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The Baltimore Orioles (46-36) try for a three-game sweep over the New York Yankees (42-38) tonight on ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball.?
The matchup features two teams that appear to be headed in separate directions.?The O's have pulled to 2.5 games behind the first-place Red Sox while the Yankees have fallen to 5.5 back.
Baltimore boasts one of the best lineups in baseball, led by first baseman Chris Davis, who has hit a MLB-leading 30 home runs (including two in the Orioles 11-3 win on Saturday night).?
The Yankees' offense simply has not been able to withstand an onslaught of injuries which has suffocated the team's bats. Recent slumps from Vernon Wells and Lyle Overbay have merely exacerbated their offensive woes.?
Through Saturday, the Yankees have scored 86 runs in the month of June, worst in the AL. The Yankees' .225 average as a team in June is second-worst in MLB.
In fact, the Yankees' run differential of -14 is the worst of any team over the .500 mark. The Bronx Bombers lack the firepower to hang around in arguably the toughest division in baseball.
The Yankees have lost four straight and are in desperate need of a win tonight. Unfortunately for New York, the Orioles have won the past seven games in which starter Chris Tillman (9-2, 3.72 ERA) has taken the mound.
On the plus side, Robinson Cano is 8-of-16 lifetime against the right-handed Tillman. The Orioles also get back second baseman Brian Roberts, who has been out since early April with a hamstring injury.
The Yankees send Hiroki Kuroda (7-5, 2.77 ERA) to the mound hoping he can put a stop to the losing streak. ?
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Carolyn Kaster / AP
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden discussed self-professed NSA leaker Edward Snowden with Ecuador's President Rafael Correa, according to a senior White House official.
By Daniel Arkin, Staff Writer, NBC News
Vice President Joe Biden spoke with Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa about fugitive NSA leaker Edward Snowden on the phone, a senior White House official told NBC News on Saturday.
?They engaged in a broad conversation on the bilateral relationship. They did discuss Snowden,? said Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security advisor.
Rhodes did not disclose specific details about the phone conversation but said the U.S. government believes Snowden is still in Russia.
Snowden, 30, is thought to be hiding out at a Moscow airport awaiting a ruling on his request for asylum from the government of Ecuador. Snowden flew to Russia from Hong Kong on June 23 but has not been seen since his arrival.
Russian officials told Reuters that he remains in a transit area at Sheremetyevo airport.
The call between Biden and Correa ? the highest-level exchange reported between the U.S. and Ecuador since Snowden?s June 24 plea for asylum ? came just two days after President Barack Obama said he was ?not going to be scrambling jets to get a 29-year-old hacker? and should not have to speak personally with the leaders of Russia and China to return Snowden to the U.S.
Obama pledged not to engage in ?wheeling and dealing and trading and a whole host of other issues, simply to get a guy extradited so he can face the justice system here in the United States.?
Inside the transit zone of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport are shops, restaurants and a hotel that could make the possibility of an extended stay for NSA leaker Edward Snowden not so bad. NBC's Ghazi Balkiz reports.
Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor, claimed to have leaked details of two top-secret government data-gathering programs to the British newspaper The Guardian and The Washington Post.
The publication of the leaked information triggered a global manhunt for Snowden, who has been charged with theft of government property and two violations of espionage statutes.
Ecuadorian officials have said they cannot begin reviewing Snowden's asylum request until he arrives in the country or one of Ecuador's embassies, according to the Associated Press.
NBC News' Shawna Thomas, Jim Maceda, F. Brinley Bruton and Matthew DeLuca contributed to this report.
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You can download todays iPhone 3G / 3GS Wallpapers from our iPhone 3GS Wallpaper gallery. Enjoy!
Note: Did you know that we update our iPhone 3GS , iPhone 4S / iPhone4 , iPad/ iPad2 and New iPad/iPad3 wallpaper galleries once / day? You can find the latest wallpapers in the sidebar, so make sure to check that out every time you visit us!
Source: http://dailyiphoneblog.com/2013/06/29/todays-iphone-wallpapers-29062013/
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Songza joined the ad-free music streaming club today with a club of its own: Club Songza. Like the premium services on Spotify and Slacker, you'll have to cough up a few pennies to belong -- about 99 of them a week, to be exact. Listening to music without commercial interruption isn't the only benefit however; apparently paid subscribers will get additional goodies like twice as many skips and access to more premium content as well. Songza diehards can go ahead and sign up for the service at the source or simply live with that pesky advertising in the free version.
Via: TechCrunch
Source: Club Songza, Songza
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The brutal heat wave in the west is expected to continue this weekend. In Los Angeles, heat-related power outages snarled traffic and in Death Valley, where temperatures hit triple digits, the forecast is could bring a record 129 degrees. ?NBC's Gabe Gutierrez reports.
By Daniel Arkin and M. Alex Johnson, NBC News
A wave of record-setting, life-threatening heat is expected to blaze across the West this weekend, with temperatures in some areas projected to top 120 degrees.
Death Valley, Calif., could even top 130 degrees Saturday through Monday, just below the world record high of 134 recorded there on July 10, 1913, The Weather Channel said.
The cause is a high pressure system that will scorch a long arm of the Southwest. Temperatures in Phoenix and Las Vegas are expected to soar into the triple digits, with temperatures hovering between 115 and 120 degrees. In western parts of Arizona, temperatures could reach 125.
Officials in Arizona warned residents to take precautions.
"If you get dizzy or lightheaded, those are some signs of dehydration. If you become confused, that's a real warning sign," Dr. Kevin Reilly of the University of Arizona Department of Emergency Medicine told NBC station KVOA of Tucson.
In Las Vegas, meanwhile, the National Weather Service warned of the potential for a "life-threatening heat event." Temperatures were expected to match those of a July 2005 heat wave when 17 people died in the Las Vegas Valley.
The extreme weather is expected to reach Reno, Nev., reach across Utah and stretch into Wyoming and Idaho, where forecasters are predicting potentially lethal hot spells. Triple-digit temperatures were forecast during Idaho's Special Olympics in Boise.
Matt York / AP
Runners take advantage of lower temperatures at sunrise Thursday in Mesa, Ariz. Excessive heat warnings will continue for much of the Desert Southwest as building high pressure triggers major warming in eastern California, Nevada and Arizona.
Organizers urged coaches to prepare their athletes.
"The basic stuff, wearing breathable, appropriate clothes, staying in the shade as much as possible, staying hydrated is obviously a big thing," Matt Caropino, director of sports and training for Special Olympics Idaho, told NBC station KTVB. "We've put in place some misters that we're going to have at our outdoor venues."
The National Weather Service advised people to keep tabs on signs of potentially lethal heat stroke.
"Heat stroke symptoms include an increase in body temperature, which leads to deliriousness, unconsciousness and red, dry skin," it said in a report. "Death can occur when body temperatures reach or exceed 106-107 degrees."
Los Angeles was forecast to peak between the upper 80s and the lower 90s Saturday as inland communities like Burbank edge toward the low 100s. Palm Springs, Calif., no stranger to steamy summers, may peak at 120 degrees, NBC station KMIR reported. Sweltering heat also is expected for the state's Central Valley, according to The Weather Channel.
While the west remains hot and dry, the east is getting lots of rain that has resulted in flash flooding. Some of the worst flooding was in upstate New York where whole neighborhoods remain under water. ?The Weather Channel's Mike Seidel reports.
Commercial airlines were also monitoring conditions because excessive heat can throw flights off course. The atmosphere becomes less dense in extremely high heat humidity, meaning there's less lift for airplanes ? calculations that have to be made individually for every type of aircraft.
Triple-digit heat forced several airlines to bring operations to a halt after Phoenix climbed to 122 degrees in June 1990.
Related:
'It's brutal out there': Weekend heat wave to bake western US
Alaska sweating through brutal blast of heat
Oppressive heat hits West as storms soak East
This story was originally published on Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:50 AM EDT
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BEIRUT (AP) ? Syrian warplanes and ground forces bombarded rebel-held neighborhoods in Homs on Saturday as part of the military's ongoing campaign against opposition fighters in the heart of the country's third largest city, activists said.
The army of President Bashar Assad has been on the offensive in recent weeks, reclaiming some of the territory it has lost to the rebels in the past year.
The military, building on its capture of the strategic town of Qusair between the Lebanese border and Homs at the beginning of this month, has overrun a number of villages nearby. It also has hammered the center of the city, a rebel stronghold since the uprising against Assad began in March 2011.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said air strikes hit two districts in the center of the city. It said the army also fired mortar shells into the neighborhoods.
An activist from one of those neighborhoods, Khaldiya, said tanks were also involved in the bombardment, and that the military was trying to push into the area from all sides.
Shelling has been continuous since 10 a.m. in that area and in nearby Old Homs, activist Tariq Bardakhan told The Associated Press via Skype.
"Today is one of the most violent days that Homs has witnessed since the beginning of the revolution," he said.
In an activists' video of the bombardment, several large explosions can be heard as plumes of grey smoke rise from buildings in a densely built-up area of the city.
The narrator of the video says: "These are heavy explosions that hit Homs, God is great." Another shell lands and smoke can be seen rising from behind a mosque. Two minarets are seen in the distance and the narrator says they belong to the historic Khalid Ibn al-Walid mosque in Khaldiya.
The video was posted on the Internet on Saturday and appears consistent with AP's reporting from the area.
The Observatory confirmed clashes around the mosque, and said that part of the building, which dates back to the 13th century and has been damaged in previous fighting, was engulfed in flames.
The Observatory said both sides have sustained casualties, but did not have numbers.
Syrian state TV said the army has had "great success" in the battle for Homs after "killing many terrorists in the Khaldiya district."
Syrian state media refers to rebels fighting to oust Assad from power as "terrorists" and say they are mercenaries of the West and their Gulf Arab allies who are conspiring against Damascus.
The Observatory says more than 100,000 people have been killed in the Syrian conflict since it began as peaceful protests against the Assad regime more than two years ago. It became an armed rebellion after the opposition supporters took up arms to fight the government crackdown.
The United Nations puts the number of civil war casualties at 93,000.
The military has gained momentum after capturing Qusair earlier this month with the help of fighters from Lebanon's Hezbollah group, capturing villages on the roads linking the capital to the border area with Jordan and Lebanon.
The rebels have also claimed some victories, marking a successful end to a two-week battle in the south Friday by capturing an army checkpoint in the city of Daraa, the provincial capital of the region that carries the same name.
Daraa is the birthplace of the uprising against Assad and rebels hope to one day launch an offensive from the area to take the capital.
The Observatory reported heavy fighting around the province on Saturday with clashes between the rebels and army troops concentrated in the town of Jassem after the army brought reinforcements.
___
Associated Press writer Yasmin Saker in Beirut contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/syrian-fighter-jets-hit-central-city-homs-092130939.html
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In Los Angeles, heat-related power failures snarled traffic, and in Death Valley, where temperatures hit triple digits, the forecast is could bring a record 129 degrees. NBC's Gabe Gutierrez reports.
By M. Alex Johnson, staff writer, NBC News
Thirty people were taken to hospitals for heat-related injuries and illnesses Friday at a music festival in Las Vegas, authorities said, as a wave of life-threatening blistering temperatures blazed across the West.
Clark County fire personnel treated about 200 people for heat-related nausea, vomiting and fatigue Friday afternoon and evening at the Vans Warped Tour, an eclectic outdoor music festival at the Silverton Casino off the famous Strip.
Most were given water and taken to shaded areas, but 30 had to be taken to hospitals for further treatment, the fire department said.
The high temperature officially hit 117 degrees at Las Vegas-McCarran International Airport ? equaling the airport's record ? on the same day thousands of people streamed to the casino site for the festival.
Records are similarly expected to be broken across the West and the Southwest through the weekend and into next week, the National Weather Service said, thanks to a high pressure "dome" parked over the sprawling region.
Death Valley, Calif., could even top 130 degrees Saturday through Monday, just below the world record high of 134 recorded there on July 10, 1913, The Weather Channel said.
Temperatures in Phoenix are expected to soar between 115 and 120 degrees. In western parts of Arizona, temperatures could reach 125.
Officials in Arizona warned residents to take precautions.
"If you get dizzy or lightheaded, those are some signs of dehydration. If you become confused, that's a real warning sign," Dr. Kevin Reilly of the University of Arizona Department of Emergency Medicine told NBC station KVOA of Tucson.
In Las Vegas, meanwhile, the National Weather Service warned of the potential for a "life-threatening heat event." Temperatures were expected to match those of a July 2005 heat wave when 17 people died in the Las Vegas Valley.
The extreme weather is expected to reach Reno, Nev., reach across Utah and stretch into Wyoming and Idaho, where forecasters are predicting potentially lethal hot spells. Triple-digit temperatures were forecast during Idaho's Special Olympics in Boise.
Matt York / AP
Runners take advantage of lower temperatures at sunrise Thursday in Mesa, Ariz. Excessive heat warnings will continue for much of the Desert Southwest as building high pressure triggers major warming in eastern California, Nevada and Arizona.
Organizers urged coaches to prepare their athletes.
"The basic stuff, wearing breathable, appropriate clothes, staying in the shade as much as possible, staying hydrated is obviously a big thing," Matt Caropino, director of sports and training for Special Olympics Idaho, told NBC station KTVB. "We've put in place some misters that we're going to have at our outdoor venues."
The National Weather Service advised people to keep tabs on signs of potentially lethal heat stroke.
"Heat stroke symptoms include an increase in body temperature, which leads to deliriousness, unconsciousness and red, dry skin," it said in a report. "Death can occur when body temperatures reach or exceed 106-107 degrees."
Los Angeles was forecast to peak between the upper 80s and the lower 90s Saturday as inland communities like Burbank edge toward the low 100s. Palm Springs, Calif., no stranger to steamy summers, may peak at 120 degrees, NBC station KMIR reported. Sweltering heat also is expected for the state's Central Valley, according to The Weather Channel.
While the west remains hot and dry, the east is getting lots of rain that has resulted in flash flooding. Some of the worst flooding was in upstate New York where whole neighborhoods remain under water. ?The Weather Channel's Mike Seidel reports.
Commercial airlines were also monitoring conditions because excessive heat can throw flights off course. The atmosphere becomes less dense in extremely high heat humidity, meaning there's less lift for airplanes ? calculations that have to be made individually for every type of aircraft.
Triple-digit heat forced several airlines to bring operations to a halt after Phoenix climbed to 122 degrees in June 1990.
Daniel Arkin of NBC News contributed to this report.
Related:
'It's brutal out there': Weekend heat wave to bake western US
Alaska sweating through brutal blast of heat
Oppressive heat hits West as storms soak East
This story was originally published on Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:50 AM EDT
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June 28, 2013 ? A new study suggests that healthy adults with late bedtimes and chronic sleep restriction may be more susceptible to weight gain due to the increased consumption of calories during late-night hours.
In the largest, most diverse healthy sample studied to date under controlled laboratory conditions, results show that sleep-restricted subjects who spent only four hours in bed from 4 a.m. to 8 a.m. for five consecutive nights gained more weight than control subjects who were in bed for 10 hours each night from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m. The study found an overall increase in caloric intake during sleep restriction, which was due to an increase in the number of meals consumed during the late-night period of additional wakefulness. Furthermore, the proportion of calories consumed from fat was higher during late-night hours than at other times of day.
"Although previous epidemiological studies have suggested an association between short sleep duration and weight gain/obesity, we were surprised to observe significant weight gain during an in-laboratory study," said lead author Andrea Spaeth, a doctoral candidate in the psychology department at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pa.
The study, which appears in the July issue of the journal SLEEP, was conducted in the Sleep and Chronobiology Laboratory at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. The study group comprised 225 healthy, non-obese individuals, ranging in age from 22-50 years. Subjects were randomized to either the sleep restriction or control condition and spent up to 18 consecutive days in the laboratory.
Meals were served at scheduled times, and food was always available in the laboratory kitchen for participants who wanted to eat at other times of day. Subjects could move around but were not allowed to exercise. They were permitted to watch TV, read, play video games or perform other sedentary activities.
The study also found that during sleep restriction males gained more weight than females, and African Americans gained more weight than Caucasians.
"Among sleep-restricted subjects, there were also significant gender and race differences in weight gain," said Spaeth. "African Americans, who are at greater risk for obesity and more likely to be habitual short sleepers, may be more susceptible to weight gain in response to sleep restriction. Future studies should focus on identifying the behavioral and physiological mechanisms underlying this increased vulnerability."
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine reports that weight gain is a risk factor for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), a common sleep illness that has a severe impact on health and quality of life. The risk of OSA increases as the degree of additional weight increases, with an extremely high prevalence of OSA in people with morbid obesity. Anyone who has experienced recent weight gain and has symptoms of OSA, such as loud and frequent snoring, should be evaluated by a board certified sleep medicine physician.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/0eXaMrJpt9w/130628160840.htm
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BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Brunei (AP) ? The upcoming regional security summit in this tiny Southeast Asian sultanate is the sort of venue where North Korea has often managed to open up sideline discussions with Seoul and Washington. This time, while there will be plenty of talk about Pyongyang, there is little chance of substantive talk with it.
North Korea has sought negotiations with the U.S. and South Korea but has ignored their demands that it first honor prior commitments to move toward nuclear disarmament. At high-level diplomatic talks beginning this weekend, it can expect the cold shoulder from those countries and others frustrated by Pyongyang's insistence on developing nuclear weapons.
After a December long-range rocket launch, a February nuclear test and weeks of threats to defend itself from aggression with nuclear strikes against South Korea and the United States, North Korea earlier this month made a surprise offer for separate talks with its rivals.
Government delegates from the two Koreas met and agreed to hold senior-level talks on non-nuclear issues, but the plan collapsed over a protocol dispute. The United States responded coolly to Pyongyang's appeal for direct negotiations, which some analysts view as a familiar effort to win aid in return for ratcheting down tensions.
"While it is certainly preferable for North Korea to pursue diplomatic rather than missile or nuclear tests, all of North Korea's neighbors by now are well aware of North Korea's history of diplomatic initiatives as just another tool through which North Korea has sought to consolidate gains following periods in which North Korean brinkmanship has driven political tensions to high levels," Scott Snyder, a Korea specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank, wrote in a blog post.
Disarmament-for-aid talks with North Korea and five other nations ? South Korea, the U.S., Japan, Russia and host China ? collapsed in 2008.
He added that agreeing to hold talks with the North "and come back to the table as though nothing has changed since the last six-party talks were held in 2008 would imply acceptance" of Pyongyang's rocket launches and nuclear tests.
Whether or not Washington and its allies ignore Pyongyang's diplomats, North Korea's atomic aspirations are on the agenda in talks surrounding the 27-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum, which takes place Tuesday in the Bruneian capital of Bandar Seri Begawan.
A draft of the forum chairman's statement provided to The Associated Press said that the meetings would reaffirm the importance of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, and that most participants urged North Korea "to abide by its obligations" under U.N. Security Council resolutions and commitments made in a joint statement following six-party talks in 2005.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his counterparts from South Korea, China and Japan will attend the forum and could hold private meetings that touch on Pyongyang.
On Saturday, North Korea's longtime foreign minister, Pak Ui Chun, departed Pyongyang for Brunei. He was seen off at the Pairport by Liu Hongcai, China's ambassador to North Korea. Beijing is Pyongyang's biggest ally but has pushed the neighbor on denuclearization.
Because the ASEAN forum gathers diplomats from all six countries involved in long-stalled nuclear disarmament negotiations ? the United States, China, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas ? it has previously provided a chance to use informal, sideline talks to break stalemates over the nuclear issue.
In 2011, top nuclear envoys from the two Koreas met on the sidelines of the forum in Bali, Indonesia, and agreed to work toward a resumption of the dormant six-nation talks, though the negotiations remained stalled. The Koreas' foreign ministers held sideline talks in 2000, 2004, 2005 and 2007, and top diplomats from Pyongyang and Washington also met privately in 2004 and 2008.
North Korea will likely seek similar talks in Brunei, but South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Tai-young told reporters Tuesday that officials from Seoul aren't considering meeting the North Korean foreign minister on the sidelines. In Washington, State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said Monday that he knew of no discussions planned between Kerry and Pak in Brunei, and that such talks would be "fairly unusual."
Analysts said North Korea appeared to be repeating its pattern of following aggressive rhetoric with diplomatic efforts to get outside aid and concessions.
Chang Yong Seok, an analyst at the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies at Seoul National University, said Pyongyang must do something to show it's refraining from continuing nuclear activities, such as announcing some disarmament steps, if it wants to have talks.
Despite its recent bid for diplomacy, North Korea has raised renewed worries about a nuclear program that outsiders estimate to include a handful of crude nuclear bombs. Pyongyang followed up its February nuclear test, its third since 2006, with an announcement that it planned to restore all of its atomic bomb fuel producing facilities. The February test drew widespread international condemnation and tightened U.N. sanctions, which subsequently led the North to issue a torrent of warlike threats and sharply raise tensions on the divided peninsula.
Recent satellite photos show signs of new tunnel work at North Korea's underground nuclear test site, the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies said in an analysis Tuesday. The analysis said it doesn't appear to indicate another atomic blast is imminent but suggests the country has continued to work on its nuclear weapons program even as tensions eased.
Other issues expected to draw keen media attention in Brunei include South China Sea territorial disputes and relations between the U.S. and China, the world's two biggest economies.
China has territorial disputes with the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Brunei and Malaysia over the South China Sea and its potentially oil- and gas-rich islands. Several claimants want group discussions in order to create a legally binding "code of conduct" to prevent clashes in the sea, but Beijing has not clearly stated when it will sit down with the 10-nation ASEAN bloc to discuss such a nonaggression pact.
China prefers one-on-one negotiations with each rival claimant to resolve the territorial dispute, something that would give it an advantage because of its size and clout.
Southeast Asian countries believe that "having bilateral negotiations with a strong guy would be a losing game," said Bae Geung-chan, a professor at the state-run Korea National Diplomatic Academy in Seoul.
The regional forum chairman's statement said ministers welcome efforts to work toward a code of conduct, and commended ASEAN nations and China for their work to maintain peace and stability.
Analysts say China and the U.S. probably won't have sensitive talks in Brunei that could change their relations. Their leaders recently held an unusually lengthy informal summit in California, during which both countries expressed optimism that the closer personal ties forged between the leaders could stem the mistrust between the world powers.
During the summit, President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, were in broad agreement over the need for North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons, according to U.S. officials.
___
Associated Press writers Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, and Kim Kwang Hyon in Pyongyang, North Korea, contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nkorea-likely-cold-shoulder-asia-forum-095914963.html
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The key to Jeff Hart's success: Try less and less.
After shooting Fox Chapel Golf Club's second-lowest score Friday at 5-under 65, Hart said he wasn't necessarily swinging that well on the course. He simply stopped thinking about his game, and said "let it go."
"Basically, I don't feel like my game's all that good," Hart said. "I'm changing my swing every other hole out there like I normally do."
Hart finished his second round at the Constellation Senior Players Championship at 7 under 133, and walked off the course as the clubhouse leader. Hart was one of 15 golfers to finish the second round, before rain Friday postponed the remainder of play.
While Hart said his game isn't substantially better, his numbers Friday prove otherwise. He hit 13 of 14 fairways in regulation and had seven birdies.
While fairways were an easy target for Hart, he frequently was leaving his drives short, often driving the ball around 230-240 yards with a foot or so of roll. The course played so long for Hart, that irons weren't a common option for him. Instead, the fairway wood would be his companion.
"Some of the holes were playing very long for me," Hart said. "I'm hitting it so short."
While Hart birdied the par-5 second hole, a common score for the field, he also birdied the par-3 third, which isn't so routine.
Hart continued his strong opening, as he birdied five of the first nine holes, reaping the benefits of an early tee time and soft greens from rain Thursday, which began to firm up Friday as the day went on before more rain fell.
But Hart does have the advantage of only having to play 18 holes today, as 66 golfers in the field will have to begin their day at 8 a.m., where they left off Friday.
Hart was only 1 under on his final nine holes, as his spot near the top of the leader board made it harder for Hart to not really think about his play. With a Saturday and Sunday that should have Hart in competition for the lead, a "thoughtless" game will only grow tougher to accomplish.
"That's the challenge," Hart said of "letting it loose" into the weekend. "That's the issue for me."
Playing in his first Champions Tour tournament, Colin Montgomerie was disappointed Thursday, when he finished the first round tied for 21st.
He was unsatisfied with his putting, which led him to a first-round 1-under 68.
But Friday, Montgomerie came out of the gates a little warmer. He birdied four of his first seven holes, although he did bogey the par-3 sixth.
After playing 12 holes before the rain, Montgomerie finished the shortened day 4 under for a tie for 10th, a much better position to make a move over the final two days of the tournament.
Second-round leaders or co-leaders have won just 12 of the previous 30 Constellation Senior Players Championships. It also has happened just twice in the past 14 years -- Loren Roberts in 2007 and Fred Couples in 2011. The biggest climb to champion in tournament history happened in 2006, when Bobby Wadkins came from 30th place to win the event.
Source: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/sports/golf/golf-notebook-shorter-hart-showing-some-heart-693609
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It's been a slow week of MMA, but never fear. UFC 162 and a championship fight are oh-so-close. Who had a good week, and who didn't?
Hot -- Miesha Tate: She's filming "The Ultimate Fighter" now as a coach against UFC women's bantamweight championship. She will also pose nude as a part of ESPN the Magazine's Body Issue.
Not -- Brendan Schaub and Matt Mitrione: The one-time teammates started squabbling on Twitter like a bunch of seventh graders. They are fighting on July 27, so the squabbling will likely continue until then.
Hot -- The Jones' jewelry collection: According to UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones' Instagram, the Jones family has much better jewelry than most of us.
Hot -- GLORY: The kickboxing promotion will become more available to the U.S. fans. They will start airing fights on Spike come October.
Thank you for reading Cagewriter this week. Want more? Follow Cagewriter on Facebook or Twitter.
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Iran's President-elect Hassan Rouhani has pledged to appoint a 'trans-factional' cabinet beholden to no political party. His statement should reassure both hardliners and reformists, who he says will both have a seat at the table.?
Iranian President-elect Hasan Rouhani speaks in a conference in Tehran, Iran, Saturday. The president-elect called his win in national elections this month a vote for change and vowed Saturday to remain committed to his campaign promises of moderation and constructive interaction with the outside world.
Mohammad Berno/Office of the President-elect/AP
EnlargeIran's president-elect Hassan Rouhani said on Saturday he would appoint ministers from across its political spectrum as Iranian voters had chosen a path of moderation over extremism.
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His victory in the June 14 vote has lifted hopes of a thaw in?Iran's antagonistic relations with the West that might create openings for defusing its nuclear dispute with world powers. Rouhani has pledged a more conciliatory approach than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, under whose belligerent presidency the Islamic Republic drew ever more punishing international sanctions.
Rouhani's pledge of an inclusive cabinet could reassure conservative hardliners who look askance at the endorsement he was granted by reformists in the election.
In turn, reformists will hope to regain some political influence - with the aim of easing repression at home and?Iran's isolation abroad - after being sidelined under Ahmadinejad, who by law could not run for a third consecutive term.
"The future government must operate in the framework of moderation ...(and it) must avoid extremism, and this message is for everyone," Rouhani, a former chief nuclear negotiator, said in a speech carried live on state television.
"The next cabinet will be trans-factional ... This government is not obligated to any party or faction, and will work to choose the most qualified people from all sides and factions, under conditions of moderation and temperance."
Analysts say Rouhani, a mid-ranking Shi'ite Muslim cleric who has held sensitive security posts since the 1980s, enjoys an insider status and close relationship with theocratic Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and may be able to build bridges between factions to yield reforms.
But Khamenei will retain the final say on policies that most concern world powers, including?Iran's nuclear programme and its support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against rebels trying to overthrow him.?
CONSTRUCTIVE INTERACTION
Rouhani also urged moderation in Iranian policies towards the rest of the world and called for a balance between "realism" and pursuing the ideals of the Islamic Republic.
"Moderation in foreign policy is neither submission nor antagonism, neither passivity nor confrontation. Moderation is effective and constructive interaction with the world," he said.
"The Islamic Republic of?Iran, as a major regional power or the biggest regional power..., must play its role and for this we need moderation."
Western powers suspect?Iran?of seeking to develop a nuclear weapons capability, which Tehran denies. The Islamic Republic is now languishing under increasingly tough sanctions limiting its oil sales, a crucial source of revenue, obstructing its foreign trade and stoking higher inflation and unemployment.
Iran's friends and foes indicated shortly after Rouhani's election triumph they did not believe it would bring fundamental change in Iranian foreign policy.
Tehran is at loggerheads with Western powers on a range of foreign policy issues including its shadowy nuclear programme and its support for Syria's Assad, the Lebanese Shi'ite militant movement Hezbollah and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.
U.S.-allied Gulf Arab countries have also accused?Iran?of interfering in their affairs, though Tehran denies trying to subvert Saudi Arabia and its wealthy Gulf neighbours.
Rouhani, who will take office in early August, said he was dedicated to "mutual relaxation of tensions" with other states.
Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati; Editing by Mark Heinrich
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SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Same-sex marriages were set to resume in California on Friday, after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a surprise order lifting an injunction preventing the unions.
The order came in response to an opinion released Wednesday by the U.S. Supreme Court that effectively killed a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriages in the state.
Within moments of the ruling, couples, officials and activists began to converge on San Francisco City Hall, where unions were due to resume immediately.
"On my way to S.F. City Hall," tweeted the state's attorney general, Kamala Harris. "Let the wedding bells ring!"
Harris arrived with her arm around a key lawyer in the case, as the couple at the heart of a case challenging the state's ban waited eagerly for their marriage license to be issued.
"This is really a great day," said Cindy Stier, who with her fiancee Kristin Perry filed the lawsuit against Proposition 8, the ballot initiative that outlawed same-sex marriage in California in 2008.
The 9th Circuit had been expected to wait 25 days before lifting the injunction so the Supreme Court would have time to release a formal order. But the judges decided to act instead on Friday, a move that would allow the marriages to begin in advance of Gay Pride weekend.
"The stay in the above matter is dissolved effective immediately," the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said in its ruling.
(Reporting by Dan Levine; Writing by Sharon Bernstein and Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Gary Hill and Eric Walsh)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/court-lifts-ban-gay-marriage-california-224235024.html
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Adobe today announced that it has acquired Neolane, a conversation marketing company with an annual revenue of just under $60 million, in a transaction that’s worth $600 million in cash. Neolane was founded in 2001 and is currently headquartered in Paris, France, with offices around Europe, North America and Asia. The company’s customers include the likes of Accor Hotels, Alcatel-Lucent, IKEA, Samsung, Sony and Dior. For Adobe, which is putting quite a few resources into its Marketing Cloud, this acquisition adds a new piece to its feature lineup. Adobe does offer Adobe Social, which provides a number of social media-tracking and analysis tools. Neolane’s feature lineup, however, is far larger and includes tools like handling leads, marketing resource management, high-volume email marketing campaigns and a real-time offer recommendation engine for personalized, one-to-one messages.?Neolane, Adobe says, will become the sixth solution in the Marketing Cloud, joining its existing Analytics,?Target,?Social, Experience?Manager?and Media?Optimizer?offerings. Last year, Neolane raised a $27 million funding round led by?Battery Ventures?with participation by?Auriga Partners and XAnge Private Equity. ?The?acquisition?of?Neolane?brings critical?cross-channel?campaign?managementcapabilities?to the?Adobe Marketing?Cloud,??said?Brad?Rencher,?senior?vice?presidentand?general?manager?of Adobe?s?Digital?Marketing?business in a canned statement today. ?Adobe?has long?been the trusted?partner?to?creative?professionals?and?we?are?now?extending?our?lead?in?the digital marketing?space?with?the?addition?of?Neolane. From?campaign?creation?through planning, execution?and?optimization,?Adobe?technology?is?driving?the?entire?marketing?process.?Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/P82IKZm66XY/
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Serena Williams of the United States serves to Caroline Garcia of France during their Women's second round singles match at the All England Lawn Tennis Championships in Wimbledon, London, Thursday, June 27, 2013. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
Serena Williams of the United States serves to Caroline Garcia of France during their Women's second round singles match at the All England Lawn Tennis Championships in Wimbledon, London, Thursday, June 27, 2013. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
Serena Williams of the United States reacts after scoring a point against Caroline Garcia of France during their Women's second round singles match at the All England Lawn Tennis Championships in Wimbledon, London, Thursday, June 27, 2013. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
Serena Williams of the United States reacts during her Women's second round singles match against Caroline Garcia of France at the All England Lawn Tennis Championships in Wimbledon, London, Thursday, June 27, 2013. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
Serena Williams of the United States reacts after scoring a point against Caroline Garcia of France in their Women's second round singles match at the All England Lawn Tennis Championships in Wimbledon, London, Thursday, June 27, 2013. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
Caroline Garcia of France returns to Serena Williams of the United States during their Women's second round singles match at the All England Lawn Tennis Championships in Wimbledon, London, Thursday, June 27, 2013. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
LONDON (AP) ? At the moment, no woman seems capable of providing much of a challenge to Serena Williams on a tennis court.
She's won 33 matches in a row, and 76 of her past 79. If she wins five more this fortnight, as almost everyone expects, Williams will earn a second consecutive Wimbledon title and 17th Grand Slam championship overall.
So how about playing an exhibition match against a man? Andy Murray, for example?
After Williams beat 100th-ranked qualifier Caroline Garcia of France 6-3, 6-2 to reach the third round at the All England Club, the first question at her news conference Thursday concerned a suggestion by Murray ? prompted by a fan's Twitter post ? that the pair of reigning Olympic and U.S. Open champions play each other.
"Really? He wants to play me? Is he sure?" Williams responded, laughing heartily. "That would be fun. I doubt I'd win a point, but that would be fun."
It might draw some attention, too, given the combined star power of Williams in the U.S. and Murray in Britain. Currently, she is No. 1 in the WTA rankings; he's No. 2 in the ATP rankings.
"He's probably one of the top three people I definitely don't want to play," Williams said. "But maybe we can have a little bit of a showdown. That would be fine. I get (to use the doubles) alleys. He gets no serves. I get alleys on my serves, too."
In a piece posted on www.bbc.co.uk on Thursday morning, Murray refers to the original tweet in which someone mentioned he should face Williams.
"I'd be up for it, why not?" Murray said. "I've never hit with her but she's an incredible player and people would be interested to see the men play against the women to see how the styles match up."
On Friday, Murray will stick to trying to become the first British man to win Wimbledon since Fred Perry, 77 years ago. Murray was scheduled to face 32nd-seeded Tommy Robredo of Spain on Centre Court, where the roof might be closed if the forecast for rain is accurate.
The only other British singles player still in the tournament, 19-year-old Laura Robson, was also supposed to be in the main stadium, playing Mariana Duque-Marino of Colombia in a match postponed Thursday because of the first drizzle of Week 1.
Others slated to play Friday, weather permitting, included French Open runner-up David Ferrer, 2011 Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova, and 17th-seeded Sloane Stephens of the United States.
While Williams, Stephens and others keep the Stars and Stripes flying in the women's draw, it's a different story in the men's singles, where for the first time in 101 years, zero men from the United States reached Wimbledon's third round. And the last time it happened, way back in 1912, no Americans even entered the oldest Grand Slam tournament.
It's a low moment for a country that produced Bill Tilden and Don Budge, John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors, Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi.
By the end of Thursday, all 11 U.S. men in the 2013 field at the All England Club were gone, with top-seeded Novak Djokovic accounting for the last one by beating 156th-ranked qualifier Bobby Reynolds 7-6 (2), 6-3, 6-1. Earlier in the day, former top-five player James Blake lost to Bernard Tomic of Australia 6-3, 6-4, 7-5, while qualifier Denis Kudla was beaten by Ivan Dodig of Croatia 6-1, 7-6 (4), 7-5.
That trio joined 18th-seeded John Isner, 21st-seeded Sam Querrey, Ryan Harrison, Steve Johnson, Alex Kuznetsov, Wayne Odesnik, Rajeev Ram and Michael Russell on the way home.
"It's a tough stat to hear, but I still believe, right now, where U.S. tennis is, not too many guys are in their prime," said Kudla. "That's why the numbers are like that. A lot of guys are in the tail end of their careers and a lot of guys are coming up. "Maybe next year, or the year after that, things could change. You have to go through a little bit of a struggle to get some success."
With 27 of 32 third-round spots in men's singles settled, 18 countries were represented, including Latvia, Ukraine, Croatia and South Africa. Five countries had multiple entrants left, led by four each for Spain and France.
___
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By Elise Knutsen
DAKAR (Reuters) - In Nouakchott, a dusty city wedged between the Atlantic ocean and western dunes of the Sahara, a young hip-hop fan coordinates a diverse group of hackers targeting websites worldwide in the name of Islam.
Logging on to his computer, he greets his Facebook followers with a "good morning all" in English before posting links to 746 websites they have hacked in the last 48 hours along with his digital calling card: a half-skull, half-cyborg Guy Fawkes mask.
He calls himself Mauritania Attacker, after the remote Islamic republic in west Africa from which he leads a youthful group scattered across the Maghreb, southeast Asia and the West.
As jihadists battle regional governments from the deserts of southern Algeria to the scrubland of north Nigeria, Mauritania Attacker says the hacking collective which he founded, AnonGhost, is fighting for Islam using peaceful means.
"We're not extremists," he said, via a Facebook account which a cyber security expert identified as his. "AnonGhost is a team that hacks for a cause. We defend the dignity of Muslims."
During a series of conversations via Facebook, the 23-year-old spoke of his love of house music and hip hop, and the aims of his collective, whose targets have included U.S. and British small businesses and the oil industry.
He represents a new generation of Western-style Islamists who promote religious conservatism and traditional values, and oppose those they see as backing Zionism and Western hegemony.
In April, AnonGhost launched a cyber attack dubbed OpIsrael that disrupted access to several Israeli government websites, attracting the attention of security experts worldwide.
"AnonGhost is considered one of the most active groups of hacktivists of the first quarter of 2013," said Pierluigi Paganini, security analyst and editor of Cyber Defense magazine.
An online archive of hacked Web sites, Hack DB, lists more than 10,400 domains AnonGhost defaced in the past seven months.
Mauritania, a poor desert nation straddling the Arab Maghreb and black sub-Saharan Africa, is an unlikely hacker base. It has 3.5 million inhabitants spread across an area the size of France and Germany, and only 3 percent of them have Internet access.
Much of the population lives in the capital Nouakchott, which has boomed from a town of less than 10,000 people 40 years ago to a sprawling, ramshackle city of a million inhabitants. In its suburbs, tin and cinderblock shanties battle the Sahara's encroaching dunes and desert nomads stop to water their camels.
In the past six months experts have noted an increase in hacking activity from Mauritania and neighboring countries. In part, that reflects Mauritania Attacker's role in connecting pockets of hackers, said Carl Herberger, vice president of security solutions at Radware.
"This one figure, Mauritania Attacker, is kind a figure who brings many of these groups together," Herberger told Reuters.
MODERN TECHNOLOGY, ANCIENT MISSION
Mauritania Attacker says his activities are split between cyber cafes and his home, punctuated by the five daily Muslim prayers.
Well-educated, he speaks French and Arabic among other languages and updates his social media accounts regularly with details of the latest defacements and email hacks. He would not say how he made a living.
His cyber threats are often accented with smiley faces and programmer slang, and he posts links to dancefloor hits and amusing Youtube videos. But his message is a centuries-old Islamist call for return to religious purity.
"Today Islam is divisive and corrupt," he said in an online exchange. "We have abandoned the Koran."
Mauritanian Attacker aims to promote "correct Islam" by striking at servers hosted by countries they see as hostile to sharia law. "There is no Islam without sharia," he said.
Mauritania is renowned for its strict Islamic law. The sale of alcohol is forbidden and it is one of only a handful of states where homosexuality and atheism are punished by death.
The quality of Mauritania's religious scholars and koranic schools, or madrassas, attract students from around the world. Mauritanians have risen to prominent positions in regional jihadist groups, including al Qaeda's north African branch AQIM.
As hackers from the region organize into groups, the Maghreb is emerging as a haven for hacktivism as it lacks the laws and means to prosecute cyber criminals, Herberger said.
"There's a great degree of anonymity and there's a great degree of implied impunity," he said.
Security sources in Nouakchott said they were not aware of the activities of Mauritania Attacker.
He says he supports Islamists in Mauritania but opposes his government's support for the West, which sees the country as one of its main allies in its fight against al Qaeda in the region.
With tech-savy young Muslims in the Maghreb chafing under repressive regimes, analysts anticipate a rise in hacktivism.
Hacking is a way for young people to express religious and political views without being censored, says Aaron Zelin, fellow at the Washington Institute.
"These societies are relatively closed in terms of people's ability to openly discuss topics that are taboo," he said.
For disillusioned youth in countries like Mauritania, where General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz seized power in a 2008 coup before winning elections the next year, hacking has become "a way of expressing their distaste with status quo," Zelin said.
JURY OUT ON GROUP'S REACH
AnonGhost's global reach is its greatest weapon, but it has yet to stage a major attack on a Western economic target.
Most of AnonGhost's campaigns have simply defaced Web sites, ranging from kosher dieting sites to American weapon aficionado blogs, with messages about Islam and anti-Zionism.
It has attacked servers, often hosting small business websites, located in the United States, Brazil, France, Israel and Germany among others.
Mauritania Attacker and the AnonGhost crew say these countries have "betrayed Muslims" by supporting Israel and by participating in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"We are the new generation of Muslims and we are not stupid," read a message posted on the Web site of a party supply business in Italy. "We represent Islam. We fight together. We stand together. We die together."
The team has also leaked email credentials, some belonging to government workers from the United States and elsewhere.
As part of a June 20 operation against the oil industry, carried out alongside the international hacking network Anonymous, Mauritania Attacker released what he said were the email addresses and passwords for employees of Total.
A spokesperson for the French oil major did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
One security expert said AnonGhost's attacks exploited "well-known vulnerabilities in configurations of servers" in target countries rather than going after high-profile companies.
Carl Herberger, vice president of security solutions at Radware, remains unconvinced AnonGhost has the technical skills to wage full-scale cyber terrorism by harming operational capabilities of companies or government agencies.
"The jury is still out," he said, but cautioned against underestimating the emerging group. "You're never quite sure what they're going to do on the offensive, so they have to be right only once and you have to be right always."
(Additional reporting by Laurent Prieur in Nouakchott; editing by Daniel Flynn and Philippa Fletcher)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/insight-remote-mauritania-hacker-fights-islam-worldwide-124331431.html
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If you're a faithful fan of Dexter, Showtime's highest-rated and longest-running drama, you've wrestled for seven seasons with a thrilling quandary: Why is this soulless serial killer so damn compelling to watch?
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President Obama remarks on the situation with admitted NSA leaker Edward Snowden, saying he has no plans to disrupt relations with Russia and China, nor to scramble jets to capture the "29-year-old hacker."
By Jim Maceda, F. Brinley Bruton and Matthew DeLuca, NBC News
President Obama said he should not have to speak personally with the leaders of Russia and China regarding self-professed NSA leaker Edward Snowden, and said he was ?not going to be scrambling jets to get a 29-year-old hacker? during a press conference in Senegal on Thursday.
The president was on the first leg of a trip to Africa when he struck the seemingly dismissive tone regarding the former defense contractor who claimed to have leaked details of two top-secret government data-gathering programs before initiating an international manhunt that has grown to involve the governments of China, Ecuador, and Russia.
Obama said that the revelations first published in British newspaper The Guardian and The Washington Post ? and the ensuing search for Snowden, who has been charged with theft of government property and two offenses of espionage statutes ? have the makings of a big-screen spy caper, but that he would not engage in ?wheeling and dealing and trading and a whole host of other issues, simply to get a guy extradited so he can face the justice system here in the United States.?
Snowden, 30, is believed to still be hiding at a Moscow airport awaiting a ruling on his request for asylum from the government of Ecuador. Snowden flew to Russia from Hong Kong over the weekend but has not been seen since his arrival. Russian officials told Reuters that he remains in a transit area at Sheremetyevo airport.
He was not aboard an Aeroflot flight that departed Moscow to Havana on Thursday, the first stop on an anticipated escape route to the South American country.
?Now I get why it?s a fascinating story from a press perspective and I?m sure there will be a made-for-TV movie somewhere down the line,? Obama said, adding that ?in terms of U.S. interests, the damage was done with respect to the initial leaks.?
Dolores Ochoa / AP
A man reads a newspaper with the Spanish headline "Snowden stuck at Moscow airport" in Quito, Ecuador, on Wednesday.
Snowden?s case resolved ?some pretty significant vulnerabilities? at the National Security Agency, Obama said. Snowden worked for defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton before being fired, and said in an interview with the South China Morning Post that he took the job to gain access to sensitive information. NBC News could not independently verify the report.
?There have been some useful conversations that have taken place between the United States government and the Russian government,? Obama said. ?And my continued expectation is that Russia ? there are other countries that have talked about potentially providing Mr. Snowden asylum ? recognize that they are part of an international community and that they should be abiding by international law.?
The U.S. is worried that Snowden might have other documents in his possession that he may ?dribble out,? Obama said.
?I continue to be concerned about the other documents that he may have. That?s part of the reason why we?d like to have Mr. Snowden in custody,? Obama said. ?But what I think we?re going to continue to do is make sure that we are following the various channels that are well established and the rules that are well established to get this thing done.?
Ecuador?s communications minister said on Thursday that his country renounced hundreds of millions of dollars in trade tariff benefits, the Associated Press reported. Communications Minister Fernando Alvarez said the trade benefits being considered for renewal by U.S. lawmakers had become an ?instrument of blackmail? as the country considered granting asylum to Snowden.
Ecuador ?does not accept threats from anybody, and does not trade in principles, or submit to mercantile interests, as important as they may be,? Alvarez said, according to the AP.
In Washington, the head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has threatened to lead the effort to remove preferential trade treatment for Ecuadorian goods if the country decides to offer asylum to Snowden.?
"Edward Snowden is a fugitive who has endangered? the national security of the United States," Sen. Robert Menendez?said in a statement?released late on Wednesday.??"Trade preferences are a privilege granted to nations, not a right. ?I urge [Ecuadorean] President Correa to do the right thing by the United States and Ecuador, and deny Snowden's request for asylum."
In 2012, Ecuador exported some $5.4 billion worth of oil, $166 million of cut flowers, $122 million of fruits and vegetables and $80 million of tuna to the United States.?
Menendez said he would lead efforts to stop the renewal of Ecuador's duty-free access to America markets under the Generalized System of Preferences program, which expires on July 31.??He also said he'd try and block renewal of the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act, which also expires at the end of July.
The ongoing incident has also heightened tensions with China, as the country?s defense minister said that the U.S. Internet monitoring program revealed in documents leaked by Snowden ?has revealed the concerned country?s true face and hypocritical behavior.? Defense ministry spokesman Yang Yujun did not explicitly name the United States in his comments, Reuters reported.
Also on Thursday, a government official in Switzerland said the country still has questions about Snowden's time?working in Geneva as a CIA operative, Reuters reported. Swiss?Foreign Minister?Didier Burkhalter said they received a "diplomatic" response from the U.S. to questions about Snowden's time in the country from 2007 and 2009, but "have decided to discuss these points further in the future with the Americans."
NBC News' Ghazi Balkiz and Reuters contributed to this report.
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This story was originally published on Thu Jun 27, 2013 5:02 AM EDT
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Nothing goes unregulated in China. Even China?s ?one child policy? has a little known canine equivalent: Only one dog per household in cities like Beijing and Shanghai.
Dogs wonder around while their owners check marble bracelets at a market in Beijing, China, April 2, 2013.
Alexander F. Yuan/AP
EnlargeWestern human rights activists have never made much of a fuss about it, but China?s ?one child policy? has a little known canine equivalent.
Skip to next paragraph Peter FordBeijing Bureau Chief
Peter Ford is The Christian Science Monitor?s Beijing Bureau Chief. He covers news and features throughout China and also makes reporting trips to Japan and the Korean peninsula.
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The ?one dog policy? means what it says. In cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, each household is allowed only one?canis lupus familiaris.? Nor are urban pet lovers allowed just any kind of dog.
?Vicious? dogs are outlawed. But so is every other dog that is likely to stand more than 14 inches high when it is fully grown.
That means no Rottweilers, St. Bernards or Great Danes, of course. But it also rules out keeping a Dalmatian, a Bloodhound, or a Chow.
Officials say the law is a public health measure, aimed at protecting citizens from strays. More people die of rabies in China than anywhere else in the world save India, they point out.
This being China, nothing goes unregulated. (Though this being China, the regulations are by no means always enforced: The number of outsized Tibetan Mastiffs you see being paraded around town as status symbols is testimony to that.) So each dog must, like his or her owner, have a ?residence permit.?
The plastic permits look very like Chinese ID cards, with the dog?s photo, name, sex, and type printed on it. The reverse of a Beijing resident-dog-license is decorated with ? what else? ? a Pekinese. And it doesn?t come cheap: $160 the first year and $80 a year after that.
Failure to register your dog risks an even costlier punishment ? an $800 fine.
Keeping dogs as pets is not really a Chinese tradition, though in the countryside farmers may keep guard dogs or hunting dogs. In fact, pooches are as often eaten than pampered in this part of the world, despite the best efforts of nascent animal rights groups.
Last week, for example, residents of Yulin in the southern province of Guangxi, got through about 10,000 dogs at their annual summer solstice dog meat festival, according to activists. Most of them were served in a traditional hotpot with lychees and grain liquor.
Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/csmonitor/globalnews/~3/-kiyfcH9pkI/Why-China-has-a-one-dog-policy
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U.S. President Barack Obama, left, makes a toast during an official dinner with Senegalese President Macky Sall at the Presidential Palace on Thursday, June 27, 2013, in Dakar, Senegal. Obama is visiting Senegal, South Africa, and Tanzania on a week long trip. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
U.S. President Barack Obama, left, makes a toast during an official dinner with Senegalese President Macky Sall at the Presidential Palace on Thursday, June 27, 2013, in Dakar, Senegal. Obama is visiting Senegal, South Africa, and Tanzania on a week long trip. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
U.S. President Barack Obama looks out to sea through the 'Door of No Return,' at the slave house on Goree Island, in Dakar, Senegal, Thursday, June 27, 2013. Obama is calling his visit to a Senegalese island from which Africans were said to have been shipped across the Atlantic Ocean into slavery, a 'very powerful moment.' President Obama was in Dakar Thursday as part of a weeklong trip to Africa, a three-country visit aimed at overcoming disappointment on the continent over the first black U.S. president's lack of personal engagement during his first term. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
President Barack Obama meets with a group of drummers that were playing music on his departure after taking a tour of Goree Island, Thursday, June 27, 2013, in Goree Island, Senegal. Goree Island is the site of the former slave house and embarkation point built by the Dutch in 1776, from which slaves were brought to the Americas. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Barack Obama meets with a group of drummers that were playing music on his departure after taking a tour of Goree Island, Thursday, June 27, 2013, in Goree Island, Senegal. Goree Island is the site of the former slave house and embarkation point built by the Dutch in 1776, from which slaves were brought to the Americas. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
U.S. President Barack Obama speaks during a joint press conference with his Senegalese counterpart Macky Sall, at the presidential palace in Dakar, Senegal, Thursday, June 27, 2013. Obama was in Dakar Thursday as part of a weeklong trip to Africa, a three-country visit aimed at overcoming disappointment on the continent over the first black U.S. president's lack of personal engagement during his first term.(AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)(AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
DAKAR, Senegal (AP) ? President Barack Obama is receiving the embrace you might expect for a long-lost son on his return to his father's home continent, even as he has yet to leave a lasting policy legacy for Africa on the scale of his two predecessors.
Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush passed innovative Africa initiatives while in the White House and passionately continue their development work in the region in their presidential afterlife. Obama's efforts here have not been so ambitious, despite his personal ties to the continent.
His first major tour of Africa as president is coming just now, in his fifth year, while Bush and Clinton are frequent fliers to Africa. Bush even will be in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, next week at the same time as Obama, although they have no plans to meet. Instead, their wives plan to appear together at a summit on empowering African women organized by the George W. Bush Institute, with the former president in attendance.
Spirited crowds greeted Obama on his visit to French-speaking Senegal, Africa's westernmost country, with revelers frequently breaking into song and dance at the sight of the first African-American president. However thrilled they were to see him, many said they wish his visits weren't so rare.
"Two visits in five years, it's not enough," said Faye Mbissine, a 30-year-old nanny who took an early morning bus to come see Obama on Thursday outside the presidential palace. "We hope that he can come more."
Manougou Nbodj, a 21-year-old student, said he hopes Obama will bring American resources like jobs and health care. "If Obama can work with Macky Sall the way that George Bush worked with Africa before him, then we will be happy," he said, referring to the Senegalese president.
One of Bush's chief foreign policy successes was his aid to Africa, including AIDS relief credited with saving millions of lives and grants to reward developing countries for good governance. Bush followed on momentum on African policy that began under Clinton, who allowed several dozen sub-Saharan countries to export to the U.S. duty-free.
Obama has continued the Bush and Clinton programs during tough economic times. But his signature Africa policy thus far has been food security, through less prominent programs designed to address hunger with policy reforms and private investment in agriculture.
On Friday, Obama met with farmers and entrepreneurs who are using new methods and technologies to advance the cause of food security. He toured displays in small thatched booths at his hotel grounds on a bluff overlooking the ocean.
In brief remarks later, he drew attention to Feed the Future, a public private partnership initiated by his administration that he said has helped seven million small farmers in developing nations, including 7,000 in Senegal.
"This is a moral imperative," he said. "I believe that Africa is rising and it wants to partner with us not to be dependent but to be self-sufficient.
The White House announced that Senegal is joining his New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition and will receive $134 million in investments from private companies and $47 million from the United States.
Witney Schneidman, former deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs, said Obama's efforts are not like Bush's AIDS initiative "where you put people on a medicine to save their lives ? very, extremely important. This is more of a structural change, and I think that's going to take time."
Under Clinton and Bush "you had this major funding, major attention, major initiatives going to Africa, and then President Obama came in, and there was a sense of stall, in a way," said Jennifer Cooke, director of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She said that's understandable as he grappled with wars and an economic crisis, and she gave Obama credit for working diplomatically with African governments in his first term.
But, she said, "they weren't big, splashy initiatives that got peoples' attention either in Africa or here at home, and no big money and no big ideas that really helped define what Obama was about in Africa."
That's a disappointed those who were expecting more from the first African-American president, especially after his speech during a brief stopover in Ghana his first summer in office, in which he spoke personally of his father's life in Kenya and declared "a new moment of great promise" in Africa. "I have the blood of Africa within me," Obama said.
Schneidman argued that Obama's personal connection may also have been an impediment to deeper engagement in his first term. "The whole birther movement here in the U.S. that was sort of questioning his place of birth to begin with ... I think it was a real constraint on dealing with Africa," Schneidman said.
Mwangi Kimenyi, a Kenyan who directs the Brookings Institutions' Africa Growth Initiative, said Obama may be a victim of misplaced sky-high expectations on the continent when he was first elected.
"Africans still consider Clinton their president," Kimenyi said. "If you go to Africa and mention Clinton ? I mean, he is a hero, even today. I don't think President Obama is going to approach the level of President Clinton at all, in terms of respect, in terms of what they feel, and it's partly because, as one whose family is from Africa, the expectations were rather high. I mean, they expected him to do more, to do more visits, to actually relate better with Africans, to understand the continent better."
"There is not that feeling that, you know, we have our son there," Kimenyi said. "There's probably more reference of a prodigal son than a, you know, son."
Clinton first drew extensive attention to Africa in 1998 when he made the longest trip ever by a U.S. president, with stops in six countries that had never before been visited by any occupant of the Oval Office. He's scheduled to come back this summer for what has become an annual visit, with his Clinton Foundation investing in myriad wide-ranging projects in Africa on health, agriculture and climate change.
Bush's trip this week is his third in 19 months to promote his Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon partnership to combat breast and cervical cancer in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. On this visit, he and his wife, Laura, plan to help renovate a cervical cancer screening and treatment clinic in Zambia before heading to Tanzania for the African First Ladies Summit advocating investment in programs for women and girls.
Obama foreign policy adviser Ben Rhodes said the president is signaling increased engagement with the current trip and hopes it will prove to be a "pivotal moment" of Africa's growth taking off.
"Frankly, Africa is a place that we had not yet been able to devote significant presidential time and attention to," Rhodes said. "And there's nothing that can make an impact more in terms of our foreign policy and our economic and security interests than the president of the United States coming and demonstrating the importance of our commitment to this region."
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Associated Press writer Robbie Corey-Boulet contributed to this report.
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