Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/177634198?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Thursday, December 22, 2011
Monday, December 19, 2011
PFT: Brees probably won't sign franchise tag
Getty ImagesCincinnati Bengals at St. Louis Rams
Bengals: WR Andre Caldwell, G Otis Hudson, RB Brian Leonard, LB Dontay Moch, FB Chris Pressley, DB Robert Sands, OT Andre Smith
Rams: QB Sam Bradford, LB Justin Cole, QB A.J. Feeley, DE James Hall, CB Justin King, OT Mark LeVoir, RB Quinn Porter
Miami Dolphins at Buffalo Bills
Dolphins: RB Steve Slaton, OLB Koa Misi, OL Will Barker, OL Ray Feinga, LT Jake Long, TE Jeron Mastrud, DE Ryan Baker
Bills: WR Naaman Roosevelt, DB Josh Nesbitt, DL Jarron Gilbert, RT Sam Young, TE Scott Chandler, WR Kamar Aiken, TE Fendi Onobun
Tennessee Titans at Indianapolis Colts
Titans: RB Javon Ringer, DE William Hayes, LB Gerald McRath, DT Zach Clayton, OL Byron Stingily, OL Kevin Matthews, WR Donnie Avery
Colts: QB Peyton Manning, DB Mike Holmes, TE Dallas Clark, LB Philip Wheeler, LB A.J. Edds, OT Quinn Ojinnaka, DE Jamaal Anderson
Washington Redskins at New York Giants
Redskins: WR David Anderson, DE Kentwan Balmer, OT Jammal Brown, TE Mike Sellers, RB Ryan Torain, LB Markus White
Giants: C David Baas, TE Travis Beckum, OT James Brewer, LB Mark Herzlich, DT Jimmy Kennedy, DB Derrick Martin, DE Osi Umenyiora
Seattle Seahawks at Chicago Bears
Bears: TE Andre Smith, DL Henry Melton, QB Jay Cutler, DB Major Wright, RB Matt Forte, Levi Horn
Seahawks: QB Josh Portis, OT Jarriel King, G Paul Fanaika, WR Ricardo Lockette, S Jeron Johnson, LB Adrian Moten, DT Pep Levingston
New Orleans Saints at Minnesota Vikings
Saints: WR Adrian Arrington, OLB Jonathan Casillas, TE Mike Higgins, RB Mark Ingram, DE Turk McBride, OT Will Robinson, DB Leigh Torrence
Vikings: LB Xavier Adibi, CB Chris Cook, C Brandon Fusco, OT DeMarcus Love, DE D?Aundre Reed, TE Allen Reisner, DB Andrew Sendejo
Carolina Panthers at Houston Texans
Panthers: WR Darvin Adams, WR Seyi Ajirotutu, CB Darius Butler, QB Jimmy Clausen, K Adi Kunalic
Texans: G Mike Brisiel, DT Tim Bulman, QB Jeff Garcia, OT Andrew Gardner, TE Garrett Graham, WR Andre Johnson, DB Sherrick McManis
Green Bay Packers at Kansas City Chiefs
Packers: RB Brandon Saine, LB Desmond Bishop, QB Graham Harrell, WR Greg Jennings, RB James Starks, DL Ryan Pickett
Chiefs: QB Tyler Palko, S Jon McGraw, T David Mims, WR Jerheme Urban, TE Jake O?Connell, DE Brandon Bair, DT Jerrell Powe
Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/12/18/brees-highly-unlikely-to-sign-franchise-tag/related/
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Sunday, December 18, 2011
Russian oil platform capsizes; 4 dead, 49 missing (AP)
MOSCOW ? Rescue workers are searching for 49 men in freezing, remote waters off Russia's east coast after their oil drilling platform capsized and sank amid fierce storms Sunday.
By nightfall, four men had been confirmed dead, and 14 others had been plucked from the churning, icy waters by the ship that had been towing the Kolskaya platform. But the search for the remaining men was hampered by freezing temperatures, a driving blizzard and strong winds.
Dmitry Dmitriyenko, governor of the Murmansk region in Russia's north-west where 33 of the men come from, urged friends and families not to lose hope late Sunday, but admitted the chance of the men surviving in the one degree Celsius (33.8 Fahrenheit) water is approaching zero.
"This is a terrible disaster which took the crew unawares," he said in a statement. "But there is still a chance."
The Emergencies Ministry said that 67 people had been aboard the platform as it was being towed about 200 kilometers (120 miles) off the coast of Sakhalin, a large island just north of Japan in the North Pacific, that until the late 19th century was the Russian Empire's most remote penal colony.
Airplanes and helicopters patrolled the area Sunday, but called their search off just after sunset. Ministry officials said two boats will continue the search throughout the night, and the air search team would return with another two ships in the morning.
The Transportation Ministry said the platform started sinking after a strong wave broke some of its equipment and the portholes in the crew's dining room.
One 5-meter (16-foot) wave washed away its lifeboats, leaving the crew with no escape, and several hours later it sank, officials said.
There were no immediate reports of environmental damage ? unlikely as the platform was not drilling for oil when it capsized and carried a negligible amount of fuel.
The Kolskaya was built in Finland in 1985 and is owned by Russian offshore exploration firm Arktikmorneftegazrazvedka.
Sakhalin is a largely undeveloped area, dominated by pristine nature. Russia, United States, Europe and Japan have worked off its shores for a nearly decade, producing oil and gas. There have not been any previous significant accidents in the region.
As oil and gas fields in Eastern Siberia are becoming depleted, Russian oil and gas companies are starting to shift their focus to offshore projects, unveiling ambitious plans to tap the riches of the Arctic.
Earlier this year, Exxon Mobil and Russia's largest oil producer Rosneft teamed up to jointly explore oil and gas fields in the Kara Sea with Exxon pledging $3.2 billion of investment on only three fields.
The Investigative Committee on Sunday opened a probe into the accident and said that it might have happened because of a breach of safety regulations, or due to the harsh weather conditions.
Alexei Knizhnikov, an energy policy official in Russia for the World Wildlife Fund, told the RIA Novosti news agency that energy companies ought to learn from the accident.
"This disaster should highlight the high risks of offshore projects," he said. "It's very difficult to conduct efficient rescue operations, whether it's rescuing people or dealing with oil spills, in the weather and conditions of the Arctic."
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Ousted shah's son wants Iran leader tried in court (AP)
PARIS ? The exiled son of the toppled shah of Iran plans to ask the United Nations to bring Iran's supreme leader before an international court on charges of crimes against humanity.
Reza Pahlavi's father, the late Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, was ousted in Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution. The ultimate leader of the government that runs the country now is a cleric, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Pahlavi is among exiles working for regime change in Iran. He said at a Paris news conference Thursday that Khamenei must be held responsible for executions, jailing and torture of political dissidents.
Pahlavi says he will submit a complaint about Khamenei to the five permanent U.N. Security Council members along with a report of the cleric's alleged crimes that will be constantly updated.
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Saturday, December 17, 2011
Rapid rise in wildfires in large parts of Canada?
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 16-Dec-2011[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Tilo Arnhold
presse@ufz.de
49-341-235-1635
Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres
Ecologists show for the first time threshold values for natural wildfires
This press release is available in German.
Chicago/Leipzig. Large forest regions in Canada are apparently about to experience rapid change. Based on models, scientists can now show that there are threshold values for wildfires just like there are for epidemics. Large areas of Canada are apparently approaching this threshold value and may in future exceed it due to climate change. As a result both the area burnt down annually and the average size of the fires would increase, write the researchers of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) and the University of Michigan in the December issue of the journal the American Naturalist. The strategies for combating wildfires in large parts of Canada should therefore be reconsidered.
According to media reports, after weeks of drought around 1,000 hectares of forest and scrubland were burnt down in the West Canadian province British Columbia in the summer of 2009 alone. 11,000 people had to be evacuated. Are such events on the rise as a result of climate change? This question is being hotly debated by ecologists all over the world. In July a group of US researchers led by Anthony Westerling of the University of California forecasted similar changes in the journal PNAS. They believe that climate change might result in a dramatic increase in the threat of wildfires in Yellowstone National Park and that the forests might disappear here in the 21st century.
Fires are an important factor in many terrestrial ecosystems. They are a result of the interaction of the weather, vegetation and land use, which makes them very sensitive to global change. "Changes in the wildfire regime have a significant impact on a local and global scale and therefore on the climate as well. It is therefore important to understand how the mechanisms which shape these wildfires work in order to be able to make predictions on what will change in future," explains PD Dr. Volker Grimm of the UFZ.
For their model, the scientists evaluated data from the Canadian Forest Service, which had recorded fires greater than 200 hectares between 1959 and 1999, and sorted these by ecozone. This showed that three of these ecozones in Canada are close to a turning point: the Hudson Plains south of the Hudson Bay, the Boreale Plains in the Mid-West the Boreale Shield, which stretches from the Mid-West to the East coast and is therefore the largest ecozone in Canada. The closest to a turning point is apparently the Boreale Shield. In order to check their model and the theory of a threshold value for wildfires, the scientists looked at the fires in this region more closely. Around 1980 the average size of the fires in this part of the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba tripled rapidly. "In our opinion this is a sign that there are also threshold values for forests above which the wildfire regime drastically changes," reports Volker Grimm. "It is likely that the Boreale Plains have in recent decades, particularly around 1980, experienced a change to a system characterised by wildfires. This has fundamental repercussions for the environment and the combating of wildfires. Small changes in the fire propagation parameters have a great impact on the size of the fires." Gradual changes, such as those which can be expected due to climate change, can therefore result in an abrupt and sharp increase in the size of the fires.
The scientists were also interested in the parallels with disease propagation. Prevention strategies, which reduce combustible material, are in a way similar to the vaccinations which are used against the spread of diseases such as the measles. Here too there is a threshold value above which a disease spreads and below which it falls. Other modellers from the UFZ were therefore able to turn this theoretical threshold value into a practical value. With foxes it was shown that only 60 per cent had to be vaccinated against rabies in order to successfully combat the disease. The scientists therefore hope to find out more in future studies which cover both disciplines.
Tilo Arnhold
###
Publication:
Richard D. Zinck, Mercedes Pascual and Volker Grimm (2011): Understanding Shifts in Wildfire Regimes as Emergent Threshold Phenomena. The American Naturalist. Vol. 178, No. 6, December 2011 http://www.jstor.org/pss/10.1086/662675
The studies were funded by the European Union within the scope of the EU's PATRES project.
Other technical information:
PD Dr. Volker Grimm
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ)
Telephone: 0341-235-1711
http://www.ufz.de/index.php?de=3679
and
Richard D. Zinck
E-mail: zinck@umich.edu
and
Dr. Mercedes Pascual
University of Michigan
Telephone: 734-615-9808
http://www.lsa.umich.edu/eeb/directory/faculty/pascual/
or
Tilo Arnhold (UFZ Press Office)
Telephone: 0341-235-1269
http://www.ufz.de/index.php?de=640
Links with further information:
UN Year of Forests 2011:
http://www.biodiversity.de/index.php/de/fuer-presse-medien/top-themen-biodiversitaet/1345-wie-wird-der-wald-von-morgen-sein/
http://www.wald2011.de/
http://www.un.org/esa/forests/index.html
Study: Climate Change to Increase Yellowstone Wildfires Dramatically
http://www.ucmerced.edu/news/study-climate-change-increase-yellowstone-wildfires-dramatically
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/07/20/1110199108
Fires regenerate African grassland (press release, 19 September 2008): http://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=17197
Disturbances in Ecosystems: http://www.ufz.de/index.php?de=17620
Ecological Epidemiology: http://www.ufz.de/index.php?de=17095
Canada's Ecozones: http://canadianbiodiversity.mcgill.ca/english/ecozones/ecozones.htm
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 16-Dec-2011[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Tilo Arnhold
presse@ufz.de
49-341-235-1635
Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres
Ecologists show for the first time threshold values for natural wildfires
This press release is available in German.
Chicago/Leipzig. Large forest regions in Canada are apparently about to experience rapid change. Based on models, scientists can now show that there are threshold values for wildfires just like there are for epidemics. Large areas of Canada are apparently approaching this threshold value and may in future exceed it due to climate change. As a result both the area burnt down annually and the average size of the fires would increase, write the researchers of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) and the University of Michigan in the December issue of the journal the American Naturalist. The strategies for combating wildfires in large parts of Canada should therefore be reconsidered.
According to media reports, after weeks of drought around 1,000 hectares of forest and scrubland were burnt down in the West Canadian province British Columbia in the summer of 2009 alone. 11,000 people had to be evacuated. Are such events on the rise as a result of climate change? This question is being hotly debated by ecologists all over the world. In July a group of US researchers led by Anthony Westerling of the University of California forecasted similar changes in the journal PNAS. They believe that climate change might result in a dramatic increase in the threat of wildfires in Yellowstone National Park and that the forests might disappear here in the 21st century.
Fires are an important factor in many terrestrial ecosystems. They are a result of the interaction of the weather, vegetation and land use, which makes them very sensitive to global change. "Changes in the wildfire regime have a significant impact on a local and global scale and therefore on the climate as well. It is therefore important to understand how the mechanisms which shape these wildfires work in order to be able to make predictions on what will change in future," explains PD Dr. Volker Grimm of the UFZ.
For their model, the scientists evaluated data from the Canadian Forest Service, which had recorded fires greater than 200 hectares between 1959 and 1999, and sorted these by ecozone. This showed that three of these ecozones in Canada are close to a turning point: the Hudson Plains south of the Hudson Bay, the Boreale Plains in the Mid-West the Boreale Shield, which stretches from the Mid-West to the East coast and is therefore the largest ecozone in Canada. The closest to a turning point is apparently the Boreale Shield. In order to check their model and the theory of a threshold value for wildfires, the scientists looked at the fires in this region more closely. Around 1980 the average size of the fires in this part of the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba tripled rapidly. "In our opinion this is a sign that there are also threshold values for forests above which the wildfire regime drastically changes," reports Volker Grimm. "It is likely that the Boreale Plains have in recent decades, particularly around 1980, experienced a change to a system characterised by wildfires. This has fundamental repercussions for the environment and the combating of wildfires. Small changes in the fire propagation parameters have a great impact on the size of the fires." Gradual changes, such as those which can be expected due to climate change, can therefore result in an abrupt and sharp increase in the size of the fires.
The scientists were also interested in the parallels with disease propagation. Prevention strategies, which reduce combustible material, are in a way similar to the vaccinations which are used against the spread of diseases such as the measles. Here too there is a threshold value above which a disease spreads and below which it falls. Other modellers from the UFZ were therefore able to turn this theoretical threshold value into a practical value. With foxes it was shown that only 60 per cent had to be vaccinated against rabies in order to successfully combat the disease. The scientists therefore hope to find out more in future studies which cover both disciplines.
Tilo Arnhold
###
Publication:
Richard D. Zinck, Mercedes Pascual and Volker Grimm (2011): Understanding Shifts in Wildfire Regimes as Emergent Threshold Phenomena. The American Naturalist. Vol. 178, No. 6, December 2011 http://www.jstor.org/pss/10.1086/662675
The studies were funded by the European Union within the scope of the EU's PATRES project.
Other technical information:
PD Dr. Volker Grimm
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ)
Telephone: 0341-235-1711
http://www.ufz.de/index.php?de=3679
and
Richard D. Zinck
E-mail: zinck@umich.edu
and
Dr. Mercedes Pascual
University of Michigan
Telephone: 734-615-9808
http://www.lsa.umich.edu/eeb/directory/faculty/pascual/
or
Tilo Arnhold (UFZ Press Office)
Telephone: 0341-235-1269
http://www.ufz.de/index.php?de=640
Links with further information:
UN Year of Forests 2011:
http://www.biodiversity.de/index.php/de/fuer-presse-medien/top-themen-biodiversitaet/1345-wie-wird-der-wald-von-morgen-sein/
http://www.wald2011.de/
http://www.un.org/esa/forests/index.html
Study: Climate Change to Increase Yellowstone Wildfires Dramatically
http://www.ucmerced.edu/news/study-climate-change-increase-yellowstone-wildfires-dramatically
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/07/20/1110199108
Fires regenerate African grassland (press release, 19 September 2008): http://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=17197
Disturbances in Ecosystems: http://www.ufz.de/index.php?de=17620
Ecological Epidemiology: http://www.ufz.de/index.php?de=17095
Canada's Ecozones: http://canadianbiodiversity.mcgill.ca/english/ecozones/ecozones.htm
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-12/haog-rri121611.php
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NJ Nets owner fails to buy Russia media holding
FILE - In this Friday, Nov. 27, 2009 file photo, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, right, looks on as Mikhail Prokhorov signs an agreement, during a Franco-Russian meeting in Rambouillet, France. Prokhorov, one of Russia's richest tycoons and the owner of the New Jersey Nets basketball team, said Monday Dec. 12, 2011, he will run against Putin in the March presidential election. (AP Photo/Alexei Druzhinin, Pool)
FILE - In this Friday, Nov. 27, 2009 file photo, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, right, looks on as Mikhail Prokhorov signs an agreement, during a Franco-Russian meeting in Rambouillet, France. Prokhorov, one of Russia's richest tycoons and the owner of the New Jersey Nets basketball team, said Monday Dec. 12, 2011, he will run against Putin in the March presidential election. (AP Photo/Alexei Druzhinin, Pool)
FILE - In this April 1, 2011 file photo, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, right, flanked by Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, goes to inspect a new Russian-designed hybrid cars called "Yo" at the Gorki residence outside Moscow, Russia. Mikhail Prokhorov, one of Russia's richest tycoons and the owner of the New Jersey Nets basketball team, said Monday, Dec. 12, 2011 he will run against Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the March presidential election. (AP Photo/RIA Novosti, Alexei Nikolsky, Pool-File)
FILE In this Monday, Sept. 26, 2011 file photo a woman walks past an election billboard for the All-Russian People's Front, headed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, right, and election poster depicting former leader of the Right Cause party, Russian tycoon and New Jersey Nets basketball team owner Mikhail Prokhorov in St. Petersburg, Russia. Mikhail Prokhorov announced Monday Dec. 12, 2001 he will run against Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the March presidential election. Prokhorov has been cautious not to cross Putin's path in the past. But the tycoon's candidacy may now pose a serious challenge to Putin, whose authority has been dented by his party's poor showing in Russia's Dec. 4 parliamentary election and allegations of widespread fraud during the balloting. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky, File)
Mikhail Prokhorov, one of Russia's richest tycoons and New Jersey Nets basketball team owner, leaves a press conference in Moscow, Russia, Monday, Dec. 12, 2011, as he announces his candidacy to run against Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the March 2012 presidential election. Prolhorov has been cautious not to cross Putin's path in the past, but may pose a serious challenge to Putin, whose authority has been dented by the Dec. 4 parliamentary election and recent massive street protests against alleged vote fraud. (AP Photo/Misha Japaridze)
Mikhail Prokhorov, one of Russia's richest tycoons and New Jersey Nets basketball team owner, speaks at a press conference in Moscow, Russia, Monday, Dec. 12, 2011, as he announces his candidacy to run against Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the March 2012 presidential election. Prolhorov has been cautious not to cross Putin's path in the past, but may pose a serious challenge to Putin, whose authority has been dented by the Dec. 4 parliamentary election and recent massive street protests against alleged vote fraud. (AP Photo/Misha Japaridze)
MOSCOW (AP) ? The owner of the New Jersey Nets, who is running against Vladimir Putin in Russia's presidential election, tried without success on Wednesday to buy a leading media holding company in the country.
Mikhail Prokhorov, who is worth about $18 billion according to Forbes magazine, announced his candidacy earlier this week for the March presidential election.
Prokhorov offered to buy Russia's Kommersant publishing house, but its owner, Alisher Usmanov, said he doesn't plan to sell it.
"We're not considering the proposal. ... We're not going to sell the Kommersant publishing house," Usmanov told reporters. He said that he instead offered to buy Prokhorov's stake in the RBK media group, a competitor of Kommersant's.
He did not say how Prokhorov had responded, and its was not immediately possible to reach the owner of the U.S. pro-basketball team.
Usmanov, a metals magnate, bought Kommersant for $200 million in 2006. The holding company, which includes Russia's top business daily and other publications, has since expanded into radio and television broadcast.
On Tuesday, Usmanov fired an editor and a senior manager after the Kommersant Vlast weekly published an article about alleged fraud in Russia's Dec. 4 parliamentary election and a photo of a ballot containing vulgar words directed at Putin. The weekly's editor, Maxim Kovalsky, said he was told that's why he was fired.
Russia's parliamentary election saw a sharp drop in support for Putin's United Russia party, and widespread allegations of ballot-stuffing and other violations. The ballot led last weekend to the largest anti-government protets that Russia had seen since the 1991 collapse of its communist government.
Usmanov said recent reports in Vlast "bordered on petty hooliganism," and Kovalsky's deputy, Veronika Kutsillo, said the offending photo was just a pretext behind the move by Usmanov, who previously had expressed his dissatisfaction with the magazine's contents.
"This isn't merely a punishment of an obstinate editor, it's a signal that the magazine's course must change," Kutsillo said in an e-mailed message, adding that she decided to resign.
More than 50 Kommersant journalists signed an open letter to protest Kovalsky's dismissal. "We view this firing as an intimidation effort aimed at preventing any criticism of Vladimir Putin, even if this concerns photographs," the letter said.
On Wednesday Usmanov met with Kommersant's staff, saying he felt he "was able to explain his decision." He said, "Not only that, but I also told them that the same moral principals will be used in my future decisions on the ethics journalists must adhere to."
Putin has enjoyed blanket positive coverage from state-controlled television networks. Some of the print media, which have remained independent and often critical of the government, have faced pressure from owners fearing their business interests could be hurt as a result.
Prokhorov's presidential bid follows his botched performance before the parliamentary election when he formed a liberal political party with the Kremlin's tacit support but abandoned it under what he called Kremlin pressure.
Some observers said that Prokhorov may have made amends with the Kremlin and might be running for president to accommodate voters unhappy with the authorities.
But Prokhorov denied that in his blog on Wednesday.
"Naturally, my candidacy is good for the Kremlin. Naturally, they want to play democracy and show that people have 'some kind of a choice'," he wrote. "But we must absolutely use the authorities, too, if we don't want to just make some noise and disappear, but to change our lives for the better."
____
Associated Press writers Sofia Javed and Gary Peach contributed to this report.
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Friday, December 16, 2011
RIM: Next-generation phones not out till late 2012
FILE - In this Oct. 18, 2011 file photo, Mike Lazaridis, co-CEO of Research in Motion gestures at the end of his keynote address to the BlackBerry DevCon Americas conference in San Francisco. Research In Motion Ltd. reports quarterly financial results Thursday, Dec. 15, 2011, after the market close (AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File)
FILE - In this Oct. 18, 2011 file photo, Mike Lazaridis, co-CEO of Research in Motion gestures at the end of his keynote address to the BlackBerry DevCon Americas conference in San Francisco. Research In Motion Ltd. reports quarterly financial results Thursday, Dec. 15, 2011, after the market close (AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File)
TORONTO (AP) ? BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. said Thursday that new phones deemed critical to the company's future will be delayed until late 2012.
Mike Lazaridis, one of the company's co-CEOs, said the BlackBerry 10 phones will need a highly integrated chipset that will not be available until mid-2012, so the company can now expect them to ship late in the year. He disclosed the delay on a conference call with analysts.
Analysts say RIM's future depends on the new software platform. RIM needs to come up with a compelling BlackBerry as U.S. users have moved on to flashier touch-screen phones such as Apple's iPhone and various competing models that run Google's Android software.
Earlier Thursday, RIM said BlackBerry sales will fall sharply in the holiday quarter, providing further evidence that it is struggling to compete. It also has been having a hard time finding a niche in the tablet-computer market, which is dominated by Apple's iPad.
RIM continues to enjoy success overseas, but market researcher NPD Group says RIM's market share of smartphones in the U.S. has declined from 44 percent in 2009 to 10 percent this year.
The company's stock fell 7 percent in extended trading Thursday.
The delay in BlackBerry 10 phones is the latest in a series of setbacks for the once-iconic Canadian company. Its PlayBook tablet computer hasn't been selling well, forcing the company to sell them at a deep discount. A widespread outage frustrated tens of millions of BlackBerry users in October. RIM fired two executives after their drunken rowdiness forced the diversion of an Air Canada flight. The head of its operations in Indonesia faces charges related to a stampede at a recent promotional sale where dozens of consumers were injured.
RIM said its net income sank 71 percent as revenue fell and the company took a large accounting charge on the PlayBook, which uses the same operating software that RIM's new phones will use.
"We ask for your patience and confidence," Lazaridis said.
RIM earned $265 million, or 51 cents per share, for its fiscal third quarter that ended Nov. 26. That compares with $911 million, or $1.74 per share, a year ago. The company said revenue fell 6 percent to $5.2 billion. The PlayBook charge was $485 million before taxes.
The company shipped 14.1 million BlackBerry smartphones during the third quarter and 150,000 PlayBook tablets, but its fourth-quarter guidance was what investors focused on because it had warned about the third-quarter results earlier.
Although RIM has said it would sell fewer BlackBerrys in the current quarter, the forecast given Thursday appeared worse than expected.
RIM said it would only ship between 11 million and 12 million BlackBerrys in the fourth quarter compared to 14.8 million in the previous fourth quarter.
RIM also said its fourth-quarter earnings would be in the range of 80 to 95 cents per share on revenue in the range of $4.6 billion to $4.9 billion. Analysts had been expecting earnings of $1.15 a share on revenue of $5.04 billion, according to FactSet.
Peter Misek, an analyst at Jefferies & Co. in New York, said earlier that if RIM reveals that it will ship no more than 12 million BlackBerrys in the current quarter, then the company needs to get its new phones out fast. Otherwise, RIM could lose money in future quarters as it continues to struggle to sell the current, stopgap models.
Misek said late Thursday the BlackBerry 10 phones will now be released three to nine months later than people believed.
BGC Financial analyst Colin Gillis said the guidance was terrible and wondered if it was the start of a collapse.
"If consumers abandon this platform it can happen pretty quickly," Gillis said. "Don't think this is the bottom."
Jim Balsillie, the other co-CEO, said the last few quarters have been among the most challenging times in the company's most recent history. He said executives are working to turn it around, but said it may take time.
"We are not satisfied with the performance of the business in the United States," Balsillie said.
Balsillie said he and Lazaridis have reduced their cash salary to $1 per year, though they will continue to earn stock options and other compensation.
RIM's stock fell $1.15 to a new seven-year low of $13.98 in extended trading Thursday after the results were released.
The stock has lost about 75 percent of its value this year. A company that was worth more than $70 billion a few years ago now has a market value of around $8 billion.
"We recognize our shareholders may feel we've fallen short," Balsillie said
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ATLAS and CMS experiments present Higgs search status
ScienceDaily (Dec. 13, 2011) ? In a seminar held at CERN[1] Dec. 13, the ATLAS[2] and CMS[3] experiments presented the status of their searches for the Standard Model Higgs boson. Their results are based on the analysis of considerably more data than those presented at the summer conferences, sufficient to make significant progress in the search for the Higgs boson, but not enough to make any conclusive statement on the existence or non-existence of the elusive Higgs.
The main conclusion is that the Standard Model Higgs boson, if it exists, is most likely to have a mass constrained to the range 116-130 GeV by the ATLAS experiment, and 115-127 GeV by CMS. Tantalising hints have been seen by both experiments in this mass region, but these are not yet strong enough to claim a discovery.
Higgs bosons, if they exist, are very short lived and can decay in many different ways. Discovery relies on observing the particles they decay into rather than the Higgs itself. Both ATLAS and CMS have analysed several decay channels, and the experiments see small excesses in the low mass region that has not yet been excluded.
Taken individually, none of these excesses is any more statistically significant than rolling a die and coming up with two sixes in a row. What is interesting is that there are multiple independent measurements pointing to the region of 124 to 126 GeV. It's far too early to say whether ATLAS and CMS have discovered the Higgs boson, but these updated results are generating a lot of interest in the particle physics community.
"We have restricted the most likely mass region for the Higgs boson to 116-130 GeV, and over the last few weeks we have started to see an intriguing excess of events in the mass range around 125 GeV," explained ATLAS experiment spokesperson Fabiola Gianotti. "This excess may be due to a fluctuation, but it could also be something more interesting. We cannot conclude anything at this stage. We need more study and more data. Given the outstanding performance of the LHC this year, we will not need to wait long for enough data and can look forward to resolving this puzzle in 2012."
"We cannot exclude the presence of the Standard Model Higgs between 115 and 127 GeV because of a modest excess of events in this mass region that appears, quite consistently, in five independent channels," explained CMS experiment Spokesperson, Guido Tonelli. "The excess is most compatible with a Standard Model Higgs in the vicinity of 124 GeV and below but the statistical significance is not large enough to say anything conclusive. As of today what we see is consistent either with a background fluctuation or with the presence of the boson. Refined analyses and additional data delivered in 2012 by this magnificent machine will definitely give an answer."
Over the coming months, both experiments will be further refining their analyses in time for the winter particle physics conferences in March. However, a definitive statement on the existence or non-existence of the Higgs will require more data, and is not likely until later in 2012.
The Standard Model is the theory that physicists use to describe the behaviour of fundamental particles and the forces that act between them. It describes the ordinary matter from which we, and everything visible in the Universe, are made extremely well. Nevertheless, the Standard Model does not describe the 96% of the Universe that is invisible. One of the main goals of the LHC research programme is to go beyond the Standard Model, and the Higgs boson could be the key.
A Standard Model Higgs boson would confirm a theory first put forward in the 1960s, but there are other possible forms the Higgs boson could take, linked to theories that go beyond the Standard Model. A Standard Model Higgs could still point the way to new physics, through subtleties in its behaviour that would only emerge after studying a large number of Higgs particle decays. A non-Standard Model Higgs, currently beyond the reach of the LHC experiments with data so far recorded, would immediately open the door to new physics, whereas the absence of a Standard Model Higgs would point strongly to new physics at the LHC's full design energy, set to be achieved after 2014. Whether ATLAS and CMS show over the coming months that the Standard Model Higgs boson exists or not, the LHC programme is opening the way to new physics.
Notes:
[1] CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is the world's leading laboratory for particle physics. It has its headquarters in Geneva. At present, its Member States are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Romania is a candidate for accession. Israel is an Associate Member in the pre-stage to Membership. India, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United States of America, Turkey, the European Commission and UNESCO have Observer status.
[2] ATLAS is a particle physics experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The ATLAS Collaboration is a virtual United Nations of 38 countries. The 3000 physicists come from more than 174 universities and laboratories and include 1000 students.
[3] The Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment is one of the largest international scientific collaborations in history, involving more than 3000 scientists, engineers, and students from 172 institutes in 40 countries.
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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/uXXchWH30gc/111213105806.htm
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Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Planet found orbiting habitable zone of sun-like star
MOFFET FIELD, California |
MOFFET FIELD, California (Reuters) - The most Earth-like planet ever discovered is circling a star 600 light years away, a key finding in an ongoing quest to learn if life exists beyond Earth, scientists said on Monday.
The planet, called Kepler-22b, joins a list of more than 500 planets found to orbit stars beyond our solar system. It is the smallest and the best positioned to have liquid water on its surface -- among the ingredients necessary for life on Earth.
"We are homing in on the true Earth-sized, habitable planets," said San Jose State University astronomer Natalie Batalha, deputy science team lead for NASA's Kepler Space Telescope that discovered the star.
The telescope, which was launched three years ago, is staring at about 150,000 stars in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra, looking for faint and periodic dimming as any circling planets pass by, relative to Kepler's line of sight.
Results will be extrapolated to determine the percentage of stars in the Milky Way galaxy that harbor potentially habitable, Earth-size planets.
This is the first detection of a potentially habitable world orbiting a Sun-like star, scientists reported in findings to be published in The Astrophysical Journal.
Kepler-22b is 600 light years away. A light year is the distance light travels in a year, about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion km).
GROUND TELESCOPES
Planets about the same distance from their parent stars as Earth take roughly a year to complete an orbit. Scientists want to see at least three transits to be able to rule out other explanations for fluctuations in a star's light, such as small companion stars. Results also are verified by ground and other space telescopes.
Kepler-22b, which is about 2.4 times the radius of Earth, sits squarely in its star's so-called "habitable zone," the region where liquid water could exist on the surface. Follow-up studies are under way to determine if the planet is solid, like Earth, or more gaseous like Neptune.
"We don't know anything about the planets between Earth-size and Neptune-size because in our solar system we have no examples of such planets. We don't know what fraction are going to be rocky, what fraction are going to be water worlds, what fraction are ice worlds. We have no idea until we measure one and see," Batalha said at a news conference at NASA Ames Research Center in Moffet Field, California.
If Kepler-22b has a surface and a cushion of atmosphere similar to Earth's, it would be about 72 degrees Fahrenheit (22 C), about the same as a spring day in Earth's temperate zone.
Among the 2,326 candidate planets found by the Kepler team, 10 are roughly Earth-size and reside in their host stars' habitable zones.
Another team of privately funded astronomers is scanning the target stars for non-naturally occurring radio signals, part of a project known as SETI, or the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.
"As soon as we find a different, a separate, an independent example of life somewhere else, we're going to know that it's ubiquitous throughout the universe," said astronomer Jill Tarter, director of the SETI Institute in Mountain View.
The Kepler team is meeting for its first science conference this week.
(Additional reporting by Debby Zabarenko in Washington; Editing by Jane Sutton and Philip Barbara)
Source: http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/reuters/scienceNews/~3/YPCaGAKF5xA/us-space-planet-idUSTRE7B42CV20111206
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The Deep-Sea Find That Changed Biology
In 1977, a small crew of oceanographers traveled to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean and stumbled across a brand new form of life. The discovery was so unusual, it turned biology on its head and brought into question much of what scientists thought they knew about where life can form and what it needs in order to survive.
Today, the Smithsonian Institution houses that remarkable discovery: a pale and fleshy, 4-foot-long worm that floats in the kind of pickle jar you'd see in your neighborhood delicatessen. It might not look like much now, but Kristian Fauchald, the Smithsonian's curator of worms, says that in 1977, this worm had everyone scratching their heads. At up to 7 feet in length, he says, "these are enormous beasts compared to normal worms." And they were thriving in large numbers without any obvious source of food or light.
"This," Fauchald says, holding up the worm, "is something absolutely unique."
Enlarge Woods Hole Oceanographic Instution Researchers named the area where they found the tubeworms the "Garden of Eden" because of the abundant life around the deep-sea vents.
Woods Hole Oceanographic InstutionResearchers named the area where they found the tubeworms the "Garden of Eden" because of the abundant life around the deep-sea vents.
An Unexpected Discovery
Kathy Crane and Jack Corliss weren't expecting to find anything alive when they started on their journey to explore the ocean floor. They were looking instead to answer some basic questions about the ocean's temperature and chemistry that science could not yet answer. "Saltiness was a big question," Crane says. "Students used to ask their professors, 'How did the ocean get its salt?' "
Some ocean scientists believed the answers to these questions lay in volcanic vents that they suspected peppered the ocean floor. So they put together an expedition in the Alvin, a tiny submarine operated by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, to go down and see for themselves.
Crane was then a 25-year-old grad student from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. From the Alvin's mother ship, she guided the Alvin to an area in the eastern Pacific known as the Galapagos Rift. Corliss, a geologist from Oregon State University, rode aboard the Alvin itself.
Hey, can you biologists tell us what these things are? And they said, 'What? We don't know what that is. Hold everything!'
The day of the dive, Crane assumed her position as navigator and Corliss climbed aboard the Alvin. "I slipped through the porthole," he remembers. "It wasn't much bigger around than I was."
As the Alvin began its descent, Corliss watched through the window as the world around him went from blue to black to blacker than black. "We were descending into a different world," he says. Now and again, they saw sudden flashes of light from bioluminescent creatures swimming past the sub.
Back on the mother ship, Crane navigated the team toward the areas where they believed the vents were located. She also told the Alvin's pilot to look for "white clam shells against a background of black volcanic glass." From earlier imaging, they'd caught glimpses of what they thought were clamshells on the ocean floor, which they joked were tossed overboard from a Navy ship's clambake. It never occurred to the crew inside the sub that the shells were anything special. Until ...
"I was watching my temperature measurement," Corliss says, "and just that time, the pilot said, 'There's clams out here!' "
The Alvin opened up the ocean depths to human exploration. As ocean scientist Kathy Crane explains in the audio clips below, the deep-sea sub offers an experience of our planet found nowhere else.
They'd found not just clamshells, but living, breathing clams that were a good foot-and-a-half long living alongside the hydrothermal vents. There were also mussels, anemones and brilliantly colored red-tipped worms ? up to 7 feet long and anchored by slender white tubes swaying like a field of flowers.
"Absolutely stunningly beautiful," Corliss says. "The worms had white tubes and these beautiful red plumes, sort of like a three-dimensional feather. These feathers are sort of oscillating, undulating as they're pumping fluid into their body. It was amazing!"
The crew named the lush pocket of life "the Garden of Eden" and used the sub's mechanical arm to delicately gather up a bouquet of worms, mussels, clams and anemones. Once on the surface, they dropped them into containers of vodka ? the only preservative they had. Then Crane picked up the phone and called Woods Hole.
"Hey," she asked, "can you biologists tell us what these things are? And they said, 'What? We don't know what that is. Hold everything!' "
'How Do They Live?'
Today, back at the Smithsonian, Kristian Fauchald opens up a pickle jar and pulls out the very first worm ? Riftia pachyptilla ? that Crane and her team brought up from the depths 34 years ago. "The really fun part," he says, "was trying to figure out what these animals are. How do they live?"
The key, he says, is that the worms don't use light but a "completely different energy source" in a process called chemosynthesis. The worm uses its red plume to absorb hydrogen sulfide ? that nasty stuff that smells like rotten eggs ? from the vent water. A colony of bacteria living inside the worm's gut gobbles up the hydrogen sulfide and uses it to create carbon compounds that feed the worm. Voila ? chemosynthesis!
In the months following the discovery of life near the hydrothermal vents, Crane says the excitement was intense, and the scientific community's biggest names came steam-rolling in.
"There were cases where people were stealing samples, clams and taking them off to their institutions and hiding them," she says. "You know, scientists can be extremely aggressive people to get what they want."
Eventually, Crane left the field of vent science. Today she is a senior researcher at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, working mostly in the Arctic.
Corliss says the discovery inspired him to change the focus of his work as he wondered whether these curious creatures, from such an inhospitable environment, might help explain how life started on Earth.
"It was quite amazing," he says. "It marked a transition in my life." Corliss has since devoted his career to studying the origins of life; today, he teaches biology at the Central European University in Budapest.
In the years since the original discovery, scientists have returned to the Galapagos Rift and the hydrothermal vents. The abundant "Garden of Eden" continues to thrive, and not far away, a new vent community of chemosynthetic life has begun to grow. Scientists have named the new site "Rosebud."
Source: http://www.npr.org/2011/12/05/142678239/the-deep-sea-find-that-changed-biology?ft=1&f=1007
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Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Police arrest Occupy Portland demonstrators (AP)
PORTLAND, Ore. ? Authorities say riot police moved into a downtown Portland park area and arrested several anti-Wall Street protesters Saturday night after they refused to vacate the park.
Police Sgt. Pete Simpson says officers began detaining protesters at South Park blocks around 8:30 p.m., after the park was closed a half hour early,
He says several arrests were made but still doesn't have an exact count.
Occupy Portland demonstrators set up tents in a portion of the park that runs through Southwest Portland earlier in the day and vowed to stay through the winter, defying city officials who said overnight camping will not be allowed.
The protesters had been without an encampment since police swept through a downtown site three weeks ago, making arrests and dismantling tents.
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Monday, December 5, 2011
Many Americans already finished holiday shopping
More than a third of U.S. shoppers are already done with most of their holiday shopping, a survey showed on Monday, signaling that retailers need to offer bigger incentives to win sales in the few weeks before Christmas.
The findings underscore the fragility of the U.S. recovery, since consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of the nation's economy.
About 32 percent of people surveyed by America's Research Group said they finished a majority of their Christmas shopping in November. Last month included Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving when stores pulled out all the stops on discounts to woo shoppers during their biggest season of the year.
More than 6 percent completed most of their holiday shopping in the first weekend of December.
The questions were asked exclusively for Reuters as part of a larger America's Research Group survey.
"There is very little retailers can do unless they really have some incredible sales that force that consumer to reconsider if they want ... to make an extra purchase now," said America's Research Group President Britt Beemer.
About 28 percent of people surveyed said they plan to take a break from shopping, now that the Black Friday weekend is behind them.
"Many, many consumers, when they got those early bird specials on Black Friday, decided that that was going to be the big purchase for their family," Beemer said, adding that many shoppers spent more than they planned on Black Friday.
Sales during the Black Friday weekend soared to $52.4 billion, according to the National Retail Federation, which sees sales for the full season up 2.8 percent.
What shoplifters are taking these holidaysThe survey also highlighted other grievances of the post-recession U.S. consumer.
More than 43 percent of those surveyed said they expect the debt crisis in Europe to hurt the United States, while about 36 percent of Americans said political gridlock in Washington as the biggest problem facing the U.S. economy right now.
About 27 percent worry about the rising cost of living, while about a quarter of those surveyed see unemployment as the key issue faced by the U.S. economy.
Many shoppers said that discount chains would be their destination of choice to do the rest of the holiday shopping, with nearly 38 percent of holiday shoppers planning to visit one, highlighting that shoppers remain highly price-sensitive.
"You have got to give them a deal that is incredible," Beemer said, suggesting retailers slash prices and offer deep discounts of 50 percent and 60 percent to lure shoppers this month.
Department stores offering unique merchandise also found many fans, with about 30 percent of shoppers planning to visit one during the rest of the season.
The telephone survey of 1,000 people was conducted from December 3-4, and has an error factor of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.
Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45556806/ns/business-holiday_retail/
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House panel votes to subpoena Corzine on MF Global (AP)
WASHINGTON ? A congressional panel has subpoenaed former Sen. Jon Corzine to testify next week about his role leading MF Global, a brokerage firm that collapsed this fall after a disastrous bet on European debt.
The Dec. 8 hearing will be a rare moment in Washington. Congressional historians and Capitol Hill insiders can't recall another time when a former member of Congress was summoned by his former peers to testify about a matter under federal investigation.
The House Agriculture Committee voted Friday to issue the subpoena after Corzine failed to reply to an informal request to appear at the hearing.
Chairman Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Okla., said his testimony is "essential to fulfill our objectives."
A spokesman for Corzine declined to comment.
MF Global filed for bankruptcy protection on Oct. 31. Corzine resigned as chairman and CEO a few days later. In just a week, stock investors lost an estimated $585 million.
Corzine has also been asked to testify later this month before two other panels, including the Senate Agriculture Committee. In that case, Corzine could face tough questions from former Senate colleagues.
Corzine, a Democrat, represented New Jersey in the U.S. Senate from 2001 to 2005. For two of those years, he led the committee that raised campaign money for Democrats seeking election to the Senate. He later served one term as New Jersey's governor before moving on to lead MF Global. He was also CEO of Goldman Sachs from 1994 to 1999.
Corzine has few goods options now that the committee has issued a subpoena. By law, he must appear at the hearing. Otherwise, he could be held in contempt of Congress and go to prison.
He could refuse at the hearing to answer their questions, invoking his Fifth Amendment right. That could diminish his credibility.
Still, if he cooperates with lawmakers, he could provide information that might come back to hurt him in criminal and civil investigations.
Corzine "is being whipsawed between the congressional subpoena and the looming criminal investigation," said Robert Mintz, a former federal prosecutor in New Jersey who heads the white-collar defense practice at McCarter & English in Newark.
"It's a unique situation that Jon's in," said Abbe Lowell, a defense attorney who was counsel to the House of Representatives and whose clients have included former Sen. John Edwards and former Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons.
Regulators are looking into whether MF Global used money from customers' accounts for its own purposes as its financial condition worsened. That would violate securities rules. The FBI is investigating whether the firm violated any criminal laws.
An estimated $1.2 billion or more may be missing from customer accounts. Regulators say MF Global moved money out of customer accounts within days as the firm's cash dried up.
MF Global was one of the biggest players in the derivatives market. Derivatives are investments that are based on the value of an underlying asset, such as interest rates or oil prices.
No one at MF Global has been charged with a crime or civil violation.
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Sunday, December 4, 2011
Bon Iver: From A Log Cabin To The Grammys
Wisconsin singer/songwriter's four major Grammy nominations had some music fans saying, 'Who?'
By Gil Kaufman
Bon Iver
Photo: JSN Photography/ WireImage
A lot of people probably woke up Thursday morning (December 1) to read the list of Grammy nominees and asked a very relevant question: Who is Bon Iver?
So, first things first: Bon Iver is not a "he." It's the stage name adopted by solitary Eau Claire, Wisconsin, folkie Justin Vernon in 2007, after he shut himself into a rural hunting cabin that year to record what would become his band's acclaimed 2008 debut, For Emma, Forever Ago.
And the reason he's on everyone's lips now is that his second pastoral album — a self-titled effort that earned rave reviews for its Beach Boys harmonies-meet-falsetto English folk lullabies — got unexpected nominations for a quartet of major Grammy Awards on Wednesday night.
Think Beyoncé and Britney Got the Grammy Cold Shoulder? Sound Off!
His gently undulating "Holocene" is up for Record and Song of the Year, and the relatively unknown-to-the-general-public singer is up against such pop acts as the Band Perry, J. Cole, Nicki Minaj and Skrillex for Best New Artist. (He also got a nod for Best Alternative Music Album.)
Yes, Bon Iver debuted at #2 in June on sales of just under 104,000, but his total album sales to date (just over 304,000) equal the units shifted by Adele every two weeks in the U.S.
So here's a brief primer on the mysterious Mr. Vernon: The former All-State high school football star and World Religion college major began his career playing in the jazzy party band Mount Vernon, which transitioned into DeYarmond Edison, formed with some old high school pals who all moved to North Carolina in 2005 to spread their musical wings. A year later, things fell apart with his band and his girlfriend, just as he was laid low by a vicious bout of mono, driving Vernon back to Eau Claire for some physical and psychic healing.
He holed up in isolation in a deer-hunting log cabin built by his dad in the woods in Northwestern Wisconsin and began writing the high and lonesome songs that would become For Emma. After months spent drinking and watching "Northern Exposure" DVDs, he alighted on the name Bon Iver, which is a French phrase used as a greeting in the show that translates to "good winter."
The tunes he recorded were intended as a demo, but once they got some blog love, he was signed to indie Jagjaguwar, and For Emma was released in May 2008. The album became an indie sensation, and its mix of acoustic folk and manipulated, Auto-Tuned vocals not only landed him on the "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" soundtrack, but also on a number of songs from Kanye West's Grammy-nominated My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.
Even as his star was rising, Vernon kept collaborating with a number of other artists, lending his voice to the indie supergroup Gayngs, playing in the side project Volcano Choir and hooking up with English singer James Blake recently on the song "Fall Creek Boys Choir."
Bon Iver continued to be his main focus, so Vernon built his own cabin to record his self-titled project, again just outside of Eau Claire, turning what used to be an indoor pool into a recording studio where he tracked the songs mostly by himself. (The live version of the band includes a drummer, guitarist and bassist.) The denser, 10-track album featured help from a number of collaborators, including renowned session player and pedal steel maestro Greg Leisz, as well as a number of percussionists and horn and string players.
Which brings us to his Grammy triumph. It's hard to say if Vernon's nominations are a further example of the youth the Recording Academy is trying to inject into the sometimes-staid awards or if the younger members of the Academy are slowly but surely beginning to pull their weight and check boxes for more of their own. But much like Arcade Fire's unanticipated leapfrog over Eminem at last year's Grammys to take the Album of the Year honors, come February 12, Vernon has a shot at becoming one of the biggest outsider artists to ever crash music's big night.
Do you think Bon Iver will take home some gold at the Grammys? Let us know in comments below.
Related Videos Related Photos Related ArtistsSource: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1675243/grammy-nominations-bon-iver.jhtml
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Saturday, December 3, 2011
Ndamukong Suh Stomp: Appeal Hearing To Be Held Thursday, Says AP Source
NEW YORK -- Ndamukong Suh will get his appeals hearing right away.
On Thursday afternoon, Suh will present his appeal of his two-game suspension for stomping Packers guard Evan Dietrich-Smith to Art Shell. The league handed out the suspension Tuesday, but Suh immediately appealed.
Shell is a joint appointee of the NFL and the players' association for such cases.
A person familiar with the process told The Associated Press on Wednesday about the hearing, which will be held by conference call. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the NFL has not announced when the hearing will occur.
Suh stomped on Dietrich-Smith during Detroit's Thanksgiving Day loss to the Packers and was ejected. Should he lose the appeal, he will miss Sunday's game at New Orleans and the Lions' Dec. 11 home game against Minnesota.
Usually, a hearing is held within 10 days of the filing of an appeal. But the league has expedited Suh's high-profile case to give the Lions and the second-year player an answer before the Saints game.
If Suh, the 2010 Defensive Rookie of the Year and an All-Pro, loses the appeal, he can return to the Lions on Dec. 12 before a road game against Oakland. He is barred from practice and the team's facility while suspended.
Early last month, Suh requested and was granted a meeting with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to discuss his play after he drew several penalties and fines. Suh said he had a better understanding of the rules after that meeting.
On Sunday, with it becoming apparent he would be disciplined again, Suh called Goodell to apologize.
Against Green Bay on national TV, Suh lifted up his right knee and forcibly stepped on Dietrich-Smith's right arm during the third quarter of the Lions' 27-15 loss. Before the stomp, Suh shoved Dietrich-Smith's helmet toward the turf while separating himself from the Packers player on the ground.
He was penalized and ejected.
Asked about the incident after the game, Suh sounded defiant, insisting he didn't intentionally step on Dietrich-Smith. A day later, following criticism from the Lions, Suh apologized to his teammates, organization and fans ? not to Dietrich-Smith.
His actions prompted more criticism around the league, with some calling Suh the NFL's dirtiest player.
Suh can afford any fines ? he is making $40 million guaranteed with a chance to get paid as much as $68 million in a five-year contract he signed after Detroit drafted him No. 2 overall in 2010.
___
AP Sports Writers Noah Trister and Larry Lage in Detroit contributed to this story.
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