Riders start on Corsica for 100th Tour de France

Britain's sprinter Mark Cavendish, second right, rides in the pack along the coast line of the Mediterranean Sea during the first stage of the 100th edition of the Tour de France cycling race over 213 kilometers (133 miles) with start in Porto Vecchio and finish in Bastia, Corsica island, France, Saturday June 29, 2013.(AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani)

Britain's sprinter Mark Cavendish, second right, rides in the pack along the coast line of the Mediterranean Sea during the first stage of the 100th edition of the Tour de France cycling race over 213 kilometers (133 miles) with start in Porto Vecchio and finish in Bastia, Corsica island, France, Saturday June 29, 2013.(AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani)

The pack passes a flag featuring a Moor's head, the Corsican emblem, during the first stage of the 100th edition of the Tour de France cycling race over 213 kilometers (133 miles) with start in Porto Vecchio and finish in Bastia, Corsica island, France, Saturday June 29, 2013. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

Ryder Hesjedal of Canada gives a thumbs up as he waits to take the start of the first stage of the 100th edition of the Tour de France cycling race over 213 kilometers (133 miles) with start in Porto Vecchio and finish in Bastia, Corsica island, France, Saturday June 29, 2013.(AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

PORTO VECCHIO, Corsica (AP) ? Riders set out Saturday on stage one of the 100th Tour de France with British sprinter Mark Cavendish among the favorites to take the first yellow jersey and race favorite Chris Froome overcoming an early technical problem.

Starting from the harbor town of Porto Vecchio, the flat 132-mile stage first took riders inland before snaking along the Corsican coast to finish in Bastia.

The race has usually started with a short prologue stage where riders raced against the clock. But in a break with tradition, this year's opener favors sprinters like Cavendish and rival Peter Sagan of Slovakia.

With defending champion Bradley Wiggins not competing, Froome of Britain and Spaniard Alberto Contador start as the main favorites for the three-week, 2,115-mile race.

Froome, the most highly regarded climber in the Tour, stopped to get a new rear wheel after a mechanical incident about five kilometers (3 miles) into the race. He then stopped for a second time to get a new bike shortly after before his Sky teammates helped him rejoin the main pack.

It is the first Tour since disgraced former cyclist Lance Armstrong was stripped of his seven straight Tour titles from 1999 to 2005 for doping.

Armstrong still managed to hog the headlines on the eve of the race, though, infuriating riders both past and present by talking at length in a newspaper interview about doping in the sport and sparking a media frenzy that organizers could have done without as they desperately try to turn the page on doping and restore credibility and trust.

In answering questions from Le Monde, a newspaper he scorned when he was still competing, Armstrong said it was impossible to win the Tour during his era without doping, echoing what he already told U.S. television talk show host Oprah Winfrey in January when he finally confessed to years of drug cheating after denying it for so long.

Before the stage started, French Sports Minister Valerie Fourneyron met with a delegation of riders unhappy about pre-race media reports that they thought focused too heavily on doping stories.

Earlier this week, French media reported that a Senate investigation into the effectiveness of doping controls pieced together evidence that a urine sample provided by long-beloved French rider Laurent Jalabert contained EPO, cycling's designer drug, at the Tour of 1998.

Meanwhile, two-time champion Contador returns to the race following a doping ban that saw him stripped of his 2010 title. He has always denied doping.

It is the first time since 1966 that the first stage has been tailor-made for sprinters, with the prologue introduced to the race in '67.

With Wiggins pulling out about a month before the race because of a knee injury, Froome is the odds-on favorite to become the second Briton to win the showcase race.

The 28-year-old has had a great run-up to the Tour, winning four of five races he started.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-06-29-CYC-Tour-de-France/id-d426b86d390d4483a1eca6187a83531d

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Obama tells leaders to follow Mandela's example

PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) ? President Barack Obama on Saturday encouraged leaders in Africa and around the world to follow former South African President Nelson Mandela's example of country before self, as the U.S. president prepared to pay personal respects to relatives who have been gathered around the critically ill anti-apartheid icon.

"We as leaders occupy these spaces temporarily and we don't get so deluded that we think the fate of our country doesn't depend on how long we stay in office," Obama said.

Obama spoke at a news conference with South African President Jacob Zuma in the midst of a weeklong tour of the continent that also included stops in Senegal and Tanzania. But many other African nations are embroiled in religious, sectarian and other conflicts.

Obama decided to avoid stopping in his father's home nation of Kenya because of international disputes there. The International Criminal Court is prosecuting Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta for crimes against humanity, including murder, deportation, rape, persecution and inhumane acts allegedly committed by his supporters in the violent aftermath of Kenya's 2007 elections.

"The timing was not right for me as the president of the United States to be visiting Kenya when those issues are still being worked on, and hopefully at some point resolved," Obama said. He noted he's visited Kenya several times previously and expects he will as well in the future.

Obama and Zuma appeared at the Union Buildings that house government offices and the site of Mandela's 1994 inauguration as the country's first black president after 27 years behind bars for his activism.

The 94-year-old Mandela has been in a nearby hospital for three weeks after being admitted with a lung infection. Zuma told reporters that Mandela is in critical but stable condition and the whole nation is praying that he will improve.

Obama and his wife planned to meet with some of Mandela's relatives later in the day but because of their wishes doesn't plan to see the man Obama on Saturday revered as "one of the greatest people in history."

Obama referred to Mandela by his clan name as he praised South Africa's historic integration from white racist rule as a shining beacon for the world.

"The struggle here against apartheid for freedom, Madiba's moral courage, this country's historic transition to a free and democratic nation has been a personal inspiration to me, it has been an inspiration to the world," Obama said.

"The outpouring of love that we've seen in recent days shows that the triumph of Nelson Mandela and this nation speaks to something very deep in the human spirit, the yearning for justice and dignity that transcends boundaries of race and class and faith and country," Obama said. "That's what Nelson Mandela represents, that's what South African at its best represents to the world, and that's what brings me back here."

Zuma told Obama he and Mandela are "bound by history as the first black presidents of your respective countries."

"Thus, you both carry the dreams of millions of people in Africa and in the diaspora who were previously oppressed," Zuma said, reading from a prepared statement.

On other topics, Obama declined to commit to supporting South Africa's bid for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. He said the U.N.'s structure needs to be updated and it would be "odd" for an expanded Security Council not to have African representation.

"How we do that and what fashion is complicated, it's difficult and it involves all kinds of politics," Obama said.

"Everybody wants a seat at the table, but when it comes time to step up and show responsibility, sometimes people want to be free riders," Obama said, adding he wasn't referring to South Africa specifically.

Zuma responded that he wishes the process of change at the U.N. would speed up.

Obama also said he wants to boost trade with Africa and plans to renegotiate an African trade pact to improve it for American businesses. He said he welcomes competition from other nations who have been aggressive in pursuing commercial opportunities in Africa, including China.

"I don't feel threatened by it. I think it's a good thing," he said. He added: "Our only advice is make sure it's a good deal for Africa." He said that includes making sure foreign investment employs Africans and doesn't tolerate corruption or take its natural resources without compensation for Africans.

Obama also is paying tribute to South Africa's fight against apartheid by visiting the Soweto area Saturday afternoon for a town hall with students at the University of Johannesburg. At least 176 young people were killed in Soweto township 27 years ago this month during a youth protest against the apartheid regime's ban against teaching local Bantu languages. The Soweto Uprising catalyzed international support against apartheid, and June is now recognized as Youth Month in South Africa.

The university plans to bestow an honorary law degree on the U.S. president.

Protesters demonstrated outside the university against U.S. policy on issues including the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the war in Afghanistan and global warming. Hundreds marched to the U.S. Embassy on Friday, carrying signs that read: "No, You Can't Obama," a message inspired by Obama's "yes, we can" campaign slogan.

Obama has been trying to inspire the continent's youth to become civically active and part of a new democratically minded generation. Obama hosted young leaders from more than 40 African countries at the White House in 2010 and challenged them to bring change to their countries by standing up for freedom, openness and peaceful disagreement.

Obama wraps up his South Africa stay Sunday, when he plans to give a sweeping speech on U.S.-Africa policy at the University of Cape Town and take his family to Robben Island to tour the prison where Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years behind bars.

Obama has visited the island before, but said it's a particular privilege to bring his daughters back to learn its lessons.

___

Follow Nedra Pickler on Twitter at https://twitter.com/nedrapickler

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-tells-leaders-mandelas-example-112000386.html

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Downgrading iPhone 5 from 6.1.4 to 6.1.3

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Gas-giant exoplanets cling close to their parent stars

June 27, 2013 ? Gemini Observatory's Planet-Finding Campaign finds that, around many types of stars, distant gas-giant planets are rare and prefer to cling close to their parent stars. The impact on theories of planetary formation could be significant.

Finding extrasolar planets has become so commonplace that it seems astronomers merely have to look up and another world is discovered. However, results from Gemini Observatory's recently completed Planet-Finding Campaign -- the deepest, most extensive direct imaging survey to date -- show the vast outlying orbital space around many types of stars is largely devoid of gas-giant planets, which apparently tend to dwell close to their parent stars.

"It seems that gas-giant exoplanets are like clinging offspring," says Michael Liu of the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy and leader of the Gemini Planet-Finding Campaign. "Most tend to shun orbital zones far from their parents. In our search, we could have found gas giants beyond orbital distances corresponding to Uranus and Neptune in our own Solar System, but we didn't find any." The Campaign was conducted at the Gemini South telescope in Chile, with funding support for the team from the National Science Foundation and NASA. The Campaign's results, Liu says, will help scientists better understand how gas-giant planets form, as the orbital distances of planets are a key signature that astronomers use to test exoplanet formation theories.

Eric Nielsen of the University of Hawaii, who leads a new paper about the Campaign's search for planets around stars more massive than the Sun, adds that the findings have implications beyond the specific stars imaged by the team. "The two largest planets in our Solar System, Jupiter and Saturn, are huddled close to our Sun, within 10 times the distance between the Earth and Sun," he points out. "We found that this lack of gas-giant planets in more distant orbits is typical for nearby stars over a wide range of masses."

Two additional papers from the Campaign will be published soon and reveal similar tendencies around other classes of stars. However, not all gas-giant exoplanets snuggle so close to home. In 2008, astronomers using the Gemini North telescope and W.M. Keck Observatory on Hawaii's Mauna Kea took the first-ever direct images of a family of planets around the star HR 8799, finding gas-giant planets at large orbital separations (about 25-70 times the Earth-Sun distance). This discovery came after examining only a few stars, suggesting such large-separation gas giants could be common. The latest Gemini results, from a much more extensive imaging search, show that gas-giant planets at such distances are in fact uncommon.

Liu sums up the situation this way: "We've known for nearly 20 years that gas-giant planets exist around other stars, at least orbiting close-in. Thanks to leaps in direct imaging methods, we can now learn how far away planets can typically reside. The answer is that they usually avoid significant areas of real estate around their host stars. The early findings, like HR 8799, probably skewed our perceptions."

The team's second new paper explores systems where dust disks around young stars show holes, which astronomers have long suspected are cleared by the gravitational force of orbiting planets. "It makes sense that where you see debris cleared away that a planet would be responsible, but we did not know what types of planets might be causing this. It appears that instead of massive planets, smaller planets that we can't detect directly could be responsible," said Zahed Wahhaj of the European Southern Observatory and lead author on the survey's paper on dusty disk stars. Finally, the third new paper from the team looks at the very youngest stars close to Earth. "A younger system should have brighter, easier to detect planets," according to the lead author Beth Biller of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy.

"Around other stars, NASA's Kepler telescope has shown that planets larger than the Earth and within the orbit of Mercury are plentiful," explains Biller. "The NICI Campaign demonstrates that gas-giant planets beyond the distance of the orbit of Neptune are rare." The soon-to-be-delivered Gemini Planet Imager will begin to bridge this gap likely revealing, for the first time, how common giant planets are in orbits similar to the gas-giant planets of our own Solar System.

The observations for the Campaign were obtained with the Gemini instrument known as NICI, the Near-Infrared Coronagraphic Imager, which was the first instrument for an 8-10 meter-class telescope designed specifically for finding faint companions around bright stars. NICI was built by Doug Toomey (Mauna Kea Infrared), Christ Ftaclas, and Mark Chun (University of Hawai'i), with funding from NASA.

The first two papers from the Campaign have been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal (Nielsen et al. and Wahhaj et al.), and the third paper (Biller et al.) will be published later this summer.

The NICI Campaign team is composed of PI Michael Liu, co-PI Mark Chun (University of Hawaii), co-PI Laird Close (University of Arizona), Doug Toomey (Mauna Kea Infrared), Christ Ftaclas (University of Hawaii), Zahed Wahhaj (European Southern Observatory), Beth Biller (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy), Eric Nielsen (University of Hawaii), Evgenya Shkolnik (DTM, Carnegie Institution of Washington), Adam Burrows (Princeton University), Neill Reid (Space Telescope Science Institute), Niranjan Thatte, Matthias Tecza, Fraser Clarke (University of Oxford), Jane Gregorio Hetem, Elisabete De Gouveia Dal Pino (University of Sao Paolo), Silvia Alencar (University of Minas Gerais), Pawel Artymowicz (University of Toronto), Doug Lin (University of California Santa Cruz), Shigeru Ida (Tokyo Institute of Technology), Alan Boss (DTM, Carnegie Institution of Washington), and Mark Kuchner (NASA Goddard), Tom Hayward and Markus Hartung (Gemini Observatory), Jared Males, and Andy Skemer (University of Arizona).

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/space_time/astronomy/~3/KTKfCN1rQK4/130627161436.htm

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91% Frances Ha

All Critics (100) | Top Critics (35) | Fresh (91) | Rotten (9)

It's a tribute to Gerwig's performance, somehow both clumsy and elegant, that she wins us over despite ourselves, that we come to appreciate her aimlessness in a goal-oriented society ...

This is an odd film (creepier than it knows), and even if you feel the atmospheric company of Dunham-ism, with a little of Whit Stillman, Henry Jaglom, and Woody Allen, the core influence on Noah Baumbach's film is fifty years older or more.

Baumbach usually builds his films around difficult protagonists, but Frances is entirely endearing, at once silly and deep, hopeless and promising.

The dialogue and editing are zippy and generally charming, combining with the tart observations of 20-something culture to create a nice frisson.

A black-and-white salute to the French New Wave (the score is borrowed from Georges Delerue, composer of many a Truffaut and Godard film) that manages to be very much of this moment ...

The movie's a love letter to an actress and her character, but by the end you may feel like an intervention is more in order.

As long as you remember to laugh, Frances Ha is a tolerable experience. Forget the "ha ha" and Frances Ha is beyond unbearable. I found this an odd and often frustrating truth, but it's what makes Noah Baumbach's new movie a success.

Gerwig keeps you on side and rooting for Frances to get her act together in what becomes an affectionate salute to messy lives, an endearing underachiever and a New York state of mind.

Don't be fooled by Frances with all her feigned insecurity and branding of herself as "undateable" and predicting she'll be a lonely spinster. She's a psychopath.

Gerwig's deft screwball timing turns every disaster into a grace note. This may be a comedy of awkwardness, but rather than curl, your toes will tap.

A refreshing amount of buoyancy to dance and charm its way through Quarter-Life Crisis territory. One of the best performances of Greta Gerwig's career to date

Frances Ha is a sympathetic but not uncritical depiction of a girl's gradual evolution into a woman; one that never condescends by forcing her to abandon all her quirks and impish qualities in the final act... An absolute delight, this is.

Indie darling Gerwig has a great deal to do with the picture's success: she's disarmingly likable...

There's a level of audacity beneath the lightweight whimsy in this unassuming low-budget comedy.

"Frances Ha makes a star out of Gerwig, and she's the kind of star we need: a goofy one we can feel tender about but never underestimate."

'I can't account for my own bruises,' Frances says, as if she were a clumsy kid with an adult's vocabulary. Does the remark refer to more than the abrasions on her skin?

A celebration of cinema, New York City and the distinctive charms of actress Greta Gerwig, Frances Ha was co-written by Gerwig and its director, Noah Baumbach, and it's the best film either has made.

There's a thin line between comedy and tragedy, and Greta Gerwig walks it remarkably well.

There's depth and realism in the way Frances Ha shows aspiration versus reality.

Gerwig, beyond a doubt, is immeasurably appealing, and Frances Ha is tailor-made to showcase her gifts better than anything she's ever been in.

...if you hold your nose and simply wallow through the stench of self-aggrandizement, you'll be rewarded with an experience that will actually tug on your emotions.

Frances Ha provides a sharp, fleet, and very funny look at female friendship and the acceptance of adult responsibilities.

This is very minimalist storytelling much of which feels improvised in front of the camera. The film is more of a character situation than a character story.

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/frances_ha_2013/

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Your guide to making better decisions - Business Management Daily

A leader?s most important job is making good decisions.

Step back and improve yours:

• Consider several options. By considering only one job candidate, you rationalize away the negatives because you want it to work out. By laying out various possibilities, you see a bigger picture.
• Think objectively. For personal decisions, ask: ?What would I tell my best friend to do?? For business decisions, ask: ?If I were replaced tomorrow and a wise person took my place, what would he or she do??
• Be fair. With so much data available, it?s easy to make a case for your gut feeling. Build opposition into your decision-making. In a high-stakes situation, assign a team preparing the case to do something and a team preparing the case not to.
• Curb your enthusiasm. Leaders tend to be overconfident, so use a ?premortem,? in which you ask your people, ?OK, we just made a decision. Let?s pretend it?s a year from now and it turned into a disaster. What happened??

? Adapted from Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work, Chip and Dan Heath, Crown Business.

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Source: http://www.businessmanagementdaily.com/35524/your-guide-to-making-better-decisions

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Work during vacation? Half of Americans do.

More than half of US employees say they take business calls or check their work e-mails while on vacation. The convenience of laptops and mobile devices make vacation-time work easier than ever, but researchers say there is such a thing as too much work.

By Akane Otani,?Contributor / June 27, 2013

Tourists flock to the beach in southern Spain last month. More than half of US employees say they regularly check their e-mails and make business calls while they are on vacation.

Jon Nazca/Reuters/File

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Unplug from your job? Fuhgeddaboudit!

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?Whether aboard a cruise ship in the Caribbean?or a Jeep in the Sahara, more than half of American employees regularly check in on work while vacationing, according to a new study conducted by Pertino, a cloud networking software company.

Technology advances have enabled employees to go far beyond texting and e-mailing their colleagues on the go and actually work on documents. The catch: It is becoming harder for people to drop their work in their downtime.

?The Information Age has enabled unprecedented levels of employee productivity from the corner office to the factory floor, but it has also created a dependency on the applications, files, and data that employees depend on every day to get their job done. This can actually lead to anxiety when an employee is disconnected for a protracted period of time,? says Todd Krautkremer, vice president of marketing at Pertino, based in Los Gatos, Calif.

Some 64 percent of men say they work on vacation; 57 percent of women say the same, according to the Pertino study.

The desire to ward off work-related anxiety has led many employees to take their laptops, smartphones, and tablets on the road with them ? even to places that do not even come close to resembling an air-conditioned cubicle.

For instance, 36 percent of the employees surveyed say they have worked while basking in the sun on the beach. More unconventionally, 31 percent of US employees say they have worked from bathroom stalls, according to the study.

?If you have ability to be connected to your work at any time on any device, it does change way you work and you vacation,? Mr. Krautkremer says. ?Before, we would never have stood in lines at airports and pulled files beyond a firewall to take a quick look at them.?

Keeping a ready eye on every tweet and alert while ostensibly enjoying time off from work, however, can strain relationships or lead to burnout. Workaholics tend to have less time to spend with their families, lower satisfaction within their marriages, and even reduced health, researchers from the University of West Florida concluded in a 2008 study.

Although employees may assume that working around the clock will at least boost their job performance, some studies suggest that people who constantly work are actually less satisfied with their careers, the researchers said.

It is also possible that workaholics are less likely to enjoy the time they do have to relax, the researchers said, since most workaholics ?spend the majority of their waking hours involved in work-related activities and thoughts.?

Acknowledging that it is easy to get lost inside a ?workaholic world,? Mr. Krautkremer, says designating time for both work and nonwork activities is crucial. Mr. Krautkremer, for instance, says he does much of his work early in the morning ??then ?systematically unplugs? for the rest of the day.

?It?s all about setting whatever rhythm works for you,? he says.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/qbD7roqdivk/Work-during-vacation-Half-of-Americans-do

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In bold move, Pope names commission to reform Vatican bank

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis set up a special commission of inquiry on Wednesday to reform the Vatican bank, his boldest move yet to get to grips with an institution that has embarrassed the Catholic Church for decades.

The high-powered, five-member panel, which includes four prelates and a female Harvard law professor, will report directly to him, bypassing the Vatican bureaucracy that itself has sometimes been hit by allegations of scandal and corruption.

The Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), as the bank is formally known, has long been tarnished by accusations that it has failed to meet international transparency standards intended to combat money laundering and tax evasion.

The Vatican said the commission, which Francis set up with a personal decree known as a "chirografo," would enable him "to know better the juridical position and the activities of the Institute to allow an improved harmonization with the mission of the universal Church".

It said the commission would have full powers to obtain all documentation and data necessary and bypass usual rules that oblige officials to respect the secrecy of their office.

The decree ordered the commission to give its conclusions and all supporting documents directly to him.

The bank, founded in 1942, will continue to be run by current administrators and be overseen by existing regulators while the commission carries out its task.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said the bank was not being put under "special administration" but that the commission would have ample powers.

The announcement of the new commission came as Vatican sources confirmed media reports that Italian magistrates were investigating Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, an accountant in another Vatican department that deals with financial administration, on suspicion of money laundering.

Vatican sources told Reuters in April the pope, who has said he wants the Church to be a model of austerity and honesty, could decide to radically restructure the bank or even close it.

ACCOUNTS UNDER REVIEW

Francis has laid great emphasis on removing an image of privilege from Church operations, and IOR's new president Ernst von Freyberg, a German, has begun a review of all its accounts and activities.

The commission is made up of Italian Cardinal Raffaele Farina, French Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, Spanish Bishop Juan Ignacio Arrieta Ochoa de Cinchetru, American Monsignor Peter Wells and Mary Ann Glendon, a Harvard professor who is president of the Vatican's Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences and a former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.

The papal decree says bank employees as well as staff in other Vatican departments had to cooperate with the commission.

The European anti-money laundering committee, Moneyval, said in a July report that the IOR still had to enact more reforms in order to meet international standards against money laundering.

The Vatican is due to give Moneyval a progress report this year.

Von Freyberg, 54, a German lawyer, told Reuters in an interview this month he was committed to total transparency and has started a review of the IOR's some 19,000 accounts, mostly held by Vatican employees and departments, orders of priests and nuns, and charities.

On Wednesday, he declined to comment on the Pope's decision to set up the commission.

The bank has assets of $7.1 billion under management and profits of 86.6 million euros ($114.3 million), used to support Catholic activities around the world. It does not lend money.

Last year, the Vatican detected six possible attempts to use the Holy See to launder money. At least seven have been detected so far this year.

The bank is trying to clean up its image after a history of scandals, most notably in 1982 when it was enmeshed in the bankruptcy of Italy's Banco Ambrosiano, whose chairman Roberto Calvi was found hanging from London's Blackfriars Bridge.

In 2010, Rome magistrates investigating money laundering froze 23 million euros ($33 million) held by the IOR in an Italian bank. The IOR said it was transferring its own funds between accounts in Italy and Germany. The money was released in June 2011 but the investigation continues.

(Reporting By Philip Pullella; Editing by James Mackenzie and Robin Pomeroy)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pope-francis-sets-special-review-vatican-bank-110039523.html

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David Hasselhoff, Ray Liotta, Shaun Toub Join Joe Carnahan's 'Stretch' (Exclusive)

By Jeff Sneider

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Director Joe Carnahan continues to assemble an impressive ensemble for his action-comedy "Stretch," adding Ray Liotta, David Hasselhoff and Shaun Toub.

Patrick Wilson stars in the Universal Pictures and Blumhouse Productions film as a down-on-his-luck limo driver named Stretch who discovered he only has one shift left to pay off a big debt to a bookie. When the chauffeur picks up a reclusive billionaire (Chris Pine) with some deviant appetites, Stretch vows to fulfill his every request, no matter how weird, to score the big tip that could settle his score.

As the night grows stranger and Stretch is pushed into some dangerous encounters, he worries that the freak in his back seat might just be his final fare.

Toub will play the no-nonsense owner of the limo company that employs Stretch, while Liotta and Hasselhoff are expected to cameo as themselves, according to an individual familiar with the project.

Ed Helms and James Badge Dale co-star alongside Brooklyn Decker.

Blumhouse's Jason Blum will produce with Tracy Falco and Carnahan, while Leon Corcos and Nila Najand will co-produce. Charles Layton will executive produce.

Universal will release the low-budget movie in North America on March 21, 2014. Production begins June 30 in Los Angeles.

Liotta recently starred in "The Place Beyond the Pines" and has several movies on the horizon including the Disney sequel "Muppets Most Wanted" and "Sin City: A Dame to Kill For" in 2014. He's repped by UTA, Untitled Entertainment and attorneys Stewart Brookman and Craig Jacobson.

Hasselhoff is best known for his heroic portrayal of Mitch Buchannon on "Baywatch," which holds the Guinness World Record for most watched television series in history. He's currently in pre-production on the indie comedy "Killing Haselhoff," which he'll produce and star in. He's repped by manager Eric Gardner of Panacea Entertainment.

Toub co-starred in "The Last Airbender" as well as "Iron Man" and "Iron Man 3." He's currently in production on the Ernest Hemingway movie "Papa," which reunites him with his "Crash" producer Bob Yari. Toub is repped by Abrams Artists Agency.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/david-hasselhoff-ray-liotta-shaun-toub-join-joe-230524936.html

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Happy hump day! Wednesday’s links are just waiting for you to give them a click: Six-year-old transgender girl wins the right to use the ladies room at her elementary school — ABC News How to keep your kids safe around the pool this summer — Breezy Mama New study: breastfed babies have a higher social […]

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Microsoft Opens Up Bing As A Platform For Developers

At its Build developer conference today, Microsoft announced that it is opening up quite a bit of Bing‘s advanced functionality to developers. As Microsoft corporate VP Gurdeep Singh Pall noted, developers are already using Bing APIs, of course, but apps can now use Bing’s entities and knowledge, natural user interfaces, optical character recognition and new mapping and visualization capabilities, including Microsoft’s just-announced 3-D imagery for maps. As Singh Pall noted, Microsoft has been using all of these capabilities privately already, of course, but he thinks that “if we can do something with an API that is good, third parties can do something that is dynamite.” Bing, he said, “is not just a great search engine, but the team has built some great capabilities.” Bing, after all, is pretty good at understanding user intent, unstructured content on the web and other queries and data types that are not trivial for a developer to implement. The team, he said, always believed that Bing could do a lot of things that can “actually be very valuable outside of the search box. For a long time, we’ve now thought that you could use these capabilities to create some great experiences.” Developers will get access to much of Bing’s data, including its web index and relevance engine, as well as its knowledge base and understanding of entities. The Bing team has also worked on lots of natural user interface technologies, including voice recognition, which will also be available for developers to add to their apps. Here is a full list of the new capabilities for developers: Bringing the World?s Knowledge to Your Apps Understanding the World:?We think knowledge is more than just a ?graph?. It requires combining the web?s deep sets of information with insights derived from understanding the people, places, things, and actions in the real world.?The Bing Entity API?allows developers to create applications using this understanding to build scenarios that augment users? abilities to discover and interact with their world faster and more easily than they can do today. Natural and Intuitive User Experiences The Gift of Sight:?Giving machines the ability to see and understand is a long-held science fiction dream. TheBing Optical Character Recognition?(OCR)?Control?enables developers to integrate Microsoft?s robust cloud-based visual recognition capabilities into their applications. Write Once, Read Anywhere:?The world is shrinking and information is increasingly more global. The?Bing Translator Control?lets apps detect text and delivers automatic machine translation into a

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In Romania, Ethan Hawke promotes movie, education

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) ? Actor Ethan Hawke says it's crucial that all children get an education from an early age, pointing to his own daughter's struggles with dyslexia.

Hawke spoke Wednesday in Romania, where he is promoting his recent film "Before Midnight."

His mother, Leslie Hawke, has worked with some of Romania's most impoverished young children. She has been raising awareness and educational funds for Romanian children since arriving here as a Peace Corps volunteer in 2000.

The Hollywood star told reporters that he is "affected by children whether it is in New York or Romania." He says his "eldest daughter is dyslexic ... if she were from a poor family everyone would assume she was stupid."

"Before Midnight" premiered in May and is the third in the series, following 1995's "Before Sunrise" and 2004's "Before Sunset." Hawke plays Jesse, who is married to Frenchwoman Celine.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/romania-ethan-hawke-promotes-movie-education-191050436.html

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Zeebox launches developer portal, widens access to its second screen platform

Zeebox is clearly busy these days. It just added automatic show syncing and recommendations to its second screen app a few days ago, and it's back with a new developer portal that opens the Zeebox APIs to everyone, not just partners. Those building mobile and web apps can now integrate Zeebox's guides, social networking and tagging into their projects, as well as create synchronized widgets for Zeebox's own release. If you're inclined to build on the company's TV experience, it's free to try the programming tools you'll find at the source link.

Filed under: Cellphones, Home Entertainment, Tablets, HD

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House investigators: Disability judges are too lax (The Arizona Republic)

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Device Shipments Up 6% To 2.4B In 2013, Driven By Android Smartphones, Tablets Amid More PC Decline

Gartner today has released its latest figures charting its overall predictions for how IT devices -- from PCs to mobile handsets -- are going to perform this year and in 2014. As in years before, numbers will continue to climb: in 2013, total shipments will rise 5.9% to 2.35 billion, and will rise again in 2014 to 2.5 billion units, driven by portable, often less expensive, but just as powerful mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Android will account for just over one-third of all devices this year, and nearly half in 2014.?It's an Android world after all.

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Prosecutor opens with Zimmerman's obscenity

SANFORD, Fla. (AP) ? A prosecutor began opening statements in George Zimmerman's trial Monday with obscene words the neighborhood watch volunteer whispered under his breath while following 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.

"F------ punks," prosecutor John Guy said to six female jurors, quoting Zimmerman from a call he made to a police dispatcher shortly before his fatal confrontation with Martin. "These a-------. They always get away."

Guy told the jurors that Zimmerman profiled Martin "as someone about to commit a crime in his neighborhood."

"And he acted on it. That's why we're here."

Zimmerman followed Martin through his neighborhood, confronted him and then fatally shot him during a fight, Guy said.

"George Zimmerman didn't shoot Trayvon Martin because he had to," Guy said. "He shot him for the worst of all reasons: because he wanted to."

The prosecutor described Zimmerman as someone who wanted to be a police officer, and he dismantled the story Zimmerman has told investigators about what happened during the fight between the neighborhood watch volunteer and the Miami-area teen that left Martin dead from a bullet to his chest.

Zimmerman's claim that Martin had his hands over the neighborhood watch volunteer's mouth is false since none of Zimmerman's DNA was found on Martin's body, Guy said. The prosecutor also said Zimmerman's claim that he had to fire because Martin was reaching for his firearm is false since none of Martin's DNA was on the gun or holster.

Zimmerman is pleading not guilty to second-degree murder, claiming self-defense. His defense attorney was to present his opening statements following those of the prosecution.

On Feb. 26, 2012, Zimmerman spotted Martin, whom he did not recognize, walking in the gated townhome community where Zimmerman and the fiancee of Martin's father lived. There had been a rash of recent break-ins and Zimmerman was wary of strangers walking through the complex.

The two eventually got into a struggle and Zimmerman shot Martin in the chest with his 9mm handgun. He was charged 44 days after the shooting, only after a special prosecutor was appointed to review the case and after protests. The delay in the arrest prompted protests nationwide.

Two police dispatch phone calls will be important evidence for both sides' cases.

The first is a call Zimmerman made to a nonemergency police dispatcher, who told him he didn't need to be following Martin.

The second 911 call captures screams from the confrontation between Zimmerman and Martin. Martin's parents said the screams are from their son while Zimmerman's father contends they belong to his son.

Nelson ruled last weekend that audio experts for the prosecution won't be able to testify that the screams belong to Martin, saying the methods the experts used were unreliable.

___

Follow Kyle Hightower on Twitter at http://twitter.com/KHightower

Follow Mike Schneider on Twitter at http://twitter.com/MikeSchneiderAP

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/prosecutor-opens-zimmermans-obscenity-135419217.html

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Vegetation on Earth: Stunning satellite imagery depicting vegetation around the world

June 24, 2013 ? Although 75 percent of the planet is an ocean of blue, the remaining 25 percent of Earth's surface is a dynamic green.

Data from the Visible-Infrared Imager/Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument on board the NASA/NOAA Suomi NPP satellite is able to detect these subtle differences in greenness, and is sending extraordinary images back to Earth giving us a clearer picture of vegetation around the world.

NOAA, in cooperation with NASA, used satellite data from April 2012 to April 2013 to generate a stunning series of animations and images depicting the annual cycle of green vegetation on Earth. These images allow scientists to measure changes in vegetation over time.

Vegetation data has many applications, from weather and ecological forecasting, to understanding best practices for land use. Pixel by pixel analysis of vegetation changes from week to week to give an early warning for the outbreaks of drought, hazardous fire conditions, or even when malaria may break out in Sub-Saharan Africa. Because vegetation greatly affects runoff, surface temperature, and relative humidity of an area, more complex weather forecasts are beginning to integrate vegetation dynamics into numerical models and drought outlooks.

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Serious About Succeeding at Your Internet Business? Then What ...

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<title>Article Cupboard Free Article Directory | Serious About Succeeding at Your Internet Business? Then What About Your Habits?Have an Online Business? Do Your Habits Prevent You From Succeeding?</title><h3>Serious About Succeeding at Your Internet Business? Then What About Your Habits?Have an Online Business? Do Your Habits Prevent You From Succeeding?</h3>

By: Jason Deter

Those who are new to internet marketing often have no idea about the massive effect their habits will have on what they are about to do. There is a lot we can do to improve our chances of success, and taking-in and making the following habits your very own will be a great start.

Excellent business relations are the cornerstone of many businesses around the world. Whether it's with your subscribers, visitors or other Internet marketers, the only way you can make it big here is by focusing on building effective relationships.

Creating and nurturing new relationships in the Internet marketing world doesn't have to be a scary experience; once you start doing it you'll realize what you've been missing. Do not try to get over on people because that is not the basis for a positive and beneficial business relationship. Focus on how you interact with all others you are in contact with in your business. One important area that many internet marketers avoid dealing with is cultivating effective habits related to managing their time. If you are not making any money, then that is one thing; but if you are busy in your business then this can make a huge impact. It can be easy to get out of sync with things especially if you have a family and other important commitments. One great place to begin is by figuring out how you spend your time during your business days. If you are not an aggressive business growth person, then that is fine and maybe this will not matter so much for you. You need to devote quality time to all you do so everything gets done in the proper way.

Each time your results are not what you planned, then get in the habit of learning from that experience. So what is needed in order to not let failure hold you down or slow you down? We all have our unique methods of coping with frustrations and setbacks, but the most important with this is to accept that it will happen no matter what you do. Keep in mind this has nothing to do with your worth as a person, and it does not mean it is who or what you really are. Changing how you respond to failure or setbacks will take time, so just resolve to working on it every day. Think of forming effective habits as a form of investment for your online business. If you are not afraid or lazy, then there is nothing stopping you from doing this.

Author Resource:->??If you are looking for the Best SEO Tools the visit Marketing Hackz, I am sure you'll like it.

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Pelosi's defense of NSA surveillance draws boos (The Arizona Republic)

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Western, Arab states to step up Syrian rebel support

By Yara Bayoumy and Amena Bakr

DOHA (Reuters) - International opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad agreed on Saturday to give urgent military support to Western-backed rebels, aiming to stem a counter-offensive by Assad's forces and offset the growing power of jihadist fighters.

Assad's recapture of the strategic border town of Qusair, spearheaded by Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas, and an expected assault on the divided northern city of Aleppo have alarmed supporters of the Syrian opposition.

The U.S. administration has responded by saying, for the first time, it would arm rebels, while Gulf sources say Saudi Arabia has accelerated the delivery of advanced weapons to the rebels over the last week.

Ministers from the 11 core members of the Friends of Syria group, agreed "to provide urgently all the necessary materiel and equipment to the opposition on the ground," according to a statement released at the end of their meeting in Qatar.

The statement did not commit all the countries to send weapons, but said each country could provide assistance "in its own way, in order to enable (the rebels) to counter brutal attacks by the regime and its allies".

The aid should be channeled through the Western-backed Supreme Military Council, a move that Washington and its European allies hope will prevent weapons falling into the hands of Islamist radicals including the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.

Ministers from the Friends group - which includes Western and Arab states as well as Turkey - also condemned "the intervention of Hezbollah militias and fighters from Iran and Iraq", demanding they withdraw immediately.

As well as fighting in Qusair, Hezbollah is deployed alongside Iraqi gunmen around the Shi'ite shrine of Sayyida Zainab, south of Damascus, while Iranian military commanders are believed to be advising Assad's officers on counter-insurgency.

SAUDI SPEEDS UP SUPPORT

Two Gulf sources told Reuters that Saudi Arabia, which started supplying anti-aircraft missiles to the rebels on a small scale two months ago, had accelerated delivery of sophisticated weaponry.

"In the past week there have been more arrivals of these advanced weapons. They are getting them more frequently," one source said, without giving details. Another Gulf source described them as "potentially balance-tipping" supplies.

French military advisers are already training the rebels to use some of the new equipment in Turkey and Jordan, sources familiar with the training programs said. U.S. forces have been carrying out similar training, rebels say.

Rebel fighters say they need anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons to stem the fightback by Assad's forces in a civil war that has killed 93,000 people, driven 1.6 million refugees abroad and cost tens of billions of dollars in destruction of property, businesses and infrastructure.

Louay Meqdad, spokesman for the Supreme Military Council led by former Syrian army general Salim Idriss, said it had received several batches of weapons.

"They are the first consignments from one of the countries that support the Syrian people and there are clear promises from Arab and foreign countries that there will be more during the coming days," he told Reuters Television in Istanbul.

A French diplomatic source said Paris would increase non-lethal aid such as communications equipment, gas masks, night vision goggles and bullet proof vests. It would also provide assistance with military strategy and battlefield intelligence.

"All this has already started," a Western source said. "Broadly speaking, Western nations will do this, while Gulf Arab nations will deliver the weapons. It's a division of roles.

"If the northern front receives enough material and non-material support quickly, it could soon be equivalent to thousands of men, or even tens of thousands," the source added.

Idriss himself told Al-Jazeera International television on Saturday that his men were still lacking "effective air defense" against Assad's planes and helicopters.

"That's why we are asking for shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles ... and anti-tank missiles, modern ones with long range," he said. "We need it yesterday ... because the regime is trying to recapture the whole country."

The increasingly sectarian dynamic of the war pits mainly Sunni Muslim rebels against forces loyal to Assad - who is from the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam - and has split the Middle East along Sunni-Shi'ite lines.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Hezbollah's role transformed the conflict "into a much more volatile, potentially explosive situation that could involve the entire region".

"Hezbollah is a proxy for Iran, supported by Iran, and obviously Hezbollah has decided to become involved in this in a very, very significant way," he said, declining to give details about what weapons Washington might provide to Syria.

Tehran, which says it supports Assad economically and politically, criticized the Doha participants.

"If a meeting leads to weapons being put in the hands of mercenaries and terrorists in Syria, prolonging the killing in Syria and bringing destruction, we are against it," ISNA news agency quoted Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi as saying.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani of Qatar, which along with Saudi Arabia has been one of the most open Arab backers of the anti-Assad rebels, said that supplying them with weapons was the only way to resolve the conflict.

"Force is necessary to achieve justice. And the provision of weapons is the only way to achieve peace in Syria's case," Sheikh Hamad told ministers at the start of the talks.

The meeting in Qatar brought together ministers and senior officials of countries that support the rebels - France, Germany, Egypt, Italy, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Britain and the United States - although the fractured Syrian opposition itself was notably absent.

Sheikh Hamad said all but two countries had agreed on the kind of support to provide to the rebels. He did not name the dissenters, but Germany and Italy have both said in the past they oppose arming the rebel brigades.

The United States and Russia, which back opposing sides in the conflict, hope to bring them together for negotiations originally scheduled to be held in Geneva this month but now unlikely to take place before August.

In northern Syria, rebels announced an offensive on Saturday that they said aimed to capture the western districts of the city of Aleppo from government forces.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported heavy clashes near the town of Safirah, south-east of Aleppo, as Assad's forces sought to secure a supply line north towards the city from the central province of Hama.

In Damascus, the army sustained a bombardment of the eastern rebel-held district of Qaboun and soldiers clashed with rebels in the Barzeh district, the Britain-based Observatory said.

(Additional reporting by Lesley Wroughton in Doha, Ayhan Uyanik in Istanbul, John Irish in Paris and Yeganeh Torbati in Dubai; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/putin-warns-arming-syrian-rebels-conflict-widens-083445291.html

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Chairs Designed By Little Kids Are Hideously Adorable

An eye for good design isn't something you're born with; you've got to learn it. But everyone has to start somewhere, and this is what it looks like when kids take their very first awkward stabs at furniture design. The results are sort of horrifyingly cute.

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Brazilian youth 'want change now'

Brazil has changed immensely since Julia Michaels moved there 30 years ago, but the change came slowly. She sees recent protests as a pivotal shift.

By Julia Michaels,?Guest blogger / June 22, 2013

Demonstrators gather during an antigovernment protest in front of the Brazilian National Congress in Brasilia, Brazil, Thursday, June 20.

Eraldo Peres/AP

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??A version of this post ran on the author's blog,?riorealblog.com.?The views expressed are the author's own.

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When I first came to Brazil, in 1981, hit parade American songs took six months to show up on the radio here. When I first came, working-class people over 30 had false teeth. Now, they sport braces.

Last year, I tried to explain to Alessandra Orofino, the young co-founder of the successful new Meu Rio digital activism group, how much the country has changed.

?I don?t care about that,? she said. ?I wasn?t here to see it and I?m here now, and I want change now.?

Who are these young people?

Who are the protesters, people who have taken to the streets all over the country, at long last? There?s great variety. [Earlier this week] on television, I saw teachers in Juazeiro do Norte whose wages had been cut 40 percent. Discovering their mayor at a bank branch making a deposit (!), they surrounded him. Hours later, the police safely escorted him out.

From what I?ve watched on TV, read on Facebook, and, last Monday night, seen on the streets of Rio myself, the protesters are mostly young men in their twenties, students. Not workers. So why are they protesting?

I bet the mayors of Rio and S?o Paulo rue the day this past January, when they bowed to President Dilma Rousseff?s request that they put off the bus fare hike for six months, to help her keep inflation down. If the fare hike had taken place then, the students would have been on vacation?

As I said in my last post, the fare hike is a painful reminder of Brazil?s two-tiered socioeconomic structure, where rich and poor each have their own health care, schools, transportation, and public safety solutions. Many of the protesters may not use the public health system and may have gone to private schools. But they take buses. And though they may not make the hours-long commute of a maid, waiter or gas-station attendant, they also feel the oppression of a system that provides poorly-managed, inadequate service at a real cost unknown to passengers.

The fare hike reminded them that this is the case in every aspect of life here. And, while workers, especially those with the long commutes, don?t have time to march in the streets, the students do.

I?m not saying they?re a bunch of altruists, marching for workers.

They just feel the inequality in their own skin ? and they know, consciously or not, that a country with a system like this one won?t go far. That makes a difference in their futures.

Why didn?t bus-riding students speak up before? Brazil has become a middle-class country. ?When it was a country of haves and have-nots, what was the use of complaining about injustices? Now, when Brazilians feel more alike than ever before, the system?s logic looks more skewed than ever before. No one invests in change until change begins to look possible.

What will come of all this?

President Rousseff?s government, and every one that preceded hers, probably back to colonial times, is stitched onto the top of a society where you don?t know the real costs (nor the real back-room deals) of poorly managed, inadequate public services. She?s said the protesters? gripes are legitimate and deserve to be heard ? and this is the right thing to say.

But ? how is she going to fix, as fast as Alessandra Orofino would like, the nations?s schools, hospitals, police, buses, trains, highways, and metro systems? Not to mention airports.

Her government is built on shaky political alliances that involve a lot of bone-tossing, and I imagine she and many other politicians, at all levels, will try tossing bones to the protesters. Already, some mayors have lowered bus fares.

It?s not about twenty centavos

The world holds many surprises for us: who ever thought it possible to take down the Berlin Wall in 1989? Who ever thought that hundreds of thousands of Brazilians would wake up to the inequities and injustice in their country? In the 30-plus years I?ve lived here, until last week, I thought change would continue to occur gradually. But you can download a song almost instantaneously now, and you can get a movement going without using personalist politics ? collaboratively. Leadership is no longer as crucial as it once was.

So maybe, just maybe, the dialogue that comes out of the unrest will get us somewhere, a little less slowly than I thought. #CHANGEBRAZIL

? Julia Michaels, a long-time resident of Brazil, writes the blog?Rio Real, which she describes as a constructive and critical view of Rio de Janeiro?s ongoing transformation.

The Christian Science Monitor has assembled a diverse group of Latin America bloggers. Our guest bloggers are not employed or directed by the Monitor and the views expressed are the bloggers' own, as is responsibility for the content of their blogs. To contact us about a blogger, click here.

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