US home video spending up for 1st time since 2008

In this 1977 image provided by 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation, from left, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, and Mark Hamill are shown in a scene from "Star Wars" movie released by 20th Century-Fox. (AP Photo/20th Century-Fox Film Corporation)

In this 1977 image provided by 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation, from left, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, and Mark Hamill are shown in a scene from "Star Wars" movie released by 20th Century-Fox. (AP Photo/20th Century-Fox Film Corporation)

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Americans' spending on home videos has finally emerged from the recession ? helped by more purchases of higher-priced Blu-ray discs and greater outlays on cut-rate rentals from Netflix and Redbox.

For the three months through September, home movie spending rose nearly 5 percent from a year earlier to $3.9 billion, the first increase since early 2008, according to industry organization, The Digital Entertainment Group.

Buying digital copies of movies and ordering them from set-top box video-on-demand services also rose.

People bought fewer DVDs and made fewer trips to brick-and-mortar video rental stores, cutting into the gains.

For the year overall spending is down about 2 percent at $12.3 billion.

The industry is struggling to cope with a weak economic recovery and the gradual wane of the DVD era. The digital discs, once revolutionary for their clarity and durability, were shown the exit once Blu-ray became the industry's high-definition standard in 2008. Compared to a year ago, DVD sales dropped by 15 percent, or about $230 million, to $1.32 billion.

Blu-ray disc sales rose by about $156 million, to $423 million. That didn't make up for the DVD drop, even with the help of the popular re-release of the six "Star Wars" movies on Blu-ray, which racked up $38 million in North America in its first week of sales in late September.

There's still room for Blu-ray to grow. Although Blu-ray player households rose by 52 percent to 33.5 million, that's still only about a third of the TV-owning homes in the U.S.

Brick-and-mortar store rentals fell by $142 million to $353 million, but they were more than replaced by a $152 million gain in new delivery methods, such as online streaming, video-on-demand, mail-order subscriptions and cheap rentals from kiosks. Revenue from those rental methods rose to $1.70 billion. Kiosk rentals made up more than half of those gains.

Netflix Inc.'s price hike to customers on Sept. 1 may have bolstered the numbers, and Redbox said it was raising its nightly DVD rental fee to $1.20 from $1, which will likely add to the current quarter's totals.

The smallest segment remains digital purchases of movies, which rose by about $15 million to $136 million. Movie studios have been concerned that people aren't purchasing digital movies because they are worried the files won't be easily transferable to various devices, a concern it hopes to ease with its UltraViolet view-anywhere standard, which Warner Bros. launched this month.

Associated Press

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Top Obama aide vents frustration with Congress (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? A top aide to President Barack Obama expressed frustration on Friday with his fellow Democrats as well as Republican members of Congress for resisting the White House's domestic agenda.

The comments by Obama's chief of staff William Daley, made in an interview with the Politico newspaper, could add to tension that has arisen between Obama and some congressional Democrats.

"On the domestic side, both Democrats and Republicans have really made it very difficult for the president to be anything like a chief executive," Daley told Politico. "This has led to a kind of frustration."

Some Democrats have been unhappy with Obama's handling of this year's budget battles, viewing him as having been too willing to compromise with Republicans on their demands for spending cuts to cherished social programs.

"There's no question that Democrats haven't agreed, or some Democrats haven't agreed, with every position the president has taken on every issue," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.

Democrats were upset when word leaked out last summer about the shape of a "grand bargain" on deficit reduction that was discussed between Obama and Republican House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner. Under discussion were changes to the Social Security retirement program that Democrats opposed.

Ultimately, Boehner walked away from the talks because his fellow Republicans balked.

Carney, seeming to play down Daley's comments, said it had been Republicans, not Democrats, who have thwarted the president's agenda.

"The obstacle to getting things done that the American people want done on the economy and jobs has been congressional Republicans," Carney said.

Obama this week took a series of actions on the economy, including steps to help struggling homeowners, college students and small businesses, that do not require congressional action.

Rolling out a new slogan, "We can't wait," Obama has pledged to take further executive actions.

The White House has sought to paint Republicans as obstructionists for impeding his $447 billion jobs package and the new executive actions are aimed at part in putting pressure on them to work with the administration on that legislation.

(Writing by Caren Bohan; Editing by Eric Walsh)

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NBA talks need economic move to end the lockout

FILE - In this file photo taken Oct. 4, 2011, NBA Commissioner David Stern listens during a news conference following NBA labor talks meeting between basketball players and owners in New York. Stern canceled all November games on Friday, Oct. 28, the 120th day of the lockout. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, file)

FILE - In this file photo taken Oct. 4, 2011, NBA Commissioner David Stern listens during a news conference following NBA labor talks meeting between basketball players and owners in New York. Stern canceled all November games on Friday, Oct. 28, the 120th day of the lockout. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, file)

NEW YORK (AP) ? Anyone who has been to a car dealership, or bought a home, understands how negotiating works.

One side offers a number, the other counters, and they meet somewhere in the middle and make a deal.

That's not the way it's working in the NBA's labor standoff ? even with potentially $2 billion at stake for each side.

Owners and players keep insisting they are ready and willing to make the necessary financial step for an agreement. Yet talks have broken down each of the last two weeks with little movement and the same type of answer: "We're here, they're there, and that's that."

That won't get players back on the court or fans in the seats.

And with both sides so entrenched, it might be a question of when, not if, another round of cancellations will be necessary.

"I don't know," Commissioner David Stern said Friday when asked about the next deadline. "We just had a difficult day. We'll go back, we'll go to the office Monday and see what to do about this big mess."

They could start with a phone call to the players' association to schedule more talks, and the sides likely will meet again soon. But it will remain pointless if neither side is prepared to offer compromise.

Owners are insistent on a 50-50 split of basketball-related income. Players have proposed reducing their guarantee from 57 percent down to 52.5, saying that will transfer more than $1.5 billion to owners over six years.

And when neither side would go further Friday, NBA officials said union executive director Billy Hunter ended the session.

"Billy said, 'My phone is ringing off the hook from agents and players telling me I cannot go under 52 percent' and he said unless you're willing to go there, we have nothing to talk about," Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver said.

The difference between 50 and 52.5 percent is about $100 million annually, based on last season's revenues, or $1 billion over the course of the 10-year agreement the NBA is seeking.

The cost of not making a deal?

"We expect there to be a $2 billion loss for us for the loss of the season, which we will then begin to dig out from under and try to get back, if there were a season's loss," Stern said. "And the players would lose $2 billion. Period."

The losses already have been piling up. Stern said wiping out the preseason schedule, which would have ended Friday, cost the league $200 million. The first month of real games adds another couple hundred million, and Hunter has said missing a month would cost the players about $350 million.

But that's not enough to make players agree to a deal they say would cost them money and limit their options in free agency.

"We think we gave more than enough, and that's what we constantly said to them: 'Look, we did what it was you said you needed, we did it,'" Hunter said. "And now all of a sudden, every time we did it, it's like their eyes got bigger and they wanted more and more and more. So finally we just had to shut it down and just say it can't be."

Stern has made it clear that owners' future proposals could be made with the losses in mind. Players eventually will get their money, just less of it, but the damage to businesses that rely on the game won't be recovered.

"I think it is hard for the average person to understand what it is they're arguing over," said Jim Taggart, the manager of The Four's, an upscale sports bar across the street from Boston's TD Garden. "A lot of the people that work concessions at the Garden come in here, and their pay is budgeted into how they pay their mortgages, how they put their kids through school.

"Events at the Garden are just absolute big business. There's a whole ancillary economy that depends on the Garden, and it's pretty far reaching, all the restaurants and parking garages."

The sides are much closer after three straight days of meetings in consecutive weeks. Besides the BRI split, the list of remaining items is down to just a handful, such as the ability of teams over the luxury tax threshold to use the midlevel exception or participate in sign-and-trade deals.

Those are important to players. The top-spending teams are mostly the ones in the biggest markets, and players want to know teams in the most desired cities won't be prevented from bidding on them.

"What we did not want to do and what we don't want to do is take taxpaying teams completely out of the market for other teams' free agents," union president Derek Fisher of the Lakers said. "We want our midlevel players to be able to sign contracts or at least have the opportunity to sign a contract wherever they would like to play."

There had been a sense of optimism going into Friday after both sides acknowledged progress on the salary cap system over the previous two days. But they hadn't talked about the split, and sure enough, once they did things fell apart again.

Wasted was the meeting room the NBA had reserved through the weekend at a top New York hotel, where it hoped to be announcing a deal by Sunday. The next talks haven't been scheduled, but the sides reconnected quickly after the last breakdown.

"Each time I come here, we've come in thinking we may be here for weeks and we're not going to leave the room," Fisher said. "But sometimes they end and you assume you won't talk again for weeks and you're back the next day."

___

AP Sports Writer Howard Ulman in Boston contributed to this report.

___

Follow Brian Mahoney on Twitter: twitter.com/Briancmahoney.

Associated Press

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Shell posts $6.98 billion profit in Q3 (AP)

AMSTERDAM ? Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Europe's largest oil company, says profits doubled to nearly $7 billion in the third quarter because of higher oil prices and gains from the sale of assets.

Shell said Thursday that net profit was $6.98 billion, up from $3.46 billion in the third quarter of 2010. Revenues rose 33 percent to $127 billion.

Shell booked $1.8 billion in profits from the sale of assets, notably the sale of a refinery in Britain.

This time a year ago it took a $1.4 billion impairment charge on assets after an accounting review of its operations in Canadian heavy oil sands and its refining arm.

"Our third quarter results were higher than year-ago levels, driven by higher oil prices and Shell's performance," said Chief Executive Peter Voser in a statement.

Global oil prices have risen 48 percent from this time a year ago.

The company said its "upstream" or production, earnings were $5.44 billion, up 58 percent exluding one-time gains in both years.

Production fell 1.6 percent to 3.01 million barrels of oil per day, but Shell said that would have been a rise of 2 percent, comparing like for like. The company disposed of around 100,000 worth of production and its mature fields suffered declines, but it added 270,000 barrels of new production at projects in Qatar, Nigeria and Canada.

The company has been investing intensely in new capacity and plans to bring 20 new projects on line by 2014.

At Shell's "downstream" arm, which includes its refining activities, oil products and sales of chemicals, earnings increased 25 percent to $1.81 billion, excluding one-time gains in both years. The company cited healthy margins on its chemical products, as refinery margins were unchanged and intake fell.

(This version corrects sales figure and percentage rise.)

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Quantum keys let submarines talk securely

SUBMARINES must be able to talk securely with remote naval bases while remaining submerged. Could quantum communications allow them to pull off this technically challenging feat?

Submarines employ random "keys" known as one-time pads to encrypt messages. Each key can only be used once, making it impossible for eavesdroppers to crack the code.

One problem with this is that the key must be securely agreed before the submarine leaves base. There is a risk involved in having many keys on board, in case the sub is captured and they fall into hostile hands.

The other problem is that submarines receive messages using low-frequency radio waves that can penetrate water, but only a few characters per second can be transmitted at these frequencies. To receive high frequencies, which can boost the data rate, submarines have to surface and risk detection.

"You want the submarine to be undetectable for as long as possible - we're talking about several weeks," says Marco Lanzagorta, director of quantum technologies at US defence firm ITT.

He suggests that a technique called quantum key distribution (QKD) could solve these problems. It uses the quantum properties of photons, which are polarised in two different ways to encode 0s and 1s, to generate and exchange a key. Any attempt to intercept the photons disturbs these properties and raises the alarm.

To establish a secure link while remaining 100 metres underwater, submarines could transmit photons of laser light to satellites, for retransmission to base. With the key exchanged, the submarine could then communicate via laser pulses with guaranteed security.

Lanzagorta's simulations suggest it would be possible to transmit and receive data at 170 megabytes per second, enough for video communication. He will present his ideas next month at a cryptography workshop in Gaithersburg, Maryland, hosted by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology. Later he plans to conduct experiments at the US Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC to investigate how well a photon's quantum state is preserved as it travels through water.

Rupert Ursin of the University of Vienna in Austria was part of a team that, in 2007, set a QKD record by sending photons 144 kilometres through air. That showed that quantum-encrypted signals can in principle be sent to and from satellites, though Ursin says such an experiment is still far off because much of the necessary equipment has never flown in space. It is "quite visionary" to contemplate quantum-encrypted signalling from Earth to a satellite, he says. "This submarine communication stuff is even more visionary."

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Expert: Jackson likely gave self fatal propofol shot (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) ? Michael Jackson likely injected himself with a fatal dose of the anesthetic propofol after popping an extra eight sedatives without his doctor's knowledge, a Los Angeles court heard on Friday.

Dr. Paul White, the last defense witness in the involuntary manslaughter trial of the singer's physician, Dr. Conrad Murray, said that self-administration was the most likely scenario to explain levels of propofol and lorazepam found in Jackson's system after his death on June 25, 2009.

White said that based on the amount of propofol found in Jackson's urine, he believed the pop star gave himself a further injection of propofol about one hour after Murray has admitted injecting the 50 year-old singer with a relatively small 25 milligram dose of the drug as a sleep aid.

"With the administration of the additional 25 milligrams that we're speculating was self-injected by Mr. Jackson, the level increases rapidly and at the time of death would be almost identical to the level found in the urine at autopsy," White told jurors.

Using a mathematical model, White also said Jackson could have swallowed eight lorazepam tablets earlier in the night as he struggled with sleeplessness, bringing the amount of the sedative found in his blood to that seen at autopsy.

"The combination effect is potentially profound," White said of the two drugs.

Authorities have ruled Jackson died of an overdose of propofol, with lorazepam playing a contributing role.

A rival expert testified for the prosecution last week that he believed Jackson died after Murray left him on an intravenous drip of propofol for a number of hours.

But White said there was no physical evidence at the scene to support the prosecution scenario. It also did not reconcile with Murray's statements about the amount of drugs he gave Jackson that night, White said.

Prosecution experts will cross examine White on Monday as the five-week trial enters its closing stages.

White on Friday questioned the mathematical modeling prepared by prosecution expert Dr. Steven Shafer to support the intravenous propofol drip theory.

In order to reach the blood level of propofol found at autopsy, Jackson would have had to stop breathing right as the last drops fell from a 1,000 milligram bottle of propofol given with an IV drip, White said.

White called Shafer's hypothesis an "incredible coincidence of circumstances."

Murray denies involuntary manslaughter but could face up to four years prison if convicted. His attorneys said earlier this week he will not testify in his own defense.

Murray told police he had been trying to wean Jackson off his dependence on propofol. But he claimed the singer begged him for the drug the day he died.

Prosecution witnesses have also testified that Murray delayed calling emergency services, failed to tell ambulance and hospital staff about the propofol, and say he should never have been giving Jackson the drug for insomnia at all.

(Editing by Jill Serjeant and Eric Walsh)

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Russell Pearce Targeted In Mailer For 'Tainted' Contributions

WASHINGTON -- With less than two weeks until the recall election of Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce, a national campaign watchdog group is sending political mailers criticizing the Republican for accepting trips and contributions from an organization accused of illegal behavior.

Pearce, a 10-year member of the Arizona state legislature and current Senate president, has been caught up in scandal in recent years for receiving questionable campaign contributions from the Fiesta Bowl organization. The hosts of the annual Arizona-based college football game allegedly told employees to donate to certain politicians and then illegally reimbursed them, the Arizona Republic reported in 2009.

Now, watchdog Public Campaign Action Fund is focusing on the Fiesta Bowl incidents in its Campaign Money Watch mailing initiative.

"After receiving thousands of dollars in tainted campaign contributions, it's no wonder Russell Pearce wants to gut campaign reform laws," the mailings read. "He's leading the effort to repeal Arizona's Clean Election Law and would allow corporations, special interests and lobbyists to dominate state politics."

The papers, which will begin arriving at Arizona homes on Wednesday, also feature the smiling face of Jerry Lewis, Pearce's Republican challenger. Lewis promises in campaign literature to reject gifts from special interest groups and introduce legislation that bans gifts for all legislators.

Pearce has made no such promises, and further investigation has found that Pearce also received $1,025 in contributions from high-level Fiesta Bowl executives in 2009. He went on two trips funded by Fiesta Bowl -- which is legal under Arizona law -- but denied accusations that he accepted free tickets to football games, which would be illegal.

The Fiesta Bowl incidents, along with Pearce's authorship of the controversial S.B. 1070 immigration law, have been a driving force behind the Pearce recall effort, led by Citizens for a Better Arizona. The recall election will take place on Nov. 8.

Pearce's office did not respond to a request for comment on the recall mail campaign.

As Arizona Senate president, Pearce also pushed for a full repeal of the Citizens Clean Elections Act, a 1998 law that allowed candidates to receive some public money to fund their campaigns if they collected enough $5 donations and declined special interest donors. If their opponent raised more money through other means, the candidate could receive additional funds from the state to match the figures.

The Supreme Court blocked provisions of the law in June 2011.

"He is an example of what is wrong in Arizona politics and why we need clean elections in the state," said David Donnelly, national campaigns director for Public Campaign Action Fund. "I think the voters have a very clear choice between these two. Pearce has demonstrated that he's part of the problem, and Lewis has made some pledges to clean it up."

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China admits jumping gun on new foreigners' tax (Reuters)

BEIJING (Reuters) ? A Chinese official admitted on Friday that they had jumped the gun on a new tax on foreign workers mandating they pay social security contributions before the government had worked out exactly how the system would be implemented.

But Xu Yanjun, deputy head of the Ministry of Human Resources' National Social Security Management Center, said there would be no going back on the scheme, despite concerns in the business community it will push up already rising costs.

"Local government have not made full arrangements yet for receiving the payments or registering people, that is the case," he told a news briefing.

"Maybe the legislation process has delayed the implementation ... Local governments have had some difficulty implementing the measures at an operational level. It will take time."

Local tax authorities have been asked to get the system running by the end of the year, but foreigners will have to back-pay contributions to Oct 15 when the rules went into effect, Xu added.

More than 200,000 foreign workers will have to pay the contributions, as will their employers.

He was unable to say how foreigners would be able to access services such as unemployment benefits, since work visas are tied to jobs and become invalid in the event of being laid off, or if there would be a special visa issued to enable pension claims.

"There is a difference in the way laws are made here compared with in the West. In China it is a level-by-level process, with implementation done at the local level," Xu said.

"We cannot at the moment address all questions once and for all ... Some new problems have come up and we are working hard to address them and we need some time to do so, rather than answering yes or no to any question at the moment."

Foreign executives in China have complained that the scheme will increase costs further in the world's second largest economy, and that the plan is too vague and will be hard for companies to implement.

Xu said China was simply following international commitments with the rules incorporating foreigners into its social security net and was committed to "protecting their rights".

China's rules will make it more like policies in many EU countries, where citizens and foreigners alike pay into the system.

China's existing social security net offers very meager protection for its own citizens, especially compared with some of the more generous schemes in Europe, and Xu did not give details on what exactly foreigners would be eligible for.

The tax will be about 10 percent of salaries, he said, and individual contributions will be refunded upon workers leaving China, he added, without saying how that would work.

Xu blamed foreign countries, including the United States, for refusing or being unwilling to talk to China about bilateral tax exemption agreements, so employees who pay contributions at home do not have to do so again in China.

"It's not for me to say who is not willing to talk about this, but we have felt that up to now the United States has not proposed discussing this with us," he said.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Ken Wills)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/china/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111028/wl_nm/us_china_tax_foreigners

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NBA: Union, not Cuban, proposed eliminating cap (AP)

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Report: Industry decides food ingredient safety

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? Thousands of ingredients that go into food have been classified as safe by private industry alone, without any government oversight, according to a new report published Wednesday.

Since the early 1960's, private companies and industry trade associations have determined at least 3,000 ingredients are safe, with no federal scrutiny, the study found. The ingredients include everything from artificially synthesized chemicals used in chewing gum to grape seed extract used in cheese and instant coffee.

The peer-reviewed report published in the Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety journal draws on research funded by the Pew Health Group, the health and consumer safety arm of the nonprofit Pew Charitable Trusts.

The Grocery Manufacturers Association says the industry only classifies ingredients as safe after a battery of rigorous biological tests but agrees that more transparency in the vetting process would help build consumer confidence.

"The system is less transparent than it should be so we're looking to open that dialogue," said Leon Bruner, the association's chief science officer, who agreed the study's estimates were reasonable. "We are completely comfortable with increasingly the transparency or the visibility of ingredients that go through the process."

The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act makes food manufacturers responsible for ensuring food ingredients are safe. Companies can classify an ingredient as "generally recognized as safe" for use in a specific product but aren't required to tell the Food and Drug Administration about what they find. Some do, through a voluntary notification program that gives the Food and Drug Administration a chance to review the findings.

Associated Press

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Dinosaurs Migrated, Tooth Fossils Confirm (LiveScience.com)

Gigantic plant-eating dinosaurs called sauropods took yearly jaunts to high ground to escape drought, new research suggests.

By analyzing fossilized dinosaur teeth, researchers determined that the dinosaurs migrated hundreds of miles from their home to find food and water during dry spells. This is the first direct evidence supporting the theory that certain types of dinosaurs migrated to avoid seasonal food slumps.

"Sauropods in western North America were living in an environment that was seasonally dry, that has a pronounced wet season and a pronounced dry season," said study researcher Henry Fricke of Colorado College. "If you have an animal that needs to eat a lot and drink a lot, it's going to have to move to access vegetation and to get water."

Tales dinosaur teeth tell

Every five to six months throughout a dinosaur's life, they would lose their teeth and grow new ones . The new growth contained elements that the dinosaurs took in from their food and water, and the elements differed by location.

The researchers focused on oxygen-18 isotopes (heavy atoms of the common element oxygen that have two extra, non-charged particles called neutrons) in the dinosaur teeth. The team found that the water and plants in lower-altitude regions of North America contained relatively high levels of oxygen-18. It was already known that highlands generally have lower levels of oxygen-18 in relation to lighter oxygen isotopes.

Next, the scientists measured the oxygen isotopes in sauropod (specifically the genus Camarasaurus) teeth found in the low-altitude Dinosaur National Monument in Utah and Thermopolis fossil bed in Wyoming. These formations were laid down between about 150 million and 100 million years ago.

Because the dinosaurs' isotope levels were lower than the levels found in the basin, the results indicated the dinosaurs had left the basin at some recent point and then returned.

"We attribute that to those dinosaurs having migrated out of the basin and drinking waters from somewhere else," Fricke said. The dinosaurs probably traveled more than 350 miles (600 kilometers) to find food and water in the highlands. "They appear to show isotopes from the highlands, but they were found in the basin."

Seasonal movements

It probably takes a few weeks for the isotopes to become part of the dinosaur's tooth enamel, so it's possible the dinosaurs with low oxygen-18 levels had just gotten back from their time in the highlands when they died. Not all of the dinosaurs showed the same isotope levels, since they probably died at different times of the year, including some that died just before leaving for their upland trek (and would have had the isotope signature of the lowlands).

Because of the dry seasons, the basin probably wasn't able to produce enough vegetation to support these gigantic plant-eating dinosaurs year-round.

This seasonal migration to the cooler, wetter highlands had been suggested before, but no solid evidence had been found supporting the theory. This is the first solid evidence backing up a claim that dinosaurs migrated, according to the study researchers.

Areas that were highlands haven't been preserved by nature, so no dinosaur fossils have been found there. "That's one of the biggest challenges in paleontology. Most sediments get deposited in the basins and the highlands erode away," Fricke said. "We don't have a good record of anything really, even mammals, in high-altitude environments."

The study was published today (Oct 26) in the journal Nature.

You can follow LiveScience staff writer Jennifer Welsh on Twitter @microbelover. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20111026/sc_livescience/dinosaursmigratedtoothfossilsconfirm

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Correction: Russia-Poland-Katyn story (AP)

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Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111024/ap_on_re_eu/eu_russia_poland_katyn_corrective

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Isabel Kaplan: Not in Someone Else's Words (Huffington post)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/151978174?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Busy Philipps: Motherhood Makes Me Relax

"Becoming a mom allowed me to just relax in a way I never had before," the I Don't Know How She Does It star, 32, tells Parenting. "I used to care a lot about what I looked like in public or what people thought of me. I care at least 40 percent less now."

Source: http://feeds.celebritybabies.com/~r/celebrity-babies/~3/tYJrGx19r2c/

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Nikon D300s travels to the edge of space, survives to share the results

If you're going to go to the trouble of sending a camera to the edge of space, you might as well send one capable of doing the trip justice, right? That hasn't always been the case with similar DIY attempts (for obvious reasons), but the team behind the so-called Cygnus "spacecraft" decided to go all out when they sent their weather balloon / beer cooler contraption aloft this month to photograph the curvature of the Earth. In this case, going all out meant sending a Nikon D300s DSLR equipped with Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens, which managed to capture some stunning pictures like the one you see above -- although some got a bit obscured by ice build-up. There's more where that came from at the Flickr link below, and you can check out a video of the launch after the break.

[Thanks, Udi]

Continue reading Nikon D300s travels to the edge of space, survives to share the results

Nikon D300s travels to the edge of space, survives to share the results originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 23 Oct 2011 14:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink DIY Photography  |  Erich Leeth (Flickr)  | Email this | Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/23/nikon-d300s-travels-to-the-edge-of-space-survives-to-share-the/

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Murdoch to pay $3.2 million to schoolgirl's family

LONDON (AP) ? Rupert Murdoch's company said Friday it has agreed to pay 2 million pounds ($3.2 million) to the family of a murdered schoolgirl whose phone was hacked by the tabloid News of the World.

News International and the family of Milly Dowler confirmed the settlement in a joint statement.

Murdoch shut down the 168-year-old News of the World in July after evidence emerged that its reporters had eavesdropped on the telephone voice mail messages of the 13-year-old who disappeared in 2002 and was later found murdered.

The statement said Murdoch also will donate 1 million pounds ($1.6 million) to charities chosen by the Dowler family.

"Nothing that has been agreed will ever bring back Milly or undo the traumas of her disappearance and the horrendous murder trial earlier this year," the Dowlers said in the statement. "The only way that a fitting tribute could be agreed was to ensure that a very substantial donation to charity was made in Milly's memory. We hope that projects will be undertaken so that some good can come from this."

The revelation that reporters eavesdropped on Milly Dowler's voice mail messages while police were searching for her ? and mounting evidence that phone hacking was routine at the newspaper ? shook Murdoch's media empire, and sent tremors through Britain's political, police and media establishments.

The scandal has forced the resignation of two of London's top police officers, ousted executives at Murdoch's News Corp. and claimed the job of Prime Minister David Cameron's former spin doctor, Andy Coulson, an ex-News of the World editor.

Murdoch's global News Corp. has expressed contrition, launched an internal inquiry and set aside 20 million pounds ($32 million) to compensate victims, who could number in their hundreds. Detectives have informed more than 450 people that they might have been spied on by the newspaper.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-10-21-EU-Britain-Phone-Hacking/id-a9a5b1dfadf4418296e2505c87da6543

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Edmundo Ros, who took Latin sound to London, dies (AP)

LONDON ? He introduced wartime Britain to the percussive rhythm of the rumba, so capturing the nation's imagination that its young princess chose his songs for her public dancing debut.

Bandleader Edmundo Ros, 100, died peacefully in his sleep, his family said Saturday.

Born in Trinidad to a Venezuelan mother and a Scottish father, Ros's musical career began in the Venezuelan army but took off after he moved to London in 1937. His five-piece Rumba Band was a runaway hit, playing for high society and international royalty.

His music was so popular that then-Princess Elizabeth had her first public dance to the sound of Ros' band in the 1940s. As queen, she would award him the Order of the British Empire for his services to entertainment.

Ros was effectively London's "ambassador for Latin American music," his son Douglas told The Associated Press.

Ros was a prolific artist, making more than 800 recordings over the course of his career. His 1949 number, "The Wedding Samba," sold 3 million copies.

His band was a fixture at Regent Street's Coconut Grove club, which he bought in 1951 and which counted Britain's Princess Margaret, Monaco's Prince Rainier and Sweden's Prince Bertil among its regulars, according to the musician's website.

The club's demanding standards ? ladies wearing broad-brimmed hats or trousers were denied admittance ? kept the clientele exclusive through the 1950s, but the relaxation of Britain's gambling laws in the 1960s began to hit his takings.

Ros sold the club and later retired to the Spanish resort city of Alicante, where he died on Friday night, according to a family statement.

Douglas Ros said a private funeral ceremony would take place in Spain.

___

Online:

http://www.edmundoros.com/

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obits/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111022/ap_en_mu/eu_britain_obit_ros

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Catherine Tate returning to "The Office" (Reuters)

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) ? If you're still bummed that Catherine Tate wasn't chosen as the new boss on "The Office," the show has a consolation prize for you: She'll return this season.

Tate's character, Nellie Bertram, appeared in last season's finale to interview for Michael Scott's former position. She returns as a "corporate special projects manager, and her relationship with Robert California will be far from professional," executive producer Paul Lieberstein said.

She will join in the second half of the season.

Tate's credits include the BBC series, "The Catherine Tate Show," in which she played a variety of characters. She played Donna Noble, the Doctor's companion, in the fourth series of BBC's "Doctor Who."

She has also co-starred in the feature films "Gulliver's Travels," "Monte Carlo," "Mrs. Ratcliffe's Revolution," "66" and "Starter for Ten."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tv/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111021/tv_nm/us_theoffice

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Hulu Plus coming to Nintendo 3DS and Wii (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) ? Hulu Plus will be available on Nintendo 3DS and Wii before the end of 2011, the gaming company announced on Friday.

With the addition, users will be able to stream TV and movies from the subscription service, but they will have to pay $7.99 per month to be a member.

Nintendo 3DS, a portable game console, will now also offer 3D video recording.

As VentureBeat points out, Wii has been an important platform for Hulu's chief rival Netflix. Hulu has lagged behind Netflix and other services in making its content available on mobile devices and gaming consoles.

Hulu was on the blocks for months, but its owners (News Corp., Comcast, Disney, but Providence Equity) abandoned those plans last week. Now it's on with trying to unseat Netflix from its throne or, at the very least, attempting to cut into its sizable market share.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personaltech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111021/media_nm/us_media_huluplus

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Libyans fight against last Gadhafi holdouts

A revolutionary fighter fires at Gadhafi loyalists in downtown Sirte, Libya, Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2011. About 1,000 Libyan revolutionary troops have launched a major assault on Moammar Gadhafi's hometown, surging from the east to try to capture the last area under loyalist control. (AP Photo/Manu Brabo)

A revolutionary fighter fires at Gadhafi loyalists in downtown Sirte, Libya, Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2011. About 1,000 Libyan revolutionary troops have launched a major assault on Moammar Gadhafi's hometown, surging from the east to try to capture the last area under loyalist control. (AP Photo/Manu Brabo)

A revolutionary fighter fires a rocket-propelled grenade at Gadhafi loyalists in downtown Sirte, Libya, Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2011. About 1,000 Libyan revolutionary troops have launched a major assault on Moammar Gadhafi's hometown, surging from the east to try to capture the last area under loyalist control. (AP Photo/Manu Brabo)

In this Monday, Oct. 17, 2011 photo, revolutionary fighters run across the street under heavy sniper fire carrying Bangladeshi children who were trapped in Sirte, Libya, during the entire siege of the city. Revolutionary fighters pushed hard on Monday to clear the remaining pockets resistance in Sirte but their efforts to advance were hampered severely by the well trained snipers still loyal to the Gadhafi regime. (AP Photo/David Sperry)

A revolutionary fighter looks on during fighting with Gadhafi loyalists in downtown Sirte, Libya, Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2011. About 1,000 Libyan revolutionary troops have launched a major assault on Moammar Gadhafi's hometown, surging from the east to try to capture the last area under loyalist control. (AP Photo/Manu Brabo)

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton meets Libyan soldiers at the steps of her C-17 military transport upon her arrival in Tripoli in Libya, Tuesday Oct. 18, 2011. The Obama administration on Tuesday increased U.S. support for Libya's new leaders as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made an unannounced visit to Tripoli and pledged millions of dollars in new aid, including medical care for wounded fighters and additional assistance to secure weaponry that many fear could fall into the hands of terrorists. (AP Photo/Kevin Lamarque, Pool)

SIRTE, Libya (AP) ? Libyan revolutionary forces fought building by building Wednesday against the final pocket of resistance in Moammar Gadhafi's hometown ? the last major city in Libya to have been under the control of forces loyal to the fugitive leader.

While Libya's transitional leadership worked to consolidate control over the entire country, the country's acting prime minister warned in a newspaper interview that Gadhafi can still cause trouble from his hiding place.

Mahmoud Jibril was quoted by the pan-Arab Asharq Al-Awsat paper Tuesday as saying that the ousted leader is moving between Niger, Algeria and the vast southern Libyan desert and has been trying to recruit fighters from Sudan to help him establish a separate state in the south, or to march to the north and destabilize the new regime.

The report could not be confirmed, but it underscored fears that the inability to catch Gadhafi, who escaped with two of his sons after revolutionary forces swept into Tripoli in late August, would allow him and his supporters to wage an insurgency.

"Gadhafi has two options: either to destabilize any new regime in Libya or to declare a separate state in the south," Jibril was quoted as saying, adding there was evidence about this but he didn't elaborate.

Suggesting that the U.S. also was concerned about the possibility, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said during a visit to Tripoli Tuesday that she hoped Gadhafi would be captured or killed.

Although two months have passed since Gadhafi fled the capital, Libya's new leaders have refrained from declaring national "liberation" until the fall of Sirte, which Gadhafi transformed from a fishing village into a modern city after he seized power in 1969.

Revolutionary forces on Tuesday pushed from the east into the small pocket of the city under the control of Gadhafi loyalists and captured a vegetable market, though they came under heavy fire from snipers and rocket-propelled grenades on the rooftops of residential buildings and homes along major streets.

On Wednesday, Wissam bin Hmade, the commander of one of the revolutionary brigades from the eastern city of Benghazi, said they had the Gadhafi supporters corralled in a 700 square meter residential area but were still facing heavy rocket and gunfire from snipers holed up in surrounding buildings.

It took the anti-Gadhafi fighters, who also faced disorganization in their own ranks, two days to capture a single residential building.

Another commander, Khaled al-Maghrabi, said 15 fighters were killed in a friendly fire incident.

It is unclear whether loyalists who slipped out of the besieged cities of Bani Walid, which was captured this week, and Sirte might continue the fight and attempt to organize an insurgency using the vast amount of weapons Gadhafi was believed to have stored in hideouts in the remote southern desert.

Unlike Iraq's Saddam Hussein, Gadhafi had no well-organized political party that could form the basis of an insurgent leadership. However, regional and ethnic differences have already appeared among the ranks of the revolutionaries, possibly laying the foundation for civil strife.

Gadhafi has issued several audio recordings trying to rally supporters. Libyan officials have said they believe he's hiding somewhere in the vast southwestern desert near the borders with Niger and Algeria.

The whereabouts of two of his sons also remain unknown, although commanders have said they believe Muatassim and Seif al-Islam are hiding in Sirte and Bani Walid, respectively. Seif al-Islam had been Gadhafi's likely choice to succeed him as Libya's leader.

Anti-Gadhafi fighters combed Bani Walid on Tuesday for signs of Seif al-Islam and other high-level regime figures in the desert enclave, 90 miles (140 kilometers) southeast of Tripoli.

"Seif was seen on Thursday. He was eating in a desert village close to the city," one field commander, Said Younis, said.

The Netherlands-based International Criminal Court has charged Seif al-Islam, his father and Gadhafi's former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senoussi with crimes against humanity for a brutal crackdown on the uprising.

___

Associated Press writer Maggie Michael contributed to this report from Cairo.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-10-19-ML-Libya/id-f772144bf8dc4ba891f255bf1b1fa889

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Yahoo meets low earnings expectations (Reuters)

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) ? Yahoo Inc has managed to meet low third quarter earnings targets, a rare feat for a company that has continually disappointed investors.

Yahoo, which is both fielding offers from potential buyers and searching for a new chief executive, posted slight decreases in net revenue and profit, but those declines were not unexpected.

Profit in the third-quarter totaled $293 million, or 23 cents per share, compared with net income of $396 million, or $29 per share, in the year-ago period. Yahoo's net revenue -- which excludes fees paid to partner websites -- was $1.07 billion, compared with $1.12 billion at this time last year, and in line with Wall Street expectations.

"It looks OK, nothing spectacular, but nothing disastrous, and nothing disastrous is good news for these guys," said Macquarie Research analyst Ben Schachter. "They're keeping their heads down and just trying to execute. As long as these guys didn't have completely terrible guidance, and they didn't, they should be OK."

Shares of Yahoo, which fired former CEO Carol Bartz in early September before the end of the third quarter, gained roughly 3 percent to $15.98 in after hours trading on Tuesday.

Not everyone was pleased by the results, however.

"What I really want to see is that they can stop the declining revenue. If we got a little revenue beat, that would be really nice. You can always squeeze more out of earnings," said BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis.

Yahoo has been in a state of chaos since the departure of Bartz. The company retained investment banking firm Allen & Co to help conduct a "strategic review" of its business and is reportedly working with executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles to find a new CEO. Interim-CEO Tim Morse declined to provide an update on either the strategic review or the CEO search process. Of the latter, he said only that "the board process was underway."

A number of potential buyers have expressed interest in a deal with Yahoo. Private equity firms Silver Lake Partners, Providence Equity Partners, Bain Capital, Hellman & Friedman, Blackstone Group, and KKR are among those likely to get a look at the limited financial data Yahoo's advisers are circulating.

Strategic buyers, including AOL, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Ltd, which already has a partnership with Yahoo, and Microsoft Corp are also interested. AOL Inc boss Tim Armstrong is said to be pushing investors for a Yahoo deal, while Microsoft, which offered to acquire Yahoo for $47.5 billion a few years ago, is weighing making another run, either by itself or in partnership with others.

Despite its struggles, Yahoo continues to be a marquee destination, with page views to the company's media properties up 9 percent in the quarter. The flip side, however, is that search queries were up a paltry 1 percent, while search page views fell 3 percent.

The Sunnyvale, Ca-based Internet icon, which has struggled to revive its online advertising business, said it agreed to extend the revenue per search guarantee in its deal with Microsoft through March 2013. The extension applies only to the United States and Canada, however.

Yahoo said it remains fully committed to the success of the search alliance and the extension represents an "important sign of that commitment."

Earlier this year, however, Yahoo said the partnership was taking longer than expected to pay off due to technical imperfections in the search advertising system. As a result, Yahoo said it did not expect revenue per search to return to pre-Microsoft levels until the end of the year.

Morse also declined to provide an update on when revenue per search would return to pre-deal levels.

"Having extended the RPS guarantee, there's no real reason to be talking about when we think the line crosses," Morse said.

Morse did say that premium display advertising sales were on target for the third quarter, but that non-premium ad sales has a bit of an "underrun." Morse added that, on a year-over-year basis, premium display ads sales were up less than 5 percent and non-premium ad sales were down a similar amount.

For the fourth-quarter, Yahoo projected net revenue of $1.125 billion to $1.235 billion, compared with $1.22 billion expected by analysts.

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; editing by Andre Grenon)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/search/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111018/bs_nm/us_yahoo

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