Zynga IPO Prices At $10, The Upper End Of Its Range, But Under The Last Private Round

zyngaZynga priced its IPO at $10 a share, according to Bloomberg and CNBC (bankers love to leak). The IPO, which is set for tomorrow, will be in the upper end of the $8.50 to $10 price range the company indicated previously in SEC filings. Zynga will sell at least 100 million shares, raising $1 billion at a $7 billion valuation. The valuation is about half of where early reports were speculating it would be, but Zynga lowered the price in the face of the tepid performance of other tech IPOs lately and general economic concerns weighing down the stock market. Even with the lower price, Zynga is poised to open trading with a bigger market cap bigger than LinkedIn, which currently is at $6.4 billion.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/caydnXGs5hU/

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Spotlight won't blind Darvish

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--> December 15, 2011, 8:48 pm

Being the center of attention is the default setting for Yu Darvish.

The Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters traveled commercial, and that?s supposed to be standard in Japan. Getting out of the plane and moving through the concourse, Micah Hoffpauir and Bobby Scales watched the paparazzi snap pictures. Fans swarmed their famous teammate to ask for autographs at the airport.

As Scales put it: Could you imagine the Cubs walking through O?Hare every road trip?

The Cubs are among the teams that submitted a blind bid before Wednesday?s deadline. This is for the right to negotiate with Darvish, even if the sense is that it could just be due diligence, like checking in on Albert Pujols and not completely ruling out Prince Fielder.

Word could leak out earlier, but the Fighters have four business days to consider the highest bid. The final answer is due by Dec. 20.

If the final bill is close to the more than $100 million it cost the Boston Red Sox to import Daisuke Matsuzaka five years ago, then Darvish automatically becomes one of the game?s most intriguing players, a marketing and promotional force.

The Japanese media had Texas Rangers president Nolan Ryan pinned against an elevator bank at Milwaukee?s Pfister Hotel during the owner/general manager meetings last month. They needed something on Darvish.

Foreign reporters surrounded Toronto Blue Jays general manager Alex Anthopoulos last week at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas. There was curiosity and gossip about Darvish in the lobby at the winter meetings.

Whenever Darvish arrives on American (or Canadian) soil, he may not be in for total cultural shock, but the 25-year-old pitcher will face a series of adjustments.

Hoffpauir ? who spent nearly a decade in the Cubs organization before heading to Japan last season ? described a style of play that almost sounded like soccer.

?The No. 1 difference (between) American (and) Japanese baseball,? Hoffpauir said, ?is (that) Japanese baseball is very, very concerned about scoring one run. They?ve got to get that first run on the board and I (had) never in my life seen (that before).

?If our leadoff hitter gets on in the top of the first inning, our two-hole hitter ? nine out of 10 times ? is bunting and everybody in the stadium knows it and it?s not even a question. That?s just the way it is. If we have the opportunity to get (him) into scoring position and take two shots at it with our No. 3 and 4 guys, then we?re going to do that every time.?

If Darvish doesn?t live up to the hype, he will have to deal with a backlash that may seem jarring. Scales ? who got called up to Wrigley Field in 2009 and 2010 ? described Japanese culture as ?very reserved, very respectful.?

?People drink in the stadiums in Japan,? Hoffpauir said, ?but you don?t have the constant heckling. You don?t have people being booed and stuff like that. It seems to be more of a positive-type atmosphere. The fans everywhere are great.?

Hoffpauir had been there only a few weeks when he felt the Tokyo Dome Hotel shaking. A tsunami and earthquake would devastate the country last March. Still, overall he enjoyed the experience and picked up his option to return to Japan next year.

Hoffpauir was joined by his wife Tiffany and their daughter Addyson, who?s now three years old. They ate more McDonald?s than they probably wanted, but that was a place where you could point at what you wanted.

The Fighters had two interpreters for their four American players. Scales ? a midseason replacement brought over from Triple-A Iowa ? used a Slingbox to watch University of Michigan football games. But with the time difference, he was usually falling asleep in his hotel room by the time his school started the second half.

Off the field, these are the little things that Darvish will have to get used to in a new country, all while learning the game ? new league, new teammates, deeper lineups ? at the highest level. Even professional athletes can?t stay always stay in the bubble.

Hoffpauir is convinced that Darvish will approximate a No. 2 major-league starter as soon as he reports to spring training. The Japanese ace has strung together five consecutive seasons with an ERA below 1.89. What else is left to prove there?

At least Darvish ? who?s reportedly in the process of divorcing his wife, a high-profile actress ? shouldn?t be blinded by the flashbulbs and TV lights. He performed in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2009 World Baseball Classic. This is his world.

?He will have no problem with the media,? Hoffpauir said. ?He?s dealt with that all of his career.?

Source: http://www.csnchicago.com/baseball-chicago-cubs/news/The-spotlight-shouldnt-blind-Yu-Darvish?blockID=613130&feedID=661&awid=6295132542067548006-915

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Feds issue scathing report against Ariz. sheriff (AP)

PHOENIX ? A scathing U.S. Justice Department report released Thursday found that Sheriff Joe Arpaio's office carried out a blatant pattern of discrimination against Latinos and held a "systematic disregard" for the Constitution amid a series of immigration crackdowns that have turned the lawman into a prominent national political figure.

Arpaio struck a defiant tone in response to the report, calling it a politically motivated attack by the Obama administration that will make Arizona unsafe by keeping illegal immigrants on the street. "Don't come here and use me as the whipping boy for a national and international problem," he said at a news conference.

The government found that Arpaio's office committed a wide range of civil rights violations against Latinos, including unjust immigration patrols and jail policies that deprive prisoners of basic Constitutional rights.

The Justice Department's expert on measuring racial profiling found the sheriff's office to be the most egregious case of profiling in the nation that he has seen or reviewed in professional literature, said Thomas Perez, who heads the Justice Department's civil rights division.

"We found discriminatory policing that was deeply rooted in the culture of the department, a culture that breeds a systematic disregard for basic constitutional protections," Perez said.

The report will be used by the Justice Department to seek major changes at Arpaio's office, such as new policies against discrimination and improvements of staff and officers. Arpaio faces a Jan. 4 deadline for saying whether he wants to work out an agreement to make the changes. If not, the federal government will sue him, possibly putting in jeopardy millions of dollars in federal funding for Maricopa County.

The fallout from the report was swift. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced it is severing its ties with Arpaio, stripping his jail officers of their federal power to check whether inmates in county jails are in the county illegally, a move that was meant to speed up deportation.

Homeland security officials also are restricting Arpaio's office from using a program that uses fingerprints collected in local jails to identify illegal immigrants.

Arpaio has long denied the racial profiling allegations, saying people are stopped if deputies have probable cause to believe they have committed crimes and that deputies later find many of them are illegal immigrants. He called the report "a sad day for America as a whole."

"We are going to cooperate the best we can. And if they are not happy, I guess they can carry out their threat and go to federal court," Arpaio said.

Arpaio said the decision by Homeland Security to sever ties will result in illegal immigrants being released from jail and large numbers. They will go undetected and be "dumped on a street near you. For that, you can thank the federal government," the sheriff said.

The Justice Department's conclusions in the civil probe mark the federal government's harshest rebuke of a national political fixture who has risen to prominence for his immigration crackdowns and became coveted endorsement among candidates in the GOP presidential field. Arpaio ultimately decided to endorse Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who denounced the findings Thursday as politically motivated.

Arpaio has built his reputation on jailing inmates in tents and dressing them in pink underwear, selling himself to voters as unceasingly tough on crime and pushing the bounds of how far local police can go to confront illegal immigration. He began aggressive sweeps in immigrant neighborhoods long before the state Legislature passed a 2010 law that cracks down on illegal immigrants and is now before the U.S. Supreme Court.

While widely popular among conservatives nationwide, Arpaio faces numerous problems at home that have him facing almost-daily calls to step down.

Apart from the civil rights probe, a federal grand jury also has been investigating Arpaio's office on criminal abuse-of-power allegations since at least December 2009 and is specifically examining the investigative work of the sheriff's anti-public corruption squad. The squad launched investigations of officials, lawyers and judges who ran afoul of Arpaio, and the cases all collapsed.

Arpaio has also been under pressure from his opponents to resign in the last week after an Associated Press article brought new attention to his office's bungling of sex crime and molestation cases in a predominantly Hispanic Phoenix suburb. His office said more than 400 sex-crimes investigations had to be reopened after the department learned of cases that hadn't been investigated adequately or weren't examined at all.

Officials discovered at least 32 reported child molestations ? with victims as young as 2 years old ? where the sheriff's office failed to follow through, even though suspects were known in all but six cases. The cases were originally reported by The Arizona Republic and other local media and received national attention in the last week.

Thursday's report said federal authorities will continue to investigate whether the sex crimes are being properly looked at; complaints of deputies using excessive force against Latinos; and whether the sheriff's office failed to provide adequate police services in Hispanic communities.

The report took the sheriff's office to task for launching immigration patrols, known as "sweeps," based on complaints that Latinos were merely gathering near a business without committing crimes.

Federal authorities single out Arpaio himself and said his office has no clear policies to guard against the violations, even after he changed some of his top aides earlier this year.

The report also said he and some top staffers tried to silence people who have spoken out against the sheriff's office by arresting people without cause, filing meritless lawsuits against opponents and starting investigations of critics.

One example cited by the Justice Department is former top Arpaio aide David Hendershott, who filed bar complaints against attorneys critical of the agency along with bringing judicial complaints against judges who were at odds with the sheriff. All complaints were dismissed.

The anti-corruption squad's cases against two county officials and a judge collapsed in court before going to trial and have been criticized by politicians at odds with the sheriff as trumped-up. Arpaio has defended the investigations as a valid attempt at rooting out corruption in county government.

The civil rights report said Latinos are four to nine times more likely to be stopped in traffic stops in Maricopa County than non-Latinos and that the agency's immigration policies treat Latinos as if they are all in the country illegally. Deputies on the immigrant-smuggling squad stop and arrest Latino drivers without good cause, the investigation found.

A review done as part of the investigation found that 20 percent of traffic reports handled by Arpaio's immigrant-smuggling squad from March 2006 to March 2009 were stops ? almost all involving Latino drivers ? that were done without reasonable suspicion. The squad's stops rarely led to smuggling arrests.

Deputies are encouraged to make high-volume traffic stops in targeted locations. Latinos who were in the U.S. legally were arrested or detained without cause during the sweeps, according to the report.

During the sweeps, deputies flood an area of a city ? in some cases, heavily Latino areas ? over several days to seek out traffic violators and arrest other offenders. Illegal immigrants accounted for 57 percent of the 1,500 people arrested in the 20 sweeps conducted by his office since January 2008, according to figures provided by Arpaio's office.

Police supervisors, including at least one smuggling-squad supervisor, often used county accounts to send emails that demeaned Latinos to fellow sheriff's managers, deputies and volunteers in his posse. One such email had a photo of a mock driver's license for a fictional state called "Mexifornia."

The report said that the sheriff's office launched an immigration operation two weeks after the sheriff received a letter in August 2009 about a person's dismay over employees of a McDonald's in the Phoenix suburb of Sun City who didn't speak English. The tip laid out no criminal allegations. The sheriff wrote back to thank the writer "for the info," said he would look into it and forwarded it to a top aide with a note of "for our operation."

Federal investigators focused heavily on the language barriers in Arpaio's jails.

Latino inmates with limited English skills were punished for failing to understand commands in English by being put in solitary confinement for up to 23 hours a day or keeping prisoners locked down in their jail pods for as long as 72 hours without a trip to the canteen area or making nonlegal phone calls.

The report said some jail officers used racial slurs for Latinos when talking among themselves and speaking to inmates.

Detention officers refused to accept forms requesting basic daily services and reporting mistreatment when the documents were completed in Spanish and pressured Latinos with limited English skills to sign forms that implicate their legal rights without language assistance.

The Justice Department said it hadn't yet established a pattern of alleged wrongdoing by the sheriff's office in the three areas where they will continue to investigation: complaints of excessive force against Latinos, botched sex-crimes cases and immigration efforts that have hurt the agency's trust with the Hispanic community.

___

Associated Press Writer Alicia A. Caldwell contributed to this report from Washington, D.C.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111216/ap_on_re_us/us_arizona_sheriff_civil_rights

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RIM: Next-generation phones not out till late 2012 (AP)

TORONTO ? BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. said Thursday that new phones deemed critical to the company's future will be delayed until late 2012.

Mike Lazaridis, one of the company's co-CEOs, said the BlackBerry 10 phones will need a highly integrated chipset that will not be available until mid-2012, so the company can now expect them to ship late in the year. He disclosed the delay on a conference call with analysts.

Analysts say RIM's future depends on the new software platform. RIM needs to come up with a compelling BlackBerry as U.S. users have moved on to flashier touch-screen phones such as Apple's iPhone and various competing models that run Google's Android software.

Earlier Thursday, RIM said BlackBerry sales will fall sharply in the holiday quarter, providing further evidence that it is struggling to compete. It also has been having a hard time finding a niche in the tablet-computer market, which is dominated by Apple's iPad.

RIM continues to enjoy success overseas, but market researcher NPD Group says RIM's market share of smartphones in the U.S. has declined from 44 percent in 2009 to 10 percent this year.

The company's stock fell 7 percent in extended trading Thursday.

The delay in BlackBerry 10 phones is the latest in a series of setbacks for the once-iconic Canadian company. Its PlayBook tablet computer hasn't been selling well, forcing the company to sell them at a deep discount. A widespread outage frustrated tens of millions of BlackBerry users in October. RIM fired two executives after their drunken rowdiness forced the diversion of an Air Canada flight. The head of its operations in Indonesia faces charges related to a stampede at a recent promotional sale where dozens of consumers were injured.

RIM said its net income sank 71 percent as revenue fell and the company took a large accounting charge on the PlayBook, which uses the same operating software that RIM's new phones will use.

"We ask for your patience and confidence," Lazaridis said.

RIM earned $265 million, or 51 cents per share, for its fiscal third quarter that ended Nov. 26. That compares with $911 million, or $1.74 per share, a year ago. The company said revenue fell 6 percent to $5.2 billion. The PlayBook charge was $485 million before taxes.

The company shipped 14.1 million BlackBerry smartphones during the third quarter and 150,000 PlayBook tablets, but its fourth-quarter guidance was what investors focused on because it had warned about the third-quarter results earlier.

Although RIM has said it would sell fewer BlackBerrys in the current quarter, the forecast given Thursday appeared worse than expected.

RIM said it would only ship between 11 million and 12 million BlackBerrys in the fourth quarter compared to 14.8 million in the previous fourth quarter.

RIM also said its fourth-quarter earnings would be in the range of 80 to 95 cents per share on revenue in the range of $4.6 billion to $4.9 billion. Analysts had been expecting earnings of $1.15 a share on revenue of $5.04 billion, according to FactSet.

Peter Misek, an analyst at Jefferies & Co. in New York, said earlier that if RIM reveals that it will ship no more than 12 million BlackBerrys in the current quarter, then the company needs to get its new phones out fast. Otherwise, RIM could lose money in future quarters as it continues to struggle to sell the current, stopgap models.

Misek said late Thursday the BlackBerry 10 phones will now be released three to nine months later than people believed.

BGC Financial analyst Colin Gillis said the guidance was terrible and wondered if it was the start of a collapse.

"If consumers abandon this platform it can happen pretty quickly," Gillis said. "Don't think this is the bottom."

Jim Balsillie, the other co-CEO, said the last few quarters have been among the most challenging times in the company's most recent history. He said executives are working to turn it around, but said it may take time.

"We are not satisfied with the performance of the business in the United States," Balsillie said.

Balsillie said he and Lazaridis have reduced their cash salary to $1 per year, though they will continue to earn stock options and other compensation.

RIM's stock fell $1.15 to a new seven-year low of $13.98 in extended trading Thursday after the results were released.

The stock has lost about 75 percent of its value this year. A company that was worth more than $70 billion a few years ago now has a market value of around $8 billion.

"We recognize our shareholders may feel we've fallen short," Balsillie said

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111216/ap_on_hi_te/cn_earns_research_in_motion

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'Batman' star Bale tries to visit China activist (omg!)

In this photo taken on Monday, Dec. 12, 2011, English actor Christian Bale speaks to journalists during an interview on the red carpet as he arrives for an event of the Zhang Yimou-directed new movie "The Flowers of War" in Beijing, China. Academy Award winner Christian Bale, in the midst of promoting a film he made in China some critics have called propaganda, got stopped trying to visit a blind activist living under house arrest, with a CNN camera crew in tow. CNN posted footage of a scuffle between Bale and the activist's guards on its website Friday, Dec. 16. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

BEIJING (AP) ? "Batman" star Christian Bale, in the midst of promoting a film he made in China that some critics have called propaganda, was physically stopped by government-backed guards from visiting a blind activist living under house arrest ? with a CNN crew in tow to record the scuffle.

CNN posted footage of the confrontation on its website Friday.

The run-in and publicity is likely to cause discomfort in China's government-backed film industry, which hopes Bale's movie "The Flowers of War" will be a creative success at home and abroad. The star's actions are sure to focus attention on the plight of Chen Guangcheng, guarded around the clock by thugs who have blocked dozens of reporters and fellow activists trying to see him in the past.

Bale was to leave China on Friday and his representatives could not immediately be reached for comment.

Bale, who won a best supporting actor Oscar for last year's "The Fighter," traveled Thursday with a crew from CNN to the village in eastern China where Chen, the blind lawyer, lives with his family in complete isolation.

They were stopped at the entrance to Dongshigu village in Shandong province by unidentified men.

The video footage shows Bale asking to see Chen, with a CNN producer providing interpretation, but being ordered by one of the guards to leave. He then asked why he was unable to pass through. The guards responded by trying to grab or punch a small video camera Bale was carrying.

"What I really wanted to do was to meet the man, shake his hand and say what an inspiration he is," Bale was quoted as saying by CNN.

Chen's case has been raised publicly by U.S. lawmakers and diplomats, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, all to no response from China.

CNN said Bale first learned of Chen from news reports when he was in China filming "The Flowers of War," China's official submission this year for best foreign language film Oscar.

"Chen Guangcheng is a newsworthy figure ... and as such it is in the interest of CNN's global viewers to hear from him," CNN said in a statement. "Mr. Bale reached out to CNN and invited us to join him on his journey to visit Chen."

Chen, a self-taught lawyer who was blinded by a fever in infancy, angered authorities after documenting forced late-term abortions and sterilizations and other abuses by overzealous authorities trying to meet population control goals in his rural community. He was imprisoned for allegedly instigating an attack on government offices and organizing a group of people to disrupt traffic, charges his supporters say were fabricated.

Although now officially free under the law, he has been confined to his home in the village eight hours' drive from Beijing and subjected to periodic beatings and other abuse, activists say.

While Bale's visit focuses new attention on Chen's case, CNN's role raises questions about activism and advocacy among reporters, said David Bandurski, editor of the China Media Project website at the University of Hong Kong.

"It made me instantly uncomfortable, wondering how it all came together. It raises questions about where the lines are drawn," Bandurski said.

The incident also drew strong interest ? most of it highly positive ? on social networking sites such as Twitter and its Chinese equivalent, Weibo.

Having their star's name pinging across the Internet in connection with such a politically sensitive subject puts promoters of "The Flowers of War" in a bind. The film opens in China on Friday and next week in the United States.

Directed by the renowned Zhang Yimou, it is also the most expensive Chinese movie ever made, at $94 million, some of which came from the state-owned Bank of China.

The movie centers on the 1937 sacking of the eastern city of Nanjing, a central event in China's pre-revolutionary "century of humiliation" and has been described by some critics as hewing to official propaganda portraying Chinese as heroic victims and Japanese as one-dimensional cartoon villains.

While China has the world's third-largest film industry ? both in box office and output ? it has made relatively little global impact. Story lines are often heavily influenced by the ruling Communist Party, whose culture commissars must approve scripts and have final say over whether a film gets released.

FILE - In this file photo taken Monday, Dec. 12, 2011, English actor Christian Bale speaks to journalists during an interview on the red carpet as he arrives for an event of the Zhang Yimou-directed new movie "The Flowers of War" in Beijing, China. Academy Award winner Bale, in the midst of promoting the film he made in China that some critics have called propaganda, has been stopped trying to visit a blind activist living under house arrest, with a CNN camera crew in tow. CNN posted footage of a scuffle between Bale and the activist's guards on its website Friday, Dec. 16. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/omg_rss/rss_omg_en/news_batman_star_bale_tries_visit_china_activist052516938/43923585/*http%3A//omg.yahoo.com/news/batman-star-bale-tries-visit-china-activist-052516938.html

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Prosecutor injured in Minn. courthouse shooting (AP)

GRAND MARAIS, Minn. ? A gunman opened fire in a small northern Minnesota courthouse on Thursday, wounding the local prosecutor and two other people, authorities said.

The shootings began around 4 p.m. at the Cook County Courthouse in Grand Marais, a remote town near the Canadian border, and a suspect was quickly taken into custody, State Public Safety spokesman Doug Neville said. The agency later identified the suspect as 42-year-old Daniel Schlienz, who had been on trial earlier Thursday on sexual misconduct charges. Schlienz was being held in the county jail.

Cook County prosecutor Timothy Scannell was undergoing surgery for multiple gunshot wounds Thursday night at Essentia Health-St. Mary's Medical Center in Duluth, spokeswoman Beth Johnson said. Scannell and another hospitalized victim were conscious and talking before being taken to the hospital, while the third victim was treated and released, Neville said.

A county official said the courthouse doesn't have metal detectors and visitors aren't usually searched.

Scannell was handling the only case on Thursday's court calendar, a jury trial that began Monday for Schlienz, who had been charged with criminal sexual conduct and nonconsensual sex contact.

Schlienz's father told the Duluth News Tribune that he went to the courthouse and was told that his son was the shooter. He said his son had recently threatened suicide.

"He hated the prosecuting attorney that did this," Gary Schlienz told the newspaper. "I don't want to make excuses for him, but they prosecuted him pretty bad. He had no job, no money, nothing."

Phone messages left at both of the men's homes by The Associated Press were not returned.

Online state court records listed several cases involving Daniel Schlienz in the past two decades, but most were minor traffic cases. More serious charges included fleeing a peace officer and the criminal sexual conduct case, which was first filed in 2006.

The Duluth News Tribune reported that Schlienz had entered an Alford plea in that case in 2007 on charges that he sexually assaulted two 15-year-old girls and one 17-year-old girl. His father told the newspaper that his son later decided to withdraw the plea and fight the charges.

The county's two-story courthouse, which has just one courtroom, has no metal detectors and visitors aren't searched when they enter the building, Cook County Commissioner Fritz Sobanja said.

"As far as I know, there's no checking for knives or any of that stuff," Sobanja said.

Grand Marais, home to about 1,300 residents, is about 110 miles northeast of Duluth and sits along the shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota's far northeastern tip.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/crime/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111216/ap_on_re_us/us_courthouse_shooting_minnesota

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Japan getting the LG Optimus LTE on NTT Docomo

LG Optimus LTE in Japan

LG tonight announced that its first 720p Android smarpthone -- the LG Optimus LTE -- is coming to Japan on NTT Docomo. That follows launches in Korea and (surprise, surprise) the United States, with the latter enjoying phone on AT&T as the Nitro HD. (Read our full review)

NTT Docomo's also getting a uniqe version of the Optimus LTE. Along with an optional red paint job, it'll have 1seg digital TV and NFC. 

We've got LG's full presser after the break.

read more

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/x-kvPVPnZg4/story01.htm

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Acid rain poses a previously unrecognized threat to Great Lakes sugar maples

ScienceDaily (Dec. 15, 2011) ? The number of sugar maples in Upper Great Lakes forests is likely to decline in coming decades, according to University of Michigan ecologists and their colleagues, due to a previously unrecognized threat from a familiar enemy: acid rain.

Over the past four decades, sugar maple abundance has declined in some regions of the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada, due largely to acidification of calcium-poor granitic soils in response to acid rain.

Sugar maple forests in the Upper Great Lakes region, in contrast, grow in calcium-rich soils. Those soils provide a buffer against soil acidification. So sugar maple forests here have largely been spared the type of damage seen in mature sugar maples of the Northeast.

But now, a U-M-led team of ecologists has uncovered a different and previously unstudied mechanism by which acid rain harms sugar maple seedlings in Upper Great Lakes forests.

The scientists have concluded that excess nitrogen from acid rain slows the microbial decay of dead maple leaves on the forest floor, resulting in a build-up of leaf litter that creates a physical barrier for seedling roots seeking soil nutrients, as well as young leaves trying to poke up through the litter to reach sunlight.

"The thickening of the forest floor has become a physical barrier for seedlings to reach mineral soil or to emerge from the extra litter," said ecologist Donald Zak, a professor at the U-M School of Natural Resources and Environment and co-author of an article published online Dec. 8 in the Journal of Applied Ecology. Zak is also a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology.

"What we've uncovered is a totally different and indirect mechanism by which atmospheric nitrogen deposition can negatively impact sugar maples," Zak said.

The new findings are the latest results from a 17-year experiment at four sugar maple stands in Michigan's lower and upper peninsulas.

By the end of this century, nitrogen deposition from acid rain is expected to more than double worldwide, due to increased burning of fossil fuels. For the last 17 years at the four Michigan sugar maple test sites, Zak and his colleagues have added sodium nitrate pellets (six times throughout the growing season, every year) to three 30-meter by 30-meter test plots at each of the four Michigan maple stands. Adding the pellets was done to simulate the amount of nitrogen deposition expected by the end of the century.

Seedling-establishment data from the nitrogen-spiked test plots were compared to the findings from a trio of nearby control plots that received no additional nitrogen. Most of the fieldwork and analysis was done by 2010 SNRE graduate Sierra Patterson, who conducted the study for her master's thesis.

Patterson and her colleagues found that adding extra nitrogen increased the amount of leaf litter on the forest floor by up to 50 percent, causing a significant reduction in the successful establishment of sugar maple seedlings.

When the number of seedlings on nitrogen-supplemented treatment was compared to the number of seedlings on the no-nitrogen-added treatment, the mean abundance of second-year seedlings was 13.1 stems per square meter under ambient nitrogen deposition and 1.6 stems per square meter under simulated nitrogen deposition.

The mean abundance of seedlings between three and five years of age also significantly declined under simulated nitrogen deposition: 10.6 stems per square meter grew under ambient nitrogen deposition, compared to 0.6 stems per square meter under simulated nitrogen deposition.

"Increasing nitrogen deposition has the potential to lead to major changes in sugar maple-dominated northern hardwood forests in the Great Lakes region," said Patterson, who now works as a botanist for the Huron-Manistee National Forests in Michigan.

"In terms of regeneration, it looks like it'll be difficult for new seeds to replace the forest overstory in the future," she said "So the populations of sugar maples in this region could potentially decline."

Funding for the study has been provided by grants from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy's Division of Environmental Biology.

"The surprising results reported in this study are an example of the value of long-term research," said Saran Twombly, program director in the National Science Foundation's Division of Environmental Biology, which funded the work.

"Uncovering the unexpected link between nitrogen deposition and sugar maple seedling success depended on the ability to simulate increased nitrogen deposition year after year," Twombly said. "The manipulations used to reveal the details of this link could not have worked in other than a long-term study."

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

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


Journal Reference:

  1. Sierra L. Patterson, Donald R. Zak, Andrew J. Burton, Alan F. Talhelm, Kurt S. Pregitzer. Simulated N deposition negatively impacts sugar maple regeneration in a northern hardwood ecosystem. Journal of Applied Ecology, 2011; DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2664.2011.02090.x

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

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

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111215135933.htm

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NFL's Drew Brees to appear on Sesame Street (AP)

NEW ORLEANS ? Move over, Grover! One of the NFL's top passers is heading to "Sesame Street."

New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees is making a special appearance on Thursday's episode of the educational children's TV show. He visited the set a few months ago to record the segment, which co-stars the street's furry red resident, Elmo.

The segment will air Thursday morning on PBS Kids.

Brees, who has two young sons, Baylen and Bowen, taped the segment before the start of this year's regular football season. Brees leads the NFL with 4,368 passing yards, putting him on pace to break Dan Marino's single-season passing record of 5,084 yards, which has stood since 1984. Brees led the Saints to victory over the Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl XLIV and was that game's MVP.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tv/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111213/ap_en_tv/us_people_drew_brees

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O, tannenbaum! Are you best natural or artificial?

In this Monday, Dec. 5, 2011 photo, an employee carries a fresh cut tree for a customer at Logan Trading Co., in Raleigh, N.C. The debate over natural verses artificial trees continues among some holiday antagonists. Logan sells both types of trees. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

In this Monday, Dec. 5, 2011 photo, an employee carries a fresh cut tree for a customer at Logan Trading Co., in Raleigh, N.C. The debate over natural verses artificial trees continues among some holiday antagonists. Logan sells both types of trees. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

In this Monday, Dec. 5, 2011 photo, the needles of a fresh cut frasier fir is shown at Logan Trading Co. in Raleigh, N.C. The debate over natural verses artificial trees continues among some holiday antagonists. Logan sells both types of trees. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

In this Monday, Dec. 5, 2011 photo, artificial Christmas trees are shown on display at Logan Trading Co., in Raleigh, N.C. The debate over natural verses artificial trees continues among some holiday antagonists. Logan sells both types of trees. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

In this Monday, Dec. 5, 2011 photo, customers look at artificial Christmas trees on display at Logan Trading Co., in Raleigh, N.C. The debate over the natural verses artificial tree continues among some holiday antagonists. Logan sells both types of trees. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

(AP) ? If the holidays are truly a time for peace on earth and goodwill toward all, someone forgot to tell the Christmas tree people.

For these holiday antagonists, there can be no yule truce: It's either a natural tree grown at a farm or an artificial model that lasts year after year.

Choose wisely, each side says, because the other option can be downright dangerous, carrying risks for allergies, environmental damage and even lead.

The best choice, of course, depends on whom you ask

"Misinformation is the biggest competition," said Rick Dungey, spokesman for the National Christmas Tree Association, which represents growers of natural trees. "People think a lot of weird things about trees. ... They think they're allergic to them, or they're going to burst into flames or they're a hassle."

Thomas Harman, the founder and chief executive officer of Redwood City, Calif.-based Balsam Hill, a manufacturer of artificial trees, agreed there is plenty of misinformation. He blames much of that on the natural tree group.

"There is a perception among the National Christmas Tree Association that artificial trees are stealing their business," said Harman, who is also president of the American Christmas Tree Association. "Whether or not that's really true or Christmas tree use per capita has declined, they've historically put out a bunch of content about artificial trees that isn't true."

It's a dispute that has remained bitter even as the market for all Christmas trees, natural and artificial, has slumped since the start of the Great Recession in December 2007. That year, the National Christmas Tree Association reports that Americans bought 31.3 million natural trees and 17.4 million artificial trees. By 2010, the group said the number of natural trees sold had dropped to 27 million, and the number of artificial trees had more than halved, to 8.2 million.

The American Christmas Tree Association, formed in 2008, disputes those figures, saying artificial tree sales average 10 million to 11 million a year.

ACTA won't reveal membership numbers but said members include merchants who sell both real and artificial trees. Harman said the organization supports both kinds of trees, but the group's website is slanted to artificial ones.

In an effort to reverse the sales slump, the National Christmas Tree Association asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture to approve a 15-cent fee on each tree sold to raise money for natural tree promotion efforts. The USDA backed the fee but delayed the move after criticism by conservative critics, who accused President Barack Obama of taxing Christmas trees.

In the great debate over natural or artificial trees, it's easy to find people with strong views on each side.

Katie Dow, a 44-year-old photographer from Raleigh, N.C., doesn't disguise her disdain for artificial trees like the one her mother would decorate at their home in Bradford, N.H.

"It never looked right," she said. "It made me nauseous."

For her first Christmas after she graduated from college, Dow bought a natural tree, and her friends bought ornaments for her. One year, her mother wanted her to put up the artificial tree for a Christmas Eve dinner. Dow refused.

"I literally took the tree I had decorated, put it in the Jeep ? decorations and all ? and put it in the living room for the party," Dow said.

Chris O'Donnell was a live tree person all his life ? until he lost his job the day after Thanksgiving 2010 and a friend loaned him an artificial tree.

"I was one of those live-trees-til-death people," said O'Donnell, 44, of Fredricksburg, Va.

The loaned artificial tree changed all that.

"Once we had a fake tree in the house and I didn't have to clean up needles and I didn't have to climb under it twice a day to water it, I kind of wondered why I ever bothered with the real ones," he said.

O'Donnell is now the director of sales for a technology company. He recently paid $110 for a 7-foot artificial tree.

"I guess if we miss the pine smell, we can buy some candles," he said.

To draw people to their sides, both tree associations make claims about the safety of the other products, with topics including allergies and lead dangers. The NCTA points to the artificial trees that end up in the landfill, while real trees can be recycled, for example. The ACTA published a study on its website this month that concluded either kind of tree has a negligible impact on the environment.

Safety-testing company Underwriters Laboratories Inc. said fire is the biggest threat, not the possibility that artificial trees contain lead. The company notes that natural and some artificial trees can burn up in as little as a minute.

"That's why we test for fire," said John Drengenberg, UL's director of consumer safety. "It has not been for lead."

In 2004, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Asheville concluded that an average artificial tree doesn't present a significant risk for exposure to lead. They did warn, however, that a significant health risk to young children is possible in worst-case scenarios.

And they noted that some tree lights also contain lead.

Some also claim one tree or the other is worse for causing sneezing or sniffles, but allergists are divided on which is worse.

Dr. Neeta Ogden, an allergist in Englewood, N.J., blames artificial for the worst problems.

"The main reason is that people store them in their homes in the basement and attic, and those are places where they're going to attract dust and mold," Ogden said.

But Dr. Neil Kao, an allergist in Greenville, S.C., recommends artificial trees to his patients. Both can accumulate dust, but Kao also counts the tree aroma and the water that sits in the stand as negatives for the natural tree.

For patients with severe asthma and sinus problems, he recommends a poster of a tree. "It's not very touchy-feely, but it serves the purpose."

___

Online:

http://www.christmastree.org/

http://www.christmastreeassociation.org/

___

Martha Waggoner can be reached at http://twitter.com/mjwaggonernc

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-12-07-Food%20and%20Farm-Christmas%20Trees/id-c047286a54be44158a30f6ead1f00d03

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