corney conchie: 2013

Saturday, November 2, 2013

Obama says al-Qaida now more active in Iraq

President Barack Obama meets with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Friday, Nov. 1, 2013, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. The prime minister arrived at the White House Friday to personally appeal to President Barack Obama for more U.S. assistance in beating back the bloody insurgency consuming his country. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

President Barack Obama shakes hands with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Friday, Nov. 1, 2013, following their meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. The prime minister arrived at the White House Friday to personally appeal to President Barack Obama for more U.S. assistance in beating back the bloody insurgency consuming his country. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

President Barack Obama looks over towards his translator to finish his remarks during his meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, left, Friday, Nov. 1, 2013, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. The prime minister arrived at the White House Friday to personally appeal to President Barack Obama for more U.S. assistance in beating back the bloody insurgency consuming his country. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

President Barack Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki shakes hands, Friday, Nov. 1, 2013, following their meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. The prime minister arrived at the White House Friday to personally appeal to President Barack Obama for more U.S. assistance in beating back the bloody insurgency consuming his country. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama pledged Friday to help combat an increasingly active al-Qaida in Iraq but stopped short of announcing new commitments of assistance sought by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Al-Maliki came to the Oval Office requesting additional aid, including weapons and help with intelligence, to fight insurgent violence that has spiked in Iraq since American troops left in 2011.

"Unfortunately al-Qaida has still been active and has grown more active recently," Obama said at the end of a nearly two-hour meeting. "So we had a lot of discussion about how we can work together to push back against that terrorist organization that operates not only in Iraq, but also poses a threat to the entire region and to the United States."

Al-Maliki declined to discuss the details of his request for U.S. assistance but said the meeting was "very positive."

"We talked about the way of countering terrorism, and we had similar position and similar ideas," he said.

Obama said the best way to honor those killed in the Iraq war would be to bring about a functioning democracy. Al-Maliki's critics have accused him for years of a heavy-handed leadership that refuses to compromise and, to some, oversteps his authority against political enemies. But Obama only praised the prime minister for working to include Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.

"The main theme was that the United States wants to be a strong and effective partner with Iraq, and we are deeply invested in seeing an Iraq that is inclusive, that is democratic and that is prosperous," Obama said. "And I communicated to the prime minister that anything that we can do to help bring about that more hopeful future for Iraq is something that we want to work on."

Al-Maliki described Iraq's democracy as "nascent and fragile" but vowed to strengthen it. "It only will allow us to fight terrorists," al-Maliki said through an interpreter.

Obama said he was encouraged that Iraqi lawmakers set April 30 as the date for national elections, the country's first since March 2010. He said an election will show Iraqis "that when they have differences, they can express them politically, as opposed to through violence."

The United States already provides military aid to Iraq, the legacy of an unpopular war that cost Americans nearly 4,500 troops and more than $700 billion. The White House said among equipment the U.S. has sent since pulling troops out are military planes, helicopters, patrol boats and a surface-to-air missile battery.

Al-Maliki's visit with Obama was their first meeting since December 2011, when the Iraqi leader came to Washington six days before the last American troops left Iraq. At the time, Obama pledged the U.S. would remain committed to the government they left behind, and helped create.

The troop withdrawal came after al-Maliki's government refused to let U.S. forces remain in Iraq with the legal immunity that the Obama administration insisted was necessary to protect troops. Obama had campaigned for the presidency on ending the nearly nine-year war in Iraq and took the opportunity offered by the legal dispute to pull all combat troops out.

Sunni Muslim insurgents who had been mostly silenced under the U.S. presence lashed out once the American forces had left, angered by a widespread belief that Sunnis have been sidelined by Iraq's Shiite-led government. Indiscriminate violence has continued to rise, with the United Nations saying Friday that 979 Iraqis were killed last month alone — 852 civilians and 127 were security forces — and nearly 2,000 more injured.

"The terrorists found a second chance," al-Maliki said in a speech Thursday at the U.S. Institute of Peace. He said the violence has been fueled by the civil war in neighboring Syria, although he acknowledged that homegrown insurgents are to blame for the vast number of car bombs, suicide bombings and drive-by shootings that have roiled the nation.

The two leaders also said they discussed regional issues, including Syria and Iran. But al-Maliki said the main purpose of his visit was to enhance the Iraq's relationship and postwar agreement with the United States.

___

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

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-11-01-United%20States-Iraq/id-06b47e6b9d4744ef98ea8aedd77d2f2c
Category: Mary McCormack Columbus Day 2013 Justin Timberlake Vma Iams Recall FOX Sports 1

iPad Air unboxing and hands-on!

The iPad Air is here, we have it, and dagnabit we're going to unbox it and go hands-on to show you ever bit of packaging and hardware! It's not just a tradition, it's an experience!

And if you're aching for more, don't miss our iPad Air: First impressions podcast recorded earlier today!

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/rC-znTS-fvw/story01.htm
Tags: julio jones Naya Rivera Why Did The Government Shut Down diana nyad Dick Van Dyke

Reinstatement of Texas abortion law leaves few options

HARLINGEN, Texas (AP) — In a Texas abortion clinic, about a dozen women waited Friday to see the doctor, already aware that they would not be able to end their pregnancies there.

A day after a federal appeals court allowed most of the state's new abortion restrictions to take effect during a legal challenge, about a third of Texas' clinics were barred from performing the procedure.

Thursday's ruling made Texas the fourth and largest state to enforce a provision requiring doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges in a nearby hospital. In places such as the Rio Grande Valley and rural West Texas, the mandate put hundreds of miles between many women and abortion providers.

Anti-abortion groups welcomed the court's surprise decision, which they insisted would protect women's health. The ruling came just a few days after a lower federal court put the law on hold.

If women did not know about the ruling before they arrived at Reproductive Services of Harlingen, clinic administrator Angie Tristan told them. Abortions are a two-day process in Texas. On Fridays, women arrive here for their initial consultation with the doctor. On Saturdays, they return for the procedure.

Despite Tristan's explanation that they would not be able to have abortions on Saturday, some women decided to stay on the slim hope that something would change.

A panel of judges at the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled that Texas can enforce the law while a lawsuit challenging the restrictions moves forward.

The law that the Legislature passed in July also bans abortions at 20 weeks and, beginning in September 2014, requires doctors to perform all abortions in surgical facilities.

But it's the provision about admitting privileges that has idled Dr. Lester Minto's hands here in Harlingen, near the Texas-Mexico border.

After the law was adopted, the clinic began preparing to close, shredding old patient records and drawing down their inventory, ordering only enough supplies to keep going for a month at a time.

Minto, who has been performing abortions for 30 years, predicted the women he sees would take dangerous measures in their desperation. He made clear he would not perform abortions Saturday if they remain prohibited, but he did not rule out taking other steps in the future.

"I'm going to continue helping girls somehow," he said.

Without access to his services, "they'll do drastic things," Minto predicted. "Some, they may even commit suicide."

He said he has seen women take various concoctions hoping to end pregnancies. Others have been beaten by boyfriends who pounded their abdomens with bats.

The communities Minto serves are among the nation's poorest. On top of that, many of his patients cross the border from Mexico, where abortion is illegal in most places. Others live in the U.S. illegally.

If this clinic and one in nearby McAllen are forced to close, women seeking abortions would be faced with taking days off work, finding childcare and paying for hotels in cities such as San Antonio, Austin or Houston.

That's more than many can afford, including a 39-year-old woman from Willacy County who was waiting Friday to see Minto. She spoke on condition of anonymity because she was fearful of the judgment she would face in her small, rural community.

The woman said she and and her husband are happily married but already have several children. They're just getting back on their feet financially after her husband recently found work. The pregnancy was not planned.

"I just can't afford to have another one," she said, crying. But the money to travel north for an abortion isn't there either.

"It's so unfair. It's just politics," she said. "It's my decision. It's not anybody else's."

Asked what she would do if the clinic were not allowed to perform her abortion, she said: "I think I will have to go through with the pregnancy. I don't have the finances to travel."

Among the clinics that could not perform abortions under the current restrictions are those of Whole Woman's Health in McAllen, San Antonio and Fort Worth.

"Women who need our care will now have nowhere to turn, and the staff and physicians in our clinics now face furlough and likely unemployment," Amy Hagstrom Miller, the agency's CEO and president, said Friday in a statement. "This law affects real people, real lives and real families."

The Supreme Court prohibits legislatures from banning most abortions, acknowledged Joe Pojman, executive director of Texas Alliance for Life. But, he said in a statement, "states should have the right to protect women from dangerous abortion procedures."

Texas follows Utah, Tennessee and Kansas in enforcing the admitting privileges law. Similar laws are under temporary court injunctions in Alabama, Wisconsin, North Dakota and Mississippi, which also falls under the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. The appeals court has left in place the temporary injunction against the Mississippi law.

If lifted, the Mississippi injunction would force the state's only remaining clinic to stop providing the procedure. The Supreme Court has ruled in past decisions that lawmakers may not pass laws that would effectively end abortions in a state because that would put an undue burden on women trying to exercise their right to end a pregnancy.

In Thursday's opinion, appellate Judge Priscilla Owen noted that the Texas law would not end the procedure, only force women to drive a greater distance to obtain one.

Almost all Republican lawmakers who make up the majority in both chambers of the Texas Legislature are vocally anti-abortion and have repeatedly pledged to try to stop abortion. Gov. Rick Perry has also dedicated himself to making abortion illegal, saying late Thursday that his administration would continue "doing everything we can to protect a culture of life in our state."

___

Tomlinson reported from Austin, Texas.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/reinstatement-abortion-law-leaves-few-options-211107719.html
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Watching pee in super-slow motion is surprisingly fascinating

I just can't stop looking at how the drops carve the water, one after the other, making a hole in it. The experiment was captured by the Brigham Young University's Splash Lab. Here's their description of what's happening:

Egypt TV station stops popular satire program

CAIRO (AP) — A private Egyptian TV station stopped the airing of the latest episode of a widely popular political satire program Friday after it came under fire for mocking the ultranationalist, pro-military fervor gripping the country.

CBC announced the program by Bassem Youssef, often compared to U.S. comedian Jon Stewart, would not be shown because the satirist and his producer violated its editorial policies. The announcement came just minutes before Youssef's show "El-Bernameg," or "The Program" in Arabic, was to air Friday night.

A broadcaster read a statement issued by the station's board of directors saying that Youssef and the producer "insist on continuing to not commit to the editorial policy" of CBC, which he said are part of the contract.

The pre-recorded weekly program returned to air last week after a four-month hiatus that happened as Egypt's military toppled Islamist President Mohammed Morsi after massive protests against his government. Youssef often mocked Morsi on the program, galvanizing public disenchantment with the leader.

His show last week strongly mocked the military fever now gripping Egypt, and poked fun at military chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.

Military supporters immediately filed legal complaints against the show.

CBC, whose programming largely supported the coup, distanced itself from the program's content. The channel said after the first show that it supports national sentiment and is "keen on not using phrases and innuendos that may lead to mocking national sentiment or symbols of the Egyptian state." It did, however, say at the time it was committed to freedom of expression. But the statement appeared to lay blame for any criticism of the show on Youssef and serve as a warning to the satirist.

In the episode that was to be aired Friday, Youssef has a comeback. He spent a large segment of the program mocking CBC, as well as its editorial policies, the statement it put out against his last program and its choice of soap operas, those who watched the pre-recorded episode said. It also made fun of other media outlets, but hardly mentioned the government or the military.

Critics of Youssef staged a protest outside the theater where he was recording his program Wednesday and scuffled with his supporters. Riot police broke up the crowd.

Egypt's prosecutors launched investigations into complaints about Youssef's show, including accusations he disrupted public order and mocked Egypt and its military leaders. Youssef had been subjected to similar litigation when Morsi was in power. Morsi's supporters had filed complaints about his program, accusing him of insulting the president and Islam, leading to him once being briefly detained.

On Friday, the station's statement said after reviewing the content of last week's episode, it deemed the program violated its instructions.

"After the angry reaction following the last episode, we notified the presenter and producer of the program on the need to abide by the guidelines in the statement" issued earlier, it said. The station also said that Youssef violated financial commitments, failed to live to his commitments in the first season and demanded more money.

The suspension provoked immediate angry reaction, mostly directed at CBC. One group— the June 30 Front — called for a boycott of the station, hailing Youssef as a "dreamer of freedom" who puts a smile on the face of Egyptians. Others criticized the new sense of fear about expressing opinions in Egypt that run counter to the military.

Mohammed ElBaradei, prominent democracy advocate who served briefly as vice president in the post-Morsi government, sided with Youssef and lamented violation of freedom of expression.

"If (freedom of expression) is limited to those we agree with, it is an empty slogan. The courage is in defending it not repressing. Salute and appreciation to Youssef," he wrote on his Twitter account.

Youssef had had disputes with the station before. In his first episode after joining the station at the height of the Morsi rule, Youssef mocked it for being stacked with former supporters of the regime of Hosni Mubarak. He also made fun of its claims of having revolutionary credentials.

Youssef angered one of the station's star broadcasters so much that the broadcaster threatened to take legal action against him. The station didn't air the following episode, though the show returned a week later.

Youssef left Egypt to the United Arab Emirates on Friday hours before the show's suspension. It was not clear if he was in the Gulf state on a business or private trip.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-tv-station-stops-popular-satire-program-202323950.html
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Friday, November 1, 2013

Trial of Egypt's Morsi fraught with risks

A Supporter of Egypt's ousted President Mohammed Morsi puts on a mask with his picture as she and others raise their hands with their four fingers, which has become a symbol of the Rabaah al-Adawiya mosque, where Morsi supporters held a sit-in for weeks in August that was violently dispersed later, during a protest in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, Nov. 1, 2013. Some 20,000 police officers and soldiers will guard the upcoming trial of Egypt's toppled president on Nov. 4, as Islamist opponents plan massive protests that may spark more turmoil in the country. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

An Egyptian girl attends a protest by supporters of Egypt's ousted President Mohammed Morsi, in Nasr City in Cairo, Egypt, Friday Nov. 1, 2013. Her headband bears the four-fingered emblem which has become a symbol of the Rabaah al-Adawiya mosque, where Morsi supporters held a sit-in for weeks that was violently dispersed in August. The trial of Egypt's ousted President Mohammed Morsi opens Monday, presenting serious challenges for the military-backed authorities. (AP Photo/Manu Brabo)

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's new military-backed government had hoped trying Mohammed Morsi would close the chapter on his presidency. Instead, the trial of the ousted Islamist president on charges of inciting murder, which begins Monday, is only compounding their troubles.

Morsi's supporters plan widespread protests on the day of the trial, threatening to disrupt the proceedings. Security concerns are so high that the venue for the trial has still not been formally announced, though it is expected to be held in a heavily secured police academy in Cairo.

Then there is the political risk of Morsi's anticipated first public appearance since the military deposed him on July 3 and locked him in secret detention, virtually incommunicado. Morsi will likely represent himself in the trial, the first time public figure to do so in the host of trials of politicians since autocrat Hosni Mubarak's ouster in 2011, Brotherhood lawyers say. He will use the platform to insist he is still the true president, question the trial's legitimacy and turn it into an indictment of the coup, further energizing his supporters in the street.

If Morsi is not brought to court at all, his absence will further throw into question the fairness of a trial that rights experts say is already in doubt. Morsi's Brotherhood has denounced the trial as a farce aimed at political revenge.

During four months of detention in undisclosed military facilities, Morsi has been extensively questioned and has not been allowed to meet with lawyers. Virtually his only contact with the outside world was two phone calls with his family. Brotherhood supporters have called the detention an outright kidnapping, and Morsi has refused to cooperate with his interrogators.

Rights groups say the first test in the trial will be if the judge rules whether Morsi should be brought out of secret detention and moved to a regular prison during the trial. Authorities have said military detention is necessary for security reasons in the country's turmoil.

Further weighing on the trial's fairness, Morsi will be tried in a judicial system stacked with his adversaries, with whom he clashed repeatedly during his year-long presidency. Rights activists — even ones who believe Morsi should be tried for abuses during his presidency — fear the proceedings are more concerned with retribution than justice. And the trial is taking place in the atmosphere of a widescale crackdown on the Brotherhood and its Islamist allies in which several thousand have been arrested and hundreds killed.

For the military-backed government, the trial is key to showing its plan for political transition toward democracy is on track. Authorities want to show the international community, sharply critical of the anti-Brotherhood crackdown, that they are justified in moving against the Islamist group by proving Morsi committed real crimes.

The military says it removed Morsi only after the public turned against him with protests by millions demanding his removal, accusing him and the Brotherhood of trying to subvert the law and impose their will on the country. Morsi's supporters accuse the military of crushing Egypt's nascent democracy by overturning the results of multiple elections won by the Islamists the past 2 ½ years.

"Undoubtedly, this is an unfair trial par excellence. It is fallout from the coup," said Mohammed el-Damati, senior lawyer in the Brotherhood legal team that plans to be present in the court. But Morsi — who is an engineer by training — "has the experience to defend himself. He knows his case well, on the law and the politics ... He will do it eloquently," he said.

By convicting Morsi, the authorities think "the issue of the legitimacy of the president —which is what rattles this coup regime— will end," he said.

"But for us, the issue is not about Morsi alone. It is about constitutional legitimacy."

Morsi's supporters have been protesting nearly daily and intend to intensify their rallies in an attempt to wreck the trial — once they confirm in Morsi's first appearance that he is in good health.

"If the trial is stopped, it will be a setback (for authorities). If we can stop this trial, we will stop their progress" on the transition plan, said Khaled Mahmoud, a Brotherhood youth member.

Morsi is on trial with 14 other Brotherhood members on charges of inciting the killing of protesters who massed outside his presidential palace in December, demanding he call off a referendum on the constitution drafted by his Islamist allies. Brotherhood members attacked a sit-in by the protesters, sparking clashes that left 10 people dead.

Egyptians officials insist the trial is straightforward and say Morsi will be treated no differently from Mubarak.

"Nothing extraordinary, nothing exceptional," Foreign Ministry spokesman Badr AbdelAtty told reporters this week. Morsi "will have the full rights to have a free and fair trial in accordance to due process. He will have his own lawyer ... he will have the whole due process, and he will have the right to go to appeal."

The trial of Mubarak, launched in 2011, was high drama, but it was not as politically fraught as Morsi's. Mubarak was convicted and given a life sentence in 2012 on charges connected to the killing of hundreds of protesters by police during the uprising against him. But the verdict was later overturned on grounds prosecutors had not fully proven the charges, and his retrial began earlier this year.

The opening of Mubarak's first trial, televised live, was stunning for Egyptians: the autocratic leader for nearly 30 years, now lying on a hospital gurney in the defendant's cage, appearing weak and hard of hearing.

He made no attempt to turn the trial into a show. His words in the first session — "I am present your honor," and then "I deny all these charges categorically" — were his only comments in a trial that lasted almost a year. Some of his supporters rallied outside the courtroom, at times clashing with families of slain protesters. But the trial stirred no greater unrest.

In contrast, the prospect of unrest over Morsi's trial has led to a blanket of secrecy and a massive security buildup. A force of 20,000 policemen will secure the trial venue. Security officials have been quoted in Egyptian media saying the trial should not be televised, though no formal decision has been announced.

A military and security official said authorities fear militant attacks to distract authorities and sabotage the day. They said they recently uncovered a number of weapons caches, including a set of rocket launchers at a farm in a city close to Cairo that they believe were linked to plans to cause unrest around the trial. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.

Although the venue has not been formally announced, it is expected to be held in a special courtroom set up in a police academy inside a walled security complex near Cairo's Tora prison, where a number of Morsi's co-defendants are being held.

Nasser Amin, a member of the National Council for Human Rights and director of the Arab Center for the Independence of the Judiciary, said the trials of both Morsi and Mubarak are "a first step in establishing for the rule of law. The head of the state, even an elected one, can be tried." He argued against Morsi's ability to use the trial as a political platform, saying judges have the right to stop political speeches.

But el-Damati said Morsi will question the legality of the trial, arguing that procedures for trying a sitting president under the now suspended constitution have not been followed.

By going after the coup itself, Morsi will turn things around, el-Damati said.

"He will put a man who has been flipped onto his head back on his feet."

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-11-01-ML-Egypt-Trying-Morsi/id-84947687599145718adca035af6be460
Category: Geno Smith Eydie Gorme

Prosecutor: Hacking reporters targeted UK princes

LONDON (AP) — A prosecutor gave jurors juicy details of tabloid misbehavior at Britain's phone hacking trial on Friday, describing how reporters targeted celebrities, ministers and even Princes William and Harry.

The never-ending demand for royal stories at Rupert Murdoch's British tabloids led employees to hack voicemail messages left by the princes, target senior aides and pay thousands of pounds for a photo of Prince William in a bikini, prosecutor Andrew Edis said Friday.

Journalists at Murdoch's News of the World routinely used phone hacking to back up tips and find evidence for stories, he said — using a "perfectly rational but entirely illegal system."

In three days of opening statements, Edis has taken the jury on a methodical journey through the "dog-eat-dog" tabloid battle for scoops.

Former News of the World editors Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson, both 45; Brooks' husband Charles and five former staff of Murdoch's British newspapers are on trial in the first major criminal case spawned by the revelation in 2011 that employees of the tabloid eavesdropped on the voice mails of celebrities, politicians, top athletes and even crime victims.

The eight defendants deny a variety of allegations related to phone hacking, bribing officials and obstructing a police inquiry.

Coulson and Brooks have said they were not aware that hacking was going on when they were in charge of the News of the World — she from 2000 to 2003 and he between 2003 and 2007.

But prosecutors say they and other senior staff must have known that illegal activity was taking place at the popular paper.

Edis said one email from Coulson to a subordinate, referring to hacking target Calum Best — a minor celebrity and son of the late soccer star George Best — contained the instruction: "Do his phone."

Other targets, the prosecutor said, included actors Jude Law and Sienna Miller; Paul McCartney and his then-wife, Heather Mills; politicians Tessa Jowell, John Prescott and David Blunkett; and aides to royals William and Harry.

One message left by Harry for his private secretary asking for help on an essay while he was a cadet at Sandhurst military academy in 2005 was hacked by Glenn Mulcaire, a private eye working for the News of the World.

In the transcript, Harry asked for information on a 1980 siege at the Iranian embassy in London, "because I need to write an essay quite quickly on that but I need some extra info. Please, please email it to me or text me."

The resulting News of the World story was headlined "Harry's aide helps out on Sandhurst exams."

Royal exclusives were a News of the World specialty during Coulson's tenure. Edis said he was "a very hands-on editor ... interested in getting good, exclusive royal stories."

Coulson is charged, in addition to phone hacking, with agreeing to pay palace police officers for two private royal phone directories to aid hacking, Edis said.

Prosecutors say Brooks, too, was hands-on, both at the News of the World and at The Sun, which she edited between 2003 and 2009. Among the charges against her is that she paid a member of the armed forces and a senior defense official tens of thousands of pounds for stories — including a 4,000-pound payment for a picture of William "dressed as a Bond girl" in a bikini, the prosecutor said.

Friends and families of celebrities were targeted, Edis said, and sometimes people were even caught up at random. A hairdresser named Laura Rooney was hacked "because they thought she was related to Wayne Rooney," the Manchester United soccer star. She wasn't.

Private eye Mulcaire and News of the World royal editor Clive Goodman were both briefly jailed in 2007 for hacking the phones of William and Harry's aides, but Murdoch's company insisted the law-breaking had been limited to the pair.

That claim dissolved when a rival newspaper reported in 2011 that the News of the World had eavesdropped on the phone of Milly Dowler, a 13-year-old kidnapped in 2002 and later found murdered.

The public outcry led Murdoch to shut down the 168-year-old paper and pay out millions in compensation to hacking victims. It also spawned criminal investigations in which dozens of journalists and officials have been arrested.

It has heaped pressure on Britain's freewheeling press — and on Prime Minister David Cameron, who had close ties to both Brooks, his friend, and Coulson, his communications chief between 2007 and 2011.

The trial's bombshell revelation so far has been that Brooks and Coulson had a secret affair lasting at least six years and covering much of the alleged hacking time period.

___

Jill Lawless can be reached at http://Twitter.com/JillLawless

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/prosecutor-hacking-reporters-targeted-uk-princes-185713921--finance.html
Category: House of Cards Niall Horan

What's up with the Haswell Mac mini?

Apple's June refresh of the MacBook Air saw the introduction of Intel's fourth-generation Core processors, internally called "Haswell." Apple's spent this autumn introducing new iMac and MacBook Pro systems that also use the Haswell architecture (except for the venerable "standard" 13-inch MacBook Pro, which still uses last year's chip). The all-new Mac Pro that's due out in December uses a different processor, so that leaves one lone holdout: the Mac mini. So where's the Haswell Mac mini?

Why Haswell?

Haswell doesn't really speed up core processing in the Mac as much as it improves efficiency. The biggest benefit is improved power management for laptops, which really doesn't translate into a significant improvement for desktop systems like the Mac mini.

But there are some tangible benefits to graphics performance with Haswell processors - the Intel HD 5000 integrated graphics run way faster than last year's model did. OS X heavily leverages OpenGL in its Core Image technology, so that means faster performance across the board, not just for games or video rendering, but most processes that touch graphics in some way.

There are other improvements to Haswell that provide better temperature regulation and other benefits, but they're not "customer facing" in the same way that improved battery life and better graphics performance are likely to be. It's because Intel employs a "tick tock" manufacturing model, where it introduces new chip architectures and then makes efficiency improvements (smaller die sizes, lower power consumption) on alternating years. The Haswell chip is a result of that "tock" - it builds on the truly significant Ivy Bridge CPUs we saw released last year, but doesn't make any revolutionary changes.

Having said that, Apple has used the refresh to improve other aspects of the Mac's design as well. Haswell Macs come with 802.11ac Wi-Fi, or Gigabit Wi-Fi - wireless networking that's up to three times faster than before. On some models that use Solid State Drive (SSD) technology, they've switched from SATA to PCIe interfaces, which translates into dramatically improved storage performance. On some models, like the new MacBook Pros with Retina Displays, Apple's incorporated Thunderbolt 2, which provides twice the bandwidth as the original Thunderbolt - capable of driving a massive 4K display, or transferring data much faster from a Thunderbolt hard drive or RAID array. For what it's worth, I don't think the Mac mini will get Thunderbolt 2 - the iMac didn't get it when Apple refreshed it but I wouldn't be surprised to see some other changes to make it worth your while to buy a new Mac mini.

So there are some really good reasons for wanting a Haswell equipped Mac mini, even if better battery life isn't applicable.

Apple's uneven Mac mini refresh cycle

The Mac mini has been a mainstay of Apple's product line since its introduction in 2005. It's Apple's entry-level Mac model, designed especially to give Windows switchers an inexpensive entry into the Mac realm - something they can just plug their existing screen, keyboard and mouse into and pick up where they left off from their desktop PC.

But Apple's been wildly inconsistent about refreshing the Mac mini over the years. They've refreshed the Mac mini in as little as five months, but one time they went more than a year and a half. That's led some pundits to write the Mac mini off over the years - certain that Apple's going to discontinue the little Mac at any moment because of Apple's apparent negligence.

It's not a case of negligence. Apple simply doesn't feel the same pressure to update the Mac mini with the same frequency or make it as much of a show as other Mac models because, well, the sex appeal simply isn't there. The Mac mini is a reliable seller season to season. And people do buy them. They're popular workgroup servers in corporate IT environments. Small and medium-sized businesses use them as all-purpose servers, especially now that OS X Server costs a scant $19. Home theater installers often use them as media servers - Apple's even built recent models with HDMI connectors to make it easier to connect to flat screen televisions.

In 2010, Apple unveiled a redesigned Mac mini that eschewed an internal SuperDrive, added HDMI and an SD card slot and made other changes. Since then, they've been on a more-or-less an annual upgrade cycle.

So where's the new Mac mini already?

So if past is prologue, the Mac mini is due for a refresh Real Soon Now™.

To be frank, I expected to see it updated when the new iMac and the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display made their debut last month. Because the Mac mini is often updated at the same time as other consumer-focused Mac models. And Apple usually makes it pretty low-key. Last year, for example, the Mac mini's refresh didn't even elicit its own press release - its update was mentioned in the same press release as Apple's all-new iMac.

As it is, I wouldn't be surprised to see a new model hit by the end of the year.

I don't expect that there will be a lot of major changes in clock speed to the new Mac mini, when it finally gets here. But integrated graphics improvements in Haswell, combined with some of the other changes Apple has made like faster Wi-Fi, will make the new Mac mini worth the wait once it gets here.

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A Love Story That Spawned A Hardware Revolution In The Kitchen

Neither of them had any entrepreneurial history before they met. Abe Fetterman was a plasma physics Ph.D at Princeton and Lisa Qiu had worked in hospitality at Jean-Georges and Mario Batali before entering the magazine world.

But while watching Top Chef episodes during their first week of dating, they clicked.

Lisa, who was working around some of the most elite chefs in the world, saw an immersion circulator on a Top Chef episode. These devices are used to cook with the “sous vide” method, where food is vacuum sealed and slow-cooked in a water bath to a precise and even temperature. High-end chefs have raved that “sous vide” helps them create perfectly cooked food, like steaks where the core is evenly rare without having burnt exteriors.

She confessed that she would’ve loved to have one.

But at the time, sous vide machines cost well over $1,000, which was far out of reach for an admittedly money-poor grad student and associate magazine editor in Manhattan.

So Abe gallantly offered to make one with off-the-shelf parts for about $50 or so.

It was the beginning of a partnership that would spawn a company, a family and an adventure through the factories of Shenzhen, DIY workshops in the Lower East Side and then Silicon Valley. Ultimately, the now married couple wants to start a home-cooking revolution where once avant-garde technique of sous vide becomes cheap and easy for everyone.

They just released the Nomiku, which is the product of well over a year’s work and has a pre-order price of $299.95. It’s a home sous vide machine that you can plop into a bucket of water, and then turn a knob to an exact temperature. It then circulates water around whatever it is that you’re working — be it eggs or salmon in a bag.

“Nomiku is all about modernizing your whole kitchen,” Lisa said. “We see the kitchen as a home manufacturing center. It should be both clean and beautiful.”

She went on, “When we started, the cheapest immersion circulator was $1,000. We completely disrupted the whole market and we’re making a whole, completely new one.”

Not long after Abe made a DIY sous vide machine, they started running workshops in Lower Manhattan for other hobbyists and chefs that wanted to hack their kitchen appliances.

Eventually, they came up with an idea to create an affordable sous vide machine — something that would be way easier for regular people than the kitchen appliance hacks they had been teaching. To put their project in motion, they joined a cross-border hardware accelerator that links San Francisco and Shenzhen called HAXLR8R.

While getting totally burned out designing the product and negotiating with suppliers, they took a vacation to Thailand where they re-connected with a former Momofuku line chef named Wipop Bam Suppipat, who had taken some of their Manhattan DIY workshops.

Luckily enough, he turned out to be a RISD grad with a degree in industrial design. They spent days together talking non-stop about the product until the point where it became a no-brainer for Suppipat to join as the third co-founder.

Last July, they ran a Kickstarter campaign that raised the most out of any other proposal in the food category.

With the $586,000 they raised, came the tough part, involving working through all of the design and logistical issues necessary to create a functioning prototype.

“We got really really burned out,” Lisa said. “It was 24-7 with barely any sleep, working on a prototype every day.”

Even so, the trio had complementary skills. Lisa had the Mandarin necessary to negotiate with manufacturers and navigate the often frustrating local business culture, while Abe and Suppipat had the technical and design chops to create a prototype that was easy to use and cheaper to make.

“Abe is a genius. He did a lot of the magic,” Lisa said. “I don’t think you could’ve gone to Shenzhen and done this. But we had a good melange of mentors from HAXLR8R, I speak Mandarin and we used a lot of new technologies like 3D printers.”

They were able to build the initial Nomiku with about $20,000. Still, there were setbacks. They found that steam was leaking into the Nomiku’s motor system, creating the risk that the device would rust. They also had to secure a UL certification from a third-party lab to make sure the Nomiku was safe to retail in the U.S.

After a few months of production setbacks (which are pretty common for Kickstarter projects), they launched the Nomiku last month. They also raised a small seed round from angels including i/o Ventures’ partners Paul and Dan Bragiel, former Yelp and Airbnb community manager Ligaya Tichy and former EA Popcap executive producer and Tilting Point co-founder Giordano Contestabile.

I ran a test of it side-by-side along some other DIY immersion circulators and a competing Anova product. (This is because when you host a sous vide dinner in San Francisco, everyone offers to bring their own machine, even ones they built themselves).

We made vegetables like eggplant with harissa, Romanesco cauliflower with lemon and anchovies and asparagus with the Nomiku, while doing meats and eggs in the other devices.

Overall, I’m very new to sous vide cooking, but it did definitely improve the taste of eggs, shrimp and thicker cuts of salmon.

Nomiku faces competition from much bigger, well-funded competitors like Anova, a lab equipment company that migrated into making water bath products for cooks and PolyScience, another similar competitor.

A more experienced sous vide cook and Anova-using friend had the following feedback: he felt that Nomiku’s user experience was more intuitive with a rotating dial instead of a touchscreen. But he said that it lacked features like a timer and was slightly slower in getting the water bath to the appropriate temperature than the Anova.

But the Fettermans and Suppipat don’t seem that fazed by their better-capitalized competitors.

“I don’t know what their strategy is and I’m not worried about them,” she said. “What we worry about is whether our customers are happy. Did they have a great experience? With every great idea you will have competitors. The only thing you can do is focus.”

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Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson Meet Again, Months after Split

Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson were spotted and photographed together for the first time since their most recent break-up, months ago. Was the’Twilight Saga’ couple back together…again? Speculation quickly went on overdrive! Fans have vicariously weathered the rocky on and off relationship of the 23-year-old Kristen Stewart and the 27-year-old Robert Pattinson. It has been more than a year since Stewart’s affair with 41-year-old Rupert Sanders — the husband of model-actress Liberty Ross and father of their two children — who directed her in ‘Snow White and The Huntsman.’ As news exploded across the entertainment world, it saw the breakup of the couple just months before their final ‘Twilight Saga’ movie opened in theaters. Pictures appear to tell a new story. ‘E!News published the photo (seen here) of the two vehicles on the road with famous drivers, R-Patz in the Jeep and K-Stew Toyota pickup truck on the night before Halloween, October 30th. A secret meeting — well, until the introduction of camera lens! After that, the cars sped away but not without giving paparazzi a pleasant payday and millions of fans a tidbit to hang onto. E!News further reports on their whereabouts saying they spent time together in Los [...]Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RightCelebrity/~3/3H24vyXTvkk/
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Prosecutor: Hacking reporters targeted UK princes

Andy Coulson arrives at The Old Bailey law court in London, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013. Former News of the World national newspaper editors Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson went on trial Monday, along with several others, on charges relating to the hacking of phones and bribing officials while they were employed at the now closed tabloid paper. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

FILE - This combination of Monday, Oct. 28, 2013 file photos shows former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks and husband Charlie Brooks, left image, and former News of the World editor Andy Coulson as they arrive at The Old Bailey law court in London. On Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013, a prosecutor in Britain's phone hacking trial revealed that Rebekah Brooks and Coulson — the two most senior U.K. tabloid editors accused of illegal eavesdropping and bribery — had a secret affair lasting at least six years. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, Lefteris Pitarakis)