Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/316099392?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Sunday, June 30, 2013
Kim Kardashian & Kanye West To Sell North West?s Baby Photos For Millions
Kim Kardashian & Kanye West To Sell North West’s Baby Photos For Millions
Kim Kardashian and Kanye West are planning to sell the first pictures of their newborn daughter for charity. The couple, who welcomed baby girl North West into the world five weeks early, have reportedly decided to share an intimate snap of the newborn in a million-dollar magazine deal. An insider said that Kim, 32, hasn’t ...
Kim Kardashian & Kanye West To Sell North West’s Baby Photos For Millions Stupid Celebrities Gossip Stupid Celebrities Gossip News
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Mired in recession, ex-Yugoslav Croatia joins troubled EU
By Zoran Radosavljevic
ZAGREB (Reuters) - Croatia becomes the 28th member of the European Union at midnight on Sunday, a milestone that caps the Adriatic republic's recovery from war but is tinged with anxiety over the state of the economy and the bloc it joins.
EU flags fluttered from a stage in Zagreb's central square ahead of the evening's festivities, though there have been few signs of the gushing welcome that marked past expansions to ex-communist Eastern Europe.
Croatia joins the bloc just over two decades after declaring independence from federal Yugoslavia, the trigger for four years of war in which some 20,000 people died.
But, facing a fifth year of recession and record unemployment of 21 percent, few Croatians are in the mood to party.
They join a bloc deeply troubled by its own economic woes, which have created internal divisions and undermined public support for the union.
"Just look what's happening in Greece and Spain! Is this where we're headed?" asked pensioner Pavao Brkanovic. "You need illusions to be joyful, but the illusions have long gone," he said at a Zagreb market.
The country of 4.4 million people, blessed with a coastline that attracts 10 million tourists each year, is one of seven that emerged from the ashes of Yugoslavia during a decade of war in the 1990s.
Slovenia was first to join the EU, in 2004, but Serbia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Kosovo are still years away.
Some in Croatia have drawn comparisons between Sunday night's celebrations in Zagreb and the Eurovision Song Contest that the city hosted in 1990, when Yugoslavia was on the brink of collapse just as Europe was poised to unite with the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Italy's Toto Cutugno won with the refrain "Unite, unite Europe", but instead Yugoslavia fell apart and Croatia went to war with Serb rebels who tried to break away from the newly-independent state with the backing of Belgrade.
MERKEL NO-SHOW
"Back then, it looked to me as if everything should be resolved in a fortnight and we would quickly jump in (to the EU)," Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic told the European Parliament this week.
"But then the war happened, and it didn't come to pass until today."
To get to this point, Croatia has gone through seven years of tortuous and often unpopular EU-guided reform.
It has handed over more than a dozen Croatian and Bosnian Croat military and political leaders charged with war crimes by the United Nations tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.
It has sold shipyards, steeped in history and tradition but deeply indebted, and launched a high-profile fight against corruption that saw former prime minister Ivo Sanader jailed.
Some EU capitals remain concerned at the level of graft and organized crime. Croatia will not yet join the 17-nation single currency zone, nor the visa-free Schengen zone.
The spirit of the occasion took another knock when German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the bloc's most powerful leader, pulled out of the accession ceremony, saying she was too busy.
Croatian media linked the move to a row over a former Croatian secret service operative wanted in Germany, though a spokesman for Merkel denied this.
The chancellor, instead, urged Croatia to press on with reforms.
"There are many more steps to take, especially in the area of legal security and fighting corruption," Merkel said in a weekly podcast.
Despite the mood, however, for some Croatians the merits of accession are undeniable.
"The EU is not perfect but it is Croatia's only option," said popular novelist Slavenka Drakulic Ilic.
"We need it for financial and economic reasons," she told the T-portal website on Friday, "and we need it for the sake of peace and stability. We belong to a region that is still volatile."
(Additional reporting by Annika Breidthardt in Berlin; Editing by Matt Robinson and Kevin Liffey)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mired-recession-ex-yugoslav-croatia-joins-troubled-eu-224458948.html
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An Illinois Valley Community College student from Ottawa has collected more than...
IVCC student starts online petition against Starved Rock area sand mine
mywebtimes.com
Ashley Williams, 22, a graphic arts student and a 2009 Ottawa Township High School graduate, decided to start her anti-sand mine crusade following work on a paper she wrote on the subject for an English composition class earlier this year.
Source: http://www.facebook.com/mywebtimes/posts/10152060341308266
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Wichita teachers union balks at thorough lesson plan requirements
Representatives of United Teachers of Wichita reached a tentative one-year contract agreement on Friday, following a heated dispute in which the union?balked at a proposed clause that would require teachers to keep well-crafted daily lessons plans. The Wichita Eagle?reports that the agreement was reached late Friday, and it is not yet clear which side prevailed in the lesson-plan fight.
A deal proposed by the district would require teachers to prepare lesson plans containing various mandatory details such as learning objectives and pacing references, according to the Eagle.
The current labor contract requires teachers to make lesson plans ?only in sufficient detail to provide guidance to the teacher,? which leaves room for a range of different planning methods. Teachers must also provide their lesson plans and other teaching materials to school principals if asked.
Leaders of United Teachers of Wichita, which represents some 4,000 currently vacationing teachers, call compulsory daily lesson plans ?busy work.?
?That?s going to take away the art of teaching, and it almost becomes like they?re doing cookie-cutter lessons,? Randy Mousley, president of the teachers union, told the Eagle.
?Good instruction starts with good planning. We?re not going to deny that,? the union leader said. ?But there?s only so many hours in a day.?
Mousley argues that the requirement to create formal lesson plans on a daily basis adds unnecessary red tape that does nothing for students.
?You?ve got to decide which is most important: Is it to produce a piece of paper to satisfy a principal? Or is it putting stuff down ? your thoughts about what you?re going to do to impact students in a positive way??
John Allison, superintendent of Wichita Public Schools, disagrees.
?I don?t want to get on a plane and have my pilot not have done his checklist and be prepared,? Allison told the Eagle. ?That?s very intentional and specific, and education is no different.?
The superintendent suggested that a number of teachers are already doing what the proposal mandates.
Also, as EAGnews.org, a school reform advocacy website, suggests, teachers typically aren?t recreating the wheel each year. They can save effective lesson plans on their computers and use them again and again.
Wichita is no stranger to unhappy teachers. Last year, a federal mediator had to intercede to bring labor peace between the union and the school district. The resulting contract gave teachers their first salary increase in four years.
Follow Eric on Twitter?and send education-related story tips to?erico@dailycaller.com.
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Wichita teachers union balks at thorough lesson plan requirements
DC World Exclusive: Venerable leftist weekly demands president's impeachment over mass surveillance
NFL says it has no plans to promote Obamacare
Immigration backers out-donate critics 24 to 1
White House touts voter ID registration program -- in Kenya
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/wichita-teachers-union-balks-thorough-lesson-plan-requirements-005422509.html
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Third man arrested in case involving ex-NFL player
BRISTOL, Conn. (AP) ? A man arrested in Connecticut in connection with the murder case against former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez was being sent to Massachusetts on Friday, and investigators said a third suspect was arrested in south Florida.
Massachusetts State Police said local officers in Miramar, Fla., captured Ernest Wallace early Friday afternoon, hours after a Connecticut judge ordered Carlos Ortiz turned over to Massachusetts authorities.
New Britain State's attorney said investigators arrested the 27-year-old Ortiz in Bristol on Wednesday as part of the inquiry into the slaying of Boston semi-pro football player Odin Lloyd.
Hernandez is charged with murder in the slaying of Lloyd near Hernandez's home in North Attleborough, Mass. He has pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail.
Ortiz was charged in Connecticut as a fugitive from justice. His public defender, Alfonzo Sirica, declined to comment about the case.
Also Friday, Massachusetts authorities said officers had recovered a car linked to Wallace.
Authorities revealed Thursday night that they were seeking Wallace, who they said should be considered armed and dangerous, on a charge of acting as an accessory after Lloyd's murder.
Police arrested Hernandez on Wednesday at his Massachusetts mansion and charged the 23-year-old with orchestrating Lloyd's execution-style shooting, allegedly because the victim had talked to the wrong people at a nightclub.
A judge denied Hernandez' bail appeal Thursday in a Massachusetts courtroom, where a prosecutor said a Hummer belonging to Hernandez turned up an ammunition clip matching the caliber of casings found at the scene of Lloyd's killing.
Hernandez's lawyer argued his client is not a risk to flee and the case against him is circumstantial.
On June 16, the night before the slaying, a prosecutor said, Hernandez texted two unidentified friends and asked them to hurry to Massachusetts from Connecticut.
A few minutes later, he texted Lloyd to tell him he wanted to get together, the prosecutor said. Authorities say the three picked up Lloyd at around 2:30 a.m. June 17, drove him to an industrial park near Hernandez's home and shot him five times. They have not said who fired the shots.
Meanwhile, Lloyd's relatives were preparing for his funeral in Boston on Saturday. A relative said the service will be at Church of the Holy Spirit in the city's Mattapan section.
At Ortiz's court hearing in Bristol on Friday, there was no mention of any other allegations against him, no reference to Hernandez and no discussion of Lloyd's homicide. It remained unclear if Ortiz was one of the two friends whom authorities say were with Hernandez when Lloyd was shot to death.
A friend and a relative of Ortiz said outside the courthouse that they were surprised by his arrest. They said Ortiz is the devoted father of two girls and a boy, all under the age of 9. Ortiz was unemployed recently, but previously worked a long time at a Savers clothing store, they said.
They also said they couldn't believe Ortiz could be part of a murder.
"He's not that type of person. He has a good heart," said friend Milton Montesdeoca, 24, of Bristol, who added he didn't know Hernandez and never heard Ortiz talk about the football star.
The Patriots, who cut Hernandez following his arrest, drafted him in 2010 and signed him last summer to a five-year contract worth $40 million.
He could face life in prison if convicted.
___
Associated Press writers Michelle R. Smith in Fall River, Mass., and Bridget Murphy in Boston contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/3rd-man-arrested-case-involving-ex-nfl-player-182953489.html
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Remember When The Sony Walkman Was Considered High-Tech?
Do you remember a time when the Sony Walkman was as high-tech as the iPhone 5? Even though we have the modern advantage of rechargeable batteries, the idea of having a portable cassette or CD player today seems laughable. However, when the transistor radio was invented in the 1950?s, the world suddenly had an idea that music could be handheld. Inventions like the boom box dominated certain decades, but it was the introduction of the Walkman by Sony in 1979 that would shape music listening for the next twenty years.
A Brief History Of The Walkman
Despite the fact that Sony launched the product, the actual inventor of the portable personal stereo audio cassette player was a man named Andreas Pavel. He filed a patent for a device he called a ?Stereobelt? in 1977. Since Pavel?s patent was rejected by the United States, Sony was able to gain a market there with their Walkman model. However, Pavel eventually reclaimed his financial losses from Sony and gained the title of ?Original Inventor of the Personal Stereo.? Nevertheless, it was Sony that made the Walkman popular. For the record, the first Sony Walkman was released in 1979.
The Walkman Takes Over America
Over the course of the 1980?s, the Sony Walkman became a household name. In fact, when other brands picked up the manufacturing of personal stereo products, consumers would still refer to it as their Walkman despite the fact it was not made by Sony. Similar to the way smartphones are regarded today, children in the 1980?s were usually encouraged to avoid using a Walkman because the first models were easy to break. In the mid-1980?s, Sony resolved this issue by producing a line of Walkman toys for children called My First Sony. This was one of many ways that Sony responded to the complaints of their customers. Other examples of improvements to the original design include their slim-line, waterproof and battery-efficient models.
The Walkman Goes Solar
Available in white or yellow, the solar revolution was part of the Walkman history. In 1987 when the Solar Walkman was released on the market, the solar-powered calculator was already prominent. Clearly, the WMF107 Solar Walkman was one of the next steps in getting rid of the need to buy AA batteries every week. Sadly, the Solar Walkman was never perfected, and the unit would not work at full capacity unless the sun was extremely bright. The first run model was also expensive for consumers and the rechargeable battery was difficult to care for.
The Walkman Says Good-Bye
Despite its absence in the modern marketplace, this product did not decline in popularity as early as you think. After decades of being a sought-after piece of technology, Sony finally announced that it would cease production of the device. It made one final batch of Walkmans, and then told the press that these were the final units. By the end of 2011, the days of the Walkman were drawn to a close. There are still many models for sale throughout the world, but you can no longer buy them from the manufacturer. Sony has stated in several reports that the main cause of decline for this product was the invention of the MP3 player.
And with that, the world says good-bye to another great must-have piece of technology.
This piece was written by Pete Salinsky, a freelance writer based in Baton Rouge, LA. Pete enjoys writing about gadgets, gadget accessories, computers, cell phones and other associated topics; those searching for iPad accessories should check out the Kensington iPad cover from kensington.com.
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Source: http://www.guysgab.com/remember-when-the-sony-walkman-was-considered-high-tech/
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Mayhem marks start of 100th Tour de France
BASTIA, Corsica (AP) ? Riders at the Tour de France know to expect the unexpected. But nothing could have prepared them for the mayhem that turned Saturday's first stage of the 100th Tour into a demolition derby on two wheels.
Seemingly for the first time at the 110-year-old race, one of the big buses that carry the teams around France when they're not on their bikes got stuck at the finish line, literally wedged under scaffolding, unable to move. The timing couldn't have been worse: The blockage happened as the speeding peloton was racing for home, less than 12 miles out.
Fearing the worst ? a possible collision between 198 riders and the bus ? race organizers took the split-second decision to shorten the race. Word went out to riders over their radios and they adapted tactics accordingly, cranking up their speed another notch to be first to the new line, now 1.8 miles closer than originally planned.
Then, somewhat miraculously, the bus for the Orica Greenedge team wriggled free. So organizers reverted to Plan A. Again over the radios, word went out to by-now confused riders and teams that the race would finish as first intended ? on a long straightaway alongside the shimmering turquoise Mediterranean, where an expectant crowd waited to cheer the first stage winner of the 100th Tour.
Then, bam! Two riders collided and one of them went down, setting off a chain of spills that scythed through the pack like a bowling ball.
And this was just Day One. The bad news for riders: They've still got another 20 stages and1,982 more miles to survive to the finish in Paris.
Keeping his head and riding his luck amid the chaos, Marcel Kittel sprinted for the win, claiming the first yellow jersey.
"It feels like I have gold on my shoulders," said the German rider for the Argos-Shimano team.
The 22 teams know from experience that the first days of any Tour are always tough. Everyone is nervous, full of energy and jostling for position. Adding to the stress this year is the race start in Corsica. The island's winding and often narrow roads that snake along idyllic coastlines and over jagged mountains are superbly telegenic but a worry for race favorites ? the likes of Team Sky's Chris Froome and two-time former champion Alberto Contador ? because a fall or big loss of time here could ruin their Tour before it really begins.
Froome survived Day One more or less unscathed. Contador didn't. The Spaniard, back at the Tour after a doping ban which also cost him his 2010 victory, crossed the line grimacing in pain, his left shoulder cut and bruised. He was tangled in the crash that threw about 20 riders to the tarmac. Contador said he'll be sore for a few days, "but I still have enough time to recover."
Even for the Tour, which has seen more than its fair share of dramas in 99 previous editions, Saturday's calamitous chain of events was exceptional.
"We've never had to change the finish line before," said Jean-Francois Pescheux, the event director who helps pick the route each year. "There's never been a bus stuck before."
The blockage at the line presented organizers with two solutions: cancel the stage entirely or shorten it, he said. They took the second option.
"We announced that in French, English, and Spanish on the Tour radio so that everybody was up-to-date," he said. Then, "in the following three minutes, we were told that the finish line was cleared. At that point, we announced that the finish was back to the real, original finish line."
Because of what Pescheux called "the little bout of panic and crashes" caused by this confusion, organizers subsequently decided to give everyone the same time as Kittel ? 4 hours, 56 minutes, 52 seconds over the 132-mile trek from the port town of Porto Vecchio to Bastia in the north of the island.
That means no one was penalized by Saturday's events.
"It's clear there was a moment of panic, and that's why we put everybody on equal footing," said Pescheux.
"The lesson learned is that buses, that heavy vehicles, they should avoid going through the finish line," he added.
"Everybody helped out, we deflated the tires of the bus so we could move it away as the peloton was fast approaching," said Jean-Louis Pages, who manages the finish-line area.
Organizers fined the Orica Greenedge team the equivalent of $2,100. The team's sporting director, Matt White, called the incident "really unfortunate."
"We took for granted that there was enough clearance. We've had this bus since we started the team, and it's the same bus we took to the Tour last year," he said. "Our bus driver was told to move forward and became lodged under the finish gantry."
Managers at other teams couldn't agree who to blame or be angry with most.
Marc Madiot of French team FDJ.FR was forgiving of the bus driver but furious with race organizers for changing their mind about where to finish the stage.
But the sporting director for Contador's Saxo-Tinkoff team, Philippe Mauduit, sided with the organizers.
"It's not the Tour's fault if there's a guy who doesn't know the height of his bus," he said.
"What caused the problems was changing the finish," said Mark Cavendish, the British sprinter who was counting on his great speed to win the stage but who instead was slowed by the crash. "It's just carnage."
His Omega Pharma-Quick Step teammate Tony Martin suffered concussion in the crash. Peter Sagan of Cannondale, another rider who was expecting to challenge for the win, finished with sticking plasters covering cuts on both legs and his left elbow. Other riders also suffered cuts and bruises. Froome's teammate Geraint Thomas flipped over his handlebars and "really whacked the back of his pelvis," said Dave Brailsford, the Team Sky manager.
"The goal for us is to get off this island in one piece, having lost no time," he said. "It's a much tougher ask than it may seem."
"You don't know what's going to happen. But you know something is going to happen," he added.
Perhaps as soon again as Sunday. The tricky second stage features four climbs along the 97-mile ride from Bastia to Ajaccio, crossing the island's mountainous spine.
Before Saturday's stage, French Sports Minister Valerie Fourneyron met with a delegation of riders unhappy that pre-race media coverage of the race dwelt heavily on doping in cycling.
That was partly the fault of Lance Armstrong. The disgraced former champion now stripped of his seven Tour wins caused a stir by telling Le Monde that he couldn't have won the race without doping.
___
AP Sports Writer Jerome Pugmire and Associated Press writer Jamey Keaten contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mayhem-marks-start-100th-tour-france-210626611.html
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Mexican ex-governor Mario Villanueva gets 11 years in US prison for money laundering
By Bernard Vaughan, Reuters
NEW YORK -- A former Mexican state governor was sentenced to 11 years in prison in the United States on Friday after pleading guilty to conspiring to launder millions of dollars in bribes from a notorious drug cartel.
With credit for time served and good behavior, Mario Villanueva, 64, could be released from U.S. custody in two to three years, his lawyer, Richard Lind, said after the hearing. He faces another 23 years in prison in Mexico stemming from similar charges, Lind said.
Mexico's drug war is also part of a drug culture with roots in music, movies and even religion
From 1993 to 1999, Villanueva was governor of Quintana Roo, a state on the Yucatan Peninsula that is home to the popular tourist destination Cancun.
While in office he conspired to launder millions of dollars in bribery payments from the Juarez drug cartel through accounts and shell corporations in the United States and elsewhere, prosecutors said.
He was extradited to the United States in 2010 after serving a six-year sentence in Mexico for money laundering.
"This defendant violated the public trust to enrich himself," Assistant U.S. Attorney Glen Kopp told U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero in New York on Friday.
In a plea agreement last year, Villanueva pleaded guilty to one charge of money laundering conspiracy; he faced a maximum of 20 years in prison.
"I ask for your compassion and your clemency," Villanueva told Marrero, as several of his family members, including his wife and son, looked on.
The Juarez cartel transported more than 200 tons of cocaine into the United States in the 1990s, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan.
Prosecutors said Villanueva reached an agreement with the cartel soon after it established operations in Quintana Roo in 1994. He received payments of between $400,000 and $500,000 for each cocaine shipment that went through the state in exchange for ensuring law enforcement would not interfere.
By late 1995, he began transferring the money to bank and brokerage accounts in the United States, Switzerland and elsewhere in an effort to hide the funds, prosecutors said.
Consuelo Marquez, a Lehman Brothers investment broker, helped set up several offshore corporations for Villanueva to shelter the bribe proceeds, according to the indictment against Villanueva. She also established brokerage accounts for him and conducted a series of wire transfers at his direction, according to the indictment.
Marquez was sentenced to three years of probation and fined $10,000 in 2006 after pleading guilty to money laundering charges.
Villanueva, while under investigation in Mexico, disappeared in March 1999, just before his term as governor expired. He was discovered by Mexican authorities in 2001.
While a fugitive, Villanueva tried to transfer funds in the Lehman accounts to third-party accounts with Marquez's help, according to the indictment.
With his sentence, Villanueva "completes his descent from elected government official to corrupted official to incarcerated felon," Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement.
The case is USA v. Mario Ernesto Villanueva Madrid, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 01-cr-021.
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Saturday, June 29, 2013
Whoops! Real phone sex numbers pop up in video game
Video games 
7 hours ago
The Last of Us / Sony
In what the developers are claiming is an "honest mistake," a number included in Naughty Dog and Sony's acclaimed zombie game "The Last of Us" lead players to a phone sex hotline.
Despite releasing one of the highest-rated video games ever made, developer Naughty Dog can't seem to catch a break for "The Last of Us." Already accused by actress Ellen Page and a Boston transit cartographer for borrowing some of their respective work without permission, this week the video game developer found itself in hot water once again for another hiccup in "The Last of Us": apparently, a phone number that players saw in the game advertising for pest control actually dialed up a real-world phone sex service.
I tested out the "quality pest control" number from "The Last of Us" on Friday and was met with a sultry female voice promising me that "we're smooth, wet, and ready for you right now!"
Naughty Dog didn't respond to a request for comment, but Sony provided NBC News with a statement explaining that the connection with a phone sex service was a mistake that will be rectified with a patch to be released Saturday:
We included some random phone numbers in the game starting with 555, which is a common practice in North American television shows, films and video games, as they are fictitious numbers. It has come to light that for certain 555 phone numbers that begin with an 800 area code, the same does not apply, so we are now creating a patch to address this issue, which we plan on deploying today.
Neil Druckmann, the game's creative director, told the video game site Kotaku that including the sex line in the game "was an artist's mistake" and was not intended as any sort of prank or Easter egg for players.
"What happened was, they put some phone numbers in the game and then they thought they could just change the area code to 555, then it's invalid because it's what they do in movies," Druckmann told Kotaku's Kirk Hamilton. "But I guess that doesn't work when you have a 1-800 in front of it.
"We're now working to take it out," Druckmann said. "It was just an honest mistake."
Earlier this week, Druckmann took to Twitter to stand behind the work of Ashley Johnson, who did the voice-over and motion-capture work for Ellie in the game, after Ellen Page suggested that Naughty Dog had unfairly "ripped off" her likeness for the zombie story.
This story was updated at 7:30 p.m. ET Friday.
Yannick LeJacq is a contributing writer for NBC News who has also covered technology and games for Kill Screen, The Wall Street Journal and The Atlantic. You can follow him on Twitter at @YannickLeJacq and reach him by email at: ylejacq@gmail.com.
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Sparkbox Saves Your Digital Inspiration, Available at Nearly 75% Off
OS X and iOS: Previously mentioned Sparkbox?an app that stores and organizes anything you find inspiring, like a private Pinterist?is available at a large discount today on multiple platforms. The Mac app drops from $20 to $6, and the iPhone app from $5 to $2.
When I first reviewed Sparkbox I really liked it because it provided a solid, free alternative to its competition on the Mac. Shortly after the review, Sparkbox started charging $20. While it serves as a handy tool for cataloging images and other inspiring things you find on the web (or on your computer, for that matter), we found it overpriced. Now you can pick it up?today only?for the much more reasonable price of $6. You can also find its iOS counterpart for $2 if you want that as well.
Sparkbox for Mac and iOS | Mac App Store / iTunes App Store
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88% The Angels' Share
All Critics (83) | Top Critics (24) | Fresh (73) | Rotten (10)
The result is a sometimes gritty, occasionally charming Highland hybrid, but the final balance feels slightly off-kilter.
Loach takes us through the mysteries of whisky making, exploring the subtle tastes and scents in ways that will have audiences wishing they had a dram at hand. But a glass also serves more symbolic purposes ...
If you want to look for it, you'll find a layer of metaphor (the distilling process as a symbol of the characters' evolution) and social-realist commentary amid the gentle, life-affirming laughs.
[Ken Loach] and his longtime screenwriter, Paul Laverty, find a good balance between drama and wacky character moments.
A fairy tale with its feet firmly on the ground.
A lark, but it's a serious-minded lark, addressing issues of class and culture, the haves and have-nots.
Ken Loach walks on the lighter side
The title, by the way, refers to the distillation process: the 2% of whisky that evaporates in the barrel is known as "the angel's share." I'm afraid there's more than 2% evaporation going on in Loach's latest.
Much like a stiff drink at the end of a long day, "The Angels' Share" gets the job done, but you're probably not going to remember it in the morning.
Loach's realism lends an easygoing, ramshackle quality to the film that smoothes over any lack of tightness.
Director Ken Loach's latest glimpse of the U.K. underclass is really two rather different movies, either of which I would've enjoyed on their own. But they don't really fit together in any satisfying or even logical way.
Whether Robbie pulls off his caper should be left for the audience to discover. But Loach's great cinematic switcheroo goes off almost without a hitch.
As heartwarming and uplifting as any tale could be that features vicious beatings and grand larceny.
While it has some likable characters, particularly its charismatic lead, it's impossible to shake the feeling that we've seen this movie before.
Lead actor Paul Brannigan, the product of Glasgow's working-class East End, is a natural.
The usual Loachian elements are all in place, but there is a gentle spirit at work here as well, and not just the alcoholic spirits around which the plot revolves.
The Angels' Share is a stellar bit of activist cinema with a light touch.
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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_angels_share/
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Fed's Stein puts focus on September as time to assess QE3
By Jonathan Spicer and Alister Bull
NEW YORK/WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, West Virginia (Reuters) - September could be an opportune time for the Federal Reserve to consider scaling back its assets purchase, an influential official of the U.S. central bank said on Friday, as he stressed that the Fed must take a long view of economic progress and not be blinded by the most recent data.
The remarks by Fed Governor Jeremy Stein drew the attention of economists and investors after he ticked off several examples of improvement in the labor market since the Fed launched its bond-buying program last September.
Stein's speech, and a separate one on Friday by Jeffrey Lacker, president of the Richmond Fed, had some parallels to efforts by other Fed officials earlier this week to soothe market anxieties about a pullback in the bond purchases.
Nonetheless, Stein and Lacker took a more aggressive tone on when the central bank's unprecedented policy accommodation might be reduced.
Even so, differences within the Fed over the strength of the economy were in view as a third policymaker, John Williams, president of the San Francisco Fed, shelved his earlier view that the Fed could stop buying bonds by late 2013, saying, "It's too early to cut back on our programs right now."
The Fed's purchase of Treasuries and mortgage bonds at a monthly pace of $85 billion has provided a huge flow of liquidity into financial markets, driving up assets from stocks to bonds.
Yields on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose after Stein's remarks, a sharp reversal of stabilization in the market earlier in the day.
Markets had dropped hard in the days after Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke last week said the Fed expected to pare back on its bond purchases, known as quantitative easing, later this year and to halt it altogether by mid-2014, as long as the economy progresses as expected. Unemployment will likely have fallen to about 7 percent by then, he said.
But Stein on Friday, in an unusual move, trained investors' attention on the Fed's September policy meeting, though the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee next meets in July.
"The best approach is for the committee to be clear that in making a decision in, say, September, it will give primary weight to the large stock of news that has accumulated since the inception of the program and will not be unduly influenced by whatever data releases arrive in the few weeks before the meeting," said Stein, a voting member of the policy committee.
Data from early September "will remain relevant for future decisions," even if it does not play a primary role in any policy decision in September, he said, in a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
"If the news is bad, and it is confirmed by further bad news in October and November, this would suggest that the 7 percent unemployment goal is likely to be further away, and the remainder of the program would be extended accordingly," he said.
Stein's comments drew a sharp reaction on expectations of the Fed's policy path.
"Stein's remarks cannot be lightly dismissed and raise risks that some on the committee may have already essentially decided on September," said Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at JP Morgan in New York.
Lacker also put September in focus, saying the Fed meeting that month "is certainly a candidate" for when the Fed could first reduce its pace of buying, though he said that economic data would be key.
Nearly half of the economists polled by Reuters this month expect the Fed to start reducing the pace of asset purchases in September.
Video of Stein's speech: http://reut.rs/14zOITm
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EXPECT MORE VOLATILITY
Williams, who is a voter on Fed policy this year, gave no preferred timeline for reducing bond purchases, saying only that doing so would be appropriate "at some point." If inflation continues to come in below expectations, that could point to the need for more stimulus, not less, he said.
He called the recent rise in Treasury rates a "healthy" development because it suggests markets no longer assume the Fed will keep rates low forever.
Lacker, one of the central bank's most hawkish officials and a persistent critic of the latest round of bond buying, said it was "wise" for Bernanke to clarify the Fed's views on future bond buying, but he stressed policy would still be loose as the Fed reduces "the pace at which it is adding accommodation." Lacker is not a voter on policy this year.
Financial markets should brace for more volatility as they digest news of a reduction in quantitative easing, Lacker told a judicial conference in West Virginia, adding that it "should not interfere with the moderate-growth scenario that I have presented."
Williams said that the sudden rise in rates suggests some investors had become complacent about low rates and that froth had been building in some areas of financial markets.
"It's healthy to get some froth out of the market," he told reporters after his speech.
On the labor market, where unemployment remains high at 7.6 percent, Stein noted the rate was 8.1 percent when the bond purchase program was launched last year. Monthly job growth has jumped dramatically since then, he said, adding Fed forecasts are also more optimistic.
Stein said the Fed can be more specific about its plans for QE3 as it approaches its policy goals. The timeline Bernanke articulated illustrates a "greater willingness to spell out what the committee is looking for, as opposed to a 'we'll know it when we see it' approach," he said.
Still, Stein stressed that reducing the pace of QE3 is highly conditional on the economy. He added it did not mark a change in policy and was meant only to clarify things for investors.
Stein, a relatively new but highly respected member of the powerful Fed board, turned some heads back in February when he warned the massive asset purchases were showing signs of inflating price bubbles in junk bonds and other markets.
But on Friday he said while financial stability should play a roll in monetary policy decisions, the benefits of QE3 have surpassed the costs of the program, including such stability risks.
(Additional reporting by Ann Saphir in Rohnert Park, Calif., and Richard Leong in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/feds-stein-puts-focus-september-time-assess-qe3-161413098.html
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News in Brief: Pre-Inca empire tomb found untouched in Peru
Gold jewelry, bronze axes and dozens of bodies uncovered in Wari empire ceremonial room
Gold jewelry, bronze axes and dozens of bodies uncovered in Wari empire ceremonial room
By Bruce Bower
Web edition: June 28, 2013
Pre-Incan Gaze
A painting of a Wari lord decorates this 1,200-year-old ceramic flask, which archaeologists found with the body of a queen in a tomb in Peru.
Credit: Daniel Giannoni
Archaeologists have discovered the first unlooted royal tomb of the Wari empire, a pre-Inca civilization that covered what?s now western Peru from 700 to 1000.
A team led by Milosz Giersz of the University of Warsaw dug through rubble at a Wari site near Peru?s northern coast last September and entered a ceremonial room that contained a stone throne. There they found more than 1,000 artifacts, including gold and silver jewelry and bronze axes. A main chamber contained 60 human bodies buried in seated positions, possibly as ritual sacrifices. Bodies of three Wari queens rested in side rooms, along with possessions such as gold weaving tools and a ceramic flask decorated with a painted Wari lord.
Discoveries in the tomb suggest that the Wari developed a cult of royal ancestor worship. Giersz?s team suspects that the Wari periodically displayed mummies of their queens on the ceremonial room?s throne.
Giersz announced the discovery at a June 27 press conference at the South American site.
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Ecuador heats rhetoric as Obama downplays Snowden
QUITO, Ecuador (AP) ? President Barack Obama tried to cool the international frenzy over Edward Snowden on Thursday as Ecuador stepped up its defiance and said it was preemptively rejecting millions in trade benefits that it could lose by taking in the fugitive from his limbo in a Moscow airport.
The country seen as likeliest to shelter the National Security Agency leaker seemed determined to prove it could handle any repercussions, with three of its highest officials calling an early-morning news conference to "unilaterally and irrevocably renounce" $23 million a year in lowered tariffs on products such as shrimp and frozen vegetables.
Fernando Alvarado, the secretary of communications for leftist President Rafael Correa, sarcastically suggested the U.S. use the money to train government employees to respect human rights.
Obama, meanwhile, sought to downplay the international chase for the man he called "a 29-year-old hacker" and lower the temperature of an issue that has raised tensions between the U.S. and uneasy partners Russia and China. Obama said in Senegal that the damage to U.S. national security has already been done and his top focus now is making sure it can't happen again.
"I'm not going to have one case with a suspect who we're trying to extradite suddenly be elevated to the point where I've got to start doing wheeling and dealing and trading on a whole host of other issues, simply to get a guy extradited so he can face the justice system," Obama said at a joint news conference with Senegal's President Macky Sall.
While the Ecuadorean government appeared angry over U.S. threats of punishment if it accepts Snowden, there were also mixed signals about how eager it was to grant asylum. For days, officials here have been blasting the U.S. and praising Snowden's leaks of NSA eavesdropping secrets as a blow for global human rights.
But they also have repeatedly insisted that they are nowhere close to making a decision on whether Snowden can leave Moscow, where he is believed to be holed up in an airport transit zone, for refuge in this oil-rich South American nation.
"It's a complex situation, we don't know how it'll be resolved," Correa told a news conference Thursday in his first public comments on the case aside from a handful of postings on Twitter.
The Ecuadorean leader said that in order for Snowden's asylum application to be processed, he would have to be in Ecuador or inside an Ecuadorean Embassy, "and he isn't." Another country would have to permit Snowden to transit its territory for that requirement to be met, Correa said.
WikiLeaks, which has been aiding Snowden, announced earlier he was en route to Ecuador and had received a travel document. On Wednesday, the Univision television network displayed an unsigned letter of safe passage for him.
Officials on Thursday acknowledged that the Ecuadorean Embassy in London had issued a June 22 letter of safe passage for Snowden that calls on other countries to allow him to travel to asylum in Ecuador. But Ecuador's secretary of political management, Betty Tola, said the letter was invalid because it was issued without the approval of the government in the capital, Quito.
She also threatened legal action against whoever leaked the document, which she said "has no validity and is the exclusive responsibility of the person who issued it."
"This demonstrates a total lack of coordination in the department of foreign affairs," said Santiago Basabe, a professor of political science at the Latin American School of Social Sciences in Quito. "It's no small question to issue a document of safe passage or a diplomatic document for someone like Snowden without this decision being taken directly by the foreign minister or president."
The renunciation of trade benefits was a dramatic but mostly symbolic threat. The U.S Congress was widely expected to let the benefits lapse in coming weeks, for reasons unrelated to the Snowden case. And if they continued, it appeared highly unlikely that the Ecuadorean government would be able to unilaterally cancel tariff benefits that went directly to their country's exporters.
Behind Ecuador's mixed messages, some analysts saw not confusion but internal divisions in the Ecuadorean government.
Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a think tank focused on Latin America, said many in Washington believed that Correa, a leftist elected to a third term in February, had been telegraphing a desire to moderate and take a softer tack toward the United States and private business.
Harder-core leftists led by Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino may be seeking to maintain a tough line, he said, a division expressing itself in confusing messages.
"I think there really are different factions within the government on this," Shifter said. "Correa wants to become more moderate. That has been the signal that has been communicated in Washington."
Embarrassment for the Obama administration over the surveillance revelations continued as documents disclosed Thursday showed the Obama administration gathered U.S. citizens' Internet data until 2011, continuing a spying program started under President George W. Bush that revealed whom Americans exchanged emails with and the Internet Protocol address of their computer.
The National Security Agency ended the program that collected email logs and timing, but not content, in 2011 because it decided it didn't effectively stop terrorist plots, according to the NSA's director, Gen. Keith Alexander, who also heads the U.S. Cyber Command. He said all data was purged in 2011.
Britain's Guardian newspaper on Thursday released documents detailing the collection, though the program was also described earlier this month by The Washington Post.
The U.S. administration was expected to decide by Monday what export privileges to grant Ecuador under the Generalized System of Preferences, a program meant to spur development and growth in poorer countries.
Although the deadline was set long before the Snowden affair, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said Thursday that Ecuador's application to add a handful of products such as artichokes and cut flowers ? the latter a major industry here ? would not be decided immediately but would remain pending. That gives the U.S. additional leverage over Ecuador while Snowden's fate remains uncertain.
More broadly, a larger trade pact allowing reduced tariffs on more than $5 billion in annual exports to the U.S. is up for congressional renewal before July 21. While approval of the Andean Trade Preference Act has long been seen as doubtful in Washington, Ecuador has been lobbying strongly for its renewal.
On Wednesday, Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, pledged to lead an effort to block extension of U.S. tariff benefits if Ecuador grants asylum to Snowden, who turned 30 last week. Nearly half of Ecuador's billions a year in foreign trade depends on the United States.
The Obama administration said Thursday that accepting Snowden would damage the overall relationship between the two countries and analysts said it was almost certain that granting the leaker asylum would lead the U.S. to cut roughly $30 million a year in military and law enforcement assistance.
Granting asylum to Snowden would cause "great difficulties in our bilateral relationship," State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said. "If they take that step, that would have very negative repercussions."
Alvarado, the communications minister, said his country rejects economic "blackmail" in the form of threats against the trade measures.
"The preferences were authorized for Andean countries as compensation for the fight against drugs, but soon became a new instrument of pressure," he said. "As a result, Ecuador unilaterally and irrevocably renounces these preferences."
Alvarado did not explicitly mention the separate effort to win trade benefits under the presidential order.
He did suggest, however, how the U.S. could use the money saved from Ecuadorean tariffs to train government employees to respect citizens' rights.
"Ecuador offers the United States $23 million a year in economic aid, an amount similar to what we were receiving under the tariff benefits, with the purpose of providing human rights training that will contribute to avoid violations of people's privacy, that degrade humanity," he said.
___
Pace reported from Dakar, Senegal. Gonzalo Solano in Quito, Peter Orsi in Caracas, Venezuela, and Ken Thomas in Washington contributed to this report.
___
Follow Michael Weissenstein on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mweissenstein
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ecuador-heats-rhetoric-obama-downplays-snowden-194838354.html
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Armstrong: I'm still record Tour de France winner
PORTO VECCHIO, Corsica (AP) ? The dirty past of the Tour de France came back on Friday to haunt the 100th edition of cycling's showcase race, with Lance Armstrong telling a newspaper he couldn't have won without doping.
Armstrong's interview with Le Monde was surprising on many levels, not least because of his long-antagonistic relationship with the respected French daily that first reported in 1999 that corticosteroids were found in the American's urine as he was riding his way to the first of his seven Tour wins. In response, Armstrong complained he was being persecuted by "vulture journalism, desperate journalism."
Now seemingly prepared to let bygones be bygones, Armstrong told Le Monde he still considers himself the record-holder for Tour victories, even though all seven of his titles were stripped from him last year for doping. He also said his life has been ruined by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency investigation that exposed as lies his years of denials that he and his teammates doped.
The interview was the latest blast from cycling's doping-tainted recent history to rain on the 100th Tour.
Previously, Armstrong's former rival on French roads, 1997 Tour winner Jan Ullrich, confessed to blood-doping for the first time with a Spanish doctor. French media also reported that a Senate investigation into the effectiveness of anti-doping controls pieced together evidence of drug use at the 1998 Tour by Laurent Jalabert, a former star of the race now turned broadcaster.
Not surprising in Armstrong's interview was his claim that it was "impossible" to win the Tour without doping when he was racing. Armstrong already told U.S. television talk show host Oprah Winfrey when he finally confessed this January that doping was just "part of the job" of being a pro cyclist.
The banned hormone erythropoietin, or EPO, wasn't detectable by cycling's doping controls until 2001 and so was widely abused because it prompts the body to produce oxygen-carrying red blood cells, giving a big performance boost to endurance athletes.
Armstrong was clearly talking about his own era, rather than the Tour today. Le Monde reported that he was responding to the question: "When you raced, was it possible to perform without doping?"
"That depends on which races you wanted to win. The Tour de France? No. Impossible to win without doping. Because the Tour is a test of endurance where oxygen is decisive," Le Monde quoted Armstrong as saying. It published the interview in French.
Some subsequent media reports about Le Monde's interview concluded that Armstrong was saying doping is still necessary now, rather than when he was winning the Tour from 1999-2005. That suggestion provoked dismay from current riders, race organizers and the sport's governing body, the International Cycling Union or UCI.
"If he's saying things like he doesn't think that it's possible to win the Tour clean, then he should be quiet ? because it is possible," said American rider Tejay van Garderen of the BMC team.
Asked later by The Associated Press to clarify his comments, Armstrong said on Twitter that he was talking about the period from 1999-2005. He indicated that doping might not be necessary now.
"Today? I have no idea. I'm hopeful it's possible," he tweeted.
In a statement issued before that clarification, UCI President Pat McQuaid called the timing of Armstrong's comments "very sad."
"I can tell him categorically that he is wrong. His comments do absolutely nothing to help cycling," McQuaid said in a statement. "The culture within cycling has changed since the Armstrong era and it is now possible to race and win clean.
"Riders and teams owners have been forthright in saying that it is possible to win clean - and I agree with them."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/armstrong-im-still-record-tour-france-winner-124405032.html
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Kotaku The Best Games of 2013's Amazing First Six Months | io9 A quick way to make people feel bad a
Kotaku The Best Games of 2013's Amazing First Six Months | io9 A quick way to make people feel bad about their whole lives | Jezebel Nigella Lawson Walks Out On Alleged Domestic Abuser Charles Saatchi | Gawker Here's What Your Newspaper Looks Like When You Fire Your Photographers
Source: http://lauren.kinja.com/kotaku-the-best-games-of-2013s-amazing-first-six-months-609512231
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'Django' Stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Foxx Rechained For WB Crime Movie
By Jeff Sneider
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - "Django Unchained" stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Jamie Foxx are set to play bad-ass detectives in "Mean Business on North Ganson Street," an adaptation of S. Craig Zahler's upcoming crime novel that has just been acquired by Warner Bros.
Zahler ("The Brigands of Rattleborge") will write the script, and DiCaprio will produce with his Appian Way partner Jennifer Davisson Killoran.
"Mean Business" marks the first major deal made by Greg Silverman since he was promoted to run the studio's worldwide feature film production arm in the wake of Jeff Robinov's departure.
Story follows a disgraced detective (DiCaprio) who is sent to Victory, Missouri, where violent crime is skyrocketing. He's partnered with another detective (Foxx) who was demoted for brutalizing a suspect. When police officers start showing up dead, they get to work on finding the person responsible for declaring open season on Victory's police department.
Foxx next stars opposite Channing Tatum in "White House Down," which opens on Friday, while DiCaprio will soon be seen in Martin Scorsese's "The Wolf of Wall Street."
Zahler is prepping to direct "Bone Tomahawk," which stars Kurt Russell and Timothy Olyphant.
Deadline broke the news.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/django-stars-leonardo-dicaprio-jamie-foxx-rechained-wb-000935396.html
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Software moguls Ellison and Benioff end feud, jump into deal
By Noel Randewich
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Oracle Corp Chief Executive Larry Ellison and Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff publicly ended one of Silicon Valley's most bitter feuds on Thursday as they leapt into a major alliance aimed at selling more Internet-based software.
On a conference call to outline their new pact, the moguls, who in the past had been harsh critics of each other's businesses, said they plan to collaborate in the fast-growing area of cloud computing.
Their comments were a far cry from two years ago, when Ellison called Salesforce.com the "roach motel" of cloud-computing and Benioff ridiculed Oracle for selling "false cloud" products.
"Larry and I have worked together for, I think, 27 years since I first started at Oracle," Benioff told analysts and reporters.
Once a prot?g? of Ellison, Benioff left an executive post at Oracle in 1999 to found Salesforce, one of the first companies to sell business software services over the Web.
"Hopefully it will be the end to us getting a little too revved up at times, but the vast majority of those 27 years have been epic," Benioff said.
Ellison said they would "try to continue to be entertaining while making sure that the entertainment never distracts from our commitment to working together."
Oracle is the world's No. 3 software maker but it has fallen behind emerging players like Salesforce.com in providing Web-based software, or cloud computing, a fast-growing trend that Ellison had been slow to tap into.
Ellison and Benioff's reconciliation is the latest example of how technology alliances can quickly shift as businesses evolve, turning friends into foes, and vice versa.
"By Larry and I coming together, a door has opened that lets us go through into the future, and we're not going to be held back by how the industry was," Benioff said.
In the new partnership, which was announced earlier this week, Oracle will integrate some of its cloud-based software programs with Salesforce products. Salesforce will also expand its own use of Oracle products and standardize Oracle products with its own offerings.
Their cooperation should help the two companies sell more cloud-based software.
Benioff formed Salesforce with the blessing of his former boss, who contributed $2 million in seed money. But they quickly became rivals after Oracle started selling software that competed with Salesforce products, and Benioff fired Ellison from his board of directors.
Oracle and longtime rival Microsoft Corp have also cozied up to each other, saying this week they would support each other's cloud platforms and increase sales opportunities. On Wednesday, Oracle announced a tie-up with cloud-company NetSuite, which is partly owned by Ellison.
(Reporting by Noel Randewich, additional reporting by Jim Finkle in Boston and Gerry Shih in San Francisco.; Editing by Richard Chang)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/software-moguls-ellison-benioff-end-feud-jump-deal-204157678.html
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Friday, June 28, 2013
Young Imbeciles Destroy Largest Lego Helicopter Ever
Yesterday around 9:40PM local time, a group of idiots destroyed the largest Lego helicopter in the world, the 100,000-piece Erickson Air-Crane. Built by Ryan McNaught over the course of six weeks, the pieces alone are valued at $25,000.
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Rosneft offers to buy out small TNK-BP shareholders in cut-price deal
By Katya Golubkova
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian state oil major Rosneft
Chief executive Igor Sechin said that Rosneft was not a "charity fund" when it bought TNK-BP and did not intend to buy out minority shareholders, raising complaints from them and questions from international investors about corporate governance in Russia.
Following the TNK-BP deal, Rosneft became the world's No. 1 oil producer by output, pumping 4.5 million barrels per day - nearly half of Russia's total - but its capitalization of $74 billion is a fraction of U.S. ExxonMobil's
"They have had increasing pressure from minorities and there is clearly a lot of feedback that it is damaging the wider Russia franchise," said one trader at a Western bank in Moscow.
Rosneft Vice President Igor Maidannik said that while the company has no legal obligations towards TNK-BP shareholders, the state-owned giant's shares are sensitive to the situation.
"We don't have any obligations. It would be a voluntary offer or, if a decision on a reorganization is taken, a conversion. We will see," he told reporters at TNK-BP's annual shareholders meeting.
Maidannik said he preferred the idea of a share swap, because buyouts "usually don't lead to the desired result".
GLIMMER OF HOPE
Maidannik's comments offered a glimmer of hope for smaller shareholders of TNK-BP, the listed unit of the Anglo-Russian venture bought by Rosneft for $55 billion, will not end up empty-handed. British oil major BP
Based on TNK-BP's market capitalization of $21.6 billion, down 57 percent since October when the deal was announced, a buyout of about 5 percent owned by minorities would cost Rosneft approximately $1 billion. TNK-BP shares rose up 1.8 percent.
Minority shareholders welcomed the idea with caution, as Sechin has previously rebuffed such calls.
"I support the idea. Maidannik made a good move. He allowed everyone to express their views and gave hope. But I wanted to hear it from Sechin, given that the decision should be taken not by Maidannik alone," said Gennady Osorgin, a shareholder since 2005.
Maidannik, Rosneft's legal counsel, played down expectations that shareholders - including several leading global emerging markets equity funds - could expect a big payout.
"It has been obvious since the deal was announced that TNK-BP's capitalization would fall," said Maidannik. "Someone might have dreamed that a buyout could happen at the deal's price, but in my opinion that was a gamble."
Earlier this month, Rosneft recommended waiving 2012 dividends for TNK-BP, saying its own policy of paying out 25 percent of earnings as dividends could only be extended to TNK-BP after the deal closed on March 21.
Investors have shown concern that subsequent deals by Rosneft could treat minorities the same way.
Shares of Bashneft have fallen by 4 percent since Tuesday, when Russian business daily Vedomosti reported that Rosneft was interested in buying the company, which produces 300,000 barrels of oil a day, from Sistema .
The report, denied by Sistema's majority owner Vladimir Yevtushenkov, has also sent Bashneft's non-voting preferred shares down by 15 percent.
Gathered at a central Moscow hotel on Thursday, TNK-BP minority shareholders grabbed sandwiches as they anticipated a tightening of purse strings from Rosneft.
"Today we are being fed but at the next meeting we may not be offered even a cup of tea," said Viktor Alexeevich, 65, while putting ham sandwiches and pies into a bag.
"I'm very disappointed that they (BP) left us - they set an example to the locals on how to do business. The dividends they paid proved that."
(Writing by Katya Golubkova and Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Douglas Busvine and Megan Davies)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rosneft-may-offer-buy-convert-tnk-bp-shares-104546222.html
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After 17 Years In Business, Expense Management SaaS Replicon Raises $20M In Series A Funding From Social + Capital And Emergence
Replicon, the developer of a cloud time tracking and expense management application, has raised $20 million Series A funding led by The Social + Capital Partnership and Emergence Capital Partners. This is actually the first time in the company's 17-year history of raising money from institutional investors.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/A7qOI5RLK7Y/
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PFT: Photo shows Hernandez with gun in '09
APThe Atlanta Falcons? plans for building a $1 billion replacement for the Georgia Dome are running into a bit of a roadblock.
According to WXIA-TV in Atlanta, negotiations to purchase the land necessary for the new building have reached a standstill. The city has been in talks with Friendship Baptist Church over the price of the land occupied by the church just south of the Georgia Dome that is needed for the new stadium. However, disagreements over the price to be paid have ended progress toward a solution.
Per the report, the city offered $13.5 million for the land and later raised their offer to $15.5 million. However, the church is asking for $24.5 million to agree to move. The end result is a stalemate devoid of progress.
Lloyd Hawk, Friendship Baptist Church?s board of trustees chairman, said the church needs to be compensated fairly for the price of land and the costs of relocating.
?We?re not going to incur new debt to do that and we?re not going to diminish our savings to do that,? Hawk said.
The church has asked for a mediator or in-person meeting with the mayor to attempt to find a suitable deal for both sides but the city currently seems unwilling to do so. In the meantime, the church?s focus is on serving their patrons first and not the wants of the Falcons.
?If they feel five or six million dollars makes a difference in a billion dollar project, that?s their prerogative,? Hawk said.
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Salmonella infection is a battle between good and bad bacteria in the gut
June 26, 2013 ? The blockbuster battles between good and evil are not just on the big screen this summer. A new study that examined food poisoning infection as-it-happens in mice revealed harmful bacteria, such as a common type of Salmonella, takes over beneficial bacteria within the gut amid previously unseen changes to the gut environment. The results provide new insights into the course of infection and could lead to better prevention or new treatments.
"We're trying to tease apart a largely unknown area of biology," said systems biologist Josh Adkins and team lead at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. "Infection changes the populations of bacteria in the gut with resulting inflammation. We want to understand the interplay between these events."
Out this week in PLOS ONE, the study shows that Salmonella Typhimurium might use the sugar fucose either as a sign that it has found a good place to reproduce or use fucose to sustain itself during infection, or both. This was the first time researchers saw fucose as an important player during Salmonella infection.
"We were taken completely by surprise with the fucose results," said Adkins. They also saw other sugars that normally are eaten by resident bacteria going untouched. "By knowing what the bacteria eat, we can try to promote the good bacteria and throw off the battle."
The Mice
Food poisoning caused by Salmonella bacteria hits more than 40,000 people every year. One of the common types that infect people, Salmonella Typhimurium, doesn't usually get mice sick, so Adkins and colleagues used mice uniquely sensitive to Salmonella infection. After infecting mice with the disease-causing bacteria orally, the researchers could follow the course of the illness by analyzing what came out of the other end of the mice.
"In most studies, researchers clear out the resident bacteria with antibiotics before introducing infectious bacteria," said microbiologist Brooke Deatherage Kaiser. "In this study, we could watch Salmonella knock out the commensal organisms and then watch them come back. Following the interactions through time is not something we've been able to do before."
The story they put together shows how Salmonella usurps microbes that normally populate the gut. Known as commensal bacteria, resident bugs perform important functions such as breaking down carbohydrates and sugars that people and mice can't. Using advanced instruments and techniques, the researchers identified which populations of bacteria dominated as infection progressed and mice recovered, as well as changes in the gastrointestinal tract, such as the presence of inflammation and available nutrients. Some of the experiments were performed in EMSL, the DOE's Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory on PNNL's campus.
The Sugars
While many events the team witnessed were expected, such as infection causing inflammation in the gut, some were not. One unexpected change was in the kinds of sugars available for bacteria to eat. A handful of sugars that good bacteria normally chow down on lay around the gut untouched.
This stockpile of unusual sugars likely occurred because the good bacteria had, by that point, been overtaken by Salmonella and another bacterial variety, Enterococci. Enteroccoci are normally found in the gut, but can take advantage of opportunities to overgrow their welcome.
Unexpectedly, several lines of evidence suggested that Salmonella might use the sugar fucose as a food source. This study showed that the bacteria produced proteins that specifically help it digest fucose, which was the first time these researchers observed fucose proteins during Salmonella infection.
Although additional research will be needed to flesh out the role of fucose in the infectious cycle of Salmonella Typhimurium, this observation may help to control or prevent gastrointestinal infection in the future by a better understanding of nutrient sources and signals in the gut.
Overall, the study allowed the PNNL researchers to follow the rise and fall of the infecting bacteria, the fall and rise during recovery of the commensal bacteria, and changes to the gut as the mice fended off the infection. Future research will focus on what happens in other areas of the intestine to get a handle on the difference between the type of illness this study represented, acute gastrointestinal disease, and more systemic infection.
This work was supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/qykLA4Mup3c/130626183927.htm
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Gay marriage gets big boost in two Supreme Court rulings
By Lawrence Hurley
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court delivered a landmark victory for gay rights on Wednesday by forcing the federal government to recognize same-sex marriages in states where it is legal and paving the way for it in California, the most populous state.
As expected, however, the court fell short of a broader ruling endorsing a fundamental right for gay people to marry, meaning that there will be no impact in the more than 30 states that do not recognize gay marriage.
The two cases, both decided on 5-4 votes, concerned the constitutionality of a key part of a federal law, the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), that denied benefits to same-sex married couples, and a voter-approved California state law enacted in 2008, called Proposition 8, that banned gay marriage.
The court struck down Section 3 of DOMA, which limited the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman for the purposes of federal benefits, as a violation of the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection under the law.
The ruling was a victory for President Barack Obama's administration, which had decided two years ago it would no longer defend the law in court. Obama applauded the DOMA ruling and directed U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to review all relevant federal laws to ensure that it is implemented.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, 76, appointed to the court by Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1988, was the key vote and wrote the DOMA opinion, the third major gay rights ruling he has authored since 1996.
In a separate opinion, the court ducked a decision on Proposition 8 by finding that supporters of the California law did not have standing to appeal a federal district court ruling that struck it down. By doing so, the justices let stand the lower-court ruling that had found the ban unconstitutional.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the Proposition 8 opinion, ruling along procedural lines in a way that said nothing about how the court would rule on the merits. The court was unusually split, with liberals and conservatives in both the majority and the dissent.
By ruling this way on Proposition 8, the court effectively let states set their own policy on gay marriage. This means a debate is set to continue in various states via ballot initiatives, legislative action and litigation potentially costing millions of dollars on both sides of an issue that stirs cultural, religious and political passions in the United States as elsewhere.
The rulings come amid rapid progress for advocates of gay marriage in recent months and years. Opinion polls show a steady increase in U.S. public support for gay marriage.
'SECOND-CLASS CITIZENS'
Gay marriage advocates celebrated outside the courthouse. A big cheer went up as word arrived DOMA had been struck down. "DOMA is dead!" the crowd chanted, as couples hugged and cried.
Paul Katami and Jeffrey Zarrillo, a gay couple from Burbank, California, who were two of the four plaintiffs in the Proposition 8 case, were both outside the courthouse.
"We are gay. We are American. And we will not be treated like second-class citizens," Katami said.
He turned to Zarrillo, voice cracking and said: "I finally get to look at the man I love and say, 'Will you marry me?'"
Before Wednesday, 12 of the 50 U.S. states plus the District of Columbia recognized gay marriage. Three of those dozen - Delaware, Minnesota and Rhode Island - legalized gay marriage this year. California would become the 13th state to allow it.
About a third of the U.S. population now lives in areas where gay marriage is legal, if California is included.
"We are a people who declared that we are all created equal, and the love we commit to one another must be equal as well," Obama, the first sitting president to endorse gay marriage, said in a written statement.
While the ruling on DOMA was clearcut, questions remained about the meaning of the Proposition 8 ruling for California. Proposition 8 supporters vowed to seek continued enforcement of the ban until litigation is resolved. But California Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, said the justices' ruling "applies statewide" and all county officials must comply with it.
"We are now faced with this unusual situation where we have some uncertainty," said Andrew Pugno, one of the Proposition 8 proponents' lawyers. He expressed satisfaction that the Supreme Court had "nullified" a San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that, if left intact, could have had set a precedent for other Western states in its jurisdiction.
FEDERAL BENEFITS
By striking down Section 3 of DOMA, the court cleared the way for legally married couples to claim more than 1,100 federal benefits, rights and burdens linked to marriage status.
Kennedy wrote for the majority that the federal law, as passed by Congress, violated the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection. "The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and to injure those whom the state, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity," Kennedy wrote.
The law imposed "a stigma upon all who enter into same-sex marriages made lawful by the unquestioned authority of the states," he said.
Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia both wrote dissenting opinions in the DOMA case.
Roberts went out of his way to state that the court was not making any big pronouncements about gay marriage. The court, he said, did not have before it the question of whether states "may continue to utilize the traditional definition of marriage."
Scalia accused the majority of ignoring procedural obstacles about whether the court should have heard the case in order to reach its desired result.
"This is jaw-dropping," he said of Kennedy's analysis.
As a result of the DOMA ruling, Edith Windsor of New York, who was married to a woman and sued the government to get the federal estate tax deduction available to heterosexuals when their spouses die, will be able to claim a $363,000 tax refund.
The ruling was a win also for more than 200 businesses, including Goldman Sachs Group, Microsoft Corp and Google Inc, that signed on to a brief urging the court to strike down DOMA. Thomson Reuters Corp, owner of the Reuters news agency, was another signatory.
"Today's decisions help define who we are as a people, whether or not we are part of the group directly affected," said Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman's chief executive.
CHANGING LANDSCAPE
Numerous public figures including former President Bill Clinton, who in 1996 signed the DOMA law, and prominent groups including the American Academy of Pediatrics have come out this year in support of same-sex marriage and gay civil rights.
Individual members of Congress - Democrats and Republicans - also voiced new support for gay marriage this year.
Even with recent developments, there is still significant opposition among Republicans, including House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, who had ordered the House to intervene in the DOMA case in defense of the law. Boehner said in a statement he was "obviously disappointed in the ruling" and predicted that a "robust national debate over marriage" would continue.
While more developments lie ahead, the legal fight over gay marriage already constitutes one of the most concentrated civil rights sagas in U.S. history.
Just 20 years ago, the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that its state constitution could allow gay marriage, prompting a nationwide backlash and spurring Congress and a majority of states, including Hawaii, to pass laws defining marriage as between only a man and woman.
In 2003, when the top court of Massachusetts established a right to same-sex marriage under its constitution, the action triggered another backlash as states then adopted constitutional amendments against such unions. Five years later, the tide began to reverse, and states slowly began joining Massachusetts in permitting gays to marry.
The cases are United States v. Windsor, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 12-307 and Hollingsworth v. Perry, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 12-144.
(Additional reporting by Joseph Ax, Steve Holland and Roberta Rampton in Washington, Lauren Tara LaCapra in New York and Daniel Levine in San Francisco; Editing by Howard Goller and Will Dunham)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/supreme-court-due-set-legal-course-gay-marriage-050417451.html
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