On video: SAfrican police drag man, who later dies

In this still frame from TV and courtesy of South African Daily Sun newspaper, showing a South African man with his hands tethered to the back of a police vehicle being dragged behind as police hold his legs up and the vehicle apparently drives off, east of Johannesburg Tuesday Feb. 26, 2013. The man died of his injuries. In video filmed on a mobile phone, uniformed police are seen trying to subdue the man, then tethering him to the back of a police vehicle which drives off, watched by a large crowd. Moses Dlamini of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate said early Thursday Feb. 28 2013 on ENCA TV network that his service has opened a murder probe. (AP Photo/The Daily Sun) TV OUT

In this still frame from TV and courtesy of South African Daily Sun newspaper, showing a South African man with his hands tethered to the back of a police vehicle being dragged behind as police hold his legs up and the vehicle apparently drives off, east of Johannesburg Tuesday Feb. 26, 2013. The man died of his injuries. In video filmed on a mobile phone, uniformed police are seen trying to subdue the man, then tethering him to the back of a police vehicle which drives off, watched by a large crowd. Moses Dlamini of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate said early Thursday Feb. 28 2013 on ENCA TV network that his service has opened a murder probe. (AP Photo/The Daily Sun) TV OUT

In this still frame from TV and courtesy of South African Daily Sun newspaper, showing a South African man with his hands tethered behind a police vehicle and being dragged behind as police hold his legs up and the vehicle apparently drives off, east of Johannesburg Tuesday Feb. 26, 2013. The man died of his injuries. In video filmed on a mobile phone, uniformed police are seen trying to subdue the man, then tethering him to the back of a police vehicle which drives off, watched by a large crowd. Moses Dlamini of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate said early Thursday Feb. 28 2013 on ENCA TV network that his service has opened a murder probe. (AP Photo/The Daily Sun) TV OUT

In this still frame from TV and courtesy of South African Daily Sun newspaper, showing a South African man as he refuses to get into a police vehicle and seems to be tethered to the back of the vehicle before being dragged behind as police hold his legs up and the vehicle apparently drives off, east of Johannesburg Tuesday Feb. 26, 2013. The man died of his injuries. In video filmed on a mobile phone, uniformed police are seen trying to subdue the man, then tethering him to the back of a police vehicle which drives off, watched by a large crowd. Moses Dlamini of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate said early Thursday Feb. 28 2013 on ENCA TV network that his service has opened a murder probe. (AP Photo/The Daily Sun) TV OUT

JOHANNESBURG (AP) ? They bound his hands to the rear of a van, and then sped off, dragging the slender taxi driver along the pavement as a crowd of onlookers shouted in dismay. The man was later found dead.

A gut-wrenching video of the scene is all the more disturbing because the men who abused the Mozambican immigrant were uniformed South African police officers and the van was a marked police vehicle.

The graphic scenes of the victim struggling for his life shocked a nation long accustomed to reports of police violence.

The Daily Sun, a South African newspaper, posted video the footage Thursday and it was quickly picked up by other South African news outlets and carried on the Internet. It sparked immediate outrage.

"They are there for safety, but we as a people fear them more," said Johannesburg resident Alfonso Adams. "You don't know who to trust anymore."

Some of those in the crowd who watched the scene unfold in the Daveyton township east of Johannesburg shouted at the police and warned that it was being videotaped. The police did not seem at all concerned by all the witnesses and the presence of cameras as they tied Mido Macia, a 27-year-old from neighboring Mozambique, to the back of a police vehicle, his hands behind his head. At least three policemen participated in the incident. Macia was found dead in a Daveyton police cell late Tuesday.

"We are going to film this," several onlookers shouted in Zulu as the police tormented Macia. One bystander can be heard on the videotape shouting in Zulu: "What has this guy done?"

A murder probe is underway on the evidence that Macia suffered head and upper abdomen injuries, including internal bleeding, the Independent Police Investigative Directorate, the police watchdog agency, said Thursday. The injuries could be from the dragging and he could also have been beaten later in police custody.

"The allegations are that he was dragged behind a vehicle and his head was bent on the police vehicle. There are also allegations of assault," said the investigative unit's spokesman Moses Dlamini.

The video evidence of the abuse renewed concerns about brutality, corruption and other misconduct by a national police force whose reputation has suffered in recent years amid reports that many officers lack training. Some have been charged with committing the crimes they are supposed to prevent, including rape and murder.

"As horrific as it is, it is not exceptional. Hardly a week goes by without such stories of brutality," said Jacob van Garderen, national director of Lawyers for Human Rights.

At first, Macia, dressed in jeans and a red T-shirt, is dragged along the road by the vehicle at slow speed, the footage shows. He awkwardly tries to keep step even though he is almost horizontal above the ground. Then the van stops, two policemen pick up the legs of the taxi driver and drop them to the ground as the van picks up speed and drives off, beyond the view of the camera.

The police watchdog agency said the incident started just before 7 p.m. on Tuesday when the cab driver was allegedly obstructing traffic with his vehicle. Then Macia allegedly assaulted a constable and took his weapon before he was overpowered, the police investigative unit said.

Macia was found dead in a cell over two hours later by another policeman, according to the watchdog agency.

National Police Commissioner Riah Phiyega "strongly condemned" what happened. South Africans are "urged to remain vigilant and continue to report all acts of crime irrespective of who is involved," said Phiyega in a statement.

Phiyega has tried to upgrade the reputation of the South African police since her appointment last year. Last month, Phiyega told a group of police officials the standing of the force "has been severely but not irreparably tarnished over the past several years."

The problems, though, are immense for a police force that has expanded from some 120,000 to almost 200,000 over the last decade, "often failing to match the increase in quantity with sufficient quality," said Johan Burger, who served for 36 years on the force before becoming a senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies.

Several experts contacted by The Associated Press also said that in recent years there has been an increasing willingness to use a shoot-to-kill approach to the crime and violence.

An average of 860 people a year died in police custody or as a result of police action between 2009 and 2010, up from 695 a year from 2003 to 2008, according to Burger of the security studies institute.

Further staining the reputation of the police is the Marikana shootings when, on Aug. 16, 2012, a line of South African police opened fire on a crowd of striking miners, killing 34 at a platinum mine northwest of Johannesburg. A judicial commission is investigating allegations that many were killed in a rocky hill, near the much-filmed initial scene of the attack, shot in the back as they tried to escape.

---

Associated Press Writer Michelle Faul contributed to this story.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-02-28-South%20Africa-Man%20Dragged/id-94079c0bb5c445c1bf7a959d6655d41b

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Mars plan could be crazy enough to work

The Inspiration Mars Foundation, led by millionaire space tourist Dennis Tito, has unveiled plans for a 501-day round trip to Mars. They are aiming for a 2018 launch. Tom Clarke of Channel Four Europe reports.

By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News

Millionaire space tourist Dennis Tito and his partners have had to tell questioners repeatedly that they're not "crazy" or "nuts" to think they can launch a man and a woman to Mars and back by 2019 ? but if the Inspiration Mars Foundation's "Mission for America" succeeds, it may well be because it's just crazy enough.?

Other private space ventures, ranging from SpaceX to the?Golden Spike Company?and Planetary Resources, are depending on turning a profit someday through the sale of rocket flights, or missions to the moon, or water and precious metals mined from asteroids. Tito, in contrast, freely admits the 501-day mission is a "one-shot deal" that's unencumbered by a long-range business plan. He's committed to supporting the five-year development effort for the first two years, during which time he and the rest of the team will try to raise the money and perfect the technologies for the three more expensive years to follow.

So how much is that going to cost him? "Who knows?" Tito said.

---

Tito expects to look in all the usual places for funding, including sponsorships, the sale of media rights, the sale of scientific data from the flight and private contributions. A 6-year-old boy has already sent in one of the first contributions, amounting to $10. "This is my Apollo," he was quoted as saying.

If Tito had a dime for every time the Apollo era was invoked on Wednesday, he'd be making a good start toward a fund-raising goal that is estimated to range around $1 billion. Some questioned whether the non-stop Mars flyby would be worth it, on scientific or economic grounds. But that's missing the point: Like Tito's eight-day trip to the International Space Station in 2001, the payoff would be purely inspirational rather than scientific.

"Inspiration Mars reminds me of Apollo 8 in 1968, going around the moon," software billionaire Charles Simonyi, who spent tens of millions of dollars buying two flights to the International Space Station, said in a Twitter update. "Inspiration is a goal for humans, science should be left to the rovers."

In a follow-up exchange of messages, Simonyi told NBC News that he wouldn't be spending millions more to support Tito's effort. He noted that his philanthropic foundation, the Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences, "has spent the $100M it had in 10 years, as planned."

"But I think Inspiration will have broad-based support," he said. "Very exciting."

NASA also voiced moral support, saying in a statement that the Inspiration Mars mission was "a testament to the audacity of America's commercial aerospace industry and the adventurous spirit of America's citizen-explorers." Inspiration Mars plans to pay NASA for access to the agency's know-how about thermal protection systems for re-entry, said Taber MacCallum, the foundation's chief technology officer and a co-founder of Paragon Space Development Corp.

Inspiration Mars

A graphic from Inspiration Mars shows the expected path of a spacecraft going around the far side of Mars during a 501-day round trip launched in 2018.

Technical issues
In addition to the craziness about the money, there's the craziness about thinking that the rocket and crew capsule will be ready to launch on Jan. 5, 2018, when the planets literally align. A launch?on or around that date would result in a straightforward, no-fuss?trajectory that would come within 100 miles of Mars' backside on Aug. 20, 2018, and bring the spacecraft back to Earth on May 21, 2019. The mission plan is outlined in a feasibility analysis prepared for an aerospace conference, but Tito and his co-authors acknowledge that the space vehicles cited in the paper don't yet exist.

The paper says it'd be feasible to use the still-under-development SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket and a modified SpaceX Dragon capsule, with a Bigelow-type inflatable module added on. But MacCallum acknowledged that Inspiration Mars was still talking with potential industry partners on what the launch configuration might be. He said choosing that configuration, as well as designing the life-support system and the thermal protection system, were high priorities on the to-do list.

MacCallum stressed that simplicity would be the key. "This is going to be a Lewis and Clark mission to Mars," MacCallum said. "Keep it bare bones, keep it simple."

Tito provided scant details about the five-year development timeline but said that the mission would rely upon technologies developed for flights to the space station. "It uses low-Earth-orbit architecture ... and we're just adapting it in effect to a very large Earth orbit," he said. Responding to questions about the tight time frame, Tito pointed out that Apollo 8's around-the-moon mission took place just a year after the first unmanned test launch of NASA's Saturn 5 rocket in 1967. (However, it took five years to design and develop the Saturn 5 in preparation for that first launch.)

The trajectory for the "Mission for America" is designed such that only minor course corrections would be required along the way. There'd be no engine burn required for the return leg of the trip, and no deorbit burn. However, the spacecraft's speed at re-entry would be 32,000 mph (14.2 kilometers per second), or almost twice as fast as the space shuttle's re-entry speed. And if the trajectory went slightly off for some reason, there's a chance that the capsule could slam into Mars ? or?miss Earth entirely on the way back, dooming the crew to another deadly circuit.?

Who will go?
Jonathan Clark, a former NASA flight surgeon who has served as an adviser for several space ventures, acknowledged that "there's no question this is a risky and bold endeavor." He estimated that there was a roughly 7 percent chance that one of the two astronauts on board would experience a serious medical issue during the mission. That's the big reason why it'd be a two-person trip rather than a solo flight: so that one of the astronauts could serve as the backup for the other. That, and the fact that it'd be an awfully lonely year and a half for just one astronaut.

Tito insists that the two-person crew should consist of a man and a woman, preferably a married couple, in order to combat the loneliness and reduce the risk of crew incompatibility. Tito joked that one of the mission's media deals might involve Dr. Phil giving "marital advice" to the couple while they're in flight.

Like most of the spacecraft components, the crew would be American, Tito said. He described the key attribute for prospective crew members as "the Right Stuff times 10." MacCallum, meanwhile, said the astronauts would have to have "an amazing mechanical skill" in order to keep the onboard systems running smoothly.?MacCallum's wife, Paragon co-founder Jane Poynter, said they'd have to be "even-keeled" to get along for a?year?and a half?while cooped up in?the outer-space equivalent of an RV.?(MacCallum has said that he and Poynter would be interested in taking the Mars trip themselves.)

Clark estimated that it would take six months to a year to work out the process for crew selection.

Tito faced repeated questions about why he was taking on this mission?? and it was clear that American pride was part of the equation. One reporter asked whether Tito merely wanted to get to Mars before the Chinese. "Beat China to Mars?" he replied. "Wouldn't I want to do that? Wouldn't I want America to do that? Wouldn't you want America to do that?"

He also noted that if Inspiration Mars missed the launch opportunity in 2018, the next opportunity for a 501-day mission wouldn't come around again until 2031. "If we don't fly in '18, the next low-hanging fruit is in '31, and we better have our crew trained to recognize other flags," he said. "They're going to be out there."

Update for 8:25 p.m. ET: Tito's plan has also gotten a vote of support from Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who is writing a book titled "Mission to Mars: My Vision for Exploration." The Washington Post's Brian Vastag quotes Aldrin as saying, "I've talked with Dennis, and I've strongly encouraged him. The purpose is to inspire, to say we're going to do something and then we do it." It doesn't hurt that the schedule calls for the round trip to end two months before the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

Update for 9:50 p.m. ET: Here's another vote of support from planetary scientist Alan Stern, president and CEO of the Golden Spike Company: "Very excited about Inspiration Mars and the way they and we at Golden Spike are both breaking the mold in human space exploration in this country ??and around the world," Stern wrote in an email. Golden Spike is working on a plan to launch missions to the moon at a cost of $1.4 billion per mission (that's $700 million per seat for a two-person flight). The company is currently in the midst of an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign.?

More about flights to Mars:

---

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the?Cosmic Log?community by "liking" the log's?Facebook page, following?@b0yle on Twitter?and adding the?Cosmic Log page?to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space,?sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out?"The Case for Pluto,"?my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Source: http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/27/17120657-going-to-mars-in-2018-concept-is-so-crazy-and-simple-it-just-might-work?lite

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MWC 2013: ??????????? Kaspersky Tablet Security ? ?????????? ...

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Source: http://forums.ferra.ru/index.php?showtopic=54700

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Huge crowds at Vatican for pope's final audience

By Alastair Jamieson, Staff writer, NBC News

Tens of thousands of people were gathering in St. Peter's Square in Vatican City Wednesday to witness Pope Benedict XVI?s final general audience before his historic abdication.

Blue skies welcomed Catholic pilgrims and onlookers from around the world in the square, which he due to address from St Peter?s Basilica from 10:30 a.m. local time (4:30 a.m. ET).

Benedict will use his "popemobile" to greet some of the crowd, but the size of the event means there is not expected to be any kissing of the pontiff?s hand as is traditional after papal audiences, the BBC reported.

The Vatican said more than 50,000 had applied for official tickets for Wednesday?s event ? eight times the usual number of applications - and that 200,000 were expected to pack the fringes of the square and surrounding streets.

Papal audiences are normally held inside a Vatican hall in the winter.

Pope Benedict will formally abdicate on Thursday, becoming the first pontiff to do so for almost 600 years, and will travel by helicopter to his summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, about 15 miles south-east of Rome.

Tens of thousands were in the square from early Wednesday in the hope of securing a good place from which to see the moment. Among the crowd already in the square were Germans from Pope Benedict?s home region of Bavaria.

Balthasar Bauer, 23, from Bavaria, who was in traditional dress, lederhosen, said: "You can't change it - this will likely be the last Bavarian pope, so I had to come here to see him for one last time."

Related:

Papal historian: Cardinals likely to choose an 'extrovert'

'Amateur hour': Vatican conclave drama is one for the history books, experts say

Pope says Vatileaks probe will stay secret

Carlo Angerer and Andy Eckardt, NBC News, contributed to this report.

Source: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/27/17113318-huge-crowds-at-vatican-for-pope-benedicts-final-audience?lite

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Copyright ? 2013 Salon Media Group, Inc. Reproduction of material from any Salon pages without written permission is strictly prohibited.

SALON ? is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark of Salon Media Group Inc.

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Obama warns spending cuts could idle shipbuilder

President Barack Obama addresses the National Governors Association in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, Feb. 25, 2013. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

President Barack Obama addresses the National Governors Association in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, Feb. 25, 2013. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, accompanied by fellow members of the House GOP leadership, responds to President Barack Obama's remarks to the nation's governors earlier today about how to fend off the impending automatic budget cuts, Monday, Feb. 25, 2013, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama is arguing that looming government-wide spending cuts could idle military resources like naval aircraft carriers, while Republicans are criticizing the president for taking his arguments outside Washington instead of staying to work out a plan before Friday's deadline.

The president planned to appear Tuesday at Virginia's largest industrial employer, Newport News Shipbuilding, which would be affected by cuts to naval spending. Obama warned Monday that if the so-called sequester goes into effect later this week, the company's "workers will sit idle when they should be repairing ships, and a carrier sits idle when it should be deploying to the Persian Gulf."

Obama urged Congress to compromise to avoid the cuts, but there has been no indication the White House and congressional Republicans are actively negotiating a deal. The last known conversation between Obama and GOP leaders was last week, and there have been no in-person meetings between the parties this year.

Obama wants the replace the sequester with a package of targeted cuts and tax increases, while Republican leaders insist the savings should come from reduced spending alone.

Washington Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, chair of the House Republican Conference, criticized Obama for traveling to southern Virginia rather than up the street to Capitol Hill to come up with a solution.

"We need the president to stop campaigning for higher taxes, come back here to Washington, D.C., and lead," McMorris Rodgers said during a press conference Monday with GOP leaders.

The sequester was designed as an unpalatable fallback, meant to take effect only if a congressional super-committee failed to come up with at least $1 trillion in savings from benefit programs.

The White House has warned the $85 billion in cuts could affect everything from commercial flights to classrooms to meat inspections. The cuts would slash domestic and defense spending, leading to furloughs for hundreds of thousands of workers.

The cuts also would impact Newport News Shipbuilding, which builds and maintains the nation's nuclear-powered aircraft carriers as well as other warships. The Navy has already delayed a long-planned overhaul of the USS Abraham Lincoln at the shipyard as a result of the budget uncertainty, and other plans call for delaying the construction of other ships.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., offered a potential way out of the stalemate Monday by indicating he was open to raising tax revenue if Obama offered to overhaul big-ticket entitlement programs. Many Republicans say they are done raising revenue after letting taxes on top earners increase in December.

"I'll raise revenue. Will you reform entitlements?" Graham said in a challenge to the president on CNN. "And both together, we'll set aside sequestration in a way that won't disrupt the economy and hurt the Defense Department."

___

Associated Press writers Jim Kuhnhenn in Washington and Brock Vergakis in Norfolk, Va., contributed to this report.

___

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

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-02-26-Budget%20Battle/id-8a8bba3c264d4aba92afbeabf5e77a0c

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Women's Health South Africa ? March 2013 - Release BB

Women?s Health is the must-read magazine for women who want to live life to its fullest. Every issue of the magazine is a manual to better, healthier living in two key respects?physically and emotionally. Women?s Health magazine is your source of information on fitness, nutrition, sex and relationships, style, beauty and more. With success strategies, fitness tips and fashion and career advice, the magazine encourages readers to take charge and conquer all aspects of life. Each issue has something different to offer, such as healthy, delicious recipes and fun weekend activity ideas. Edited for a well-rounded readership, Women?s Health focuses on providing realistic goals and covering the issues most relevant to today?s modern woman.

Women?s Health South Africa ? March 2013
English | 158 pages | True PDF | 31.6 Mb
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Source: http://www.rlsbb.com/womens-health-south-africa-march-2013/

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Copyright Alert System gets started, ISPs ready to lay the smack ...

The fight against online piracy just gained a new weapon in the form of the Copyright Alert System (CAS) aka the "six strikes" policy. Starting today, participating ISPs like Verizon, Time Warner Cable, AT&T and Comcast will begin issuing warnings to customers suspected of using illegal peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing services that violate copyright laws. Initial notifications will be used to educate and direct customers to legal alternative content sources. If the first set of notifications go avoided, the ISP may take further action, which includes: throttling internet connection speeds and redirecting users to websites requiring acknowledgment of CAS alerts.

If a person wishes to contest their ISP's findings, they will have 14 calendar days to request an independent review by the American Arbitration Association (AAA) for a fee of $35. If the investigation finds that no copyright violations have taken place, the alerts will be removed from the customer's account and they will receive a refund for the filing fee. However, should the organization's research rule otherwise, the internet service provider may proceed with taking action against its account holder. To get a closer look at the CAS and its inner workings, "redirect" your browser to the source links below.

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/25/copyright-alert-system-now-live/

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ZTE Launches 5.7? 720p Grand Memo Smartphone With Quad-Core CPU And Android 4.1

ZTE has just introduced the Grand Memo flagship smartphone at MWC in Barcelona. The Grand Memo has top-shelf specs including a 5.7-inch 720x1280 TFT display, a quad-core Qualcomm 800 processor, a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera and a front-facing camera for video chat. ZTE is marketing this as its phablet experience, as competitors like Huawei, Samsung, and most recently Asus bet big on extra-large screens. Considering how much data and texting overpower our smartphone usage, it seems to be paying off.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/fGM0oc2Vz2o/

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2 Santa Cruz, Calif., police officers shot dead

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (AP) ? Two Santa Cruz police officers were shot and killed Tuesday while investigating a sexual assault, and a suspect was also fatally shot, authorities said.

The officers were shot around 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, and Santa Cruz County Sheriff Phil Wowak confirmed Tuesday evening that they died.

The shooting in the community about 60 miles south of San Francisco took place as police were investigating a report of a sexual assault, Wowak said. A suspect fired, hitting the two officers.

A suspect was shot while police were in pursuit of the shooter, the sheriff said. Authorities said that person also died.

The names and ages of the officers and the suspect have not been released.

Residents on the streets adjoining where the two shootings occurred received an automatic police call at about 3:30 p.m. warning them to stay locked inside.

About half an hour later, more than a dozen semi-automatic shots echoed down the streets in a brief shootout that killed the suspect.

Three hours later, police were going door to door in the neighborhood searching homes, garages, even closets, although the sheriff said authorities didn't know if another suspect remained at large.

Police, sheriff's deputies and FBI agents filled intersections, some with guns drawn, in what is ordinarily a quiet, residential neighborhood.

A store clerk a few buildings away from the shooting said the barrage of gunfire was "terrifying."

"We ducked. We have big desks so under the desks we went," said the clerk, who spoke on condition of anonymity and asked that her store not be identified because a suspect might still be at large and she feared for her safety.

She said she was still locked in her store a few hours after the shooting and was still scared.

Two schools were locked down during the shooting. About two hours later, the students were evacuated by bus to the County Government Center about half a mile away.

As darkness fell, helicopters and light aircraft patrolled above the neighborhood, which is about one mile from downtown Santa Cruz and the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.

The university of California, Santa Cruz campus is in hills about five miles away from the shooting scenes.

Santa Cruz has faced a recent spate of violence, and a rally had been scheduled for Tuesday for community leaders to speak out against shootings. But after Tuesday's gunfire, both a regularly scheduled City Council meeting and the downtown rally were canceled after teary-eyed city leaders learned of the deaths.

The surprising attacks include the killing of Pauly Silva, a 32-year-old martial arts instructor who was shot outside a popular bar and restaurant in downtown Santa Cruz on Feb. 9.

Two days later, a UC Santa Cruz student waiting at a bus stop was shot in the head during a robbery. She is recovering from her injuries.

Then on Feb. 17, a 21-year-old woman was raped and beaten on the UC Santa Cruz campus. Four days later, a Santa Cruz couple fought off two men who came in their home before dawn and threatened them with a sword.

___

Associated Press writer John S. Marshall in San Francisco contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/2-santa-cruz-calif-police-officers-shot-dead-024514422.html

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Obama travels to Virginia to warn of spending cuts (Washington Bureau)

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Mobile Social Voting App Polar Raises $1.2M From Jerry Yang, John Lilly, Maynard Webb And Others

Social voting app Polar has raised $1.2 milliom from Yahoo founder Jerry Yang at AME Cloud Ventures, Greylock Partners' John Lilly, LiveOps Chairman and former eBay COO Maynard Webb, Ash Patel at Morado Ventures, Brian O'Malley Mike Dauber at Battery Ventures, Google's Don Dodge, Sam Pullara, and others.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/4z2JC31o0oA/

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After CEO Departure, Mobile Video Startup Viddy Cuts Staff By More Than A Third

It was just a year ago that Viddy was flying high, quoting massive user growth and raising a massive $30 million round of funding from NEA, Goldman Sachs, Khosla Ventures, and Battery Ventures. Viddy confirmed that it reduced its workforce, specifically in the areas of marketing and operations. The company has cut 12 positions, which is more than a third of its staff based upon what we've heard.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/Mimsaiwouhw/

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Oscars are big night for advertisers

Julia Boorstin, CNBC ? ? ? 11 hrs.

The Academy Awards is nicknamed "prom for Hollywood," but it isn't just the biggest night of the year for Hollywood star-watching ? it's also one of the biggest live TV events of the year, which means an ad goldmine for ABC (owned by Disney).

Perhaps the most apt nickname for the Oscars is "the Super Bowl for women," because it's one of the most important events of the year for advertisers ? arguably the best occasion to reach a captive audience of women. ABC, which broadcasts the event, said it saw the highest demand for Oscar ads in over a decade.

Read More: Best Picture Winners With the Biggest 'Oscar Bump'

The average 30-second spot sold for between $1.65 million and $1.8 million, the highest prices since 2008, when ads averaged $1.7 million. That means this year ABC will bring in about $85 million in ad revenue, more than it has in over a decade.

Why are live events more valuable? In a word: Twitter. Chatter on Twitter and Facebook is driving more people to be part of the conversation and watch in real time, which means they're watching ads.

And this year ABC is looking to grow the social conversation with a new interactive app and Facebook ballot, which allows movie fans to watch and comment on the show with their friends.

Read More: 13 Actors Hit With The Oscar Curse

Plus, there's hope that new host Seth Macfarlane will draw younger and more male viewers, to balance out the traditionally female audience. Hyundi and JC Penney, which were the biggest ad buyers in last year's telecast are both returning. And we'll see two tech rivals duke it out: Apple and rival Samsung have both bought slots.

So how does ABC's $85 million take compare? Rival CBS has more big one-off events. In addition to the Grammys, where 30-second spots run as much as $900,000, it also has the Country Music Awards. And this year, it was CBS' turn in the Super Bowl rotation between CBS, Fox and NBC, and Super Bowl spots were the most expensive they've ever been ? as much as $3.8 million.

Read More: Jumping Into Oscar Buzz: Aflac for Affleck

Fox has the biggest regular live show, "American Idol," and NBC has Sunday Night Football, where ads run north of half a million dollars. With the rise of DVR usage, the networks ?ad advertisers ? are willing to pay more and more to capture viewers' attention for rare real-time viewing.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/oscars-are-big-night-advertisers-1C8499586

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Every Member of US Congress Must Sign Pledge to Israel

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Source: http://piotrbein.wordpress.com/2013/02/23/every-member-of-us-congress-must-sign-pledge-to-israel/

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"Dark Skies" review: When your haunted house is behind on the mortgage, it's doubly terrifying

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - You know a horror film is effective when it remains creepy even after they explain the unexplained phenomena. On that front, and on many others, "Dark Skies" emerges as a smart little chiller, one that can be read as a metaphor for the American family in crisis during tough economic times or merely as a tense exploration of things that go bump in the night.

We can only wonder what possessed the folks at Dimension Films to hide this movie from critics, thus creating the impression that it was a stinker. On the contrary, it's that rare film that takes its time ratcheting up the tension without ever feeling draggy or overlong. After the much less successful "Priest" and "Legion," it appears that writer-director Scott Stewart has finally found his groove as a genre filmmaker.

It's a tense time for suburbanites Daniel (Josh Hamilton) and Lacy (Keri Russell); he's an out-of-work architect trying desperately to land a new gig, but in the meantime, the bills are piling up, with only Lacy's paycheck as a real estate agent keeping them and their two sons Jesse (Dakota Goyo) and Sam (Kadan Rockett) afloat.

The two brothers communicate via walkie-talkie after bedtime, sharing spooky stories of monsters from outer space who invade the earth to steal people's eyes. These tales get a little scarier when strange things start happening around the house - one night, there's a mysterious kitchen intruder, then someone makes an elaborate sculpture that reflects light patterns on the ceiling, and on another night, all the family photos are stolen from their frames.

Local cops think the kids are playing pranks, but Sam knows that the sandman he sees in his dreams is responsible for the ever-escalating mayhem. As the financially strapped Daniel and Lacy invest in security systems, more and more strange events happen, leading them to understand that their entire family is in danger.

Smart movies can take subject matter we've seen a million times and make it feel fresh and exciting, and after a spate of haunted-house tales, it's refreshing to discover that such an old standby can still deliver the scares. It helps that "Dark Skies" firmly establishes its human element before getting into the paranormal; Russell and Hamilton are strong enough actors to play married people with problems in a straight-ahead drama, and they bring a reality to both the mundane and the bizarre aspects of the story.

Their lead performances are bolstered by Goyo and Rockett, who also establish a level of believability as regular people that encourages us to stay tethered to them when the story leaps into the unreal. J.K. Simmons brings his usual gruff gravitas in a cameo as an outsider who offers sage advice to the family at a key juncture.

There are any number of moments when "Dark Skies" could have pivoted from suspenseful to ridiculous, and it's a testament to Stewart and his cast that the film remains on the right path.

In a genre that so rarely delivers what it promises, this horror flick never lets up on the jolts.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/dark-skies-review-haunted-house-behind-mortgage-doubly-010544800.html

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Moody's strips Britain of triple-A rating in major blow to Osborne

LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Britain suffered its first ever sovereign ratings downgrade from a major agency on Friday when Moody's stripped the country of its coveted top-notch triple-A rating, dealing a major blow to finance minister George Osborne.

Moody's said weak prospects for British economic growth, which have thrown the government's deficit reduction strategy off course, lay behind its decision to cut the rating by one notch to Aa1 from Aaa.

Austerity has been the watchword for Osborne's fiscal policy since his Conservative-led coalition came to power in 2010 after an election in which he vowed to defend Britain's triple-A rating, which can help keep down borrowing costs.

But a very slow recovery from the financial crisis has pushed back by at least two years the government's goal of largely eliminating the budget deficit by 2015's election.

The opposition Labour Party blames the deficit on too much austerity.

Nonetheless, Osborne insisted now was not the time to change course. His annual budget due on March 20 is expected to show a further deterioration in the country's fiscal outlook.

"Tonight we have a stark reminder of the debt problems facing our country and the clearest possible warning to anyone who thinks we can run away from dealing with those problems," he said in a statement. "Far from weakening our resolve to deliver our economic recovery plan, this decision redoubles it."

However, the downgrade may fuel unease amongst members of his own party and his Liberal Democrat coalition partners that Osborne's gamble that he could slash the deficit and ensure a return to growth by the May 2015 election is failing to pay off.

Sterling fell by almost a cent to around $1.5160 after the downgrade, just off Thursday's fresh 2-1/2-year low, and analysts expected it to weaken further on Monday, even if many had seen a downgrade coming sooner or later.

"It's a pretty big deal," said Kathy Lien, managing director at BK Asset Management in New York. "We didn't see a huge reaction in the pound because it's late in the New York session. But you'll see some more aggressive selling when the markets open (in Asia) on Sunday."

Moody's said the outlook on its rating on Britain was now stable, meaning any further change is unlikely for the next year or so.

Britain joins the United States and France in having lost its triple-A rating from at least one major agency, after holding a top-notch rating from Moody's and Standard & Poor's since 1978, and from Fitch Ratings since 1994.

SLUGGISH GROWTH

Moody's said that despite considerable economic strengths, Britain's growth was likely to be sluggish due to a mix of weaker global economic activity - especially in the euro zone - and a drag "from the ongoing domestic public and private-sector de-leveraging process."

"This period of sluggish growth poses challenges to the government's fiscal consolidation program, which we now assume will extend well into the next parliament," Moody's analyst Sarah Carlson said in a telephone interview with Reuters.

But Ed Balls, the Labour Party's main spokesman on finance issues, said the Moody's decision should be a wake-up call for Osborne ahead of his annual budget statement as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

"This credit rating downgrade is a humiliating blow to a Prime Minister and Chancellor who said keeping our AAA rating was the test of their economic and political credibility."

"The issue is no longer whether this Chancellor can admit his mistakes but whether the Prime Minister can now see that, with UK economic policy so badly downgraded in every sense, things have got to change."

Howard Archer, chief UK economist at IHS Global Insight, said a new approach from Osborne was improbable.

"The strong likelihood is though that it will not materially lead to a change in his plans."

Changes are more likely from the Bank of England, which surprised markets earlier this week after it revealed that Governor Mervyn King and two other policymakers favored restarting bond purchases to boost the economy.

They remained in the minority among their fellow policymakers but economists increasingly expect more stimulus eventually by the central bank.

This - and the central bank's tolerance of above-target inflation - have combined to put pressure on sterling while leaving British government debt relatively shielded.

Charles Diebel, a fixed income strategist at British bank Lloyds, was sanguine about the impact of the downgrade on gilts, as U.S. and French debt was not badly affected when these countries lost their triple-A ratings.

"This has been speculated as inevitable and is most likely largely in the market. I would expect only very limited damage to the gilt curve and to sterling. Historically, losing your AAA is actually a bond bullish event," he said.

(Additional reporting by Steven C. Johnson in New York and Michael Holden in London; Editing by James Dalgleish, Jon Hemming and Eric Walsh)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/moodys-strips-britain-triple-rating-major-blow-osborne-013210645--business.html

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Lessons from cockroaches could inform robotics

Feb. 22, 2013 ? Running cockroaches start to recover from being shoved sideways before their dawdling nervous system kicks in to tell their legs what to do, researchers have found. These new insights on how biological systems stabilize could one day help engineers design steadier robots and improve doctors' understanding of human gait abnormalities.

In experiments, the roaches were able to maintain their footing mechanically -- using their momentum and the spring-like architecture of their legs, rather than neurologically, relying on impulses sent from their central nervous system to their muscles.

"The response time we observed is more than three times longer than you'd expect," said Shai Revzen, an assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science, as well as ecology and evolutionary biology, at the University of Michigan. Revzen is the lead author of a paper on the findings published online in Biological Cybernetics. It will appear in a forthcoming print edition.

"What we see is that the animals' nervous system is working at a substantial delay," he said. "It could potentially act a lot sooner, within about a thirtieth of a second, but instead, it kicks in after about a step and a half or two steps -- about a tenth of a second. For some reason, the nervous system is waiting and seeing how it shapes out."

To arrive at their findings, the researchers sent 15 cockroaches (one-by-one, in 41 trials) running across a small bridge onto a placemat-sized cart on wheels. The cart was attached to an elastic cord that was pulled tight like a loaded slingshot and held in place with a strong magnet on the other side. Once a roach was about a body length onto the cart, the researchers released the magnet, sending the cart hurling sideways. The force was equivalent to a sumo wrestler hitting a jogger with a flying tackle, said Revzen, adding that cockroaches are much more stable than humans.

To gather detailed information about the roaches' gait, the researchers utilized a technique Revzen developed several years ago called kinematic phase analysis. It involves using a high-speed camera to constantly measure the position of each of the insects' six feet as well as the ends of its body. A computer program then merges the continuous data from all these points into an accurate estimate of where the roach is in its gait cycle at all times. The approach gives scientists a more detailed picture than just measuring the timing of footfalls -- a common metric used today to study gait.

In kinematic phase analysis, the signals are converted into a wave graph that illustrates the insect's movement pattern. The pattern only changes when the nervous system kicks in. How do the researchers know this? In a separate but similar experiment, they implanted electrodes into the legs of seven cockroaches to measure nerve signals.

The nervous-system delay the researchers observed is substantially longer than scientists expected, Revzen said. And it runs contrary to assumptions in the robotics community, where computers stand in for brains and the machines' movements are often guided by continuous feedback to that computer from sensors on the robots' feet.

Revzen said the new findings might imply that the biological brain, at least in cockroaches, adjusts the gait only at whole-step intervals rather than at any point in a step. Periodic, rather than continuous, feedback systems might lead to more stable (not to mention energy-efficient) walking robots -- whether they travel on two feet or six.

Robot makers often look to nature for inspiration. As animals move through the world, they have to respond to unexpected disturbances like rocky, uneven ground or damaged limbs. Revzen and his team believe that patterns in how they move as they adjust could give away how their machinery and neurology work together.

"The fundamental question is, 'What can you do with a mechanical suspension versus one that requires electronic feedback?" Revzen said. "The animals obviously have much better mechanical designs than anything we know how to build. But if we could learn how they do it, we might be able to reproduce it."

More than 70 percent of Earth's land surface isn't navigable by wheeled or tracked vehicles, so legged robots could potentially bridge the gap for ground-based operations like search and rescue and defense.

For human gait analysis, Revzen and colleagues said their noninvasive, high-resolution kinematic phase approach could be valuable in the biomedical community.

"Falls are a primary cause for deterioration in the elderly," Revzen said. "Anything we can do to understand gait pathology and stabilization of gait is very valuable."

These experiments were conducted at the University of California, Berkeley, before Revzen came to U-M. The work was funded by the National Science Foundation.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Michigan.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Shai Revzen, Samuel A. Burden, Talia Y. Moore, Jean-Michel Mongeau, Robert J. Full. Instantaneous kinematic phase reflects neuromechanical response to lateral perturbations of running cockroaches. Biological Cybernetics, 2013; DOI: 10.1007/s00422-012-0545-z

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/n63Fs5xz7M8/130222143233.htm

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Bacolod City Mass Wedding 2013

Well, I have to go to Oslo for a few days to close out the flat, get the movers in, finalize and finish my life in Norway. Problem is, I don't want to go. I had SUCH a hard time leaving, it was SO painful, that when I got to Houston I kind of let it roll off me, put it behind me, just...stopped thinking about it. It's been kind of nice. I am here, in this rather nameless, soulless flat, me and my three suitcases of stuff, and a few books and magazines and stuff I've bought since getting here. I am not burdened by possessions, the need to cook, the need to clean (bi-weekly housekeeping comes with the place) the needs of anyone's but my own, ?I only need to focus on getting my job going and relearning how to live in the US. OK, so I AM kind of (at times, very) lonely, and a bit regretful of some things, and missing some things, and thinking about some things. Trying to achieve a 'fresh start' is really hard, and I don't know that it is even possible. A fresh start means leaving behind so much, and pretending that your past is clean and tidy, and sorry, at my age, a messy past is a given and, I think, desireable, ?so there is no way you can ever go 'fresh' again. Everything I was, or have done, or have become, is part of this new venture. That's why I am doing it, actually, as the me I have become is finally up to this, this clean, new me could only rise out of the old, scared, messy, unsure and un-self confident me. But that doesn't mean I have forgotten or am abandon...

Things change, doors close and new ones open.

Source: http://l.webring.org/forum?forum=womenbloggers;did=559

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