James' passion, great range remembered (AP)

NEW YORK ? On her last album "The Dreamer," released just three months before her death, Etta James sings a mix of covers, from the R&B classic "Misty Blue" to the Ray Charles song "In the Evening." But perhaps the most curious tune included on the disc may be the Guns N' Roses staple "Welcome to the Jungle."

That a 73-year-old icon of R&B would tackle the frenetic rock song ? albeit in a pace more fitting her blues roots ? might seem odd. But the song may be the best representation of James as both a singer and a person ? rambunctious in spirit, with the ability to sing whatever was thrown at her, whether it was jazz, blues, pining R&B or a song from one of the rowdiest bands in rock.

"She was able to dig so deep in kind of such a raw and unguarded place when she sang, and that's the power of gospel and blues and rhythm and blues. She brought that to all those beautiful standards and rocks songs that she did. All the number of vast albums she recorded, she covered such a wide variety of material that brought such unique phrasing and emotional depth," said Bonnie Raitt, a close friend, in an interview on Friday afternoon after James' death.

"I think that's what appealed to people, aside from the fact that her personality on and off the stage was so huge and irrepressible. She was ribald and raunchy and dignified, classy and strong and vulnerable all at the same time, which is what us as women really relate to."

James, whose signature song was the sweeping, jazz-tinged torch song "At Last," died in Riverside, Calif., from complications of leukemia. Her death came after she struggled with dementia and other health problems, health issues that kept her from performing for the last two or so years of her life.

It was a life full of struggles. Her mother was immersed in a criminal life and left her to be raised by friends, she never knew her true father (though she believed it was billiards great Minnesota Fats), and she had her own troubles, which included a decades-long addiction to drugs, turbulent relationships, brushes with the law, and other tribulations.

One might think all of those problems would have weighted down James' spirit, and her voice, layering it with sadness, or despair. While she certainly could channel depression, anger, and sorrow in song, her voice was defined by its fiery passion: Far from beaten down, James embodied the fight of a woman who managed to claw her way back from the brink, again and again.

It's an attitude that influenced her look as well. Despite the conservative era, she dyed her hair platinum blonde, sending out the signal that she was far from demure, and owning a brassy, sassy attitude. She relished her role as saucy singer, a persona that she celebrated in her private life as well.

"In terms of 1950s rhythm and blues stars, she had kind of a gutsy attitude and she went out there and did what she did, and she was kind of bold ... and it had a huge influence," said David Ritz, the co-author of her autobiography "Rage to Survive: The Etta James Story." "I think her gutsiness and her lack of fear and just her courage (made her special). ... I believe that made her important and memorable."

Beyonce, who played James in the movie "Cadillac Records" about Chess Records, also spoke about her influence on other singers.

"I feel like Etta James, first of all, was the first black woman I saw with platinum, blonde hair. She wore her leopard and she wore her sexy silhouette and she didn't care. She was strong and confident and always Etta James," said Beyonce in a 2008 interview.

James could often be irascible. Ritz remembers when he was working with her on her autobiography, touring with her around the country, that one time he approached her with his tape recorder and she barked: "If see that tape recorder again I'm going to cram it up your (expletive)."

But at other times, she'd be effusive and warm and anxious to talk.

"Once she did talk, she was always candid and unguarded. She was a free spirit," Ritz said.

While Ritz put her in the category of other greats like Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and Marvin Gaye, she never enjoyed their mainstream success. Though "At Last" has become an enduring classic, there were times when James had to scrounge for work, and while she won Grammys and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, she did not have the riches, the multitude of platinum records or the hits that some of her peers enjoyed.

"She at least enjoyed a great resurgence like John Lee Hooker did and B.B. King, (and) has had some great decades of appreciation from new generations around the world," said Raitt. "There's no one like her. No one will ever replace Etta."

And Ritz said the lack of commercial success does nothing to diminish her greatness, or her legacy.

"Marvin certain knew it and Ray knew it ... the people who know that she was in that category," he said. "Whatever the marketplace did or didn't do or whether her lack of career management didn't do, it has nothing to do with her talent."

And on Friday, the Queen of Soul was among those who paid tribute to James greatness, calling her "one of the great soul singers of our generation. An American original!

"I loved `Pushover,' `At Last' and almost any and everything she recorded! When Etta SUNG, you heard it!"

___

AP Entertainment Writer Chris Talbott and AP Writer Mesfin Fekadu contributed to this report.

___

Nekesa Mumbi Moody is the AP's music editor. Follow her at http://www.twitter.com/nekesamumbi

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/celebrity/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120121/ap_en_ce/us_etta_james_appreciation

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Op-Ed: Canada Must Change XL Pipeline Debate

Copyright ? 2012 National Public Radio?. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

NEAL CONAN, HOST:

Last week, President Obama rejected the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, which would transport oil from the tar sands of Canada to refineries in Texas. Opponents argued that burning off the vast deposits would doom any chance to stop global warming and that the route across Nebraska's Ogallala Aquifer was too risky. Supporters said the pipeline would create thousands of jobs and reduce reliance on Middle East oil. As you can imagine, there's controversy in Canada too.

Op-ed columnist Murray Mandryk wrote: It's time for Canadians to move pass talking points and have thoughtful dialogue on better addressing oil policy issues. Well, nobody believes the debate over the XL pipeline is over, so how should we see last week's decision? Give us a call, 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation on our website. That's at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION. You can also find a link to Murray Mandryk's column there.

Murray Mandryk is political columnist for the Regina Leader-Post. His op-ed ran in that newspaper on Saturday. And he joins us now from studios at the CBC. Nice to have you on the TALK OF THE NATION today.

MURRAY MANDRYK: Well, thank you, sir. Nice meeting you.

CONAN: And President Obama rejected the Keystone XL pipeline project last week, or at least seemed to. You say this is far from being over.

MANDRYK: Well, I think there's people in your country that will have a far better grasp of the political nuance than maybe I would. But I think there's a lot of people in Canada that anticipate that it will come back in 2013 once things cool down. It's largely seen here from those that can take a breath and get past their own politics to be a strategic political move in relation to your vote coming this fall. Everyone fully anticipates that the pipeline will go ahead because it makes sense on a lot of levels from a Canadian perspective and probably from an American one as well.

However, there are any number of controversies related to this and inconsistencies in policy in both countries, not the least of which Canadians, for all our reputation of being nice and reasonable, we sometimes like to have our cake and eat it too.

CONAN: Well, fill us in, a little background on the Canadian political argument. Of course this is a policy that's been very popular with the conservative prime minister, Stephen Harper.

MANDRYK: It is very popular. And much like your country, you really can't talk about a Canadian perspective and have anything that's terribly uniform, sir. In our country, the problem being is that, you know, we are as divided, as I'm sure Americans are, on a lot of issues, up to including this one. And we're also regionally divided because eastern Canada isn't as dependent on oil production as a revenue source. In Canada it's a little bit different perhaps than in the United States because the provinces, equivalent to the state government, obviously has control over the resources - its natural resources.

So for provinces like Saskatchewan, where I live, or next door in Alberta, it's a really big deal to produce oil and a really big deal to export it, particularly to the United States, which would be our preferential export. The difficulty being is that, particularly in Alberta, they're running headlong into the environmentalist lobby. It's not just an American environmentalist lobby, but I think our federal Canadian government and perhaps a couple of our provincial Canadian governments want to categorize it that way, as too much influenced by the American left.

In reality, though, what is of concern, though, is just being able to get our oil to market. As I say, the preferential market would obviously be the United States, but there's a second pipeline through northern B.C. called the Northern Gateway pipeline that Canadians are proposing - Canadian oil industry is proposing as perhaps an alternative to feed Asian markets - China and such - if this pipeline doesn't go through in terms of the Keystone development.

So there is a lot of layers and nuance to this argument that makes it not easy to digest in one whole sitting. You almost have to - you have to take this one in in bite-size pieces.

CONAN: That pipeline - proposed pipeline to the Pacific Coast, if my grasp of geography is correct, would have to go across the Rocky Mountains, through a lot of wilderness area, and I would assume some areas run by native - operated by Native American tribes.

MANDRYK: You're absolutely right. And the first station plan right is an incredibly important issue in Canada, and right now they're in the process of hearings. And it is those hearings that incited the Canadian natural resources minister to start talking about foreign-backed environmental radicals who basically are trying to kibosh is - our Canadian government sees it - this northern pipeline.

The fact of the matter is, there's probably many of us who really wonder the very question that you're asking, why on God's green Earth and, you know, quite literally on God's green Earth, do you want to put a pipeline through the Rocky Mountains in general because it's difficult, but pristine wilderness like this through First Nations? The company involved, Enbridge, hasn't exactly had a perfect record on environmental spills, as the people of Wisconsin might attest in 2007. In fact, I think in the last decade, it's had something like 804 spills of 200,000 barrels of oil through its pipelines, et cetera, and its other enterprises.

That said, I'm not anti-pipeline. I'm probably like a lot of Americans and certainly a lot of Canadians that obviously see that this is the best way to generally move oil. It certainly beats - it's certainly better than tanking it through - with cars and tanker trucks that are going to possibly have more of an environmental disaster and are more likely to because of the nature. In relative terms, it's probably a reasonably safe way to go about it. But in doing so, we do have to sort out all this environmental differences; our own in this country and certainly with Keystone XL, related to the Ogallala Aquifer in Nebraska, the sand hills there, and different landownership issues, et cetera. And it's difficult, of course, force it through, because of this situation in America where it has become a bit of a political football. It's now becoming a bit of a political football up here.

And as I think you pointed out, the conservative government is pushing it through because they particularly like the idea of this fight for whatever reason in terms of supporting this base, and there's certainly concern about the economic argument. But I don't think enough people are sitting back and taking a look at the Obama administration and understanding that this is a pretty pragmatic government as well. Probably, it's going to come to the conclusion that once the smoke clears, it's in America's best interests, obviously, to have a pipeline through here too.

CONAN: And one of the reasons people got themselves arrested in front of the White House last fall was the argument that if we start to tap this vast resource of the Alberta oil sands or tar sands - and I guess those have controversial terms, too, whichever one you use - but if we start to tap these vast reserves, if we burn those - that petroleum, the odds of fighting back global warming are over. It's dead.

MANDRYK: Well, here we run into a bit of difficulty, one of which is the fact that the feeding government isn't - is wholeheartedly - the current Canadian government isn't wholeheartedly supportive of a notion that global warming is man-made, let alone it'll be caused by the tar sands. They embarked kind of very aggressive program called Ethical Oil, and one of the more controversial right-wing authors in this country has even penned a book under that name. And the premise of it basically being is two things, one of which is that the argument that tar sands oil, oil - sands oil isn't as dirty as some claim.

And early in my career, I actually work up in the area, in Fort McMurray, and I can attest that, no, it's really not in terms of its environmental impact. Yes, it's problematic, but it is a mining venture. And from that perspective, it's not as damaging as some might think. There's certainly huge issues related to underground water supplies, et cetera, other issues, but there's a really good argument that the whole notion of its environmental damage has been vastly overblown, particularly its impact on global warming. When you can consider all the other things that we do in both our nations and China, like burning coal and such. There's more of a direct impact.

And obviously, the secondary issue related to this is sort of the political end in terms of, well, you know, where is this going to take us politically. And I think that's probably fitting into the Stephen Harper Canadian government - the conservative government in Canada - is to what points they want to make in terms of bringing their own agenda forward. So it's, I guess, they say in the movies in terms of some of the protesters, it gets complicated.

CONAN: Now, let's see. We go to a caller. Edward is on the line, calling us from Maui in Hawaii.

EDWARD: Hey. Aloha and happy New Year.

CONAN: Happy New Year.

EDWARD: Say, look, you know, in the last - I don't know how many years it's been since I've been aware of Canadian tar sands, and then in the last year or so since this pipeline has come up. I believe that a lot of what I originally heard of the - in the last year or two was that, as your guest have had said, Canada's interest is marketing their oil. He also speaks of America's best interest. I'm trying to figure out what those are. I know that Canada is improving their pipeline to their coast so they can ship to China. And I know they want to run a long pipeline across our country, and I think the ecological issues can be addressed. But I'm trying to figure out what's in it for us? They want to get access to Gulf Coast ports to ship that oil to other parts of the world.

That oil isn't going to end up into our own pipeline. I mean, heck, we're shipping excess fuel off of the continent right now 'cause we have oversupply. What's it - what are America's interests besides what's realistically estimated at around 6,000 jobs for a short period, and then there's the maintenance jobs. I'm assuming there's going to be a tariff per barrel that goes through there. But what exactly, in your guest's opinion, are America's best interest? The threat of not having tankers going along our coast and leaking oil or trainloads through them? Because it really sounds like it's in the best interest of Canada. But what's our interest?

CONAN: Murray Mandryk, from the Canadian point of view, what's the argument they make when they go to Washington?

MANDRYK: Oh, certainly. It was the second point that I got a little lost in thought and didn't get to, but it's related to that Ethical Oil question from the Canadian perspective. And simply put this way: Do you want to buy your oil from sometimes unstable Middle Eastern dictatorships? We all know what's happening in the world of the Arab Spring. We all know what's happening in other countries. We know the history with your country related to 9/11 and the difficulties with the Middle East. We know what's going on in Iran and what's going on with Iran right now and what's going on in Iraq. We know the problems related to dealing with Middle Eastern nations. Do you want to deal with Middle Eastern nations or who we like to consider America's best neighbor, which is Canada?

Now this is sort of the argument from the Canadian government perspective, not necessarily mine. But I'm actually very sympathetic to that argument because we have the longest unguarded border in the world. We have the best trade relationship in the world. There's no particular reason why us selling oil to Americans can't be beneficial to both of us. However, within that, I think there's a couple of things as Canadians and Americans, but certainly as Canadians, which I'll speak for, that we have to be respectful of - one of which, obviously, is your environmental process. And we can't just be mad and basically say, well, because this isn't in our economic best interest, we have to say we're being picked on or that the American Obama government is somehow doing us an unjust turn.

There may be political reasons behind the decisions related to the Obama not - government not approving the permit. But there are certainly political decisions behind the U.S. Congress, dominated by Republicans - at least from our standpoint, there seems to be - of imposing the arbitrary February deadline when they've going through this process for a number of years.

CONAN: We're talking...

MANDRYK: It's not like TransCanada pipeline hasn't exactly been in the middle of these hearings forever.

CONAN: We're talking with Murray Mandryk, political columnist for the Regina Leader-Post on the Opinion Page this week. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. There was another point mentioned there, and that is this oil would be refined on the Texas Gulf Coast and, a lot of people say, then shipped to export to other countries. It would not go ultimately to the American market.

MANDRYK: Well, that's quite possible. That - your - I'm venturing out of my area of expertise in relation to this. Generally speaking, in Canada we see the oil being exported for - to U.S. for domestic use and domestic consumption. And certainly, you have a market for it. The tar sands as it's called or the oil sands is - I think they prefer to call it for politically correct reasons of being the product more saleable - is a vast resource that actually has great potential in terms of our fossil fuel needs going forward in the future. And I guess there's an interesting question from the Canadian perspective, is that why would be shipping it from that distance when we could probably refine all of it here.

CONAN: Well, that's what Gavin(ph) asks in an email from Norman, Oklahoma: It makes sense, on a lot of levels, your guest says. Why does the oil need to be processed 1,700 miles from where it's extracted?

MANDRYK: Well, you have to understand Canadians sometimes. I think some days I think we just would rather ship raw products and raw resources than refine them ourselves. And it's a century's old frustration for western Canadians who have long been viewed as the hewers of wood and drawers of water, compared with our eastern counterparts. And it's certainly a longstanding frustration, but the fact of the matter is one of the reasons why we do it this way, it's just more economically efficient.

If you have the refineries near New Orleans and the Gulf Coast of Texas, and they're existing and they met the environmental approval in those particular jurisdictions, it's more cost efficient than building them up here. Sometimes, we face with the reality of something like Hurricane Katrina that comes along that not only shuts down, basically, your oil production but ours as well. So there are deep considerations here to be made, but this is somewhat the longstanding nature of Canada that's basically been - always deemed itself a bit more of a supplier of raw material than manufacturing. A lot of it has to do with our population base and our inability to do things like this cheaply to go in our climate.

CONAN: Murray Mandryk, thanks very much for your time today.

MANDRYK: You're very welcome.

CONAN: Murray Mandryk, political columnist for the Regina Leader-Post, with us from CBC studios in Regina. You could find a link to his column at npr.org, click on TALK OF THE NATION. Tomorrow, 10 years after the sex abuse scandal rocked the Catholic Church, what's changed? Join us for that. This is the TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. I'm Neal Conan in Washington.

Copyright ? 2012 National Public Radio?. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2012/01/23/145650779/-op-ed-canada-must-change-xl-pipeline-debate?ft=1&f=1007

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CBS buys "The Words", "Tupelo 77" gets a director (Reuters)

PARK CITY, Utah, Jan 22 (TheWrap.com) ? Buying activity at the Sundance Film Festival ramped up on Sunday after late-night negotiations on Saturday. CBS Films announced that it had acquired "The Words," a drama starring Brad Cooper, Zoe Saldana and Jeremy Irons.

The movie stars Cooper as a writer who at the peak of his literary success discovers the price he must pay for stealing another man's work. Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal co-wrote and co-directed the film.

Mickey Liddell's LD Distribution bought North American rights to the midnight entry "Black Rock."

And there was plenty of noise continuing around the hottest film in the feature competition, "Beast of the Southern Wild," which insiders said had Fox Searchlight, Focus Features and others seeking the rights through WME.

"Filly Brown," a fierce hip-hop drama, handled by WME, was also said to be in play.

Also on Sunday:

Julie Dash, who directed the television movie "The Rosa Parks Story," is in final negotiations to direct Angel Entertainment's feature "Tupelo 77," Angel's Bob Crowe said Sunday.

The movie is set in a small town in Mississippi in the summer of 1977. It tells the story of a group of women of various ages and races who are regulars at a roadside diner. The summer of 1977 -- the year Elvis Presley died -- is the hottest on record in Mississippi.

Casting for the film is under way. Crowe and Sean Hewitt are producing the movie, which begins shooting this summer.

Rich Mancuso wrote the screenplay, which shows the women as they struggle to "transcend the obstacles of poverty, racial and religious differences, and the persistent wounds of war."

Dash's "Daughters of the Dust" was selected as one of the "From the Collection" screenings at the Sundance Film Festival. That film first screened at the 1991 Sundance festival, where it earned the Excellence in Cinematography Award.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/enindustry/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120123/media_nm/us_sundance_deals

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BlueStacks app player out of alpha, beta-bound "soon"

 

BlueStacks

BlueStacks, that nifty little Android app player bound for PCs everywhere, is out of its alpha stage and heading into beta "soon." BlueStacks will sync the apps on your smartphone or tablet and store them in its own cloud, where they will then be accessbile on your Windows Vista or 7-powered PC. BlueStacks is free and works so well that it earned itself CNET's coveted "Best of CES" title at this year's show. Hit the source link to sign up for the beta and be sure to sing out when you become one of the lucky chosen ones. 

Source: BlueStacks

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/YK0VjEnZL1w/story01.htm

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Rare turtle back in the wild with fancy new satellite tracking device

Only about 200 Southern River terrapins still exist in the wild, and on Monday one of them plodded into the Sre Ambel River in Cambodia wearing a satellite tag as a crowd of officials and well-wishers cheered it on.

In a great step for turtle-kind, one of the rarest turtles on Earth has been released back into the wild, sporting a new accessory: a satellite tracking device.

Skip to next paragraph

Only about 200 Southern River terrapins still exist in the wild, and on Monday (Jan. 16) one of them plodded into the Sre Ambel River in Cambodia wearing a satellite tag as a crowd of officials and well-wishers cheered it on.

It's the first time researchers have attempted to monitor this species with a satellite tag, which was cemented to the back of the 75-pound (34-kilogram) female. Conservationists say watching how it navigates through commercial fishing grounds and other habitat threatened by mining and the shrimping industry may help reveal how to best save?the endangered turtle.

It's estimated that fewer than 10 reproducing female terrapins now live in the Sre Ambel River, so even a single turtle could help maintain genetic diversity for a species that has already suffered?drastic population declines?and was once thought extinct.

"By reducing the adult mortality of the Southern River terrapin, even by fractions ? as little as 10 animals a year per population, in this circumstance ? we can have immediate and long-term positive impacts on the remaining wild populations of this critically endangered species," said Brian D. Horne of the Wildlife Conservation Society, which helped arrange the terrapin's release.

After decades of violence and upheaval in Cambodia wrought by the Khmer Rouge and the Pol Pot regime, the country was left in severe poverty, and thousands of turtles were captured and sold off to China, where the animals are a popular item at the dinner table.

For many years the Southern River terrapin was thought extinct, but in 2000 a small population of the species was found in the Sre Ambel River.

In recent years, many?new animal species?have been discovered in the region.

The turtle released Monday was captured in April 2011 and voluntarily turned over to WCS Cambodia officials.

Follow OurAmazingPlanet for the latest in Earth science and exploration news on Twitter?@OAPlanet?and onFacebook.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/Wp0s9Elgt1I/Rare-turtle-back-in-the-wild-with-fancy-new-satellite-tracking-device

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What Gadgets Can an iPad Replace? (ContributorNetwork)

Apple's iPad is starting to replace desktop and laptop computers, for a lot of people. Its success tracks closely with declining PC sales at vendors like HP and Dell, and if you count it as a computer it makes Apple the world's top PC vendor, according to Todd Wasserman of Mashable.

How can the iPad replace laptops and desktop PCs? As Matthew Guay of Techinch put it, the iPad is like the microwave oven of computers. It can't do everything a full PC or Mac can, but it can do most things, and it does them with a lot less time and hassle. Besides that, iPad games and apps cost much less than their PC counterparts. The iPad version of iWork, for instance, costs half as much as the Mac version.

Here's a look at some other things people are using their iPads instead of now:

Game consoles

Nintendo considers itself to have won against Sony, but considers Apple the "enemy of the future," as Chris Rawson of TUAW explains. And while Nintendo made record sales on Black Friday, part of the reason was that it'd already dropped the price of its portable 3DS game console by $80 beforehand.

There are still a ton of games you can only play on Nintendo consoles, like the official games for the Mario, Zelda, and Metroid franchises. (Don't forget about Pokemon, either. The latest installments in the series, Pokemon Black and Pokemon White, sold more than 1 million copies in the U.S. within just 24 hours of launch day.)

The iPad has literally thousands of games available, though, including iOS exclusives from top-tier publishers like Square-Enix. So while it can't replace a DS for a Pokemon addict, there are probably a lot of game consoles collecting dust because of it.

E-readers

The Kindle Fire and Nook Color (and Tablet) are all selling extremely well, at least compared to generic-brand "Android tablets". And David Heinemeier Hansson, the creator of Ruby on Rails, has noted that a black-and-white e-reader "rekindled" his interest in reading books.

The iPad doesn't exactly compete with the Kindle Fire or the Nook, because they're at different price points. But the iPad does everything they do, and has thousands more apps.

Textbooks

They aren't gadgets, but with the prices on some of them they might as well be; a new college textbook can cost as much as a Kindle Fire or Nook. And now Apple's new iBooks Author program may drop the price of electronic textbooks to $14.99, if you buy them on an iPad.

Not all textbooks are available on an iPad yet, but with publishers like McGraw-Hill signing on already that may change soon.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personaltech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20120122/tc_ac/10864043_what_gadgets_can_an_ipad_replace

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Zimbabwe state airline faces liquidation (AP)

HARARE, Zimbabwe ? State media says Zimbabwe's ailing national airline has been put under judicial management ahead of its likely liquidation.

The Sunday Mail reported on Sunday that the High Court in Harare appointed an executive of a top independent accounting firm to takes charge of Air Zimbabwe, sweeping aside all powers of the board of directors.

It said the court order Friday followed claims by pilots and employees for unpaid income and allowances of up to $35 million dating back to January 2009.

Last month the former colonial-era airline, founded in 1964, paid $1.2 million to release an aircraft impounded over debts in Britain. It owes $140 million to its creditors and has now grounded all but some domestic flights.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120122/ap_on_re_af/af_zimbabwe_airline

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CDC: Many teen moms didn't think it could happen (AP)

ATLANTA ? A new government study suggests a lot of teenage girls are clueless about their chances of getting pregnant.

In a survey of thousands of teenage mothers who had unintended pregnancies, about a third who didn't use birth control said the reason was they didn't believe they could pregnant.

Why they thought that isn't clear. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey didn't ask teens to explain.

But other researchers have talked to teen moms who believed they couldn't get pregnant the first time they had sex, didn't think they could get pregnant at that time of the month or thought they were sterile.

"This report underscores how much misperception, ambivalence and magical thinking put teens at risk for unintended pregnancy," said Bill Albert, a spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.

Other studies have asked teens about their contraception use and beliefs about pregnancy. But the CDC report released Thursday is the first to focus on teens who didn't want to get pregnant but did.

The researchers interviewed nearly 5,000 teenage girls in 19 states who gave birth after unplanned pregnancies in 2004 through 2008. The survey was done through mailed questionnaires with telephone follow-up.

About half of the girls in the survey said they were not using any birth control when they got pregnant. That's higher than surveys of teens in general, which have found that fewer than 20 percent said they didn't use contraception the last time they had sex.

"I think what surprised us was the extent to which they were not using contraception," said Lorrie Gavin, a CDC senior scientist who co-authored the report.

Some of the teen moms were asked what kind of birth control they used: Nearly 20 percent said they used the pill or a birth control patch. Another 24 percent said they used condoms.

CDC officials said they do not believe that the pill, condoms and other forms of birth control were faulty. Instead, they think the teens failed to use it correctly or consistently.

Only 13 percent of those not using contraception said they didn't because they had trouble getting it.

Another finding: Nearly a quarter of the teen moms who did not use contraception said they didn't because their partner did not want them to. That suggests that sex education must include not only information about anatomy and birth control, but also about how to deal with situations in which a girl feels pressured to do something she doesn't want to, Albert said.

The findings are sobering, he added. But it's important to remember that the overall teen birth rate has been falling for some time, and recently hit its lowest mark in about 70 years.

Albert said it would be a mistake to come away from the report saying, "They can't figure this out?" "Most of them are figuring it out," he said.

___

Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/health/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120119/ap_on_he_me/us_med_pregnant_teens

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Fast-moving snowstorm hits Northeast

A weekend storm blanketed the Northeast with a few inches of snow Saturday, creating slippery conditions and some delays at airports, though the storm was expected to move out to sea overnight.

The National Weather Service predicted 4 to 6 inches in New York City before the snow stops in the afternoon. Early Saturday morning flurries and freezing rain showers were expected for the Washington area. Philadelphia is under a winter weather advisory and could receive up to 4 inches of snow.

Up to 7 inches was predicted for southeastern Massachusetts, not much by the standards of a New England winter but noteworthy in a season marked by a lack of snow.

Video: Winter storms grab hold of U.S. (on this page)

The storm was just the second significant snowfall of the season for some Northeasterners, including in New York City and Philadelphia. A rare October snowstorm knocked out power to nearly 3 million homes and businesses in the region.

Road conditions were fair Saturday morning, officials said. Crews in Pennsylvania and New Jersey began salting roads around midnight and plowing soon after. By midmorning, the snow had turned to sleet in Philadelphia north through central New Jersey.

Few accidents were reported on the roads, helped by the weekend's lack of rush hour traffic, but New Jersey transportation spokesman Joe Dee cautioned drivers to build in more time for trips. Though temperatures will warm up this afternoon he said, forecasters expect the wet ground to freeze again overnight.

Flights arriving at Philadelphia Airport were delayed up to two hours because of snow and ice accumulation, but most departing flights were leaving on time, a spokeswoman said.

New York City had 1,500 snow plows at the ready, each equipped with global positioning systems that will allow supervisors to see their approximate location on command maps updated every 30 seconds, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at a morning news conference.

The equipment was installed last year following a disaster of a storm that struck the day after Christmas of 2010, when even the city's plows were stuck and stranded in drifts, and streets remained impassable for days. Bloomberg said the GPS system has already led to "vastly improved communication" between supervisors and plow operators.

As always, some welcomed the snow.

Enough accumulated through the week for snowmobiling and ice fishing in New Hampshire, where cross-country ski trails and snowshoeing were open at Bretton Woods and other trails.

The Pacific Northwest, meanwhile, continued to suffer the aftermath of an unusually snowy week, with two campers and two climbers still missing in Mount Rainier National Park in Washington state.

About 205,000 homes and businesses, mostly south of Seattle in Washington state, remained without power, Puget Sound Energy said on its website. Flooding remained a concern as temperatures rose into the lower 40s.

In the West, heavy snow was predicted for mountain areas of the western states.

In parts of South Carolina, voters in the Republican presidential primary were seeing rain, thunderstorms and even tornado watches and warnings Saturday, according to the National Weather Service.

A snowfall in Chicago on Friday brought up to 8 inches and prompted the cancellation of more than 700 flights at Chicago's O'Hare and Midway airports.

Thunderstorms, some with hail, were predicted for the southeastern United States, with damaging wind gusts and tornadoes possible across the lower Mississippi Valley, according to weather.com.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46082551/ns/weather/

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Unruly NFC Championship fans face ouster from game

FILE - In this Dec. 19, 2012 file photo, San Francisco police officers stand on the field during a power outage at an NFL football game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Pittsburgh Steelers in San Francisco. The San Francisco 49ers and the NFL have adopted extraordinary security measures for Sunday's NFC championship against the New York Giants after opposing fans complained of harassment by unruly 49ers faithful last week. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)

FILE - In this Dec. 19, 2012 file photo, San Francisco police officers stand on the field during a power outage at an NFL football game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Pittsburgh Steelers in San Francisco. The San Francisco 49ers and the NFL have adopted extraordinary security measures for Sunday's NFC championship against the New York Giants after opposing fans complained of harassment by unruly 49ers faithful last week. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)

FILE - In this Dec. 19, 2011 file photo, a San Francisco police officer walks a police dog under the stands at Candlestick Park during the second quarter of an NFL football game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Pittsburgh Steelers in San Francisco. The San Francisco 49ers and the NFL have adopted extraordinary security measures for Sunday's NFC championship against the New York Giants after opposing fans complained of harassment by unruly 49ers faithful last week. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, file)

(AP) ? Don't yell obscenities, don't flip the bird ? and don't even think about insulting anyone's mother.

The San Francisco 49ers and the NFL have adopted extraordinary security measures for Sunday's NFC championship against the New York Giants after New Orleans Saints fans complained of harassment by unruly 49ers faithful last week.

Undercover police will be dressed in Giants' garb and on the lookout for nasty fans. Giants ticketholders will be handed a card as they enter Candlestick Park with details on how to contact police if they feel threatened. And more security cameras and undercover police officers will be in place to identify abusive fans.

Season ticketholders have also been warned to follow the NFL Fan Code of Conduct: no foul or abusive language or obscene gestures and no verbal or physical abuse of opposing team fans.

The nail-biting 36-32 win last Saturday for the 49ers was the team's first playoff game in nine years, and a raucous crowd was on hand to enjoy the victory at the expense of the Saints.

"I apologize for any rudeness that may have happened," San Francisco 49ers president and CEO Jed York said. "I think you saw 49ers fans who were very excited about hosting a playoff game for the first time in a long time."

Those fans were so excited that they ruined the day for a shaken Don Moses and his two teenage daughters. Moses, a longtime Bay Area resident who is from New Orleans, said they were wearing the Saints colors and prepared for some good-natured ribbing.

Instead, he tells a horror story of fear and humiliation when his daughters asked him why he didn't do anything to stop the hulking 49ers fans who yelled vulgarities and threw footballs at them, screamed in their faces and called their mother a whore.

"The hostility and threats of violence were a constant throughout our experience," Moses said in a letter to the San Francisco Chronicle, one that launched some soul-searching by city officials and led to some 49ers fans to apologize on behalf of their city.

"Every other word from dozens of fans around us was an f-bomb shouted at the top of their lungs," Moses said. "There were seven or eight large 30- to 35-year-old guys directly behind us who cursed and threatened us the entire game." He turned to ask them to tone it down in front of his girls and they yelled: "Do not turn around again! Do not ever turn around again."

He was afraid that if the fans saw him calling or texting security, the men would harm his daughters.

"Every 49ers fan, the team and its owners should be ashamed and embarrassed to wear the red and gold today," Moses wrote in the letter published Tuesday. "They won the game but are losers in every other way."

NFL security director Jeff Miller told the AP that if the security cameras or undercover police catch such abusive behavior by fans on Sunday, they will be yanked from the stadium.

"We'll be looking early on to identify people trying to do those things in the parking areas and take action to remove them," said Miller, who will be at the game. "We're not going to be warning people inside the stadium. They will be removed."

Authorities are already sensitive about the heartbreaking case of Brian Stow, a paramedic and San Francisco Giants fan who suffered a traumatic brain injury after a beating by two men dressed in Dodgers gear following the home opener against the Giants in Los Angeles on March 31. Medical care for Stow is expected to cost as much as $50 million and the father of two has sued the Dodgers.

Tailgating after kickoff already has been banned from the parking lot at Candlestick Park under security measures introduced after two shootings, a beating and fights broke out during an Aug. 20 pre-season game with across-the-bay rivals Oakland Raiders.

San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr said he heard first-hand how Saints fans were treated last Saturday when he gave three of them a lift from the stadium back into the city after the game. They gave him an earful about how badly they'd been belittled.

"We're all native San Franciscans and, you know, that's not the way we want to represent the team and the city," Suhr said.

He said Mayor Ed Lee instructed him to do whatever it takes to make Giants fans feel safe.

Police officers and team personnel at the ticket gates will be welcoming them with cards that tell them how to contact police.

The 49ers also purchased Giants attire for undercover police officers.

"They'll be seated around the stadium as decoys, if you will, trying to draw out the obnoxious fans and they will be removed immediately," he said.

Then there are the lights.

A good portion of the game will be played under the same stadium lights that blacked out and delayed the nationally televised Monday Night Football game between the 49ers and the Pittsburgh Steelers on Dec. 19.

The city and the Pacific Gas & Electric Co. insist there won't be an embarrassing repeat of the two blackouts at the 51-year-old stadium, which had prompted the mayor to call the night a "national embarrassment."

PG&E spokesman Joe Molica is confident the nearly $1 million in upgrades to the park by the electric utility and the city will prove the old bayside stadium proud.

He said the wire for the electrical circuit that serves the park has been replaced with more than a mile and a half of new wire that is resistant to contact and carries three times the electrical load. A new computer system allows workers to better monitor the circuit.

The command center at the stadium has conducted a string of tests simulating the Dec. 19 blackout and everything tested well.

Will Molica be holding his breath on Sunday about another blackout?

No, he said, "I'll be holding my breath for the 49ers to win."

___

AP Sports Writer Janie McCauley contributed to this report from Santa Clara, Calif.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-01-20-Niners-Giants-Security/id-9ffeaf14197e49d7951ed84093fd151b

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