Craig Watkins: What Schools Are Really Blocking When They Block Social Media

The debates about schools and social media are a subject of great public and policy interests.? In reality, the debate has been shaped by one key fact: the almost universal decision by school administrators to block social media.? Because social media is such a big part of many students social lives, cultural identities, and informal learning networks schools actually find themselves grappling with social media everyday but often from a defensive posture -- reacting to student disputes that play out over social media or policing rather than engaging student's social media behaviors.

Education administrators block social media because they believe it threatens the personal and emotional safety of their students.? Or they believe social media is a distraction that diminishes student engagement and the quality of the learning experience.? Schools also block social media to prevent students from accessing inappropriate content.? I have often wondered what are schools really blocking when they block social media. Working in a high school this year has given me added perspective.

In one class my graduate assistant and I are working with a teacher in a Technology Applications class.? Our goal is to reinvent the classroom and, more important, the learning that takes place.? We structured the learning to be autonomous, self-directed, creative, collaborative, and networked. We decided to let the student teams pick which digital media project they wanted to pursue.? Some students elected to team together to produce a series of Public Service Announcements (PSAs) that target teens.? These students liked the idea of using digital media to tell compelling stories about the challenges of teen life. ?Other students wanted to produce short narratives. ?They were excited about creating worlds, characters, and narrative dilemmas that allowed their artistic identities to flourish.

In one of our first activities we selected a sample of teen-produced PSAs and narrative shorts for the students to study. ?We asked them to view and critique the different styles, aesthetics, narrative strategies, and technical approaches to digital media storytelling. ?The teacher posted the links to the videos online and provided the instructions. ?Suddenly one student raised her hand. ?She could not access some of the videos.? Another student raised her hand. ?She was having the same problem. ?At least two of the videos that we asked them to critique were posted to YouTube. ?The teacher and I had overlooked the fact that YouTube was blocked.? A few students used proxy servers to access the videos, a typical workaround in this school.? As we struggled to figure out a way to proceed with the learning activity it was clear we needed to recalibrate the design of the class.

We faced a similar challenge in a game design class we are working with.? Some of the students were intrigued by the prospects of using a Facebook poll to conduct research to build 'user personas' of their peers. ?We thought the poll would be useful in teaching them some of the principles of human-centered design and also expand their social media repertoire.? But because Facebook is blocked the poll could only be conducted outside of school. ?This prevented us from working with them in the classroom. ?It also posed a problem for some of the students who either lacked access to the internet at home or have to share computers with parents and siblings.

We are learning a lot about how young people from this community, which has been hit especially hard by the recession and the growing wealth gap in the United States, are managing their participation in the digital world. ?The old theories about the digital divide -- the access narrative -- only explain a small part of what is happening in edge communities.

The real issue, of course, is not social media but learning.? Specifically, the fact that our schools are disconnected from young learners and how their learning practices are evolving. ?The decision to block social media is inconsistent with how students use social media as a powerful node in their learning network. ?Can social media be a distraction in the classroom? ?Absolutely. ?Will some students access questionable content if given the opportunity? ?Yes. ?But many students use social media to enhance their learning, expand the reach of the classroom, find the things they 'need to know,' and fashion their own personal learning networks. ?We have met students who have used YouTube to learn how to play a musical instrument -- a not so insignificant fact for students whose families can not afford private music lessons.? We have seen students use YouTube to help them pursue an interest in building their own gaming computer or share a multi-media project that they developed.? Last summer I wrote about students from this same school and how they created a dynamic learning community to support their interest in creating games.? Many of them shared YouTube videos with each other in order to learn how to use the game authoring software, GameSalad. ?(Because it was a summer program, the students and their teacher successfully lobbied to have YouTube unblocked.)

A key part of the work we are doing with students reaches beyond the typical new media competencies such as computer, information, and digital literacy.? The teacher believes network literacy is also crucial.? That is, teaching students what Henry Jenkins explains is, "the ability to effectively tap social networks to disperse ones' own ideas and media products."? Cathy Davidson's students at Duke made a case for network literacy, that is, "using online sources to network, knowledge-outreach, publicize content, collaborate and innovate."? A number of these students are creators and makers.? They design blogs, websites, games, and graphic art.? By blocking social media schools are also blocking the opportunity:

1) ???to teach students about the inventive and powerful ways communities around the world are using social media

2) ?? for students and teachers to experience the educational potential of social media together

3) ???for students to distribute their work with the larger world

4) ???for students to reimagine their creative and civic identities in the age of networked media

In the not so distant future the notion that schools should block social media will become difficult to defend. ?Before that happens schools will have to reimagine their mission in the lives of young learners, the communities they serve, and the extraordinary possibilities of networked media and networked literacy.

This post originally appeared on DMLcentral, a collaborative blog dedicated to reimagining education in the information age.

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Follow Craig Watkins on Twitter: www.twitter.com/scraigwatkins

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-watkins/what-schools-are-really-b_b_1245209.html

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Body clock receptor linked to diabetes in new genetic study

Monday, January 30, 2012

A study published in Nature Genetics today has found new evidence for a link between the body clock hormone melatonin and type 2 diabetes. The study found that people who carry rare genetic mutations in the receptor for melatonin have a much higher risk of type 2 diabetes.

The findings should help scientists to more accurately assess personal diabetes risk and could lead to the development of personalised treatments.

Previous research has found that people who work night shifts have a higher risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Studies have also found that if volunteers have their sleep disrupted repeatedly for three days, they temporarily develop symptoms of diabetes.

The body's sleep-wake cycle is controlled by the hormone melatonin, which has effects including drowsiness and lowering body temperature. In 2008, a genetic study led by Imperial College London discovered that people with common variations in the gene for MT2, a receptor for melatonin, have a slightly higher risk of type 2 diabetes.

The new study reveals that carrying any of four rare mutations in the MT2 gene increases a person's risk of developing type 2 diabetes six times. The release of insulin, which regulates blood sugar levels, is known to be regulated by melatonin. The researchers suggest that mutations in the MT2 gene may disrupt the link between the body clock and insulin release, leading to abnormal control of blood sugar.

Professor Philippe Froguel, from the School of Public Health at Imperial College London, who led the study, said: "Blood sugar control is one of the many processes regulated by the body's biological clock. This study adds to our understanding of how the gene that carries the blueprint for a key component in the clock can influence people's risk of diabetes.

"We found very rare variants of the MT2 gene that have a much larger effect than more common variants discovered before. Although each mutation is rare, they are common in the sense that everyone has a lot of very rare mutations in their DNA. Cataloguing these mutations will enable us to much more accurately assess a person's risk of disease based on their genetics."

In the study, the Imperial team and their collaborators at several institutions in the UK and France examined the MT2 gene in 7,632 people to look for more unusual variants that have a bigger effect on disease risk. They found 40 variants associated with type 2 diabetes, four of which were very rare and rendered the receptor completely incapable of responding to melatonin. The scientists then confirmed the link with these four variants in an additional sample of 11,854 people.

Professor Froguel and his team analysed each mutation by testing what effect they have on the MT2 receptor in human cells in the lab. The mutations that completely prevented the receptor from working proved to have a very big effect on diabetes risk, suggesting that there is a direct link between MT2 and the disease.

###

Imperial College London: http://www.imperial.ac.uk/press

Thanks to Imperial College London for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/117165/Body_clock_receptor_linked_to_diabetes_in_new_genetic_study

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Second exam important in child sex-abuse cases (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) ? When a child is thought to have been sexually abused, a second medical exam may be key to picking up injuries and sexually transmitted infections, a study published Monday finds.

The American Academy of Pediatrics already recommends that kids being examined for sexual assault have a follow-up exam in the weeks afterward.

But until now, no studies had looked at the benefits of doing that.

For the new report, researchers reviewed the records of 727 children and teenagers who were evaluated for sexual abuse or assault over a five-year period.

They found that almost one-quarter of the time, the patients' second exam changed the findings of the first.

In 18 percent of cases, there was a shift in the diagnosis of traumatic injuries.

Most often, the original examiner had said it was unclear whether the child had an injury suggestive of sexual assault (like tears or bruising), but the second examiner concluded that the findings were "normal."

However, that "does not in any way" mean the child wasn't sexually abused, said Dr. Nancy D. Kellogg, one of the researchers on the study and a child abuse expert at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio.

It's well known that sex-abuse victims often do not have telltale traumatic injuries, Kellogg told Reuters Health.

So it's what the child says that's most important.

Kellogg's team also found that the second medical exam helped pick up sexually transmitted diseases that weren't caught initially. That was true in nearly seven percent of cases.

Most often, Kellogg said, the follow-up exam caught genital warts -- which would not yet have been apparent during the first exam.

The findings, reported in the journal Pediatrics, are based on 727 children and teens who were first examined at one San Antonio ER or the regional child advocacy center. A doctor or nurse trained in child abuse cases performed the exams.

The second exam was done about a month later at the child advocacy center, by an experienced child-abuse doctor or nurse.

During the initial exam, Kellogg explained, kids are "anxious or in pain -- they're traumatized. And that can affect the examiner's ability to detect things."

But the researchers also found that the first examiner's experience mattered. If he or she had done fewer than 100 such exams, the second examiner was more likely to reach different conclusions on whether the child had a traumatic injury.

That, Kellogg said, points to the importance of having an experienced doctor or nurse do the second exam.

Some hospitals, she noted, have special "child abuse teams" who can evaluate kids for sexual assault. There may also be a nearby child advocacy center with doctors or nurses who can do the exam.

As for areas where those services aren't available, Kellogg said she hopes the current findings give less-experienced pediatricians some guidance in evaluating kids for sexual abuse.

"We were a bit surprised by the findings," she noted. "We didn't expect the follow-up exam to make such a big difference in so many kids."

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/A83tBr Pediatrics, online January 30, 2012.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/parenting/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120130/hl_nm/us_second_exam_child_sex_abuse

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Jumping Spiders see clearly by blurring their vision

Researchers in Japan have now discovered that the arachnids accurately sense distances by comparing a blurry version of an image with a clear one, a method called image defocus.

Jumping spiders, which hunt by pouncing on their prey, gauge distances to their unsuspecting meals in a way that appears to be unique in the animal kingdom, a new study finds.

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The superability boils down to seeing green, the researchers found.

There are several different visual systems that organisms use to accurately and reliably judge distance and depth. Humans, for example, have binocular stereovision. Because?our eyes?are spaced apart, they receive visual information from different angles, which our brains use to automatically triangulate distances. Other animals, such as insects, adjust the focal length of the lenses in their eyes, or move their heads side to side to create an effect called motion parallax ? nearer objects will move across their field of vision more quickly than objects farther away.

However,?jumping spiders?(Hasarius adansoni) lack any kind of focal adjustment system, have eyes that are too close together for binocular stereovision and don?t appear to use motion parallax while hunting. So how are these creatures able to perceive depth?

Researchers in Japan have now discovered that the arachnids accurately sense distances by comparing a blurry version of an image with a clear one, a method called image defocus.

Jumping spiders have four eyes densely packed in a row: two large principal eyes and two small lateral eyes. The spider uses its lateral eyes to sense the motion of an object, such as a fly, which it then zeros in on using its principal eyes, Akihisa Terakita, a biologist at Osaka City University in Japan and lead author of the new study, explained in an email to LiveScience.

Rather than having a single layer of?photoreceptor cells, the retinas in the spider?s principal eyes have four distinct photoreceptor layers. When Terakita and his colleagues took a close look at the spider's principal eyes, they found that the two layers closest to the surface contain ultraviolet-sensitive pigments, whereas the deeper layers contain green-sensitive pigments.

However, because of the layers' respective distances from the lens of the eye, incoming green light is only focused on the deepest layer, while the other green-sensitive retinal layer receives defocused or fuzzy images. The researchers hypothesized that the spiders gauge depth cues from the amount of defocus in this fuzzy layer, which is proportional to the distance an object is to the lens of the eye.

To test this, they placed a spider and three to six?fruit flies?in a cylindrical plastic chamber, housed in a white styrene foam box. They then bathed the bugs in different colored lights: If the defocus of green light is important to the spiders, then they should not be able to accurately judge jumping distance in the absence of green light.

Sure enough, the spiders could easily catch the flies under green light, but consistently underestimated their jumps under red light (which doesn't contain shorter-wavelength light, such as green and blue). The researchers suggest that green light is just right to produce the image defocus necessary to gauge distances, unlike other wavelengths of light.

The team doesn?t know if any other animals employ similar depth-perception techniques, though they think the findings could have important implications for the future design of?visual systems in robots.

"Further investigation of the optics, retinal structure and neural basis of depth perception in jumping spiders may provide biological inspiration for computer vision as well," they write in their study, published in the Jan. 27 issue of the journal Science.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/aC8TqWrXnqg/Jumping-Spiders-see-clearly-by-blurring-their-vision

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Romney would rank among richest presidents ever (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Just how rich is Mitt Romney? Add up the wealth of the last eight presidents, from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama. Then double that number. Now you're in Romney territory.

He would be among the richest presidents in American history if elected ? probably in the top four.

He couldn't top George Washington who, with nearly 60,000 acres and more than 300 slaves, is considered the big daddy of presidential wealth. After that, it gets complicated, depending how you rate Thomas Jefferson's plantation, Herbert Hoover's millions from mining or John F. Kennedy's share of the vast family fortune, as well as the finer points of factors like inflation adjustment.

But it's safe to say the Roosevelts had nothing on Romney, and the Bushes are nowhere close.

The former Massachusetts governor has disclosed only the broad outlines of his wealth, putting it somewhere from $190 million to $250 million. That easily could make him 50 times richer than Obama, who falls in the still-impressive-to-most-of-us range of $2.2 million to $7.5 million.

"I think it's almost hard to conceptualize what $250 million means," said Shamus Khan, a Columbia University sociologist who studies the wealthy. "People say Romney made $50,000 a day while not working last year. What do you do with all that money? I can't even imagine spending it. Well, maybe ..."

Of course, an unbelievable boatload of bucks is just one way to think of Romney's net worth, and the 44 U.S. presidents make up a pretty small pond for him to swim in. Put alongside America's 400 or so billionaires, Romney wouldn't make a ripple.

So here's a look where Romney's riches rank ? among the most flush Americans, the White House contenders, and the rest of us:

_Within the 1 percent:

"Romney is small potatoes compared with the ultra-wealthy," said Jeffrey Winters, a political scientist at Northwestern University who studies the nation's elites.

After all, even in the rarefied world of the top 1 percent, there's a big difference between life at the top and at the bottom.

A household needs to bring in roughly $400,000 per year to make the cut. Romney and his wife, Ann, have been making 50 times that ? more than $20 million a year. In 2009, only 8,274 federal tax filers had income above $10 million. Romney is solidly within that elite 0.006 percent of all U.S. taxpayers.

Congress is flush with millionaires. Only a few are in the Romney realm, including Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, who was the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004. Kerry's ranking would climb much higher if the fortune of his wife, Teresa Heinz, were counted. She is the widow of Sen. John Heinz, heir to the Heinz ketchup fortune.

Further up the ladder, top hedge fund managers can pocket $1 billion or more in a single year.

At the top of the wealth pile sits Bill Gates, worth $59 billion, according to Forbes magazine's estimates.

_As a potential president:

Romney clearly stands out here. America's super rich generally don't jockey to live in the White House. A few have toyed with the idea, most notably New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whom Forbes ranks as the 12th richest American, worth $19.5 billion. A lesser billionaire, Ross Perot, bankrolled his own third-party campaigns in 1992 and 1996.

Many presidents weren't particularly well-off, especially 19th century leaders such as Abraham Lincoln, James Buchanan and Ulysses S. Grant. Nor was the 33rd president, Harry Truman.

"These things ebb and flow," said sociologist Khan. "It's not the case that all presidents were always rich."

A few former chief executives died in debt, including Thomas Jefferson, ranked in a Forbes study as the third-wealthiest president.

Comparing the landlocked wealth of early Americans such as Washington, Jefferson and James Madison, with today's millionaires is tricky, even setting aside the lack of documentation and economic changes over two centuries.

Research by 24/7 Wall St., a news and analysis website, estimated Washington's wealth at the equivalent of $525 million in 2010 dollars.

Yet Washington had to borrow money to pay for his trip to New York for his inauguration in 1789, according to Dennis Pogue, vice president for preservation at Mount Vernon, Washington's Virginia estate. His money was tied up in land, reaping only a modest cash income after farm expenses.

"He was a wealthy guy, there's no doubt about it," Pogue said, and probably among the dozen richest Virginians of his time. But, "the wealthiest person in America then was nothing in comparison to what these folks are today."

_How does Romney stand next to a regular Joe?

He's roughly 1,800 times richer.

The typical U.S. household was worth $120,300 in 2007, according to the Census Bureau's most recent data, although that number is sure to have dropped since the recession. A typical family's income is $50,000.

Calculations from 24/7 Wall St. of the peak lifetime wealth (or peak so far) of Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama add up to a total $128 million ? while Romney reports assets of up to $250 million.

If you consider only those presidents' assets while in office, without millions earned later from speeches and books, their combined total would be substantially lower, and Romney's riches would leave the pack even further behind.

___

Online:

Forbes' richest presidents list: http://tinyurl.com/82erdyb

24/7 Wall St. on presidents' net worth: http://tinyurl.com/328qyu2

___

Associated Press writer Stephen Ohlemacher contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120128/ap_on_el_pr/us_how_rich_is_romney

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The World's Greatest Chefs Talk About their Favourite Kitchen Tools [Video]

Hearing Anthony Bourdain, Eric Ripert, Jos? Andr?s, and April Bloomfield talk about their favorite kitchen tools won't make you a better chef. But that doesn't mean you can't learn from them. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/olAiAR6aZlU/the-worlds-greatest-chefs-talk-about-their-favourite-kitchen-tools

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Flurry: Amazon?s Kindle Fire Is Already Starting To Smoke Samsung?s Galaxy Tab

Wuh oh, Samsung ? better watch your tail. While Apple might not be seeing any impact (be it positive or negative) on iPad sales from the launch of the Kindle Fire, Samsung's Galaxy Tab ought to be feeling the heat. Tapping into the data provided by their app analytics platform (which they estimate has found its way onto around 90% of the Android devices out there), Flurry highlights a few surprising numbers.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/oSEcZvkoHZc/

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EU, IMF press Greece on reforms before aid flows (Reuters)

ATHENS (Reuters) ? The European Union and IMF want Greece to push through more budget cuts and implement a series of long-agreed austerity reforms before they agree on a new bailout the country needs to avert bankruptcy, a report obtained by Reuters shows.

All eyes have been on Athens' tortuous debt swap talks with its private creditors over the past week, but Greece also needs to convince its euro zone partners and the International Monetary Fund to release a 130-billion euro package if it is to avoid a chaotic default.

Athens' partners have grown increasingly exasperated with its repeated fiscal slippages and delays on reforms and want to see progress before they wrap up Greece's second multi-billion euro bailout in three years.

The EU, IMF and ECB lenders - known as the troika - have drawn up a report this week which includes a list of measures they want to see enacted by Athens.

Top of the list is passing a supplementary budget with more cuts to reach fiscal targets in 2012. The troika suggests large spending cuts in defense and health spending as well as cutting redundant state entities. The document does not specify the amount of cuts needed.

The EU and IMF are also pressing Greece to adopt a much-delayed reform of supplementary pensions, ensure that a plan to replace only 1 out of 5 civil servants leaving the workforce is enacted and want Greece to finalize the opening up of its many closed professions such as lawyers and pharmacists, which they have been demanding for years, the document shows.

They also want the Bank of Greece to complete its assessment of Greek banks' capital shortfall and they expect the government to enact legslation to improve wage flexibility and further liberalize product and service markets, the document says.

The list of measures is not final and could change after discussions with the Greek authorities, the document says.

Government spokesman Pantelis Kapsis said the government would try to negotiate some of the points on the list but repeated that Athens needed the bailout loan to stay afloat.

Asked if Greece would default without the aid, he told Skai TV: "It's obvious, if we don't get the loan, how are we going to find the money?"

But he added: "This is not what we will finally pass, we should keep that in mind. It's a list by the troika that opens up all those issues ... Some of them are past obligations, some are up for negotiation."

Talks with EU, IMF and ECB inspectors on the new bailout program are expected to go well into next week, sources close to the talks say, with slow process so far on fleshing out reforms required by the lenders on areas such as cutting the public sector workforce and making wage rules in the public and private sector more flexible.

Looming elections are distracting senior Greek officials and politicians from enacting the unpopular austerity reforms.

Greece's co-ruling conservative New Democracy party wants snap elections as a new bailout deal is clinched and no later than April 8.

Greece and its private creditors made progress on Thursday in talks on restructuring its debt, both sides said, and they will continue negotiating on Friday with the aim of sealing an agreement within a few days. There was no set time yet for Friday's meetings.

(Reporting by Ingrid Melander, editing by Mike Peacock)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120127/bs_nm/us_greece

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Friends say Demi Moore 'hyper' before 911 call

By Randee Dawn

The mystery behind Demi Moore's sudden hospitalization Monday is beginning to become clearer, though many details remain unsubstantiated.

As TODAY's Miguel Almaguer reported Friday, Moore has checked out of the hospital, though it's unclear whether she is back at home. Almaguer spoke with E! News Chief Correspondent Ken Baker, who reported that on Monday, the night of the 911 call that sent her to the hospital, Moore was having a "girls' night in" with friends. Baker said that Moore was acting "pretty hyper"?and "a little bit crazy" while dessert and dinner was being served, and "not acting her normal self."

By 10, said Almaguer, nearly all the guests had left -- but Moore began shaking and had a seizure. What exactly caused her collapse, however, is only being stated by unnamed sources: TMZ claims it was nitrous oxide, and further sources have told People?magazine that prescription drug use contributed to her recent breakup with Ashton Kutcher.

Meanwhile, Almaguer reported that L.A. officials will release that 911 call, but have requested that personal information about her medical condition and medication be removed to comply with federal medical privacy laws.

According to her publicist, Moore is "working on improving her overall health" at this time.

Meanwhile, Moore has reportedly been replaced on "Lovelace," a biopic about porn star Linda Lovelace, in which she was slated to have a small part as Gloria Steinem. Us Weekly is now saying that a source has confirmed that "Weeds" star Mary Louise Parker will step into the role.

Related stories:

Source: http://todayentertainment.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/27/10250012-911-call-about-demi-moore-to-be-edited-released

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Building collapses in center of Rio de Janeiro (AP)

RIO DE JANEIRO ? A multistory building collapsed in Rio's center Wednesday evening, leaving rubble strewn over a wide area but confusion about the number of possible victims and the cause.

Thick layers of debris covered cars and motorcycles. A neighboring building sustained serious damage, and television showed at least two people on its roof apparently awaiting help from firefighters.

There were differing reports about possible deaths.

A spokeswoman from the city's Civil Defense department said two people were confirmed dead, but officials from City Hall and the municipal health department later disputed that, saying no deaths had been confirmed by early Thursday. It was not clear how many people were injured.

Searchers were still picking through the rubble hours after the collapse.

There was a strong smell of natural gas in the area, but Rio's mayor said there were doubts that a gas leak caused the accident.

"There apparently was not an explosion. The collapse occurred because of structural damages," he said. "I don't think there was a gas leak."

Witnesses had reported hearing a loud explosion-like sound just before the building fell, and a strong odor of gas hung over the scene.

It was not immediately clear how big the damaged buildings were. The one nearly destroyed was at least five stories high. It sat near Rio's historic Teatro Municipal and the Fine Arts Museum, both of which appeared undamaged.

The Civil Defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said she believed the collapsed building was for commercial use and not residential. The explosion happened after 8 p.m. and there were hopes that would minimize the number of people who might have been in the area.

Police cordoned off the area and electricity to the street was cut off for safety reasons.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120126/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_brazil_building_collapse

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Mass. gov suggests goalie's DC snub was rude

BOSTON (AP) ? A Boston Bruins goalie's decision to skip a White House ceremony with President Barack Obama because he believes the federal government is "out of control" points to a growing lack of courtesy in the country, Gov. Deval Patrick said Thursday.

Patrick, a Democrat, was asked about the controversy Thursday during his monthly "Ask the Governor" program on WTKK-FM. He didn't directly criticize goalie Tim Thomas, but suggested that the snub showed disrespect toward the presidency.

"He's a phenomenal hockey player and he's entitled to his views," Patrick said. "It just feels like we are losing in this country basic courtesy and grace."

The governor said while he strongly disagreed with many of the policies of former President George W. Bush, a Republican, he was always respectful when they met.

"I always referred to him as Mr. President, I stood when he came into the room. There are rules to live by," Patrick said.

The ceremony on Monday was to honor the Bruins for winning the Stanley Cup last season, their first championship in 39 years. Thomas was named the Most Valuable Player of the Stanley Cup finals against the Vancouver Canucks.

Thomas explained his choice in a statement posted on his Facebook page.

"I believe the federal government has grown out of control, threatening the rights, liberties, and property of the people," he wrote.

Thomas blamed all three branches of government and both political parties.

"This was not about politics or party, as in my opinion both parties are responsible for the situation we are in as a country," he said in the statement, adding that he did not plan to speak further about his decision.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2012-01-26-Patrick-Thomas-White%20House/id-489e7010dbab44e9833bda3b4c445186

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McIlroy leads with 67, Woods 3 back in Abu Dhabi (AP)

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates ? Rory McIlroy opened his season by outplaying Tiger Woods in the first round of the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship, shooting a 5-under 67 Thursday for a share of the lead.

Woods shot a 70 in a threesome with McIlroy and top-ranked Luke Donald, who finished with a 71. Robert Karlsson tied for the lead while Gareth Maybin, Richard Finch and Jean-Baptiste Gonnet were one stroke back.

Woods played bogey-free golf that produced few momentous shots and two birdies. He missed several birdie chances, including a 6-footer on his ninth, the 18th hole.

"It was a good ball-striking round," Woods said. "I had a hard time reading the greens out there. The greens were pretty grainy and I just had a hard time getting a feel for it. Toward the end I hit some pretty good putts, but overall I got fooled a lot on my reads."

McIlroy, the U.S. Open champion who has had three top-five finishes in Abu Dhabi, made three birdies on his first four holes but erratic driving led to two bogeys on the next four. He steadied himself with three birdies on his back nine, including a chip-in on No. 8 from just off the green.

"It's a nice way to start the competitive season, I suppose," McIlroy said. "I didn't feel like I played that good. I definitely didn't strike the ball as good as I have been the last couple of weeks. I think it's just because your first competitive round of the season, card in your hand, you can get a little bit tentative or a little apprehensive."

Woods also struggled with his approaches shots at the National Course at the Abu Dhabi Golf Club, which was playing much tougher than in the past with narrower fairways and thicker rough. That resulted in many 25- and 30-footers he couldn't sink.

Sergio Garcia (71) and Jose Manuel Lara (70) each had hole-in-one on the par-3 12th hole. KJ Choi, Colin Montgomerie and Padraig Harrington joined the group at 71. Second-ranked Lee Westwood (72) and defending champion Martin Kaymer (77) got off to poor starts and never challenged.

McIlroy calls Woods a friend and was chatting with his playing partner for much of the day. He said he didn't take much satisfaction from beating him in the first round.

"If it was the last day of the tournament and you're both going in there with a chance to win, I would take a lot of pride from that, obviously," said the 22-year-old Northern Irishman.

"But the first day of a tournament is a little different," he said. "You're just going out there and playing and seeing what you can do. But, hopefully, I can get myself into position where I do play with him on a Sunday and see how I get on."

After a seven-week layoff, Woods said he's fitter than he has been in years. He's coming off a victory at the Chevron World Challenge last month that ended a two-year title drought.

With the win, Woods moved to 25th in the world after briefly falling outside the top 50 last year. Before the victory, Woods finished third at the Australian Open and delivered the clinching point for the American team in the Presidents Cup.

"It felt the same as it had from Oz to the World Challenge to here," Woods said of his game. "I controlled my ball all day and just had a hard time getting a feel for these greens. They are grainy enough where I just didn't quite read them right, and I hit them good, and then the grain would take it, not take it. It was just difficult."

___

Follow Michael Casey on Twitter at https://twitter.com/mcasey1

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/sports/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120126/ap_on_sp_go_su/glf_abu_dhabi_championship

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Daring Raid (TIME)

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Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/191234361?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Kelly Rowland Brags About Relationships With Beyonce, Blue Ivy Carter

Kelly Rowland has been spending time with her BFF Beyonce and the most awesomest baby in the world (Blue Ivy Carter) and is making sure we know about it.

In a recent interview, Bey's former Destiny's Child collaborator gushed about just how beautiful Beyonce and Jay-Z's newborn is, as well as how perfect they are.

Gushed may be an understatement, actually.

"She is just…. more precious than a diamond. She is so stunning. So beautiful. I'm so happy for my sister and her husband. She's beautiful," said Kel of Blue.

They're not actually sisters, but we get the point. Kelly was asked if she's been visiting the baby often. She saod: "Absolutely! You have to be a good aunt!"

Again, not technically Blue's aunt. But point taken.

Kelly went on to say that basically, Jay and Bey are the best parents of ALL TIME (where's Kanye when you need him) and that Blue Ivy is the Messiah.

"She's in mommy-vile and her husband is in daddy-vile, and the baby is SO beautiful! Beyonce is an incredible mother. I'm so proud of her, so proud."

We have no doubt she's sincere, but one gets the sense she's trying to prove something as well. We get it, Kel. Bey rules. And you're friends. But ease up.

[Photo: WENN.com]

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/01/kelly-rowland-brags-about-relationships-with-beyonce-blue-ivy-ca/

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Facebook And Twitter Engineers Fight Google ?Search Plus Your World? With ?Don?t Be Evil?

Sometimes the nicest of people, when faced with the pressure of competition, make evil stupid decisions. That's pretty much what happened to Google when it realized that Facebook was about to eat its lunch with regards to of social data on the web -- so it started doing dumb things, like building Google Buzz, Wave and most recently rolling out "Search Plus Your World" which to the rest of the world just looks like "Search Plus Google+."

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/OdGtU9kxed4/

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Poland defends stance on treaty after web attacks (AP)

WARSAW, Poland ? Polish officials vowed Monday to stick to plans to sign an international copyright treaty that has outraged Internet activists and prompted an attack on government websites.

A government minister, Michal Boni, defended the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA. He said that signing the international treaty would not hamper Internet usage and that Poland will sign it on Thursday, as planned.

"The ACTA agreement in no way changes Polish laws or the rights of Internet users and Internet usage," Boni, the minister of administration and digitization, said after a meeting with Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Culture Minister Bogdan Zdrojewski.

Internet opponents of ACTA fear it could lead to censorship online.

Monday's developments came after a Twitter account using the name "AnonymousWiki" announced plans on the weekend to attack government websites to protest the government's support for ACTA. Within hours on Sunday, the websites of the prime minister, parliament and other government offices were unreachable or sluggish, the hallmarks of a denial-of-service attack.

The technique works by directing streams of bogus traffic at a website, jamming it in the same way that a telephone line can be overwhelmed by hundreds of prank calls.

In an initial response Sunday, government spokesman Pawel Gras suggested there hadn't been an attack at all on the sites. "This isn't an attack by hackers, but just the result of huge interest in the sites" of the government offices, he said, a comment that quickly became a source of ridicule on Facebook and other Internet sites.

By Monday, with the sites still paralyzed, the prime minister held a meeting to reconsider their stance on the treaty.

"It was a velvet attack by hackers, but still it was an attack. Pawel Gras was wrong," said Slawomir Neumann, a lawmaker with the government Civic Platform party. Neumann said the situation showed that the Polish government is poorly prepared to handle such attacks.

Boni acknowledged in a radio interview Monday morning that the government had failed to hold enough consultations with the public on the matter.

An opposition party, the Democratic Left Alliance, also called on the government to not sign the treaty in a gesture of solidarity with those who warn it could hurt Internet freedom.

Anonymous, the group suspected of involvement in the attacks, made a number of threats before and during the Internet disruptions.

"Dear Polish government, we will continue to disrupt and interfere with your government official websites until the 26th. Do not pass ACTA," one tweet by AnonymousWiki said.

It also threatened more trouble should Poland sign ACTA.

"We have dox files and leaked documentations on many Poland officials, if ACTA is passed, we will release these documents," AnonymousWiki said in a separate tweet.

Although its scope is broader, ACTA shares some similarities with the hotly debated Stop Online Piracy Act, which was shelved by U.S. lawmakers last week after Wikipedia and Google blacked out or partially obscured their websites for a day as part of a protest against Web censorship.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/internet/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120123/ap_on_hi_te/eu_poland_websites_attacked

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YouTube sucks up one hour of video every second

Paul Marks, senior technology correspondent

(Credit: VIEW CHINA PHOTO/Rex Features)

People who complain about some of the racier content on YouTube are often told that the sheer rate at which that content is uploaded makes it impossible to moderate. That claim would seem to be more than borne out by the figures released by Google, YouTube's owner, today.

The search giant's figures show that one hour of video is now being uploaded to Youtube every single second of the day. That upload rate - equivalent to 60 hours per minute - is an astonishing tenfold increase from its 2007 video upload rate.

And some 30 per cent of its growth has come in the last eight months, says Google. Just for fun, they've posted an animation called?onehourpersecond.com to show you just what happens in a Youtube-upload-second - and multiples thereof.

More amazing still, perhaps, is that Youtube's?footage is now getting 4 billion views per day - equivalent to more than half the people on Earth diving in to see crazy kittens, people telling their parents they are going to be grandparents, and lightning hitting aircraft. And it's not going to go away anytime soon: ever more Youtube channels are in the pipeline.?

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/1c115f38/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Conepercent0C20A120C0A10Cyoutube0Eis0Esucking0Eup0Ean0Ehour0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm

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Memo scandal witness refuses to travel to Pakistan

Akram Sheikh, lawyer of Mansoor Ijaz addressing a news conference outside the Supreme Court in Islamabad, Pakistan on Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. The chief witness in a secret memo scandal Mansoor Ijaz threatens to bring down the president will not travel to Pakistan to testify, claiming the government has set a trap to prevent him from leaving, his lawyer said Monday. (AP Photo/B.K.Bangash)

Akram Sheikh, lawyer of Mansoor Ijaz addressing a news conference outside the Supreme Court in Islamabad, Pakistan on Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. The chief witness in a secret memo scandal Mansoor Ijaz threatens to bring down the president will not travel to Pakistan to testify, claiming the government has set a trap to prevent him from leaving, his lawyer said Monday. (AP Photo/B.K.Bangash)

Akram Sheikh, lawyer of Mansoor Ijaz addresses a news conference outside the Supreme Court in Islamabad, Pakistan on Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. The chief witness in a secret memo scandal Mansoor Ijaz threatens to bring down the president will not travel to Pakistan to testify, claiming the government has set a trap to prevent him from leaving, his lawyer said Monday. (AP Photo/B.K.Bangash)

ISLAMABAD (AP) ? The chief witness in a secret memo scandal that threatens to bring down the president will not travel to Pakistan to testify, claiming the government has set a trap to prevent him from leaving, his lawyer said Monday.

Mansoor Ijaz offered to record his testimony and submit it to a Supreme Court commission that is investigating the scandal, said lawyer Akram Sheikh. Ijaz, a U.S. businessman of Pakistani origin, was scheduled to travel to Pakistan to appear before the commission on Tuesday but had bickered with the government over who would guarantee his safety.

Ijaz has accused the Pakistani government of orchestrating a memo, which he delivered to the U.S. last year, asking Washington to help stop a supposed military coup following the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden. The Pakistani government has denied any involvement.

The army was outraged by the memo and denied it ever intended to carry out a coup. It successfully pushed the Supreme Court to investigate against the wishes of the government, which said the matter was already being probed by the parliament.

Ijaz has claimed the Supreme Court commission ordered the military to guarantee his security while in Pakistan, but the government has said the job was the responsibility of the Interior Ministry. Interior Minister Rehman Malik has warned Ijaz could be prevented from leaving the country if requested by the parliamentary committee probing the scandal.

"It seems like a well-orchestrated trap to hold Mansoor Ijaz indefinitely in Pakistan," said Sheikh, his lawyer.

Ijaz has accused the former Pakistani ambassador to the U.S., Husain Haqqani, of crafting the memo with the support of President Asif Ali Zardari. Both men have denied any connection to the memo, although Haqqani resigned in the wake of the scandal. The Supreme Court has prevented the former envoy from leaving the country while it is investigating the scandal.

Some observers have questioned Ijaz's credibility. Those questions increased last week after a music video surfaced in which Ijaz acted as a commentator for a female wrestling match in which both women eventually ripped off their bikinis. Ijaz claimed he didn't know there would be nudity in the video.

One of the reasons the memo scandal has generated so much controversy is the rampant anti-American sentiment in Pakistan. The memo offered to replace Pakistan's national security leadership with people favorable to the U.S. in return for help from Washington in stopping the supposed coup.

The U.S. has provided Pakistan with billions of dollars over the past decade to help fight the Taliban and al-Qaida, but relations have always been defined by a lack of trust.

The raid that killed bin Laden in Pakistani garrison town heightened mistrust between the two countries. Pakistan was outraged it was not told about the operation beforehand, and U.S. officials questioned how bin Laden was able to live near Pakistan's equivalent of West Point for years.

The relationship deteriorated further at the end of last year when American airstrikes accidentally killed 24 Pakistani soldiers at two posts along the Afghan border. Pakistan retaliated by closing its border crossings to supplies meant for NATO troops in Afghanistan and kicking the U.S. out of a base used by American drones.

Drone strikes have been a source of tension between the two countries because they are widely perceived in Pakistan as mostly killing civilians, a claim denied by the U.S. The U.S. held off on carrying out drone attacks in Pakistan for over six weeks after the 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed on Nov. 26.

But the strikes have since resumed. A U.S. drone fired missiles at a house and a vehicle in northwestern Pakistan on Monday, killing four alleged militants in an attack that could signal the program is again picking up steam.

The U.S. had recommenced strikes on Jan. 10, when missiles hit a house in the North Waziristan tribal area in an attack that American officials said killed a key al-Qaida operations planner, Aslam Awan. The U.S. carried out another attack two days later.

Monday's strike in North Waziristan's Deegan village was the third since the attacks resumed. Initial reports indicated the alleged militants killed were foreigners, said Pakistani intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

The U.S. refuses to speak publicly about the CIA-run drone program in Pakistan, but American officials have said privately that the strikes have killed many senior Taliban and al-Qaida commanders.

Although Pakistan is widely believed to have supported the strikes in the past, that cooperation has become strained as the relationship between the two countries has deteriorated.

____

Associated Press writer Rasool Dawar contributed to this report from Dera Ismail Khan, Pakistan.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-01-23-AS-Pakistan/id-b9976ff9a57449628767080c6ab9d192

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Bonus season not as festive for bank CEOs (AP)

NEW YORK ? JPMorgan Chase, the nation's largest bank, posted a record profit for 2011. That didn't translate into a bigger bonus for CEO Jamie Dimon. Morgan Stanley's latest quarterly results topped expectations as the bank trimmed costs and cleaned up problems dating from the financial crisis. But CEO James Gorman saw the value of his stock awards for the year fall by half.

Across their ranks, Wall Street banks are curbing bonus pay for last year's performance, which was marked by big drops in stock prices and still-hefty costs for mortgage-related problems. In the last three months of the year, fear about the European debt crisis made the stock and bond markets volatile, and clients of all the major banks shied away from mergers and acquisitions and public offerings of stock. That sharply reduced investment banking and underwriting fees. The banks also faced a surge in populist anger, as the Occupy Wall Street movement went national.

Financial stocks were some of the worst performing in 2011. While the S&P 500 Index finished the year flat, Morgan Stanley shares plunged 44 percent, JPMorgan dropped nearly 22 percent and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. tanked 46 percent.

Compensation followed the downward trend. In a closely watched and politically charged gauge, JPMorgan Chase & Co. revealed earlier this month that it set aside 36 percent less than the year before to pay its investment bankers. Morgan Stanley shed 700 workers last year and capped the amount that workers can get in their bonuses immediately, deferring anything over $125,000. Rival Goldman eliminated 7 percent of its employees and cut 2011 pay by 21 percent.

And it appears the banks' CEOs are not immune. On Friday, Morgan Stanley's regulatory filing showed that the value of Gorman's stock award for the year dropped to $5.1 million from $10.2 million in 2010.

Gorman, who became CEO two years ago, has been slimming down the bank, selling off units like a mortgage servicing division and an asset management business. He's been emphasizing divisions like wealth management, which provide smaller returns than some investment banking operations but also carry a lot less risk because they're based on fees rather than markets. Unlike JPMorgan and some other big banks, Morgan Stanley doesn't have a large consumer deposit base to rely on when its investment bank stumbles.

JPMorgan's Dimon received restricted stock worth $12.6 million and stock appreciation rights reportedly valued at roughly $5 million for 2011, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission Friday. That compares with about $17.1 million in stock and SARs that he was granted for 2010.

For the full year, JPMorgan posted a record profit of $19 billion, up from $17.4 billion in 2010. But the bank struggled amid the choppy financial markets, which hurt investment banking fees in the fourth quarter. The bank also disclosed that it spent $3.2 billion last year to fight lawsuits, almost all of them over poorly written mortgages. That's down from $5.7 billion in 2010, but Dimon acknowledged there's still a "huge drag" on earnings five years after the bubble burst.

Complete compensation details, including the value of the executives' 2011 cash compensation, perks and benefits weren't disclosed. None of the banks have filed annual proxy statements, which include those financial details.

Dimon received a total pay package for 2010 valued at $20.8 million, including a salary of $1 million and a cash bonus of $5 million. Gorman received compensation valued at $15.2 million, including a salary of $800,000 and a cash bonus of $3.9 million.

The Associated Press formula calculates an executive's total compensation during the last fiscal year by adding salary, bonuses, perks, above-market interest the company pays on deferred compensation and the estimated value of stock and stock options awarded during the year. The AP formula does not count changes in the present value of pension benefits. That makes the AP total slightly different in most cases from the total reported by companies to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The value that a company assigned to an executive's stock and option awards for 2010 was the present value that the company expected the awards to be worth to the executive over time. Companies use one of several formulas to calculate that value. However, the number is just an estimate, and what an executive ultimately receives depends on the performance of the company's stock in the years after the awards are granted. Most stock compensation programs require an executive to wait a specified length of time to receive shares or exercise options.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120122/ap_on_bi_ge/us_bank_bonuses

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Brookstone's WiFi cufflinks let you discreetly share data, internet connections

If you somehow aren't satisfied with your growing collection of Nintendo, PlayStation, Game Boy Color and steampunk styled cufflinks, Brookstone just might be the Q to your Bond. In addition to rocking the USB-storage trick we've seen in other technological shirt links, this sleeve fastener also promises to act as a WiFi hotspot when paired with a hard-wired PC. Rounding out your technologically augmented wedding attire with these 'cuffs will set you back $250 -- unless you're working with Her Majesty's Secret Service, of course, then they're probably just standard issue.

Brookstone's WiFi cufflinks let you discreetly share data, internet connections originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Jan 2012 12:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/FYFCiol5GUA/

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Iowa GOP to Announce Final Results. Will It Matter If Santorum Won? (ABC News)

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Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/188316237?client_source=feed&format=rss

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China's challenge to the iPad raises a red flag (Reuters)

SHANGHAI (Reuters) ? China Communist Party members can now carry a tablet PC to verify identification cards, read the blogs of cadres and manage state-owned firms without fretting that using a bourgeois Apple Inc iPad will ruin their street cred.

Enter RedPad Number One, an Android-based tablet computer filled with software applications (apps) catered to a party official's every need for control. Delivered in a decadent leather case for 9,999 yuan ($1,600), it is twice the price of Apple's most expensive iPad 2.

The eye-popping price has China's microblogs alight with chatter over just why this device is so expensive and who is footing the bill.

"Is it the god of toys? Why don't they throw in a free iPad with it," said Looperrr on Weibo, Sina Corp's, microblogging platform.

RedPad Number One spokesman Liu Xianri said in an interview with the Southern Daily on Wednesday that sales of the tablet were completely market driven.

"We are looking to compete against the foreign brands," Liu said in response to a question on whether public funds may be used to buy the RedPad.

RedPad's price was high, Liu said, because of the number of pre-installed apps that cater to bureaucrats and state-owned company managers.

For example, it has apps that allow users to check the validity of a journalist's government accreditation as well as read state-run newspapers and microblogs.

But an online survey on Thursday showed that more than 2,000 netizens believed that the RedPad was meant to be a symbol of privilege, while another 1,500 thought its purpose is to fleece taxpayers.

"After reading all the articles about this, I am impressed," said microblogger Xixizhiniu. "What an honor it is for you, the taxpayer, that you place a 9,999 yuan into the hands of the leaders!"

(http://www.91wenwen.net/vote/result/966)

(Additional reporting by Sabrina Mao in BEIJING; Editing by Ed Lane)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/applecomputer/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120119/wr_nm/us_china_redpad

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Early 'Idol' favorite has lengthy arrest record

FOX

"American Idol" hopeful Amy Brumfield has more than music in her past.

By Ree Hines

Amy Brumfield wowed "American Idol" judges on Wednesday night's season premiere with her powerhouse performance of Alicia Keys' "Superwoman." Now the "Idol" hopeful stands a chance to wow even more people with the unexpected news that's come out since her television singing debut.

On the show, in addition to showing off her Hollywood-worthy vocal abilities, Brumfield revealed that she's hit hard times.

"Well, we're kind of struggling -- major struggling," she confessed. "Can't afford a $100-a-week hotel room, you know. The only thing we can do is live in a tent in the woods ? cooking soup over a fire pit."

But according to TMZ and a slew of police records the website uncovered, Brumfield has found plenty of other things to do in the past -- such as racking up six arrests over the last seven years.

The reasons for the arrests range from trespassing on private property to "extreme intoxication." TMZ reports that on one particularly booze-filled night in Tennessee, police claim Brumfield "was so drunk, she peed on herself in the lobby of a Baskin Robbins."

Not exactly behavior becoming an "Idol," but it still remains to be seen how far Brumfield makes in the competition.

Were you rooting for Brumfield after watching her on "American Idol"? Have her past brushes with the law changed your mind about the singer? Share your thoughts on our Facebook page.

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Source: http://theclicker.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/19/10191628-early-idol-favorite-has-lengthy-arrest-record

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