Texts, video cited in charges against Hernandez

Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, left, stands with his attorney Michael Fee, right, during arraignment in Attleboro District Court Wednesday, June 26, in Attleboro, Mass. Hernandez was charged with murdering Odin Lloyd, a 27-year-old semi-pro football player for the Boston Bandits, whose body was found June 17 in an industrial park in North Attleborough, Mass. (AP Photo/The Sun Chronicle, Mike George, Pool)

Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, left, stands with his attorney Michael Fee, right, during arraignment in Attleboro District Court Wednesday, June 26, in Attleboro, Mass. Hernandez was charged with murdering Odin Lloyd, a 27-year-old semi-pro football player for the Boston Bandits, whose body was found June 17 in an industrial park in North Attleborough, Mass. (AP Photo/The Sun Chronicle, Mike George, Pool)

Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, left, stands with his attorney Michael Fee, right, during arraignment in Attleboro District Court Wednesday, June 26, in Attleboro, Mass. Hernandez was charged with murdering Odin Lloyd, a 27-year-old semi-pro football player for the Boston Bandits, whose body was found June 17 in an industrial park in North Attleborough, Mass. (AP Photo/The Sun Chronicle, Mike George, Pool)

Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, left, stands with his attorney Michael Fee, right, during arraignment in Attleboro District Court Wednesday, June 26, in Attleboro, Mass. Hernandez was charged with murdering Odin Lloyd, a 27-year-old semi-pro football player for the Boston Bandits, whose body was found June 17 in an industrial park in North Attleborough, Mass. (AP Photo/The Sun Chronicle, Mike George, Pool)

FILE - This Dec. 25, 2012 file photo taken by a sister and provided by the Boston Bandits football team shows Odin Lloyd, 27, whose body was found Monday, June 17, 2013 in an industrial park in North Attleborough, Mass. Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez was arraigned Wednesday, June 26, 2013, on a charge of murdering Lloyd. (AP Photo/Lloyd family via the Boston Bandits, File)

Family of Odin Lloyd react during the arraignment of former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez in Attleboro District Court Wednesday, June 26, in Attleboro, Mass. Hernandez was charged with murdering Lloyd, a 27-year-old semi-pro football player for the Boston Bandits, whose body was found June 17 in an industrial park in North Attleborough, Mass. (AP Photo/The Sun Chronicle, Mike George, Pool)

ATTLEBORO, Mass. (AP) ? In the final minutes of his life, Odin Lloyd sent a series of texts to his sister.

"Did you see who I was with?" said the first, at 3:07 a.m. June 17. "Who?" she finally replied.

"NFL," he texted back, then added: "Just so you know."

It was 3:23 a.m. Moments later, Lloyd would be dead in what a prosecutor called an execution-style shooting orchestrated by New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez because his friend talked to the wrong people at a nightclub. Hernandez was charged Wednesday with murder and could face life in prison, if convicted.

Hernandez was cut from the NFL team less than two hours after he was arrested and led from his North Attleborough home in handcuffs, and nine days after Lloyd's body was discovered by a jogger in a remote area of an industrial park not far from Hernandez's home. The 2011 Pro Bowl selection had signed a five-year contract last summer with the Patriots worth $40 million.

His attorney, Michael Fee, called the case circumstantial during a Wednesday court hearing packed with reporters, curiosity seekers and police officers. Fee said there was a "rather hysterical atmosphere" surrounding the case and urged the judge to disregard his client's celebrity status as he asked for Hernandez, 23, to be released on bail.

The judge, though, ordered Hernandez held without bail on the murder charge and five weapons counts.

Another man, Carlos Ortiz, 27, was arrested Wednesday in Hernandez's hometown of Bristol, Conn., as part of the murder investigation, New Britain State's Attorney Brian Preleski said Thursday. Ortiz was charged as a fugitive from justice and waived extradition to Massachusetts. Prison records show he is being held on $1.5 million bail at a Hartford jail.

Ortiz's public defender, Alfonzo Sirica, declined to comment about the case.

Hernandez was scheduled to appear at a bail review hearing Thursday afternoon in Fall River, according to Bernie Sullivan, spokesman for the Bristol County sheriff.

On Wednesday, Hernandez stood impassively with his hands cuffed in front of him as Bristol County Assistant District Attorney Bill McCauley laid out a detailed timeline of the events, cobbled together from sources including witnesses, surveillance video, text messages and data from cellphone towers.

Lloyd, 27, a semi-pro football player with the Boston Bandits, had known Hernandez for about a year and was dating the sister of Hernandez's fiancee, the mother of Hernandez's 8-month-old baby, McCauley said.

On June 14, Lloyd went with Hernandez to the Boston nightclub Rumor. McCauley said Hernandez was upset Lloyd had talked to people there with whom Hernandez had trouble. He did not elaborate.

Two days later, McCauley said, Hernandez texted two unidentified friends and asked them to hurry to Massachusetts from Connecticut. At 9:05 p.m., a few minutes after the first message to his friends, Hernandez texted Lloyd to tell him he wanted to get together, McCauley said.

Later, surveillance footage from Hernandez's home showed his friends arrive and go inside. Hernandez, holding a gun, then told someone in the house he was upset and couldn't trust anyone anymore, the prosecutor said.

At 1:12 a.m. June 17, the three left in Hernandez's rented silver Nissan Altima, McCauley said. Cell towers tracked their movements to a gas station off the highway. There, he said, Hernandez bought blue Bubblicious gum.

At 2:32 a.m., they arrived outside Lloyd's home in Boston and texted him that they were there. McCauley said Lloyd's sister saw him get into Hernandez's car.

From there, surveillance cameras captured images of what the prosecutor said was Hernandez driving the silver Altima through Boston. As they drove back toward North Attleborough, Hernandez told Lloyd he was upset about what happened at the club and didn't trust him, McCauley said. That was when Lloyd began sending texts to his sister.

Surveillance video showed the car entering the industrial park and at 3:23 a.m. driving down a gravel road near where Lloyd's body was found. Four minutes later, McCauley said, the car emerged. During that period, employees working an overnight shift nearby heard several gunshots, McCauley said.

McCauley said Lloyd was shot multiple times, including twice from above as he was lying on the ground. He said five .45-caliber casings were found at the scene.

Authorities did not say who fired the shots or identify the two others with Hernandez.

At 3:29 a.m., surveillance at Hernandez's house showed him arriving, McCauley said.

"The defendant was walking through the house with a gun in his hand. That's captured on video," he said.

His friend is also seen holding a gun, and neither weapon has been found, McCauley said.

Then, the surveillance system stopped recording, and footage was missing from the six to eight hours after the slaying, he said.

The afternoon of June 17, the prosecutor said, Hernandez returned the rental car, offering the attendant a piece of blue Bubblicious gum when he dropped it off. While cleaning the car, the attendant found a piece of blue Bubblicious gum and a shell casing, which he threw away. Police later searched the trash bin and found the gum and the casing. The prosecutor said it was tested and matched the casings found where Lloyd was killed.

As McCauley outlined the killing, Lloyd's family members cried and held each other. Two were so overcome that they had to leave the courtroom.

The Patriots said in a statement after Hernandez's arrest but before the murder charge was announced that cutting Hernandez was "the right thing to do."

"Words cannot express the disappointment we feel knowing that one of our players was arrested as a result of this investigation," it said.

Hernandez was drafted by the Patriots in 2010 out of the University of Florida, where he was an All-American.

During the draft, one team said it wouldn't take him under any circumstances, and he was passed over by one club after another before New England picked him in the fourth round. Afterward, Hernandez said he had failed a drug test in college ? reportedly for marijuana ? and was up front with teams about it.

A Florida man filed a lawsuit last week claiming Hernandez shot him in the face after they argued at a strip club in February.

Hernandez became a father on Nov. 6 and said he intended to change his ways: "Now, another one is looking up to me. I can't just be young and reckless Aaron no more. I'm going to try to do the right things."

___

Associated Press writers Bridget Murphy in Boston and Howard Ulman in North Attleborough contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-06-27-US-Hernandez-Police/id-a18a26f3b7dc47ab8c30efd17abe0307

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Gay marriage gets big boost in two Supreme Court rulings

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court delivered a landmark victory for gay rights on Wednesday by forcing the federal government to recognize same-sex marriages in states where it is legal and paving the way for it in California, the most populous state.

As expected, however, the court fell short of a broader ruling endorsing a fundamental right for gay people to marry, meaning that there will be no impact in the more than 30 states that do not recognize gay marriage.

The two cases, both decided on 5-4 votes, concerned the constitutionality of a key part of a federal law, the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), that denied benefits to same-sex married couples, and a voter-approved California state law enacted in 2008, called Proposition 8, that banned gay marriage.

The court struck down Section 3 of DOMA, which limited the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman for the purposes of federal benefits, as a violation of the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection under the law.

The ruling was a victory for President Barack Obama's administration, which had decided two years ago it would no longer defend the law in court. Obama applauded the DOMA ruling and directed U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to review all relevant federal laws to ensure that it is implemented.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, 76, appointed to the court by Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1988, was the key vote and wrote the DOMA opinion, the third major gay rights ruling he has authored since 1996.

In a separate opinion, the court ducked a decision on Proposition 8 by finding that supporters of the California law did not have standing to appeal a federal district court ruling that struck it down. By doing so, the justices let stand the lower-court ruling that had found the ban unconstitutional.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the Proposition 8 opinion, ruling along procedural lines in a way that said nothing about how the court would rule on the merits. The court was unusually split, with liberals and conservatives in both the majority and the dissent.

By ruling this way on Proposition 8, the court effectively let states set their own policy on gay marriage. This means a debate is set to continue in various states via ballot initiatives, legislative action and litigation potentially costing millions of dollars on both sides of an issue that stirs cultural, religious and political passions in the United States as elsewhere.

The rulings come amid rapid progress for advocates of gay marriage in recent months and years. Opinion polls show a steady increase in U.S. public support for gay marriage.

'SECOND-CLASS CITIZENS'

Gay marriage advocates celebrated outside the courthouse. A big cheer went up as word arrived DOMA had been struck down. "DOMA is dead!" the crowd chanted, as couples hugged and cried.

Paul Katami and Jeffrey Zarrillo, a gay couple from Burbank, California, who were two of the four plaintiffs in the Proposition 8 case, were both outside the courthouse.

"We are gay. We are American. And we will not be treated like second-class citizens," Katami said.

He turned to Zarrillo, voice cracking and said: "I finally get to look at the man I love and say, 'Will you marry me?'"

Before Wednesday, 12 of the 50 U.S. states plus the District of Columbia recognized gay marriage. Three of those dozen - Delaware, Minnesota and Rhode Island - legalized gay marriage this year. California would become the 13th state to allow it.

About a third of the U.S. population now lives in areas where gay marriage is legal, if California is included.

"We are a people who declared that we are all created equal, and the love we commit to one another must be equal as well," Obama, the first sitting president to endorse gay marriage, said in a written statement.

While the ruling on DOMA was clearcut, questions remained about the meaning of the Proposition 8 ruling for California. Proposition 8 supporters vowed to seek continued enforcement of the ban until litigation is resolved. But California Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, said the justices' ruling "applies statewide" and all county officials must comply with it.

"We are now faced with this unusual situation where we have some uncertainty," said Andrew Pugno, one of the Proposition 8 proponents' lawyers. He expressed satisfaction that the Supreme Court had "nullified" a San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that, if left intact, could have had set a precedent for other Western states in its jurisdiction.

FEDERAL BENEFITS

By striking down Section 3 of DOMA, the court cleared the way for legally married couples to claim more than 1,100 federal benefits, rights and burdens linked to marriage status.

Kennedy wrote for the majority that the federal law, as passed by Congress, violated the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection. "The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and to injure those whom the state, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity," Kennedy wrote.

The law imposed "a stigma upon all who enter into same-sex marriages made lawful by the unquestioned authority of the states," he said.

Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia both wrote dissenting opinions in the DOMA case.

Roberts went out of his way to state that the court was not making any big pronouncements about gay marriage. The court, he said, did not have before it the question of whether states "may continue to utilize the traditional definition of marriage."

Scalia accused the majority of ignoring procedural obstacles about whether the court should have heard the case in order to reach its desired result.

"This is jaw-dropping," he said of Kennedy's analysis.

As a result of the DOMA ruling, Edith Windsor of New York, who was married to a woman and sued the government to get the federal estate tax deduction available to heterosexuals when their spouses die, will be able to claim a $363,000 tax refund.

The ruling was a win also for more than 200 businesses, including Goldman Sachs Group, Microsoft Corp and Google Inc, that signed on to a brief urging the court to strike down DOMA. Thomson Reuters Corp, owner of the Reuters news agency, was another signatory.

"Today's decisions help define who we are as a people, whether or not we are part of the group directly affected," said Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman's chief executive.

CHANGING LANDSCAPE

Numerous public figures including former President Bill Clinton, who in 1996 signed the DOMA law, and prominent groups including the American Academy of Pediatrics have come out this year in support of same-sex marriage and gay civil rights.

Individual members of Congress - Democrats and Republicans - also voiced new support for gay marriage this year.

Even with recent developments, there is still significant opposition among Republicans, including House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, who had ordered the House to intervene in the DOMA case in defense of the law. Boehner said in a statement he was "obviously disappointed in the ruling" and predicted that a "robust national debate over marriage" would continue.

While more developments lie ahead, the legal fight over gay marriage already constitutes one of the most concentrated civil rights sagas in U.S. history.

Just 20 years ago, the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that its state constitution could allow gay marriage, prompting a nationwide backlash and spurring Congress and a majority of states, including Hawaii, to pass laws defining marriage as between only a man and woman.

In 2003, when the top court of Massachusetts established a right to same-sex marriage under its constitution, the action triggered another backlash as states then adopted constitutional amendments against such unions. Five years later, the tide began to reverse, and states slowly began joining Massachusetts in permitting gays to marry.

The cases are United States v. Windsor, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 12-307 and Hollingsworth v. Perry, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 12-144.

(Additional reporting by Joseph Ax, Steve Holland and Roberta Rampton in Washington, Lauren Tara LaCapra in New York and Daniel Levine in San Francisco; Editing by Howard Goller and Will Dunham)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/supreme-court-due-set-legal-course-gay-marriage-050417451.html

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Taliban militants storm Afghan government compound

Afghan soldiers stand guard as smoke rises from the gate of the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday June 25, 2013. The Taliban said they have hit one of the most secure areas of the Afghan capital with a suicide attack, as a series of explosions rocked the gate leading into the presidential palace. (AP Photo/Ahmad Jamshid)

Afghan soldiers stand guard as smoke rises from the gate of the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday June 25, 2013. The Taliban said they have hit one of the most secure areas of the Afghan capital with a suicide attack, as a series of explosions rocked the gate leading into the presidential palace. (AP Photo/Ahmad Jamshid)

Afghan policemen stand guard near the entrance gate of the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan Tuesday, June 25, 2013 following an attack. Suicide attackers blew up a car bomb and battled security forces outside Afghanistan's presidential palace Tuesday after infiltrating one of the most secure areas of the capital. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack that came as reporters were gathering for a news event on Afghan youth at which President Hamid Karzai was expected to talk about ongoing efforts to open peace talks with the militant group. (AP Photo/Ahmad Jamshid)

Afghan national security arrive near the entrance gate of the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan Tuesday, June 25, 2013. Suicide attackers blew up a car bomb and battled security forces outside the presidential palace Tuesday after infiltrating one of the most secure areas of the capital. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, which came as reporters were gathering for a news event on Afghan youth at which President Hamid Karzai was expected to talk about ongoing efforts to open peace talks with the militant group. (AP photo/Rahmat Gul)

Afghan security force members investigate nearby the entrance gate of the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan Tuesday, June 25, 2013. Suicide attackers blew up a car bomb and battled security forces outside Afghanistan's presidential palace Tuesday after infiltrating one of the most secure areas of the capital. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the Kabul palace attack, which came as reporters were gathering for a news event on Afghan youth at which President Hamid Karzai was expected to talk about ongoing efforts to open peace talks with the militant group. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

Afghan national security arrive near the entrance gate of the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan Tuesday, June 25, 2013. Suicide attackers blew up a car bomb and battled security forces outside the presidential palace Tuesday after infiltrating one of the most secure areas of the capital. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, which came as reporters were gathering for a news event on Afghan youth at which President Hamid Karzai was expected to talk about ongoing efforts to open peace talks with the militant group. (AP photo/Rahmat Gul)

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) ? Taliban militants stormed the presidential compound Tuesday after bluffing their way past two checkpoints, triggering a gunbattle that left eight attackers and three guards dead and sent journalists attending an official event scrambling for cover, officials and witnesses said.

The well-planned daylight assault in a highly fortified zone of the capital was a bold challenge to Kabul's authority just a week after the Taliban opened a political office in Qatar as the Islamic militant movement said it was willing to begin a U.S.-led peace process.

NATO also formally handed over security for the entirety of the country to Afghan forces just last week. The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said it was standing by if needed during the skirmish, Afghan authorities did not call them in for help and thwarted the attack on their own.

The gunbattle started around 6:30 a.m. near the east gate leading to the palace next to the Afghan Ministry of Defense and the former Ariana Hotel, which former U.S. intelligence officials have confirmed is used by the CIA. One carload of Taliban fighters dressed in military-style camouflage uniforms emerged from their black Land Cruiser and started shooting, after another got stuck between two checkpoints and detonated their explosives-laden vehicle.

The Taliban said all eight of its fighters died in the attack, while the Interior Ministry said three security guards were killed and another wounded.

The attack was a bitter reminder of the ability of the Taliban to penetrate the heart of the capital, showing their strength in the fight against President Hamid Karzai's Western-backed government.

Though the Taliban have indicated they are willing to open peace talks, they have not renounced violence and attacks have continued across Afghanistan.

The palace is in a large fortified area of downtown Kabul that also includes the U.S. Embassy and the headquarters for the NATO-led coalition forces and access is heavily restricted. Some Kabul residents initially thought the gunfire was a coup attempt because the idea of a Taliban attack within the security zone seemed so unlikely.

The attackers were stopped in Ariana Square, at least 500 meters (yards) and several checkpoints away from the palace itself. Karzai was reportedly in the palace at the time.

A group of journalists, including from The Associated Press, waiting to enter the palace grounds for a news event on Afghan youth witnessed the start of the attack and took cover behind a religious shrine, pulling a boy off the street who had been caught in the open on his way to school.

Karzai had been expected to talk about ongoing efforts to open peace talks with the Taliban.

The Taliban have refused to negotiate with Karzai's government in the past, saying the U.S. holds effective control in Afghanistan, but the Americans are hoping to pave the way for talks between the two sides. Long-stalled negotiations have taken on urgency with Afghan presidential elections and the withdrawal of most U.S. and other foreign combat troops looming in 2014.

The Americans announced last week that they would begin formal talks with the Taliban in the Qatari capital of Doha, which would be followed by talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government.

Kabul police chief Gen. Mohamad Ayub Salangi said the gunmen jumped out of their SUV and opened fire after the second vehicle was stopped by security forces while trying to use fake documents to get through a checkpoint. The second vehicle's car bomb then exploded.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility, saying in an emailed statement that "eight of our suicide bombers were able to reach the most secure area of Kabul," identifying them by name and saying they were carrying hand grenades, a machine gun and rocket-propelled grenades.

"The brave mujahedeen, with special tactics and help from inside, were able to reach their target with their weapons and cars," he said. He said their targets were the CIA building, the palace and the Defense Ministry and claimed "a number of foreign invaders were killed and wounded in the attack."

Smoke could be seen coming from the area of the hotel, but there was no immediate indication any of the buildings were hit in the attack and Afghanistan's Kabul division army commander Gen. Kadam Shah Shahim said he knew of no deaths among security forces or civilians.

The NATO-led coalition in Afghanistan instituted a camp lockdown during the incident.

U.S. Ambassador James Cunningham urged an end to the violence.

"All of the attackers were killed, without success in achieving their goals ? This again demonstrates the futility of the Taliban's efforts to use violence and terror to achieve their aims," he said in a statement. "We again call on the Taliban to come to the table to talk to the Afghanistan government about peace and reconciliation."

The U.S. Embassy cancelled all consular appointments and advised American citizens in Kabul to stay indoors.

Also early Tuesday, in the southern province of Kandahar, a minibus hit a bomb buried in the road, killing 11 members of a groom's family on their way to an engagement party, said Kandahar governor's spokesman Ahmad Jawed Faisal. Faisal said the dead included eight women, two children and a man, and two other men were also wounded.

In Oruzgan, the province north of Kandahar, provincial governor's spokesman Abdullah Hemat said Tuesday that six Afghan national police were killed the day before when their patrol was attacked with a roadside bomb.

And a NATO convoy was hit with a roadside bomb in the province Ghazni, southwest of Kabul, destroying a vehicle but the coalition said there were no casualties.

_____

Associated Press Amir Shah contributed to this report.

Associated Press

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Review: Ouya brings indie games to your TV

This photo provided by Ouya shows an Ouya, the Android-based video game console that aims to challenge the dominance of the Xboxes, Nintendos and PlayStations of the world. The console goes on sale Tuesday, June 25, 2013. (AP Photo/Ouya)

This photo provided by Ouya shows an Ouya, the Android-based video game console that aims to challenge the dominance of the Xboxes, Nintendos and PlayStations of the world. The console goes on sale Tuesday, June 25, 2013. (AP Photo/Ouya)

The ongoing explosion in independently developed, low-budget video games has been a boon for players who travel. Whether I'm on the road with an iPad, an Android smartphone or a laptop, I know there's a huge library of games to play.

When I get home, though, I want to play on a bigger screen. That's where the Ouya comes in. It promises to deliver the best in inexpensive indie gaming on a high-resolution screen, through a small device that runs the Android operating system designed for phones and tablets.

Ouya costs just $100 ? a few hundred dollars less than what you'd pay for a major game console. Thousands of gamers and game developers got Ouyas over the past few months after contributing at least $95 to Ouya's creators through the group-fundraising site Kickstarter. The device went on sale more broadly on Tuesday.

Ouya runs Google's Android system and is built around Nvidia's Tegra 3 processor, used mostly in smartphones and other mobile devices. That should make it easy to port over the thousands of games already made for Android phones and tablets, but for now you're limited to software specifically designed for Ouya. Nearly 180 games are available so far through Ouya's online store, with many more expected.

Each game has a version you can download for free. If you like what you see, you can download a full version for a few bucks. By contrast, games for one of the big three consoles can cost as much as $60 each ? usually with no free trial.

The device itself is a cube measuring 3 inches on each side, with slightly rounded corners on the bottom. The controller is a bit chunkier. It resembles what's available with Microsoft's Xbox and Sony's PlayStation, with two exceptions: The Ouya controller has a touchpad in the middle (although none of the games I sampled took advantage of it), and its grips are longer, each accommodating an AA battery. One controller comes with the Ouya, and extra ones cost $50 each.

Setup is easy once you connect the Ouya to your high-definition television set using a supplied HDMI cable. When you turn on the console, it automatically searches for Wi-Fi connections. You can also connect to the Internet through an Ethernet cable, which you have to provide yourself. Once connected, you need to create an account and supply credit card information.

Then you're taken to a simple menu with four options: play, discover, make and manage. "Make" takes you to an area for potential game developers, while "manage" lets you tinker with system settings.

"Discover" takes you to Ouya's game store. You can find games by genre, such as role-playing, sim/strategy and "meditative." You can also check out showcases such as "couch gaming with friends."

Download speeds aren't bad; it took about 20 minutes for me to transfer a 725-megabyte file over Comcast high-speed Internet. Smaller games are, of course, much faster. The device has 8 gigabytes of internal storage, and you can add more by connecting an external hard drive to the Ouya with a USB cable.

Once you have your game, clicking "play" on the home page takes you to your personal library. Compared with the sometimes daunting menus on the Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3, Ouya's displays are clean and elegant.

The offerings on the Ouya store vary wildly in quality and ambition. Android is an open platform, so anyone can write software for it. That means you have professionally executed games such as the beloved "You Don't Know Jack" competing head-to-head with the sloppy trivia game "Quizania." Some popular console games, including "The Bard's Tale" and "Final Fantasy III," have been adapted for the Ouya, but it isn't the place for blockbuster titles such as the latest "Call of Duty" and "Grand Theft Auto."

More prevalent are games that have been cult hits on PCs and smartphones, including "Canabalt," ''Saturday Morning RPG" and "Organ Trail." There are a few Ouya exclusives, including the 3-D puzzler "Polarity" and the multiplayer archery game "TowerFall."

Ouya offers high-resolution displays in 1080p, comparable to the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii U. Most of the Ouya's offerings are fairly low-def, though, and if you're looking for the wide-screen majesty of "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim" or "BioShock Infinite," you won't find it here. If your video-game habit dates back to the 1970s, you'll notice a distinct retro feel to the Ouya's library. That's not a complaint; there's something refreshing about taking on a simple running-and-jumping game such as "Canabalt" after you've survived a grueling epic like Sony's PS3 hit "The Last of Us."

Indeed, some of the more satisfying indie releases of the last few years ? say, "Fez," ''Hotline Miami" or "Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine" ? have combined old-school graphics with game play that's more sophisticated than most big-budget console releases offer. Nothing currently on Ouya matches the quality of those games, but if the system can attract that level of talent, it will be a console to be reckoned with. If you're a hardcore gamer, it won't replace your Xbox or PlayStation, but for $100 it's a worthy supplement.

___

About Ouya:

The $100 device plays games designed for it on high-definition screens. Although it runs the Android operating system used in smartphones and tablets, games need to be specifically adapted to work on Ouya. Nearly 180 games are available through Ouya's online store.

Initially available only to people who made donations through Kickstarter, Ouya is now sold through Ouya's website as well as Amazon.com, Target, Best Buy and GameStop.

___

Online:

Ouya: http://www.ouya.tv

___

Follow Lou Kesten on Twitter at http://twitter.com/lkesten

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-06-26-Digital%20Life-Tech%20Test-Ouya%20Game%20Machine/id-9f4de0e80a934d91a1cf5cb2d4d6c444

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Kerry: deeply troubling if Snowden allowed to flee

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry smiles as he asks a reporter to repeat a question during a news conference with Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid, not pictured, at Hyderabad House in New Delhi, India on Monday, June 24, 2013, during Kerry's first visit to India as secretary. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry smiles as he asks a reporter to repeat a question during a news conference with Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid, not pictured, at Hyderabad House in New Delhi, India on Monday, June 24, 2013, during Kerry's first visit to India as secretary. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, meets with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the prime minister's residence in New Delhi, India on Monday, June 24, 2013, during Kerry's first visit to India as secretary. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)

NEW DELHI (AP) ? U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday that it would be "deeply troubling" if Russia or Hong Kong had adequate notice about Edward Snowden's plans to flee to a country that will grant him asylum and still allowed him leave.

Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor and a self-admitted leaker of state secrets, fled from Hong Kong to Moscow on Sunday after the U.S. moved to extradite him to face espionage charges. He was expected to seek political asylum in Ecuador.

He was booked on a flight from Moscow to Cuba on Monday, but he was not seen on the plane. It was unclear where he was or where he was he was trying to go, Kerry said. The U.S. has revoked Snowden's passport.

"We don't know, specifically, where he may head, or what his intended destination may be," Kerry said, responding to a question during a news conference in New Delhi where he was discussing bilateral issues between the U.S. and India.

He also was asked about whether the Snowden incident would affect the U.S. relationship with China and Russia.

"It would be deeply troubling, obviously, if they had adequate notice, and notwithstanding that, they make the decision willfully to ignore that and not live by the standards of the law," Kerry said.

"There is a surrender treaty with Hong Kong and if there was adequate notice ? I don't know yet what the communication status was. But if there was, it would be very disappointing if he was willfully allowed to board an airplane ... and there would be, without any question, some effect and impact on the relationship and consequences. With respect to Russia, likewise."

The United States does not have an extradition treaty with Russia, but does with Cuba, Venezuela and Ecuador. Even with an extradition agreement though, any country could give Snowden a political exemption.

In the past two years, the U.S. has transferred seven prisoners to Russia that Moscow wanted, he said. "I think reciprocity and the enforcement of the law is pretty important," Kerry said, but he did not identify the law he was referencing.

Kerry also noted the countries involved in the incident.

"I suppose there is no small irony here. I mean, I wonder if Mr. Snowden chose China and Russian assistance in his flight from justice because they're such powerful bastions of Internet freedom, and I wonder if while he was in either of those countries he raised the question of Internet freedom since that seems to be what he champions."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-06-24-AS-Kerry-Snowden/id-8e503bdd0713459aa6a6ece01f92b3c3

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Earth, Wind and Fire dropping new album Sept. 10

NEW YORK (AP) ? Earth, Wind and Fire initially wanted to release its new album around the 2012 presidential election, but the band realized it wasn't satisfied with the songs it created.

"We have a lot more bells and whistles in place now and the record is better," singer Philip Bailey said in a recent interview.

"Now, Then & Forever," the group's first album in eight years, will be released Sept. 10. Bailey said the band called co-founding member Larry Dunn and others to help produce its latest sound.

"I said, 'Let's go back to the drawing board,'" he recalled. "It's a great representation of who Earth, Wind and Fire is now, but not departing from the classic sound."

"It doesn't sound like we're trying to be anyone other than Earth, Wind and Fire," added bassist Verdine White.

The band ? which includes founder Maurice White and Ralph Johnson ? has worked on the album for two years. Its new single, "My Promise," was released Monday and was co-written by Academy Award nominee and Grammy winner Siedah Garrett. Fans who pre-order the album will have their names put in the album packaging.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Famers are currently on a tour. Bailey said he enjoys having his son, Philip Bailey Jr., on the road and as a writer and producer on the new album.

"It's a great experience to the say the least. I spend so much time away from my family and kids . (that this is) bonding like never before," he said. "He has the same passion."

___

Online:

http://www.earthwindandfire.com/

___

Follow Mesfin Fekadu on Twitter: twitter.com/MusicMesfin

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/earth-wind-fire-dropping-album-sept-10-111725000.html

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'Titanfall' developer explains why the game won't be on PS4, and the ...

The next-gen mech shooter Titanfall would not be possible without Microsoft?s Xbox One cloud services, according to Respawn Entertainment engineer Jon Shiring. The cloud is tied into Microsoft?s controversial online policies for the new console, and it?s been the subject of confusion and ire from gamers. Shiring took to?Respawn?s blog?to explain the benefits from a developer?s perspective.

According to Shiring, Microsoft?s dedicated servers are the perfect solution to a long-standing problem. Console games with online multiplayer aspects typically use player-hosted servers because dedicated servers are expensive and tough to implement, but dedicated servers offer a superior experience. Microsoft?s dedicated cloud servers allow Respawn to implement more and better AI, physics, and environments, eliminate the ?host advantage? that plagues many online games, thwart some forms of cheating, boost matchmaking speeds, eliminate the need to pause the game when the host player quits, and improve visuals and audio by taking full advantage of the console hardware and leaving other tasks to the cloud processors.

The cloud services aren?t limited to Xbox One games either, and Respawn uses them for the Windows PC and Xbox 360 versions of?Titanfall as well. Respawn approached both Sony and Microsoft about this problem, and Microsoft was the one to implement a solution, Shiring writes.

?Microsoft realized that player-hosted servers are actually holding back online gaming and that this is something that they could help solve, and ran full-speed with this idea,? he writes. ?So they built this powerful system to let us create all sorts of tasks that they will run for us, and it can scale up and down automatically as players come and go.?

?We?want to focus on making awesome games, not on becoming giant worldwide server hosting providers,? he continues. ?The more time I can spend on making our actual game better, the more our players benefit.?

?

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Source: http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/titanfall-developers-spell-out-benefits-of-xbox-one-cloud/

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Bomb attacks in Syrian capital kill 8 people

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) ? Suicide bombers targeted security compounds in Damascus and a car bomb exploded in a pro-regime district there Sunday, killing at least eight people, the latest in a surge of civil war violence in the capital.

In northern Syria, a car bomb killed 12 soldiers in Aleppo, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists in Syria for information. It had no other details, and the government did not comment.

The state-run news agency SANA said three suicide bombers blew themselves up while trying to break into the Rukneddine police station in northern Damascus, killing five people and wounding several others. SANA said three would-be suicide bombers also tried to break into the Criminal Security Branch in the southern Bab Mousalla area but were caught by security forces before they could detonate their explosives.

Activists confirmed the death toll.

SANA said a car bomb exploded in Mazzeh 86 district in the capital, killing three people, including a 3-year-old boy. Residents of the district are mostly Alawites, an offshoot Shiite sect that President Bashar Assad's family belongs to. The opposition forces fighting against Assad's regime are mostly Sunni Muslims.

Nobody immediately claimed responsibility for the Damascus explosions, but they bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida-linked groups that have joined forces with rebels fighting to oust Assad.

The attacks in Syria's two largest cities came as government forces pressed an offensive on the outskirts of the capital.

SANA carried a statement by the Interior Ministry saying that the Damascus attacks were a "new escalation by terrorist groups," a term used by the government to refer to the rebels.

More than 93,000 people have been killed in Syrian conflict that started in March 2011 as peaceful protest against Assad's rule. In the past year, the war has taken on sectarian overtones.

The conflict has increasingly spilled across Syria's borders.

In neighboring Lebanon, clashes erupted between Lebanese military and supporters of hard-line Sunni cleric Sheik Ahmad al-Assar. Six Lebanese soldiers were killed, according to the army.

The fighting broke out in the predominantly Sunni southern port city of Sidon after al-Assir's supporters opened fire on an army checkpoint.

The military issued a statement confirming that six soldiers died in the shooting, including three officers. It said the shooting was unprovoked.

Heavy fighting with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades caused panic in the city, which until recently had been largely spared the violence hitting other areas. Many people who were spending the day on the beach hurried home, while others living on high floors came down or fled to safer areas. Gray smoke billowed over parts of the city.

The clashes centered on the Bilal bin Rabbah Mosque, where al-Assir preaches. The cleric, a virulent critic of the Shiite militant Hezbollah group, is believed to have hundreds of armed supporters in Sidon. Dozens of al-Assir's gunmen also partially shut down the main highway linking south Lebanon with Beirut.

By Sunday evening, the army appeared poised to move against al-Assir and his supporters, who have been agitating for months. Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said the army have surrounded the mosque, sealing off access to it from all directions and neutralized hostile fire from neighboring buildings.

The NNA report said Assir was believed to be hiding inside the mosque with several of his followers.

The cleric and his followers support Sunni rebels in the Syria conflict, and he has threatened to clear apartments in Sidon where Hezbollah supporters live.

Sunday's clashes in Sidon deepened tensions in Lebanon. on edge since the Syrian conflict began more than two years ago.

Lebanese President Michel Suleiman called an emergency meeting of the security cabinet for Monday. NNA also reported sporadic shooting in the volatile city of Tripoli in the north, and the army announced additional force deployments in around Beirut.

The violence came a day after an 11-nation group that includes the U.S. met in the Qatari capital of Doha to coordinate military aid and other forms of assistance to the rebels.

Syria's al-Thawra newspaper, the mouthpiece of the government, assailed the Friends of Syria meeting.

"It's clear that the enemies of Syria are rushing to arm the terrorists to kill the chances for holding the Geneva conference," the newspaper said, referring to a U.S.-Russia initiative for bringing Assad's government and rebels together to negotiate an end to the crisis.

The Syrian paper pledged that the army would "continue the showdown to eliminate terrorism and restore security and stability."

____

Surk reported from Beirut. Associated Press writer Jamal Halaby in Amman, Jordan contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bomb-attacks-syrian-capital-kill-8-people-182829771.html

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Lebanon clashes rage near mosque; 16 soldiers dead

BEIRUT (AP) ? Lebanese troops battled heavily armed followers of a hard-line Sunni cleric holed up in a mosque complex in a southern port city on Monday, the second day of fighting that has left at least 16 soldiers dead, the military said.

The clashes in Sidon, Lebanon's third-largest city, are the latest bout of violence in Lebanon linked to the conflict in neighboring Syria.

They are the bloodiest yet involving the army and are seen as a test for the state in containing extremist armed groups that have taken up the cause of the warring sides in Syria. The civil war next door has been bleeding into Lebanon, following similar sectarian lines of Sunni and Shiite camps.

The fierce fight that the followers of Sheik Ahmad al-Assir were putting up showed how aggressive Sunni extremists have grown in Lebanon, building on anger not only at Syria's regime but also its Shiite allies in Lebanon, Hezbollah. The two days of fighting have transformed Sidon, which had been largely spared the violence plaguing border areas near Syria, into a combat zone.

The 45-year-old, bespectacled and long-bearded al-Assir is a virulent critic of Hezbollah. He has been agitating for months, demanding Hezbollah disarm and accusing the army of inaction in the face of the group's growing involvement in Syria on the side of President Bashar Assad.

The maverick cleric was little known until few years ago and his growing following was a symptom of the deep frustration among Sunnis who resent the Hezbollah-led Shiite ascendancy to power in Lebanon. Hezbollah and its allies dominate Lebanon's government.

The clashes in predominantly Sunni Sidon, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Beirut, left 50 wounded on Monday, the National News Agency said. At least two military officers were among those killed. Hospital officials said at least three of al-Assir's supporters died in the fighting.

Machine-gun fire and rocket-propelled grenade explosions caused panic among residents, who also reported power and water outages.

The city streets appeared largely deserted Monday. Local media reported many residents were asking for evacuation from the heavily populated neighborhood around the Bilal bin Rabbah Mosque where al-Assir preaches, and where the fighting has been concentrated.

The military in a statement said the gunmen were using the religious compound to fire on its troops and had taken civilians as shields. The clashes erupted Sunday in the predominantly Sunni city after troops arrested an al-Assir follower. The army says supporters of the cleric opened fire without provocation on an army checkpoint.

The local municipality said that the city is "a war zone," appealing for a cease-fire to evacuate the civilians and wounded in the area.

Many people living on upper floors moved downstairs for cover or fled to safer areas. Some were seen carrying children as they fled. Others remained locked in their homes or shops, fearing getting caught in the crossfire. Gray smoke billowed over parts of the city.

The military appealed to the gunmen to hand themselves in, vowing it will "continue to uproot the strife and will not stop its operations until security is totally restored."

Hezbollah appeared to be staying largely out of the ongoing clashes, though a few of its supporters in the city were briefly drawn into the fight Sunday, firing on al-Assir's supporters. At least one was killed, according to his relatives in the city who spoke anonymously out of concerns for their security.

Last week, al-Assir supporters fought with pro-Hezbollah gunmen, leaving two killed.

Hezbollah issued a statement condemning "the crimes committed by al-Assir and his gang" and declared its solidarity with the military institution, calling on all Lebanese to rally around the national army.

Early Monday, al-Assir on his Twitter account appealed to his supporters in other parts of Lebanon to rise to his help, threatening to widen the scale of clashes.

The tweets did not give a clear statement on how the battle began. It came after a series of incidents pitting the cleric's followers against other groups in the town, including Hezbollah supporters and the army.

The cleric is believed to have hundreds of armed supporters in Sidon involved in the fighting. Dozens of al-Assir's gunmen also partially shut down the main highway linking south Lebanon with Beirut. On Monday, they opened fire in other parts of the city, with local media reporting gunshots in the city's market.

Fighting also broke out in parts of Ein el-Hilweh, a teeming Palestinian refugee camp near Sidon, where al-Assir has supporters. Islamist factions inside the camp lobbed mortars at military checkpoints around the camp.

Tension also spread to the north in Tripoli, Lebanon's second largest city. Masked gunmen roamed the city center, firing in the air and forcing shops and businesses to shut down in solidarity with al-Assir. Dozens of gunmen also set fire to tires, blocking roads. The city's main streets were emptying out. There was no unusual military or security deployment.

Sectarian clashes in Lebanon tied to the Syrian conflict have intensified in recent weeks, especially after Hezbollah sent fighters to support Assad's forces. Most of the rebels fighting to topple Assad are from Syria's Sunni majority, while the President Bashar Assad belongs to the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

Walid al-Moallem, Syria's foreign minister, blamed the violence in Lebanon on the international decision to arm rebels, saying that it will only serve to prolong the fighting in Syria and will impact neighboring Lebanon.

"What is going in Sidon is very dangerous, very dangerous," he told reporters in Damascus. "We warned since the start that the impact of what happens in Syria on neighboring countries will be grave."

In Syria, activists reported fighting Monday between Syrian troops and rebels in the northern province of Aleppo as well as districts on the edge of the Syrian capital and its suburbs.

Clashes in Lebanon have also mostly pitted Sunni against Shiite. The most frequent outbreaks have involved rival neighborhoods in the northern port city of Tripoli, close to the Syrian border.

President Michel Suleiman called for an emergency security meeting later Monday.

Headlines of Lebanon's newspapers were all dominated by the violence in Sidon, with many seeing it as a test for the state to impose order. "An attempt to assassinate Sidon and the military," read the headline of the daily al-Safir. "Al-Assir crosses the red line," read another headline in al-Jomhouria daily. A third headline in al-Nahar read: "Yesterday war in Sidon. Today, decisiveness or settlement?"

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/lebanon-clashes-rage-near-mosque-16-soldiers-dead-124458104.html

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AOL Reader beta officially available for your RSS-perusing needs (hands-on)

Wondering how AOL's RSS client will rank as a Google Reader replacement? Today's the day we find out, as the doors to the AOL Reader beta have officially swung open. Feedly's been absorbing Google's castaways for weeks now, and Digg's only two days away from launching its own freemium RSS client -- but we couldn't resist getting an early taste of what our parent company (Disclaimer alert!) is cooking. Join us after the break for all the details about this latest entrant in the field of feed readers.

Gallery: AOL Reader hands-on

Filed under: Internet, Software

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/ElBVwvMTE1E/

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Obama: Immigration reform will reduce the deficit (cbsnews)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/314546676?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Suicide bomber kills 14 in Iraqi mosque

BAGHDAD (AP) ? Iraqi officials say a suicide bomber has blown himself up inside a Shiite mosque north of Baghdad, killing 14 and wounding 32 others.

Police say the attacker struck Saturday evening in the village of Sabaa al-Bour, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of Baghdad.

Medical officials confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release information.

The attacks and several others elsewhere Saturday that killed nine are the latest in a wave of violence that has killed more than 2,000 Iraqis since the start of April. It is the bloodiest and most sustained spate of violence to hit Iraq since 2008.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but al-Qaida's Iraq arm and other Sunni extremists frequently target Shiites.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/suicide-bomber-kills-14-iraqi-mosque-180727234.html

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LA mayor exits after bumpy term, looking ahead

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? The famous smile is intact. But there's a glint of gray in the hair, a hint of melancholy in the voice and a collection of wrinkles he didn't bring with him when he became mayor of Los Angeles eight years ago.

Antonio Villaraigosa makes his exit July 1 after a seesaw run that saw him celebrated as the city's first Hispanic mayor since 1872, praised for bulking up the police department and transit services, but often mocked, fairly or not, as a party boy who cared more about nightlife than his day job at City Hall.

Through most of it, he struggled with a sour economy not of his making. Now 60 and talking again about running for governor, the Democrat looks back and ponders how a former labor organizer ended up chopping thousands of government jobs to keep the books in balance, pushed municipal workers for the first time to pay toward their pensions and health care and clashed with the teachers union that once employed him.

What has he learned?

"You have to be able to say no to your friends," Villaraigosa said during an interview at his soon-to-be former office. "You are making decisions that will have an impact far into the future. Don't worry about what people say right now."

As for complaints, he's heard an earful.

As with any big-city mayor, there's no pleasing everyone, particularly in a city of nearly 4 million people. And the work is never done. He can fairly claim a string of wins, including historically low crime rates, new rail lines in a metropolis strangled by cars and a citywide move away from polluting, coal-fired power. But those gains get tempered by longstanding gripes that he starts more than he finishes and ignores potholes, cracked sidewalks and other basics while globe-trotting and preening for TV cameras.

He promised to transform the city when he was elected in 2005, but proved a shape-shifter himself. At different times he's presented himself as the education mayor, the green mayor, the transportation mayor, the law-and-order mayor. He had plenty of setbacks ? his plan to seize control of schools flopped, for example ? but he also proved resilient, using his political skills to push school improvements even if he wasn't directly in charge.

"He was slow on deciding which of those maybe five or seven dream points, visionary points, he was going to realistically try to tackle," notes Jaime Regalado, former executive director of the Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles.

Regalado considers Villaraigosa the most successful mayor since Tom Bradley, who landed the 1984 Olympics and helped shape the city's modern skyline, but adds that Villaraigosa "dreamed large and delivered far less."

Don't tell that to the mayor. "There was a lot more than got done than didn't. In spades," Villaraigosa says.

The outline of Villaraigosa's life is well etched. Son of a Mexican immigrant, barrio tough and high-school dropout, he lifted himself up and eventually became speaker of the California Assembly, city councilman and in 2005, mayor of the nation's second-most populous city.

His best-known traits remain his energy, charm and quick smile, but those were overmatched during a recession and housing crisis that destroyed jobs and chopped into tax revenues. City Hall shed jobs, many streets were left cracked and pocked, library hours were cut.

Unemployment continues to hover around double-digits, lagging the national recovery. Even with new contributions from workers, a growing bill for pensions and retiree health care threatens money needed for street paving and other services. The freeways remain among the most congested roads in the nation.

Villaraigosa is ready for critics who say the only thing he leaves behind is an empty suit. He's distributing a glossy, 61-page magazine documenting the city's safe streets, gains against smog, new park space and his efforts to rescue some of the city's worst-performing schools. His photo appears more than a dozen times inside.

But you'd have to look elsewhere for details on less flattering episodes, the affair with the newscaster that ended his marriage, the record ethics fine for failing to disclose free tickets to Los Angeles Lakers games and other events and the photo of him with the hard-partying Charlie Sheen in Mexico that surfaced as the mayor's name was being mentioned for a possible Obama administration job. Later, Villaraigosa said he wasn't interested in going to Washington.

As his successor, fellow Democrat Eric Garcetti, has made clear he wants to get down to business, not get down and party, Villaraigosa recently marked his departure at a celebration with former President Bill Clinton and Stevie Wonder.

It will also be a generational change at City Hall. Garcetti, 42, is just a few years older than Villaraigosa's eldest daughter.

The outgoing mayor's future isn't clear, though he expects to hook up with a university or think tank and bank some money with paid speeches, a typical route for a celebrity politician. During the interview he waxed about bucking convention and putting the lie to those who underestimated him over the years.

He's single, his divorce was quietly settled after a messy split, with four children ranging in age from 38 to 20, the two youngest with his former wife Corina.

"How you are perceived is over a continuum of time," Villaraigosa said. "So I just keep on working. I've kind of always seen that as the antidote. Just keep on working."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/la-mayor-exits-bumpy-term-looking-ahead-140732044.html

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French actor Depardieu banned for drunk driving

PARIS (Reuters) - French actor Gerard Depardieu was banned from driving for six months on Friday, after he was found to be three times over the alcohol limit when he fell from his scooter last year.

The 64-year-old star of films such as Green Card and Cyrano de Bergerac was not in the Paris court to hear its decision to suspend his driving license and fine him 4,000 euros ($5,300). Drink-driving can be punishable by up to two years' jail.

The flamboyant actor, who owns a vineyard in the Loire valley, injured his elbow but nobody else when he fell from the scooter in the capital in mid-afternoon last November.

With top roles in more than 100 movies, one of the country's best-known actors has made the headlines on many occasions for reasons other than his film career.

The scooter fall came a few months after a car driver filed a suit against Depardieu for assault and battery following an altercation in Paris.

The year before, Depardieu outraged passengers by urinating in the aisle of an Air France flight as it prepared to take off.

Depardieu criticized the left-wing government last year over high taxes and took President Vladimir Putin up on an offer of a Russian passport.

He has appeared in ketchup advertisements in Russia, which has a flat tax rate of 13 percent on income, compared with more than 40 percent in France where the government plans a supertax of 75 percent on incomes above 1 million euros.

Depardieu said his decision to take Russian nationality and plan to open a restaurant in the city of Saransk were not motivated by tax concerns. He is considering shooting a film in Chechnya, where he was seen this year embracing strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov.

Commenting on Friday's court ruling, Depardieu's lawyer, Eric de Caumont, said: "Naturally we are disappointed to the extent that we had sought an acquittal." ($1 = 0.7590 euros)

(Reporting by Marine Pennetier; Writing by Brian Love; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/french-actor-depardieu-banned-drunk-driving-102015597.html

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Helena Bonham Carter Joins Cinderella as Fairy Godmother

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/06/helena-bonham-carter-joins-cinderella-as-fairy-godmother/

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Obama to meet with privacy, civil liberties board

WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama is holding his first meeting with a privacy and civil liberties board Friday as he seeks to make good on his pledge to have a public discussion about secretive government surveillance programs.

Obama has said the little-known Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board will play a key role in that effort. The federal oversight board reviews anti-terror programs to ensure that privacy concerns are taken into account.

The president is also tasking the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, to consider declassifying more details about the government's collection of U.S. phone and Internet records. Obama is specifically asking Clapper to review possible declassification of opinions from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which approves the surveillance efforts.

Obama's meeting with the board was taking place Friday afternoon, but the White House wasn't planning to allow press coverage. White House spokesman Jay Carney said the meeting would take place in the White House Situation Room "to allow for the discussion of classified matters."

"It's certainly more than a get-to-know-you session," Carney said.

The government has already lifted some of the secrecy surrounding the programs following disclosures earlier this month about their existence by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. But the legal opinions from the highly secretive court remain private.

The privacy board was created in 2004 but has operated fitfully ever since, given congressional infighting and at times, censorship by government lawyers. The board was dormant during Obama's first term and only became fully functional in May, before the NSA programs became public.

The board's chairman, David Medine, said the five-member group has a "broad range of questions" to ask about the NSA's widespread collection programs. The board was given a classified briefing on the programs last week and plans to release a report eventually with recommendations for the government.

___

Follow Julie Pace at on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-meet-privacy-civil-liberties-board-100342780.html

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Obama nominating Comey as FBI director Friday

WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama on Friday plans to nominate President George W. Bush's former No. 2 at the Justice Department, James Comey, to lead the FBI as the agency grapples with privacy debates over a host of recently exposed investigative tactics.

Comey is perhaps best known for a remarkable 2004 standoff over a no-warrant wiretapping program at the hospital bed of Attorney General John Ashcroft. Comey rushed to the side of his bedridden boss to physically stop White House officials in their attempt to get an ailing Ashcroft to reauthorize the program.

If confirmed by the Senate, Comey would serve a 10-year tenure and replace Robert Mueller, who has held the job since the week before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Mueller is set to resign on Sept. 4 after overseeing the bureau's transformation into one the country's chief weapons against terrorism.

The White House said in a statement that Obama would announce his choice of Comey on Friday afternoon.

Comey was a federal prosecutor who severed for several years as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York before coming to Washington after the Sept. 11 attacks as deputy attorney general. In recent years he's been an executive at defense company Lockheed Martin, general counsel to a hedge fund, board member at HSBC Holdings and lecturer on national security law at Columbia Law School.

The White House may hope that Comey's Republican background and strong credentials will help him through Senate confirmation at a time when some of Obama's nominees have been facing tough battles. Republicans have said they see no major obstacles to his confirmation, although he is certain to face tough questions about his hedge fund work, his ties to Wall Street as well as how he would handle current, high-profile FBI investigations.

The FBI is responsible for both intelligence and law enforcement with more than 36,000 employees. It has faced questions in recent weeks over media leak probes involving The Associated Press and Fox News; the Boston Marathon bombings; the attack at Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans; and two vast government surveillance programs into phone records and online communications.

The leaker of those National Security Agency programs, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, also is the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation. And just this week Mueller revealed the FBI uses drones for surveillance of stationary subjects and said the privacy implications of such operations are worthy of debate.

Comey played a central role in holding up Bush's warrantless wiretapping program, one of the administration's great controversies and an episode that focused attention on the administration's controversial tactics in the war on terror.

In dramatic testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2007, Comey said he thought the no-warrant wiretapping program was so questionable that he refused to reauthorize it while serving as acting attorney general during Ashcroft's hospitalization. Comey said when he learned that the White House chief of staff and counsel were heading to Ashcroft's room despite his wife's instructions that there be no visitors, Comey beat them there and watched as Ashcroft turned them away.

"That night was probably the most difficult night of my professional life," Comey testified. He said he and Ashcroft had reservations about the program's legality, but he would not discuss details since the program was classified.

Senior government officials had expressed concerns about whether the NSA, which administered the warrantless eavesdropping program, had the proper oversight in place. Other concerns included whether any president possessed the legal and constitutional authority to authorize the program as it was carried out at the time.

Comey was deputy attorney general in 2005 when he unsuccessfully tried to limit tough interrogation tactics against suspected terrorists. He told then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales that some of the practices were wrong and would damage the department's reputation.

Some Democrats denounced those methods as torture, particularly the use of waterboarding, which produces the sensation of drowning.

Comey's defiance won him praise from Democrats. In a statement, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who will oversee Comey's confirmation hearing, said, "Mr. Comey showed the kind of independence needed to lead the FBI when he stood up to those in the last administration who sought to violate the rule of law." Leahy called for senators to give Comey "the swift and respectful confirmation he deserves."

Sen. Chuck Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Comey's experience on national security would benefit the FBI. "He's previously dealt with these matters with integrity and shown a willingness to stand his ground if necessary," Grassley said in a statement. He added that he wants to question Comey on his work in the hedge fund industry and wondered whether he could improve the Obama administration's efforts to prosecute Wall Street for its role in the economic downturn.

Concerns over Comey were raised by the American Civil Liberties Union, which doesn't take positions on nominees but is interested in civil liberties issues. ACLU senior policy counsel Mike German said while Comey stood up to some surveillance, he eventually approved the NSA program along with interrogation techniques that included waterboarding, as well as defended the indefinite detention of Jose Padilla, an American terrorism suspect.

"We want to make sure whoever sits in that chair has a determined interest in protecting the rule of law, particularly since they will be there 10 years, outlasting this president and potentially the next president," German said.

German said these issues are particularly relevant given the new revelations about surveillance programs.

As U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Comey headed one of the nation's most prominent prosecutorial offices and one at the front lines in the fight against terrorism, corporate malfeasance, organized crime and the war on drugs.

As an assistant U.S. attorney in Virginia, Comey handled the investigation of the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers housing complex near Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 U.S. military personnel.

He led the Justice Department's corporate fraud task force and spurred the creation of violent crime impact teams in 20 cities, focusing on crimes committed with guns.

After leaving government in 2005, Comey was senior vice president and general counsel at Lockheed Martin. In 2010, he went to the Westport, Conn.-based hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, before leaving in February.

The White House also said Comey has developed improvements in the military justice system's performance regarding crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan as a member of the Defense Legal Policy Board, which provides independent advice to the defense secretary.

Comey also has taught at the University of Richmond Law School and worked for law firm McGuireWoods LLP, also in Richmond. He has a bachelor's degree from the College of William & Mary, a law degree from the University of Chicago Law School and clerked for former District Court Judge John M. Walker, Jr. in the Southern District of New York.

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

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-nominating-comey-fbi-director-friday-202300449.html

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