NJ Nets owner wants to buy Russia media holding

FILE - In this Friday, Nov. 27, 2009 file photo, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, right, looks on as Mikhail Prokhorov signs an agreement, during a Franco-Russian meeting in Rambouillet, France. Prokhorov, one of Russia's richest tycoons and the owner of the New Jersey Nets basketball team, said Monday Dec. 12, 2011, he will run against Putin in the March presidential election. (AP Photo/Alexei Druzhinin, Pool)

FILE - In this Friday, Nov. 27, 2009 file photo, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, right, looks on as Mikhail Prokhorov signs an agreement, during a Franco-Russian meeting in Rambouillet, France. Prokhorov, one of Russia's richest tycoons and the owner of the New Jersey Nets basketball team, said Monday Dec. 12, 2011, he will run against Putin in the March presidential election. (AP Photo/Alexei Druzhinin, Pool)

FILE - In this April 1, 2011 file photo, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, right, flanked by Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, goes to inspect a new Russian-designed hybrid cars called "Yo" at the Gorki residence outside Moscow, Russia. Mikhail Prokhorov, one of Russia's richest tycoons and the owner of the New Jersey Nets basketball team, said Monday, Dec. 12, 2011 he will run against Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the March presidential election. (AP Photo/RIA Novosti, Alexei Nikolsky, Pool-File)

FILE In this Monday, Sept. 26, 2011 file photo a woman walks past an election billboard for the All-Russian People's Front, headed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, right, and election poster depicting former leader of the Right Cause party, Russian tycoon and New Jersey Nets basketball team owner Mikhail Prokhorov in St. Petersburg, Russia. Mikhail Prokhorov announced Monday Dec. 12, 2001 he will run against Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the March presidential election. Prokhorov has been cautious not to cross Putin's path in the past. But the tycoon's candidacy may now pose a serious challenge to Putin, whose authority has been dented by his party's poor showing in Russia's Dec. 4 parliamentary election and allegations of widespread fraud during the balloting. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky, File)

Mikhail Prokhorov, one of Russia's richest tycoons and New Jersey Nets basketball team owner, leaves a press conference in Moscow, Russia, Monday, Dec. 12, 2011, as he announces his candidacy to run against Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the March 2012 presidential election. Prolhorov has been cautious not to cross Putin's path in the past, but may pose a serious challenge to Putin, whose authority has been dented by the Dec. 4 parliamentary election and recent massive street protests against alleged vote fraud. (AP Photo/Misha Japaridze)

Mikhail Prokhorov, one of Russia's richest tycoons and New Jersey Nets basketball team owner, speaks at a press conference in Moscow, Russia, Monday, Dec. 12, 2011, as he announces his candidacy to run against Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the March 2012 presidential election. Prolhorov has been cautious not to cross Putin's path in the past, but may pose a serious challenge to Putin, whose authority has been dented by the Dec. 4 parliamentary election and recent massive street protests against alleged vote fraud. (AP Photo/Misha Japaridze)

MOSCOW (AP) ? The billionaire owner of the New Jersey Nets running for the Russian presidency against Vladimir Putin is expected to make a formal offer to buy a leading media holding Wednesday, his representative said.

Mikhail Prokhorov, who is worth about $18 billion, according to Forbes magazine, announced his candidacy earlier this week for the March presidential election.

Prokhorov will be making a formal offer to buy the Kommersant publishing house from Alisher Usmanov, Prokhorov's spokeswoman Olga Stukalova told The Associated Press. Usmanov, however, was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying he doesn't have any plans to sell it.

Usmanov, a metals magnate, bought Kommersant for $200 million in 2006. The holding, which includes Russia's top business daily and other publications, has since expanded into radio and television broadcast.

On Tuesday, Usmanov fired an editor and a senior manager after the Kommersant Vlast weekly published an article about alleged fraud in Russia's Dec. 4 parliamentary election. Among the accompanying photos was a picture of a ballot which contained vulgar words directed at Putin, and the weekly's editor, Maxim Kovalsky, said he was told that it had served as a reason for his ouster.

The election saw a sharp drop in support for Putin's United Russia party, and widespread allegations against ballot-stuffing and other violations in the vote drew tens of thousands to a protest across the river from the Kremlin ? the largest show of discontent since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

Usmanov explained his decision by saying that some recent reports in Vlast "bordered on petty hooliganism."

But Kovalsky's deputy, Veronika Kutsillo, said the photograph with the swear words was just a pretext behind the move by Usmanov, who previously had expressed his dissatisfaction with the magazine's contents.

"This isn't merely a punishment of an obstinate editor, it's a signal that the magazine's course must change," Kutsillo said in an e-mailed message, adding that she decided to resign.

More than 50 Kommersant journalists have signed an open letter to protest Kovalsky's firing. "We view this firing as an intimidation effort aimed at preventing any criticism of Vladimir Putin even if this concerns photographs," the letter said.

Putin has enjoyed blanket positive coverage from state-controlled television networks, and some of the print media, which have remained independent and often been critical of the government, have faced pressure from owners fearing their business interests could be hurt because of the criticism.

Prokhorov's presidential bid follows his botched performance before the parliamentary election when he formed a liberal party with the Kremlin's tacit support but abandoned it under what he described as Kremlin pressure.

Some observers said that Prokhorov may have made amends with the Kremlin and might be running to accommodate voters unhappy with the authorities.

But Prokhorov rejected the accusation in his blog on Wednesday.

"Naturally, my candidacy is good for the Kremlin. Naturally, they want to play democracy and show that people have 'some kind of a choice'," he wrote. "But we must absolutely use the authorities too if we don't want to just make some noise and disappear, but to change our lives for the better."

__

Associated Press writer Sofia Javed contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2011-12-14-EU-Russia-Prokhorov/id-6253efe5e0b74e4980f4d088a6d416e7

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Giuliana Rancic Undergoes Double Mastectomy, Comes Through in Great Spirits

E! News and Fashion Police staple Giuliana Rancic has undergone a double mastectomy and is already recovering, even cracking jokes, according to her husband Bill.

Her double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery took place last night as she battles breast cancer, and "G is doing really well," Bill Rancic told E! News Wednesday.

"Her surgery lasted about four hours; the doctors were very pleased with the result."

"She had a little bit of pain through the night but is feeling much better this morning and was cracking jokes," said Rancic of his wife, who we're all pulling for.

G had her own message to share, as well.

"I want to thank all the viewers and fans for their support and prayers," she says. "All the tweets and notes have not gone unnoticed. I am very grateful."

Just get well soon, G. That is all THG asks. The celebrity news and celebrity fashion worlds will go on without you, but they're certainly not the same.

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2011/12/giuliana-rancic-undergoes-double-mastectomy-comes-through-in-gre/

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Jury mulls death penalty a second day in Connecticut case (Reuters)

NEW HAVEN (Reuters) ? A Connecticut jury began deliberating a second day on Tuesday whether a man convicted of killing a mother and her two daughters in a gruesome home invasion should be executed for his crimes.

The same 12-person panel convicted Joshua Komisarjevsky, 31, in October of the 2007 murders of Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 48, and her two daughters Hayley Petit, 17, and Michaela Petit, 11. The girls' father was the sole survivor of the attack.

Komisarjevsky's accomplice, Steven Hayes, was convicted separately of similar charges and has been sentenced to death.

The jury in New Haven Superior Court began deliberations on Monday and ended for the day after slightly less than two hours. It began deliberating again on Tuesday.

The jury that sentenced Hayes to death deliberated for 17 hours over four days before reaching its unanimous decision.

Komisarjevsky and Hayes were convicted of an attack that began after Komisarjevsky spotted Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her younger daughter in a supermarket and followed them to their home in Cheshire, Connecticut.

For several hours, the pair held the family captive, although at one point Hawke-Petit was forced to drive to a bank and withdraw $15,000.

After she returned, she was raped and strangled. The girls, tied to their beds, died of smoke inhalation as the home was set on fire. The younger girl was sexually assaulted.

The sole survivor of the attack, Dr. William Petit, was badly beaten and tied up in the basement but managed to escape as the house went up in flames.

Petit has attended the trials of both men.

Connecticut has only executed one person, in 2005, since the death penalty was reinstated in the United States in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Ten men, including Hayes, are on the state's death row, according to the Center.

The jury can sentence Komisarjevsky, who was convicted of 17 charges including murder, kidnapping, arson and sexual assault, to life in prison without the possibility of parole or to die by lethal injection.

During six weeks of the sentencing phase of the case, the defense said Komisarjevsky was molested as a child and that his extremely religious parents relied on prayer and failed to get him clinical help for his troubled behavior.

The defense presented a list of more than 40 mitigating factors arguing against a death sentence, which the jury must weigh against aggravating factors cited by prosecutors.

The defense attorneys also argued that Komisarjevsky's role in the home invasion was smaller than that of Hayes.

(Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Greg McCune)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111206/us_nm/us_crime_homeinvasion

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Iran says it shot down unmanned US spy plane

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) ? Iran's armed forces have shot down an unmanned U.S. spy plane that violated Iranian airspace along the country's eastern border, the official IRNA news agency reported Sunday.

An unidentified military official quoted in the report warned of a strong and crushing response to any violations of the country's airspace by American drone aircraft.

"An advanced RQ-170 unmanned American spy plane was shot down by Iran's armed forces. It suffered minor damage and is now in possession of Iran's armed forces," IRNA quoted the official as saying.

No further details were published.

Iran is locked in a dispute with the U.S. and its allies over Tehran's disputed nuclear program, which the West believes is aimed at developing nuclear weapons. Iran denies the accusations, saying its nuclear program is entirely peaceful and that it seeks to generate electricity and produce isotopes to treat medical patients.

The type of aircraft Iran says it downed, an RQ-170 Sentinel, is made by Lockheed Martin and was reportedly used to keep watch on Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan as the raid that killed him was taking place earlier this year.

The surveillance aircraft is equipped with stealth technology, but the U.S. Air Force has not made public any specifics about the drone.

Iran said in January that two pilotless spy planes it had shot down over its airspace were operated by the United States and offered to put them on public display.

The Islamic Republic holds frequent military drills, primarily to assert an ability to defend against a potential U.S. or Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities.

Tehran has focused part of its military strategy on producing drones for reconnaissance and attacking purposes.

Iran announced three years ago it had built an unmanned aircraft with a range of more than 600 miles (1,000 kilometers), far enough to reach Israel.

Ahmadinejad unveiled Iran's first domestically built unmanned bomber aircraft in August 2010, calling it an "ambassador of death" to Iran's enemies.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-12-04-Iran-Drone/id-36360b1f575340039df903b4aeebcc03

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Carrier IQ???s Corporate Spring (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | Last week I saw Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, give a keynote address in which he championed today's revolutionary transparency between consumers and businesses, he referred to a Corporate Spring, the need for "companies to embrace social media or be affected by it."

Just as Benioff spoke about social media's power to connect with consumers, mobile intelligence company Carrier IQ became the latest example of what can happen when a company fails to connect: watch your product become the subject of a viral video that sparks questions from Minnesota Sen. Al Franken.

In developer Trevor Eckhart's YouTube hit, Carrier IQ Part No. 2 the public gets its first peek of Carrier IQ's preinstalled application running on his HTC EVO 3D from Sprint. It appears to log his every keystroke without his permission.

According to the CIQ website, the same software runs on millions of phones -- without users' knowledge or consent. The effect? A resounding thumbs down. In mid-November Carrier IQ was forced to withdraw its copyright infringement claims in a his research.

"Given that there is no basis for your legal claims," they said in a letter to Carrier IQ, "we must conclude that your threats are motivated by a desire to suppress Mr. Eckhart's research conclusions, and to prevent others from verifying those conclusions."

"In retrospect," Carrier IQ CEO Larry Lenheart said in a faxed apology, "we realize that we would have been better served by reaching out to Mr. Eckhart to establish a dialogue in the first instance."

Since then Carrier IQ hasn't only racked up a 1-star rating on Google. Class action lawsuits, two of which also name phone makers HTC and Samsung have been filed against the Silicon Valley startup in at least four U.S. cities. By Friday, Massachusetts Rep. Edward J. Marckey fired off a letter asking the FTC about its plans to investigate possible "unfair or deceptive acts or practices."

Lenheart tries clarifying what Carrier IQ does in an awkward company video saying, "The technology is not recording keystrokes or providing tracking tools ... our technology is your advocate. Because operators and handset manufacturers are for the first time getting a true understanding of your day to day problems."

Innovative customer service platforms that aim to offer a better user experience can be creative enough without breaking the law. Whatever the courts decide, Carrier IQ along with the carriers who hired them didn't give consumers what they value: the courtesy of letting them know what services are running on their mobile devices at least, protection of their privacy at the most.

Quietly embedding software into smartphones that's hard to locate and remove, that potentially foreshadows, logs and transmits users activity including encrypted files may not only be against the law, it's no way make friends or treat your customers in this day and age. Companies with IQ in their name should be expected to know this.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/oped/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20111204/cm_ac/10592973_carrier_iqs_corporate_spring

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Verizon Galaxy Nexus purportedly pictured in retail packaging

We've already seen one Verizon Galaxy Nexus turn up at the Samsung Experience store in New York, and now some images of another unit have surfaced on the XDA forums showing the smartphone in what's purported to be retail packaging. This could well be another demo unit given the plain white box, but the red interior and other materials inside suggest that this could well be the real deal, and that a launch is presumably imminent. As for an official date? Verizon is still only saying "soon."

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Verizon Galaxy Nexus purportedly pictured in retail packaging originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Dec 2011 15:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/aRfFkfmycs4/

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Facebooking juror kicked off murder trial

SANTA ANA ?? A juror on a murder trial was dismissed Thursday when the trial judge learned through an anonymous phone call that she had ignored a direct order to stay away from the Internet and had posted entries about the case on Facebook.

Among other things in a long list of entries ? posted while she was in the courthouse ? the woman said the case "intrigued" her and she wanted be in contact with the accused after the trial; that a fellow juror annoyed her so much by cracking her knuckles that "I want to punch her..." and that she thought the defendant was "presumed guilty."

She also took photos in the courtroom hallway of other jurors' shoes, posted them on her Facebook page, and made disparaging remarks about them, according to transcripts of a court hearing on her dismissal.

In one instance, she posted "clunky running shoes which I am pretty sure are not used for their intended purpose."

She did all of this after Superior Court Judge William Froeberg warned her and all of the others jurors, as he always does, that they are not to do any independent investigation, consult any reference material, such as a dictionary, or talk about the case with anyone else, until deliberations begin.

Froeberg took it one step further in his admonishments to the jury in this trial. He added "and the biggest evil facing the world today; the internet. Please stay off the internet...oh, and tweeting. We don't want any tweeting or texting either," he told the jury.

The woman juror did not tweet, apparently, but she did post several entries on her Facebook page about being selected as juror number 12 in the trial of People versus Christian William Carney, which is scheduled to last several weeks.

Carney, 25, of Manorville, N.Y., is charged with murdering a fellow Marine in a secluded area of San Clemente over a dispute about stolen drug money. He faces a potential 53 years to life term in prison if convicted.

Froeberg, Orange County's second longest tenured judge, found out about the Facebook entries after opening statements had been delivered when an anonymous caller contacted the presiding judge of the Orange County Superior Court.

Deputy District Attorney Ebrahim Baytieh, when he learned about the violation of the court order, asked that the juror be dismissed, yelled at, and possibly prosecuted, according to a transcript of the hearing.

"This is very disturbing conduct because the judge very clearly instructed the jurors about doing anything online during the trial," Baytieh said in an interview later.

The Facebooking juror was later dismissed from the jury, and an alternate was selected for the remainder of the trial.

"It is unfortunate in this day and age that things are taken so lightly, such as trial when people's lives are at stake," Froeberg said when he sent the juror off, "It is very disappointing to me to find this out.

"The rest of you, I don't want to have to deal with this again. Stay off the internet. Don't talk about this case," the judge added.

"And certainly, don't be Facebooking."

Other stories from the Orange County Register:

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45530656/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/

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