Lance Armstrong Cuts Officials Ties With His Livestrong Charity

In the wake of being stripped of his seven Tour de France titles for doping, Lance Armstrong last week cut all official ties with Livestrong, the charity he founded 15 years ago while he was treated for testicular cancer.

On Nov. 4, he resigned from the organization’s board of directors; he had previously stepped down as the chairman of the board Oct. 17. He has distanced himself from the charity to try to protect it from any damage caused by his doping controversy, the new board chairman, Jeff Garvey, said in a statement.

“Lance Armstrong was instrumental in changing the way the world views people affected by cancer,” Garvey said. “His devotion to serving survivors is unparalleled, and for 15 years, he committed himself to that cause with all his heart.”

Garvey said that the Armstrong family had donated nearly $7 million to the foundation and that the organization under Armstrong had raised close to $500 million to serve cancer survivors.

Last month, the United States Anti-Doping Agency made public its evidence in its doping case against Armstrong, saying he had doped and encouraged his teammates to dope so they could help him win races. He was subsequently barred from Olympic sports for life and was stripped of all the cycling titles he won from August 1998 on.

Since then, Armstrong has spent several weeks in Hawaii, out of the public eye. On Saturday, though, he posted a photograph on Twitter showing him at home in Austin, Tex. He is lounging on a couch with his seven yellow Tour jerseys framed on the wall in the background.

In the post, he said, “Back in Austin and just layin’ around.” The photograph had more than 400,000 page views as of Monday evening, with many people posting negative comments on the page.

“Lance, you have no moral conscious and it’s obvious many of your followers don’t either,” said one person who went by the Twitter handle “irobot,” who also posted that Armstrong needed “professional help.”

A person posting under the name “Aumann” said: “An art thief enjoying all his da Vincis.”

Other people posted words of support, including many who said they still thought Armstrong was the top cyclist in history.

“TomShelton” said of Armstrong’s seven Tour titles, “You earned all 7 of them no matter what is being said about you!”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 13, 2012

An earlier version of this article misstated Jeff Garvey’s estimate of the sum the Livestrong charity had raised to serve cancer survivors. It was close to $500 million, not close to $300 million.

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False Posts on Facebook Undermine Its Credibility

SAN FRANCISCO — The Facebook page for Gaston Memorial Hospital, in Gastonia, N.C., offers a chicken salad recipe to encourage healthy eating, tips on avoiding injuries at Zumba class, and pictures of staff members dressed up at Halloween. Typical stuff for a hospital in a small town.

But in October, another Facebook page for the hospital popped up. This one posted denunciations of President Obama and what it derided as “Obamacare.” It swiftly gathered hundreds of followers, and the anti-Obama screeds picked up “likes.” Officials at the hospital, scrambling to get it taken down, turned to their real Facebook page for damage control. “We apologize for any confusion,” they posted on Oct. 8, “and appreciate the support of our followers.”

The fake page came down 11 days later, as mysteriously as it had come up. The hospital says it has no clue who was behind it.

Fakery is all over the Internet. Twitter, which allows pseudonyms, is rife with fake followers, and has been used to spread false rumors, as it was during Hurricane Sandy. False reviews are a constant problem on consumer Web sites.

Gaston Memorial’s experience is an object lesson in the problem of fakery on Facebook. For the world’s largest social network, it is an especially acute problem, because it calls into question its basic premise. Facebook has sought to distinguish itself as a place for real identity on the Web. As the company tells its users: “Facebook is a community where people use their real identities.” It goes on to advise: “The name you use should be your real name as it would be listed on your credit card, student ID, etc.”

Fraudulent “likes” damage the trust of advertisers, who want clicks from real people they can sell to and whom Facebook now relies on to make money. Fakery also can ruin the credibility of search results for the social search engine that Facebook says it is building.

Facebook says it has always taken the problem seriously, and recently stepped up efforts to cull fakes from the site. “It’s pretty much one of the top priorities for the company all the time,” said Joe Sullivan, who is in charge of security at Facebook.

The fakery problem on Facebook comes in many shapes. False profiles are fairly easy to create; hundreds can pop up simultaneously, sometimes with the help of robots, and often they persuade real users into friending them in a bid to spread malware. Fake Facebook friends and likes are sold on the Web like trinkets at a bazaar, directed at those who want to enhance their image. Fake coupons for meals and gadgets can appear on Facebook newsfeeds, aimed at tricking the unwitting into revealing their personal information.

Somewhat more benignly, some college students use fake names in an effort to protect their Facebook content from the eyes of future employers.

Mr. Sullivan declined to say what portion of the company’s now one billion plus users were fake. The company quantified the problem last June, in responding to an inquiry by the Securities and Exchange Commission. At that time, the company said that of its 855 million active users, 8.7 percent, or 83 million, were duplicates, false or “undesirable,” for instance, because they spread spam.

Mr. Sullivan said that since August, the company had put in place a new automated system to purge fake “likes.” The company said it has 150 to 300 staff members to weed out fraud.

Flags are raised if a user sends out hundreds of friend requests at a time, Mr. Sullivan explained, or likes hundreds of pages simultaneously, or most obvious of all, posts a link to a site that is known to contain a virus. Those suspected of being fakes are warned. Depending on what they do on the site, accounts can be suspended.

In October, Facebook announced new partnerships with antivirus companies. Facebook users can now download free or paid antivirus coverage to guard against malware.

“It’s something we have been pretty effective at all along,” Mr. Sullivan said.

Facebook’s new aggressiveness toward fake “likes” became noticeable in September, when brand pages started seeing their fan numbers dip noticeably. An average brand page, Facebook said at the time, would lose less than 1 percent of its fans.

But the thriving market for fakery makes it hard to keep up with the problem. Gaston Memorial, for instance, first detected a fake page in its name in August; three days later, it vanished. The fake page popped up again on Oct. 4, and this time filled up quickly with the loud denunciations of the Obama administration. Dallas P. Wilborn, the hospital’s public relations manager, said her office tried to leave a voice-mail message for Facebook but was disconnected; an e-mail response from the social network ruled that the fake page did not violate its terms of service. The hospital submitted more evidence, saying that the impostor was using its company logo.

Eleven days later, the hospital said, Facebook found in its favor. But by then, the local newspaper, The Gaston Gazette, had written about the matter, and the fake page had disappeared.

Facebook declined to comment on the incident, and pointed only to its general Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.

The election season seems to have increased the fakery.

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Cuomo to Seek $30 Billion in Aid for Storm Relief

Robert Stolarik for The New York Times

At a town meeting in Rockaway Beach, Queens, on Sunday, an official from the Long Island Power Authority was questioned about when power would be restored.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo plans to ask the federal government for at least $30 billion in disaster aid to help New York City and other affected areas of the state recover from the devastation of Hurricane Sandy, according to top administration officials.

In making the case for federal aid, the governor’s advisers provided a staggering inventory of need as the city and state continued to rebuild in the storm’s deadly wake: $3.5 billion to repair the region’s bridges, tunnels and subway and commuter rail lines; $1.65 billion to rebuild homes and apartment buildings; $1 billion to reimburse local governments for overtime costs of police, fire and other emergency personnel; and several billion dollars in federal loans and grants to affected businesses.

In all, Hurricane Sandy caused more than $50 billion in damage in the New York region, according to Cuomo administration officials, making it the country’s costliest storm other than Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the Gulf Coast region in 2005. That hurricane caused about $145 billion in damages, with the federal government providing about $110 billion in disaster aid, according to Cuomo officials.

In outlining the plan, Cuomo officials provided an assessment of the economic toll of the storm in New York. Businesses throughout the city and state lost $13 billion after being forced to close for days either because of damage to their property or because employees could not get to their jobs with travel restrictions widely in place, according to Cuomo aides.

The governor’s move comes as President Obama is scheduled to appear on Thursday in the New York City area, where he is expected to view the recovery efforts and announce a rebuilding program for the region. On Sunday, the Homeland Security secretary, Janet Napolitano, toured Staten Island to view the response there.

It is clear that the effects of the storm are still being acutely felt. More than 125,000 customers were still without power on Sunday, including about 110,000 customers served by the Long Island Power Authority. Many gas stations remained closed, but the city’s introduction of odd-even gas rationing seemed to have shortened lines.

The storm-related death toll in New York City officially rose to 43, as a man who fell during the storm in his home in Queens succumbed to his injuries on Saturday. And transportation officials made more progress on shuttered lines and crossings. The Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel will reopen only for bus traffic on Monday, and more service will be restored on the Long Island Rail Road and PATH.

Mr. Cuomo’s request could be seen as a challenge to Mr. Obama to make good on his pledge, delivered during a high-profile visit to New Jersey, to provide federal support for the recovery effort. But it also could be seen as a test of the governor’s ability to extract billions of dollars of aid from Washington at a difficult time, with White House officials and Congressional leaders searching to find areas of government to cut to avert a Jan. 1 fiscal crisis.

It is far from certain whether Mr. Cuomo will get what he is looking for despite the president’s reassurances. The amount the governor is apparently seeking would exceed the roughly $12 billion in FEMA disaster aid currently available in Washington without action from Congress, where there is likely to be strong opposition to more spending.

Mr. Cuomo’s plan, which is still being drafted by his aides, rests in part on persuading the federal government to make an emergency appropriation in the coming weeks during a lame-duck session of Congress that begins on Tuesday.

New York will not be alone in seeking disaster relief from Washington. Members of Congress in both major parties from other storm-ravaged states — including New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia — will almost certainly be seeking federal assistance for their constituents.

Mr. Cuomo intends to use the money from Washington for far-reaching improvements to the critical but decaying infrastructure of the city and the state.

For example, he is looking at a proposal to replace the region’s power grid with a so-called smart grid that would improve the ability of utility companies to pinpoint areas with power failures and respond to them. That proposal could cost at least $30 billion over 10 years, according to senior aides to the governor.

In addition, Mr. Cuomo is looking at a plan to have the federal government invest billions of dollars to modernize the fuel supply capacity of the New York City region to avoid the kind of gas shortages that have plagued New Yorkers since the storm barreled through.

The plan would include building new oil and gas pipelines from the New England states to reduce New York’s dependence on fuel that arrives through ports in New Jersey, a state that was also hobbled by the storm and was thus unable to continue to fully supply the region with fuel.

Mr. Cuomo is also considering the creation of an emergency petroleum reserve for the state, much like the one the federal government has at its disposal in the event of a national crisis.

 Over the weekend, gas lines appeared to ease in New York and New Jersey. On Sunday morning in Manhattan, all the pumps at a BP station at Houston and Crosby Streets were serving taxis. About five cars were waiting in line.

In Brooklyn, there was a line at a Hess station at Fourth Avenue and Union Street. About 60 cars stretched for several blocks down Union. At another Hess station at Fourth Avenue and 30th Street, there were about 30 cars in a line stretching three blocks.

In the Rockaways, a Long Island Power Authority official told a skeptical but orderly crowd of about 300 people on Sunday that the utility was already beginning to restore power along the peninsula east of Breezy Point. But for power to be switched on, each building must receive certification from a licensed electrician that the building is ready for electricity, said the official, Nick Lizanich, vice president for operations.

“As soon as we receive confirmation that your house can be restored, we will restore it within a very short period of time,” Mr. Lizanich said.

His comment drew an immediate response from a woman in the crowd. “Your nose is glowing,” she said.

Reporting was contributed by Charles V. Bagli, Diane Cardwell, Emma G. Fitzsimmons and Christopher Maag.

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Labels maintain new music spend despite sales slump

LONDON (Reuters) – Record labels say they have maintained high levels of investment in new music despite sweeping changes to their business in the digital age and a decade of falling revenues caused by sliding album sales and online piracy.

According to a new study from industry body IFPI published on Monday, record companies invested $ 4.5 billion in A&R (artists and repertoire) and marketing in 2011.

That was down from $ 5 billion in 2008, partly due to a significant drop in the amount record labels were willing to spend on marketing up-and-coming talent at a time of shrinking income.

But the A&R side fell less sharply to $ 2.7 billion last year versus $ 2.8 billion in 2008 despite a decline of 16 percent in the trade value of the industry globally over the same period.

Presenting the report in London, Max Hole, COO of Universal Music Group International, said he was cautiously optimistic that the music business would return to growth soon, helped by the proliferation of digital platforms.

“The stats are getting better, the rate of decline is slowing,” he told reporters.

“There’s every reason to hope that in the next couple of years we’ll reach the low point and start to go back to growth.”

According to the IFPI, in the first nine months of 2012, global recorded music sales had fallen by around one percent year-on-year after a fall of three percent in 2011.

The industry peaked in 1999 when sales were $ 28.6 billion, but has shrunk every year since, reaching $ 16.6 billion in 2011.

“I just feel that we are at a tipping point of lots and lots of services coming on, and services that really are in touch with the consumer,” Hole said, adding that, crucially, the platforms were more attractive than illegal pirate sites.

BANDS WANT LABELS

The report showed that more than 70 percent of unsigned acts in Britain and Germany wanted a record deal, despite the perception that many artists are keen to go it alone with the help of social networking.

Major labels have been accused of being slow to adjust to the challenges posed by digital music and illegal downloads, and relying too heavily on older, established acts to make money.

But the IFPI report sought to underline their role in unearthing new talent in a notoriously risky business.

Revenues invested in A&R represent around 16 percent of industry turnover, compared with 15.3 percent in the pharmaceuticals and biotech sector and 9.6 percent in software and computing.

The IFPI estimated breaking a pop act in a major market typically costs from $ 750,000 to $ 1.4 million, including a $ 200,000 advance, $ 200-300,000 on recording, $ 50-300,000 on videos, $ 100,000 on touring and $ 200-500,000 on marketing.

The Internet has revolutionized the way record labels go about their business, the report said.

A&R representatives today rely on the Internet as much as they do on attending gigs up and down the country to discover the next best thing, although most still want to see an act live before making up their minds.

According to the report, record labels are providing far more digital content as part of their marketing and promotion, and tend to sign deals with artists which go well beyond the shrinking recorded music business.

Brand partnerships, offering songs for use on television, in film and in commercials, and linking up singers from different regions to generate cross-over interest are just some of the ways they can help establish a new act, the IFPI added.

Hole said the recent merger between Universal, already the world’s largest music label, and EMI, would not lead to less A&R spending, but more.

“We have stated quite categorically that our intention is to reinvest in EMI and boost it and we think it will result in more investment in A&R,” he said.

“We operate a multi-label structure and that was something that had declined at EMI,” he added. “We’re going to reverse that.”

(Editing by Steve Addison)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Laughing in the storm: Comics don't shy from Sandy

NEW YORK (AP) — Comedian Dave Attell told a packed house at the Comedy Cellar that New York after Superstorm Sandy had a familiar feel. "It was dark. Toilets were backing up. ... It was pretty much like it always was."

Another comic, Paul Mecurio, told the same crowd that he got so many calls from worried family members that he started making things up about how bad it was.

"I'm drinking my own urine to survive," he joked.

New York's comedy clubs, some of which had to shut down or go on generator power in the aftermath of the storm, dealt with a bad situation like they always have — by turning Sandy into a running punchline.

"If they're going to do jokes on Sept. 12 about Sept. 11, then this thing isn't going to slow us down," said Vic Henley, the emcee of a show Oct. 28 at Gotham Comedy Club.

Sean Flynn, Gotham's operating manager, said comics were including the storm in their acts but had to be careful nonetheless not to make people feel worse than they already did.

"There's the old adage that tragedy plus time equals comedy. The variable is the time," he said. Still, he added: "You can't ignore the subject. That's what comedy's all about."

The Comedy Cellar, a regular stop for decades for the country's most notable comedians, was closed from Oct. 28 through Nov. 1, but reopened on Nov. 2 after a generator was brought in at a cost of several thousand dollars. Power didn't return until the next day, and the crowds came with it.

Everyone has a bad case of cabin fever," said Valerie Scott, the club's manager.

Mecurio said he thought the joke was on him when he got a call from the Comedy Cellar saying the club was going ahead with its show even though there was no light in the West Village. He headed downtown from the Upper East Side, hitting dark streets after midtown.

"It's pitch dark," he said. "And there's a room packed with people laughing. It was so surreal. ... I'm calling it the generator show. It was a really cool thing."

"You could feel there was something special about the show," he said. "The audiences were tempered in their mood. You could tell something was up, something was in the air. I knew it was cathartic for people."

He said a woman approached him after the show to thank him, saying: "You kind of brightened my day."

Sometimes, comics used the storm to get a laugh at the expense of the crowd, like when Mark Normand looked down from the Comedy Cellar stage at a man with a thin beard.

"I like the beard," he told him. "Is that because of Sandy? You couldn't get your razor working?"

And Attell used Sandy to mock a heckler, telling him: "You must have been a load of laughs without power."

At another point, Attell looked for positives in the storm.

"There's nothing better than Doomsday sex," he said.

Mecurio said he has made a point of including the storm and the havoc it caused whenever he takes the stage.

"I feel like as a comedian in the spirit of social satire, it's what we're supposed to do," he said. "It's the elephant in the room. How do you not do it?"

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Well: Can Foods Affect Colon Cancer Survival?

A new study suggests that what you eat may affect your chances of surviving colon cancer.

The research is among the first to look at the impact that specific nutrients have on the likelihood of disease recurrence in people with colon cancer, one of the leading causes of cancer death in the United States. It found that people treated for Stage 3 disease, in which tumor cells have spread to lymph nodes, had greatly increased chances of dying of it or experiencing a recurrence if their diets were heavy in carbohydrate-rich foods that cause spikes in blood sugar and insulin.

The patients who consumed the most carbohydrates and foods with high glycemic loads — a measure of the extent to which a serving of food will raise blood sugar — had an 80 percent greater chance of dying or having a recurrence during the roughly seven-year study period than those who had the lowest levels. Stage 3 colon cancer patients typically have a five-year survival rate of about 50 to 65 percent.

The study, however, was observational, meaning it could only highlight an association between carbohydrates and cancer outcomes without proving direct cause and effect. The researchers also obtained some of their data from food questionnaires that required patients to recall details about their diets, a method that can be unreliable.

Still, the researchers, who published their findings in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute, believe insulin may play a critical role in colon cancer recurrence. Chronically high insulin levels have been linked to cancer recurrence and mortality in previous research, and people with a history of Type 2 diabetes or elevated plasma C-peptide, a marker of long-term insulin production, have also been found to have an increased risk of colon cancer. One hypothesis is that insulin may fuel the growth of cancer cells and prevent cell death, or apoptosis, in cancer cells that have spread.

“It’s not simply that all carbs are bad or that you should avoid all sugar,” said Dr. Jeffrey A. Meyerhardt, the lead author of the study and an associate professor of medicine at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. It’s not as simple as ‘sugar causes cancer to grow.’”

He added: “Different carbs and sugar lead to different responses in your body. I think people should focus on a well-balanced diet” and substitute foods associated with lower glycemic loads or carbs for foods that have higher levels.

Earlier research published by Dr. Meyerhardt’s group showed that Stage 3 colon cancer patients who most closely followed a Western-style diet — with high intakes of meat, fat, refined grains and sugary desserts — had a threefold increase in recurrence and death from the disease compared with those who most strongly deviated from Western patterns of eating.

For this study, Dr. Meyerhardt and his team wanted to see to what extent carbohydrate intake could influence the progression of the disease, so they followed about 1,000 Stage 3 colon cancer patients taking part in a clinical trial sponsored by the National Cancer Institute. The patients, who had all had surgery and chemotherapy as part of their treatments, provided information on their diets and lifestyle habits. But the researchers went beyond just carbohydrate and sugar intake, taking into account glycemic measures.

The glycemic index, an increasingly popular nutritional measure, looks at the rate at which carbohydrate-containing foods raise a person’s fasting level of blood sugar and subsequent need for insulin. Sugary drinks, white bread and other highly processed carbohydrates rank higher on the index, while those that are digested more slowly, like brown rice, many vegetables, unrefined grains and legumes, have a lower index value.

Another barometer, however, is the glycemic load, which refers to the blood sugar effect of a standard serving of a food. A glycemic load of 10 or less for a food is generally considered low, while 20 or more is high. The latest study showed that glycemic load and total carbohydrate intake were the best predictors of cancer recurrence and mortality, and the link was strongest in people who were overweight or obese.

Dr. Meyerhardt said the findings suggest that colon cancer patients would be wise to keep glycemic load in mind while making food decisions, looking for ways to work into their diets foods that rank lower on the scale.

“So if you think about beverages, most juices and certainly sodas have a higher glycemic load than flavored waters and tomato juice and things like that,” he said. “Fruits like a date or raisins have very high glycemic loads, whereas fresh fruits like an apple, orange or cantaloupe all have sugar but have a very low glycemic load. Substitute brown rice for white, whole grains instead of white bread, and instead of having a starchy potato as your side dish, substitute beans and vegetables.”

One expert who was not involved in the research, Somdat Mahabir, a nutritional epidemiologist with the National Cancer Institute’s division of cancer control and population sciences, said the findings from the latest study must be borne out in further research. But in the meantime, making dietary changes that reduce glycemic load is a reasonable recommendation for colon cancer patients, he said, since it can only be helpful, not harmful.

“The results of the current study need to be confirmed, but the current indications are that diet is important to colon cancer survival,” Dr. Mahabir said.

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Boehner Tells House G.O.P. to Fall in Line

Larry Downing/Reuters

Speaker John Boehner, at a news conference on Friday, says he wants to avoid partisan battles.

WASHINGTON — On a conference call with House Republicans a day after the party’s electoral battering last week, Speaker John A. Boehner dished out some bitter medicine, and for the first time in the 112th Congress, most members took their dose.

Their party lost, badly, Mr. Boehner said, and while Republicans would still control the House and would continue to staunchly oppose tax rate increases as Congress grapples with the impending fiscal battle, they had to avoid the nasty showdowns that marked so much of the last two years.

Members on the call, subdued and dark, murmured words of support — even a few who had been a thorn in the speaker’s side for much of this Congress.

It was a striking contrast to a similar call last year, when Mr. Boehner tried to persuade members to compromise with Democrats on a deal to extend a temporary cut in payroll taxes, only to have them loudly revolt.

With President Obama re-elected and Democrats cementing control of the Senate, Mr. Boehner will need to capitalize on the chastened faction of the House G.O.P. that wants to cut a deal to avert sudden tax increases and across-the-board spending cuts in January that could send the economy back into recession. After spending two years marooned between the will of his loud and fractious members and the Democratic Senate majority, the speaker is trying to assert control, and many members seem to be offering support.

“To have a voice at the bargaining table, John Boehner has to be strong,” said Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, one of the speaker’s lieutenants. “Most members were just taught a lesson that you’re not going to get everything that you want. It was that kind of election.”

Aides say this is an altered political landscape that Mr. Boehner did not expect. As a result, whether the nation can avoid the so-called fiscal cliff will depend not only on whether Mr. Boehner can find common cause with a newly re-elected, invigorated president, but also whether he can deliver his own caucus.

“I just believe John will have more leeway than in the past Congress,” said Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York. “The election will matter.”

The divide between Mr. Obama and Mr. Boehner appears wide. In their Saturday addresses, the president demanded immediate House passage of a bill approved by the Senate that would extend the expiring Bush-era tax cuts for households earning under $250,000, while the speaker said raising tax rates on anyone would be unacceptable.

But beneath the posturing, both men were keeping open avenues of negotiation. Mr. Obama was careful to call for more revenue, not higher tax rates, a demand that could be fulfilled by ending or limiting tax deductions and credits, a path Mr. Boehner has accepted.

The question over what to do about the expiring tax cuts would be swept aside if the parties could reach an agreement before then to overhaul the tax code completely — and render obsolete the current structure of six income tax rates, all of which would rise on Jan. 1.

Even so, some Republicans have issued a stern warning to Mr. Boehner that he cannot expect their votes if he makes a deal with Democrats before seeking their consent.

“What we’ve seen in the past is the speaker goes, negotiates with the president, and just before we vote, he tells us what the deal is and attempts to persuade us to vote for it,” said Representative John Fleming, Republican of Louisiana. “We’re just not very happy with deals being baked, then we’re asked to stay with the team and support the speaker.”

Given those conflicting demands, Mr. Boehner must decide whether he wants to seal his role as an essential player in a grand plan to restructure the nation’s fiscal condition, or continue the status quo of the very gridlock voters appear to detest.

“I don’t want to box myself in, and I don’t want to box anyone else in,” Mr. Boehner told reporters on Friday.

Republican lawmakers and Congressional aides say the situation is not as dire as the conflicts of the past two years, which nearly led to a government default on its debt and included a series of impasses that plunged Congress’s approval rating to its lowest recorded level. Any deal with the president would probably lose 60 to 80 Republican votes, but the president would bring along enough Democrats to get it passed.

“When the president and I have been able to come to an agreement, there has been no problem getting it passed here in the House,” Mr. Boehner assured reporters, alluding to the deal struck with Mr. Obama to extend payroll tax cuts, which took Democratic support.

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How Apple’s iPad Mini compares with rivals

The iPad Mini is just one of several tablets of its size. Here’s a look at how the Mini compares with other tablets with comparable screens.

Apple Inc.’s iPad Mini

— Price: $ 329 for base model with Wi-Fi only and 16 gigabytes of storage, $ 429 with 32 GB, $ 529 with 64 GB. Add $ 130 for versions with cellular capability.

— Screen size: 7.9 inches diagonally

— Screen resolution: 1024 by 768 pixels

— Weight: 0.68 pound (0.69 pound for cellular versions)

— Cameras: 5-megapixel camera on back and a low-resolution camera on front, for videoconferencing

— Battery life: 10 hours

— Operating system: Apple‘s iOS

Pros: Unmatched access to third-party applications, high-quality Apple software and the iTunes store. High-resolution screen. Available with access to fast 4G wireless broadband networks, starting at $ 459. Larger-screen version available.

Cons: Data storage cannot be expanded with memory cards.

Barnes & Noble Inc.‘s Nook HD

— Price: $ 199 with 8 gigabytes of storage, $ 229 with 16 GB

— Screen size: 7 inches diagonally

— Screen resolution: 1440 by 900 pixels

— Weight: 0.69 pound

— Cameras: None

— Battery life: Up to 10.5 hours of reading and up to 9 hours of video

— Operating system: Modified version of Google‘s Android

Pros: Expandable with microSD card. High-definition screen. Larger-screen version available.

Cons: Selection of third-party applications is small. Lacks cameras and option for cellular broadband.

Amazon.com Inc.‘s Kindle Fire HD.

— Price: $ 199 with 16 gigabytes of storage, $ 249 with 32 GB

— Screen size: 7 inches diagonally

— Screen resolution: 1280 by 800 pixels

— Weight: 0.87 pound.

— Cameras: Front-facing camera.

— Battery life: 11 hours.

— Operating system: Modified version of Google’s Android

Pros: Cheap and portable. Convenient access to Amazon store. High-definition screen. Dolby audio. Larger-screen version coming Nov. 20, including option for cellular broadband.

Cons: Small selection of third-party applications available from Amazon. No rear camera for taking video and photos. Data storage cannot be expanded with memory cards.

Amazon.com Inc.’s regular Kindle Fire:

— Price: $ 159 with 8 gigabytes of storage

— Screen size: 7 inches diagonally

— Screen resolution: 1024 by 600 pixels

— Weight: 0.88 pounds

— Cameras: none

— Battery life: 8.5 hours.

— Operating system: Modified version of Google’s Android

Pros: Cheap and portable. Convenient access to Amazon store.

Cons: No-frills tablet lacks camera and microphone. Small selection of third-party applications available from Amazon. Data storage cannot be expanded with memory cards. No option for cellular wireless broadband.

Google Inc.’s Nexus 7

— Price: $ 199 with 16 gigabytes of storage, $ 249 with 32 GB. Add $ 50 for 32 GB model with cellular capability (available Nov. 13).

— Screen size: 7 inches diagonally

— Screen resolution: 1280 x 800 pixels

— Weight: 0.75 pounds

— Cameras: Front-facing, 1.2 megapixel camera

— Battery life: 8 hours

— Operating system: Google’s Android

Pros: Access to a variety of games, utilities and other software for Android devices, though not as extensive as apps available for iPad. Option for cellular wireless broadband.

Cons: Integrates with Google Play store, which is still new and isn’t as robust as Apple or Amazon’s stores. Data storage cannot be expanded with memory cards.

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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War photography exhibit debuts in Houston museum

HOUSTON (AP) — It was a moment Nina Berman did not expect to capture when she entered an Illinois wedding studio in 2006. She knew Tyler Ziegel had been horribly injured, his face mutilated beyond recognition by a suicide bombing in the Iraq War. She knew he was marrying his pretty high school sweetheart, perfect in a white, voluminous dress.

It was their expressions that were surprising.

"People don't think this war has any impact on Americans? Well here it is," Berman says of the image of a somber bride staring blankly, unsmiling at the camera, her war-ravaged groom alongside her, his head down.

"This was even more shocking because we're used to this kind of over-the-top joy that feels a little put on, and then you see this picture where they look like survivors of something really serious," Berman added.

The photograph that won a first place prize in the World Press Photos Award contest will stand out from other battlefield images in an exhibit "WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath" that debuts Sunday — Veterans Day — in the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. From there, the exhibit will travel to The Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington and The Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, N.Y.

The exhibit was painstakingly built by co-curators Anne Wilkes Tucker and Will Michels after the museum purchased a print of the famous picture of the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima, taken Feb. 23, 1945, by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal. The curators decided the museum didn't have enough conflict photos, Tucker said, and in 2004, the pair began traveling around the country and the world in search of pictures.

Over nearly eight years and after viewing more than 1 million pictures, Tucker and Michels created an exhibit that includes 480 objects, including photo albums, original magazines and old cameras, by 280 photographers from 26 countries.

Some are well-known — such as the Rosenthal's picture and another AP photograph, of a naked girl running from a napalm attack during the Vietnam War taken in 1972 by Huynh Cong "Nick" Ut. Others, such as the Incinerated Iraqi, of a man's burned body seen through the shattered windshield of his car, will be new to most viewers.

"The point of all the photographs is that when a conflict occurs, it lingers," Tucker said.

The pictures hang on stark gray walls, and some are in small rooms with warning signs at the entrance designed to allow visitors to decide whether they want to view images that can be brutal in their honesty.

"It's something that we did to that man. Americans did it, we did it intentionally and it's a haunting picture," Michels said of the image of the burned Iraqi that hangs inside one of the rooms.

In some images, such as Don McCullin's picture of a U.S. Marine throwing a grenade at a North Vietnamese soldier in Hue, it is clear the photographer was in danger when immortalizing the moment. Looking at his image, McCullin recalled deciding to travel to Hue instead of Khe Sahn, as he had initially planned.

"It was the best decision I ever made," he said, smiling slightly as he looked at the picture, explaining that he took a risk by standing behind the Marine.

"This hand took a bullet, shattered it. It looked like a cauliflower," he said, pointing to the still-upraised hand that threw the grenade. "So the people he was trying to kill were trying to kill him."

McCullin, who worked at that time for The Sunday Times in London, has covered conflicts all over the world, from Lebanon and Israel to Biafra. Now 77, McCullin says he wonders, still, whether the hundreds of photos he's taken have been worthwhile. At times, he said, he lost faith in what he was doing because when one war ends, another begins.

Yet he believes journalists and photographers must never stop telling about the "waste of man in war."

"After seeing so much of it, I'm tired of thinking, 'Why aren't the people who rule our lives ... getting it?' " McCullin said, adding that he'd like to drag them all into the exhibit for an hour.

Berman didn't see the conflicts unfold. Instead, she waited for the wounded to come home, seeking to tell a story about war's aftermath.

Her project on the wounded developed in 2003. The Iraq War was at its height, and there was still no database, she said, to find names of wounded warriors returning home. So she scoured local newspapers on the Internet.

In 2004 she published a book called "Purple Hearts" that includes photographs taken over nine months of 20 different people. All were photographed at home, not in hospitals where, she said, "there's this expectation that this will all work out fine."

The curators, meanwhile, chose to tell the story objectively — refusing through the images they chose or the exhibit they prepared to take a pro- or anti-war stance, a decision that has invited criticism and sparked debate.

And maybe, that is the point.

___

Plushnick-Masti can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/RamitMastiAP

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Mind Faded, Darrell Royal’s Wisdom and Humor Intact Till End

Three days before his death last week at 88, Darrell Royal told his wife, Edith: “We need to go back to Hollis” — in Oklahoma. “Uncle Otis died.”

“Oh, Darrell,” she said, “Uncle Otis didn’t die.”

Royal, a former University of Texas football coach, chuckled and said, “Well, Uncle Otis will be glad to hear that.”

The Royal humor never faded, even as he sank deeper into Alzheimer’s disease. The last three years, I came to understand this as well as anyone. We had known each other for more than 40 years. In the 1970s, Royal was a virile, driven, demanding man with a chip on his shoulder bigger than Bevo, the Longhorns mascot. He rarely raised his voice to players. “But we were scared to death of him,” the former quarterback Bill Bradley said.

Royal won 3 national championships and 167 games before retiring at 52. He was a giant in college football, having stood shoulder to shoulder with the Alabama coach Bear Bryant. Royal’s Longhorns defeated one of Bryant’s greatest teams, with Joe Namath at quarterback, in the 1965 Orange Bowl. Royal went 3-0-1 in games against Bryant.

Royal and I were reunited in the spring of 2010. I barely recognized him. The swagger was gone. His mind had faded. Often he stared aimlessly across the room. I scheduled an interview with him for my book “Courage Beyond the Game: The Freddie Steinmark Story.” Still, I worried that his withering mind could no longer conjure up images of Steinmark, the undersize safety who started 21 straight winning games for the Longhorns in the late 1960s. Steinmark later developed bone cancer that robbed him of his left leg.

When I met with Royal and his wife, I quickly learned that his long-term memory was as clear as a church bell. For two hours, Royal took me back to Steinmark’s recruiting trip to Austin in 1967, through the Big Shootout against Arkansas in 1969, to the moment President Richard M. Nixon handed him the national championship trophy in the cramped locker room in Fayetteville. He recalled the day at M. D. Anderson Hospital in Houston the next week when doctors informed Steinmark that his leg would be amputated if a biopsy revealed cancer. Royal never forgot the determined expression on Steinmark’s face, nor the bravery in his heart.

The next morning, Royal paced the crowded waiting room floor and said: “This just can’t be happening to a good kid like Freddie Steinmark. This just can’t be happening.”

With the love of his coach, Steinmark rose to meet the misfortune. Nineteen days after the amputation, he stood with crutches on the sideline at the Cotton Bowl for the Notre Dame game. After the Longhorns defeated the Fighting Irish, Royal tearfully presented the game ball to Steinmark.

Four decades later, while researching the Steinmark book, I became close to Royal again. As I was leaving his condominium the day of the interview, I said, “Coach, do you still remember me?” He smiled and said, “Now, Jim Dent, how could I ever forget you?” My sense of self-importance lasted about three seconds. Royal chuckled. He pointed across the room to the message board next to the front door that read, “Jim Dent appt. at 10 a.m.”

Edith and his assistant, Colleen Kieke, read parts of my book to him. One day, Royal told me, “It’s really a great book.” But I can’t be certain how much he knew of the story.

Like others, I was troubled to see Royal’s memory loss. He didn’t speak for long stretches. He smiled and posed for photographs. He seemed the happiest around his former players. He would call his longtime friend Tom Campbell, an all-Southwest Conference defensive back from the 1960s, and say, “What are you up to?” That always meant, “Let’s go drink a beer.”

As her husband’s memory wore thin, Edith did not hide him. Instead, she organized his 85th birthday party and invited all of his former players. Quarterback James Street, who engineered the famous 15-14 comeback against Arkansas in 1969, sat by Royal’s side and helped him remember faces and names. The players hugged their coach, then turned away to hide the tears.

In the spring of 2010, I was invited to the annual Mexican lunch for Royal attended by about 75 of his former players. A handful of them were designated to stand up and tell Royal what he meant to them. Royal smiled through each speech as his eyes twinkled. I was mesmerized by a story the former defensive tackle Jerrel Bolton told. He recalled that Royal had supported him after the murder of his wife some 30 year earlier.

“Coach, you told me it was like a big cut on my arm, that the scab would heal, but that the wound would always come back,” Bolton said. “It always did.”

Royal seemed to drink it all in. But everyone knew his mind would soon dim.

The last time I saw him was June 20 at the County Line, a barbecue restaurant next to Bull Creek in Austin. Because Royal hated wheelchairs and walkers, the former Longhorn Mike Campbell, Tom’s twin, and I helped him down the stairs by wrapping our arms around his waist and gripping the back of his belt. I ordered his lunch, fed him his sandwich and cleaned his face with a napkin. He looked at me and said, “Was I a college player in the 1960s?”

“No, Coach,” I said. “But you were a great player for the Oklahoma Sooners in the late 1940s. You quarterbacked Oklahoma to an 11-0 record and the Sooners’ first national championship in 1949.”

He smiled and said, “Well, I’ll be doggone.”

After lunch, Mike Campbell and I carried him up the stairs. We sat him on a bench outside as Tom Campbell fetched the car. In that moment, the lunch crowd began to spill out of the restaurant. About 20 customers recognized Royal. They took his photograph with camera phones. Royal smiled and welcomed the hugs.

“He didn’t remember a thing about it,” Tom Campbell said later. “But it did his heart a whole lot of good.”

Jim Dent is the author of “The Junction Boys” and eight other books.

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