Horschel takes first PGA win at Zurich Classic

AVONDALE, La. (AP) ? Billy Horschel shot an 8-under 64 in the final round of the Zurich Classic, maintaining his composure through a pair of weather delays for his first-career PGA Tour victory on Sunday.

The 26-year-old former Florida Gator began the day two shots behind third-round leader Lucas Glover and surged into the lead with six straight birdies after the first weather delay. He finished at 20 under, narrowly holding off Shell Houston Open winner D.A. Points, who shot a final-round 65 to finish one shot behind.

The second delay happened before Horschel could take his second shot on the 18th hole, giving him 50 minutes to reflect on what was at stake ? $1.19 million and a two-year exemption.

Kyle Stanley shot a 5-under 67 to finish third, while Chinese 14-year-old amateur Guan Tianlang finished 71st after making his second cut in two PGA events, the first coming famously at the Masters.

Horschel sealed the win with a 27-foot birdie putt on 18, after which he pumped his arms and screamed in triumph, before sinking into a crouch and briefly pulling his cap over his face as the crowd roared.

Although Horschel had never won on the Tour, he had been playing the best golf of his young career lately, with three top 10 finishes in his past three tournaments ? tying for second in Houston, tying for third in San Antonio and tying for ninth in Hilton Head Island, S.C., a week ago.

He has also made a PGA Tour-leading 23 straight cuts, and had already earned $1.3 million this year. Now he has nearly doubled that, thanks to a final round which tied a single-round course record that has been matched several times, including by Rickey Barnes in Thursday's first round.

Horschel began the day at 12-under, two shots behind third-round Glover. He began to make his move up the leaderboard with his first birdie on the fifth hole.

His string of six straight birdies ran from seventh through 12th holes move him to 7-under on the round and 19-under for the tournament.

On the par-5 seventh hole, Horschel chipped from about 89 feet to within 2 feet to set up his first birdie putt. He made a 9-foot birdie putt on eight and then hit a 191-yard tee shot about 4 feet from the pin to set up a birdie on the par-3 ninth.

He made a birdie putts from 13? feet on 10, from 6 feet on 11 and 15? feet on 12.

Horschel bogeyed 15th hole after twice hitting in the right rough to fall back into a tie with Points.

But Horschel then birdied 16 by hitting a 109-yard approach within 5 feet, putting him back at 19-under and restoring his one-shot lead.

Points, playing in the same crowd-pleasing group as Horschel, birdied the 10th through 13th holes to stay on Horschel's heels. However, he left a 98-yard approach shot 30 feet short and left on 16, where he lost the lead.

Glover, the 2009 U.S. Open winner who was looking for his first Tour victory in about two years, took a two-shot lead into the final round and opened with five pars ? narrowly missing birdie when his put rimmed out on the first hole. He was about to line up a birdie putt from 27 feet when a horn sounded, signaling nearby lightning. Play was halted immediately and a downpour ensued shortly after, causing a 2-hour, 54-minute delay.

Glover two-putted for par when play resumed, then struggled on the seventh hole, hitting his drive to an uphill lie in the rough on the edge of a pot bunker. That forced him to lay up, and he chipped over the green and wound up with a bogey on a hole that many players birdied or eagled.

That dropped him out of the lead for good, and he wound up finishing tied for fourth with Bobby Gates, five shots off the lead.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/horschel-takes-first-pga-win-zurich-classic-232722088.html

kennedy center honors boxing day george h w bush Belk Led Zeppelin Ned Rocknroll Norman Schwarzkopf

Report: Algeria's president has mini-stroke

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, right, shakes hands with his South African counterpart Jacob Zuma as they pose for photographers prior to their meeting at the presidential palace in Algiers, Algeria, Monday, April 15, 2013. (AP Photo/Anis Belghoul)

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, right, shakes hands with his South African counterpart Jacob Zuma as they pose for photographers prior to their meeting at the presidential palace in Algiers, Algeria, Monday, April 15, 2013. (AP Photo/Anis Belghoul)

ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) ? Algeria's president was hospitalized Saturday after having a mini-stroke without serious complications, the state news agency said.

Abdelaziz Bouteflika, 76, had a brief blockage of a blood vessel ? called a transient ischemic attack ? around noon, Rachid Bougherbal, the director of the national center of sports medicine told the state news agency.

"His excellency the president of the republic must observe a period of rest for further examinations," he said, adding that "there was no reason for worry."

Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal said the president was hospitalized, "but the situation is not serious."

Bouteflika has ruled the oil-rich North African country since 1999 and has long believed to be in poor health and rarely appears in public. The state news agency rarely carries any reports on the president's health

The announcement also comes as speculation is rife that Bouteflika will run for a fourth term in presidential elections just a year away, despite promises to step down. In Algeria, power is delicately shared between civilian politicians and the powerful military.

Algeria is one of Africa's richest countries, as the No. 3 supplier of natural gas to Europe, with $190 billion in reserves, up $8 billion in the last year alone.

On Jan. 16, a band of al-Qaida affiliated militants attacked the Ain Amenas gas plant and took dozens of foreign workers hostage. After a four-day standoff, the Algerian army moved in and killed 29 attackers and captured three others. At least 37 hostages, including one Algerian worker, died in the battle.

According to the American Stroke Association, a TIA, as it is known, is caused by a temporary blood clot and lasts just a short time and "usually causes no permanent injury to the brain." A third of those suffering from TIA, also known as "warning strokes," go on to have a full stroke within the next year, according to website of the association.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-04-27-Algeria-President%20Stroke/id-e4bf422ef18c4ceda1c5ad28a03fa264

easter 2012 jeremy lin espn sassafras mardi gras 2012 the secret world of arrietty cee lo allen iverson

efemr Is Snapchat For Twitter Which Can Only End Well

So yeah, efemr is a web app that scrubs tweets after the amount of time you hashtag. Want a tweet gone after five minutes? #5m. Two hours? #2h. You get the gist. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/J5jJAarOxd4/efemr-is-snapchat-for-twitter-which-can-only-end-well

jason campbell doobie brothers jennie garth peter facinelli marques colston free agents nfl 2012 milwaukee bucks bear grylls

kikay trekkie: PRODUCT REVIEW: THE FACE SHOP - NATURAL ...

skip to main | skip to sidebar

PRODUCT REVIEW: THE FACE SHOP - NATURAL SUN SMART CUSHION SPF 50 PA+++

DISCLAIMER: This product was sent to me by The Face Shop Philippines?as a gift. ?This is now available in?The Face Shop Philippines?branches in major malls all over metro manila and retails for PhP1195. (you can question me on this as far as i can recall this product is NOT MORE THAN php1300, so di sya mamahal sa 1300 pero lampas ng 1100, better yet, tanong nyo mismo sa the face shop ^_^ )
The product description is below:
A liquid type of sunscreen that enables easy application with a cushion sponge.
Just like my beloved, this, too, comes in a compact type of container
has a mirror and a rubber sponge applicator
the mirror is covered with a plastic sheet
and these things, i love the application of these rubber sponges.
there is no grain so application is smooth and without streaks
the product has a lid and below it a safety seal
as shown here below once i've peeled off the seal
this is a little less sticky than my beloved. ?this has more of a foundation feel
but it blends out well and gives my skin a nice healthy looking sheen
the directions are below.
and below are the ingredients
product description from the box
a picture of me with no flash used. ?the smart bb on the right side of my face while no product on the left side of my face.
with the flash on, the smart bb on the right side of my face while no product on the left side of my face.
and with the powder to set and some blush. ?the thing i like about most bb products is that they really make me look healthy. ?they brighten up my skin yet unlike full on foundations, you can still see my skin underneath. ?so most bb creams are like tinted veils. ?
LIKES:

DISLIKES:

• none that i can think off except maybe the price, my my beloved costs php1950 for the compact and a refill while this is php1195 without refill.?

RECOMMENDATIONS: Apart from samples, which you know from my beloved, that it is possible for Korea to release samples for these, in the tiny little tubs and cute little 1 inch diameter sponges with 4 grams of product, this product from the face shop is a good investment for you to try if you think that shelling out 2k on my beloved is too high and for two that you may end up not liking. ?[MEANING - kahit wala pang ni-rerelease na samples ang face shop korea / ph for this smart cushion, kahit alam nating posibleng magka samples ng mga ganintong item, I RECOMMEND for you gals to try this anyway isa lang naman di gaya ng kabila 2 agad eh baka naman di nyo magustuhan, at least itong sa the face shop isa lang.]

?

Source: http://kikaytrekkie.blogspot.com/2013/04/product-review-face-shop-natural-sun.html

usain bolt Closing Ceremony London 2012 Tom Daley Leryn Franco The Campaign Kinesio tape randy travis

Hope Against Hope

Anti-gun activists gather in McPherson Square in Washington D.C. on April 25, 2013

Photo by Larry Downing/Reuters

In its heyday, Occupy D.C. spread like kudzu over most of McPherson Square, conveniently located right between the White House and K Street. The encampment was razed 14 months ago; the only evidence that dozens of humans used to sleep, book-share, and ?mic check? there is the sad, randomly patchy state of the grass.

On Thursday, the grass was trampled one more time, for a cause. Occupy the NRA was starting its marquee media event in the park. The collective handed out new Shepard Fairey-designed posters, which featured an ironic NRA logo of a bird with a target on its chest and a slogan slightly less catchy than HOPE:

AMERICA, the Land Where God Saves & Satan Invests in Assault Weapons and High Capacity Magazines

A crowd of 60 or so activists gathered in front of a stage, flanked by novelty-sized checks that thanked lobbying groups ?for shooting down common-sense gun laws.? Two dozen reporters flitted around, making the most of a rally that had been scheduled to happen nine days earlier, before the Boston Marathon bombing Occupied the news cycle. It was up to ?activist and teacher? Justin Wedes to explain the connection between the movement, the march, and the restless anger over gun control?s April defeat.

?I?m not speaking for Occupy Wall Street,? he said. ?Nobody speaks for Occupy Wall Street. I?m a teacher, and a concerned citizen. I?m seeing the violence happening across this country. I?m seeing young kids die. I?m seeing mothers crying. It?s unacceptable, and to Occupy Wall Street, and to every Occupier, it should be unacceptable because these deaths are profitable. It?s profitable to the groups whose names you see on these checks here.? So he?d join their march, walked as close as possible to the lobbyists? offices, and shamed those names. ?I consider this a form of economic vigilante justice,? he said.

The recent gun control debate, which lasted roughly from the week of the Newtown shooting to last week, saw an oddly controlled spasm of political activism. The Obama administration and pro-gun bill Democrats basically got to pick their advocates?victims? families, Gabrielle Giffords, Michael Bloomberg, Michael Bloomberg?s bottomless checking account. The angry people let into the Senate gallery last week were siblings and mothers of shooting spree victims, not Occupiers. These were the people Joe Biden met with, just today, not far from the Occupy gathering.

But that didn?t work. The next gun control campaign is more anarchic. Democrats pulled their Senate reform package because doing so meant?theoretically!?tweaking it and winning a vote later in the year. But they haven?t updated their applause lines. Democrats still describe ?background checks,? however constructed, as something supported by ?90 percent of Americans.? That?s after the White House?s pollster Joel Benenson told them that the support was soft, and told them why. ?The American people already think that these gun safety proposals are in place,? said Joe Biden last month. After the other pollsters moved on, Princeton Survey Research made the calls and found support for any kind of gun bill slipping to a 49-45 yes-no margin.

Any gun control advocate who was honest with himself had to expect that. The Newtown shooting was in December; people have short memories, even for most sorts of national traumas. Some Democrats whisper that another shooting, another media frenzy, could restart the clock. In the meantime, they?re aimless. On Wednesday, Bloomberg?s Mayors Against Illegal Guns belatedly released a report fretting about the ?terror gap,? the fact that people on terror watchlists can buy guns. But there?s no evidence that the Tsarnaev brothers were on such a list. In 2007, Wayne LaPierre smacked down one legislative version of a fix by warning that it would bestow upon ?a future attorney general of the United States?think, a Hillary Clinton administration?power to declare anyone to be a ?prohibited person? on a par with a convicted felon or fugitive from justice, all done in total secrecy.?

The goal of the December-through-April gun fight was simply to win, on anything. ?There?s a cultural problem you need to deal with first,? said one of the Thursday organizers, Steve Clermont, as leaders told the marchers with the novelty checks to head to the front. ?Once you pass a bill, then people who are up for re-election in 2014 win anyway, the attitude changes.?

The grassroots and the White House agree on that, completely. The entire Thursday march was structured to accuse lobbyists of literally profiting from murder?no other motivation was possible. But where?s the proof that a top-down strategy, a Senate win on something called ?the gun control compromise,? would change this? The month of Obama-Biden gun control speeches during the pre-Manchin-Toomey lull got incredibly specific about the NRA, with the president mocking anyone who would worry about losing an A-plus rating from the group.

Shaming rural state politicians who crib NRA rhetoric doesn?t move them. It freezes them in place. ?I'm so frustrated by the tenor of this discussion that this will solve a problem that it won't solve,? North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp told the Williston (N.D.) Herald this month, before voting against the Toomey-Manchin gun compromise. ?People who have always been opposed to guns are making this about guns, when we should be making it about mental health.?

I walked in the mix with the Occupy NRA crowd as they crowded the first of the targeted lobby shops. They didn?t get close; police, who?d kindly let the marchers walk freely on D.C.?s main streets, formed a line in front of the building, several floors below the target?s office. (Also, no one leading the march remembered who the target was?Crossroads Strategies, maybe.)

?We need to get clever, like the NRA,? said Leah Gunn Barnett. She was the executive director of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, one of the speakers at the rally, right after a mother whose daughter had been shot in D.C. ?They?ve been working away at passing concealed carry laws in the states for years. That?s how you win, not with something at the federal level. We have to change norms, and that starts at the local level.?

Just then the protest actually got underway, and drowned out our conversation.

Down with lobbyists! Down with the NRA!

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=bce13241a36f8a6e9f4854bd7f48f173

free agents nfl 2012 milwaukee bucks bear grylls us news law school rankings gael glen rice jr bars

A look at North Korea's military capabilities

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) ? North Korea's military, founded 81 years ago Thursday, is older than the country itself. It began as an anti-Japanese militia and is now the heart of the nation's "military first" policy.

Late leader Kim Jong Il elevated the military's role during his 17-year rule, boosting troop levels to an estimated 1.2 million soldiers, according to the South Korean government. The military's new supreme commander, Kim Jong Un, gave the Korean People's Army a sharpened focus this year by instructing troops to build a "nuclear arms force."

The secretive army divulges few details about its operations, but here is an assessment from foreign experts of its strengths and weaknesses:

___

ARTILLERY

North Korea provided a chilling reminder of what its artillery is capable of when it showered a front-line South Korean island with shells, killing four people in November 2010 and underscoring the threat that its artillery troops pose at the disputed sea border.

South Korea says North Korea has more than 13,000 artillery guns, and its long-range batteries are capable of hitting the capital Seoul, a city of more than 10 million people just 30 miles (50 kilometers) from the border.

"North Korea's greatest advantage is that its artillery could initially deliver a heavy bombardment on the South Korean capital," Mark Fitzpatrick, a former U.S. State Department official now with the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said in an email.

South Korea's defense minister estimates that 70 percent of North Korean artillery batteries along the border could be "neutralized" in five days if war broke out. But Sohn Yong-woo, a professor at the Graduate School of National Defense Strategy of Hannam University in South Korea, said that would be too late to prevent millions of civilian casualties and avert a disastrous blow to Asia's fourth-largest economy.

___

SPECIAL FORCES

Experts believe guerrilla warfare would be the North's most viable strategy in the event of conflict, since its conventional army suffers from aging equipment and a shortage of firepower.

Seoul estimates North Korea has about 200,000 special forces, and Pyongyang has used them before.

In 1968, 31 North Korean commandos stormed Seoul's presidential Blue House in a failed assassination attempt against then-President Park Chung-hee. That same year, more than 120 North Korean commandos sneaked into eastern South Korea and killed some 20 South Korean civilians, soldiers and police officers.

In 1996, 26 North Korean agents infiltrated South Korea's northeastern mountains after their submarine broke down, sparking a manhunt that left all but two of them dead, along with 13 South Korean soldiers and civilians.

"The special forces' goal is to discourage both the United States and South Korea from fighting with North Korea at the earliest stage of war by putting major infrastructure, such as nuclear plants, and their citizens at risk," said Kim Yeon-su, a professor at Korea National Defense University in Seoul. "The North's special forces are a key component of its asymmetric capabilities along with nuclear bombs, missiles and artillery. Their job is to create as many battlefronts as possible to put their enemies in disarray."

___

ON LAND, BY SEA AND IN THE AIR

In March 2010, 46 South Korean sailors died in a Yellow Sea attack on their warship that Seoul blamed on a North Korean submarine. Pyongyang denies involvement. Separately, since 1999, North and South Korean navies have fought three bloody skirmishes near their disputed western maritime border. Experts say those battles show while the South has an edge in naval firepower and technology, the North relies on the element of surprise.

North Korea has 70 submarines while South Korea has 10, according to Seoul's Defense Ministry. The most menacing threats from the North's navy are small submarines that would deposit commando raiders along the South Korean coast, said John Pike, head of the Globalsecurity.org think tank.

North Korea also has 820 warplanes, more than South Korea, though Seoul is backed up by American air power. The South says most of the North's aircraft are obsolete. North Korea also suffers chronic fuel shortages that have forced its air force to cut sorties, experts say.

"North Korea would not be able to prosecute a full-fledged war for very long," Fitzpatrick said. "Its biggest problem is that North Korea would quickly lose control of the skies because of the vastly superior (South Korean) and U.S. air forces. The reported number of North Korean aircraft is meaningless, because many of them cannot fly, and North Korean pilots have little training in the air."

The U.S. stations 28,500 U.S. troops in South Korea and has recently flown nuclear-capable stealth B-2 bombers and F-22 fighter jets during joint drills in a show of force aimed at deterring North Korea.

Logistics and supplies are another issue. Heavy equipment deployed by naval and air forces requires extensive repairs, especially on rugged terrain like the Korean Peninsula. South Korea's Defense Ministry estimates North Korea's wartime resources, mostly stored underground, would last only two to three months.

"North Korea's only chance of winning any war depends on how quickly it can end one," Sohn said.

North Korea could try to compensate for its lack of effective equipment with sheer manpower. North Korea, a country of about 25 million, has an estimated 7.7 million reserves.

___

MISSILES AND NUCLEAR WEAPONS

North Korea says it needs to develop nuclear weapons as a deterrent against U.S. aggression. It has conducted three underground nuclear tests since 2006, the most recent in February.

Pyongyang is believed to have enough weaponized plutonium for four to eight nuclear bombs, according to Siegfried Hecker, a nuclear expert with Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation.

But he doubts Pyongyang has mastered the technology to tip a missile with a nuclear warhead. "I don't believe North Korea has the capacity to attack the United States with nuclear weapons mounted on missiles and won't for many years," he said on the website of Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies this month.

Bruce Bennett, a Rand Corp. expert, said earlier this month that it's very unlikely the North has a nuclear missile capable of hitting the U.S. but said there is a "reasonable chance" that Pyongyang has short-range nuclear missile capability.

___

CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS

North Korea denies it runs any chemical and biological weapons programs. South Korea claims that Pyongyang has up to 5,000 tons of chemical weapons.

The IISS says that although the figures are "highly speculative," the North probably does possess chemical and biological arms programs.

"Whatever the actual status of North Korea's chemical and biological capabilities, the perception that it has, or likely has, chemical and biological weapons contributes to Pyongyang's interest in creating uncertainties in Washington, Seoul and Tokyo and raises the stakes to deter or intimidate potential enemies," it said on its website. North Korea is not a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention, but it has acceded to the non-binding Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention.

___

Follow Sam Kim on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/samkim_ap

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-04-25-NKorea-Military/id-77ae1fb7183f48619e62bc27ced05dc1

andrew luck andrew luck trent richardson robert griffin iii dontari poe space shuttle nyc monkeypox

Officials: Dead bomber name in terrorism database

FILE - This combination of undated file photos shows Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, left, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19. The FBI says the two brothers are the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing, and are also responsible for killing an MIT police officer, critically injuring a transit officer in a firefight and throwing explosive devices at police during a getaway attempt in a long night of violence that left Tamerlan dead and Dzhokhar captured, late Friday, April 19, 2013. The ethnic Chechen brothers lived in Dagestan, which borders the Chechnya region in southern Russia. They lived near Boston and had been in the U.S. for about a decade, one of their uncles reported said. Since Monday, Boston has experienced five days of fear, beginning with the marathon bombing attack, an intense manhunt and much uncertainty ending in the death of one suspect and the capture of the other. (AP Photo/The Lowell Sun & Robin Young, File)

FILE - This combination of undated file photos shows Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, left, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19. The FBI says the two brothers are the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing, and are also responsible for killing an MIT police officer, critically injuring a transit officer in a firefight and throwing explosive devices at police during a getaway attempt in a long night of violence that left Tamerlan dead and Dzhokhar captured, late Friday, April 19, 2013. The ethnic Chechen brothers lived in Dagestan, which borders the Chechnya region in southern Russia. They lived near Boston and had been in the U.S. for about a decade, one of their uncles reported said. Since Monday, Boston has experienced five days of fear, beginning with the marathon bombing attack, an intense manhunt and much uncertainty ending in the death of one suspect and the capture of the other. (AP Photo/The Lowell Sun & Robin Young, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The federal government added the name of the dead Boston Marathon bombing suspect to a terrorist database 18 months before the deadly explosions, U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The CIA made the request to add Tamerlan Tsarnaev's name to the terrorist database after the Russian government contacted the agency with concerns that he had become a follower of radical Islam. About six months earlier, the FBI had separately investigated Tsarnaev, also at Russia's request, but the FBI found no ties to terrorism, officials said.

The new disclosure that Tsarnaev was included within a huge, classified database of known and suspected terrorists before the attacks was expected to drive congressional inquiries in coming weeks about whether the Obama administration adequately investigated tips from Russia that Tsarnaev had posed a security threat. Shortly after the bombings, U.S. officials said the intelligence community had no information about threats to the marathon before the April 15 explosions.

Tsarnaev died Friday in a police shootout hours before his younger brother, Dzhokhar, was discovered hiding in a boat in a suburban back yard.

The terrorist database is called TIDE, the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment. Analysts at the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center submit names and even partial names into TIDE. About a year ago, there were some 745,000 people listed in the database. Intelligence analysts scour TIDE, trying to establish connections and update files as new intelligence is uncovered.

For entries with a full name, date of birth and intelligence indicating a reasonable suspicion that a person is a terrorist or has terror ties, the person's name is sent to a terror watch list, which feeds into lists like the one that bans known or suspected terrorists from traveling on planes.

Officials say they never found the type of derogatory information on Tsarnaev that would have elevated his profile among counterterrorism investigators and placed him on the terror watch list.

Five days after the U.S. determined who was allegedly behind the deadly Boston marathon terror attacks, Washington is piecing together what happened and whether there were any unconnected dots buried in U.S. government files that, if connected, could have prevented the bombings.

Lawmakers who were briefed by the FBI said they have more questions than answers about the investigation of Tsarnaev. U.S. officials were expected to brief the Senate on the investigation Thursday.

"The review is just beginning, but I haven't seen any red flags thus far," said Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat who sits on the House Intelligence Committee and was briefed on the investigation Wednesday. House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., however, said lawmakers intend to pursue whether there was a breakdown in information-sharing.

U.S. officials described to the AP what the government knew about Tsarnaev since he was first placed on the intelligence community's radar 18 months ago. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the ongoing investigation.

Russia's internal security service, the FSB, sent information to the FBI about Tamerlan Tsarnaev on March 4, 2011. The Russians told the FBI that Tsarnaev, an ethnically Chechen Russian immigrant living in the Boston area, was a follower of radical Islam and had changed drastically since 2010. Because of the subsequent FBI inquiry, Tsarnaev's name was added to a Homeland Security Department database used by U.S. officials at the border to help screen people coming in and out of the U.S. That database is called the Treasury Enforcement Communications System, or TECS.

The FBI's Boston office opened a preliminary review of Tsarnaev and searched government databases for potentially terror-related communications. Investigators looked into whether Tsarnaev used online sites that promoted radical activity. They interviewed Tsarnaev and his family members but found nothing connecting him to terror activity. The FBI shared that information with Russia and also asked for more information on Tsarnaev, but never heard back. The FBI's review into Tsarnaev was closed in June 2011.

Then, in late September 2011, Russia separately contacted the CIA with nearly identical concerns about Tsarnaev. The Russians provided two possible birthdates for him and a variation of how his name might be spelled, as well as the spelling in the Russian-style Cyrillic alphabet.

The CIA determined that Tsarnaev should be included in TIDE, and the National Counterterrorism Center added it into the database. The spelling of Tsarnaev's name in TIDE was not the same as the spelling the FBI used in its investigation. The CIA also shared this information with other federal agencies in October.

In January 2012, Tsarnaev traveled to Russia and returned to the U.S. in July. Three days before he left for Russia, the TECS database generated an alert on Tsarnaev. That alert was shared with a Customs and Border Protection officer who is a member of the FBI's Boston joint terrorism task force. By that time, the FBI's investigation into Tsarnaev had been closed for nearly six months because the FBI uncovered no evidence that he was tied to terror groups.

On Jan. 21, 2012, the airline on which Tsarnaev was traveling misspelled his name when it submitted its list of passengers to the U.S. government for security screening. Airlines are required to provide the list of passengers on international flights so the U.S. can check their names through government databases, including the terrorist watch list. Because his name was misspelled, there was not another alert like there was three days earlier.

In July 2012, Tsarnaev returned to the U.S., and another alert was generated in TECS. This information was again shared with the Customs and Border Protection officer on the FBI's Boston joint terrorism task force. But because the FBI had closed its investigation into Tsarnaev a year earlier, there was no reason to be suspicious of his travels to Russia.

"Later on, these agencies will be judged," said Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. "But right now, it's way too soon to criticize or to start making political arguments or who failed or whatever."

___

Associated Press writer Pete Yost contributed to this report.

___

Follow Eileen Sullivan on Twitter: http://twitter.com/esullivanap

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-04-24-Boston%20Marathon-Washington/id-cc46b79e47b1477d98fe94d31b4fc042

Alfonso Ribeiro adam sandler College Football Scoreboard nfl scores nfl scores Devon Walker Tom Cruise

Appeals court upholds EPA ruling on W.Va. mine

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) -- A federal appeals court says the Environmental Protection Agency had the legal authority to veto permits for one of West Virginia's largest mountaintop removal coal mines.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Tuesday reversed a lower court's ruling and sent the case back for further proceedings.

In 2011, the EPA revoked a water-pollution permit the Army Corps of Engineers had issued four years earlier to St. Louis-based Arch Coal for its 2,300-acre Spruce No. 1 mine.

The EPA said destructive, unsustainable mining practices would cause irreparable environmental damage and threaten the health of people nearby.

Industry, politicians and state regulators wanted the appeals court to uphold a federal judge's ruling that EPA overstepped its authority.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/appeals-court-upholds-epa-ruling-155808897.html

Connecticut shooting Nancy Lanza school shootings Jenni Rivera Adam Lanza Facebook the hobbit mick jagger

Anthrax, Ricin, or Smallpox: Which Are the Deadliest Bioterrorism Agents?

In between the Boston Marathon bombings and the devastating explosion in West, Texas last week, Americans also heard about the interception of several pieces of mail meant for President Obama, Senator Roger Wicker, and a Mississippi judge. All contained ricin, a poison made from castor beans. After 30 years of relative obscurity, ricin was back in the news.

This potent killer first made headlines back in 1978 when the dissident Bulgarian writer Georgi Markov was murdered with an umbrella as he waited for a bus in London.? The umbrella, rigged with a hidden weapon in the tip, injected a poison capsule under the writer?s skin. Very James Bond.?

?

?

But ricin?s origins are actually pretty humble: It's an organic compound in castor beans that's removed when the beans are processed in castor oil.? Once consumed, ricin enters cells and stops them from making protein, which they need to survive, explains the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).? Symptoms usually appear in less than 24 hours and can include?depending on whether ricin was ingested, inhaled, or delivered some other way, as by weaponized umbrella?fever, seizures, fluid in the lungs, and organ failure. Ricin can?t be transmitted person-to-person, but once it enters the body there?s no antidote.? The body will fight the poison?s effects, but if the dose was big enough poisoning will lead to death.?

Fortunately, you can?t poison someone just through skin contact with ricin, so the threat from last week?s letters was probably low. News reports, including CNN, described the poison in the letters as a ?loose granular substance,? which would have required the recipient to ingest or inhale traces of the granules to get the desired effect.

The scarier part of this potentially deadly mail delivery is the light it shined on something dreadful about this particular brand of terrorism: Bioterrorism can turn almost anything into a weapon. The CDC defines bioterrorism as ?the deliberate release of viruses, bacteria, and other germs (agents) used to cause illness or death.?? Instead of bombs bioterrorists use plague; instead of guns they use anthrax. With bioterrorism, the typical instruments we associate with aggression and war are no longer relevant.? The source of our fear may be a vial of perfume or a fine white powder?even an umbrella.

So how do we prepare and defend against an attack that could come in a very innocuous?even invisible?form? The model for what we do is similar to how we fight infectious diseases like influenza: For the flu, the CDC coordinates various surveillance operations to monitor illness and creates its weekly FluView report.? To prepare for flu outbreaks, the government stockpiles products like vaccines and promotes emergency response preparedness so healthcare workers know exactly what to do if an outbreak happens. For bioterrorism, the Department of Homeland Security runs the National Biosurveillance Integration Center, which watches for trends in high-threat diseases. Homeland Security also works to improve rapid response by implementing emergency readiness, quarantine, and mass protocols to protect the public in case of an attack.?

The CDC?categorizes potential bioterror agents by class: Class A?the highest priority?are diseases that can be transmitted between people and have high mortality rates, such as anthrax and smallpox.? Class B and Class C aren?t nearly so scary; in fact, they only require enhanced surveillance, not action to protect the public.

The perceived reduced threat for agents that aren?t in Class A points up a paradox about bioterrorism: While bioterrorists successfully turn mundane objects into weapons, the weapons are often better at producing fear than actual fatalities. Ricin, which is a Class B bioterror agent, is actually responsible for only one murder in history?the unfortunate Mr. Markov.

For now, any focus on preparedness will likely be focused on those potentially devastating Class A agents, which in addition to smallpox and anthrax also include botulism, plague, tularemia, and viral hemorraghic fevers, like the Ebola and Marburg viruses. A scary line-up, for sure.

--By Jason Hayes

Are you worried about a bioterrorist attack? What agent do you think is most likely to be used?

Related Stories on TakePart:

??How a Virus Changes the World

??U.S. Says Terrorists Sewing Bombs Inside Humans

??Ebola: Still the Scariest Virus Out There?

---

The Disease Daily?is created by a team of medical doctors, veterinarians, and public health professionals who believe that infectious disease news should be accessible and comprehensible to everyone. As a publication from?HealthMap?at?Boston Children's Hospital, The Disease Daily has access to real-time reporting of infectious disease events all over the world. While HealthMap alerts thecommunity to the outbreaks, The Disease Daily puts those alerts into context, showing readers the impact of infectious disease on policy, economics, and community.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/anthrax-ricin-smallpox-deadliest-bioterrorism-agents-184111144.html

gisele bundchen the bourne legacy roland martin suspended lake vostok montgomery county public schools the river dr dog

3 Doors Down bassist released on $100K bond

Nashville Police Dept. / Reuters

Robert Todd Harrell in his Nashville Police Department mugshot.

By Natalie Finn, E! Online

Todd Harrell is a free man for now.?The 3 Doors Down bassist has been released from jail on a $100,000 bond after being charged with vehicular homicide for allegedly causing a fatal crash in Nashville late Friday night while under the influence, E! News confirmed Tuesday.

Harrell, 41, is reportedly due in court on Thursday.

NEWS: DUI trouble for Todd Harrell in 2012

According to the Nashville Police Department, Harrell was speeding on the I-40 highway in his 2011 Cadillac CTS when he clipped a 2003 Ford F-150 truck, which then struck a guardrail, skidded down an embankment and overturned. The driver of the truck, Paul Howard Shoulders, Jr., died a short time later at a nearby hospital.

Harrell told authorities that he had been drinking hard cider that night and had taken the prescription drugs Lortab and Xanax, police said. He is also charged with bringing controlled substances into a jail after a search allegedly turned up Oxycodone, Xanax and Oxymorphone pills in a plastic bag stuffed in his sock.

Following his arrest, 3 Doors Down announced that they were canceling four upcoming shows and would not resume performing until May 31 in Moscow.

PHOTOS: See more celebrity mug shots

Related content:

Source: http://todayentertainment.today.com/_news/2013/04/24/17893438-3-doors-down-bassist-todd-harrell-leaves-jail-due-to-face-homicide-charge?lite

revolution huffington post What is ricin Boston Marathon Explosion Boston Marathon bombing irs new york times

Bombing suspect could face death penalty

Tsarnaev (AP/File)

Terror charges have been formally filed against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 19-year-old suspected of helping carry out the bomb attack last week's Boston Marathon, killing three and wounding more then 200 others.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Tsarnaev has been charged with "using a weapon of mass destruction against persons and property at the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013, resulting in the death of three people and injuries to more than 200 people."

Tsarnaev made his made initial appearance before magistrate judge in his hospital bed at the heavily-guarded Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he remains in serious condition. According to a federal official, Tsarnaev is sedated and unable to speak.

Tsarnaev one count of "using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction (namely, an improvised explosive device or IED) against persons and property within the United States resulting in death, and one count of malicious destruction of property by means of an explosive device resulting in death." If convicted, Tsarnaev could face the death penalty.

[Related: Tsarnaev remains in serious condition at hospital, FBI says]

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Boston, the judge advised Tsarnaev of his rights and the charges against him. Tsarnaev declined to answer bail questions and agreed to a probable cause hearing, set for May 30, 2013. "Court is satisfied that the defendant is alert and able to respond to the charges," the criminal complaint unsealed Monday read. Tsarnaev is now in the custody of U.S. Marshals.

?Although our investigation is ongoing, today?s charges bring a successful end to a tragic week for the city of Boston, and for our country,? U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement. ?Our thoughts and prayers remain with each of the bombing victims and brave law enforcement professionals who lost their lives or suffered serious injuries as a result of this week?s senseless violence. Thanks to the valor of state and local police, the dedication of federal law enforcement and intelligence officials, and the vigilance of members of the public, we?ve once again shown that those who target innocent Americans and attempt to terrorize our cities will not escape from justice. We will hold those who are responsible for these heinous acts accountable to the fullest extent of the law.?

Earlier Monday, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Tsarnaev would not be held as enemy combatant.

Tsarnaev was brought by ambulance to the facility after he was captured in Watertown, Mass., on Friday, following an intense manhunt that included at least two shootouts with police and ended with the bloodied suspect taken into custody from a tarp-covered boat he had been hiding in. He apparently suffered gunshot wounds to the neck and leg.

Tsarnaev's 26-year-old brother, Tamerlan, the other suspect wanted by the FBI, was killed during a late-night firefight with police in Watertown. Tsarnaev managed to escape on foot, prompting a citywide lockdown as police conducted a house-by-house search for the alleged killer.

The Tsarnaev brothers, who were born in the former Russian territory known as Kyrgyzstan and are of Chechen descent, lived in Cambridge, Mass., for several years. Dzhokhar became a naturalized American citizen last year.

Under U.S. law, authorities had 72 hours after Tsarnaev's arrest to file a criminal complaint against him.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/dzhokhar-tsarnaev-terror-charges-filed-173308381.html

bachelor justin timberlake gerard butler danielle fishel daylight savings Daylight Savings Time 2013 DeAndre Jordan

Syrian activists fear heavy toll near Damascus

BEIRUT (AP) ? Six days of fighting near Damascus has killed at least 100 people and possibly many more, activists said Monday, in what both sides say may be a dramatic spike in the Syria's civil war death toll.

The reports came as President Bashar Assad's forces pressed an offensive against rebels closing in on parts of the Syrian capital, and government troops moved to encircle the contested town of Qusair near the Lebanese border.

The exact number dead in the Jdaidet Artouz and Jdaidet al-Fadel districts could not be confirmed. The two adjacent neighborhoods are about 15 kilometers (10 miles) southwest of Damascus.

The Local Coordination Committees, another activist group, put the death toll at 483. It said most of the victims were killed in Jdaidet Artouz.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the death toll, mostly from shelling, could be as high as 250. Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the Observatory, said the group has documented 101 names of those killed, including three children, 10 women and 88 men, but he thought the toll would be much higher. The dead included 24 rebels, he said.

Both activist groups, the Observatory and the LCC, rely on a network of activists on the ground in different parts of Syria.

"What is happening in the suburbs of Damascus are war crimes and genocide," said George Sabra, vice president of the main opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition. He was appointed as caretaker president of the group Monday, replacing Mouaz al-Khatib, who resigned.

At a news conference in Istanbul, Turkey, Sabra put the number of those killed at "more than 500" and said more than 1,000 were wounded. He did not give a basis for those numbers.

State-run news agency SANA said Syrian troops "inflicted heavy losses" on the rebels in the suburbs.

A government official in Damascus told The Associated Press that rebels were behind the "massacre" in Jdaidet al-Fadel, saying they sought to blame government forces who entered the area after the killings.

"The army discovered the massacre after entering the area," the official said on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

Jdaidet al-Fadel is inhabited mostly by Syrians who fled the Golan Heights after the area was captured by Israel in 1967. Jdaidet Artouz has a large Christian and Druse population ? two minority communities that have generally stood by Assad or on the sidelines.

The killings appeared reminiscent of violence in the Damascus suburb of Daraya in August. At the time activists said days of shelling and a killing spree by government troops left 300 to 600 dead.

Mohammed Saeed, an activist based near Damascus, said rebels withdrew as soon as the government offensive began last week. After that, he said via Skype, troops and pro-government gunmen stormed the area and over several days killed about 250 people.

Saeed said the area has no electricity, water, or mobile phone service. "There is widespread destruction in Jdaidet al-Fadel, including its only bakery," he said.

Reports of death tolls in Syria's civil war often conflict, especially in areas that are difficult to access because of the fighting. The government also bars many foreign journalists from covering the conflict.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the reports of the massacre underline the urgent need to bring Syria's war to an end.

"I am appalled by the reports of the killing by Syrian Government forces of dozens of people, including women and children, in the town of Jdaidet Al-Fadel, a suburb of Damascus," Hague said in a statement. "This is yet another reminder of the callous brutality of the Assad regime and the terrible climate of impunity inside Syria."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Monday he shared with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry "a disposition to seek a political outcome as soon as possible and look for ways to transfer this situation into a channel of negotiations between the government and the opposition" in Syria. The two spoke Saturday.

Lavrov said he and Kerry would discuss what the U.S. and Russia could do to "induce those who are currently resisting the peace process to change their position" at the NATO-Russia summit in Brussels on Tuesday.

Lifting the European Union embargo on supplying weapons to the Syrian opposition would violate legal obligations not to arm non-state actors, said Lavrov, whose country is among Assad's strongest supporters.

Also Monday, two bombings targeted an army checkpoint and a military post in a third Damascus suburb, Mleiha, killing eight soldiers, according to the Observatory.

SANA said a suicide attacker detonated a car bomb in Mleiha, injuring several people.

The army also pressed its offensive near the Lebanese border, where it has been pushing for two weeks to regain control with the help of a Hezbollah-backed militia known as the Popular Committees. The region is strategic because it links Damascus with the Mediterranean coastal enclave that is the heartland of Assad's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

The fighting around Qusair also points to the sectarian nature of the Syrian conflict, which pits a government dominated by the Alawite minority against a primarily Sunni Muslim rebellion, and underscores widely held fears that the civil war could drag in neighboring states.

In Lebanon, there are deep divisions over the Syrian conflict, with Lebanese Sunnis mostly backing the opposition while Shiites support Assad. Lebanese fighters have also traveled to Syria to join either Sunni or Shiite groups, and several have been killed in clashes.

At the news conference, Sabra accused Hezbollah of "occupying Syrian villages, killing civilians and terrorizing them." He called on the Lebanese government to put an end to what he said were Hezbollah incursions into Syrian territory, calling them a "declaration of war" against Syrians.

The man he replaced, al-Khatib, a respected Muslim preacher seen as a moderate unifying figure, tried to step down in March, citing frustration over what he called a lack of international support and constraints imposed on the body. The Coalition rejected his resignation then, and he agreed to stay on temporarily.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/syrian-activists-fear-heavy-toll-near-damascus-130104103.html

jerome simpson hand sanitizer obama on jimmy fallon google drive pilar sanders andrew young real life barbie

The Truth Behind This Year's First-Quarter Corporate Earnings ...

Tuesday, April 23rd, 2013
By Michael Lombardi, MBA for Profit Confidential

As companies in the key stock indices report their corporate earnings for the first quarter of 2013, it appears their revenues aren?t improving. While I know it?s a blanket statement, what this means is that companies are not selling more goods or services; their corporate earnings are being propped up by cost-cutting and financial engineering.

Honeywell International Inc. (NYSE/HON), a big-cap industrial goods company, reported corporate earnings that were 16% higher in the first quarter as compared to the same period of last year. However, revenues for the quarter were flat?with no change in overall sales. (Source: Honeywell International Inc., April 19, 2013.)

Similarly, General Electric Company (NYSE/GE) reported a 16% increase in its first-quarter corporate earnings (though the company did lower its forecast for the year). The company?s revenues were flat in the first quarter over the same period of 2012, and General Electric (GE) experienced a 17% decline in orders from Europe in the first quarter. (Source: Wall Street Journal, April 19, 2013.)

McDonalds Corporation (NYSE/MCD), the fast-food giant, experienced a global sales decline in the first quarter of 2013: sales declined 1.2% in the U.S.; 3.3% in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa combined; and 1.1% in Europe. The chief financial officer (CFO) of the company, Peter J. Bensen, said, ??that battle for market share has become so critical for the long-term heath of business; we?re willing to sacrifice that margin.? (Source: ?McDonald?s Profit Rises, but Year-Over-Year Sales Fall,? The New York Times April 19, 2013.)

In the long term, the key stock indices reflect the corporate earnings and revenue growth of public companies, and that growth in earnings and sales just isn?t there right now.

It is also well documented in these pages that companies in the key stock indices are buying back their shares; the end result of this is a boost in per-share corporate earnings. Other companies in the key stock indices are making rigorous cuts to their labor force all in the name of keeping profit growth alive.

Dear reader, cost-cutting and financial engineering can only go on masking the real issue of declining demand for so long. The reality is that we have high domestic unemployment and weak consumer demand; the eurozone troubles are increasing; China?s growth is slowing, and Japan is in an outright recession?all of which are a drain on corporate revenues for American corporations. The year 2013 will prove to be a very difficult year for corporate earnings growth and stock prices will soon reflect this concern.

VN:F [1.9.22_1171]

Rating: 0.0/10 (0 votes cast)

VN:D [1.9.22_1171]

Source: http://www.profitconfidential.com/stock-market/the-truth-behind-this-years-first-quarter-corporate-earnings-reports/

winning lotto numbers lottery tickets mega lottery sag aftra mega mill power ball livan hernandez

Huawei Premia 4G (MetroPCS)

Huawei's second phone to sound like a brand of yogurt, the Premia 4G is much better than the first, last year's Activa 4G. And for as low as $99, it's the best deal you can get on a contract-free smartphone?from MetroPCS right now. That doesn't mean the Premia 4G is perfect?it doesn't run the latest version of Android, the video camera isn't great, and it has a bulky frame for its 4-inch screen?but those flaws are easy to overlook if you're searching for something inexpensive and dependable.

Design, Network, and Call Quality
A sleek phone this is not. The Premia 4G has a humdrum slab design, with a dark gray textured back panel and a ring of shiny gray plastic around the glass display. It feels solid, but it also feels like it's an inch larger than it needs to be. The phone measures 4.96 by 2.53 by 0.48 inches and weighs 4.94 ounces. Given the 4-inch display, that means there's a lot of bezel surrounding it on all sides, particularly the top and bottom. It's still relatively comfortable to hold, even if it feels bigger than it actually is.

Speaking of the display, the Premia has a 4-inch, 800-by-480-pixel TFT LCD. It looks reasonably sharp and bright, especially given the price, though it's a little reflective. Typing on the on-screen, Swype-enabled keyboard felt fine. For controls, there's a Power button on top of the phone, Volume buttons on the right, and three capacitive touch buttons below the display.

If you're hesitant about getting the Premia because of T-Mobile's impending purchase of the company, you can put those fears to rest. While MetroPCS will shift its focus to GSM and LTE, sources have told us that the new network will support VoLTE even after CDMA declines. That means VoLTE-capable phones, like the Premia 4G, should work just fine.

We don't know what will happen to data plans in the future, but MetroPCS offers pretty phenomenal rates right now. You can get truly unlimited talk, text, and data for $60 per month. $50 per month gets you 2.5GB of LTE data, with throttled speeds after that, and $40 per month is good for 500GB of LTE data, with slower speeds once you've reached your cap.

Reception is fair and data speeds are very good on the Premia. As we discovered in our Fastest Mobile Networks?survey, MetroPCS's LTE network can actually exceed 4G speeds on Verizon, though Verizon's network is more consistent and offers far more coverage. I pulled in average speeds of 4.8Mbps down and 3.9Mbps up, which are not the fastest LTE speeds we've ever seen, but plenty fast nonetheless. The Premia also connects to 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi on the 2.4GHz band.

Call quality is average. Voices distort at top volume in the earpiece, and there's a lot of fuzz in the background. But calls made with the phone sound very clear, with surprisingly good background noise cancellation. Calls sounded fine through a Jawbone Era?Bluetooth headset and the stock Android voice dialer worked fine. The speakerphone sounds a bit distorted and isn't loud enough to hear outside. Battery life was average at 8 hours and 45 minutes of talk time.

Processor, Android, and Apps
The Premia 4G is powered by a 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Plus MSM8960 processor, which is a fast chip for such a low price. The Premia feels fast and responsive in casual use, and turned in some respectable benchmark scores. You'll be able to run any of the 800,000+ apps in the Google Play store without a problem.

The phone is running Android 4.0.4 (Ice Cream Sandwich), which is nearly a year and a half old now. That's somewhat disappointing, as Ice Cream Sandwich lacks many significant upgrades you'll find in newer versions of Android (Jelly Bean), like Google Now and an overall smoother experience. There's no word on an update to Jelly Bean, and I wouldn't expect one to come in the near future, if ever.

As it stands, the Premia runs a mostly-stock version of Google's OS. You get five home screens to swipe between and customize that come preloaded with a few apps from MetroPCS. There isn't a ton of bloatware, but you can't delete anything that has been preinstalled, which is a bummer. The phone also bombards you with incredibly annoying ads for MetroExtras until you turn them off. But you do get the MetroPCS Easy WiFi app, which automatically finds and connects you to free hotspots.

You also get all the typical Android bells and whistles, including a fast Web browser, excellent email support, and free voice-enabled, turn-by-turn GPS directions via Google Maps. You can also share music, photos, and video on your HDTV or monitor via DLNA.

Multimedia, Camera, and Conclusions
There's 2.17GB of internal storage, along with an empty microSD card slot underneath the battery cover. I was able to use my 32GB SanDisk card, but not my 64. All of our standard music test files played back fine except for FLAC and WMA. Music sounded excellent over a wired pair of earbuds, but it was a little thin through a stereo Bluetooth pair. For video, all of our test formats played back in resolutions up to 1080p but Bluetooth audio was very slightly out of sync.

The 5-megapixel camera is decent, but nothing more than that. It snaps photos in just 0.2 second, but takes a little longer to save them. Photos quality is average for a 5MP sensor, with decent color and detail, especially for photos taken outdoors. But video performance is poor. The camera records 720p video at a smooth 29 frames per second, but the autofocus locks in and out every time you move the camera even a little, which makes videos look like you are constantly refocusing. A standard 1.3-megapixel camera is on the front of the phone for video chat.

So while it isn't perfect, it's hard to argue against the Huawei Premia 4G for all the features you do get for less than $100. The ZTE Avid 4G?costs the same, but has a very dim screen and a camera that's worse than what you get here. The LG Motion 4G?is also comparable, but has a slightly more compact size at the expense of a smaller, lower-resolution display. If you're willing to spend a lot more, the Samsung Galaxy S III?has a larger, sharper display, a faster processor, better call quality, and a much nicer camera. It's the best phone on MetroPCS right now, but you can buy almost five Premias for the same price.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/cKXAAMeOLP4/0,2817,2417906,00.asp

whitney houston dead 2012 whitney houston passed away heartbreak hotel don cornelius whitney houston i will always love you breaking news whitney houston carmen

Jennifer Lawrence Presents at GLAAD Media Awards, Botches Bill Clinton's Name

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/04/jennifer-lawrence-presents-at-glaad-media-awards-botches-bill-cl/

angus t. jones monday night football monday night football SEC Championship Game 2012 kansas city chiefs Javon Belcher express

North Korea leans toward talks, but restates intention to keep nuclear weapons

North Korea has exhibited signs it may be willing to discuss some nuclear disarmament, and negotiate to lift U.N. sanctions. But Saturday, the country reiterated its intention not to completely denuclearize.??

By Robert Birsel,?Reuters / April 20, 2013

Morning commuters walk past a poster showing weapons targeting the White House on a street in Pyongyang, North Korea, Friday. The poster reads: 'Not by words, but only through arms.'

Alexander F. Yuan/AP

Enlarge

North?Korea?reiterated on Saturday that it would not give up its nuclear weapons, rejecting a US condition for talks although it said it was willing to discuss disarmament.

Skip to next paragraph

' + google_ads[0].line2 + '
' + google_ads[0].line3 + '

'; } else if (google_ads.length > 1) { ad_unit += ''; } } document.getElementById("ad_unit").innerHTML += ad_unit; google_adnum += google_ads.length; return; } var google_adnum = 0; google_ad_client = "pub-6743622525202572"; google_ad_output = 'js'; google_max_num_ads = '1'; google_feedback = "on"; google_ad_type = "text"; google_adtest = "on"; google_image_size = '230x105'; google_skip = '0'; // -->

Subscribe Today to the Monitor

Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of
The Christian Science Monitor
Weekly Digital Edition

North?Korea, in a sign of a possible end to weeks of heightened hostility on the Korean peninsula, offered the United States and?South?Korea?a list of conditions on Thursday for talks, including the lifting of U.N. sanctions.

But the?United States?said it was awaiting "clear signals" that?North?Korea?would halt its nuclear weapons activities.

"The US should not think about the denuclearization on the peninsula before the world is denuclearised," the?North's state-run?Rodong Sinmun?newspaper said in a commentary.

"There may be talks between the DPRK and the US for disarmament but no talks on denuclearisation," it said.?North?Korea's official name is the Democratic People's Republic of?Korea?(DPRK).

North?Korea?signed a denuclearisation-for-aid deal in 2005 but later backed out of that pact. It now says its nuclear arms are a "treasured sword" that it will never give up.

It conducted its third nuclear test in February.

The test triggered new U.N. sanctions which in turn led to a dramatic intensification of?North?Korea's threats of nuclear strikes against?South?Korea?and the?United States.

US Secretary of State?John Kerry?visited?China, South?Korea?and?Japan?this month for talks on?North?Korea?and stressed his interest in a diplomatic solution to the tension on the peninsula.

He later told a US Senate hearing that?North?Korea's list of conditions was "at least a beginning gambit", but added that it was "not acceptable, obviously, and we have to go further".

The Rodong Sinmun?said US talk of dialogue was "nothing but rhetoric".

North?Korea?has a long record of making threats to secure concessions from the?United States?and?South?Korea, only to repeat the process later. Both the?United States?and the South have said in recent days that the cycle must cease.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/MsYVzKtNhtU/North-Korea-leans-toward-talks-but-restates-intention-to-keep-nuclear-weapons

oklahoma city bombing Audrie Pott Bombing In Boston Rebel Wilson Patriots Day aubrey plaza boston marathon

PFT: S. Jones forsees 'significant improvement' for 'Boys

Getty Images

Last week, when the Jets pressed ?pause? on the Darrelle Revis trade talks, some thought that another team or two could try to jump into the fray.

It didn?t happen.

In fact, it never happened.? Per a source with knowledge of the process, it was always Tampa ? and only Tampa.

That reality kept the Jets from getting more than a first-round pick in 2013 and a fourth-round pick in 2014 (which will become a third-round pick if he?s on the Tampa Bay offseason roster next year).? It also kept Revis from getting anything more finite than a pay-as-you-go contract that promises him annual compensation of $16 million, with nothing guaranteed.

In the end, it was the best deal the Jets and Revis could get, because it was the only deal they could get.

?If we had the luxury of time, if we had the luxury of Darrelle not having been injured, not having gone through rehab, then I think things would be a lot clearer both from our standpoint and in the case of potential trade suitors,? G.M. John Idzik told reporters on Sunday.

He?s right.? Only one team was willing to give up a first-round pick plus a 2014 selection for the hope that Revis will be back to his old self after ACL replacement.? Only one team was willing to commit $16 million to him for 2013.? (Though it?s not actually guaranteed, there?s no way he?ll be cut before Week One, when his $13 million base salary becomes guaranteed as a practical matter by the labor deal.)

Perhaps most importantly, only one team was willing to do a deal that, if Revis goes back to being Revis, will necessitate an adjustment or risk his third career holdout.

The thinking was that the next contract for Revis would have to carry enough guaranteed money to make him or his agents never complain again about his compensation.? The Bucs instead have created a situation in which it?s highly unlikely that both sides consistently will be content with Revis earning total compensation that equates to $1 million per game.

If he plays poorly, the Buccaneers eventually will have to explore paying him less, or possibly moving on.? If he plays well, the Bucs will have to brace for Revis wanting more.

Still, after blowing a first-round pick in 2008 on Aqib Talib and a third-round pick in 2010 on Myron Lewis, the Bucs will now gamble those same two picks on the chance that Revis will get back to form.? If he does, and if he wants more money because of that, it?ll be a very good problem for the Buccaneers to have.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/04/20/stephen-jones-sees-significant-improvements-for-cowboys/related/

paulina gretzky paulina gretzky david bowie elvis presley elvis presley Pretty Little Liars Rob Parker

Provo, the city of 'Silicon Slopes,' named as third Google fiber site

Google will acquire an existing network called iProvo in order to build out Google Fiber in the Utah city.?

By Matthew Shaer / April 19, 2013

A Google sign is seen at a Best Buy electronics store in this April 11 photo. Google has announced that it will build a fiber network in Provo, Utah.

Reuters

Enlarge

First it was Kansas City. Then it was Austin. Now Google has identified the third city to get high-speed fiber service: Provo, Utah ? a town that Google has nicknamed the "Silicon Slopes."?

Skip to next paragraph

' + google_ads[0].line2 + '
' + google_ads[0].line3 + '

'; } else if (google_ads.length > 1) { ad_unit += ''; } } document.getElementById("ad_unit").innerHTML += ad_unit; google_adnum += google_ads.length; return; } var google_adnum = 0; google_ad_client = "pub-6743622525202572"; google_ad_output = 'js'; google_max_num_ads = '1'; google_feedback = "on"; google_ad_type = "text"; google_adtest = "on"; google_image_size = '230x105'; google_skip = '0'; // -->

Subscribe Today to the Monitor

Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of
The Christian Science Monitor
Weekly Digital Edition

"Utah is already home to?hundreds of tech companies and startups, and many of them are based in Provo," Google's Kevin Lo wrote in a blog post earlier this week. "In fact, the Provo area?ranks second in the nation?in patent growth, and is consistently ranked as?one of the top places to live and do business?in the US. We believe the future of the Internet will be built on gigabit speeds, and we?re sure the businesses and residents of Provo already have some good ideas for what they?d build with a gig."?

Google will not be building the Provo fiber network from scratch. Instead, it will attempt to purchase iProvo, the city's existing fiber network. We say "attempt" because the City Council has yet to approval the proposal; a vote is scheduled for April 23. But already, the Google fiber network has plenty of support in Provo, a city of 112,000.?

"In return for the investment, [Google] will become owners of the network," Provo?Mayor John Curtis told the Daily Herald, a Utah newspaper. "One of the things I'm excited about is Provo not owning the network. The burden is not on the city to maintain it. Technology is changing every day. I am glad the stewardship isn't ours to keep it upgraded."

Google claims that fiber is up to 100 times as fast as regular broadband. The Mountain View giant charges $70 a month for Internet service alone; for $120, consumers can upgrade to a package that includes digital TV.?

Google has already begun installing the Kansas City fiber network, and the Austin roll-out is expected to occur in the next year.?

For?more tech news, follow us on?Twitter @venturenaut.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/67SF4HUi8Nc/Provo-the-city-of-Silicon-Slopes-named-as-third-Google-fiber-site

2012 kids choice awards kansas ohio state wrestlemania results womens final four josh hutcherson google april fools office space