Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/315215642?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
'The Voice' gives Danielle every chance to shine
TV
6 hours ago
After Monday's live final performances on "The Voice," it?s pretty clear who the show hopes will be crowned the champion on Tuesday.
Danielle Bradbery was given the prime slots and closed the show Monday night. Before she?d even uttered her first note of ?Born to Fly,? Adam Levine already had anointed her the winner and Blake Shelton, the 16-year-old's coach, had said (again) that she was one of the most important artists they?d ever seen walk across the show's stage.
And just in case the sentiment was unclear, both stars left the show?s viewers with an unmistakable last impression.
?What else can I possibly say? Your perfection is almost boring me at this point. It?s too perfect,? Adam said.
?As your coach, I?d like to sit here and say coach-y type things, but at the end of the day ? I?m one of the millions of people out there that you have wrapped around your finger,? Blake said. ?Thank God that you came to 'The Voice' to debut yourself, because you are such an important person in music and I can?t say enough about you.?
Some might argue that this is quite a lot of praise to put on a teenager.
Nevertheless, ?The Voice? spared nothing in giving her the chance to shine.
Danielle sang in the back half of every one of the live performance shows, and that wasn?t about to change this late in the game. On Monday, not only did she sing last, she was involved in three of the final four performances. If late impressions are what woo voters, she got her fair share and then some.
Her three songs were by Patty Loveless, Pam Tillis and Sara Evans, continuing the Blake strategy of keeping Michelle squarely in the country lane. It?s not the most fascinating approach to song selection in the world, but it works for the superstar every year and it did again on Monday.
The Swon Brothers, on the other hand, finished all three of their individual performances before Danielle took the stage for a second time. Except for a random group performance with the rest of the top 12, they were done for the night with 40 minutes left in the show. It doesn?t take a conspiracy theorist to guess that the likable Okies on Blake's team weren?t the top choice of whoever made the schedule.
That?s nothing new for the brothers. They?ve taken the opposite road from Danielle, having performed in the first half of every live show and survived where others in that position have faltered. They were again nothing but fun. And they did get Shakira to wave a little ?Go Okies?pennant ? although considering that she followed that by wearing Michelle-like glasses and a tiny cowboy hat to honor Danielle, she was mostly trying to get some airtime on a night where she had no remaining singers of her own to support.
Michelle Chamuel had the most memorable performance of the night with ?Why? by Annie Lennox. Part of the song was sung to an image of her in a mirror, which fascinated Blake to no end. She and coach Usher said more nice things about each other, and the hopeful still has the most range of any singer in the competition.
But for ?The Voice,? range isn?t as important as genre. Though Usher did his part by having Michelle reprise Taylor Swift?s ?I Knew You Were Trouble,? she?s an indie-rock girl in a country competition, and that likely means a runner-up finish and a front-row seat for Danielle?s coronation Tuesday.
Who are you rooting for to win? Click on the "Talk about it" button below and tell us!
Source: http://www.today.com/entertainment/voice-gives-danielle-every-chance-shine-finals-6C10357251
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CA-NEWS Summary
Obama says will meet oversight board about NSA surveillance
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Monday he will meet soon with a privacy and civil liberties oversight board to discuss ways to balance the need for U.S. surveillance while respecting people's right to privacy. Obama, in an interview with PBS anchor Charlie Rose, said he believed there is plenty of transparency about the U.S. government's top-secret monitoring of Americans' phone and Internet data but that he has asked the intelligence community to see if there is more that can be revealed about it to reassure people.
Putin faces isolation over Syria as G8 ratchets up pressure
ENNISKILLEN, Northern Ireland (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin faced further isolation on the second day of a G8 summit on Tuesday as world leaders lined up to pressure him into toning down his support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Following an icy encounter between the Kremlin chief and U.S. President Barack Obama late on Monday, the G8 leaders will seek to find resolution to a war that has prompted powers across the Middle East to square off on sectarian lines.
Explosion in Kabul near Afghan national parliament: police
KABUL (Reuters) - An explosion on Tuesday morning rocked an area in the west of the Afghan capital, Kabul, close to the country's national parliament, police said. The explosion occurred soon after 9 a. m. (12.30 a.m. EDT) in an area called Karta-e Seh, a Kabul police source said, and came as hundreds of local and international officials gathered on Kabul's outskirts ahead of a ceremony to mark the beginning of the final phase of security transition to Afghan forces across the nation.
FBI rushes to Newark airport after passenger says poison on plane
NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) - A passenger who screamed that he had poison aboard a plane that was headed for New Jersey's Newark airport on Monday was taken into custody by FBI agents when the plane landed, law enforcement officials said. United Airlines Flight 116 was en route from Hong Kong to Newark Liberty International Airport when a passenger "became disruptive," the carrier said.
Lawyer Cliff Sloan faces tough assignment: Closing Guantanamo
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Cliff Sloan has represented Jon Bon Jovi's band in legal matters and argued cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Now, he has perhaps his toughest assignment: Helping to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Washington attorney was named on Monday as the State Department's Guantanamo Bay envoy, a central player in President Barack Obama's renewed push to make good on a 2008 campaign promise to shut the installation where the United States holds terrorism suspects. Obama wants to close the facility because it is a legacy of the Bush administration that he feels has damaged the U.S. reputation with allies around the world.
Turkey could deploy army to quell protests
ANKARA/ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey's deputy prime minister said on Monday the armed forces could be called up if needed to help quell popular protests that have swept Turkish cities in the last two weeks, the first time the possibility of a military role has been raised. Bulent Arinc made the remarks in Ankara, where 1,000 striking trade union workers faced off briefly against police backed by several water cannon, before police retreated and the crowd left.
U.S. right to arm Syrian rebels, says Israeli president
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli President Shimon Peres has thrown his weight behind U.S. plans to arm Syrian rebels, shrugging off fears the weapons could be turned on Israel and exacerbate the conflict. In a wide-ranging interview with Reuters before his 90th birthday, Peres dismissed the idea that Israel could launch a unilateral military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities and urged Palestinians and Israelis to forge immediate peace.
Snowden hits back against critics of NSA leaks
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The former National Security Agency contractor who revealed the U.S. government's top-secret monitoring of Americans' phone and Internet data fought back against his critics on Monday, saying the government's "litany of lies" about the programs compelled him to act. Edward Snowden told an online forum run by Britain's Guardian newspaper that he considered it an honor to be called a traitor by people like former Vice President Dick Cheney, and he urged President Barack Obama to "return to sanity" and roll back the surveillance effort.
Obama sees Iran's election of moderate as hopeful sign
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Monday that Iran's election of a moderate as its next president is a sign that Iranians want to move in a different direction, but he was uncertain whether it would lead to a breakthrough over Tehran's nuclear ambitions. In an interview with public television anchor Charlie Rose, Obama said the United States and its allies would be willing to hold talks with Iran over its nuclear program, as long as Tehran recognized that international sanctions would not be lifted unless Iran proved it is not building a nuclear weapon.
Putin, Obama face off over Syria; rebels get Saudi missiles
ENISKILLEN, Northern Ireland/DUBAI (Reuters) - Rebels fought to halt an advance by President Bashar al-Assad's forces into northern Syria on Monday while U.S. President Barack Obama faced a showdown with Russia's Vladimir Putin over Obama's decision last week to arm the insurgents. New evidence emerged of escalating foreign support for the rebels, with a Gulf source telling Reuters that Saudi Arabia had equipped fighters for the first time with shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, their most urgent request. Rebels said Riyadh had also sent them anti-tank missiles.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ca-news-summary-000524607.html
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Monday, June 17, 2013
Nokia RM-877 approved by FCC with AT&T LTE, likely is the EOS
Oh, the tales FCC employees could tell -- if they were allowed to discuss them. A Nokia device, known only as the RM-877, has passed the agency's approval process. This mystery unit contains AT&T-compatible LTE bands (2, 4, 5 and 17, to be specific), pentaband HSPA+ / WCDMA and quad-band GSM / EDGE. Additionally, it also sports NFC, Bluetooth and dual-band WiFi. According to the above diagram, the handset measures 130.35mm tall and 71.4mm wide, which makes it a millimeter taller and wider than the Lumia 925. We're still combing the documents for any more clues, but we've already seen reports that appear to match this model number with the EOS that we're expecting to see on July 11th.
Update: As we continue to look through the documents, we've noticed mention of the device being tested with a "camera grip" (model PD-95G). It definitely gives us more reason to believe this is the EOS. Additionally, we've also noticed that a wireless charging cover was involved in testing, which means it's likely optional, much like the Lumia 925.
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, Nokia, AT&T
Source: FCC
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/RwgxfXKWMFY/
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Ark. Sen. Pryor hit from right, left before 2014
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) ? The conservative Club for Growth tags Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor as President Barack Obama's "closest ally" in the state. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's gun-control advocacy group says Pryor "let us down."
Pryor's re-election race is 17 months away, but the Democratic incumbent seen as perhaps the most vulnerable in 2014 is already taking hits from the right and the left. That's forced the second-term senator to aggressively defend himself and step into re-election mode sooner than planned, even though he has no Republican opponent.
"My goal right now is to put the campaign off until the election year, 2014," Pryor told reporters recently. "They keep dragging me back into the politics, they keep running ads and trying to keep it stirred it up here."
Republicans are trying to unseat Pryor and three other Democratic incumbents who represent states that Republican Mitt Romney won in last year's presidential race: Mark Begich of Alaska, Kay Hagan of North Carolina and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana.
Democrats need to defend 21 seats, including seven in largely rural states that Obama lost in 2012.
Republicans need to pick up six seats to regain Senate control. But the GOP is defending fewer incumbents and could benefit from history: The party controlling the White House usually loses seats during the midterm election of a second-term president.
Pryor, who began airing his first television ad last month, faces pressure especially early in Arkansas. He's trying to survive in a state where Republicans enjoyed widespread gains over the past two election cycles, fueled by Obama's unpopularity.
The GOP controls both chambers of the Legislature and all four U.S. House seats. In 2010, Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln lost her bid for a third term. Last year, Republicans swept all four House seats and won control of the Legislature for the first time since Reconstruction.
National and state Republicans are eager to topple Pryor, whose father, David, was a senator and governor. It's a turnaround from 2008, when Republicans were unable to find anyone to challenge Mark Pryor and he easily won a second term.
"When you hear Arkansas Democrats try to spin things for Mark Pryor, the only things they can point to is he's raised a lot of money, he's got a high name ID and the fact his father is popular," David Ray, a spokesman for the state GOP. "That's not a very strong place to start."
Among Republicans, U.S. Reps. Tom Cotton and Steve Womack are widely viewed as potential challengers.
So far, Pryor is taking heat from outside groups rather than a challenger. The Senate Conservatives Fund, a political action committee, has begun airing $320,000 worth of television ads criticizing Pryor's 2009 vote for the federal health care law and calling him too liberal.
The conservative Club for Growth, which backed Cotton last year, has aired ads linking Pryor to Obama.
At the same time, Pryor has absorbed criticism from the left after voting against expanded background checks for firearms purchases.
Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the Bloomberg group, is airing television and radio ads criticizing Pryor for the vote. The ad invokes the shooting death of Bill Gwatney, the state Democratic Party chairman who was killed in his office in 2008. Bloomberg has also urged New York donors to not contribute to Pryor or the other Democratic senators who voted against the background checks measure in April.
"When my dear innocent friend was shot to death, I didn't blame guns. I blamed a system that makes it so terribly easy for criminals or the dangerous mentally ill to buy guns," Angela Bradford-Barnes, who worked with Gwatney, says in the ad. "That's why I was so disappointed when Mark Pryor voted against comprehensive background checks. On that vote, he let us down."
Robert McLarty, a Democratic consultant in Little Rock who's not affiliated with Pryor's campaign, said the senator's biggest challenge right now is that he doesn't have an announced opponent while he's fending off attacks from both sides.
"He's not able to direct a compare and contrast style campaign," McLarty said. "He's not able to take a candidate on the other side and say this is how we differ."
But McLarty and others say Pryor is in a better position than Lincoln was in 2010.
She survived a bruising Democratic primary with the help of former President Bill Clinton, who campaigned for her. But she lost handily in the fall of 2010. Pryor has higher approval figures than Lincoln did and appears unlikely at this point to draw a serious primary challenger next spring.
Clinton headlined a March fundraiser to kick off Pryor's re-election bid, helping him raise more than $1 million in a night. Pryor reported having more than $3.4 million in the bank for the 2014 race.
"The reason this is a race of national significance is because it's about whether a senator who cares about his own people more than ideological purity can be financed, elected, lifted by the people he has served in the face of all these crazy currents that are taking America and tearing it to shreds," Clinton said at the event.
Pryor is trying to find middle ground on issues such as gun control, where he contends his vote represents a constituency that values hunting and gun rights. He's also argued that a competing measure he supported that was endorsed by the National Rifle Association would have done more to address gun violence.
The NRA has also stepped in to help Pryor, with a radio ad airing in the state thanking the lawmaker for his vote.
Without an opponent, Pryor is casting the fight over gun control as one with Bloomberg.
"The mayor of New York City is running ads against me because I opposed President Obama's gun control legislation. Nothing in the Obama plan would have prevented tragedies like Newtown, Aurora, Tucson or even Jonesboro," Pryor says in his television ad. "I'm committed to finding real solutions to gun violence while protecting our Second Amendment rights."
When Bloomberg's group ran ads before the background checks vote, Pryor responded: "I don't take gun advice from the mayor of New York City. I listen to Arkansans."
He's also distanced himself from Obama and national Democrats on other issues. He's opposed gay marriage despite a growing chorus of support from lawmakers from his party in other states and criticized the Internal Revenue Service for targeting conservative groups.
Pryor said he's trying to keep his focus on Arkansas.
"All I can do is be the very best senator I can be. I wish these outside groups would let me do that and not have to fool around with the election," Pryor said. "People in Arkansas are tired of the election. They want us to get up to Washington and take care of the nation's business."
___
Associated Press writer Ken Thomas contributed to this report.
___
Follow Andrew DeMillo on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ademillo
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ark-sen-pryor-hit-left-2014-085128242.html
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Manu Ginobili sparks Spurs to Game 5 win
SAN ANTONIO (AP) ? Across three NBA championships and more than 100 playoff victories together, Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili have built a bond most teammates will never share.
So maybe Ginobili could ignore it when he was suddenly being criticized around San Antonio.
You better believe it bothered the others.
"Yeah, of course," Parker said. "Because for everything he did for the franchise, I thought it was a little bit too harsh. We understand it's a business. He came out big tonight."
Just like Parker said he would.
Ginobili broke out of a slump in a big way with 24 points and 10 assists in his first start of the season, and the Spurs beat the Miami Heat 114-104 on Sunday night to take a 3-2 lead in the NBA Finals.
Parker scored 26 points, Duncan had 17 points and 12 rebounds, and Ginobili had his highest-scoring game of the season as the Spurs became the first team to shoot 60 percent in a finals game in four years.
"He's such a huge part of what we do and how far we've come. You can see it tonight in how we played and the results of the game," Duncan said. "We're always confident in him. ... We know he has it in him. We hope he can bring it forward for one more win."
Danny Green smashed the NBA Finals record for 3-pointers, hitting six more and scoring 24 points. Kawhi Leonard finished with 16, but the stage was set when Ginobili trotted out with Duncan, Parker and the rest of starters in what could have been the last finals home game for a trio that's meant so much to San Antonio.
One more victory and the Spurs' Big Three, not Miami's, will be the one that rules the NBA.
And a big reason was Ginobili, as he's been for so long ? just not during what had been a miserable series for the former Sixth Man of the Year.
"I was angry, disappointed," Ginobili said. "We are playing in the NBA Finals, we were 2-2, and I felt I still wasn't really helping the team that much," Ginobili said. "And that was the frustrating part."
On Sunday, it was all forgotten.
"He's obviously very popular. He's been here a long time. He's helped us have a lot of success over the years," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said.
LeBron James and Dwyane Wade each scored 25 points for the Heat, who host Game 6 on Tuesday night. They need a victory to force the first Game 7 in the finals since the Lakers beat the Celtics in 2010.
Miami's Big Three formed a few weeks after that game, with predictions of multiple titles to follow. Now they're a loss away from going just 1 for 3 in finals to start their partnership, while the Spurs could run their perfect record to 5 for 5.
"This is the position we're in and the most important game is Game 6," James said. "We can't worry about a Game 7, we have to worry about Game 6."
Duncan won his first title in 1999, and Parker and Ginobili were with him for three championships since. They have been the perfect partnership, keeping the Spurs in the hunt virtually every year while teams such as the Lakers, Mavericks and Suns have all risen and fallen in the Western Conference during that time.
They remained unbeaten in Game 5s, including two previous victories when the series was tied at 2-2. Of the 27 times the finals have been tied at 2-2, the Game 5 winner has won 20 of them.
Miami was the most recent loser, falling to Dallas in Game 5 in 2011 before being eliminated at home the next game.
"We're going to see if we're a better ballclub and if we're better prepared for this moment," Wade said.
San Antonio shot 42 of 70, right at 60 percent. The last team to make 60 percent of its shots in the finals was Orlando, which hit 62.5 in Game 3 against the Lakers in 2009, according to STATS.
"They just absolutely outplayed us," Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. "At times they were just picking one guy out at a time and going at us mano y mano. That will change."
Ray Allen scored 21 points on the night for the Heat as he watched Green shatter his finals 3-point record. Green has 25 3s in the series. Allen made 22 3-pointers in six games in the 2008 finals for Boston.
Chris Bosh scored 16 points for Miami, Wade had 10 assists, and James had eight assists and six rebounds, but it was their defense that let the Heat down in this one.
The Heat were within one with 3:05 left in the third quarter before Green hit yet another 3-pointer and Ginobili followed with the stretch that turned the game into the fourth straight blowout of the finals.
The crafty lefty plays with a flair developed on the courts of Argentina and perfected in Europe before coming to the NBA. He sees angles other players can't and takes risks few others would, but his style has been the perfect fit alongside Duncan and Parker.
He converted a three-point play, tossed in a floater with his left hand as he drifted right, and found Tiago Splitter under the hoop with a pass to make it 85-74.
He flipped in another runner with 2.9 seconds to go in the period, sending the Spurs to the fourth with an 87-75 lead as fans chanted "Manu! Manu!" during the break between the third and fourth quarters.
Ginobili had been averaging just 7.5 points on 34.5 percent shooting in the series, making only three of his 16 3-point attempts. But Popovich made the finals' second lineup change in two games, after the Heat inserted Mike Miller to start Game 4.
Ginobili didn't make a start this season and certainly hadn't been playing like someone who belonged with the first five. But in the Spurs' biggest game of the season, they remained confident he would break out, and they were right.
"I knew that I was not scoring much and I felt it in the air. But I tried not to care about it. I know I'm critical enough of myself to be worrying about what other people say," Ginobili said.
It was the first time he scored 24 or more points since having 34 on June 4, 2012, against Oklahoma City, according to STATS.
The AT&T Center crowd roared when Ginobili was the last starter announced, the cheers growing louder when he made a jumper ? originally ruled a 3-pointer but later overturned by replay ? on the first possession. He assisted on the Spurs' next three baskets, and it was 15-10 when he later hit a 3 that did count.
Parker picked it up from there, dancing his way into the lane repeatedly and scoring seven points in a 12-0 run that made it 29-17.
Leonard's 3-pointer with 4.7 seconds left, on an assist from Ginobili, made it 32-19 and gave the Spurs 12 makes in 19 attempts (63 percent) in the opening 12 minutes.
Green's third straight 3-pointer made it 45-28 about 5 minutes into the second quarter, and it seemed the trend of blowouts would continue.
But James suddenly got rolling during a 14-2 Miami spurt that cut it to five on his third consecutive Heat basket.
San Antonio made 21 of 34 shots (62 percent) in the first half, opening a 61-52 lead on Parker's drive with 0.4 seconds left.
Miami then ran off eight in a row to start the second half and get within one. They cut it to one again later in the period before Ginobili led the flurry that finished the Heat for good.
It was a fitting finish if it was the last home game in the finals for San Antonio's star trio, which has combined for 101 playoff victories. Ginobili has said he might think about retirement as he turns 36 next month, and Duncan is 37.
Both coaches said it was difficult waiting two days between games ? Popovich said it was "like death" ? though he did say it was great for the Spurs because they have some older players.
The break seemed to help his team early, particularly Parker, whose energy sagged in the second half of Game 4 as he struggled with a strained hamstring that he said could tear at any time and would've had him sidelined during the regular season.
If things fall right for the Spurs, he'll have plenty of time to heal after Tuesday.
Notes: The last team to lose Game 5 of a 2-2 series and then win the title was the Los Angeles Lakers, when they beat Boston in 2010. ... The Spurs said Sunday that reserve guard Patty Mills had surgery to remove an abscess Friday and would miss the rest of the series. Mills had an infection in his right foot and the abscess developed between his fourth and fifth toes.
___
Follow Brian Mahoney on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Briancmahoney
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/manu-ginobili-sparks-spurs-game-5-win-025442617.html
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Box Office Guru Wrapup: Man of Steel Sets June Record
This weekend, Superman was reborn at the box office as the big-budget gamble Man of Steel paid off handsomely with a spectacular opening weekend in North America plus impressive launches overseas in only a portion of the international marketplace. The Warner Bros. summer tentpole grossed an estimated $113.1M domestically, breaking the record for the biggest June opening ever. Adding in $12M from Thursday night group sales led by Walmart's promotion for 7:00pm shows, the total stood at a stellar $125.1M. The Friday-to-Sunday portion for the PG-13 film averaged a muscular $26,879 from 4,207 theaters including 331 IMAX screens. Toy Story 3 held the June record since 2010 with $110.3M.
The 3.5-day performance exceeded the extended seven-day holiday opening of 2006's reboot Superman Returns which amounted to $108.1M during the week leading up to Independence Day. That mega-budgeted film eventually inched its way into the double century club ending with $200.1M but was seen as a creative and commercial disappointment which failed to lead to a new franchise being born. The new reboot may match the last one's gross by the end of next weekend.
Man of Steel was directed by Zack Snyder with Henry Cavill taking on the title role and also featured an Oscar-caliber cast including Russell Crowe, Amy Adams, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Michael Shannon and Laurence Fishburne. Christopher Nolan, who successfully rebooted the Batman franchise for the studio, produced Steel and lent much to the box office pull of the film. After getting the origin story out of the way in 2005's Batman Begins, grosses soared even higher for the next two chapters leading to a $2.5 billion global trilogy, so it was crucial for Warner Bros. to relaunch Superman in a way that brought in the masses.
Reviews were mixed but paying audiences gave the super hero flick an encouraging A- grade from CinemaScore. Friday debuted to $44.1M including $9M in midnight shows. Saturday fell an understandable 18% to $36.3M while Sunday was projected to dip by only 10% to $32.7M thanks to the Father's Day holiday. Much of the film's story involves Superman's two dads from Krypton and Earth and how they molded him.
Studio research showed that Man of Steel skewed towards men as expected with 56% being male. But that made for a better female turnout than usual for a comic book pic. Iron Man 3 and Avengers were both 61% male and last summer's Spider-Man reboot played 58% male. The stronger cross-gender appeal could allow it to play well over the coming weeks especially with the Fourth of July holiday around the corner.
3,350 theaters offered a 3D option with those screens accounting for 41% of the gross. With conversions, even for effects-driven action pictures, audiences nowadays typically prefer the original 2D version at regular prices instead. IMAX venues contributed 12% of the total gross with $13.3M and a sturdy average of $40,181 since Thursday night. Tickets cost as much as $21.50 to experience Man of Steel in IMAX 3D in New York City. Massive cross-promotions with brand partners helped to drive in business too for the event film.
The international launch for Man of Steel was also quite strong even though many top markets open later. The weekend saw $71.6M from 24 markets led by the U.K., Mexico, and Korea which were the only majors to open this week. 27 new countries will launch next weekend including key territories like France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Russia and China so Man of Steel has much more ahead this summer. But so far, the first weekend delivered $196.7M in global sales.
Opening far behind in second place was the new doomsday comedy This is the End with an estimated $20.5M over three days and $32.8M since its launch on Tuesday night with 7:00pm shows. It was a respectable opening for the Sony release especially considering the distraction Clark Kent had over the target audience of young men. Playing in 3,055 locations, the raunchy R-rated comedy starring Seth Rogen, James Franco, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, Jonah Hill and Jay Baruchel averaged $6,710 over the Friday-to-Sunday period. The full gross was below the $41.3M five-day debut of Pineapple Express in August 2008 which was from many of the same team members.
Reviews were very solid for End but the CinemaScore grade was a B+ which is commendable, not glowing. The road ahead features plenty of new action movies which will continue to lure in young men so it will not be easy. But Rogen and company hope that word-of-mouth will help it reach many more moviegoers over the weeks ahead, especially those who want a rowdy laugh and are all actioned out. Studio research showed that the crowd was 60% male and 52% over 25. With a $32M production budget and marketing costs not in the same league as summer tentpoles, the comedy should turn out to be a moneymaker regardless of how it plays overseas.
Holding steady in third place was Lionsgate's heist thriller Now You See Me with an estimated $10.3M, down 46%, for a robust cume to date of $80M. Now the top-grossing installment of the franchise, Universal's Fast & Furious 6 followed with an estimated $9.4M dropping 52% pushing the domestic tally to a muscular $219.6M. Worldwide, it's also the highest-grossing Furious flick with a total now of $636.9M and still growing.
Last week's top film The Purge got beaten down tumbling a frightening 76% to an estimated $8.2M. The micro-budgeted $3M pic has nonetheless raked in a healthy $52M in ten days for Universal. The Fox comedy The Internship fell a troubling 60% in its second weekend to an estimated $7M putting the Vince Vaughn-Owen Wilson pic at a disappointing $31M.
Dropping 50% to an estimated $6M in its fourth round was the animated film Epic which has collected $95.4M to date for Fox. Star Trek Into Darkness followed with an estimated $5.7M, off 51%, for an impressive $210.5M for Paramount.
The summer's most notable flop so far, Will Smith's critically panned father-son sci-fi adventure After Earth, crumbled 65% to an estimated $3.8M for a lousy $54.2M cume to date for the pricey $130M gamble. Flirting with the quadruple century mark, Iron Man 3 rounded out the top ten with an estimated $2.9M in its seventh weekend, down 50%. Disney has grossed $399.6M to date and $1.2 billion globally.
The top ten films grossed an estimated $186.8M which was up a stellar 55% from last year when Madagascar 3 remained at number one with $34.1M; and up 29% from 2011 when Green Lantern debuted in the top spot with $53.2M.
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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1927672/news/1927672/
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Shock lingers after Nazi unit leader found in US
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) ? The revelation that a top former commander of a Nazi SS-led military unit has lived quietly in Minneapolis for the past six decades came as a shock to those who knew 94-year-old Michael Karkoc. World War II survivors in both the U.S. and Europe harshly condemned the news and prosecutors in Poland have said they'll investigate.
An Associated Press investigation found that Karkoc served as a top commander in the Ukrainian Self-Defense Legion during World War II. The unit is accused of wartime atrocities, including the burning of villages filled with women and children.
"I know him personally. We talk, laugh. He takes care of his yard and walks with his wife," his next-door neighbor, Gordon Gnasdoskey, said Friday. Gnasdoskey, the grandson of a Ukrainian immigrant himself, said he was disturbed by the revelations about his longtime neighbor.
"For me, this is a shock. To come to this country and take advantage of its freedoms all of these years, it blows my mind," he said.
Karkoc told American authorities in 1949 that he had performed no military service during World War II, concealing his work as an officer and founding member of the legion and later as an officer in the SS Galician Division, according to records obtained by the AP through a Freedom of Information Act request. The Galician Division and a Ukrainian nationalist organization he served in were both on a secret American government blacklist of organizations whose members were forbidden from entering the United States at the time.
Though records do not show that Karkoc had a direct hand in war crimes, statements from men in his unit and other documentation confirm the Ukrainian company he commanded massacred civilians, and suggest that Karkoc was at the scene of these atrocities as the company leader. Nazi SS files say he and his unit were also involved in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, in which the Nazis brutally suppressed a Polish rebellion against German occupation.
No one answered the door Friday morning at Karkoc's house on a residential street in northeast Minneapolis, where several television news trucks were parked outside. Karkoc had earlier declined to comment on his wartime service when approached by the AP, and repeated efforts to arrange an interview through his son ? including again Friday ? were unsuccessful.
Late Friday, Karkoc's son, Andriy Karkos, read a statement accusing AP of defaming Karkoc, and pointed to the portion of the story about records not showing Karkoc had a direct hand in war crimes.
"That's the god's honest truth," said Karkos, who uses a different spelling for his last name. "My father was never a Nazi."
He said the family wouldn't comment further until it has obtained its own documents and reviewed witnesses and sources.
Sam Rafowitz, an 88-year-old Jewish resident of the Minneapolis suburb of Minnetonka, grew up in Warsaw, Poland, and spent four years working in concentration camps. He took a hard line after hearing the news about Karkoc.
"I think they should put him on trial," said Rafowitz, who was born near the border of Germany and Poland.
He may get his wish: Polish prosecutors announced Friday they will investigate Karkoc and provide "every possible assistance" to the U.S. Department of Justice, which has used lies in immigration papers to deport dozens of suspected Nazi war criminals. Karkoc lied to American immigration officials to get into the U.S., telling authorities in 1949 that he had performed no military service during the war. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1959.
The AP evidence of Karkoc's wartime activities has also prompted German authorities to express interest in exploring whether there is enough to prosecute. In Germany, Nazis with "command responsibility" can be charged with war crimes even if their direct involvement in atrocities cannot be proven.
Efraim Zuroff, the lead Nazi hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem, said that based on his decades of experience pursuing Nazi war criminals, he expects that the evidence showing Karkoc lied to American officials and that his unit carried out atrocities is strong enough for deportation and war-crimes prosecution in Germany or Poland.
"In America this is a relatively easy case: If he was the commander of a unit that carried out atrocities, that's a no brainer," Zuroff said. "Even in Germany ... if the guy was the commander of the unit, then even if they can't show he personally pulled the trigger, he bears responsibility."
Former German army officer Josef Scheungraber ? a lieutenant like Karkoc ? was convicted in Germany in 2009 on charges of murder based on circumstantial evidence that put him on the scene of a Nazi wartime massacre in Italy as the ranking officer.
Prosecution in Poland may also be a possibility because most of the unit's alleged crimes were against Poles on Polish territory. But Karkoc would be unlikely to be tried in his native Ukraine, where such men are today largely seen as national heroes who fought for the country against the Soviet Union.
Karkoc now lives in a modest house in an area of Minneapolis that has a significant Ukrainian population. Even at his advanced age, he came to the door without help of a cane or a walker. He would not comment on his wartime service for Nazi Germany.
"I don't think I can explain," he said.
Gnasdoskey said the neighborhood was once a destination for displaced persons from Slavic countries, Ukraine, Poland and other countries in the region. The area has diversified over the years, but is still occupied by the last of those residents along with some of their descendants. Karkoc and his family are longtime members of the St. Michael's and St. George's Ukrainian Orthodox Church, among several Catholic and Orthodox churches in the neighborhood.
"All the time I am here, I know him as a good man, a good citizen," said the Rev. Evhen Kumka, the church's pastor. "He's well known in the congregation."
Kumka moved from Ukraine to Minnesota 19 years ago to lead the congregation, and said Karkoc was already active in the church then. Kumka wouldn't say whether he'd spoken to Karkoc about his past, but said he was skeptical.
"I don't think everything is correct," Kumka said. "As I know him, he is a good example for many people."
Karkoc worked as a carpenter in Minneapolis, and appeared in a 1980 issue of Carpenter magazine among a group celebrating 25 years of union membership. He was a member and a secretary in the local branch of the Ukrainian National Association, a fraternal organization, and voting records obtained by the AP show he regularly voted in city, state and general elections.
Members of Karkoc's unit and other witnesses have told stories of brutal attacks on civilians.
One of Karkoc's men, Vasyl Malazhenski, told Soviet investigators that in 1944 the unit was directed to "liquidate all the residents" of the village of Chlaniow in a reprisal attack for the killing of a German SS officer, though he did not say who gave the order.
"It was all like a trance: setting the fires, the shooting, the destroying," Malazhenski recalled, according to the 1967 statement found by the AP in the archives of Warsaw's state-run Institute of National Remembrance, which investigates and prosecutes German and Soviet crimes on Poles during and after World War II.
"Later, when we were passing in file through the destroyed village," Malazhenski said, "I could see the dead bodies of the killed residents: men, women, children."
Valentina Yarr of Minneapolis, a former president of the church council, said she had also known Karkoc and members of his family for many years.
"I don't have anything bad to say about him, nor did I ever hear a hint of anything like this," Yarr said. "I'd rather not say anything else."
In a background check by U.S. officials on April 14, 1949, Karkoc said he had never performed any military service, telling investigators that he "worked for father until 1944. Worked in labor camp from 1944 until 1945."
However, in a Ukrainian-language memoir published in 1995, Karkoc states that he helped found the Ukrainian Self Defense Legion in 1943 in collaboration with the Nazis' feared SS intelligence agency, the SD, to fight on the side of Germany ? and served as a company commander in the unit, which received orders directly from the SS, through the end of the war.
It was not clear why Karkoc felt safe publishing his memoir, which is available at the U.S. Library of Congress and the British Library and which the AP located online in an electronic Ukrainian library.
Karkoc's name surfaced when a retired clinical pharmacologist who took up Nazi war crimes research in his free time came across it while looking into members of the SS Galician Division who emigrated to Britain. He tipped off AP when an Internet search showed an address for Karkoc in Minnesota.
"Here was a chance to publicly confront a man who commanded a company alleged to be involved in the cruel murder of innocent people," said Stephen Ankier, who is based in London.
The AP located Karkoc's U.S. Army intelligence file, and got it declassified by the National Archives in Maryland through a FOIA request. The Army was responsible for processing visa applications after the war under the Displaced Persons Act.
The intelligence file said standard background checks with seven different agencies found no red flags that would disqualify him from entering the United States. But it also noted that it lacked key information from the Soviet side: "Verification of identity and complete establishment of applicant's reliability is not possible due to the inaccessibility of records and geographic area of applicant's former residence."
Wartime documents located by the AP also confirm Karkoc's membership in the Self Defense Legion. They include a Nazi payroll sheet found in Polish archives, signed by an SS officer on Jan. 8, 1945 ? only four months before the war's end ? confirming that Karkoc was present in Krakow, Poland, to collect his salary as a member of the Self Defense Legion. Karkoc signed the document using Cyrillic letters.
Karkoc, an ethnic Ukrainian, was born in the city of Lutsk in 1919, according to details he provided American officials. At the time, the area was being fought over by Ukraine, Poland and others; it ended up part of Poland until World War II. Several wartime Nazi documents note the same birth date, but say he was born in Horodok, a town in the same region.
He joined the regular German army after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 and fought on the Eastern Front in Ukraine and Russia, according to his memoirs, which say he was awarded an Iron Cross for bravery.
He was also a member of the Ukrainian nationalist organization OUN; in 1943, he helped negotiate with the Nazis to have men drawn from its membership form the Self Defense Legion, according to his account. Initially small, it eventually numbered some 600 soldiers. The legion was dissolved and folded into the SS Galician Division in 1945; Karkoc wrote that he remained with it until the end of the war.
Policy at the time of Karkoc's immigration application ? according to a declassified secret U.S. government document obtained by the AP from the National Archives ? was to deny a visa to anyone who had served in either the SS Galician Division or the OUN. The U.S. does not typically have jurisdiction to prosecute Nazi war crimes but has won more than 100 "denaturalization and removal actions" against people suspected of them.
In Washington, Justice Department spokesman Michael Passman said the agency was aware of the AP story.
"While we do not confirm or deny the existence of specific investigations, I can say as a general matter that the Department of Justice continues to pursue all credible allegations of participation in World War II Nazi crimes by US citizens and residents," Passman said.
News of Karkoc's past also prompted anger from World War II survivors overseas, in countries where the Ukrainian Self-Defense Legion was active.
In Poland, Honorata Banach told the AP she wants Karkoc to apologize. She was 20 when she fled the Polish village of Chlaniow before it was burned down by the legion.
"There was so much suffering, so many orphans, so much pain," Banach said. She and her mother returned the day after the attack, she said, to see that "everything was burned down, even the fences, the trees. I could not even find my house."
Survivors told her the Ukrainian legion did it, she said.
Rafowitz, the survivor living near Minneapolis, said he lost his mother and other relatives at the Majadenk concentration camp in Lublin, in German-occupied Poland. He said soldiers in the camp were German but that it was run by Ukrainians.
"You don't forget," Rafowitz said. "For me, it's been almost close to 70 years those things happened, but I still know about it. I still remember everything."
Menachem Rosensaft, who was born in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, now teaches the law of genocide and war crimes at several New York universities. He said Karkoc is a reminder that the Holocaust and other genocides "cannot be viewed as abstract history."
"I have every confidence that if Mr. Karkoc was not already on the Justice Department's radar screen, he now is," Rosensaft said.
___
Rising reported from Berlin, Herschaft from New York, Scislowska from Warsaw and Condon from Minneapolis. Associated Press writers Maria Danilova in Kiev, Ukraine; Efrem Lukatsky in Pidhaitsi, Ukraine; Svetlana Fedas in Lviv, Ukraine; Amy Forliti, Doug Glass and Brian Bakst in Minneapolis; and Pete Yost in Washington contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/shock-lingers-nazi-unit-leader-found-us-135442792.html
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Sunday, June 16, 2013
Beyonce, video game company settle NYC lawsuit
NEW YORK (AP) ? Beyonce has settled a New York City lawsuit that said she didn't play fair in a deal for a video game structured around her.
Court records show the case was closed Friday after the Grammy Award-winning singer and Gate Five LLC agreed to drop it.
A lawyer for Gate Five says the terms are confidential. A lawyer for Beyonce hasn't returned a call seeking comment.
Gate Five had said Beyonce made a lucrative deal for a game called "Starpower: Beyonce," then demanded a new agreement and abandoned the project. The company says it lost its nearly $7 million investment and 70 people lost their jobs.
Beyonce's lawyers had said she was within her rights to get out of the deal because Gate Five didn't have needed financing.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/beyonce-video-game-company-settle-nyc-lawsuit-001954722.html
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Sony RX100 sequel leaks in Japanese manual images, adds tilting screen, hot shoe and WiFi
We were more than a little smitten with Sony's original RX100, a high-end Cybershot point-and-shoot housing a notable 1-inch 20.2-megapxiel CMOS sensor alongside a f/1.8 Carl Zeiss lens. It looks like there were enough customers that thought the same, because SonyAlphaRumors has gleaned several images from the manual for a sequel device. The site has more to share, but it's checking its translations first. In the meantime, these initial images already point to some notable hardware additions. Alongside a screen that can tilt up and down (plus a light sensor to adjust brightness automatically), the mark two RX100 will apparently catch up with Sony's NEX series, adding built-in WiFi too. There's also the addition of a hot shoe for mics and other peripherals, but fear not: there's still the built-in flash to the left of it. Naming, pricing and availability are still unknowns, but according to the site's mole, the camera will get formally announced later this month on June 27.
Source: Sony Alpha Rumors
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Saturday, June 8, 2013
Around the Web?
Friday has finally arrived! Wrap up the week with these links: Julie Bowen: I refuse to keep my son in a bubble because of his allergies — SheKnows 18 baby names inspired by your favorite cocktails – Babble Dog rescues newborn baby left in Thailand trash dump — PEOPLE Pets Girl in need of a […]
Source: http://feeds.celebritybabies.com/~r/celebrity-babies/~3/xABIMvv6fEs/
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Wednesday, June 5, 2013
As Real Estate Market Heats Up, Trulia Strengthens Ties With RE/MAX
Today, Trulia issued a press release noting a new marketing agreement with RE/MAX that will provide tools and training for RE/MAX agents as they compete in an increasingly competitive real estate market. Agents will get premium branded profiles, custom training and access to marketing and advertising products that will help them stand out during the summer home season and beyond.
This agreement is part of Trulia?s larger strategy to proactively engage with the industry and tailor deals that enable Trulia to help franchises and brokers grow their businesses. The RE/MAX agreement is focused on helping RE/MAX agents connect with valuable mobile consumers and providing tools for RE/MAX agents to succeed.
?Trulia?s massive consumer audience on the web and mobile devices ? 31 million monthly unique visitors in all ? and its commitment to making tools that help real estate professionals market their properties and win listings more effectively, make us an ideal partner for real estate brokerages and franchises,? said Alon Chaver, Vice President of Industry Services at Trulia. ?Our business grows when our partners are successful, and this agreement is a perfect example of how we are working together with the industry to create more business opportunities and help agents close more deals.?
With the real estate sector currently rebounding after several challenging years, real estate professionals are looking for ways to stand out and strengthen their businesses. Trulia recently released a report that indicates the housing market is about 54% back to normal, and in the midst of a long, multi-year recovery. This bodes well for home sellers and for real estate professionals, especially as construction picks-up to address low inventory in many markets around the country.
For more information about how your brokerage or franchise can partner with Trulia, call 1-877-776-9521.
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