HTC reportedly taking the fight to Samsung with its own 5.9-inch phablet

By Tim Kenneally LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Madea goes bye-bye? A new petition published on Change.org is demanding that Oprah Winfrey's network remove Winfrey's friend and business partner Tyler Perry from OWN's airwaves, claiming that Perry "perpetuates stereotypes" about the black community. Or, as the petition puts it more whimsically, Perry "is 'malt liquor' for the community!" Perry's new series, "The Haves and the Have Nots," premiered Tuesday night on OWN to record breaking ratings. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/htc-reportedly-taking-fight-samsung-own-5-9-203054869.html

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Courtney Love: Daughter refused 'Twilight' role

Celebs

Randee Dawn TODAY contributor

7 hours ago

Courtney Love sat down with Howard Stern on Thursday with a few very interesting revelations -- many about her sometimes-estranged daughter Frances Bean (whose father is the late Kurt Cobain of Nirvana) and one big tease about herself.

First off, Love and Bean are no longer really estranged, she insisted: "I'm really good with my daughter now, we're really good." But it's still in the virtual world: They email "and we tweet, too," she told Stern on his SiriusXM radio show.

(Warning: Video contains bleeped-out obscenities.)

E! reported that elsewhere in the interview Love said that she hasn't yet met Bean's finace Isiah Silva, though they have spoken online. She says she approves of Bean's choice, noting that Silva seemed "really, really nice."

Bean has apparently always had a mind of her own, though; Love revealed that her daughter was offered the role of Bella in the "Twilight" movie series, and said no.

"When she was 13 she was offered 'Twilight,' she was offered Bella in 'Twilight.' That's a true story. Someone just saw a picture of her in a magazine and sent me the script for 'Twilight,'" Love said. "She was like, 'That's a sexist, moron piece of s---."

When Stern seemed surprised, Love added, "It would have destroyed her life."

But then she dropped her own news about a particular offer -- Love brought up Stern's "America's Got Talent" job, then said "I'm going to do a big TV show. I'm not saying what it is."

Could it be "American Idol," which just lost three of its judges, Stern wondered? He said she'd "hinted" about doing that show in the past.

"I'm not telling you," she said. "You know how those people are and ... we can't." Still, it's "a pretty done deal," so look for announcements in the future.

Source: http://www.today.com/entertainment/courtney-love-frances-bean-turned-down-playing-twilights-bella-6C10145572

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Every Point of a Tennis Match, Visualized in 3D

Here?s something cool. A studio called JWT Spain made a 3D app that tracks the trajectories of every ball hit in a tennis match in real time, and then spits out fancy visualizations.

There?s a heatmap that shows where the most balls land; trajectories of the ball for every set, game and point; a particle view that shows where the balls have the most impact; and options to control the opacity of the court, the color of the ball trajectories for each player, and how fast the court rotates. It can be filtered by set, game, or point.

Right now this has only been applied to three past ATP matches, but it would be great if it got a wider application. It's a very fun tool to poke at for now, but something like this for every match played?something similar to Kirk Goldsberry's shot charts for the NBA?would actually be useful for analyzing how matches played out, and broader trends for individual players. [Infosthetics]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/every-point-of-tennis-matches-visualized-in-3d-510264217

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How-to Locate A Cheap Car Insurance Broker - A Patient Perspective

Searching for an inexpensive car insurance specialist online

Virtually helps to ensure that you will get an instant response. Conducting business online is practically always much speedier than conducting business in person and sometimes even over the telephone. Of cour?

If you are buying cheap car insurance dealer, consider shopping on the net. There are several benefits to shopping online for something, and these benefits don?t stop as it pertains to shopping online for a cheap auto insurance broker.

Buying a low priced auto insurance agent online

Virtually helps to ensure that you will get a quick response. Conducting business online is nearly always much quicker than doing business in-person or even within the telephone. Naturally, following the original on line contact you might feel more comfortable talking to the low priced car insurance dealer on the phone or face-to-face, that will be perfectly fine. Just give a call; to him by this time you?ll be well on the way to obtaining a cheap auto insurance policy.

allows you to have prices from many different cheap car insurance agents in the same time o-r in less time than it would take you to get a rate from one cheap car insurance broker. We understand how important it?s to shop around when we are looking for an inexpensive auto insurance broker. Shopping around on line is much quicker than calling or visiting several different low priced car insurance brokers. You may possibly end up spending a whole Saturday doing what you can do within an hour online.

makes it possible to accomplish some quick, and comprehensive, study about the various cheap motor insurance brokers with whom you?re considering conducting business. You can read up on the car insurance companys rating from any separate rating business while you chat with your friend about any activities she or he has had with the cheap car insurance agent in question.

Consider shopping on the net next time you are in the market for an inexpensive car insurance broker. Your search is likely to be even more thorough, more popular, and much quicker than if you looked by calling or visiting each cheap auto insurance agent on your list.

To know more about it, please go to: cheap car insurance

Source: http://patientblog.oaevansville.com/uncategorized/how-to-locate-a-cheap-car-insurance-broker/

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China Doesn't Care if Its 'Digitalized' Military Cyberwar Drill Scares You

In the face of fears from President Obama to the Pentagon and across the globe about the increasing military might behind Chinese hacking, China's state news agency announced Wednesday that the nation's People's Liberation Army "will conduct an exercise next month to test new types of combat forces including units using digital technology amid efforts to adjust to informationalized war." You know, right after Obama and Chinese President?Xi Jinping are meeting about the state of, among other things, a cyberwar going on underneath their noses.

RELATED: China Is Winning the Cyber War Because They Hacked U.S. Plans for Real War

The new report from Xinhua news agency?adds that the drill, taking place on a large military training field and not some underground hack-a-thon bunker,?"will be the first time a PLA exercise has focused on combat forces including digitalized units, special operations forces, army aviation and electronic counter forces." The terms "digitalized unit" and "electronic counter forces" don't make it at all clear what China's military has planned, but then again, no country is ever going to reveal its full cyberwarfare capabilities in detail ? and it's not like it's the first time the Chinese have tested the military reaches of their digital warfare capabilities. Indeed, the U.S. was game to play along on more than one occasion. Last year it was reported that the U.S. and China had secretly engaged in at least two cyber war games in 2011, "designed to help prevent a sudden military escalation between the two superpowers if either felt they were being targeted," as ZDNet's Emil Potralinski reported.?"In the first, both sides had to describe what they would do if they were attacked by a sophisticated computer virus, such as?Stuxnet. In the second, they had to describe their reaction if the attack was known to have been launched from the other side."?The first went better than the second, apparently, but neither appears to have taken place on a training base in Mongolia, as this new test will be when it's conducted by two army corps and eight military academies in "late June." Obama and Xi are set to meet at an estate in California on June 7-8. Cybersecurity is on the list of talking points, the White House confirmed Tuesday as National Security Advisor Tom Donilon visited Beijing ahead of the summit.?Defense Secretary's Chuck Hagel is visiting Southeast Asia?this week, and it's on his agenda, too.

RELATED: China Says U.S. Is on Offense in Hacking Attacks on Defense Ministry

News of China's "digitalized" drill comes on the heels of Tuesday's big?Washington Post scoop?that Chinese hackers had stolen?designs for nearly 40 of the U.S.'s most valuable weapons programs?and 30 defense technologies ? a move that could "weaken the U.S. military advantage in a future conflict."?That article followed a Pentagon report earlier this month claiming that the Chinese government was directly connected to attacks on U.S. computer systems, which followed the cybersecurity firm Mandiant's report in February alleging that the PLA was connected to a number of cyberattacks on U.S. companies and infrastructure, and a 2012 assertion from national security veteran?Richard Clarke that China has hacked every major U.S. company. Now, it appears, the secret training is out in the open.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/china-doesnt-care-digitalized-military-cyberwar-drill-scares-143955089.html

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Thousands of bridges at risk of freak collapse

SEATTLE (AP) ? Thousands of bridges around the U.S. may be one freak accident or mistake away from collapse, even if the spans are deemed structurally sound.

The crossings are kept standing by engineering design, not supported with brute strength or redundant protections like their more modern counterparts. Bridge regulators call the more risky spans "fracture critical," meaning that if a single, vital component of the bridge is compromised, it can crumple.

Those vulnerable crossing carry millions of drivers every day. In Boston, a six-lane highway 1A near Logan airport includes a "fracture critical" bridge over Bennington Street. In northern Chicago, an I-90 pass that goes over Ashland Avenue is in the same category. An I-880 bridge over 5th Avenue in Oakland, Calif., is also on the list.

Also in that category is the Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River north of Seattle, which collapsed into the water days ago after officials say an oversized truck load clipped the steel truss.

Public officials have focused in recent years on the desperate need for money to repair thousands of bridges deemed structurally deficient, which typically means a major portion of the bridge is in poor condition or worse. But the bridge that collapsed Thursday is not in that deficient category, highlighting another major problem with the nation's infrastructure: Although it's rare, some bridges deemed to be fine structurally can still be crippled if they are struck hard enough in the wrong spot.

"It probably is a bit of a fluke in that sense," said Charles Roeder, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Washington.

While the I-5 truck's cargo suffered only minimal damage, it left chaos in its wake, with two vehicles catapulting off the edge of the broken bridge into the river below. Three people involved escaped with non-life threatening injuries.

The most famous failure of a fracture critical bridge was the collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis during rush hour on Aug. 1, 2007, killing 13 people and injuring more than 100 others. The National Transportation Safety Board concluded that the cause of the collapse was an error by the bridge's designers ? a gusset plate, a key component of the bridge, was too thin. The plate was only half of the required one-inch thickness.

Because the bridge's key structures lacked redundancy, where if one piece fails, there is another piece to prevent the bridge from falling, when the gusset plate broke, much of the bridge collapsed.

Mark Rosenker, who was chairman of the NTSB during the I-35W bridge investigation, said the board looked into whether other fracture critical bridges were collapsing. They found a few cases, but not many, he said.

"Today, they're still building fracture critical bridges with the belief that they're not going break," Rosenker said.

Fracture critical bridges, like the I-5 span in Washington, are the result of Congress trying to cut corners to save money rather than a lack of engineering know-how, said Barry B. LePatner, a New York real estate attorney and author of "Too Big to Fall: America's Failing Infrastructure and the Way Forward."

About 18,000 fracture critical bridges were built from the mid-1950s through the late 1970s in an effort to complete the nation's interstate highway system, which was launched under President Dwight Eisenhower, LePatner said in an interview. The fracture critical bridge designs were cheaper than bridges designed with redundancy, he said.

Thousands of those bridges remain in use, according to an AP analysis.

"They have been left hanging with little maintenance for four decades now," he said. "There is little political will and less political leadership to commit the tens of billions of dollars needed" to fix them.

There has been little focus or urgency in specifically replacing the older "fracture critical" crossings, in part because there is a massive backlog of bridge repair work for thousands of bridges deemed to be structurally problematic. Washington state Rep. Judy Clibborn, a Democrat who leads the House transportation committee, has been trying to build support for a tax package to pay for major transportation projects in the state. But her plan wouldn't have done anything to revamp the bridge that collapsed.

National bridge records say the I-5 crossing over the Skagit River had a sufficiency rating of 57.4 out of 100 ? a score designed to gauge the ability of the bridge to remain in service. To qualify for federal replacement funds, a bridge must have a rating of 50 or below. A bridge must have a sufficiency rating of 80 or below to qualify for federal rehabilitation funding.

Hundreds of bridges in Washington state have worse ratings than the one that collapsed, and many around the country have single-digit ratings.

Clibborn said the Skagit River crossing wasn't even on the radar of lawmakers because state officials have to prioritize by focusing on bridges with serious structural problems that are at higher risk of imminent danger.

Along with being at risk of a fatal impact, the I-5 bridge was deemed to be "functionally obsolete," which essentially means it wasn't built to today's standards. Its shoulders were narrow, and it had low clearance.

There are 66,749 structurally deficient bridges and 84,748 functionally obsolete bridges in the U.S., including Puerto Rico, according to the Federal Highway Administration. That's about a quarter of the 607,000 total bridges nationally. States and cities have been whittling down that backlog, but slowly. In 2002, about 30 percent of bridges fell into one of those two categories.

Spending by states and local government on bridge construction adjusted for inflation has more than doubled since 1998, from $12.3 billion to $28.5 billion last year, according to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association. That's an all-time high.

"The needs are so great that even with the growth we've had in the investment level, it's barely moving the needle in terms of moving bridges off these lists," said Alison Premo Black, the association's chief economist.

There is wide recognition at all levels of government that the failure to address aging infrastructure will likely undermine safety and hinder economic growth. But there is no consensus on how to pay for improvements. The federal Highway Trust Fund, which provides construction aid to states, is forecast to go broke next year. The fund gets its revenue primarily from federal gas and diesel taxes. But revenues aren't keeping up because people are driving less and there are more fuel-efficient cars on the road.

Neither Congress nor the White House has shown any willingness to raise federal gas taxes, which haven't been increased since 1993. Many transportation thinkers believe a shift to taxes based on miles traveled by a vehicle is inevitable, but there are privacy concerns and other difficulties that would preclude widespread use of such a system for at least a decade.

Transportation spending got a temporary boost with the economic stimulus funds approved by Congress after President Barack Obama was elected. Of the $27 billion designated for highway projects under the stimulus program, about $3 billion went to bridge projects, Black said.

States are looking for other means to raise money for highway and bridge improvements, including more road tolls, dedicating a portion of sales taxes to transportation and raising state gas taxes. Clibborn, the Washington state lawmaker, has proposed a 10-cent gas hike to help pay for projects, though the effort has been held up by a dispute over how to rebuild the Columbia River bridge connecting Vancouver, Wash., and Portland, Ore.

"We can't possibly do it all in the next 10 years, but we're going to do the first bite of the apple," Clibborn said.

___

Lowy reported from Washington, D.C. AP Writers Manuel Valdes and Gene Johnson contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/thousands-bridges-risk-freak-collapse-145103945.html

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French soldier stabbed in throat outside Paris

Police officers stand near the cordoned off spot where a French soldier was stabbed in the throat in the busy commercial district of La Defense, outside Paris, Saturday May 25, 2013, and France's president said authorities are investigating any possible links with the recent slaying of a British soldier.(AP Photo/Remy de la Mauviniere)

Police officers stand near the cordoned off spot where a French soldier was stabbed in the throat in the busy commercial district of La Defense, outside Paris, Saturday May 25, 2013, and France's president said authorities are investigating any possible links with the recent slaying of a British soldier.(AP Photo/Remy de la Mauviniere)

Police officers stand near the cordoned off spot where a French soldier was stabbed in the throat in the busy commercial district of La Defense, outside Paris, Saturday May 25, 2013, and France's president said authorities are investigating any possible links with the recent slaying of a British soldier.(AP Photo/Remy de la Mauviniere)

Police officers stand near the cordoned off spot where a French soldier was stabbed in the throat in the busy commercial district of La Defense, outside Paris, Saturday May 25, 2013, and France's president said authorities are investigating any possible links with the recent slaying of a British soldier.(AP Photo/Remy de la Mauviniere)

PARIS (AP) ? A French soldier was stabbed in the throat in a busy commercial district outside Paris on Saturday, and the government said it was trying to determine if there were any links to the brutal killing of a British soldier by suspected Islamic extremists.

French President Francois Hollande said the identity of the attacker, who escaped, was unknown and cautioned against jumping to conclusions about the assault on the uniformed soldier in the La Defense shopping area. The life of the 23-year-old soldier was not in danger, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

On Wednesday, British soldier Lee Rigby, 25, was viciously stabbed on a London street in broad daylight in a suspected terrorist attack that has raised fears of potential copycat strikes.

The French soldier was on a group patrol as part of a national protection program when he was attacked from behind, prosecutor Robert Gelli told Europe 1 radio. The assailant did not say a word, Gelli said.

"There are elements ? the sudden violence of the attack ? that could lead one to believe there might be a comparison with what happened in London," Interior Minister Manuel Valls told France 2 television. "But at this point, honestly, let us be prudent."

Rigby was attacked while walking outside the Royal Artillery Barracks in the Woolwich area of south London.

The gruesome scene was recorded on witnesses' cellphones, and a video emerged in which one of the two suspects ? his hands bloodied ? boasted of their exploits and warned of more violence as the soldier lay on the ground. Holding bloody knives and a meat cleaver, the suspects waited for police, who shot them in the legs, witnesses said.

In the video, one of the suspects declared, "We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you ... We must fight them as they fight us."

Two Muslim hard-liners have identified that suspect as Michael Adebolajo, a Christian who converted to Islam and attended several London demonstrations organized by banned British radical group al-Muhajiroun.

French security forces have been on heightened alert since their country launched a military intervention in the African nation of Mali in January to regain territory seized by Islamic radicals. British Prime Minister David Cameron was himself in Paris meeting with Hollande when he first received word of the London attack.

Last year, three French paratroopers were killed by a man police described as a French-born Islamic extremist who then went on to strike a Jewish school in the south of France, killing four more people.

___

Associated Press Writer Sylvia Hui in London contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-05-25-France-Soldier%20Stabbed/id-58e45c46583d44549010746903b02897

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Russia's leading social network banned by "mistake"

By Douglas Busvine

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's leading online social network was briefly banned on Friday, in a move dismissed as a "mistake" but which follows intensifying official pressure on the company as President Vladimir Putin consolidates his power.

VKontakte (www.vk.com), Europe's largest homegrown social network with 210 million registered users, was put overnight on a "black list" of sites barred from distributing content inside Russia. Hours later, the ban was lifted.

The company's founder Pavel Durov has clashed with the authorities in the past for providing a forum for opposition activists to organize protests against Putin.

"This happened by mistake," said Vladimir Pikov, a spokesman for Roskomnadzor, the state communications regulator.

"In this case, someone checked a box against the address of the social network. The site has been removed from the list and restrictions on access to it have been lifted."

Durov, 28, founded VKontakte in his native St Petersburg in 2006 and his success in building the network - which attracts 47 million users daily who log on to share news, views and photos - has drawn comparisons to Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg.

Durov refused to comply with an order by the Federal Security Service, a successor to the Soviet-era KGB, to close groups used by activists to organize protests over the December 2011 parliamentary election, which handed victory to Putin's ruling United Russia party.

Last month, he was implicated in a traffic incident in the city of St Petersburg in which a policeman was slightly injured.

Durov has denied being involved in the accident but, instead of agreeing to testify as a witness, he left the country, say sources who know him. He has not been seen in public or posted on his VKontakte page since April 24.

The executive's difficulties coincided with a change of ownership at the company, in which a private equity fund with Kremlin connections bought a 48 percent stake from the founding partners who backed Durov.

The day before the deal closed on April 17, VK's office and Durov's home were searched by investigators.

UNDER CONTROL

The buyer, United Capital Partners, controls assets worth some $3.5 billion and is run by financier Ilya Sherbovich, who sits on the board of three large state firms including Rosneft, the oil major run by Putin's former chief of staff, Igor Sechin.

"It's a meticulous and methodical effort to bring the network under the control of the Kremlin," science fiction writer and blogger Dmitry Glukhovsky, creator of the Metro 2033 video game, told Reuters this week of the pressure on VK.

"It's too important a resource to stand independently from the 'siloviki'," added Glukhovsky, referring to Putin's allies that share the Russian leader's security-service background and are now in the political ascendant.

Sherbovich, in an interview, has denied fronting for the Kremlin and said he wanted Durov to stay on as chief executive of VKontakte.

A source close to the company said it held a board meeting in Switzerland this week which was attended by Durov.

Durov owns 12 percent of VK, but under a shareholder pact he also votes on behalf of the 40 percent holding owned by Mail.ru, the London-listed internet group backed by Uzbek-born tycoon Alisher Usmanov, Russia's richest man.

No comment was immediately available from representatives for VK, United Capital Partners or Usmanov.

At issue, say internet watchers, is control over user-generated content frowned on by the authorities. Friday's ban, despite being quickly lifted, could be a shot across VKontakte's bows to ensure it tightens its monitoring.

The network has also been accused by Russia's ombudsman for children's rights of hosting child pornography. At least one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects had a page on VKontakte.

After Putin rose to power in 2000, the Kremlin reined in Russia's print and broadcast media, encouraging trusted business "oligarchs" to buy strategic stakes. A similar scenario, in which loyal investors ensure internet content is screened, may now be unfolding, say some commentators.

"All big media have been brought under the control of the Kremlin, and VK is the last medium that is free," journalist Nickolay Kononov, author of biography "The Durov Code", said in a recent interview.

(Additional reporting by Maria Kiselyova; Editing by Elizabeth Piper and David Holmes)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/russias-leading-social-network-banned-mistake-104258392.html

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Fired for word: 'Negro' in Spanish class

Fired for word 'negro'? A Bronx teacher has filed a lawsuit claiming she was fired for using the word 'negro' in class. 'Negro' is the Spanish word for the color black.

By David Clark Scott,?Staff writer / May 25, 2013

What goes on the black board can come back to bite you, if you're a teacher. Petrona Smith wrote "negro" on the board, teaching her Bronx students the word for the color "black" in Spanish. She was fired.

REUTERS/Darrin Zammit Lupi

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One of the first lessons one learns in English class is that context is everything. The same holds true in Spanish.

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Take the case of Petrona Smith. She says in a lawsuit that she was fired from teaching at Bronx PS 211 in March 2012 after a seventh-grader reported that she'd used the "N" word, according to The New York Post.

'Negro.'

Smith doesn't deny using the word. But she argues that everyone uses it, when speaking Spanish. She was teaching the Spanish words for different colors, and the color "black" in Spanish is "negro."? She also taught the junior high school students, in this bilingual school, that the Spanish term for black people is "moreno." And by the way, Smith, who is from the West Indies, is black.

Context is everything.

Smith's lawsuit brings to mind a case in Ohio earlier this year.

The Akron Public Schools Board of Education voted in January to pursue the firing of Melissa Cairns. She was a math teacher at Buchtel Community Learning Center.

The school district said that Ms. Cairns posted a photo on her personal Facebook page which showed 8 or 9 out of her 16 students with duct tape across their mouths. The caption read: "Finally found a way to get them to be quiet!!!" The district says a colleague of Cairns' notified a supervisor of the photo.

On the face of it, this sounds outrageous. But what's the context?

Cairn, a teacher for 10 years, says she gave a girl a roll of duct tape to fix her binder, but the student cut a piece of tape, placed it over her mouth and laughed.

"The other kids in the class thought it was funny also, and they proceeded to pass the tape and scissors around the class. The students, the majority of the class, ended up putting a piece of duct tape across their mouth," Cairns explained.

"I would never in a million years do anything to harm students," Cairns said.

This past week, Cairns was officially fired because "She showed a lack of good judgment. Her conduct was unbecoming of a teacher,"? Akron Public Schools spokesman Mark Williamson told Newsnet5.

He went on to explain it wasn't the use of the duct tape, but the posting of the photo of children on Facebook that showed poor judgement.

The punishment, as many Akron readers noted, seemed excessive in light of the mistake.

"This is wrong," wrote Lynn Webster. "The Board should take into account what really happened and she was having FUN with her students. Oh...teachers aren't allowed to do that anymore. She should have received a reprimand at most and move on. Shame on the snitch that reported her. Couldn't this have been handled privately instead of running to a supervisor? Now I hope she sues them to get her job back."

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/1PrScET6V3Q/Fired-for-word-Negro-in-Spanish-class

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Yahoo Buys Another Startup, Cross-Platform ... - Business Insider

It's back to the smaller acquisitions after Yahoo's buzzy buyout of Tumblr Monday for $1.1 billion.

Today, Yahoo has announced its latest acquisition, PlayerScale. The price has not been disclosed, but it probably wasn't as cheap as some of the talent acquisitions Yahoo has made previously.

PlayerScale reaches 150 million users worldwide, and Yahoo says it wants to continue building on the platform's technology, not shut it down. PlayerScale helps push games across social and mobile platforms seamlessly. It also gives game developers a way to track revenue and users across multiple platforms.

Here's the note PlayerScale's CEO, Jesper Jensen, wrote on the website (via TechCrunch)

Today is a great day ? both in our journey with PlayerScale and for users of our Player.IO product. We are happy to announce the next big step toward our goal of building the best possible gaming infrastructure platform: we have been acquired by Yahoo!. And don?t worry, we?re not going anywhere. Our platform will continue to support the same great games that you love playing today ? and in fact, it will only get better from here!

Our goal has always been to help developers build the best possible games, without having to worry about building and scaling the infrastructure required to operate today?s biggest successes. In working with the folks at Yahoo!, it has become clear that we share this passion.

We have spent the past four years growing a three-person startup into a product that powers games played by over 150 million people worldwide and we are adding over 400,000 new users every day. In the last four months alone, we have increased our daily user growth rate by almost sixty percent. With Yahoo!?s backing, we can crank out awesome products and improvements to our platform faster than ever before. We will continue to support our existing product and deliver new services to help you grow and manage your success in cross-platform gaming ? whether it?s casual, social or mobile.

Today marks a milestone for PlayerScale and I want to sincerely thank the team, our developers and millions of users for the adventure so far and can promise there will be more to come.

- Jesper Jensen

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/yahoo-buys-another-startup-this-week-cross-platform-gaming-company-playerscale-2013-5

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Doctors save Ohio boy by 'printing' an airway tube

In a medical first, doctors used plastic particles and a 3-D laser printer to create an airway splint to save the life of a baby boy who used to stop breathing nearly every day.

It's the latest advance from the booming field of regenerative medicine, making body parts in the lab.

In the case of Kaiba (KEYE'-buh) Gionfriddo, doctors didn't have a moment to spare. Because of a birth defect, the little Ohio boy's airway kept collapsing, causing his breathing to stop and often his heart, too. Doctors in Michigan had been researching artificial airway splints but had not implanted one in a patient yet.

In a single day, they "printed out" 100 tiny tubes, using computer-guided lasers to stack and fuse thin layers of plastic instead of paper and ink to form various shapes and sizes. The next day, with special permission from the Food and Drug Administration, they implanted one of these tubes in Kaiba, the first time this has been done.

Suddenly, a baby that doctors had said would probably not leave the hospital alive could breathe normally for the first time. He was 3 months old when the operation was done last year and is nearly 19 months old now. He is about to have his tracheotomy tube removed; it was placed when he was a couple months old and needed a breathing machine. And he has not had a single breathing crisis since coming home a year ago.

"He's a pretty healthy kid right now," said Dr. Glenn Green, a pediatric ear, nose and throat specialist at C.S. Mott Children's Hospital of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where the operation was done. It's described in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

Independent experts praised the work and the potential for 3-D printing to create more body parts to solve unmet medical needs.

"It's the wave of the future," said Dr. Robert Weatherly, a pediatric specialist at the University of Missouri in Kansas City. "I'm impressed by what they were able to accomplish."

So far, only a few adults have had trachea, or windpipe transplants, usually to replace ones destroyed by cancer. The windpipes came from dead donors or were lab-made, sometimes using stem cells. Last month, a 2-year-old girl born without a windpipe received one grown from her own stem cells onto a plastic scaffold at a hospital in Peoria, Ill.

Kaiba had a different problem ? an incompletely formed bronchus, one of the two airways that branch off the windpipe like pant legs to the lungs. About 2,000 babies are born with such defects each year in the United States and most outgrow them by age 2 or 3, as more tissue develops.

In severe cases, parents learn of the defect when the child suddenly stops breathing and dies. That almost happened when Kaiba was 6 weeks old at a restaurant with his parents, April and Bryan Gionfriddo, who live in Youngstown, in northeast Ohio.

"He turned blue and stopped breathing on us," and his father did CPR to revive him, April Gionfriddo said.

More episodes followed, and Kaiba had to go on a breathing machine when he was 2 months old. Doctors told the couple his condition was grave.

"Quite a few of them said he had a good chance of not leaving the hospital alive. It was pretty scary," his mother said. "We pretty much prayed every night, hoping that he would pull through."

Then a doctor at Akron Children's Hospital, Marc Nelson, suggested the experimental work in Michigan. Researchers there were testing airway splints made from biodegradable polyester that is sometimes used to repair bone and cartilage.

Kaiba had the operation on Feb. 9, 2012. The splint was placed around his defective bronchus, which was stitched to the splint to keep it from collapsing. The splint has a slit along its length so it can expand and grow as the child does ? something a permanent, artificial implant could not do.

The plastic is designed to degrade and gradually be absorbed by the body over three years, as healthy tissue forms to replace it, said the biomedical engineer who led the work, Scott Hollister.

Green and Scott Hollister have a patent pending on the device and Hollister has a financial interest in a company that makes scaffolds for implants.

Dr. John Bent, a pediatric specialist at New York's Albert Einstein College of Medicine, said only time will tell if this proves to be a permanent solution, but he praised the researchers for persevering to develop it.

"I can think of a handful of children I have seen in the last two decades who suffered greatly ... that likely would have benefited from this technology," Bent said.

___

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/doctors-save-ohio-boy-printing-125228957.html

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26 killed in 2 simultaneous car bombs in Niger

NIAMEY, Niger (AP) ? Suicide bombers in Niger detonated two car bombs simultaneously on Thursday, one inside a military camp in the city of Agadez and another in the remote town of Arlit at a French-operated uranium mine, killing a total of 26 people and injuring 30, according to officials in Niger and France.

A surviving attacker took a group of soldiers hostage, and authorities were attempting to negotiate their release.

The timing of the attacks, which occurred at the same moment more than 100 miles apart, and the fact that the bombers were able to penetrate both a well-guarded military installation and a sensitive, foreign-operated uranium mine, highlight the growing reach and sophistication of the Islamic extremists based in neighboring Mali. The Mali jihadists have vowed to avenge a French-led military intervention that ousted them from Mali's northern cities.

Both attacks were claimed by a spinoff of al-Qaida's local chapter, the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, or MUJAO, said French radio RFI.

The highest toll was in the desert city of Agadez, located almost 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) northeast of the capital, where the attackers punched their explosive-laden car past the defenses at a military garrison and detonated inside the base, killing 20 soldiers and 16 others, said Niger's Minister of Defense Mahamadou Karidjo at a hastily assembled press conference in the capital, Niamey, on Thursday. Three suicide bombers also died, but a fourth escaped and grabbed a group of military cadets, said Interior Minister Abdou Labo.

The attacker was draped in an explosive belt and was threatening to blow himself up along with his hostages. Labo said by telephone that the military was engaging in negotiations with the jihadist. He did not say how many hostages were taken.

Over 240 kilometers (150 miles) northeast of Agadez, a different group of two suicide bombers slipped past a truck to enter a uranium mine operated by French nuclear giant Areva, injuring 14 employees of the French company, one of whom died later. Both suicide bombers were also killed, according to a company statement, the ministry of defense and witnesses.

When France scrambled war planes over Mali and sent in ground troops to try to take back the country's al-Qaida-held north, the extremists vowed to hit back not just at French interests all over the world, but also at the African governments that helped them. The bomb blasts on Thursday are the most damaging attacks by the Mali-based jihadists to date and succeeded in hitting both an important French asset and the military of Niger, which sent 650 troops to help France combat the Islamists in Mali.

Up until Thursday's twin attacks, some military analysts had begun to doubt the strength of groups like MUJAO, which has carried out repeated suicide attacks in Mali since January with varying degrees of success. Several of the kamikaze operations succeeded in killing only the bombers themselves. Shaken, the government of Niger has decreed a 72-hour period of national mourning following the heavy toll from Thursday's attack.

Residents in the two towns immediately remarked on how closely coordinated the attacks appear to have been, taking place just moments apart at 5:30 a.m., a time when many in this majority Muslim nation are prostrating themselves in the first prayer of the day.

Alhousseiny Moussa, a resident of Agadez, was walking to the mosque to pray when he heard the boom coming from the city's military camp. "I heard the explosion and immediately after, I heard a volley of gunfire. The area where it happened was inside the military camp and it's now been roped off so we cannot go in. It was right at 5:30 a.m.," he said.

Another resident of Agadez, a city situated on the sandy fringe of the Sahara desert, said the car bomb awoke anyone who was still sleeping. "We heard a strong detonation that woke the whole neighborhood, it was so powerful," explained Abdoulaye Harouna. "The whole town is now surrounded by soldiers looking for the attackers."

Al-Qaida's affiliate in Africa and groups allied with them seized the northern half of Mali in April of last year. They pushed into the major towns, setting up their own administration. But for nearly a decade before that, they had already made themselves at home in Mali, using its remote, and lawless northern reaches to train fighters and to hold the European hostages they kidnapped ? including many from Niger. In 2008, they grabbed two Canadians on the outskirts of Niger's capital, including United Nations special envoy Robert Fowler, who was held for 130 days before a ransom was negotiated. Two years later, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb infiltrated the mining town of Arlit, which was the scene of Thursday's car bombing, grabbing seven employees of French company Areva, and one of its contractors, SATOM, as well as the wife of one of the workers.

Four of them ? all French nationals ? are still being held by the terror cell and their whereabouts are unknown. The terror group has repeatedly threatened to execute them in retaliation for the French-led intervention in Mali.

On Thursday at 5:30 a.m., an all-terrain Toyota sports-utility vehicle penetrated the SOMAIR mine, where Areva is extracting uranium in Arlit, located 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) to the north of the capital, Niamey, according to residents. The car exploded not far from the machinery used at the mine.

"We saw a car enter the factory and immediately it exploded," said Agoumou Idi, a worker inside the factory who was reached by telephone. "The terrorists, probably from MUJAO, took advantage of the fact that the entrance gate was open in order to let in a truck carrying the next shift of workers. They used that opening to enter the heart of our factory and explode their vehicle."

In Agadez, the sand-enveloped streets were barricaded, as was the entrance to the hospital, where the dead and injured soldiers were presumably taken. No one could approach the military base where the standoff with the suicide bomber holding the hostages was ongoing on Thursday afternoon.

___

Callimachi contributed to this report from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writers Angela Charlton and Sarah DiLorenzo contributed to this report from Paris.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/26-killed-2-simultaneous-car-bombs-niger-142612849.html

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Hard To Beat Feet For Fostering Fungus

The skin of the feet host a more diverse fungal community than other parts of the surface of the body tested in a recent study. Sophie Bushwick reports.

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Do fungi have a foot fetish? When researchers mapped the fungal species living on the surface of the human body, they found the skin on the feet harbors the most diverse fungal community. The work is in the journal Nature. [Keisha Findley et al, Topographic diversity of fungal and bacterial communities in human skin]

Our skins play host to a huge variety of microbes, but previous studies focused on bacteria. To expand that, researchers took skin scrapings from 10 healthy adult volunteers. They collected these samples from 14 different sites on the body, including the scalp, around the ears and nose, along the limbs, and three sites on the feet.

In most of these locations, a single genus of fungi called Malassezia dominated. But several different genera thrived on the feet. Perhaps because feet come into direct contact with the environment often, spend part of their time inside warm, moist shoes and don?t get washed nearly as much as hands.

Fungal diversity did not correspond with bacterial diversity. Clearly, different microbes prefer different types of skin. Understanding these preferences could help treat skin diseases, leaving our hides footloose and infection-free.

?Sophie Bushwick

[The above text is a transcript of this podcast]

Scientific American is part of the Nature Publishing Group.
?

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=fa7bab886c83b7797996ab4af7005ef1

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Canada lifts lifetime ban on gay men giving blood, but some restrictions remain

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TORONTO ? Canada is lifting a nearly 30-year-old ban on gay men giving blood, though for the time being only those who are abstinent will be allowed to donate.

The new policy, which Canadian Blood Services hopes to have in place by mid-summer, will allow men to donate blood if they haven?t had sex with another man for five years before the donation.

The agency understands that the length of this deferral won?t satisfy all critics. But agency executive Dana Devine said this is the first step in what Canadian Blood Services hopes will be a continued effort to work out what is the best approach to incorporating gay men into the donation community.

?So the message to them today is to simply bear with us,? Devine, vice-president of medical, scientific and research affairs at Canadian Blood Services, said in an interview.

?We are working toward attempting to make the opportunity for additional people to donate blood ? and we just aren?t quite there yet for that group of people.?

The policy change has been in the works for several years and has involved consultation with groups representing would-be donors as well as hemophiliacs who rely on blood transfusions and those who could be harmed if screening systems aren?t adequate to keep pathogens out of the blood supply.

Health Canada gave approval to Canadian Blood Services and its Quebec equivalent, Hema-Quebec, on Wednesday.

The lifetime ban against donations by gay men was instituted in the mid 1980s by the Red Cross, which was then responsible for the blood supply system. The move was taken when it was realized that the alarming new disease AIDS, which was then untreatable, could be contracted through blood transfusions.

In fact, hundreds of Canadians were infected with HIV and-or hepatitis C in the era before tests to screen out contaminated blood were developed and adopted by the Red Cross. A Royal Commission, the Krever Inquiry, later determined the Red Cross had not moved quickly enough and recommended stripping it of authority for the blood system. It also called for compensation for people injured by tainted blood.

That history cast a long shadow over the work to lift the lifetime ban and explains the current go-slow approach.

Dr. Mark Wainberg, a McGill University HIV researcher and a former president of the International AIDS Society, welcomed the move.

?I think it is a step in the right direction regarding non-discrimination and stigmatization of gay men,? Wainberg said via an email.

Devine said this step will help the blood agencies gather safety data that may later be used to open up blood donation to more gay men. Critics of the policy have argued that gay men who are in long-term monogamous relationships should be allowed to give blood if they wish.

The change announced Wednesday will open the door to men who may have had an experimental sexual encounter with another male when they were young, as well as men who were raped when they were boys, Devine said. The lifetime ban applied to any man who had had a sexual encounter with another man, encompassing as a result some men who did not live as gay men, she noted.

A number of other countries already allow gay men to give blood, and some use a shorter deferral period than Canada has settled on.

In Britain and Australia, gay men who haven?t had sex with other men for at least a year are eligible to donate. In South Africa the deferral period is six months. But the United States still retains a lifetime ban.

Source: http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/05/22/canada-lifts-lifetime-ban-on-gay-men-giving-blood-but-some-restrictions-remain-3/

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Gap back in style as 1Q profit jumps 43 percent

FILE - In this Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013, file photo, a shopper walks down the steps at a Gap store in Los Angeles. The Gap Inc. reports quarterly financial results after the market closes on Thursday, May 23, 2013. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

FILE - In this Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013, file photo, a shopper walks down the steps at a Gap store in Los Angeles. The Gap Inc. reports quarterly financial results after the market closes on Thursday, May 23, 2013. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

NEW YORK (AP) ? After years of struggle, Gap is back in style.

Gap Inc., which owns The Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic clothing chains, on Thursday reported a 43 percent jump in its fiscal first-quarter net income, as the company continues to reap benefits from the turnaround plan that it began early last year.

The results are welcome news for customers and investors who had watched the one-time industry darling flounder over the past several years. Gap's performance shows that efforts by the chain to attract customers with brightly colored fashions and lively ads are helping to boost sales.

"We are pleased with our strong start to the year, especially first-quarter sales," Glenn Murphy, chairman and CEO of Gap, said in a statement. Murphy pointed to the improving mindset of the consumer, noting the improving housing market and job picture and the stock market's gains.

"The consumer has been operating pretty much for the last five-plus years in a very challenging environment," he said on a call with analysts. "This is the first quarter in a long time that the consumer, to us, felt like they were moving in a more positive direction."

Gap executives did not mention the recent push by activists for clothing makers to form a global pact aimed at improving safety in Bangladesh clothing factories. Gap said last week that it couldn't join the pact unless a provision was made that it felt would free it from unlimited legal liability. The San Francisco-based retailer also backed an outlook for the full year that remains below analyst expectations. Gap said that the weaker yen will impact its fourth quarter.

That weighed a bit on shares after-hours, dragging the stock down about 3 percent. Still, Gap shares are more than double what they were worth in January 2012 when the turnaround started to gain hold. The stock closed Thursday's regular session up 32 cents at $41.36, near its 52-week high of $41.86.

Gap said it earned $333 million, or 71 cents per share, in the three-month period ended May 4. That compares with $233 million, or 47 cents per share, in the year-ago period. Revenue rose 7 percent to $3.73 billion. Analysts had expected 69 cents per share on revenue of $3.73 billion, on average.

Revenue at stores opened at least a year ? an industry measurement of a retailer's health ? rose 2 percent for the entire chain. The global businesses at both Gap and Old Navy each posted an increase of 3 percent, while Banana Republic's global division was unchanged from a year ago. Online revenue rose 27 percent.

CFO Sabrina Simmons said on the call that results benefited from a shift in the calendar. This year's quarter included a big May selling week versus a small selling week in February in the 2012 quarter.

It's been a long uphill slog for Gap. After turning basics like T-shirts and khakis into must-have fashions in the 1990s, the San Francisco-based retailer fell out of favor with customers after the turn of the century. Poor fit, boring fashions and drab colors hurt the company's flagship brand for most of the past decade.

After Murphy took the top job in 2007, the chain began closing and shrinking stores and cutting inventory to boost its profits. But Gap still struggled to solve its biggest problem: shoppers weren't buying its clothes unless they were deeply discounted.

These days, Gap is striking the right note with customers. The company has overhauled management, launched new ads and formed partnerships with other designers. It's also hired new talent: The Banana Republic division brought in fashion designer Narciso Rodriguez, who began serving as an adviser to the brand starting with the fall 2013 collection.

And like many companies, Gap, which operates a total of 1,385 stores globally, has been looking overseas for growth. In China, Gap opened two additional stores in the first quarter for a total of 49 stores in that country.

Gap said Thursday that it continues to expect earnings for the full year to range between $2.52 per share to $2.60 per share. Analysts have forecast $2.72 per share, on average.

___

AP Writer Mae Anderson in New York contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-05-23-Earns-Gap/id-a4526b1ad6a44a0b94f4b9b3ca7cb8d4

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Anthony Weiner comeback try begins: He's running for NYC mayor (cbsnews)

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Man shot by FBI had ties to Boston bombing suspect

This May 4, 2013 police photo provided by the Orange County Corrections Department in Orlando, Fla., shows Ibragim Todashev after his arrest for aggravated battery in Orlando. Todashev, who was being questioned in Orlando by authorities in the Boston bombing probe, was fatally shot Wednesday, May 22, 2013 when he initiated a violent confrontation, FBI officials said. (AP Photo/Orange County Corrections Department)

This May 4, 2013 police photo provided by the Orange County Corrections Department in Orlando, Fla., shows Ibragim Todashev after his arrest for aggravated battery in Orlando. Todashev, who was being questioned in Orlando by authorities in the Boston bombing probe, was fatally shot Wednesday, May 22, 2013 when he initiated a violent confrontation, FBI officials said. (AP Photo/Orange County Corrections Department)

An FBI investigator enters the apartment where a man was shot by an FBI agent, Wednesday, May 22, 2013, in Orlando, Fla. The FBI says the man, being questioned by authorities in the Boston bombing probe, was fatally shot when he initiated a violent confrontation. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

FBI investigators walk near the crime scene of an apartment where a man was shot by an FBI agent, Wednesday, May 22, 2013, in Orlando, Fla. The man who was shot and killed by the agent early this morning was friends with the Boston bombings suspects, according to a friend of the victim. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

An FBI investigator enters the apartment where a man was shot by an FBI agent, Wednesday, May 22, 2013, in Orlando, Fla. The FBI says the man, being questioned by authorities in the Boston bombing probe, was fatally shot when he initiated a violent confrontation. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

An FBI investigator walks to the apartment where a man was shot by an FBI agent, Wednesday, May 22, 2013, in Orlando, Fla. The FBI says the man, being questioned by authorities in the Boston bombing probe, was fatally shot when he initiated a violent confrontation. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) ? A Chechen immigrant shot to death in Florida after an altercation with an FBI agent implicated himself in a triple slaying that officials believe may have been connected to Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, authorities said.

Ibragim Todashev's Chechen roots and mixed martial arts background mirror that of Tsarnaev, the 26-year-old Boston bombing suspect killed in a shootout with police days after the April 15 terrorist attack. The two also had lived in the Boston area.

Todashev, a 27-year-old mixed martial arts fighter, was fatally shot early Wednesday at his Orlando home during a meeting with the agent and two Massachusetts state troopers, authorities said. The agent was taken to a hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening.

Three law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said initially that Todashev had lunged at the FBI agent with a knife. However, two of those officials said later in the day it was no longer clear what had happened. The third official had not received any new information.

The FBI gave no details on why it was interested in Todashev except to say that he was being questioned as part of the Boston investigation. However, two officials briefed on the investigation said he had implicated himself as having been involved in the 2011 triple-slaying in a Boston suburb that authorities believe may have been connected to Tamerlan Tsarnaev. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release details of the investigation.

Todashev resided in nearby Watertown, Mass., last year, public records show. His father, Abdul-Baki Todashev, said Todashev was in college when about five or six years ago when he got an opportunity to go to the United States to study English. He said he later agreed to his son's request to remain in the U.S. "because it seemed like the safest country."

Several of Todashev's former roommates who were questioned by the FBI said he knew Tamerlan Tsarnaev, an aspiring boxer, from mixed martial arts fighting in Boston and that the FBI was asking about him.

Muslin Chapkhanov, a former roommate, said Todashev "was living in Boston and I think he trained with" Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

Tsarnaev's younger brother, Dzhokhar, survived the shootout with police and is now charged with carrying out the attack that killed three people and wounded more than 260 in downtown Boston. He is also charged in the slaying of an MIT police officer days later.

Todashev's father said his son gave up martial arts because of an injury and later held a number of jobs, including as a driver at a retirement home, before moving to Florida within the past year. Todashev had lived on and off with other Chechens in the Orlando suburb of Kissimmee and had moved to Orlando more recently, friends said.

His father said his son had planned to come to Chechnya this week to visit his extended family, but was asked by the FBI to delay his trip.

Investigators have been trying to establish the scope of the plot. In addition, authorities in Massachusetts said they would investigate whether Tamerlan Tsarnaev had any connection to the unsolved 2011 deaths in the Boston suburb of Waltham, where three men were found in an apartment, their throats slit and marijuana sprinkled over their bodies. One of the victims was a boxer and a friend of Tsarnaev's.

While he was being interviewed, Todashev made statements implicating himself in the 2011 Waltham slayings, two officials briefed on the investigation said. Neither official knew whether Todashev had also implicated Tamerlan Tsarnaev in the killings. The two, a federal law enforcement official and a Massachusetts state official, spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release details of the investigation.

Neither official was sure of the extent of Todashev's supposed involvement.

Former roommate Khusen Taramov said the FBI was asking questions about a conversation Todashev had with the older bombing suspect a month before the Boston Marathon attack.

The ex-roommate said Todashev shared the substance of his previous conversations with investigators with him and that he was completely forthcoming. That's why he was surprised that Wednesday's interview ended the way it did.

"He told them everything," Taramov said. "He told everything he knew. ... I don't know why that (the shooting) happened. It's crazy."

But Taramov also said Todashev was afraid before Wednesday's interview.

"That's what he asked me before he pretty much died," Taramov said. "He asked me, 'If something happens can you go out and tell all the truth, what exactly happened.'"

Like Todashev, the Tsarnaev brothers have roots in the turbulent Russian regions of Dagestan and Chechnya, which have become recruiting grounds for Islamic extremists. Investigators have said the brothers carried out the Boston bombing in retaliation for the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

An FBI team was dispatched from Washington to review the shooting, standard procedure in such cases.

Police records suggest Todashev had a hot temper. He was arrested this month on a charge of aggravated battery after getting into a fight over a parking spot with a father and son at an Orlando shopping mall. The son was hospitalized with a split lip and several teeth knocked out, according to a sheriff's report. Todashev claimed self-defense.

"By his own admission Todashev was recently a former mixed martial arts fighter," the arresting deputy said in his report. "This skill puts his fighting ability way above that of a normal person."

Todashev was released on $3,500 bail after his May 4 arrest. His attorney, Alain Rivas, didn't respond to a call for comment Wednesday.

Todashev was also arrested by Boston police in 2010 after a road rage encounter. Witnesses told police that he argued with two other drivers and cut them off with his vehicle. According to a police report, he yelled, "You say something about my mother, I will kill you."

Todashev's said he was worried that with his son was dead, the FBI could now pin any crime on him.

"Out of fear of the lawlessness in Chechnya, I sent him to the U.S., because it seemed like the safest country at the time," he said. "Now I'm thinking about how to bring home his body. As it turns out, I sent him to his death."

___

Associated Press writer Steve LeBlanc and AP Legal Affairs Writer Denise Lavoie in Boston; Pete Yost in Washington; Musa Sadulayev in Grozny, Russia; and Mike Schneider and Tony Winton in Orlando contributed to this report.

Associated Press

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