigslist offering a Super Bowl ticket on the 40 yard line in exchange for a night with someone's wife. He is a self-proclaimed 'Fifty Shades of Grey" kind of guy. Keri Lumm (@thekerilumm) has the story. | 8 | 4,827 | video |
We still don't know everything about the information Google handed over to the government about three WikiLeaks employees , but a lawyer for the search giant has answered one question about the incident. While a gag order prevented Google from the three staff members, attorney Albert Gidari told the Washington Post it fought the government for four years to overturn it. Apparently, the government allowed Twitter to notify supporters -- including Icelandic politician Birgitta Jónsdóttir -- of surveillance in 2010 and was shocked at their disagreement. Afterwards, it was determined to avoid that, and fought hard to keep gag orders in place. The lawyer claims it's policy to challenge any gag order with an indefinite time period, but as a law professor told the Post -- the targets of the surveillance have the strongest potential case to reduce the scope of a warrant, if only they knew that it was happening. Washington Post | 5 | 4,828 | news |
CHARLOTTE Hendrick Motorsports often pops a zinger on the fourth and final day of Charlotte Motor Speedway's preseason NASCAR media tour to overshadow all other events of the week, and this year was no exception. The Hendrick team announced Thursday that Chase Elliott, assumed to be the prince-in-waiting for the No. 24 car to be vacated by Jeff Gordon at season's end, indeed will slide into that ride at the start of the 2016 season. Elliott, 19, will drive five Sprint Cup races this season as preparation for the full-schedule run in 2016. Kenny Francis, Kasey Kahne's long-time crew chief at Hendrick Motorsports, will be Elliott's crew chief for those races in a Hendrick No. 25 car. In 2016, Elliott will move into Gordon's famous No. 24 and will inherit Gordon's crew and crew chief Alan Gustafson. Elliott won the Xfinity Series championship in his rookie season last year, and it was assumed by many that the Hendrick pipeline would carry him into Gordon's ride when the four-time champion retired. Gordon announced last week that this season will be his last as a full-time driver, opening the door for Elliott, who said Thursday the formalities of his move to the Cup series (he'll continue to race in Xfinity this year) were worked out in the days following Gordon's announcement. It's a big week for the Elliotts. Chase's father, Bill, will be inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte Friday night. "Mr. Hendrick called me the day Jeff made his announcement and told me it was going to happen," Elliott said. "Then he called back to say he wanted me to be the guy to fill that role. That was another very shocking phone call to get from him. That's obviously something I've dreamed of doing for a long time." Elliott said the contract is for several years but didn't provide specifics. "I don't look at it as me trying to fill somebody's shoes," he said. "I don't think you can replace Jeff Gordon in any way. The best thing I can do is go and try to be myself and do the best job I can behind the wheel. "Jeff Gordon is Jeff Gordon, and I have all the respect in the world for him. I have to go and do my job." Gordon, approaching his last season in the car he made a NASCAR icon, said Elliott will be a force and quickly. "I think he proved last year how quick he can adapt if you give him the right equipment," Gordon said. "The thing that impressed me the most was how he won the race at Texas. He was off the pace early, and they had to work on the car. He had to give them good information. Then he had to race a guy like Kevin Harvick to win that race. "That takes not just talent but somebody who has a certain poise and determination. That's what champions are made of. And he's stepping into one heck of a race team." Dale Earnhardt Jr., whose JR Motorsports Chevrolets Elliott drove to the Xfinity title last year, said Elliott will "hit the ground running. I think he'll pick it up really quick, similar to how (Brad) Keselowski did. Keselowski did really well right out of the gate once he got his communication down and the crew chief he needed. "Chase can drive anything. He's very capable of getting good speed out of the car. He'll be as good as the car is." Chase grew up in the sport. His father won a Cup championship and was one of the sport's most popular drivers. His mother, Cindy, is a former auto racing photographer. Chase attended his father's races as a child and watched many of them on television in the family's motorhome. He talked Thursday about following the progress of specific cars on the race track by rolling his similarly painted diecast cars on the floor of the motorhome. Next year, he rolls for real. PHOTOS: Behind the wheel with Chase Elliott | 1 | 4,829 | sports |
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. When President Kennedy fêted Nobel Prize winners in 1962 he praised them as the most extraordinary collection of talent and human knowledge gathered at the White House since Thomas Jefferson dined alone. That's nice, but could TJ play defense? If not, the founding father of a nation, and of the University of Virginia, could not have played for Tony Bennett, men's basketball coach at Mr. Jefferson's University. Saturday his No. 2 Virginia Cavaliers (19-0) will play No. 4 Duke (17-3) in one of the most highly anticipated home games in UVa history. Entering this season, the basketball iteration of ESPN's College GameDay had originated from 46 campuses since its inception in 2005, including six times from Duke, most of any school but this will be its first time here. "The students are excited, everyone is scrambling for tickets," UVa junior guard Malcolm Brogdon said. "As for within the team, nothing really changes no matter who we play or how much attention the game is going to get. We are very even-keeled because we focus on ourselves, we focus on what Virginia basketball does, we don't focus on who is coming in to play us." Even when that someone is Duke with coach Mike Krzyzewski and his 1,000 victories? "It's always going to be big with Duke," sophomore point guard London Perrantes said. "They're always going to be good. The weekend is big, but we as a team aren't worried about it. It's just another game for us. We can't over-think it. We can't be too hyped for it. We have to play it like it's another game." And under Bennett that means playing hardnosed defense (holding opposing teams to 49.2 points per game, lowest in the land) and a highly efficient offense (top 10 nationally in points per possession). What it doesn't mean is five-star talent in the form of former McDonald's All-Americas. Duke has as many as nine, as does No. 1 Kentucky. But when the Cavaliers have a hankering for McDonald's, they have to drive down Emmet Street to the Golden Arches. "No, they don't have McDonald's All-Americans, but they've got upperclassmen, guys invested in the program, guys who know their roles," says Seth Greenberg, former coach of rival Virginia Tech and a member of Saturday's GameDay crew. "They have very good players who are physically tough, mentally tough and emotionally tough." Kentucky and Duke have recently featured some so-called one-and-dones, supremely talented freshmen who play one season of college basketball and head directly to the NBA. That's not part of the formula for Bennett, who played for his father, Dick, at Green Bay and coached under him at Wisconsin and Washington State. "Our process has been growing them up in the system so that when they're upperclassmen they're more battle-tested and they've improved," Bennett said. "That's our way with experience and maturity, and that gives us a chance against so many teams. "I don't want to make light of the abilities of our players, our young men and their talent, but they've worked hard to improve their games. There is just no substitute for the experience of guys who have been through the wars a little more. That's what I observed as a player and assistant and coach and now here. That's how we sort of mesh against those other teams." In UVa parlance, students are first-years, rather than freshmen, or fourth-years, rather than seniors, a nod to Jefferson's belief that one never reaches a final phase of learning. "If you look, we have a majority of juniors here they say third-years but Malcolm Brogdon is a redshirt junior so he's really a fourth-year junior," Bennett said. "We have a steady infrastructure. It's hard because patience and waiting isn't always an easy thing in today's culture. But those who are faithful and keep working can have some success." Some success that's an exceptionally understated way to refer to a No. 2 ranking behind the nation's only other unbeaten team. UVa has not had a start this good since the 1980-81 Cavaliers began 23-0 and rode Ralph Sampson to the Final Four. The 7-4 phenom would go on to be a three-time national college player of the year and a No. 1 overall NBA draft choice. None of today's Cavs are candidates for that. "I think we just know we are," said Anthony Gill, another redshirt junior. "We understand we may not have all the McDonald's All- Americans on our team and all the highly touted persons, but we understand we're going to play defense and play as a team. We play within our system that Coach Bennett has constructed for us and we trust it 100%. And that's what gives us an edge." *** UVa plays what's known as the pack-line defense. Oversimplified, it works something like this: The on-ball defender pressures an opposing ball handler while the other four act as a pack, defending drives in the lane. As the ball rotates on the perimeter, the first on-ball defender drops back to the pack as a new one steps forward. Passes to the post often draw quick double-teams. The idea is to frustrate opponents into low-percentage shots. Last week, in UVa's most recent home game, the Cavaliers held Georgia Tech to 28 points. The tone was set on Georgia Tech's first possession the beseeching crowd at John Paul Jones Arena growing louder and louder while the shot clock wound down, ending with a violation. "We have a unique fan base," Brogdon said. "They are more excited about defensive stops than highlight dunks. That's the beauty of playing at home." Third-year economics major Marco Khalil, wearing an orange fright wig in the student section, explains that UVa fans pride themselves on cheering for defense precisely because their team prides itself so much on playing it. "Their fans understand the value of a stop and forcing another team deep into the clock," Greenberg said. "They've educated their fans on embracing their style of play 'embrace the pace.' " The deliberate pace of Bennett's offense is designed to limit turnovers and find the best shots. The Cavs run when the opportunity is there and pull back when it's not. "We want to play sound offensively," Bennett said. "But if you watch us, there's freedom too." Bennett's father invented much of this and his son is perfecting it. Take good shots, force bad ones. Limit turnovers on offense, force them on defense. The formula is simple, the execution of it complex. The Cavaliers win but don't always turn heads. That's how they can be second-ranked and undefeated and still somehow fly under the national radar. "Yeah, that is almost comical," Greenberg said. "They're No. 2, and Tony Bennett is probably the most anonymous No. 2 coach in the country. They're not sexy, but they force you to play the game their way with their tempo. Virginia, maybe better than anyone else, knows exactly who they are and how they win." The Cavaliers win without stars, and without wildly athletic lineups, but not without very good players who grow into better ones. "I think Malcolm Brogdon is one of the most underappreciated guards in the country," Greenberg said. "London Perrantes takes great care of the basketball. Justin Anderson is one of the most improved players in the country, shooting with great confidence and taking great shots. "Their front court is much more athletic than you think. Darion Atkins is athletic, Anthony Gill is physical and athletic. Mike Tobey is a big body that finds angles to score. They trust in the system and each other. They are just a really good basketball team." *** Virginia won the Atlantic Coast Conference regular season a year ago and then beat Duke in the ACC title game. The Cavaliers, who had won just one ACC tournament in their history before that, have a chance to win consecutive tourney crowns this season, which would likely lead to a top seed in the NCAA tournament and a chance to win their first national championship. Pipe dream: How about undefeated Kentucky vs. undefeated UVa in the final? This sort of talk could make Bennett's head explode. "You're not winning the whole thing by thinking about it," he said. "Everybody has aspirations, but you can't look at that. It's a sure-fire way to mess you up." Bennett tells a story about a time last season when Dallas Mavericks coach and UVa alum Rick Carlisle talked to his team and asked a player what he'd think about when taking a last-second shot for the win. The player sensibly said he'd think about making it. "And (Carlisle) said, 'Absolutely big mistake,' " Bennett said. "He said you should be thinking about coming off the screen, how you're catching it, how you're squaring up and then just the rhythm of the shot. He said you have to be so lost in the process that the result will take care of itself." Forget one game at a time. Bennett evangelizes one possession at a time. "Don't get ahead of yourself," he said. "It's mastering the moment." That goes for being undefeated too. "It's OK to enjoy, but it's not OK to glory in it or bask in it," Bennett said. "This program is built on a blue-collar mentality and a level of humility and passion." The team's meeting room has five words, the pillars of the program, set in plain sight: Humility. Passion. Unity. Servanthood. Thankfulness. "Humility, it means of course not thinking too highly of yourself, but also not too lowly of yourself," Bennett said. "That can be false humility. We say having sober judgment, understanding who we are individually as players and collectively as a team. We know who we are and we know who we aren't. "That's a cornerstone for us. In a strange way, there's strength in that. Humility doesn't mean meekness. There's strength in understanding who you are and who you're not and putting the blinders on and going to work." That doesn't sound like a killer recruiting pitch for 17-year-olds who might prefer high-flying offenses to pack-line defenses. "Definitely," said freshman Isaiah Wilkins, recent recruit and stepson of Hall of Famer Dominique Wilkins. "A lot of people think the way we play is boring of a sort. But you just have to buy into the system. It's not boring when we're winning." The students in orange wigs jumping and cheering as the shot clock winds down do not looked bored. The players playing defense don't either. "If anything, it makes us a little hungrier to know (other schools) maybe looked past some of the players on our team," Gill says. "But that's not really what we hang our hats on. We hang our hats on the system we have here and the brotherhood we're building." So here comes Duke and College GameDay . Then North Carolina and Louisville. The madness of March beckons beyond, as does the siren song of history. "Fool's gold," Bennett said. Don't look ahead, he counsels his Cavs. So we'll look behind instead: These Cavaliers are already the best to start a season on Grounds since Ralph Sampson dined alone. | 1 | 4,830 | sports |
For all their amazing, chip-resistant permashine, gel manicures are kind of the worst when it comes to removal. An acetone bath practically dissolves your skin; foil wraps take forever and don't always work; picking is always a terrible idea; and who has time to go to the salon just to remove gel nail polish? Enter Katie Cazorla and the Steam Off. Cazorla is a manicurist and owner of the Painted Nail salon in Hollywood, and she created this new mini-sauna-like device to gently take off gel manicures. She gave me the rundown on her invention. Despite its name, the device doesn't actually steam your nails; it heats and mists them with a gentle acetone solution. ("It was better then saying 'damp off' or 'moist off,'" jokes Cazorla.) And I can attest that it's easy to use. You pour the kit's vitamin-infused acetone solution into the unit and plug it in. Once it warms up, you put your fingertips into the silicone holes and position your hand as if you're holding a tennis ball it doesn't work as well if your fingers are straight. Steaming for five minutes (which is marked by two beeps) removes nail lacquers, Color Flash One Step Gel Polish, and Shellac. Ten minutes (which is noted by one long beep) is for traditional soak-off gels and acrylics. Once the timer sounds, remove your hand from the basin and push off the remaining color with an orange stick. "The best part is that your nails smell great and aren't dried out," says Cazorla. Steam Off is currently available at the Painted Nail in the W Hotel Hollywood, Everything Nailz in Studio City, and online at everythingnailz.com for $99.99. Cazorla is hoping to expand distribution to beauty-supply stores as well. But word of her new gadget is already spreading. Manicurists Tom Bachik (who works with Heidi Klum, Jennifer Lopez, and Victoria Beckham) and Pattie Yankee (whose clients include Katy Perry, Pink, and Nicki Minaj) already have one. I was definitely skeptical when I plunged my own gel manicure into the Steam Off, but the results were great. I even saw it work on extra-hard gels that normally require intense soaking and scraping. Steam Off is officially getting me re-excited about gels. Like Allure on Facebook and get more beauty news and daily tips in your feed. | 4 | 4,831 | lifestyle |
LOS ANGELES (AP) A convicted drug dealer was charged Thursday with the murder of a 20th Century Fox executive, who mysteriously disappeared more than two years ago and whose remains were found in a northern Los Angeles County desert area in October. John Lenzie Creech, 42, was charged Thursday with 57-year-old Gavin Smith's death, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney's office. Smith was last seen leaving a female friend's home in Ventura County's Oak Park neighborhood on May 1, 2012. Hikers discovered the remains about 70 miles away, near Palmdale in the Antelope Valley, on Oct. 26, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said. Smith was with Fox's movie distribution department for nearly 18 years and was a branch manager for several theaters. He was also a former UCLA basketball player and had three children. Authorities said earlier they had found Smith's Mercedes-Benz at a Simi Valley storage facility nine months after his disappearance. Its condition along with witness statements led them to believe Smith was killed. Investigators found Smith's blood and body tissue, including skin stuck to the car's seat. Creech has been a longtime person of interest in the Sheriff's Department investigation. The storage facility where Smith's car was found was linked to Creech, who is serving an eight-year jail sentence after pleading no contest to one count of transportation for sale of a controlled substance in September 2012. A law enforcement official previously told the AP that Smith was believed to have had a romantic relationship with Creech's wife, Chandrika, after meeting her in drug rehabilitation several years earlier. Creech is scheduled to be arraigned on the new felony charge Monday. If convicted, he faces 25 years to life in state prison. | 5 | 4,832 | news |
A video created on a 12 day photography trip to various locations around Costa Rica. | 2 | 4,833 | travel |
Even before he submits his budget, President Obama is hearing loud and clear from Republicans that it is already "dead on arrival." It is the same cry presidents hear every year when Congress is held by the opposing party, once leading a frustrated Ronald Reagan to plaintively ask: "Why do I even bother sending them?" Reagan's staff had a simple answer at the time, reminding him that federal law requires the White House to send up a budget every year. But they also knew what Obama's advisers understand today, that a president's budget can accomplish much, no matter how much it is initially eviscerated by critics and no matter how little is recognizable in the final document adopted by Congress. It is why this White House sees the new budget as a way to eliminate the sequester, push programs for the middle class, put Republicans on the defensive, and lay the groundwork for the 2016 campaign. Few things set the Washington agenda more clearly than a president's budget done well and treated seriously by a White House. Unfortunately, that has been one of the problems for Democrats in the Obama years. Too often, this White House has treated the budget exercise as an inconvenience, openly flouting the law by submitting it weeks or months late, inadequately marketing its provisions, and shrugging off Congress's failure to actually pass a budget. This time, the administration promises, will be different. This time, officials have devoted more effort to selling the budget even before sending it up to the Hill, when, for the first time in years, they will meet the statutory deadline for doing so. And this time, they insist, they are realistic about the fate that awaits their proposals when the budget reaches a House and a Senate now firmly under the control of Republicans. "No president has ever put forward a budget with the expectation that Congress is going to pass it in its current form," said White House press secretary Josh Earnest on Thursday. "That was even true when ... there was a president whose party controlled both houses of Congress." The administration's most optimistic outlook is that when the budget is released on Monday it will be "the beginning of a negotiation" with Republicans. The value of a president's budget as Reagan learned when Democrats controlled the Congress and dismissed his submissions at DOA is that it both sets the national agenda and makes clear a president's vision and its cost. "Budgets are important," said Earnest, "because they're a way that we can codify our values and our priorities." After Monday, he added, Republicans "have their say." William Galston went through this exercise when he was President Clinton's chief domestic policy adviser and Republicans ran the House. "It is important to know that the fact that the package as a whole is declared DOA doesn't mean that all the individual pieces are," he told National Journal, stressing that a president can use a budget to do many things at once: please his party's base in one program, lay the groundwork for his party's next presidential campaign in another, and "send some signals to the opposition party that there are areas where they can do business." That is why, Galston said, you need to look beyond the expected denunciations from Republican spokesmen. "Look at how people in charge of different parts of the agenda the committee chairs react to pieces. Those chairs have choices. They can focus on what divides them from the White House, or they can focus on what conceivably might be common ground." Isabel Sawhill, associate director of the Office of Management and Budget under Clinton and now a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, said the mere exercise of producing a budget benefits an administration. "It's not just the president. It is a vehicle for getting everyone in the administration and all the Cabinet secretaries on the same page. The process of putting the budget together is a process of negotiation among all the different parts of the administration, with the president himself finally resolving any disagreements." In the end, she said, the document "sets what people are going to be talking about." In this case, Obama hopes it is middle-class economics. But that will happen only if the president is committed to selling the budget over and over again, something he did only fitfully on his health care reform. Rudolph Penner, who served in Gerald Ford's OMB and headed the Congressional Budget Office when Reagan was president, noted that Dwight Eisenhower never stopped talking about his budget, vetoing anything at odds with it. Gerald Ford personally oversaw his budget, adding line items he knew would win over members of Congress. And Bill Clinton "had a photographic memory" for the budget, according to Sawhill. "He was both a most detailed person and a person who saw the broader picture," she said. And he never stopped stressing his top budget priorities. That has not been the case for Obama during his presidency. "If you're a cynic, then you can say they are only doing what is minimally necessary to comply with the law," said Sawhill. And even that was has not always been the case. The law makes clear that the budget must be submitted by the first Monday in February. With very few exceptions almost always in the first year of a new administration previous presidents abided by that law. But in Obama's early years, reporters who asked about the deadline were greeted with disdain bordering on contempt. Before this year, that deadline was met only in 2010. And in most years, the deadline was missed by two to three months, sending a clear message that a budget was not a very high priority. The budget, said Penner, was in danger of losing its clout as it became clear to Congress that "presidents took it less seriously and were more careless in its formulation." But Earnest insists that Monday's on-time budget should be taken very seriously and will set the stage for the coming showdown with Congress and brushed aside the many declarations of "dead on arrival." "We certainly are never pleased to see Republicans unilaterally rule out making any progress on policies that are beneficial to middle-class families," Earnest said. "But it certainly wouldn't be the first time that they've done that. They've done that for many times, maybe even daily, over the last several years." | 5 | 4,834 | news |
Avery's Soda in Newington Connecticut is now selling Deflated Ball Brew in honor of the not yet fizzled out Deflate-gate. If only it were beer. | 8 | 4,835 | video |
In the wake of a sharp drop Thursday, gold may struggle to see heights over $1,300 an ounce again as the tailwinds from central banks on an easing bent stalled when faced with the Federal Reserve's resolve. "Gold is set for another bearish year," Howie Lee, an analyst at Phillip Futures, said in a note Thursday before the metal's decline in U.S. trading hours. He cited a "strong signal" of interest rate hikes ahead based on changes in the U.S. Federal Open Market Committee statement Wednesday. "A hawkish U.S. Federal Reserve adds negative pressure on gold, as higher interest rates and a stronger dollar (.DXY) dims the appeal of gold as an alternative asset," Lee said. In a unanimous vote, the FOMC said that "it can be patient in beginning to normalize the stance of monetary policy," but dropped "considerable time" from its assessment of how long rates would remain in its 0-0.25 percent target range. The unanimity really drives the interest rate nail in gold's coffin, he said. "Even the strongest of doves agree that given the pace of economic activity in the U.S., a rate hike now looks more necessary than ever," Lee said. He expects gold will test levels below $1,200 an ounce once the Fed actually hikes rates. Gold plunged more than 2 percent during trade Thursday in the U.S., with the spot price trading as low as $1,251.86 an ounce. In early Asian trade Friday, the spot price was around $1,260 an ounce. The yellow metal had received a fillip earlier this month after the Swiss National Bank (SNB) on January 15 surprised the markets by scrapping its currency peg against the euro (EURBA=) and cutting its interest rates deeper into negative territory. A second bump higher came after the European Central Bank (ECB) announced a larger-than-expected quantitative easing (QE) program to counter concerns the Eurozone may fall into deflation amid low growth. Gold shot up to around $1,370.80 an ounce, over the $1,300 technical level and its highest since August, as speculators sought out the metal as both a safe haven and as it is seen as a hedge against inflation and currency weakness. But it's since erased much of its rise from the pre-SNB level around $1,230, likely in part due to the surge in the Swiss franc (EURCHF=) considered a safe-haven asset on its own creating competition for safe haven flows that might have sought out gold as a safe harbor as market went risk off on the SNB's move. To be sure, some see the easing steps of central banks outside the U.S. as remaining supportive of gold ahead. LGT Capital said it was trimming its elevated cash position to buy gold, citing the ECB's and SNB's recent moves. "Both the ECB and SNB have made it clear that negative nominal bond yields and interest rates are here to stay for a while. The same is true for the Bank of Japan. Even the U.S. Federal Reserve might not start raising interest rates later this year. These developments make gold a more attractive liquid alternative to cash," LGT said in a note Wednesday. "While gold also has a negative yield (due to storage and roll-over costs), that yield is not subject to central banks' macroeconomic policy considerations, and can thus be considered as a more predictable cost," it added. But others don't expect gold prices will see the top of $1,300 again anytime soon. The recent catalysts from the ECB's QE announcement, the surprise SNB decision to depeg the franc and weaker-than-expected U.S. economic data are likely priced in, Goldman Sachs said in a note this week. While it expects gold at $1,290 an ounce on a three-month view, it forecasts the yellow metal at $1,175 an ounce on a 12-month view. It cut its 2016 forecast to $1,050 from $1,200. "A material slowdown in global economic growth would be required to push the gold price sustainably higher from current levels," Goldman (GS) said, adding that it expects above-trend growth in the U.S. will continue, with easing lending conditions and lower oil prices helping other developed markets to improve as well. -Matt Clinch contributed to this article By CNBC.Com's Leslie Shaffer; Follow her on Twitter @LeslieShaffer1 | 3 | 4,836 | finance |
PHILADELPHIA President Obama urged House Democrats on Thursday not to give up the fight for the middle class nor apologize for the accomplishments of the party. Addressing the Democrats gathered in Philadelphia for their annual issues retreat, the president warned that recent economic gains haven't reached everyone, and called on the lawmakers to keep battling for the party's priorities until they do. "The ground that middle class families lost over the last 30 years still has to be made up, and the trends that have squeezed middle class families and those striving to get in the middle class, those trends have not been fully reversed," Obama said. "So, as much as we should appreciate the progress that's been made, it shouldn't be a cause for complacency, because … we've got a lot more work to do." Heavy on themes of middle-class empowerment, Obama's speech retread much of the turf he covered in last week's annual State of the Union address, when he outlined an economic agenda focused on middle-class tax relief and efforts to hike working class wages, which have been stagnant for years. Obama lamented the outcome of November's midterms taking some of the blame for the Democrats' trouncing at the polls. But he also suggested the outcome would have been better if more Democrats hadn't been "shy about what we care about" and "defensive about the things we've accomplished" an unveiled shot at a number of Senate Democrats who lost reelection after distancing themselves from the president on issues as diverse as oil production, healthcare reform and climate change. "We've now got some choices to make," Obama said. The populist themes also framed the Democrats' retreat, where the official slogan "Grow America's Economy, Grow American Paychecks" was trumpeted repeatedly by each of the handful of Democrats who trekked across the street from their convention venue the Sheraton Society Hill Hotel to meet the isolated press. "What you're seeing at this conference is a real focus on the message of: We want to make sure working people are doing well," House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters on one such visit. The gathering comes as Democrats are trying to revamp their image after November's midterms, where they lost 13 seats and gave the Republicans their largest majority since the Hoover administration. Behind House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), top Democrats have downplayed the political significance of the midterm results, arguing that an ill-timed storm of global crises including an Ebola outbreak in Africa and the rise of Islamic terrorists in the Middle East prevented the Democrats' economic message from reaching voters. "There was a two-month conflagration of global crisis that made it very difficult to break through with a domestic message," Rep. Steve Israel (N.Y.), who headed the Democrats' campaign arm during the midterm cycle, told reporters Thursday. "I couldn't buy my way onto some of your networks the weekend before the election unless I was willing to talk about Ebola." Still, there was plenty of grumbling among rank-and-file Democrats in the aftermath of the election drubbing, as some veteran lawmakers voiced concerns that the party lacks a cogent message, while some younger members griped about the lack of fresh faces among the leadership. In the face of that storm, Pelosi and other top leaders have kept their grip on the party even as they're attempting to reframe their message to appeal to more voters. As part of that effort, the Democrats have formed two new committees designed to disseminate the party's message and increase voter turnout ahead of 2016. It remains unclear, though, how the Democrats' new campaign focusing on middle-class economic issues diverges from those of the past, and party leaders struggled this week to explain the distinction. "It's not that the Democrats don't have a message. It's that we had too many," Pelosi said, explaining why the Democratic message got muddled last year. The Democrats have every reason to stick with the same policy script, as public opinion polls consistently show that voters favor the central provisions of their economic agenda, including a minimum wage hike, immigration reform, an extension of emergency unemployment benefits and more generous childcare benefits. But that popular support hasn't translated into election gains in recent cycles, leaving the Democrats scrambling for a messaging strategy that compels voters to the polls. Obama, for one, thinks he has the prescription. "We need to stand up and go on offense and not be defensive about what we believe in," he told the Democrats Thursday night, to a raucous standing ovation. "That's why we're Democrats. And I promise you, I'm not going out the last two years sitting on the sidelines. I am going to be out there making the case every single day, and I hope you join me." | 5 | 4,837 | news |
A father wants to protect his son with leukemia by banning unvaccinated children at his son's school. CNN's Dan Simon reports. | 8 | 4,838 | video |
NEW YORK (AP) -- Al Horford, Paul Millsap and Jeff Teague were picked Thursday as reserves for the Eastern Conference All-Star team, giving the sizzling Atlanta Hawks three selections. Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook were selected in the West, despite early season injuries for the Oklahoma City stars. The Miami Heat also had two reserves in Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade. But Portland surprisingly only had one in LaMarcus Aldridge. Point guard Damian Lillard was not among the seven reserves. Atlanta has won 17 in a row and has a 38-8 record, second-best in the NBA. The Hawks were hoping for four spots, but Kyle Korver was not chosen by East coaches. "Our whole starting five deserves to be there," Teague said before the results were announced. "We have a good ballclub. We're all playing at a really high level right now. And we're playing as a team. That's all you can really ask for." Cleveland's Kyrie Irving, last year's All-Star game MVP, and first-timer Jimmy Butler of Chicago were the other players announced to the East roster. The rest of the West reserves for the Feb. 15 game at Madison Square Garden in New York are James Harden (Houston), Klay Thompson (Golden State), Tim Duncan (San Antonio) and Chris Paul (Clippers). Head coaches in each conference had to vote for two guards, three frontcourt players and two players regardless of position. They couldn't vote for players on their own teams. The starters were voted by fans and announced last Thursday. LeBron James (Cleveland), Pau Gasol (Chicago), Carmelo Anthony (New York), John Wall (Washington) and Kyle Lowry (Toronto) will start for the East. Stephen Curry (Golden State), Kobe Bryant (Lakers), Anthony Davis (New Orleans), Blake Griffin (Clippers) and Marc Gasol (Memphis) were voted in from the West. Bryant is out for the rest of the season after surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff in his shoulder and his replacement on the roster will be chosen by Commissioner Adam Silver. West coach Steve Kerr of the Warriors will decide who takes Bryant's spot in the lineup. Atlanta's Mike Budenholzer will lead the East. He will get to coach three of his players, the first trio of Hawks All-Stars since John Drew, Eddie Johnson and Dan Roundfield in 1980. "We love for our players to have success and for our players to be appreciated," Budenholzer said. "Yeah, there's a sense of pride. They work really hard. They do a lot of things we appreciate. If other people are appreciating them, that's a good thing." Korver, shooting 53 percent from 3-point range, still might have a chance if Wade isn't able to play in his 11th consecutive All-Star selection. The Heat star is battling a strained right hamstring. The powerful West has many more snubs, including Lillard, whose Trail Blazers are tied for third in the conference and who is averaging 21.8 points. Sacramento's DeMarcus Cousins wasn't picked despite averaging 23.8 points and 12.3 rebounds as perhaps the best big man in the league this season, and neither Memphis nor Dallas had a reserve selected despite their strong play and worthy candidates. Duncan did make it for a 15th time, joining Shaquille O'Neal and Kevin Garnett with the third-most selections behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (19) and Bryant (17). Durant will get the chance to improve his 30.6 points per game average in the All-Star game, best all-time. West coaches went with the league's reigning MVP even though he has missed 25 of the Thunder's 46 games and the team is only 23-23, currently out of playoff position. ------ AP Sports Writer Paul Newberry in Atlanta contributed to this report. | 1 | 4,839 | sports |
PHOENIX Broadway star Idina Menzel says Whitney Houston's rendition of the national anthem is her favorite version, but she's looking to make the song her own this Sunday. Menzel said singing the anthem before Super Bowl 49 is the culmination of a lifelong dream, one forged on Sundays watching football with her father. "It's the pinnacle. It's the milestone in my career," Menzel, a Broadway star who's gained widespread popularity, said Thursday. But Menzel cautioned people not to just pay attention to the song's high notes, which have been a benchmark for singers since Houston's rousing version before Super Bowl 25. Houston radiated the spirit of the song, Menzel said. "It was Whitney," she said of what made that rendition memorable. "There was just something so beautiful that was coming from her that day." Menzel said she will sing the song live, so that her rendition captures what she is feeling at the moment. "It's a beautiful melody, and I just want the humanity and the truth to come out," she said. Menzel, who's become a superstar after singing and voice acting in the Disney film "Frozen," said she doesn't expect to be more nervous about her upcoming performance than she is singing before a Broadway audience. "I love to sing, I love to perform live," she said. "I love to put myself out there and make myself vulnerable." She became famous for appearing in both the stage and film versions of "Rent," and has since appeared in films and performed at last year's Academy Awards. Menzel infused her press conference Thursday with details about her relationship with football. "I grew up watching football every Sunday with my dad," she said. Despite that, she couldn't easily pick a favorite team. "I'm a daughter of a betting man and whoever covered the spread was who I was going to root for," Menzel joked. She knows she'll be pulling for the Seattle Seahawks, though. "I'm rooting for Seattle because I'm a New Yorker and I cannot in good faith root for the Patriots," she said. ___ Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP | 6 | 4,840 | entertainment |
Seahawks cornerback (and Stanford graduate) Richard Sherman wants student athletes to be able to take advantage of their college education. | 8 | 4,841 | video |
Breakfast may be the most important meal of the day, but we seldom treat it as such. We fall into ruts with toast or cereal; or we skip it altogether, opting instead to snooze for 10 more minutes. If you give it a chance, though, breakfast can brighten your morning and get your day started on a delicious (and healthful!) note. We're revisiting this post from last year of flavorful, totally-not-boring breakfast recipes and adding a few new favorites, all of which are good enough to get you out of bed -- no snooze button necessary. 20 Minute Apple Turnovers by Stacy Museli with Lemon and Dates by fiveandspice "Moroccan Guacamole" Toasts with Fried Egg by creamtea Avocado, Lox, and Pickled Onion on Crispbread by fiveandspice Brie and Butter Grits with Honey and Raspberry Compote by Teresa Morning Date Shake by AGIRLANDAPIG Breakfast Fried Rice by Kathleen @HapaNom What I Do For Love Bran Muffins by drbabs Daniel Patterson's Poached Scrambled Eggs by Genius Recipes Toasted Almond and Coconut Quinoa Porridge by Gena Hamshaw Triple Pomegranate Smoothie by EmilyC Nekisia Davis' Olive Oil and Maple Granola by Genius Recipes Yogurt with Toasted Quinoa, Dates, and Almonds by Amanda Hesser Tell us: How do you stay out of a breakfast rut? | 0 | 4,842 | foodanddrink |
Ghost peppers are not for the faint of heart. | 8 | 4,843 | video |
More video games should be set in mundane places. I've spent a lot of time saving the world from monsters and engaging in intergalactic warfare, but there are few games that let me experience the drama and excitement of everyday life. Life is Strange does just that. It stars a high school girl in a small town in the Pacific Northwest, and many of the key moments of the first episode deal with typical teenage dilemmas: drugs, relationships, figuring out who you are as a person. It's incredibly refreshing to play a game that's so fixated on everyday, modern life. And it's even more amazing considering it's also a game about time travel. Playing Life is Strange is a lot like playing any game from The Walking Dead developer Telltale (though it's actually developed by French studio Dontnod, the same team behind cyberpunk action game Remember Me ). For one thing, it's episodic: the first two-hour-long episode is available tomorrow, with four more slated to launch with six-week gaps in between. The gameplay is also very similar. There's little action instead, most of what you'll be doing is exploring the environment and talking to other characters. There's some light puzzle-solving, but decision-making is of the utmost importance: at several key moments you'll be forced to make a choice, which will change how the story unfolds. (Just like in The Walking Dead , when you finish an episode you can see how your choices compare to everyone else who played the game.) it's nice to deal with a puzzle about sexting drama The game stars Max Caulfield, a high school senior who returns to her small Oregon hometown after spending five years in Seattle. She's a budding photographer, a bit shy, and is struggling to fit in at her fancy new school. Meanwhile, a fellow student has gone missing, and the town is plastered in flyers to aid in the ongoing search. On top of all of this, Max learns early on that, for some reason, she can control time, which lets her rewind events and make different choices. Despite the sci-fi set-up, the actual moment-to-moment experience of Life is Strange shies away from the fantastical. Max uses her power for the kinds of things you'd expect a teenager to do: get in good with her teacher, help a friend in trouble, get revenge on a bully. After a lifetime of games where the pivotal moments involved slaying zombies or robbing a bank, it's nice to deal with a key puzzle about sexting drama. Initially it seems like the time travel mechanic takes away from the gravitas of making decisions. In The Walking Dead , for instance, you had to make quick choices and they stuck. When someone died because of you, there was no way to change that, and it gave the game an emotional weight that stayed with you long after you stopped playing. But if you could just rewind the game and make a different choice, like you can in Life is Strange , wouldn't that defeat the purpose? The thing is, Life is Strange only shows you the immediate aftermath of your decision, not the long-term consequences. So even if you think one choice turns out better than another, you could be wrong I already regret at least one of the choices I made in the game. I had the option to snap a picture of an event or intervene, and while stopping the argument helped a friend, it also meant I had no evidence of what went down. It turns out I could've used that evidence. A story that stars a teenage girl and is set in a quaint little town is pretty standard stuff when it comes to fiction, but for a game, the characters and setting make Life is Strange stand out. While it's getting better, games still lag pretty far behind books, movies, and TV when it comes to representing a variety of different people and experiences. You're usually saving the world, and you're usually doing it in some sort of fictional universe. But now that a certain branch of games are starting to closely resemble television , it only makes sense that this is changing. Some of my favorite TV shows, from Buffy to Veronica Mars , are set in high school, with young women as the lead characters; so why can't games do the same? I'm definitely along for the ride Life is Strange is far from perfect. The first episode starts out pretty slow, and the writing can feel a bit forced, like the developers are trying really hard to make the characters sound like authentic teenagers I may not be a teen anymore, but I'm pretty sure no one says "hella" as much as these kids. It also suffers from some distracting technical problems, like the way the characters' mouths never sync up with their voices, and how their hair looks like it's made of plastic when it gets wet. But I can look past all of that because of how unique the set-up and characters are. I absolutely love small town murder mysteries, the kind of story where everyone has a secret and no one is who they seem to be at first blush. Life is Strange doesn't have any murders (at least not yet), but it does have a missing person and plenty of shady characters. And being able to interact with a story like that to rifle through a suspect's garage, or check out their Facebook page is amazing. It adds a whole other layer to the experience. It's impossible to tell how the entire season will play out after just one episode, but I'm definitely along for the ride the debut sets up an incredibly intriguing mystery, and I really want to watch it unfold. But I'm just as excited for the less epic revelations; how Max's relationship with her estranged best friend Chloe will develop, why Chloe's step-dad is such a dick, and just what's up with the school's weird principal. I've saved the world enough. Now I'm excited for something new. Life is Strange's first episode is available tomorrow on PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. | 5 | 4,844 | news |
A rare peek behind the scenes of the most famous movies of all time Titanic, 1997 Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet sink down for a portrait. E.T., 1981 Drew Barrymore chats with Steven Spielberg while the cameras aren't rolling. Frankenstein, 1931 Boris Karloff is caught taking a break while in costume. It's a Wonderful Life, 1946 Director Frank Capra and Jimmy Stewart relaxing on set. Rebel Without a Cause, 1955 James Dean and Natalie Wood drop the method acting for a moment behind the scenes. Guys and Dolls, 1955 Marlon Brando rehearses with choreographer Michael Kidd. Psycho, 1960 Anthony Perkins goofing off outside the Bates Motel. West Side Story, 1961 Choreographer Jerome Robbins and co-director Robert Wise prepare for the next scene. To Kill a Mockingbird, 1962 Gregory Peck and Mary Badham look over the day's script. Dr. No, 1962 Ursula Andress and Sean Connery play around in between scenes. The Birds, 1963 Alfred Hitchcock chats with the cast among a flock of crew and prop birds. Goldfinger, 1964 Sean Connery and Shirley Eaton caught gold handed between takes. The Sound of Music, 1965 Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer browse through postcards together. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, 1966 Italian director Sergio Leone is snapped with Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach. Batman: The Movie, 1966 Cesar Romero as the Joker is touched up on set. The Graduate, 1967 Anne Bancroft and Dustin Hoffman are caught looking over the day's script in bed. Rosemary's Baby, 1969 Mia Farrow waits for her take as director Roman Polanski frames the shot. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 1969 Paul Newman and Robert Redford bond over ping-pong. Easy Rider, 1969 Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper share a laugh while dressed in character. The Godfather, 1972 Francis Ford Coppola and Marlon Brando together on set. The Exorcist, 1973 Linda Blair gets her elaborate makeup done by makeup artist Dick Smith. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 1974 The cannibals take a break from their chainsaws while still in costume. Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 1975 John Cleese plays a little soccer while free on set. The Rocky Horror Picture Show, 1975 Tim Curry would be nothing without his hairstylist. Jaws 1975 The great Ingmar Bergman, a friend of Steven Spielberg, on set with a not-so-threatening Great White. Taxi Driver, 1976 A 12-year-old Jodie Foster hangs out with her sister and body double, Connie. All the President's Men, 1976 Dustin Hoffman goofs around with a more serious Robert Redford behind the scenes. Halloween, 1978 Tony Moran takes a Dr. Pepper break with his Michael mask. A Nightmare on Elm Street, 1984 Robert Englund, dressed as Freddy Krueger, jams in his dressing room. Beetlejuice, 1988 The cast of "Beetlejuice" in all their glory. Home Alone, 1990 Macaulay Culkin and Joe Pesci at the wrap party. Reservoir Dogs, 1992 Tim Roth and Harvey Keitel on a coffee break. Schindler's List, 1993 Steven Spielberg carries a young cast member across the bleak set. Casino, 1995 Martin Scorsese chats with Robert DeNiro and Sharon Stone. Boogie Nights, 1997 Thomas Jane, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Mark Wahlberg strike a pose for the camera. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, 1998 Hunter S. Thompson shaves Johnny Depp's head on set. Eyes Wide Shut, 1999 Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise chat with director Stanley Kubrick. Fight Club, 1999 David Fincher shares a laugh with Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. The Royal Tenenbaums, 2001 Bill Murray goofs around with Aram Aslanian-Persico, dressed as the young Chas Tenenbaum. The Matrix Revolutions, 2003 Hugo Weaving and his many faces. Sideways, 2004 Alexander Payne skips the pinot in this scene with Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church. No Country for Old Men, 2007 Javier Bardem has blood reapplied before the next take. | 6 | 4,845 | entertainment |
The Phillies have signed former Dodgers starting pitcher Chad Billingsley to a one-year contract.The deal is reportedly worth $1.5 million and is cushioned with performance-based bonuses.Billingsley has pitched just 12 innings in the majors since 2012 due to slew of elbow injuries. In 2013, Billingsley underwent Tommy John surgery but encountered additional issues in the same elbow requiring another procedure. The second surgery was to repair a torn flexor tendon ending his 2014 season. Following the loss of Billingsley for two consecutive seasons, the Dodgers declined the option to bring back the veteran right-hander this offseason. The 30-year-old will be joining a Phillies' pitching staff that features Cliff Lee , Cole Hamels , and newcomer Aaron Harang . Billingsley can be expected to compete for a spot in the rotation but may be limited to the bullpen with his recent history of elbow trouble. Billingsley spent eight seasons in Los Angeles and recorded over 1,000 strikeouts and a 3.65 ERA in 1,175 innings pitched. | 1 | 4,846 | sports |
More women than ever before are traveling the world, according to Paula Froelich, the editor-in-chief of Yahoo Travel and founder of the women's travel site A Broad Abroad. Froelich notes that 65% of adventure-travel bookings at TourRadar.com are now women. Today's travelers, says Brian Kelly, known in travel circles as "The Points Guy," are looking for a more personalized journey, one of "intimacy, thoughtfulness, mindfulness, [and] experience." People are unwilling to sacrifice their personal interests for traditional trips, he says. If you're outdoorsy, maybe it's all about hiking ruins. If you're a foodie, maybe it's about a cooking class or a food tour," says Jenna Mahoney, a romance-travel expert. People also want to bring more back from their trips than tchotchkes, tans, and Instagrams. "Wellness is huge now," said Sandra Ramani, a wellness travel expert, "and we're seeing people take vacations maybe even just a weekend to restore themselves, in terms of exercise, diet, sleep, everything. But, they also want to learn enough to carry some of those habits home with them." "It's about finding small groups where you can develop intimate memories and not feel like part of the herd." On that point, Froelich says, "I'm loathe to even say where people are going. They're just going." Nha Trang, Vietnam This stopover for Hong Kong's yacht races is emerging in its own spotlight, thanks to tourists tiring of Thai go-tos like Phuket. Packed with resorts, theme parks, a sky-car gondola system, and pristine beaches, it also has Tran Phu Street, which is widely compared to California's Pacific Coast Highway for its scenic beauty. Iceland The gorgeous landscapes and chance to view the Northern Lights have long been on many people's bucket lists. With the economy strengthening, people are finally making the booking they've been wanting for years largely thanks to a boom in discount transatlantic travel. Bath, U.K. Ramani says travelers "hungry for historical connectedness" are flocking to the Royal Hotel in Bath, which has been in service since 1846 but has recently emerged from a massive renovation. Consider this: Bath, not London, is England's only World Heritage city. Easter Island First the tourist swarms came for the Mayan temples of Mexico; now, they're filling your social media feeds with Machu Picchu hike-brag shots. Skip ahead to the mysterious ruins of Easter Island, where you can turn a new leaf at Hangaroa Eco Village & Spa. Shicheng, China Why settle for China's Great Wall when you can explore its Atlantis? Although Shicheng has been preserved underwater since 1959, interest has grown as divers have found more at the exploratory site since 2011. Only experienced divers are permitted (between April and November), filtering out tourist rookies. Milan, Italy Surprise: We still have a World's Fair! This year, it's in Milan and will include 146 participating nations between May 1 and October 31, all gathering to celebrate the theme of "feeding the world, energy for life." Berlin, Germany With its booming-yet-relaxed art scene, Berlin isn't just Euro-Portlandia. Swissôtel Berlin's DeepSleep program includes aromatherapy, light therapy, "sound pillows," and 30 minutes in a mountain-air simulator. Yangon, Myanmar Think of Myanmar as Asia's Cuba: gorgeous, lavish, time-capsule living that swings wildly between palatial and rustic. Valladolid, Spain In June, the 22-room Abadía Retuerta LeDomaine Hotel in this northern Spanish town is adding its El Santuario Spa in the estate's former stables, which have been transformed into a wellness center. Its food is provided by the same Michelin-starred chef who heads the hotel's main kitchen. Kyoto, Japan Instead of staying in a "plan A" city like Tokyo, try visiting a "plan B" one like Kyoto, only a short bullet train ride away from the capital. "Find the country's San Francisco, not its New York," says Kelly. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Rio is quickly rising to the level of, say, Paris, Rome, or Istanbul. "It definitely is getting a bump out of the World Cup, the upcoming Olympics and," adds Mahoney playfully, "let's not forget: It was good enough for Solange's honeymoon." Nashville, Tennesse Every expert we talked to raved about Nashville, often calling it "the Vegas of the East." But, Kelly nailed it: "It's the freewheeling of Las Vegas or Los Angeles without any of the overblown, Kardashian-ized grossness." New Orleans, Louisiana The Big Easy's party scene is back in a big way. Just don't think about lighting up in a bar or casino; the city recently passed a smoking ban. Havana, Cuba "It's remarkable what the opening of the United States is going to do for Cuba," says Kelly. Also, Havana is having a biennial this year, which means a bustling art scene from May 22 to June 22. Washington, D.C. Is there any city that could use the travel trend of detox more than our gridlocked capital? Topaz Hotel guests can get a one- or three-day cleanse from Puree Artisan Juice Bar, including a 30-minute wellness consultation and some take-home goodies. Perfect use of a federal-holiday three-day weekend. Did we mention there is free admission to 16 Smithsonian museums? | 2 | 4,847 | travel |
Dana White joins America's Pregame to discuss the Anderson Silva-Nick Diaz bout at UFC 183. | 1 | 4,848 | sports |
If you didn't think that Tesla's Model S P85D was bonkers enough , you're in for a treat. Elon Musk has revealed that the already speedy electric sedan is getting a software update that will improve its 0-60MPH acceleration time by a tenth of a second, to 3.1 seconds. That may not sound like much, but that makes the Model S as quick off the mark as McLaren's MP4-12C supercar. The 'regular' P85 will also get a boost, Musk says , although it won't be "quite as much." No, this won't be news to aftermarket tuners used to wringing out more performance through code, but it's fun to think that a factory firmware upgrade could be the key to winning a drag race. Tesla P85D 0 to 60mph acceleration will improve by ~0.1 sec soon via over-the-air software update to inverter algorithm - Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 29, 2015 | 5 | 4,849 | news |
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (AP) Robert Allenby feared the worst Thursday at the Phoenix Open in his first round since his mysterious misadventure in Hawaii. Two days after saying he was preparing mentally for one of the toughest weeks of his life, Allenby drew only a few boos and comments on the rowdy par-3 16th stadium hole and the crowded 18th. He had mostly quiet, apathetic galleries in his round of 1-under 70. On Tuesday, the 43-year-old Australian stood by his story that he was robbed and beaten after missing the cut two weeks ago in the Sony Open, basing the account on what he remembered and what he was told by a homeless woman who came to his aid. He said he has ''no memory'' from about 11:06 p.m. to 1:27 a.m. that night. Honolulu police are investigating it as second-degree robbery. No arrests have been made. ''I was a little bit nervous going into 16,'' Allenby said. ''I wasn't really sure what to expect. But I just knew it was going to be loud. I was just like, `You know what? Just go with the flow and have fun with it. Just don't let it get to you.' ''And they were actually really good. I was actually really surprised,'' he said. ''They were fantastic. There was nothing mean at all. ... I think some of the comments were actually pretty funny.'' He played through headaches. ''For some reason I had really bad headaches in my left eye before I teed off and I don't know if that was just nerves, anticipation, what it was,'' Allenby said. ''But I took some (pain relievers), just to sort of take the edge off a little bit. It sort of went away a little bit. But it was there. It could be allergies, as well, with the desert.'' Allenby bogeyed the par-4 11th - his second hole of the day - after hitting his approach over the green, birdied the par-5 13th with a delicate downhill chip to 3 feet, and bogeyed the 16th after hitting into the right front bunker. On his final nine, he made an 8-foot birdie putt on the par-3 fourth and a 14-footer on the par-4 sixth. ''Felt a little bit nervous on the first nine holes,'' Allenby said. ''Just understandable with what's been going on, and very hard to put it all to the side when you're out there. I tried my absolute best and I think I did a really, really good job overall.'' Allenby has 22 worldwide titles, four on the PGA Tour. His last victories came in consecutive weeks in 2009 in the Nedbank Challenge in South Africa and Australian PGA. | 1 | 4,850 | sports |
Written by Teresa Bergen This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Sex Pistols' formation in 1975. The hard life of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll has eliminated many a punk rocker such as Sid Vicious before his or her prime. However, most of those who survive like John Lydon , aka Johnny Rotten are tough enough to carry on performing into their advanced years. Here's what some favorite punks of yesteryear are doing today. DEBORAH HARRY, BLONDIE (FORMED 1974) Known for her electrifying vocals, striking looks and cool delivery, Debbie Harry went onto a solo career after Blondie 's 1981 breakup. She also acted in films and on TV. Blondie did a reunion tour in 1997 and entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006. Harry has a series of New York concerts scheduled for 2015 ( see her nowadays ). BING: WHAT 1988 JOHN WATERS MOVIE WAS HARRY IN ? Patti Smith Group (formed 1974) Patti Smith's 1975 album " Horses " influenced untold numbers of musicians. After her early success, she spent 17 years mostly in private life raising two children with husband Fred "Sonic" Smith of the MC5 . She revived her solo career after Fred died in 1994. Smith is still greatly beloved by fans and other musicians, and is currently selling out shows. BING: WHAT BOOK WON HER THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN 2010 ? John Lydon, Sex Pistols (formed 1975) Johnny Rotten was the face of punk rock. After the Sex Pistols broke up, Rotten reverted to his real name, John Lydon, and formed the band Public Image Limited . PiL has recorded 10 studio albums, with the most recent slated for release this year. Lydon continues to play occasional shows. Last year he published his second autobiography, " Anger is an Energy: My Life Uncensored ." BING: WHAT DISCOVERY CHANNEL TV SHOW FEATURED LYDON ? Genesis P-Orridge, Throbbing Gristle (formed 1975) After playing in the experimental punk band Throbbing Gristle , singer Genesis P-Orridge stayed on the far fringes of art in his long-running group Psychic TV . He and his late wife Lady Jaye Breyer embarked on a project they called Pandrogeny , which involved having plastic surgery to look like each other and to attain androgeny ( see Genesis now ). BING: WHAT MOVIE WAS P-ORRIDGE WORKING ON IN 2014 ? Siouxsie Sioux, Siouxsie & Banshees (formed 1976) Siouxsie and the Banshees was one of punk's most enduring and prolific bands, releasing 11 studio albums. Sioux and bandmate/husband Budgie formed an art-rock side project called The Creatures in 1981. She also recorded solo albums, including her 2007 release " Mantaray ." That same year, she and Budgie split up. Sioux may release another solo album this year. BING: WHAT PROMINENT PERFORMANCES DID SIOUXSIE DO IN 2013 ? Joe Strummer, The Clash (formed 1976) The Clash 's Joe Strummer may have died in 2002 ( how ?), but last year he got new life as a snail. Scientists named a newly discovered, spiky-shelled snail Alviniconcha strummeri after the famous punk. Post-Clash, Strummer contributed music to soundtracks and recorded solo. After his death, family and friends created Strummerville Foundation , which promotes new music. BING: WHAT ENVIRONMENTAL CHARITY DID HE CO-FOUND TO HELP PREVENT GLOBAL WARMING ? David Vanian, The Damned (formed 1976) The Damned recorded catchier songs than some of their contemporaries, including " Neat Neat Neat " and " New Rose ." The frontman was born David Left, but changed his surname to Vanian short for Transylvanian. He favored black clothes and pioneered a gothic look. In the '80s, he fronted the goth/rockabilly band David Vanian and the Phantom Chords . Vanian fathered a daughter with second wife Patricia Morrison , the Sisters of Mercy bassist, in 2004. He's currently touring with The Damned. They released a new live album last year. BING: HOW MANY ORIGINAL MEMBERS OF THE DAMNED ARE IN THE CURRENT LINEUP ? Lydia Lunch, Teenage Jesus & the Jerks (formed 1976) Lydia Lunch landed in New York's art/punk scene as a 16-year-old runaway. She fronted Teenage Jesus and the Jerks , a No Wave ( what's that ?) band that released a couple of EPs. In her subsequent solo career, she's collaborated with many other artists, including Nick Cave and Sonic Youth . The multitalented Lunch also writes, acts and makes films. In 2014, she did a series of readings commemorating the 100th anniversary of writer William S. Burroughs ' birth. She still performs music and teaches performance workshops around the world. BING: WHAT BOOKS HAS SHE WRITTEN ? Henry Rollins, Black Flag (formed 1976) He wasn't the original vocalist for Black Flag ( who was ?), but Henry Rollins was known for his energy and charisma, qualities he retains in his 50s. He's been a well-respected spoken word performance artist and storyteller for decades, recounting stories of touring with Black Flag and The Rollins Band , and providing social and political commentary. He puts out his own books via his 2.13.61 publishing company. His acting credits include " Sons of Anarchy " and a 2013 starring role in the indie movie " He Never Died ." BING: WHAT VIDEO GAME DID ROLLINS MAKE A CAMEO APPEARANCE IN ? Billy Idol, Generation X (formed 1976) While Generation X released memorable songs like " Kiss Me Deadly " and "Ready Steady Go" ( see a video ), singer Billy Idol got much more famous after 1981, when he launched his solo career. However, events like a serious motorcycle accident and a drug overdose blighted his trajectory. Recently, he seems back on track. Idol played at the 2013 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival , and has international shows lined up with the 2015 Kings and Queens of the Underground Tour . BING: WHAT'S BILLY BEEN UP TO LATELY ? Pete Shelley of the Buzzcocks (formed 1976) The catchy pop-punk band from Manchester continues to sporadically tour, playing newer songs alongside early hits like " Orgasm Addict " and " Ever Fallen in Love ." Since 2012, Shelley has lived in Tallinn, Estonia , with his wife Greta. When he isn't touring, he's busy learning about Estonian language and culture. BING: WITH WHICH BAND DID THE BUZZCOCKS TOUR AUSTRALIA IN 2013 ? Jimmy Pursey, Sham 69 (formed in 1976) The originator of the Oi! subgenre of punk, Sham 69 were hugely popular among the UK's working class, thanks in part to the good looks and charisma of leader Jimmy Pursey. After splitting in 1979, they reunited in 1987. Sham 69 gained attention in 2005 when their song " If the Kids Are United " played during Tony Blair's entrance at a Labour Party conference. In 2006, their recording of " Hurry Up England " a reworking of their earlier song " Hurry Up Harry " supported the England national football team and proved to be the biggest hit they ever had. Soon after, the band faced inner turmoil. Pursey left or was thrown out, and he and his bandmates continue to dispute the rights to the band name. BING: WHAT BAND DID PURSEY FORM WITH SHAM 69 BASSIST MAT SARGENT ? Exene Cervenka, X (formed 1977) Punk poet Exene Cervenka fronted the band X, whose albums included " Los Angeles ." Post-X, she performed in the bands Auntie Christ , The Original Sinners and The Knitters , plus fronting an occasional X tour. Cervenka continues to perform and make art. However, she's also disappointed admirers by filling the Twittersphere with crazy conspiracy theories, including assertions that several mass shootings were staged. BING: WHAT CONDITION WAS EXENE DIAGNOSED WITH IN 2009 ? H.R., Bad Brains (formed 1977) Bad Brains added reggae, funk and hip-hop to their version of punk rock. Lead singer H.R. was born Paul Hudson in London, but grew up in Washington, D.C., where Bad Brains ( watch videos ) formed. The band stayed together, continuing to evolve away from punk and incorporating jazz-fusion elements. Bad Brains got entrepreneurial, creating a line of hot sauces , a clothing line called Babylon Originals and a custom Bad Brains guitar . BING: WHY DID THEY CANCEL SHOWS AFTER THEIR 2013 SOUTH AMERICA TOUR ? Jello Biafra, Dead Kennedys (formed 1978) Always political and confrontational, the Dead Kennedys ' Jello Biafra would feel remiss if he weren't offending somebody. Songs include " California Uber Alles " and " Holiday in Cambodia ." After the band's breakup in 1986, lead singer Jello Biafra's born Eric Boucher trajectory included an obscenity trial , a 1994 attack by skinheads that broke both his legs, and more music, spoken word performances and speaking on the college lecture circuit. Between 2009 and 2013, Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine released three albums. BING: WHAT COMEDY SHOW DID JELLO RECENTLY CAMEO ON ? Greg Graffin, Bad Religion (formed 1979) Even as high school punk rockers, the members of Bad Religion ( see their videos ) were known for being more intellectual and literary than their compatriots. So it's not entirely surprising that lead singer Greg Graffin grew up to become a paleontology professor and the author of several books on science and religion. Plus, Bad Religion is still playing shows, including this year's Coachella music festival in April. BING: WHAT PRESTIGIOUS AWARD DID GRAFFIN RECEIVE IN PHILADELPHIA LAST YEAR ? Ian MacKaye, Minor Threat (formed 1980) Minor Threat only played together for a few years, but had a big influence on the Washington, D.C., hardcore punk scene . Notably the term "straight edge" comes from their song of the same name to describe a lifestyle free of alcohol and other drugs. After Minor Threat, MacKaye formed the popular straight-edge hardcore band Fugazi ( watch videos ). He's put out more than 150 releases on his label, Dischord Records . Since 2001, MacKaye has played in indie duo The Evens with wife Amy Farina . The couple had a son in 2008. BING: WHAT TV DOCUMENTARY SERIES DID MACKAYE RECENTLY APPEAR ON ? Annabella Lwin, Bow Wow Wow (formed 1980) Back in 1980, punk marketer Malcolm McLaren discovered 14-year-old Myant Myant Aye working at a London dry cleaning shop. He paired the half-Burmese girl with Adam Ant's former band, renamed her Anabella Lwin, and the band Bow Wow Wow ( check out their videos ) was born. They scored a hit with a remake of "I Want Candy." Decades later, the band is still fighting over long-ago issues, including the band name. Lwin still performs, now billing herself as "Annabella from Original Bow Wow Wow." She lives in Los Angeles ( see her now ) and attributes her Buddhist practice with keeping her sane through so many years in the music biz. BING: WHAT WAS MCLAREN'S ULTERIOR MOTIVE IN FORMING THE BAND ? Kim Gordon, Sonic Youth (formed 1981) Sonic Youth had a long run as a band, finally splitting up in 2013 with the divorce of leaders Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore . But Gordon has done many things besides play bass. Originally trained in visual arts, she's shown her work around the world and has designed the clothing lines X-Girl and Mirror/Dash , all while raising her daughter Coco, born in 1994. In 2013, she appeared on "Girls." Dey Street Books is publishing Gordon's memoir " Girl in A Band " this month. BING: WHAT SERIES OF PAINTINGS BROUGHT GORDON MEDIA ATTENTION LAST YEAR ? Courtney Love, Hole (formed 1989) Like the original punks, Courtney Love is as well known for her bad behavior as for her music. The Hole ( see their videos ) guitarist kept performing music and pursuing her acting career after husband Kurt Cobain's suicide in 1994. By the mid-2000s, her life took a nosedive as she spiraled into addiction and lost custody of daughter Frances Bean Cobain . Recently she's straightened up and has taken roles as a preschool teacher in " Sons of Anarchy ." She's also working on an autobiography. BING: WHERE DID LOVE & HER ESTRANGED DAUGHTER PUBLICLY MAKE UP THIS YEAR ? Kathleen Hanna, Bikini Kill (formed 1990) Instrumental riot grrl Kathleen Hanna garnered national attention in the early '90s with her Olympia, Washington, band Bikini Kill ( watch videos ). She went on to co-found Le Tigre , a New York electroclash band, in 1998. Hanna is dedicated to preserving the history of the feminist riot grrl movement. She does speaking engagements on the art and politics of that time and donated her papers to an archive at NYU. Her current band, Julie Ruin ( see videos ), is touring and recording. BING: WHICH BIKINI KILL BANDMATE IS ALSO IN JULIE RUIN ? Corin Tucker, Sleater Kinney (formed 1994) The '90s punk band from Olympia, Washington, released a string of critically acclaimed albums, including " Dig Me Out " and "The Woods." After disbanding in 2006, singer/guitarist Corin Tucker put out a solo album, "1,000 Years," but mostly devoted herself to motherhood. Sleater-Kinney surprised many by releasing a new album, "No Cities to Love," in January 2015. BING: WHAT DID BANDMATE CARRIE BROWNSTEIN PURSUE ? | 6 | 4,851 | entertainment |
The last basket Rasheed Sulaimon ever will score for the Duke Blue Devils was a dunk. So at least he has that. He stole and slammed with 2:10 left in the first half of an ACC game Wednesday at Notre Dame's Purcell Pavilion, extending a small lead they could not hold to the end. It seems incongruous for a Duke player to score his final points on an opponent's homecourt. This simply does not happen. Duke ends each season in the NCAA Tournament. That's how it is. Whether Sulaimon would score his final points on the Final Four stage, as Grant Hill did, or in the ignominy of a first-round loss to a double-digit seed, like Miles Plumlee, no Devil goes out into the dark cold of a Midwest January night. MORE: More on Sulaimon's dismissal | Grant stops Irish fans from rushing court | Duke recruit on A-A game How did it come to this, that Sulaimon would find himself dismissed from the Blue Devils following the 20th game of his junior season? It seems sudden, but was not. This had been building. A source close to the program told SN the dismissal was not the product of a single incident. It was not something drastic that forced coach Mike Krzyzewski to act so soon after the glory of Sunday afternoon in Madison Square Garden, when Coach K won his 1,000th career game and Sulaimon celebrated on the court with the other Duke players. "It is a privilege to represent Duke University and with that privilege comes the responsibility to conduct oneself in a certain manner," Krzyzewski said in the school's release. "After Rasheed repeatedly struggled to meet the necessary obligations, it became apparent that it was time to dismiss him from the program." It's a heck of a time, mind you. Duke entered the season with nine McDonald's All-Americans on this roster, one of the best freshman classes in the school's rich history and enough veterans to complement them that a national title seemed in reach, even if that reach appeared to be obstructed by the Kentucky monolith. If you believe the loss of Sulaimon makes swiping the title from UK (and everyone else) more challenging, you're correct. He was the team's best backcourt defender, a guy willing to take and occasionally on target to make big shots. If you suspect this finishes Duke, you're getting a bit too eager. Duke will need more from sophomore wing Matt Jones, who helped energize the team in a road win at Louisville. It will need Justise Winslow to heal from his array of ailments and return to the energetic terror who delighted NBA scouts in November. It will need the team to continue improving defensively. The Devils certainly are more susceptible now to the sort of inglorious exit that afflicted them in 2009 against Villanova. But a team with talents such as Jahlil Okafor, Jones and Winslow and experience from senior guard Quinn Cook and junior forward Amile Jefferson will not represent an appealing NCAA draw for anyone. As vulnerable as Duke will be in just about every tournament game, its offensive might will make it a threat each time, as well. At the moment, the situation seems ominous. Duke has dropped half of its past half-dozen games and faces a trip to No. 2 Virginia for a nationally televised ACC showdown Saturday evening at 7, its third road trip of the week. Sulaimon's departure follows the mid-season transfer of lightly used reserve Semi Ojeleye. Duke now has eight available scholarship players, plus a ninth 6-9 Sean Obi sitting out as a transfer. It is not an ideal situation for games or practices. Sulaimon was playing 19 minutes a game. He began the season in a role created especially for him as a backup point guard. The idea was to lighten the load on Jones when possible, keep Cook focused on his new shooting guard spot and build Sulaimon toward a pro career, which would not have been likely with him functioning as a scorer. But it didn't take entirely. He had eight assists combined in the first two games, only 27 combined in the next 18. His value returned to whether or not he was making shots, and also to whether or not he was engaged enough on defense to help fix a leaky Duke perimeter. Sometimes he was, sometimes not. He'd played fairly miserably of late, shooting 15-of-45 from the field (33.3 percent) and 8-of-26 on threes (30.8). He missed all four of his shots in the Louisville game. That dunk against Notre Dame was his only basket of the night. That's not what Krzyzewski was talking about when he said, "Rasheed has been unable to consistently live up to the standards required to be a member of our program." But it didn't help. | 1 | 4,852 | sports |
There was a moment in Duke's loss Wednesday night at Notre Dame when Jahlil Okafor landed awkwardly on his right leg and came up limping. As trainer Jose Fonseca poked and prodded the star freshman's knee, on the bench there was an inescapable sense that Duke's entire season was hanging in the balance. Okafor was fine. Duke, as it turns out, was not. Less than 24 hours after the Blue Devils watched a 10-point second-half lead evaporate against the Irish, junior guard Rasheed Sulaimon's sudden and shocking dismissal from the program a first in Mike Krzyzewski's 35 seasons at Duke did nearly as much damage to Duke's prospects for the rest of the season as an Okafor injury of any severity might have. The closest Duke has been to a Final Four since winning the national title in 2010 was an Elite Eight loss in 2013, when Sulaimon, a freshman, was as distraught as anyone in the locker room afterward. As talented as Okafor, Tyus Jones and Justise Winslow are, they can't get Duke back there alone. Now they'll have to try, more or less. Sulaimon was essentially a bench player for Duke, but still played almost 20 minutes a night not easily replaced under any circumstances, and impossible to replace given the lack of depth elsewhere on the roster. The Blue Devils' 10-man rotation to start the season was already down to eight after Semi Ojeleye decided to transfer in December and freshman Grayson Allen's minutes dwindled. Now, Allen will have to play, ready or not, because the Blue Devils are out of options. It's going to be a lonely bench: sophomore guard Matt Jones, junior forward Marshall Plumlee, Allen and two walk-ons. After a weekend where Krzyzewski, while winning his 1,000th game, was told over and over again how clever and adaptable a coach he was, all of that will be put to the test in midseason. He's often defaulted toward a smaller rotation, but generally by choice. This has been forced upon him. In addition to weathering the difficulties of relying heavily on three freshman starters as evidenced by Duke's uncharacteristic and extensive use of zone defense beginning with the win at Louisville the Blue Devils now face a critical lack of bodies that will affect their ability to apply pressure on defense and weather foul and injury issues. Suddenly, Winslow's array of persistent, nagging injuries takes on new significance. Duke had very little margin for error to start. Now there is none. The Blue Devils may be a better team off the court without Sulaimon, but his departure will hurt them in many ways on it. They lose an emergency ballhandler, length on the perimeter and, in his best moments, a fluid attacking player with long-range shooting ability. Sulaimon's Duke career was, to say the least, erratic. As a freshman, he looked like he was on the verge of becoming one of the ACC's dominant players, a dangerous perimeter scorer who could shoot and get to the rim, only to have his role publicly minimized by Krzyzewski before his sophomore season even began, in favor of Jabari Parker and Rodney Hood. Continuing questions about Sulaimon's limited playing time that fall provoked the coach's memorable "I have one dog, his name is Blue, he doesn't even sleep in a house" declaration. If nothing else, The Doghouse Soliloquy ranks as Sulaimon's enduring contribution to Duke basketball. Unfortunately, there's not much to the rest of his legacy just perennially unfulfilled potential and, now, an inability to play by Duke's rules that has thrown an entire season into question. | 1 | 4,853 | sports |
West Ham manager Sam Allardyce has confirmed that a move for Manchester United midfielder Darren Fletcher remains a possibility. A number of clubs, including West Ham and West Brom, have shown an interest in the Scotland international and Allardyce is keen to push through a transfer before the end of the January window. The former Newcastle boss is hopeful that an agreement can be reached with the Old Trafford outfit in the coming days. "Fletcher is still a possibility. The move isn't dead, but we will see," Allardyce told reporters. "We would like a quality player of Darren's talent, if that's at all possible, but if it doesn't happen, we're not in a position where we desperately need players." The Hammers have also been linked with a move for Swansea City striker Bafetimbi Gomis, with the forward having admitted he is unhappy at the Liberty Stadium. But Allardyce denied he is interested in the former Lyon man given the attacking talent he already has at his disposal. "With us having Enner Valencia, Diafra Sakho, Carlton Cole and Andy Carroll we have more than enough frontmen to cope with demand this season," he said. | 1 | 4,854 | sports |
Good luck getting "oxyphenbutazone" onto that Scrabble board. | 8 | 4,855 | video |
Were the 2004 Steelers the best team to not play in the Super Bowl? Check out the five best teams to miss the Super Bowl. Any problems with the list? | 1 | 4,856 | sports |
Spotify is reportedly in the process of raising $500 million in funding, a move that could open up new avenues for expansion, though delay its plans to go public. Citing sources, both The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times say that the streaming music company has hired Goldman Sachs to help it raise the funds, which would value it at around $7 billion. The round would be Spotify's biggest yet, following the $250 million it raised in November 2013 led by venture capital firm Technology Crossover Ventures. Half a billion dollars won't get you Taylor Swift There have been several signs Spotify has been on its way to going public, including comments from co-founder Daniel Ek saying that investors would probably want to get their money back, as well as curious company job listings. Even so, Spotify and others like it have faced an uphill battle in being profitable, as well as increased competition from Google and Apple, which own competing streaming services. There's also been some pushback from artists like Taylor Swift, who have shunned making their newest music available there versus turning to digital sales. Spotify currently has 60 million users worldwide, though only 15 million of those users actually pay for the service. Those numbers could increase as part of a deal announced yesterday with Sony, which has Spotify replacing Sony's generally terrible Music Unlimited service on the Playstation Network. | 3 | 4,857 | finance |
John Kerry has many titles secretary of state, former senator, one-time Democratic candidate for president. The globe-spanning diplomat can add one more: snow shoveling scofflaw. After a blizzard dumped two feet of snow on his city this week, Boston Mayor Martin Walsh vowed to crack down on anyone who left the sidewalks in front of their homes and businesses buried in snow. He wasn't kidding. On Thursday, officials tagged Kerry with a $50 fine at 9:45 a.m. for failing to clear the snow from the side of his Beacon Hill mansion. Kerry was in Saudi Arabia attending the funeral of King Abdullah with President Obama. Kerry spokesman Glen Johnson told the Boston Globe Kerry will promptly pay the fine. He said shovelers finished clearing the sidewalk late Thursday morning. | 5 | 4,858 | news |
Why is this Comcast bill addressed to "A-hole?" CNN's Jeanne Moos reports on an epic customer service fail. | 5 | 4,859 | news |
Image Sources: POPSUGAR Photography / Anna Monette Roberts and Jenny Sugar Quinoa used to get all the attention as one of the most nutritious whole grains, hailed as one of the best superfoods ever, but farro is quickly gaining popularity. A little softer and more tender in texture, it's similar to rice, so people who can't deal with the slightly nutty flavor and poppy texture of quinoa will love spooning into a bowl of farro. But is it healthier than quinoa? Check out the nutritional comparison below. For those who deal with any sort of wheat intolerance, it's important to note that farro is not a gluten-free grain. 1/4 cup dryCaloriesFat (g)Carbs (g)Fiber (g)Protein (g)Calcium (mg)Quinoa 170 2.5303720Farro 170 0333740 Are you surprised? Nutritionally speaking, both grains are pretty much exactly the same. While they're both high in fiber and protein, farro has slightly more carbs but also offers more calcium than quinoa. If you're new to farro, try this radish, kale, and farro salad . Still obsessed with quinoa? Try it for the first meal of the day making this apple cinnamon breakfast bake . For an appetizer or dinner, whip up these Mexican quinoa burrito bites . And for dessert you'll love these ginger molasses cookies made with homemade quinoa flour . Can't choose between these two delicious grains? Whip up this Tender Greens' Happy Vegan Salad that includes a quinoa and beet salad as well as a farro cranberry kale salad. Yum! | 7 | 4,860 | health |
Brendan Rodgers has maintained an odd relationship with goalkeeper Simon Mignolet this season. Rather than backing Mignolet as he suffered through a period of bad form earlier in the campaign, Rodgers decided to bench him in favor of Brad Jones. He then gave Mignolet his starting job back, and Mignolet has rewarded the move with a string of solid displays highlighted by an excellent performance in the second leg of the Capital One Cup semi-final against Chelsea . Rodgers claimed that his decision to bench Mignolet led to the goalkeeper's improved play. "I think Simon has shown the benefits of having a little bit of time out," Rodgers said. "I think he looks like a different goalkeeper. It's difficult because when you're playing all the time and you're preparing, sometimes you won't get that chance to reflect on your performance." The manager also took time to reflect on the inherently dramatic nature of benching his goalkeeper in the middle of a season. However, he didn't offer any explanation to how the media attention given to the situation affected Mignolet. "Of course, nowadays, if you take a player out, whether it's through rest or through trying to look after the player and allowing him to develop, [people will say] he's been 'dropped'. And that's not always the case," he said. "Simon's spell out of the team was to just take a step back, to analyse his performance, to see areas in which he could improve and clear his mind, knowing that he was going to get the opportunity to go again." Rodgers heaped praise on Mignolet for his recent play and discussed the specific components of his improvement. "When he's come back into the team, he's been very clear and shown why we brought him here. He's a wonderful shot-stopper. He's starting to be more aggressive now with crosses," he said. "He's probably just thinking less, and doing what he does naturally, which is be a top-class goalkeeper. He's really starting to show the form as to why we brought him here and I'm delighted for him because he works really hard at his game." | 1 | 4,861 | sports |
UNIONDALE, N.Y. (AP) -- Kevan Miller helped the Boston Bruins get off to a winning start after the All-Star break. Miller scored the go-ahead goal with 3.4 seconds left in the second period, leading the Bruins to a 5-2 victory over the New York Islanders on Thursday night. Tuukka Rask stopped 43 shots, and Reilly Smith, Patrice Bergeron, Torey Krug and Zdeno Chara also scored for Boston, which won for the seventh time in 10 games. Smith and Milan Lucic also had two assists each. "We definitely wanted a good start after the (All-Star) break," Rask said. "We had a good start and (that was) very key. "We played our system (from) start to finish." John Tavares and Michael Grabner scored for New York, while Jaroslav Halak stopped 28 shots. It was the Metropolitan Division-leading Islanders' fifth loss in 22 games (17-5-0) at home this season. "I thought we didn't play a 60-minute game but we played well enough to win," New York coach Jack Capuano said. Miller put the Bruins ahead for good when he intercepted Halak's clearing attempt at the right wing boards just inside the blue line, and fired a quick shot that found the back of the net to give Boston a 3-2 lead. "(The puck) had eyes," Capuano said of Halak's attempted clear. "It's one of those things. I'm not going to blame the goaltender." Krug's goal 1:45 into the third essentially decided a game that had seen wild momentum shifts. Chara added an empty-netter with 2:06 left. Smith opened the scoring with 6:01 left in the first period by driving to the net and redirecting Milan Lucic's feed past Halak. Bergeron pushed the lead to 2-0 with a power-play goal 2:10 later. Rask tried to make the lead stand. His toughest stop was a diving save on Michael Grabner's goalmouth backhand attempt 5:34 into the second. The Boston goalie was also the beneficiary of some good fortune as Brock Nelson had a wide open net 46 seconds later, but his shot hit the post. "Our goaltender was very good," Julien said. However, a misplay by Rask allowed the Islanders back into the game. Rask couldn't control Tavares' dump-in from the neutral zone, and the New York captain lifted a backhander into the net 8:25 into the second to cut the deficit to 2-1. The goal was Tavares' 23rd of the season and his fourth in four games. Grabner drew the Islanders even with 4:48 left in the second with his fifth of the season, setting the stage for Miller's tiebreaking score. "I thought we responded well in the second," Tavares said. New York finished with a 45-33 advantage in shots on goal, and out-attempted Boston 74-60. "We had some opportunities to score." Boston evened the season series against New York at 1-1. New York won the first game, 3-2 on Oct. 23 in Boston. The teams will end the season series Feb. 7 at Boston. NOTES: As part of the franchise's commemoration of its final season on Long Island, the Islanders feted Hall of Famer Mike Bossy prior to the game. Bossy scored 573 goals in 752 games, and won four Stanley Cup championships in nine seasons with the Islanders. "This whole season is a little surreal," Bossy said during a morning press conference at Nassau Coliseum, when asked about the Islanders' 2014-15 campaign. "I don't think anybody expected to be the team to be where they are. They seem to (have found) a chemistry." ... Boston scratched D Matt Bartkowski and RW Jordan Caron. New York scratched D Matt Donovan. | 1 | 4,862 | sports |
PHOENIX Missy Elliott is going to "Work It" at the Super Bowl with Katy Perry. A person familiar with the plans for Sunday's halftime show told The Associated Press on Thursday that Grammy winner Elliott is slated to make a surprise appearance during Perry's performance. The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because Elliott's participation had not been announced by the NFL. Elliott was featured on a remix of Perry's song "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)" in 2011. During a news conference Thursday, Perry hinted at Elliott's involvement in the Super Bowl act, which also will feature Lenny Kravitz. Perry said the halftime show will include an "old school" female singer but did not say who that would be. "When you hear the first ring of the chord," Perry promised, "I think jaws will drop and faces will melt." Elliott is a multiplatinum rapper, singer and producer whose Grammy Awards from the early 2000s include Best Rap Solo Performance for "Get Ur Freak On," and Best Female Rap Solo Performance for "Work It" and "Scream a.k.a. Itchin'." Other Super Bowl halftime shows have included unannounced performances, including by singer Usher and former Guns 'N Roses guitarist Slash in 2011. | 6 | 4,863 | entertainment |
This young woman lost half of her body weight through healthy diet and exercise. See her incredible transformation. | 7 | 4,864 | health |
COLUMBIA, S.C. South Carolina coach Dawn Staley hasn't looked ahead all season and won't start now, no matter how close her top-ranked Gamecocks are to their matchup with No. 2 Connecticut. A'ja Wilson scored 17 points, Alaina Coates had 14 points and 10 rebounds and No. 1 South Carolina routed Alabama for the second time this month in a 85-54 victory Thursday night. The Gamecocks (20-0, 8-0 Southeastern Conference) now prepare for a three-game road stretch, the last of which is Feb. 9 with its highly anticipated showdown with the defending national champion Huskies. "This team is staying in the moment. When you bring something to their attention, they do a good job to focus on what that is," she said. "The anticipation of playing UConn is there, but we play in the best conference in the country and we're going to be challenged every single night." Perhaps not every single night. This 31-point win over Alabama (12-11, 1-7) followed a 102-59 blowout victory in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on Jan. 8. "Having these guys two of the first eight (SEC games) hasn't been fun," Alabama coach Kristy Curry said. South Carolina's road gets tougher, facing Ole Miss on Sunday and Georgia on Feb. 5. The Gamecocks have already doubled the best previous start in school history with their 20th straight win. "It's just another milestone in the process of getting to the national championship," said Coates, last year's SEC freshman of the year. Wilson, the 6-foot-5 freshman, scored seven points in a 19-3 first-half run as South Carolina moved in front for good. Coates put up her SEC-leading ninth double-double this season and added five blocks. Leading scorer Tiffany Mitchell was the Gamecocks' third double-figure scorer with 11 points. Karyla Middlebrook had 11 points to lead Alabama. Leading scorer Ashley Williams fouled out with eight points. South Carolina was coming off a dominating, 79-61 victory over No. 12 Texas A&M on Monday night. That win, combined with a 102-59 blowout at Alabama three weeks ago, seemed the perfect recipe for a letdown. And while the first half was far from perfection, the Gamecocks managed to build a sizeable lead. Alabama led 8-6 on Middlebrook's basket four minutes in before South Carolina took off on a 19-3 run to gain control. Wilson had seven points in the stretch, which put the Gamecocks ahead 25-11 with 10:01 to play in the period. Still, South Carolina was not crisp. Mitchell made just one of four shots and spent much of the half on the bench with two fouls. Wilson, the 6-foot-5 freshman, also picked up two fouls in her five minutes of action in the half. Alabama did show a measure of improvement as Hannah Cook's 3-pointer in the final minute cut the lead to 38-21 at the break. The Crimson Tide trailed by 18, 48-30, in their last loss to South Carolina. SUPER SUBS Staley defended her starters, saying the five most experienced players will always get the opponents best shot so when Wilson and the 6-4 Coates get in, it can be difficult to adjust to size increase. "Everybody's excited about outplaying and dethroning us," she said. MISTAKE PRONE The Gamecocks had 19 turnovers, tying the second-most in a game this season. But like at LSU when they committed 23 miscues, it did not cost them victory. TIP INS Alabama: The Crimson Tide played without backup guard and Baylor transfer Breanna Hayden, who's serving the second game of a two-game suspension for a fight in the Auburn win. South Carolina: The Gamecocks have averaged 11,844 fans their first nine games, an increase of more than 5,000 from their average attendance a year ago. UP NEXT Alabama returns home to face Arkansas on Sunday. South Carolina travels to play Mississippi on Sunday. | 1 | 4,865 | sports |
LOS ANGELES Marion "Suge" Knight, the impresario of gangster rap, has long been a perpetrator and victim of the violent life he promoted in song. On Friday, he was portrayed as both. Sheriff's deputies booked the former hip-hop music mogul on suspicion of murder after they said he hit and killed a man with his pickup truck, seriously injured another and then fled. His lawyer said he was an innocent victim who accidentally ran over his friend as he tried to escape a group of attacking thugs. The incident was the latest in a long line of brushes with death and the law for the 49-year-old founder of Death Row Records, one of the genre's leading labels. Knight started the label that helped solidify West Coast rap with Dr. Dre, who had been a member of the legendary group N.W.A. The label also launched the career of Snoop Dogg and had Tupac Shakur in the last months of his life. The fatal incident occurred a short while after Knight was told to leave a film location where he had argued with someone, authorities said. The cast and crew were taking a break from filming a promotional video for the biopic "Straight Outta Compton," about the rise of N.W.A., according to a person familiar with the project who was not authorized to speak about it publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity. The argument resumed and escalated a short while later at a fast-food restaurant about three miles away, with Knight and the man exchanging punches through his open window. Knight then struck the man and a friend with his vehicle and fled, said sheriff's Lt. John Corina. Terry Carter, 55, Knight's friend who authorities do not believe was involved in the altercation, died at a hospital, Corina said. The other man, 51, was injured. Neither his name nor his condition was disclosed. Corina said Knight backed up his pickup truck and knocked the man he had been arguing with to the ground. "Then he puts the truck in drive, drives forward, running over him, and then keeps going forward and keeps on driving, and runs over Carter, who is standing in the parking lot, and keeps on going after that," Corina said. He said witnesses told investigators it looked like an intentional act. Defense attorney James Blatt said Knight was called to Tam's Burgers in Compton for a meeting and was attacked by four people as he slowed his truck. The men beat him through his window and threatened to kill him. Corina said evidence thus far disputed that account. He said the 51-year-old victim is the only one who exchanged blows with Knight through the window before he got run over. "To see the argument happen, it's one thing," said 17-year-old Robert Smith, who was eating in the restaurant. "Seeing the car incident, that was shocking." Knight punched the gas and fled in fear, Blatt said. He had no idea he hit two men. Corina said that claim is hard to believe. Knight surrendered early Friday and was booked on suspicion of murder. He was being held on $2 million bail. At 6-foot-4 and weighing 325 pounds, Knight's reputation as an imposing figure is credited, in part, with helping create Death Row Records when he strong-armed another label to release Dr. Dre from his contract, said Chuck Creekmur, CEO of allhiphop.com. "You can't separate Suge from the music that came out of Death Row Records," Creekmur said. "He's linked forever to a really, really great musical period of time. And that would be linked to a really horrific period when we lost several of our brightest stars." Knight was at the center of one of the most notorious rap conflicts of the 1990s, pitting rappers Tupac Shakur against Biggie Smalls in an East Coast versus West Coast rivalry. Knight was sent to prison for nearly five years for badly beating a rival with Shakur at a Las Vegas hotel, just hours before Shakur was fatally shot while riding in Knight's car just east of the Strip. Smalls, whose real name was Chris Wallace, was shot to death in a similar attack six months later. Many of the records Knight released helped immortalize Compton, the LA-area city where Thursday's crash occurred, in hip-hop folklore as a gritty and violent urban environment, although crime there has dipped significantly there since its 1990s peak. Knight and Dre later had a falling out and Dre left. The record company eventually declared bankruptcy and was auctioned off. Dr. Dre and Ice Cube, another former N.W.A. member, were at the film location Thursday, but they didn't see Knight, according to the person who spoke on condition of anonymity. Filming was shut down for the day and not resumed Friday. The history of Knight's run-ins with the law goes back more than 20 years and includes assault and weapons offenses. In November, Knight pleaded not guilty to a robbery charge filed over an incident in which a celebrity photographer accused him of stealing her camera in Beverly Hills. Because of prior convictions, he could face up to 30 years in prison. He has felony convictions for armed robbery and assault with a gun. He pleaded no contest in 1995 to assaulting two rap entertainers at a Hollywood recording studio and was sentenced to five years of probation. He also served timed for probation violations. Last August, Knight was shot six times at a West Hollywood nightclub. No arrests have been made. ___ Associated Press writers Raquel Maria Dillon, Christopher Weber and Robert Jablon contributed to this report from Los Angeles. | 6 | 4,866 | entertainment |
CHAIN BARBELL SQUAT Works: Core, Thighs Stand with a barbell across your shoulder blades, chains hanging from both ends. Place your feet slightly wider than shoulder width apart. Slowly lower into a squat until your thighs are slightly past parallel to the floor. Rise explosively from the bottom of the squat, halving the time of the descent. Perform three sets of 12, 10, and 8 reps. Tip: Chains add an instability that requires a natural counterbalance. X JUMP PUSHUP Works: Shoulders, Chest, Core Get in pushup position, but place your feet about 30 inches apart. Perform a pushup, then jump your legs together while staggering your hands, one palm in front of the other. Land with elbows slightly bent, not locked. Jump your legs and arms back apart. Do another pushup, then repeat, driving your arms and legs inward and landing with your hands staggered. Perform two sets of 20 reps. Tip: Practice bringing hands together before crossing them. INCLINE BENCH GLUTE RAISE Works: Glutes, Hamstrings Lie facedown over the top of an incline bench, making sure your waist is in line with the top of the bench. Grasp the sides of the bench and elevate your legs off the floor into a V shape. Lift your legs to just past parallel to top of bench, flexing your glutes hard at the top. Perform two sets of 30 reps. STATIC KETTLEBELL SIDE LUNGE Works: Core, Glutes, Thighs Begin in an extra-wide stance (sumo squat style) with your feet turned out 45 degrees and your knees soft. Hold a single kettlebell with both hands, elbows close to sides, with the bell just under your chin. Drop your weight laterally to the left, keeping torso close to upright, until your left elbow is above your left thigh and your right leg is extended. Don't lock right knee. Press back up toward the start without stopping in center. Keeping your feet planted, drop into a lunge on your right side, bringing your right elbow over your right knee while extending your left leg. Perform two sets of 20 nonstop reps. Tip: Move from left to right lunge without pausing at the center. HIGH-BAND CHOP Works: Shoulders, Core, Back, Thighs Start by holding a resistance band or cable pulley at a high point over your right shoulder. Place feet wider than hip-distance apart, knees soft. Keeping your arms extended, twist your torso and rotate on the ball of your right foot, lowering your right knee to the floor. Finish chop with your wrists over your left knee. Slowly return the band or pulley to start as you straighten your legs back to a soft stance. Perform two sets of 12 reps each side. SINGLE-ARM ROW TO CLEAN AND PRESS Works: Shoulders, Core, Back Place your left knee and hand on a bench and your right foot on the floor in line with your knee, about 30 inches to the side of the bench. Hold a dumbbell in your right hand with your arm fully extended. Draw your right elbow toward your ribs, then quickly straighten your torso, bringing dumbbell to your right shoulder and left hand to left hip. Press the dumbbell overhead, extending your arm upward. Lower the dumbbell to your shoulder, then back to start position, placing your left hand on the bench. Perform two heavy sets of 12 and 10 reps. Tip: Keep dumbbell movement fluid from bottom to overhead. BRIDGE PULLOVER Works: Shoulders, Core, Glutes Lie faceup on the floor and place your heels hip-width apart on a bench or step. Hold a barbell overhead with your arms extended. Using your glutes, lift your lower back 3 6 inches off the floor with your legs bent 90 degrees. This is the starting position. Press pelvis upward until your thighs are in line with your hips. Simultaneously pull the barbell in front of you, stopping just before it touches your thighs. Lower your hips and the barbell back to the start position. Perform two sets of 20 reps. Tip: Keep hips and barbell elevated at the bottom of the movement. | 7 | 4,867 | health |
@jcvictor is asking the guys what the strangest prop bet they have seen for this year's Super Bowl. | 1 | 4,868 | sports |
This tough athlete doesn't let having only one arm stop him from accomplishing his goals. | 1 | 4,869 | sports |
MOSCOW Russia's central bank has cut a key interest rate, which it had hiked in previous months to support the ruble, in order to help the economy. The ruble dropped 1.6 percent to 69.8 rubles against the dollar following the announcement. Higher rates can help a currency but also hurt economic growth by making loans more expensive. The bank raised the rate to 17 percent late last year in a last ditch attempt to curb the devaluation of the ruble which has lost more than half of its value. The bank on Friday cut it back down to 15 percent, saying it views the risks of an economic slowdown are now higher than fears of a spiraling inflation. Russia's economy has been battered by lower energy prices and Western sanctions. | 3 | 4,870 | finance |
The undersea search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has covered almost a third of its target area, Malaysian authorities said on Friday, adding that they were confident the aircraft is in the zone. The Boeing 777 aircraft disappeared on March 8 last year, carrying 239 passengers and crew shortly after taking off from the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur, bound for Beijing. Months of searches have failed to turn up any trace. Malaysia, along with China and Australia, has been searching for the plane in the southern Indian Ocean, off the coast of Perth, Australia. "Based on the available data, this is the place," Mior Nor Badrishah Mohamad, an official of Malaysia's civil aviation department, told a news conference on Friday, at a presentation that showed 31.04 percent of the search area had been covered. Authorities reiterated that they expect the undersea search of an area of 60,000 square km (23,000 square miles) to be completed by May. "If we cannot find MH370 within this area, we need to sit down again and decide what's the best way forward, based on the data we have," said Mior, adding that poor weather after May would make the search more difficult. Malaysia on Thursday declared the disappearance an accident, clearing the way for the airline to pay compensation to victims' relatives. The country's civil aviation authorities plan to release an interim report on the investigation on March 7, a day before the first anniversary of the flight's disappearance. Malaysia Airlines' crisis worsened on July 17 when its Flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down over Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board. | 5 | 4,871 | news |
Martina Hingis and Leander Paes turned back the clock Friday to make the Australian Open mixed-doubles final, where they will face third seeds Daniel Nestor and Kristina Mladenovic. The veteran campaigners, seeded seventh, drew on their considerable experience to overcome Taiwan's Hsieh Su-Wei and Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay 7-5, 6-4. Nestor and Mladenovic downed India's Sania Mirza and Brazil's Bruno Soares, the top seeds. "I have a great partner in Leander," said 34-year-old Hingis, who came out of six years of retirement last year. "He's been there and done it all before. He has given me a lot of confidence and we have great chemistry." | 1 | 4,872 | sports |
10 Superfood Alternatives that Won't Break the Bank 10 Affordable Superfood Alternatives You don't have to let a limited budget keep you from eating as healthy as possible; there are plenty of "superfood swaps" that are just as nutritious, but much easier on your bank account. We asked a few health food experts to share their favorite superfood alternatives. Here's what you should look for when you're on the hunt for the most nutritious foods that are also affordable. Collard Greens Instead of Kale "[Collards] are often cheaper and pack tons of vitamin K, key for bone and blood health, and fiber and vitamin A, key for eye health, cell growth, and immunity," says Lula Brown, a New York City based Certified Health Coach and private chef. Mollie Dickson, CEO and Education Director for The Heart's Kitchen, a food and nutrition consulting company that works with a team of two registered dietitians and a doctor, mentioned that spinach, while less trendy, is also a great alternative to kale. "This staple is just as nutritious and typically more accessible and affordable," she said. "While both have comparable levels of Vitamin A and calcium, spinach takes the lead in amount of potassium. Plus it has about double the amount of iron and magnesium." Abby Langer, a Registered Dietitian and a council member for the College of Dietitians of Ontario suggested using collards and chard in sautés and salads or as wraps for sandwiches. Cauliflower Instead of Kale Langer also suggested cauliflower as an equally nutritious swap for kale. Though, she did admit that it can be just as bland and "less than impressive." To spice it up she recommends using it to make " buffalo bites " with Frank's Red Hot Cayenne Pepper Sauce. Raspberries Instead of Goji Berries "Raspberries have more potassium and fiber than goji berries, and significantly less sugar," Dickson said. "In fact, raspberries have more fiber than almost any fruit." At the moment, health foodies may be buzzing about goji berries, but Dickson says that raspberries have recently started to gain attention for their potential anti-cancer benefits. "Almost no other fruit can provide the sheer diversity of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits," she said. Ficek also mentioned goji berries, pointing out that they're just not worth the high price ($13 to $30 per pound) and offered blueberries as an equally nutritious alternative. Sauerkraut Instead of Kimchi Kimchi is a fermented dish that traditionally comes from Korea and recently it's grown in popularity as a buzzy-worthy superfood. "Studies have shown that fermented foods improve the microbiome meaning a healthier gut by providing the body more of the good bacteria which supports digestion and immune function," says Dickson. "Sauerkraut is less expensive and an easy addition to sandwiches, quesadillas, and even casserole." Millet Instead of Quinoa Both Brown and Dickson recommend millet as a more affordable option when compared with the ever popular (and usually expensive) quinoa. "Millet is an ancient grain that's naturally gluten-free." Dickson said. "It cooks using the same method as quinoa which is about half the cook time compared to brown rice and shares a similar taste, texture, and nutritional profile. On the other hand, Ficek says that quinoa is one superfood that's worth its higher price tag. "[It's] one of the plant based proteins that contains all of the essential amino acids, making it a perfect food that is not easily substituted," she said. Lentils Instead of Quinoa Langer says that lentils are another smart swap for quinoa because they typically contain even more protein. "[They're] cheap and full of protein and fiber," she said. "They cook up fast and can even be combined with quinoa in some dishes." Sesame or Flax Seeds Instead of Chia Seeds "Chia seeds are known as a superfood that offer a great source of plant based proteins, potassium, fiber, essential fatty acids and minerals such as phosphorous, manganese, calcium, and sodium," Ficek explained. "Unfortunately, chia seeds are not easily found in grocery stores and they can often be expensive for a small package." Instead she recommends flax seeds, noting that they offer the same nutritional benefits and are usually more easily found at the grocery store. Dickson recommends sesame seeds as another nutritious chia seed alternative. "Sesame seeds have double the iron, an important nutrient that many women are deficient in," she said. "Plus, compared to chia seeds, sesame seeds are higher in calcium, B6, magnesium, potassium, and protein." Whole Almonds Instead of Almond Butter Ficek pointed out that many nut butters (especially almond butter) are all the rage right now, but that you often have to "spend an arm and a leg" to get just one jar. She said that nut butters are packed with plant-based protein and healthy fats, but that whole almonds make for an equally nutritious snack. "Plus, by eating the whole almond rather than the butter, it is much easier to control portion size and calorie control," she said. Cranberry Juice Instead of Pomegranate Juice "Sure, pomegranates and the ever popular pomegranate juice are rich in antioxidants that may help fight against heart disease and cancer, but these antioxidants come with a high price tag," Ficek said. "Pomegranate juice is one of the most expensive juices out there." She suggests substituting with antioxidant-rich, unsweetened cranberry juice instead. "Compared to $5 to $7 for 16 ounces, cranberry juice costs about half as much at around $3 to $4 for 16 ounces," she added. Roasted Chick Peas Instead of Nuts Langer mentioned that although they're nutritious, certain nuts can come with a hefty price tag. Instead, she suggests trying roasted chick peas as a snack. "[They're] full of protein and fiber and are super easy and super cheap to make," she said. | 7 | 4,873 | health |
WASHINGTON Criticizing Washington as a city of power-hungry elites, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker on Friday offered a preview of his likely White House message between private job interviews with those looking to help his expected presidential campaign. "As much as I like coming here, I love going home even more," Walker said during a speech delivered just a block from the White House complex. Sounding familiar campaign themes of smaller government, greater accountability and general distaste for the nation's capital, Walker looked to use his visit to build interest in his potential campaign. Privately, he was expanding his political operation as he fights for early momentum in the crowded field of GOP White House prospects. "The best way we move this country is by transferring power from Washington out to the hardworking people of this country," Walker said during his first address to a Washington audience this year. It was his only speaking engagement in a day packed with private meetings and job interviews related to a possible 2016 bid. Earlier this week, Walker announced the formation a nonprofit group, Our American Revival, designed to raise unlimited amounts of money to boost his political ambitions. The experienced Republican operative he hired to run that group, Rick Wiley, listened from the front row to a speech that savaged Washington and those who work here. "Washington is kind of a dump. I like to call it 68 square miles surrounded by reality," Walker said. While he has yet to formally announce his intentions, Walker becomes the latest in a group of high-profile Republicans taking significant steps toward launching a presidential campaign. He is less known than some of his potential competitors former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush or New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, for instance but Republican officials say Walker is getting a second look, especially after Friday's announcement that 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney would forego a third campaign for the White House. Asked about Romney's decision, Walker declined to comment as he rushed to his next meeting. He said his office would release a statement later in the day. "There's a lot of admiration for Walker, but the skepticism was whether he had the charisma to excite people," said Fred Malek, the Republican Governors Association's chief fundraiser, who will host Walker at his home Friday night after spending most of the day with him. "He certainly demonstrated in Iowa that he did." While he'll end his day as Malek's guest at the exclusive Alfalfa Club dinner, aides say Walker began his day at a breakfast meeting with South Carolina state Rep. Phyllis Henderson, who recently organized a private South Carolina meet-and-greet for Christie. Walker was also expected to sit down with two potential policy staffers one focused on domestic issues and the other on foreign matters who may join his campaign in waiting. Aides report that Walker has already hired a national finance director and plans to announce the hiring of a national communications director next week, but the aides declined to name them. At the same time, Walker is finishing plans to visit early voting states beyond Iowa, including New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. Despite the aggressive steps, Walker isn't expected to join the Republican presidential race formally until after his state budget is finalized around June. Walker this week said voters want the next president to be someone who hasn't served in Washington, a fresh face with a proven record. His speech Friday made clear he sees any ties to Washington as a negative attribute. He didn't mention any of his likely rivals by name, but it was clear members of Congress were held in low regard. "In Washington, it's this top-down, government-knows-best approach," Walker said. By contrast, Walker said his administration "took the power away from the big government special interests." ___ Associated Press writer Philip Elliott contributed to this report. | 5 | 4,874 | news |
Finnish tech company Jolla has re-opened funding for its first ever tablet on Indiegogo with an improved 64GB device. Customers who backed the original 7.9-inch Jolla Tablet before December 11th can upgrade to the new model for $25, or new customers can buy it outright for $249. Support for microsd cards up to 128GB but not on windows devices As well as improved storage, the updated tablet has been given a slight battery bump (4300mAh to 4450mAh), a fully laminated display, gyroscope and compass sensors. The new tablet also offers support for microSD cards up to 128GB in size, but that comes with a catch. "Due to Microsoft's licensing limitations," says Jolla, "cards over 32GB that are formatted in Jolla Tablet will not be readable with Windows computers or devices that advertise microSDXC support (cameras/phones/tablets)." This is because Jolla hasn't licensed Microsoft exFAT for its Sailfish OS . The original crowdfunding campaign for the Jolla tablet reached its $380,000 target in just a couple of hours, and ended up raising more than $1.8 million in total nearly five times its original goal. The tablet comes with a 2,048 x 1,536 resolution, 1.8GHz quad-core Intel processor, 2GB of RAM, and can run Android apps. | 5 | 4,875 | news |
An explosion at a Shia mosque in Pakistan's southern Sindh province has killed at least 12 people and left dozens more wounded, officials say. Saqib Ismail Memon, a local police official in Shikarpur, told local media that the explosion occurred just before Friday prayers were due to begin, as a crowd was gathered outside the mosque. The mosque is in the centre of Shikarpur city, which is home to about 150,000 people. The injured are being taken to the nearby government-run civil hospital. "Such attacks cannot lessen the spirit of the nation," said Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, in a statement released shortly after the explosion. Friday's explosion is the second attack on a Shia mosque since Pakistani security forces stepped up operations against the Pakistani Taliban and its allies following a December attack on a Peshawar school. In a previous attack, seven people were killed when a Shia mosque in the city of Rawalpindi was targeted in a suicide bombing on January 10. Earlier on Friday, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif arrived in the southern city of Karachi, also in Sindh province, to chair political meetings, as well as receive briefings on law and order and counter-terrorism operations in the city. Asad Hashim contributed to this report. | 5 | 4,876 | news |
Google has turned into a stock market laggard as the shift to mobile devices has lowered the Internet search leader's digital ad prices and the company's expensive investments in far-out technology has trimmed its profit margins. Those factors have left some investors wondering what Google might do to boost its stock price, especially after the company's latest financial report. The earnings released late Thursday missed analyst targets, marking the fifth consecutive quarter that has happened. That discouraging trend is one reason Google's stock price ended Thursday's trading session 8 percent below where it stood 13 months ago. The Standard & Poor's 500 index has climbed by 9 percent during the same stretch. POTENTIAL CATALYSTS One way to lift the stock would be to slash expenses to boost earnings, something that Google CEO Larry Page doesn't seem particularly interested in doing. Page believes the company needs to continue taking risks and making big bets on ambitious ideas to open future moneymaking opportunities while striving to make the world a better place. Another way would be for Google to start paying a quarterly dividend for the first time in its 10-year history as a public company, or to pour money into buying back its own stock. That strategy has worked well for another technology leader, Apple Inc., whose own shares have surged by nearly 60 percent since the iPhone maker announced a higher dividend and increased stock buybacks nine months ago. Google certainly has an incentive to do something, if for no other reason than to keep its 53,600 workers happy. Company stock is part of their pay package, so employee morale could suffer if Google's stock remains in a funk. "Share price does matter," Patrick Pichette, Google's chief financial officer, said in a Thursday conference call. "It matters to our board. It matters to all of us." LIFTING SPIRITS Pichette didn't rule out the possibility of returning some of Google's $64 billion in cash to shareholders when asked about it Thursday. He indicated Google would be more likely to do so if laws are changed to allow U.S. companies to bring back money held in overseas accounts at lower tax rates. About 60 percent, or $38 billion, of Google's cash is held outside of the U.S., Pichette said. Although no commitments were made, those remarks seemed to be enough to reverse an initial sell-off in Google's stock following the disappointing earnings report. After shedding 2 percent in the first hour of extended trading, the shares rebounded to post a 1 percent gain of $6.27 to $519.50. CONTROLLING EXPENSES Investors also may have drawn hope from Pichette's pledge to spend in a "prudent manner," even after a year that saw Google pour billions into hiring nearly 10,000 more employees and a wide range of projects that include self-driving cars, Internet-connected eyewear, Internet-beaming balloons, robotics, satellites and biotechnology. "From an investment perspective, we'll continue to seek a healthy balance between growth and discipline and the willingness to throttle back when we reach the limits of what we believe we can manageably absorb," Pichette said. REASON FOR SKEPTICSM Edward Jones analyst Josh Olson doubts Google is going to start paying dividends or buying bushels of its own stock anytime soon. He interpreted Pichette's comments as a "false signal." Paying a dividend also is frequently done by companies that have run out of growth opportunities, Olson said, and that isn't the case with Google. Even though shift from desktop computers to smartphones has curbed Google's pricing power in the digital market, Olson believes the Mountain View, California, company is likely to regain some of the clout as the mobile market evolves. Although he didn't participate in Thursday's conference call, Page has made it clear through the years that he isn't interesting in pursuing strategies designed to increase earnings from one quarter to next or provide a short-term lift to Google's stock price. Page's opinion matters even more than most CEOs because he and fellow co-founder Sergey Brin control enough Google stock to veto everyone else. "If opportunities arise that might cause us to sacrifice short-term results but are in the best long-term interest of our shareholders, we will take those opportunities," Page wrote in a letter leading up to Google's initial public offering in 2004. "We will have the fortitude to do this. We would request that our shareholders take the long term view." | 3 | 4,877 | finance |
Search engine Google (GOOGL.O) has agreed to better inform users about how it handles their personal information after an investigation by Britain's data protection regulator found its privacy policy was too vague. The Information Commissioner's Office said in a statement that it required Google to sign a "formal undertaking" that it would make the changes by June 30 and take further steps in the next two years. The ICO investigation stems from a privacy policy implemented by Google in March 2012 that consolidated some 70 existing privacy policies into one and pooled data collected on individual users across its services, including YouTube, Gmail and its social network Google+. Regulators in Spain and France have fined Google 900,000 euros ($1.02 million) and 150,000 euros respectively over the privacy policy, small penalties relative to Google's scale. Google's annual revenue in 2013 was $55.52 billion. (Reporting by Leila Abboud; Editing by Andrew Callus) | 5 | 4,878 | news |
Novak Djokovic once again stood tall at the Australian Open as he reached his fourth final in the past five years with another five-set victory over Stan Wawrinka, the man who dumped him out of Melbourne Park last year. Djokovic, bidding to become the first man to win five Australian Open titles since the game went professional in 1968, ran hot and cold but seized the points that mattered on Friday to beat the defending champion 7-6(1) 3-6 6-4 4-6 6-0. "As it was the case in the last two years we played five sets and I was ready for the battle," Djokovic said in a courtside interview. "We pushed each other to the limit. "Stan is a quality player. I made my life very complicated on the court." The Serb world number one's life will not get any easier on Sunday when he faces old friend Andy Murray, with the Briton looking to win his first Melbourne Park title in his fourth final. "Andy and I go back to when we were 12 years old, that's when we first played each other," Djokovic added. "We've known each other a long time, it's nice to play another grand slam final against him." NO TOMORROW Wawrinka had steadfastly refused to be drawn into comparisons to his grand slam tilt last year by sticking to a mantra, 'this is a new year, nothing in the past counts for today or tomorrow'. Aware the result of Friday's match could mean there was no tomorrow this year at Melbourne Park, on his march to Rod Laver Arena his eyes searched for the large picture of himself that is the most recent in the 'Walk of Champions'. Symbolism, and history, were not on Wawrinka's side. Djokovic's picture occupies all three of the spots before his and the Swiss had won just three of their 19 previous encounters. The past two at Melbourne Park, however, had been modern day epics. Both went to five sets with the winner then going on to clinch the title and anticipation had been high for 'The Djoker v the Man 3.0'. On Friday, the standard of play was not as high as in the past, indeed Djokovic was atypically enigmatic and lacking in vigour, though there were flashes of genius, with both applauding shots that were simply too good for their opponent. Statistically little separated the pair, but the points Djokovic won were more crucial, especially early in the fifth set that allowed him to break twice and race through the decider. FIRST-TIME PAIRING Earlier, American Bethanie Mattek-Sands won her second Australian Open doubles title after she and Lucie Safarova combined to beat China's Zheng Jie and her Taiwanese partner Chan Yung-jan. Mattek-Sands won the mixed doubles title at Melbourne Park with Romania's Horia Tecau in 2012, but it was her first grand slam women's doubles title. They beat four seeded pairs on their way to the final, before they secured the title with a 6-4 7-6(5) victory over the 14th seeds. The unseeded duo were playing their first tournament together and are the first new pairing to win the women's doubles title at Melbourne Park since 2005, having got together the day before they played singles. "I know some teams kind of plan for the year a little bit," the American said. "During the off-season it was literally, 'let's play Australian Open'. "We practiced the day before we played singles here. "No doubles practice. Actually, we didn't even really know which side we were going to play. "Obviously we'll be playing some more." (Editing by Pritha Sarkar) | 1 | 4,879 | sports |
It's just a forecast, and for only one of 10 industry groups in the stock market. Yet it has almost singlehandedly turned what had been a strong earnings season into a weak one. Profits for companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 index are expected to have grown in the fourth quarter at one of the lowest rates in years, just 2.2 percent. The culprit: Energy companies that suffered as oil prices plunged. Their profits are expected to have dropped 23 percent, a collapse of fortune nearly unheard of outside of a recession, and one that has weighed on the stock market. Investors will find out just how ugly the earnings are as oil companies report results over the next several days. So far, things don't look so good. Several oil producers and service companies have announced layoffs and reductions in spending on new drilling projects. BP told workers Monday that it would freeze pay for 2015. On Friday, Chevron posted a 30 percent decline in fourth-quarter profit, a day after Royal Dutch Shell reported a 57 percent drop. Stocks in energy companies have fallen nearly 12 percent in three months, nearly cancelling out moves up for most other industries. The S&P 500 is up less than 1 percent in that time. Exxon Mobil reports its results on Monday, followed by BP on Tuesday. BIG OIL, BIG IMPACT Lower oil prices are good for the economy and most businesses, but they are bad for the stock market in the short term. Energy companies have an outsized effect on the S&P 500 index because they are among the most valuable members of it. Instead of giving equal weight to each of the companies, the S&P 500 ranks them according to their market value. Exxon Mobil, worth $385 billion, is about 10 times the average value of a company in the index Why does that matter? Every percentage move in Exxon's stock, up or down, pushes the index up and down as if Exxon were 10 companies. Exxon's stock has fallen 16 percent from June when oil began to slide from $107 a barrel to $44 currently. Chevron, another heavyweight in the index, has fallen 27 percent. DAMAGE DONE? Stock prices have already suffered because investors know what's coming. Big oil earnings are relatively predictable because oil production is fairly steady and prices are set on open markets. While a company such as Apple can surprise investors by revealing just how popular a new product is with consumers, oil is always in fashion. Analysts can make reasonably good guesses about how much oil a company produced in a quarter, and what prices they were able to sell it for. When all the results are tallied, the plunge in energy company earnings is expected to be by far the worst among the 10 sectors in the S&P 500, according to FactSet, a financial data provider. Without that hit, earnings for the S&P 500 would be on track to grow a healthy 5.1 percent instead of 2.2 percent. The growth rate has been lower only three times in the last five years. "Rising tides lifted all ships, and now the tide is coming down and all ships are falling," said Fadel Gheit, an analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. "We know how this is going to end." POSSIBLE UPSIDE? Companies such as Exxon, Chevron, Shell and BP don't just produce oil, they also buy and refine it into fuels and chemicals. When oil prices fall, refining profits often rise. Exxon, Chevron and Shell all posted higher earnings in the third quarter of last year even as oil prices slumped. That's because refining profits rose more than production profits fell. So far, it looks as if fourth quarter refining profits have jumped again. But this time, crude prices seem to have dropped too far for refining to make up the difference. The plunge in crude prices meant the refining operations of Chevron and Shell paid less for the oil they bought on the open market. Demand for fuels, however, remained steady, so the refineries received relatively high prices for their gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. Shell's refining earnings jumped 167 percent in the fourth quarter, and Chevron's soared nearly 300 percent, the companies said this week. While it wasn't enough push overall earnings higher than last year, it was better than the alternative: ConocoPhillips, a big oil producer that spun off its refining operations in 2012, posted a rare loss when it reported results on Thursday. WHAT NEXT? Big oil companies are careful not to forecast prices, especially in the short term. But they will offer clues about how long they think low prices will last in what they say about drilling plans. The analysis firm Wood MacKenzie predicts that oil and gas companies will spend $50 billion less this year in North America than last year, a drop of nearly 40 percent. Oil companies are among the biggest corporate spenders because the cost of exploring for and producing oil and gas in difficult places is high. Chevron's Gorgon natural gas project in Australia, for example, is expected to cost $54 billion. Costs could fall, though. When oil prices drop and drilling activity slows, rig operators and other companies that work for big oil producers charge less. That could make some projects more profitable. | 3 | 4,880 | finance |
The United States has proposed analyzing genetic information from more than 1 million American volunteers as part of a new initiative to understand human disease and develop medicines targeted to an individual's genetic make-up. At the heart of the initiative, to be announced on Friday by President Barack Obama, is the creation of a pool of people - healthy and ill, men and women, old and young - who would be studied to learn how genetic variants affect health and disease. Officials hope genetic data from several hundred thousand participants in ongoing genetic studies would be used, and other volunteers recruited to reach the 1 million total. The near-term goal is to create more and better treatments for cancer, Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), told reporters on a conference call on Thursday. Longer term, he said, the project would provide information on how to individualize treatment for a range of diseases. The initial focus on cancer, he said, is due partly to the lethality of the disease and partly because targeted medicine, known also as precision medicine, has made significant advances in cancer, although much more work is needed. The president has proposed $215 million in his 2016 budget for the initiative. Of that, $130 million would go to the NIH to fund the research cohort and $70 million to NIH's National Cancer Institute to intensify efforts to identify molecular drivers of cancer and apply that knowledge to drug development. A further $10 million would go to the Food and Drug Administration to develop databases on which to build an appropriate regulatory structure; $5 million would go to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology to develop privacy standards and ensure the secure exchange of data. The effort may raise alarm bells for privacy rights advocates who in the past have questioned the government's ability to guarantee that DNA information is kept anonymous. They have expressed fear participants may become identifiable or face discrimination. SEQUENCING 1 MILLION GENOMES The funding is not nearly enough to sequence 1 million genomes from scratch. Whole-genome sequencing, though plummeting in price, still costs about $1,000 per genome, Collins said, meaning this component alone would cost $1 billion. Instead, he said, the national cohort would be assembled both from new volunteers interested in "an opportunity to take part in something historic," and existing cohorts that are already linking genomic data to medical outcomes. The most ambitious of these is the Million Veteran Program, launched in 2011 by the Department of Veterans Affairs. Aimed at making genomic discoveries and bringing personalized medicine to veterans, it has enrolled more than 300,000 veterans and determined the DNA sequences of about 200,000. The VA was a pioneer in electronic health records, which it will use to link the genotypes to vets' medical histories. Academic centers have, with NIH funding, also amassed thousands of genomes and linked them to the risk of disease and other health outcomes. The Electronic Medical Records and Genomics Network, announced by NIH in 2007, aims to combine DNA information on more than 300,000 people and look for connections to diseases as varied as autism, appendicitis, cataracts, diabetes and dementia. In 2014, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc launched a collaboration with Pennsylvania-based Geisinger Health System to sequence the DNA of 100,000 Geisinger patients and, using their anonymous medical records, look for correlations between genes and disease. The company has finished 50,000 samples, spokeswoman Hala Mirza said. Perhaps the most audacious effort is by the non-profit Human Longevity Inc, headed by Craig Venter. In 2013 it launched a project to sequence 1 million genomes by 2020. Privately funded, it will be made available to pharmaceutical companies such as Roche Holding AG, with which the institute has a research partnership. "We're happy to work with them to help move the science," Venter said in an interview, referring to the administration's initiative. But because of the many regulations surrounding medical privacy and human volunteers, he said, "we can't just mingle databases. It sounds like a naive assumption" if the White House expects existing cohorts to merge into its 1-million-genomes project. Venter raced the government-funded Human Genome Project to a draw in 2000, sequencing the entire human genome using private funding in less time than it took the public effort. ALTERING THE REGULATORY LANDSCAPE Collins conceded that mingling the databases would be a challenge but insisted it is doable. "It is something that can be achieved but obviously there is a lot that needs to be done," he said. Collating, analyzing and applying all this data to the development of new drugs will require changes to how products are reviewed and approved by health regulators. Dr. Margaret Hamburg, the FDA's commissioner, said on the conference call that the emerging field of precision medicine "presents a set of new issues for us at FDA." The agency is discussing new ways to approach the review process for personalized medicines and tests, she added. (Reporting by Toni Clarke in Washington; Editing by Cynthia Osterman) | 5 | 4,881 | news |
Jacque Vaughn's time as head coach of the Orlando Magic appears to be dwindling. Orlando is inching closer to firing Vaughn in the midst of third season as head coach of the team, Yahoo Sports/FOX Sports 1 NBA Insider Adrian Wojnarowski and other media report. "It isn't a matter of 'if,' anymore, but 'when,'" a source close to the situation told Wojnarowski. Vaughn compiled a 43-121 record his first two seasons with the Magic and there was an expectation that the team would have to show some improvement this season for Vaughn to keep his job, according to the report. Orlando exercised a fourth-year option on Vaughn's deal over the summer, guaranteeing his salary for next season. The Magic have lost 13 of their past 15 games after falling to the Milwaukee Bucks on Thursday, dropping them to 13th in the East. The Magic might have already made the move if not for the lack of an interim candidate on the young, inexperienced staff, Wojnarowski reports. | 1 | 4,882 | sports |
ATHENS, Greece Greece and its European bailout creditors were in open dispute Friday, with Germany bluntly rejecting suggestions the heavily-indebted country should be forgiven part of its rescue loans and warning against "blackmail" from Athens. Greece's five-day-old radical left government insists it will honor pre-election promises to seek a cut on most of the country's rescue debt and scrap painful budget measures that were demanded in exchange for the loans. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, however, warned Athens against strong-arm negotiating tactics in its effort to win debt relief. Rules need to be kept, and trust and reliability were the basis for further solidarity, the dpa news agency reported him saying. "There's no arguing with us about this, and what's more we are difficult to blackmail," Schaeuble was quoted saying in Berlin. "We are prepared to offer all cooperation and solidarity," he said, but only if Greece abides by its agreements, under which it received 240 billion euros ($270 billion) in rescue loans. Without the loans from its fellow eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund, Greece would struggle to service its debts and avoid bankruptcy. "The discussion about a debt cut or a debt conference is divorced from reality," Martin Jaeger, a German finance ministry spokesman, said in Berlin earlier. Greece's Parliamentary Budget Office, which makes quarterly recommendations to lawmakers, warned that the country faces default unless a deal with creditors is reached soon. Greece's next government debt obligations are due in March. Shares on the Athens Stock Exchange closed down 1.6 percent Friday, capping total losses of 13 percent for the week, while the interest rate on three-year bonds a gauge of short term risk of default rocketed to 19.3 percent. In Athens, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutchman who chairs eurozone finance ministers' meetings, met with top officials to sound out the new government. Dijsselbloem acknowledged Greeks have gone through much in recent years to reform their economy, and warned that rash actions by the government would not help. "Taking unilateral steps or ignoring previous agreements is not the way forward," he told reporters in statements after his meeting with Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' government, voted in last Sunday, has already said it will cancel several planned privatization projects and considerably scale down planned budget surpluses required to pay down Greece's massive national debt. Tsipras will launch a small tour of other eurozone countries next week, flying to Cyprus, Italy and France on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively. Greece's bailout, which began in May 2010, runs out on Feb. 28 after an initial two-month extension was granted for completion of frozen negotiations with the so-called "troika" the European Commission, European Central Bank and IMF. Greece and the troika hold talks regularly to make sure Athens keeps up its reforms and qualifies for the next installment of loans. Because the latest talks have yet to be concluded, Greece still has to receive the last, 7.2 billion-euro batch of its loans from the eurozone. Dijsselbloem said the eurozone countries would decide before Feb. 28 what to do about financing Greece. He also rejected Greece's request to hold a conference to discuss restructuring its debt, saying the eurozone's monthly finance meetings would serve the purpose. But Greek State Minister Nikos Pappas said Athens is no longer bound by the deadline. "I think you will see in coming days that that deadline does not exist," he told private Mega TV, adding that Greece is aiming for "a political framework to reach a solution." Varoufakis, for his part, said Greece was not asking for an extension of the existing bailout, as the government disputed the very wisdom of the program in the first place. "Our intention is to - with an absolute will to cooperate - to persuade our partners ... that our common interest in Europe is served best by a new agreement that will emerge following talks between all Europeans," he said. He said the new government would not be talking to the bailout negotiators from the troika. Instead, the minister said, the government would cooperate with the "legitimate institutions of the European Union and the International Monetary Fund." The new government has indicated that it is not interested in receiving the last 7.2 billion-euro loan installment from its European partners, and will instead focus on debt forgiveness. Credit ratings agency Fitch said Friday that, in the short term, both sides have a "strong incentive" to reach an agreement to make sure Greece gets the rescue money from the bailout programs. It warned, however, that drawn-out negotiations pose a "high risk" to the country's fragile economy. ___ Frank Jordans reported from Berlin. Derek Gatopoulos and Elena Becatoros in Athens also contributed. ___ Follow Gatopoulos at http://twitter.com/dgatopoulos and Jordans at http://twitter.com/wirereporter | 3 | 4,883 | finance |
The European Commission is mulling a new law requiring telecoms companies to store communications data of EU citizens as part of its efforts to fight terrorism, after a top court struck down the previous one on privacy concerns. The deadly Islamist attacks in Paris on Jan. 7-9 have focused European Union leaders' minds on how to intensify counter-terrorism efforts at home, such as by creating an EU system for storing airline passenger data. According to minutes from a meeting of the executive European Commission last week, it is also considering whether it should reintroduce a new data retention law that would avoid being struck down by the European Court of Justice (ECJ). EU Home Affairs Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos noted "on the one hand, the fundamental role that telecommunications records could play in the fight against terrorism and, on the other, the importance of adopting a cautious and measured approach". In April last year the ECJ ruled that an EU data retention directive requiring telecoms companies to store communications data for up to two years interfered with people's right to privacy by creating the impression that their private lives are the subject of constant surveillance. Avramopoulos intends to launch a consultation on the issue to determine whether a new law on data retention that respects privacy rights could be prepared over the coming year, according to the minutes. In July, Britain rushed through an emergency law requiring telecoms firms to retain customer data for a year to make up for the loss of the EU directive, prompting criticism from privacy campaigners. Telecoms companies such as Orange (ORAN.PA), Telefonica (TEF.MC) and BT (BT.L) are already subject to a privacy law, the ePrivacy directive, requiring them to ensure that their customers' communications are confidential and not listened in to without their consent. (Writing by Julia Fioretti; Editing by Mark Heinrich) | 5 | 4,884 | news |
Late one afternoon in September 2013, Jeremiah Jackson stopped in at his drug dealer's house to pick up heroin. While waiting around, he checked his voice mail and found a message from American Addiction Centers, a chain of drug and alcohol treatment clinics. An unfamiliar voice said, "Jeremiah, the game is up. It's time for you to get help." Jackson just laughed. "It struck me as humorous at first," he says. A 28-year-old college dropout, Jackson had been getting calls from American Addiction Centers for more than a month. His mother had passed his name along to several representatives at the company, and they'd call twice a week offering help. The calls were "a buzz kill," as he puts it, but he sometimes picked up and listened, because he was lonely, he admits, and knew deep down that he had a problem. He'd moved back in with his parents in Sequim, Wash., after losing his girlfriend and apartment but was doing his best to avoid everyone. "It was a horrible year. It was just me, my dealer, and my bathroom," he recalls. Still, he would end each conversation with AAC by saying he wasn't interested. This time was different. Two days earlier, Jackson had almost overdosed on heroin and methamphetamines in a Walmart parking lot. "I woke up on one of those green electrical boxes, and there were all these ambulances and police cars," he says. "They'd responded to reports of someone screaming. I guess it was me. I had no idea how I got there. … All I had on were my boxers and my shoes. The rest of my stuff was strewn across the parking lot. I was white as a ghost and freezing." With that memory still raw, Jackson drove home from his dealer's place, shut himself into his room, and listened to the latest voice message several more times. "They let me know they cared," he says. They also noted that he'd be covered by his insurance. When his mom got home that night, he told her he was ready to do whatever it took to get and stay clean. Days later, Jackson shot up one last time and boarded a plane to Dallas, where he was met at the airport by an AAC representative holding a sign with his name. American Addiction Centers, founded in 2011 and based in Brentwood, Tenn., is run by Michael Cartwright, a former drug addict and alcoholic who says he's been sober for 23 years. The company owns eight facilities in six states and treats about 5,000 patients annually. In 2013 its revenue was $116 million, up from $28 million in 2011. Last October, analysts say, it became the first business focused solely on addiction treatment to go public, raising $75 million in an IPO. AAC is currently valued at about $588 million. So far, investing in some of society's most troubled members seems to be paying off: Since October the company's stock price has almost doubled, from $15 to $28. "There's a lot of opportunity in substance abuse," says Paula Torch, senior research analyst for Avondale Partners, a Nashville-based firm that underwrote the IPO. There are more addicts than beds in treatment centers, she explains, and the industry is highly fragmented, made up largely of outpatient services and mom and pop operations. The market, meanwhile, is estimated to be worth $35 billion, and while almost 23 million Americans suffer from addiction, only about 4.1 million receive treatment each year, according to 2013 data from the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (The agency says more than 98 percent of those who don't get treatment think they don't need it.) In going public, AAC says it hopes to tap that market, fund a nationwide expansion, introduce a consistent standard of care, and create "a national brand" serving all segments of the population. Drawing on data from IBISWorld, the company's IPO underwriters estimate there are 8,100 substance-abuse treatment enterprises across America, operating 16,700 clinics and centers. These include famous nonprofits such as the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, as well as Narconon International, an addiction treatment organization with ties to the Church of Scientology. At the very high end, Malibu centers like Promises and Cliffside charge the Lindsay Lohans of the world as much as $112,000 per month out-of-pocket for spa-like accommodations and services. The biggest industry player by far, CRC Health Group says it serves 40,000 patients per day at more than 100 facilities. That's only about a 2 percent market share; in addition to addiction, CRC treats a range of other disorders, including Asperger syndrome and anorexia. In October international behavioral-health-care giant Acadia Healthcare said it would acquire CRC for $1.2 billion. Treating substance abuse isn't like other businesses. The clients, by nature, are at a high risk of injury and death, which might expose the business to lawsuits and bad press; addiction treatment is not well understood; and insurance coverage is subject to regulatory changes. Plus, every successful outcome means losing a customer. American Addiction Centers' facilities are upscale, though hardly over-the-top luxurious. They cater to people with solid out-of-network insurance coverage. Each client pays about $800 per day, or $24,000 per month, roughly 90 percent of which is covered by insurance providers, according to Cartwright. The company's profit margin, he says, is about 15 percent. Each facility has doctors and psychologists with expertise in substance abuse, and most have an on-site pharmacy. The company also has its own laboratory in Nashville. The centers, which have a staff-to-patient ratio slightly bigger than 1 to 1, also treat concurrent psychological issues, because as many as 90 percent of AAC's patients have mental-health disorders, Cartwright says. A comfortable environment is important for recovery, he adds, scoffing at what he calls widespread critiques that treatment centers, both luxury and lower-end, charge too much and spend too much on looks. "No one would question that, if my grandmother had cancer, that we would treat her in a beautiful facility with good-quality linens and good-quality food," he says. "Yet a drug-and-alcohol person you put on a cot in the local mission, and that's quality care? I do still think that there's a prejudice around this being a moral issue vs. a disease." Cartwright guarantees that a patient who checks in for 90 days can come back for free if he relapses. "We were involved in 15 different federally funded research studies, and the common theme that we kept coming back to, over and over and over, is that the best predictor of outcome is length of stay," Cartwright says. Six months or longer is even better, according to officials with Columbia University's National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. If insurance won't cover 90 days, Cartwright suggests a patient check into a cheaper facility. "Look, I personally think it's more important that you get longer-term treatment than it is you come to me." He argues that insurance companies may actually save money in the long run by covering one 90-day stay with a good outcome, rather than repeated 30-day stays for a patient who's likely to relapse again and again. Jeremiah Jackson has struggled with drugs since the age of 18. Before his mother found American Addiction Centers, he'd been through five inpatient rehab facilities and several outpatient programs. Each time, within a month, he'd gone back to drugs. Even aversion therapy, designed to make addicts associate using with extreme nausea and pain, didn't work. "I stayed sober for probably a week," he says. In Dallas, Jackson checked into the Greenhouse branch of AAC. His family chose it mostly because it has two pools, and Jackson loves to swim. It was formerly a spa opened in 1965 by Stanley Marcus, an early Neiman Marcus president, to serve the likes of Grace Kelly and Lady Bird Johnson. Despite its glitzy past, the 130-bed center, which cost about $15 million to buy, renovate, and expand, has the corporate feel of a midrange hotel. Throughout the campus, tired-looking men and women are kept on a strict schedule. They exercise, take cigarette breaks, watch television, meet with doctors, and attend individual and group therapy. In the front yard, which faces an auto body shop across the street, there's a "12-step garden," where patients can walk through 12 stations, each with a sign espousing one core tenet of Alcoholics Anonymous's recovery guidelines. After suffering through detox under constant monitoring by doctors "It's extremely painful," Jackson says. "It's, like, in your bones and every part of your skin" he began swimming twice a day, gaining back weight, and working with staff to formulate a strategy to stay drug-free once he re-entered the world. Now 17 months sober, he's stayed in Texas to make a clean break from his life in Washington. He lives in an Oxford sober living house and helps oversee other recovering addicts. He does seasonal work at Ace Hardware and is applying to colleges, where he hopes to learn audio engineering. "My relationship with my family now is awesome," Jackson says. After his father had a stroke, he was able to help. "That was a huge deal for me. Instead of me being another problem to add to, you know, my family's situation, I was able to be supportive of my mom and my sister. You know, be there for them." At 46, Cartwright is chipper, with a Tennessee accent and the sparkly, welcoming eyes of a Bible Belt minister. He says he started experimenting with alcohol and illegal substances in middle school; later he flunked out of college twice, spent a couple of days in jail, and almost overdosed. At 22 he was living out of a "rattletrap automobile" and struggling with psychosis, which he says runs in his family. Pat McDonnell, a developer of shopping malls and office buildings, met Cartwright during that time and became his first Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor. "I think he'd been sober for a little over six months," McDonnell says. "He was a very clean-cut young man, determined to change his life. He comes from a good family, but they'd told him, 'Next time you go back to school, you're going to do it on your own nickel.' " With the help of his grandmother, new friends, AA, and Narcotics Anonymous, Cartwright finally got sober on Oct. 5, 1991. He lived with McDonnell for a time before getting a job and his own apartment, and apparently spent many nights studying how his friend managed his enterprise. "In retrospect, I should have known he'd go into business," McDonnell says. "All I was hoping he'd do was have a good life." These days, Cartwright, who flies between his centers on his own private jet, says his biggest vice is drinking Red Bull energy drinks as many as three a day and eating too much. "I've always been a little pudgy," he admits. But he's working on that: One of American Addiction Centers' facilities, FitRX, in Brentwood, focuses on food addiction. In 2012, Cartwright published Believable Hope: Five Essential Elements to Beat Any Addiction. His five tenets including visualizing the life you want and surrounding yourself with winners turn up as five stars in the company logo. Since getting clean, Cartwright has worked in almost all branches of the industry, starting as an inner-city case worker earning $16,000 a year, he says. Together with his wife, Tina, who runs the in-house billing department for AAC, he's founded everything from halfway houses to the Canyon, a luxury private treatment center in Malibu. The couple has built and sold three health-care businesses and made, by Cartwright's own accounting, "tens of millions of dollars." The last venture, another drug- and-alcohol-addiction treatment business called Foundations Recovery Network, was sold to a private equity firm in 2007 for $22 million, he says. In 2011 he earned more when it sold again. Cartwright maintains that running a profitable operation is the best way to help people. "An early mentor told me, 'You have two choices: You can learn to run this as a business and do this for the next 20 years, or we can pack up,' " he says. "I didn't want to pack up." "On our IPO roadshow, a lot of people asked, why haven't other companies [gone public]?" he says. "The truth is, I don't know. … Why didn't hospitals go public before the '70s and '80s? Why didn't elder-care companies?" Part of the holdup, Cartwright says, has been the widespread misperception that addiction is a moral problem rather than a disease. Samuel Ball, president and chief executive of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, says research concludes that addiction is likely equal parts biological and environmental. New federal and state laws are improving addicts' treatment options. In 2008, Congress passed the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, which requires health plans to provide the same dollar limits for mental-health benefits as for medical and surgical benefits. Obamacare also lets kids stay on their parents' insurance longer, which is having a significant impact on the substance-abuse industry, as many addicts seeking treatment are men in their 20s. American Addiction Centers spends more than $7 million on marketing each year. Its call center employs 50 people who take about 20,000 calls a month from past and prospective clients. "It's people looking for help, people calling in saying they might have a problem, people who formerly came to us and are wanting to reach back out to our alumni association," Cartwright says. Only 2 percent of callers are admitted to AAC facilities, because of insurance and accommodation issues. The rest are directed to other centers and resources for finding care, such as the government's Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's treatment locator. Investors, naturally, hope to capture a higher percentage of those callers. The call center employees, many of whom are former addicts, also reach out to people like Jackson, encouraging them to seek help. "The people we're serving, they die if they don't get into treatment. They're literally one step away," Cartwright says. "I've had call center reps spend six months trying to convince somebody to get the help they need, whether it's with us or not." Television ads also prove effective. Rachel Booher, a tall, blond 26-year-old from Baltimore who started taking drugs at age 12, hit rock bottom in 2013. "I was arrested for selling drugs. I did things I'm not proud of. I lost family and friends and jobs," she recalls. "And then I found the needle, and that's when I gave up everything else. … I lost a child, and I did not see a future." One day she picked up the phone and called AAC, because she'd seen their ads on television. They admitted her to the Las Vegas facility, Desert Hope, where insurance covered her stay of 40 days. Booher now lives in a Nashville halfway house, has been clean for more than 16 months, and works a full-time job at O'Reilly Auto Parts. "I've learned that I like to paint," she says. "I learned that I like sushi." After Desert Hope, she spent a month at FitRX to address her food addiction. She credits AAC, and God, for helping her realize she has a disease that will need constant care. Not all stories involving the company's marketing tactics are as positive. Late last year, Gary Fisher, director for operations at the treatment chain Cirque Lodge, filed a complaint with the National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers, saying that potential clients who clicked on what they thought was a link to his company's 800 number were automatically redirected to American Addiction Centers. At least one caller was then told AAC is "much better than Cirque Lodge." Cartwright acknowledges the problem but blames it on third-party vendors hired to take care of Internet marketing. "We canceled those contracts," he says, adding, "I live by the 12-step program. I try to do right every day, and I want my company to live by that as well." Over the centuries, doctors have subjected addicts to a range of "cures." They've tried cocaine, LSD, shock therapy, lobotomies, tranquilizers, vitamins, and vegetarian diets. In the 1950s, some doctors made alcoholics huff carbon dioxide until they passed out, a method also used to treat anxiety and melancholy, according to William White, author of Slaying the Dragon: The History of Addiction Treatment and Recovery in America. So-called inebriate homes and asylums began popping up nationwide in the 1800s. The most famous and controversial of the for-profit operations were the Keeley Institutes, established in 1879 by Leslie Keeley, a doctor who claimed: "Drunkenness is a disease, and I can cure it." His treatment involved a secret formula called the Double Chloride of Gold Cure, which supposedly addressed the root causes of inebriation on the cellular level. Keeley achieved notoriety after issuing a challenge to Joseph Medill, then-publisher of the Chicago Tribune, saying, "Send me six of the worst drunkards you can find, and in three days I will sober them up, and in four weeks I will send them back to Chicago sober men." Medill took the challenge and later reported that the men "went away sots and returned gentlemen," according to White. From 1880 to 1920, Keeley treated about half a million patients at more than 100 locations across America, England, Finland, Denmark, and Sweden many of them franchises owned by other people or investment groups. Business began going downhill when several former patients relapsed, went insane, and killed themselves. "I desire to state in a most emphatic manner that the Keeley cure is a shameless, barefaced, moneymaking scheme," wrote one doctor in 1893. By 1935, the year Alcoholics Anonymous was started, the number of Keeley Institutes had dwindled to four, down from 118 in 1893, thanks partly to controversy and Prohibition. One of the last Keeley Institutes standing was found to have a large bootlegging operation in its basement. Keeley died a millionaire in 1900, and by 1966 the Institutes had stopped admitting patients. The contents of the Double Chloride of Gold potion remains a mystery. White does credit Keeley with bringing unprecedented numbers of addicts into treatment. American Addiction Centers is peculiar in its own modern way. It was pieced together from previously existing companies, some with unusual origins. One of them, Forterus, was formed when a drug and addiction business called A Better Tomorrow merged with a public company involved in thoroughbred horse racing and breeding. Forterus traded as a penny stock but was later delisted. Paul Howarth, the former Forterus chief executive officer, once worked as a senior vice president at Bear Stearns and is now CEO of Graystone, a Las Vegas-based mining business with projects in Peru and Suriname. "Paul Howarth was the money that started A Better Tomorrow," Cartwright says. "He was gone by the time I got here. … It doesn't have anything to do with AAC." Howarth declined to comment on the record. "You need a game plan to stay sober" Analysts don't seem too concerned with the past. "I think this company has the right kind of energy," says John Ransom, managing director of health-care research at Raymond James Financial, another underwriter of the IPO. "You have a very aggressive, messianic CEO, but you have structure in place that tries to curb some of that." Going public also means the company is subject to quarterly reviews and tough scrutiny. "I think it's fair to say these guys have been scrappy, and there's been an uneven history," Ransom says. "But I think this is their shot, and they realize this is their shot. And so far, so good." On a recent Monday in January, Cartwright stops in at a group meeting at the Greenhouse. Looking sharp in a gray suit and blue button-down, the CEO puts on his counselor hat. "I'm 23 years sober," he tells the attentive addicts, who break into applause. "You need a game plan to stay sober," he goes on, moving into a conversational mode. "How many people are going to go back to a safe environment?" "I'm scared to go back," says Lisette Matos, a 21-year-old from New Jersey, who's wearing glasses and bright red lipstick and shaking visibly. "My boyfriend's a heroin addict, a recovering heroin addict. He has a 2-year-old daughter, and how do you keep yourself straight?" "Don't go back," says Cartwright, growing earnest. "Seriously, I wouldn't go back." "It's just hard," she says. "You love a person …" "You've gotta love yourself, too, you know," Cartwright says. "You can't save them until you get yourself strong. And it's gonna take you maybe a year to try and save another human being. Right now, it's gotta be about you." "Who's relapsed before?" Cartwright asks the crowd, and several people raise their hands. "It doesn't have to be that way," he says. "Make this your last treatment center. … You have to work further. We'll get you connected with the right physician, the right doctor, get an outpatient program, but also make sure you're in a safe environment. If you don't have a safe environment to go back to, you really oughta work with your therapist to find one." "I know that's hard, 'cause you love him," he says, turning back to Matos. The discussion moves on to medications that various clients are taking and to finding a good doctor. At the end, Cartwright thanks the group for letting him drop in. Back at American Addiction Centers' headquarters, situated along with the call center on two floors of a nondescript brick building, Cartwright says his company has given an independent research firm $500,000 to study its outcomes. He acknowledges that even his patients, if they don't change their lifestyles post-treatment, are highly likely to relapse. Of course, he hopes they won't. "If they go out and tell 10 other people, 'Hey, if you need help, that's where you go,' " he says, "that's great all around." With Dune Lawrence To contact the author on this story: Caroline Winter at [email protected] To contact the editor on this story: Bryant Urstadt at [email protected] | 3 | 4,885 | finance |
Paul La Monica and Cristina Alesci break down the business behind the growing, upscale fast-food chain. | 3 | 4,886 | finance |
Here's your friendly reminder that HBO's epic fantasy Game of Thrones will be playing on IMAX theaters starting this weekend through Thursday, February 5th . The screenings will show season four's last two episodes "The Watchers on the Wall" and "The Children" back to back, followed by a quick-and-never-before-seen preview of season five, which debuts on the small screen on April 12th . Above, watch an IMAX featurette in which David Behioff and D.B. Weiss discuss the process of bringing Game of Thrones to the big (very big) screen along with IMAX VP Lorne Orleans. We grabbed tickets to one of the earliest showings last night, and while we'll have more thoughts later today, needless to say, it's worth the price of admission for GoT fans. | 5 | 4,887 | news |
The UN's Yugoslav war crimes court on Friday upheld life convictions of two Bosnian Serbs for their role in the Srebrenica massacre of almost 8,000 Muslim men and boys in 1995. The Appeal Chamber "affirms the life sentence" against former Bosnian Serb Vujadin Popovic, 57, and Ljubisa Beara, 75, Judge Patrick Robinson said at a hearing at the Hague-based tribunal. Both men are former officers in the Bosnian Serb army blamed for the mid-July 1995 massacre regarded as one the worst incidents of bloodshed on European soil since World War II. Popovic, wearing a dark suit and black T-shirt shook his head as the appeals verdict was read out, while Beara, also in a dark suit and white shirt, stood motionless. The two men were sentenced to life on genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity charges in 2010, together with five co-accused by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Four other army officers and a police official found guilty of war crimes were jailed for between five and 35 years. Three of the officers appealed their sentences. The court upheld a 35-year sentence against Bosnian army security chief Drago Nikolic, 57 and a 13 year sentence against brigade commander Vinko Pandurevic, 55. It reduced a 19-year sentence against Bosnian army operations chief Radivoje Miletic, 67, by one year. The Appeals Chamber dismissed, unanimously or by majority, most of the appellants' other challenges in the case, which is the ICTY's largest completed case to date. The dismissals include challenges to the admissibility and credibility of witnesses testifying in the case that opened in The Hague in 2006. It has seen some 315 witnesses testify during 425 trial days. Twenty individuals have been indicted for crimes committed at Srebrenica, including former top Bosnian Serb politician Radovan Karadzic and his military partner general Ratko Mladic. Both Karadzic, 69 and Mladic, 72 are currently on trial before the court where they face a range of charges including genocide for their roles at Srebrenica. Set up to try 161 suspects wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity during the bloody 1990s Balkans wars, the ICTY has concluded 141 proceedings, while 15 others are still ongoing before the court. | 5 | 4,888 | news |
If you can't beat them, join them. Angry Birds remains one of the most popular mobile game series in the world, but its financial success has been dwarfed by that of match-three puzzle games like Candy Crush Saga and Puzzle & Dragons. Developer Rovio has clearly noticed: it has soft-launched two new Angry Birds games that ditch its familiar bird-slinging gameplay for... match-three puzzling. Angry Birds Stella Pop! has been released in Canada, while Angry Birds Fight! is available in Thailand. Single-country debuts have become the standard way for mobile publishers to test and refine new games before giving them a global release. First reported on by fan-site Angry Birds Nest , the new games are both "freemium" titles: free to download, and making their money from in-app purchases of virtual items. Angry Birds Stella Pop! is a bubble-popping game in the same vein as console classic Bust-a-Move (also known as Puzzle Bobble), or perhaps more relevantly, the Bubble Witch Saga game that's been a hit on mobile for Candy Crush publisher King. Angry Birds Fight! involves matching lines of three or more birds to battle enemies, taking its inspiration from Puzzle & Dragons, which has been a lucrative success for its publisher, Japanese firm GungHo Online. Angry Birds Stella Pop! Photograph: PR The two games are the latest efforts by Rovio to build on the popularity of the Angry Birds games, which at its peak in late 2012 had 263 million monthly active players . By September 2014, that had shrunk to 200 million still one of the biggest mobile franchises with Rovio announcing the following month that it was laying off 16% of its staff after making "assumptions of faster growth than have materialised". In 2013, Rovio's revenues increased slightly to €156m (£128.4m), but its annual profits halved to €26.9m as the company invested heavily in its ToonsTV animation network and the first Angry Birds film, which will not be released until 2016. By contrast, King reported revenues of $1.9bn for that year on the back of Candy Crush's success, and proceeded to go public in an IPO valuing the company at more than $7bn. Meanwhile, GungHo is estimated to have made more than $1.4bn from Puzzle & Dragons alone that year. Rovio has already switched to a freemium model for newer Angry Birds games in new genres, including racing game Angry Birds Go! , roleplaying game Angry Birds Epic , and branded action title Angry Birds Transformers . Those games have yet to deliver a Candy Crush-sized hit, but by emulating that game more closely, Rovio's strategy of spreading Angry Birds' eggs among multiple baskets will continue looking for a financial reward to match the popularity of its characters. • How Candy Crush gets you hooked - six addictive tricks • Angry Birds: Rovio talks freemium games, Stella and Toons disruption • Why Angry Birds are slightly miffed: mobile gaming in 2014 | 3 | 4,889 | finance |
America's antiquated air traffic control system is getting an upgrade, with an overhaul through the FAA's NextGen designed to keep up with increasing air travel and the push for on-time flights. As Ben Tracy shows, however, parts of the country are paying a steep price for progress. | 2 | 4,890 | travel |
FORT WORTH, Texas Giving thanks at the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo has become more diverse this year as officials have cast a wider net to include more faith-based groups that offer prayers before the bareback bronc riding begins. For some faithful rodeo fans, though, the inclusion of a Muslim Imam in the mix has become a burr under the traditional saddle. The Stock Show's Facebook page lit up this week after Moujahed Bakhach of the Islamic Association of Tarrant County offered the public prayer at Sunday night's rodeo performance. While many of the comments on the Stock Show's Facebook page were supportive of the more inclusive prayer policy, most were not. Opposition did not seem personally directed at Bakhach or his words, but expressed outrage at the inclusion of a member of the Islamic clergy during a time of violence and extremism involving radical Muslim terrorists. A sampling of the sentiments expressed: "I just will choose NOT to go somewhere that embraces a religion that wants me, my family and my people DEAD." "Muslim/Islam has no place in this country let alone fwssr. Not one Muslim has come out against the radical actions that is the Muslim belief. PERIOD. COWBOYS DON'T WANT IT." "This really disappoints me in the FWSSR! Sad to see such a Texas & American institution fall in the gutter of political correctness." "The ignorance here. You all should be ashamed of yourselves. Cheers to FWSSR! Yet another reason why I am proud to call Fort Worth my home." "Kudos to FWSSR for leading the way and understanding that America is a country of immigrants. Thanks for showing love and not hatred by showing tolerance for all religions; as Freedom of Religion applies to every American, even if they don't look like you or believe what you believe." "Islam is against all other religions and I for one won't attend an event that allows a darkness to be spoke over me!" The Fort Worth Stock Show has long featured a Christian flavor, from evangelical-like comments of longtime rodeo announcer Bob Tallman to the growing popularity of Cowboy Church, which is held Sunday mornings at the Will Rogers Auditorium. Tallman said Bakhach "did a wonderful job" when giving Sunday's prayer. Bakhach, who speaks regularly at a variety of events across Tarrant County, said there was "a beautiful spirit" in Will Rogers Coliseum Sunday night, and said the blessing went on without a hitch. "I didn't hear any negative reaction to what I said. I sat down to watch the show," Bakhach said. But later, his friend, who had been seated in the crowd while Bakhach spoke, said someone behind him exclaimed, 'Oh my God' when Bakhach's name and affiliation were announced. Brad Barnes, president and general manager of the Stock Show, who is at each performance of the rodeo, said he saw no indication of anger in the crowd on Sunday, and he characterized Bakhach's blessing as "spot-on" and "very appropriate." Still, as the social media storm began to boil, Bakhach who was scheduled to pray again on Monday said he talked with Barnes about the negative feedback. "I felt he was in a spot, so I canceled for Feb. 2," Bakhach said. "I love Fort Worth. It really hurt me to see this reaction." Bob Roberts, senior pastor of NorthWood Church in Keller, has long been passionate in his support of Muslims and other faiths and about the importance of welcoming them as neighbors. Roberts said that sadly, Christians promote intolerance and fear of Muslims more than any group in the United States. "It's easy to sit in a movie and watch 'Selma, 'The Butler' or 'The Help' and lament 'how could people be so blind and mean,'" Roberts said. "It's a lot harder to do life and practice Selma with people of different colors and religions and acknowledge your own bigotry." Prayers have always opened the rodeo performances and this year, a new community committee has taken over the duties of choosing who offers the moment of thanks. "Creating the faith-based advisory council is something we've been considering for a number of years to honor the diverse community in which we live and is not specific to any single event," Barnes said. The Faith-Based Advisory Committee includes representatives from the Christian, Jewish and Muslim communities. Committee members are responsible for providing a brief prayer of about one minute for each of the performances. They offer prayer themselves, and invite others they know to participate. The prayers include suggested nondenominational themes such as praying for the safety of rodeo contestants, visitors and livestock; protection of U.S. Armed Forces; and preservation of peace and harmony. On Tuesday night, the rodeo prayer was offered by Jonas Bohlin, a Cowboy Church pastor representing the Fort Worth Clergy and Police Alliance program. Bohlin invoked the names of God and Jesus, and offered thanks for "a nation where we can thank you for our day" and "a city that welcomes your oversight." There were no comments on the Stock Show's Facebook page about Bohlin's prayer, but the anti-Muslim posts were still going strong. On Wednesday, the Stock Show posted: "We would like to take this opportunity to separate fact from fiction: There was never a Muslim prayer or a prayer of any specific religion at the Stock Show this year." Barnes said, as of Tuesday, that he'd received four phone calls and two emails objecting to Bakhach's prayer. "I've talked to every one of them, and they were all very polite. We discussed the show and what it's about," Barnes said. Barnes said he also got a call criticizing the recently offered prayer of a Brite Divinity School student. "I don't really consider it a complaint," said Barnes. "It's just people voicing their opinion, and that's what makes America great." Bakhach said he was happy to be among the first to get to offer interfaith prayers at the rodeo. "We appreciated that and we liked it very much," he said. "I consider it a great honor to participate in such a big event in the culture of Texas." And Bakhach said he doesn't blame anyone for the backlash. "I'll take it in a positive way to direct my community to keep working and keep doing, and expose yourself to your neighbors and friends," said Bakhach, who came to the United States from Lebenon in 1982. "Interact with people. Invite them to your home. That's the bridge we should have to others. Ignorance is really enemy No. 1." Roberts agreed, saying the only way to ease tensions between Muslims and Christians is to develop friendships. "You can't hate somebody that you know as a person, that your family hangs out with," Roberts said. "The majority of Muslims are as peaceful as are the majority of Christians. ... No real Christians would say that the KKK or White Supremacists represent Christianity, but most of those in those organizations would claim to be conservative Christians. It's the same in Islam. But in a culture of hate people of faith have a responsibility to look beyond what the headlines grabber is doing and see people as a whole." Rodeo announcer Tallman said it's important to respect other faiths. "We live in a big world and a very changing world," Tallman said. "... Some people don't deal well with change. I've learned how to live with and be fine with it." | 5 | 4,891 | news |
Former rap mogul Marion "Suge" Knight surrendered to police and was arrested on suspicion of murder in connection with a hit-and-run on a movie set. | 5 | 4,892 | news |
There aren't many critically acclaimed NYC chefs who would use the seasoning packet found in instant ramen as an ingredient in their kitchens, but David Chang is not like many other chefs. He did exactly that, in an omelette, of all things. The omelette seems deceivingly simple to so many diners, but in France it's considered the test of a truly great chef. And David Chang added instant ramen seasoning to it. It's brazen and bold and looks absolutely delicious. While the Ramlet breaks all the rules of old school cheffing -- a common occurrence for Chang -- it is made with impeccable technique. There's also so much butter in it, we're grateful he's not putting it on his menu. Watch the video above from Lucky Peach and Chang to see how it's done. | 0 | 4,893 | foodanddrink |
Ferrari unveiled their car for the new season on the internet Friday, the legendary Italian stable counting on the SF15-T to bring back the glory years after a miserable 2014. Fernando Alonso's lowly ninth place in the season-closing Abu Dhabi Grand Prix completed a wretched year for the men from Maranello, their first winless season since 1993. Ferrari's lacklustre performance in taking only fourth in the constructors title race triggered sweeping changes at their Italian HQ in a bid to put the team back at the top of Formula One. In November, team chief Marco Mattiacci was sacked after just seven months in the post with Maurizio Arrivabene appointed in his place. That switch came days after Red Bull's four-time world champion Sebastien Vettel was signed on a three-year-contract to replace Alonso after the Spaniard's move to McLaren. Vettel links up with Kimi Raikkonen, the Finn who clinched Ferrari's last world championship in 2007. In December, Mexican Esteban Gutierrez was lured from Sauber along with out-of-work former Torro Rosso driver Frenchman Jean-Eric Vergne as test and reserve drivers. Vettel and Raikkonen will go into battle against Mercedes' world champion Lewis Hamilton in the aggressive-looking SF15-T, which features a long protruding nose. A major overhaul of the car's engine has been undertaken in a bid to reel in last season's runaways champions Mercedes. The car, the concept of British designer James Allison, will have its first official runout in the first batch of pre-season testing at the Spanish circuit of Jerez starting on Sunday. The 2015 F1 season gets underway with its traditional curtain-raiser in Melbourne on March 15. | 1 | 4,894 | sports |
Paleontologists have discovered a 50-ft "dragon" dinosaur species in China that may have roamed the earth 160 million years ago in the Late Jurassic period. | 8 | 4,895 | video |
It's not all red hot lava and clouds of smoke... It's not all lava and smoke… Volcanoes are so much more than red-hot lava and clouds of smoke, and we reckon even the keenest volcanologists will be impressed by the following locations. Heimaey, Vestmannaeyjar islands, Iceland In 1973, Iceland's Eldfell volcano erupted with such force that the entire population of the Vestmannaeyjar islands had to be evacuated to the mainland. In 2014, some of the houses that were buried under the clouds of ash were exposed for the first time, thanks to a project that involved clearing mountains of ash and carefully removing individual items from the house. The properties were abandoned so quickly that personal possessions and furnishings remained exactly where they were. At the heart of the site, which opened in May 2014, is the museum, which is positioned directly above one of the houses. A glass walkway allows visitors to peer down into the excavated cottage, which has been carefully restored to its former glory, complete with original furnishings. Nisyros volcano, Nisyros Island, Greece Parts of the James Bond flick Moonraker were filmed in this spectacular crater. There are five craters in total, and a path leads directly down into the largest one, which slightly unusually has the name Stefanos. You'll need sturdy footwear as the surface is incredibly hot in certain places, but you'll be rewarded with close-up views of colourful fumaroles thermal vents or openings in the Earth's crust emitting hot sulphurous gasses along with the sound of hissing steam and the stench of their vapours. Despite this, it's all perfectly safe the last eruption took place in 1888. Yellowstone national park, Wyoming, US Recent studies have shown that Yellowstone national park is in fact one giant, volcanic caldera, so it's hardly surprising that it's jam-packed with spectacular geological features. However, although the majority of visitors head straight for the more famous sites such as the Old Faithful geyser or the Grand Prismatic Spring (pictured, right), lesser-known ones are equally impressive. They include the Minerva terraces (pictured, left), a series of mineral deposits leftover from the calcium-rich hot water being pushed to the surface by volcanic activity. La Grande Soufrière, Guadeloupe, Caribbean Most people think of Mount Etna or Krakatoa when they think of volcanoes, forgetting that there are also some in the Caribbean. La Grande Soufrière on Guadeloupe is the highest peak in the Lesser Antilles, and the location of the region's first recorded eruption, which took place in around 1660. It's possible to hike to the top of the volcano, and although the hike is a tough one, it's worth the effort the lush green landscape is dotted with thermal vents and the views from the top are breathtaking. Phlegraean Fields, (Campi Flegrei), Italy Thousands of years ago, the people living near this volcanic site believed it was actually a gateway to hell, hence the name Phlegraean comes from the word meaning 'burning' in ancient Greek. This steaming expanse of volcanic rock and debris, which is located just a short distance from Naples, is actually an eight-mile-wide volcano caldera filled with pools of bubbling mud, sulphurous steam holes and other volcanic features, all of which can be explored via a network of pathways. Although in the past some scientists have expressed fears that an enormous eruption is imminent, the smaller incidents are met with relief by the local people, who view them as pressure valves, helping to reduce the risk of a more dangerous build-up of pressure. Cappadocia, Turkey Cappadocia's hundreds of sharp, pointed peaks are actually mineral deposits that formed six million years ago during a series of volcanic eruptions. Not that the eruptions put people off living there instead, over the years the local population has carved monasteries, houses and churches into the soft volcanic rock. The area has proved popular with film producers and 1989 the sci-fi flick Slipstream was filmed here. Another movie, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance , was filmed here in 2011, and the star of the film, Nicolas Cage, admitted that he'd fallen in love with the area. Chain of Craters road, Hawaii Even the toughest off-road vehicle won't help you navigate this road, because large parts have been covered with lava spewed from the nearby volcano Kilauea. The road was totally cut off in 1969 and again in 1986. Officials finally admitted defeat in the early 1990s when lava from the Puʻu ʻOʻō vent buried a seven-mile section.Various paths and tracks allow visitors to check out the numerous craters, steam plumes and sections of lava flow that can be found throughout the area, but the authorities urge this only be done with extreme caution. A much more accessible attraction is the viewpoint that overlooks Kilauea and is just a short drive from the paved road that encircles the caldera. Cave of the Wind, Tenerife This underground complex is home to Europe's largest lava tube, and contains three levels of lava tube passageways. These extend for 10 miles and contain countless lava pits and other geological features. It's possible to explore the subterranean site (although we suggest those prone to claustrophobia steer clear), and above ground, the landscape is dotted with bizarre rock formations caused by lava that has bubbled to the Earth's surface. Cerro Negro, Nicaragua The Cerro Negro volcano in Nicaragua is Central America's youngest volcano and is regarded by many as the birthplace of a very unusual sport volcano boarding, a discipline visitors can try out with the help of countless local tour operators. It's one of the country's most active volcanoes, and the last eruption took place in 1999. A clearly marked, albeit boulder-strewn, trail snakes up the side, and those who complete the 60-minute trek to the top will be rewarded with 360-degree views of the Maribios volcanic mountain chain, the city of León and the Pacific Ocean. Boiling Lake, Dominica, Caribbean Dominica might well be surrounded by crystal-clear waters but this is one of the few places you wouldn't want to take a dip. This steaming, bubbling lake (it's filled with water, not mud) is located inside the Morne Trois Pitons national park, which is also a Unesco world heritage site, and is actually a flooded fumarole. In 2007, the TV adventurer George Kourounis became the first (and probably only) person to cross the lake from above, using a series of ropes suspended over the boiling water. Kelimutu, Flores Island, Indonesia The most spectacular aspects of this volcano are the three lakes associated with it. The colour of the water varies according to the weather conditions and volcanic activity, and the water in one of the smaller lakes regularly takes on a red hue. The area became a popular tourist attraction after it was spotted by a regional Dutch military commander in 1915. The trek to the top 1,690 metres above sea level starts from the small town of Moni, in Kelimutu national park, home to 19 endemic and endangered animals. | 2 | 4,896 | travel |
When the Lakers signed Kobe Bryant to his two-year, $48.5 million extension in November 2013, he hadn't played in seventh months due to a torn Achilles. Only weeks after signing the extension, Bryant returned to the court -- for all of six games before going down for the season with a broken knee. This season, the first of the two-year deal, Bryant made it through 35 games, but not without prolonged bouts with fatigue and soreness, taking several games off to rest before suffering yet another season-ending injury, this time to his shoulder, earlier this month. He is expected to need nine months of recovery and is hopeful he will be ready for the start of next season, when he is 37 years old. So . . . 41 games over the last two seasons, another still to go, at more than $24 million a pop . . . all while the proud franchise continues to circle the drain, hoping to hit it big in the draft lottery and for one big-name free agent to agree to play with Bryant for what is believed to be one last season. That contract's gotta be among the biggest regrets of GM Mitch Kupchak's career, right? Right? When asked Thursday whether giving Bryant the extension the right thing to do, Kupchak told the Los Angeles Times : "100 percent. We have no regrets at all . . . Because he's worth every penny of it." The answer sounds a little fishy, at best. And it sounds like Kupchak knows it, because he followed that up with this very political-sounding clarification: "To me, a big part of Kobe's contribution next year is if we can improve this team during the offseason," Kupchak said. The Lakers entered the day stuck in a nine-game losing streak, though they did beat the Bulls at Staples Center to end the day. Even with the win, however, Los Angeles is still only 13-34, the second-worst record in the Western Conference and fourth-worst league-wide. The Lakers are due to send their first-round pick to the Phoenix Suns as part of the ill-fated Steve Nash trade. But that pick is top-five protected, so if the lottery balls fall the right way, the Lakers will have a high pick to help take some pressure off Kobe's shoulders . . . and knees . . . and heel -- and add to the sales pitch to potential free agents. "A top-five pick is always a good thing," Kupchak said, adding that the Lakers aren't tanking. "Our coaches and players have been instructed to win games. Maybe I used the wrong word. I don't have to 'instruct' the players to win games and try to win games. I don't have to instruct Byron [Scott] to. That's why they're here." | 1 | 4,897 | sports |
Chubby cheeks, chubby hands, chubby belly: They make babies so huggable. But that pudgy appeal can quickly become a health concern. "Children should start thinning out between ages 2 and 5," says Sara Lappé, MD , pediatrician at Cleveland Clinic Children's. "Your child will look his thinnest about the time he starts Kindergarten." It's hard to eyeball a healthy weight, though. That's why all kids should see their doctor regularly, to make sure their body mass index (BMI) is within a healthy range (between the 5 th and 85 th percentile). A growing problem Children at or above the 85 th percentile are overweight. Those at or above the 95 th percentile are obese. And that can bring on a bundle of ills as if not keeping up with other kids on the playground weren't hurtful enough: High blood pressure and/or cholesterol Fatty liver disease Worsened asthma Sleep disturbances, including snoring and sleep apnea, which has been linked to behavior problems Shockingly, about 17 percent of U.S. kids between ages 2 and 19 are obese. That number has nearly tripled since 1980. You are the solution To help your child maintain a healthy weight , Dr. Lappé suggests three things all reliant on you . Your kids are more likely to make healthy choices if you do too. 1. Play "Get active with your kids," says Dr. Lappé. "Don't tell them to go outside and do something. Do it with them." Shoot hoops. Play tag. Ride bikes. A good guideline is 60 minutes of aerobic activity per day. But this can be split up into more than one session. 2. Try If chicken fingers and fries are all your kids eat, encourage them to try new foods…with you. Turn healthy eating into a fun family adventure. Together, go to the store, select a vegetable or other healthy item you don't typically eat and prepare it. The United States Department of Agriculture suggests you cover half of your meal plate with fruits and vegetables. Limit fats and sugars. 3. Talk When you have meals, turn off the TV, set aside mobile devices, and eat together at the table. "Limiting your own screen time sets an example for your kids," says Dr. Lappé. Focus on each other, she advises. Talk about your day and learn how your kids are doing physically and emotionally. Knowing their health concerns is the first step to resolving them. This article was written by Children's Health Team from Cleveland Clinic and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. | 7 | 4,898 | health |
50 most violent cities in the world The Citizen Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice , a Mexico City advocacy, has compiled a list of the most violent cities in the world by murder rate per capita. Despite Honduras topping the list for the second year in a row, 2016 Summer Olympic Games hosts Brazil has 19 cities in the top 50. Click here to see the full report. 50. Cuernavaca, Mexico Homicides: 168 Population: 660,215 Murder rate*: 25.45 * Murder rate is calculated per 100,000 citizens overall. Pictured: A police officer walks over spilled blood at a crime scene in Cuernavaca. 49. Medellin, Colombia Homicides: 657 Population: 2,441,123 Murder rate: 26.91 Pictured: A Colombian Army soldier pats down a man during a patrol in Medellin. 48. Torreon, Mexico Homicides: 330 Population: 1,186,637 Murder rate: 27.81 Pictured: Police officers patrol a street in Torreon. 47. Cucuta, Colombia Homicides: 183 Population: 643,666 Murder rate: 28.43 Pictured: Packages containing seven tons of marijuana are reflected on the pair of glasses of a Colombian policeman in Cucuta. 46. Macapa, Brazil Homicides: 129 Population: 446,757 Murder rate: 28.87 Pictured: Aerial view of the Brazilian city of Macapa, located on the banks of the Amazon River. 45. Tijuana, Mexico Homicides: 502 Population: 1,678,880 Murder rate: 29.90 Pictured: Munitions seized from alleged members of a gang of gunmen are shown to the media in Tijuana. 44. Curitiba, Brazil Homicides: 587 Population: 1,864,416 Murder rate: 31.48 Pictured: An aerial view of downtown Curitiba. 43. Chihuahua, Mexico Homicides: 289 Population: 868,145 Murder rate: 33.29 Pictured: Federal police present weaponry seized during an operation against the suspected leader of the "Gente Nueva" drug cartel in Chihuahua. 42. Belo Horizonte, Brazil Homicides: 1,926 Population: 5,767,414 Murder rate: 33.39 Pictured: A view of the Morro do Papagaio favela at Belo Horizonte, Brazil 41. Victoria, Mexico Homicides: 117 Population: 345,080 Murder rate: 33.91 Pictured: Mexican policemen and a soldier stand guard next to remains of a parked vehicle outside a studio of top broadcaster Televisa in Ciudad Victoria, the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. 40. Baltimore, USA Homicides: 211 Population: 622,104 Murder rate: 33.912 Pictured: Baltimore police stand near the scene where an early-morning shooting occurred in Baltimore. 39. Aracaju, Brazil Homicides: 312 Population: 912,647 Murder rate: 34.19 Pictured: A wide view of Aracaju city. 38. Durban, South Africa Homicides: 1187 Population: 3,442,361 Murder rate: 34.48 Pictured: Confiscated firearms await destruction in the coastal city of Durban. 37. Porto Alegre, Brazil Homicides: 1,442 Population: 4,161,237 Murder rate: 34.65 Pictured: A federal police officer walks next to suspects arrested for belonging to an organized crime gang in Porto Alegre. 36. Pereira, Colombia Homicides: 162 Population: 467,185 Murder rate: 34.68 Pictured: Colombian police officers display packs containing three tons of marijuana found on a truck near Pereira. 35. Nelson Mandela Bay, South Africa Homicides: 404 Population: 1,152,115 Murder rate: 34.89 Pictured: An aerial view of the city of Port Elizabeth, in Nelson Mandela Bay. 34. Nuevo Laredo, Mexico Homicides: 142 Population: 406,598 Murder rate: 34.92 Pictured: Police patrol the streets of Nuevo Laredo. 33. Manaus, Brazil Homicides: 749 Population: 2,020,301 Murder rate: 37.07 Pictured: Favelas on the Amazon River in Manaus. 32. Palmira, Colombia Homicides: 114 Population: 302,727 Murder rate: 37.66 Pictured: A soldier stands guard alongside at least 700 kg of explosives seized by army troops during a raid close to Palmira city. 31. Obregon, Mexico Homicides: 120 Population: 318,184 Murder rate: 37.71 Pictured: Police secure the area where the body of a Mexican police reporter was found near the city of Empalme, south of Obregon. 30. Campina Grande, Brazil Homicides: 153 Population: 402,912 Murder rate: 37.97 Pictured: A view of Campina Grande. 29. Recife, Brazil Homicides: 1518 Population: 3,887,261 Murder rate: 39.05 Pictured: A man is seen at a police station after being arrested with two guns in Recife. 28. New Orleans, USA Homicides: 150 Population: 378,715 Murder rate: 39.61 Pictured: A Louisiana state trooper advises passers-by around the scene of a fatal stabbing on Toulouse Street near Bourbon Street. 27. Juarez, Mexico Homicides: 538 Population: 1,347,165 Murder rate: 39.94 Pictured: View of one of three mass graves found by members of the General Attorney's Office Special Unit for Investigation of Missing Persons in Ciudad Juarez. 26. Kingston, Jamaica Homicides: 495 Population: 1,219,366 Murder rate: 40.59 Pictured: A soldier frisks a man at a military checkpoint in the crime-ridden Tivoli Gardens neighborhood in Kingston, Jamaica. 25. Guatemala, Guatemala Homicides: 1,288 Population: 3,074,054 Murder rate: 41.90 Pictured: People stand behind police tape at a crime scene in Guatemala City. 24. Culiacan, Mexico Homicides: 384 Population: 910,564 Murder rate: 42.17 Pictured: Police investigators work at the crime scene where Sinaloa State Tourism Minister Antonio Ibarra Salgado and his driver were shot dead by several hit men in Culiacan. 23. Goiania, Brazil Homicides: 633 Population: 1,412,364 Murder rate: 44.82 Pictured: A view of downtown Goiania. 22. Detroit, USA Homicides: 309 Population: 688,701 Murder rate: 44.87 Pictured: Crime scene tape stretched across the location where 10 people were shot at a barber's shop in Detroit. 21. Barquisimeto, Venezuela Homicides: 601 Population: 1,293,693 Murder rate: 46.46 Pictured: Guns of all types are piled up for destruction as part of a government initiative to eliminate 34,509 firearms confiscated by authorities in Barquisimeto, Venezuela. 20. Teresina, Brazil Homicides: 416 Population: 840,600 Murder rate: 49.49 Pictured: An aerial view of Teresina. 19. St. Louis, USA Homicides: 159 Population: 318,416 Murder rate: 49.93 Pictured: Police investigate the scene of a shooting outside a funeral home chapel in St. Louis. 18. Belem, Brazil Homicides: 1,130 Population: 2,129,515 Murder rate: 53.06 Picture: Police stand guard over suspects arrested in Belem. 17. Salvador, Brazil Homicides: 2,129 Population: 3,919,864 Murder rate: 54.31 Pictured: Police search youths for weapons and drugs while on patrol in the Nordeste de Amaralina slum complex in Salvador. 16. Cuiaba, Brazil Homicides: 467 Population: 827,104 Murder rate: 56.46 Pictured: A view of the city of Cuiaba. 15. Vitoria, Brazil Homicides: 1,074 Population: 1,884,096 Murder rate: 57.00 In picture: A view of Vitoria. 14. Cape Town, South Africa Homicides: 2,244 Population: 3,740,026 Murder rate: 60.00 Pictured: Police stand over six suspected armed robbers arrested in central Cape Town. 13. San Salvador, El Salvador Homicides: 1,067 Population: 1,743,315 Murder rate: 61.21 Pictured: A police officer stands guard as alleged gang members are shown to the media in San Salvador. 12. Ciudad Guayana, Venezuela Homicides: 536 Population: 862,720 Murder rate: 62.13 Pictured: Venezuelan National Guards present confiscated cocaine to the media in Puerto Ordaz, Ciudad Guayana. 11. Natal, Brazil Homicides: 931 Population: 1,462,045 Murder rate: 63.68 Pictured: A view of the city of Natal. 10. Sao Luis, Brazil Homicides: 908 Population: 1,403,111 Murder rate: 64.71 Pictured: A general view of Jardim Sao Luis near the edge of Sao Paulo. 9. Cali, Colombia Homicides: 1,530 Population: 2,344,734 Murder rate: 65.25 Pictured: A gang member poses with a homemade gun at the Siloe neighbourhood in Cali. 8. Fortaleza, Brazil Homicides: 2,451 Population: 3,818,380 Murder rate: 66.55 Pictured: A view of the Fortaleza city skyline at night. 7. Valencia, Venezuela Homicides: 1086 Population: 1,527,920 Murder rate: 71.08 Pictured: Police with the suspects in the kidnap of Venezuelan Washington Nationals' baseball catcher, Wilson Ramos, in Valencia. 6. Maceio, Brazil Homicides: 733 Population: 1,005,319 Murder rate: 72.91 Pictured: A military policeman questions a suspect after been caught with marijuana, during an operation at Virgem dos Pobres (Virgin of the Poor) shantytown in Maceio. 5. Distrito Central, Honduras Homicides: 928 Population: 1,195,456 Murder rate: 77.65 Pictured: A National Police officer works at the crime scene in which five people were shot dead in the suburb of La Haya, in northern Tegucigalpa, Distrito Central. 4. Joao Pessoa, Brazil Homicides: 620 Population: 780,738 Murder rate: 79.41 Pictured: Joao Pessoa city at night. 3. Acapulco, Mexico Homicides: 883 Population: 847,735 Murder rate: 104.16 Pictured: A member of the state police is seen through a windshield broken by gunshots as he guards the crime scene after a clash between rival gangs, apparently of the drug-related organized crime, in the resort city of Acapulco. 2. Caracas, Venezuela Homicides: 3797 Population: 3,273,863 Murder rate: 115.98 Pictured: Police patrol and search suspects in the slum of Petare in Caracas. 1. San Pedro Sula, Honduras Homicides: 1,317 Population: 769,025 Murder rate: 171.20 Pictured: A masked member of the 18th Street gang looks through a prison door of the San Pedro Sula prison. | 5 | 4,899 | news |
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