Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes: Divorcing!

Now that's a celebrity breakup we did not see coming today. After five years of marriage, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are getting a divorce.

"This is a personal and private matter for Katie and her family," says Holmes' attorney Jonathan Wolfe, confirming the TomKat split Friday.

"Katie's primary concern remains, as it always has been, her daughter's best interest."

After a relatively brief courtship, the Rock of Ages star, 49, married the former Dawson's Creek star Holmes, 33, in an Italian castle in 2006.

They have one daughter, six-year-old Suri.

No reason was given for the impending Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes divorce, but the couple has not been seen in public together since February.

This was Holmes' first marriage and the third for Cruise, who previously was married to Nicole Kidman, with whom he has two adopted children, and Mimi Rogers.

It is unclear if divorce papers have formally been filed, but Tom and Katie are believed to have a prenuptial agreement, and are worth at least $275 million.

Obviously, Tom's earnings comprise the bulk of that, but Kate will no doubt receive a significant settlement. Here's wishing both the best in this tough time.

[Photo: WENN.com]

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/06/tom-cruise-and-katie-holmes-its-over/

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TransBotica: HEXBUG? Creator Releases Robotic Toy Bugs into India http://t.co/pGvGOgzt

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://twitter.com/TransBotica/statuses/218953196025028608

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Japan - Eclipse glasses will find new users in Samoa

Thu, 28 Jun 2012

TOKYO, Japan (JAPAN TIMES) ----- Protective glasses used to observe the solar eclipse in Japan last month will find new users in the South Pacific island state of Samoa, where a partial solar eclipse will be visible Nov. 14. ?I hope that observing it will make more students want to choose a scientific career,? said Jinitsu Niinuma, who volunteers helping to train teachers and candidates at National University of Samoa. "Anybody will be interested in anything that happens only rarely.? Niinuma, 61, a junior high school science teacher for more than 30 years in Sendai, has already reached his target of collecting more than 1,000 pairs of the special glasses from across Japan. The target was achieved after the Sendai Astronomical Observatory issued a call for the glasses on the Internet. He started volunteering at the Samoan university in January 2011 as part of a program under the Japan International Cooperation Agency. One of the reasons Niinuma chose Samoa was that the partial solar eclipse will be visible there. With a population of around 180,000, Samoa has around 240 schools. Science laboratories and basic equipment can be found at an increasing number of them, but many other items have not been introduced, including protective glasses for observing solar eclipses. A major headache is the lack of science teachers who can advise students about what to do and what not to do during an eclipse, according to Niinuma. If done incorrectly, observing the phenomenon can cause eye damage. On June 6, when the planet Venus moved across the face of the sun, Niinuma gathered science teachers and students to teach them appropriate observation methods. ?The problem was that they were so impressed they wanted to look at the sun for too long,? he said. In September, Niinuma will bring together teachers from different schools to teach them how to observe the partial solar eclipse. That is also when he will distribute the protective glasses from Japan. As teachers and students become enthralled, there is no doubt that children will be struck by the mystery and the beauty of the eclipse, Niinuma said. ?I hope some of them will get to investigate it on their own,? he said.

Source: http://www.islandsbusiness.com//news/index_dynamic/containerNameToReplace=MiddleMiddle/focusModuleID=130/focusContentID=29105/tableName=mediaRelease/overideSkinName=newsArticle-full.tpl

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Western wildfires seen from space

A video recorded on the International Space Station shows the smoke-filled skies of the American West.

By Alan Boyle

A four-minute video from the International Space Station, released today by NASA, captures a beautiful and horrible sight: Ribbons of smoke drifting across Colorado and other Western states, due to a rash of wildfires.

You can also see sunlight glinting off lakes, as well as the snow-covered Rocky Mountains. But the haze covering the plains makes the biggest impression as you watch the landscape pass by, 230 miles (370 kilometers) beneath the station and a docked Russian spacecraft.

---

More than 30,000 residents in the Colorado Springs area had to evacuate their homes Tuesday night, due to what officials said was the most destructive fire in the state's history. Today, Colorado Springs Mayor Steve Bach passed along a preliminary report that the Waldo Canyon Fire destroyed 346 houses. President Barack Obama is due to visit the city on Friday to meet with firefighters and tour the fire-ravaged zones. (Our slideshow documents the devastation.)

The worst fire season in recent history is taking its toll with large fires burning thousands of acres in Colorado while others consume areas in Montana, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming.

Other wildfires burned in Colorado as well as Utah and Montana, The Associated Press reported.

The space station can capture high-resolution video and stills of the scene from its Cupola observation deck, but that's not the only vantage point at NASA's disposal. Earth-watching satellites such as Terra and Aqua are also monitoring the wildfires, as are weather satellites such as GOES-15. Here's a picture of the western U.S. taken by GOES-15 at 8:45 a.m. ET today and processed by the NASA GOES Project at Goddard Space Flight Center:

NASA / NOAA GOES Project

The GOES-15 satellite keeps a stationary eye over the western United States. Smoke from the fires raging in several states has created a brownish-colored blanket over the entire region.

"The dawn's early light revealed smoke and haze throughout the Midwest, arising from forest fires throughout the Rockies," NASA said in its image advisory. "While the most publicized fires occur along the populous eastern range in Colorado, the great smoke plumes in this image came from Wyoming."

To get a fix on the Western wildfires, check out these resources:

---

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the?Cosmic Log page?to your Google+ presence. You can also check out?"The Case for Pluto,"?my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Source: http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/28/12466661-western-wildfires-seen-from-space?lite

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Dan Walters: Fate of California's bullet train iffy in state Senate

The state Assembly would surely vote for Gov. Jerry Brown's plan to begin building a north-south bullet train in the San Joaquin Valley ? but the Senate, where party discipline is much weaker, is proving to be a tougher political nut to crack.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg has publicly pledged to approve construction funds and wants a vote next week. Just weeks ago, Senate approval appeared certain, but with Republicans solidly opposed, Steinberg needs support from 20 of the 24 other Democratic senators. At the moment, the votes aren't there.

Three Democrats ? Mark DeSaulnier, Alan Lowenthal and Joe Simitian ? have been openly skeptical of the project. At least three others, and likely more, are unconvinced and uncommitted, vote counters say.

Call The Bee's Dan Walters, (916) 321-1195. Back columns, www.sacbee.com/ walters. Follow him on Twitter @WaltersBee.

Steinberg suffered a setback this week when Democratic senators strongly objected to placing hundreds of millions of dollars in bullet train property acquisition and engineering money in the budget bill before a vote on proceeding with a 100-mile segment in the San Joaquin Valley.

A revised budget bill that removed the disputed funds was quickly written and placed on the floors of both houses Wednesday.

Steinberg, in an interview, dismissed the budget flap as minor but acknowledged that he's short of the 21-vote threshold. "It will be a tight vote," he said.

DeSaulnier, Lowenthal and Simitian have raised a number of specific issues about the financial and ridership numbers that the High-Speed Rail Authority, which is chaired by Brown confidant Dan Richard, has used to justify the project.

Brown wants a $2.7 billion allocation from a $9.95 billion voter-approved bond issue to match a $3.3 billion federal grant for the $6 billion San Joaquin Valley project, but the three openly critical senators have bridled at the Obama administration's insistence on the project's beginning there.

They've suggested that San Joaquin Valley work should be minimized while the state focuses on improvements to commuter rail service in Southern California and the San Francisco Bay Area that could eventually become part of a statewide high-speed system.

Richard and Brown insist that would mean losing the federal money, but the senators pursuing the alternative say they believe federal law would allow the priority shift.

Other Democrats either have specific concerns about effects on their districts or are worried that voting for the bullet train could backfire as they run in newly redrawn Senate districts this year. Polls show that most voters now believe the project should be axed.

That doesn't mean the bullet project is dead, but with the feds demanding immediate action, lining up 21 votes in the Senate is very uncertain ? and a big leadership test for both Steinberg and Brown.

Source: http://www.modbee.com/2012/06/28/2260965/dan-walters-fate-of-californias.html

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Thai in-fight forces US to shelve climate study

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/thai-fight-forces-us-shelve-climate-study-145445135.html

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BlackBerry 10 Delayed Until 2013 - Business Insider

YouTube

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RIM announced that its next mobile operating system, BlackBerry 10, won't launch until 2013.

The company showed off BlackBerry 10 at its developers conference in May and claimed the new platform will be what finally puts the company back on track.

BlackBerry 10 was originally supposed to debut by the end of this year. RIM was supposed to launch new phones designed specifically for the new operating system. The PlayBook tablet was also supposed to get an upgrade.

This does not look good for RIM. As the company sheds jobs and loses more marketshare to competitors like Apple and Google, it's becoming more and more clear that the company could be sold before BlackBerry 10 ever sees the light of day.

What does that mean for you? If you already own a BlackBerry phone, probably nothing. Current BlackBerrys weren't going to get the upgrade to BlackBerry 10 anyway. But if you own a PlayBook, it looks like you're going to be stuck with the current OS for some time.

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FDA clears first new weight-loss pill in 13 years

This photo provided by Food and Drug Administration shows Arena Pharmaceutical's anti-obesity pill Belviq. The Food and Drug Administration has approved Belviq, the first new prescription drug for long-term weight loss to enter the U.S. market in over a decade. The agency cleared the pill Wednesday for adults who are obese or are overweight with at least one medical complication, such as diabetes or high cholesterol. (AP Photo/Food and Drug Administration)

This photo provided by Food and Drug Administration shows Arena Pharmaceutical's anti-obesity pill Belviq. The Food and Drug Administration has approved Belviq, the first new prescription drug for long-term weight loss to enter the U.S. market in over a decade. The agency cleared the pill Wednesday for adults who are obese or are overweight with at least one medical complication, such as diabetes or high cholesterol. (AP Photo/Food and Drug Administration)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Food and Drug Administration has approved Arena Pharmaceutical's anti-obesity pill Belviq, the first new prescription drug for long-term weight loss to enter the U.S. market in over a decade.

Despite only achieving modest weight loss in clinical studies, the drug appeared safe enough to win the FDA's endorsement, amid calls from doctors for new weight-loss treatments.

The agency cleared the pill Wednesday for adults who are obese or are overweight with at least one medical complication, such as diabetes or high cholesterol. The drug should be used in combination with a healthy diet and exercise.

Obesity Society President Patrick O'Neil said he's encouraged by the drug's approval because it underscores the notion that lifestyle changes alone are not enough to treat obesity.

"This is good news because it tells us that the FDA is indeed treating obesity seriously," said O'Neil, who teaches at Medical University of South Carolina and was the lead researcher on several studies of Belviq. "On the other hand, it's not the answer to the problem ? or even a big part of the answer."

Even if the effects of Belviq are subtle, experts say it could be an important first step in developing new treatments that attack the underlying causes of obesity.

"The way these things tend to work is you have some people who do extremely well and other people don't lose any weight at all. But if we had 10 medicines that were all different and worked like this, we would have a real field," said Dr. Louis Aronne, director of the weight loss program at Weill-Cornell Medical College.

The FDA denied approval for Arena's drug in 2010 after scientists raised concerns about tumors that developed in animals studied with the drug. The company resubmitted the drug with additional data earlier this year, and the FDA said there was little risk of tumors in humans.

Arena and its partner Eisai Inc. of Woodcliff Lake, N.J., expect to launch the drug in early 2013.

With U.S. obesity rates nearing 35 percent of the adult population, many doctors have called on the FDA to approve new weight loss treatments.

But a long line of prescription weight loss offerings have been associated with safety problems, most notably the fen-phen combination, which was linked to heart valve damage in 1997. The cocktail of phentermine and fenfluramine was a popular weight loss combination prescribed by doctors, though it was never approved by the FDA.

In a rare move, the FDA explicitly stated in a press release that Belviq "does not appear to activate" a chemical pathway that was linked to the heart problems seen with fen-phen.

The FDA said the drug acts on a different chemical pathway in the brain, which is believed to reduce appetite by boosting feelings of satiety and fullness.

Belviq is one of three experimental weight-loss drugs whose developers have been trying for a second time to win approval, after the FDA shot them all down in 2010 or early 2011 because of serious potential side effects.

Vivus Inc.'s Qnexa is thought to be the most promising of the drugs, achieving the most weight loss. But the FDA has delayed a decision on that pill until July.

Shares of San Diego-based Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc. jumped $2.54, or 28.7 percent, to close at $11.39. Shares of Mountain View, Calif.-based Vivus rose $1.94, or 7.4 percent, to $28.33. Shares of Orexigen Therapeutics Inc., the third drugmaker with an obesity pill before the FDA, rose 20 percent to close at $4.92.

Arena's studies showed that patients taking Belviq, known generically as lorcaserin, had modest weight loss. On average patients lost just 3 to 3.7 percent of their starting body weight over a year. About 47 percent of patients without diabetes lost at least 5 percent of their weight or more, which was enough to meet FDA standards for effectiveness. By comparison, average weight loss with Qnexa is 11 percent, with more than 83 percent of patients losing 5 percent of their weight or more.

The FDA said patients should stop taking Belviq after three months if they fail to lose 5 percent of their body weight. Patients are unlikely to see any significant weight loss by staying with the drug.

Side effects with the drug include depression, migraine and memory lapses.

In May a panel of expert advisers to the FDA voted 18-4 to recommend approval of Arena's drug, concluding that its benefits "outweigh the potential risks when used long term" in overweight and obese people.

Experts say the challenge of weight loss drug development lies in safely turning off one of the body's fundamental directives: to eat enough food to maintain its current weight.

While several drugs are available for short-term weight loss, until Wednesday there was only one FDA-approved prescription drug for long-term weight loss: Xenical from Roche, which is seldom prescribed because of unpleasant digestive side effects and modest weight loss. Belviq is the first new prescription drug approved to treat obesity since Xenical's approval 13 years ago.

Other safety failures for diet pills have continued to pile up in recent years.

Four years ago Sanofi-Aventis SA discontinued studies of its highly anticipated pill Acomplia due to psychiatric side effects, including depression and suicidal thoughts. In 2010, Abbott Laboratories withdrew its drug Meridia after a study showed it increased heart attack and stroke.

Associated Press

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How To Develop The Financial Habits You Need For A Successful ...

In today?s world, almost everyone is struggling with their finances, including too much debt, a lack of savings, poor investment skills, and poor spending habits. These finance management killing factors are learned throughout our lives and are tough to be broken once they become part of us.

What are the personal financial management skills you need?- Building and establishing the right financial habits is important, though, as these habits can help you create a strong financial foundation for your future and help you reach the goals you have set for yourself.

This article will present you with the guide to a better financial future for yourself and your family.

Building Reliable Financial Habits

Be Early- Planning for your future doesn?t begin when you turn thirty. Begin setting financial goals for yourself as early as possible in your life. If you are still in the high school, you can set to go to college, moving out on our own and purchase a new car. You will only need a little hard work and some sound habits to attain these goals. However, if you are advanced in age, your goals may be different. You may be working towards a second honeymoon or a satisfactory retirement. No matter what your age, begin your financial planning now; don?t wait for tomorrow.

Save Regularly- No matter what goals you have for your future, it is important that you begin spending less money than you are bringing into your household account. You should start saving a certain amount of money from your pay check each month. This money will come in handy for unforeseen expenses, like hospital bills and car repairs. This is so when such emergencies confront you, you will have the cash ready to settle them instead of going into another debt.

Take A Through Look at Your Bills One Received- While you may not have the money to pay your bills as soon as they arrive in the mail, looking them over as soon as you receive them is a good habit to develop. This is so you can easily identify error and correct them before the bill is due.

Pay Off Credit Card Debt Quickly- It is not good to pay only the minimum payment each month on your credit card as this will increase the interest and the amount of time you spend paying them. Make your payments promptly and also try to make more than just the minimum payment to avoid added interest and late fees.

You Must Use Online Budgeting Software- With an online budgeting management software, you can be able to monitor your income, create budgets and monitor your expenses. Also, using a personal finance online calculator will also allow you to create a better budget you can stick to while having an insight on what your budget would look like in the next few months.

Your personal financial management is important for your future, so it is essential you begin establishing good financial habits now. You can use these tips to create a better financial future for yourself and develop worthwhile habits that will lead to a balanced financial lifestyle.

PocketSmith has led so many people to proper personal financial management. They provide all the best personal finance software tools.

Got 5 minutes? Try to check your Illinois auto insurance rates using our simple quote engine. You will get instant rates from multiple insurers.

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Research firm executive arrested on insider trading charges: FBI

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Robert Wyatt: A Father's Reminder About Investing and College Costs

Hall of Shame? Ordered up by Congress to embarrass colleges?

Mainstream higher education news organizations -- if there could or should be such things -- seem content to label the college-costs lists released this week by the U.S. Department of Education as the offspring of some conspiratorial body intent on undercutting the good work of American higher education.

Although it is obviously impossible to quantify an educational experience, the rankings from the College Affordability and Transparency Center -- perhaps most college rankings, in fact -- offer valuable information about important components of quality institutions and reflect, more broadly, the extremely competitive nature of higher education.

Overall, however, families will be best served by the rankings when they fully reject the ostensible premise that underlies their worth: that rankings facilitate transparency, which is in short supply.

Rankings are possible precisely because transparency is present.

We -- and I'm speaking, more, as the father of a bright and free-spirited college-bound young lady, than as an accountant-turned-college president -- are bombarded with credible information about college effectiveness, about the value of an education, about the value of specific disciplines, about novel housing options, powerful civic engagement programs, and always, always, about college costs.

We do not lack data; we lack time.

But, again, speaking personally, I know in my core that an investment of time is the single most important outlay our family will need to make if my daughter is to find her way to the college experience that is most likely to help her develop her unique interests, skills and talents.

Although accountants and statisticians can certainly create marketable lists about colleges, colleges simply aren't given naturally to rankings, they are given to people. Each institution represents a community of people committed (some more, some less) to a mission. And, as communities, they must be experienced to be understood.

We test drive cars, ask to look at and hold our friends' smartphones, and try on shoes. For most personal choices, most of us realize that we need to figure out for ourselves which models to purchase. Recognizing that a third or more of college students will transfer to a different institution at least once in their college careers, it seems obvious that many students eventually determine that the college that initially caught their attention was not a good fit.

At the risk of sounding "fatherly," by which I mean "old," I persistently urge my daughter and the many prospective students who actually seem to want my advice, to learn as much as they possibly can about a variety of colleges before forming their short lists.

Amazingly, some 75 percent of students who apply for the federal student aid never apply to more than one institution. Apply and go. It might work for summer camp, but it's not a good strategy for picking a college.

After building a reasonable short list, I advise them to dig into the details. Investigate. Study the rankings (they're not evil). Read the promotional material online and in print. But don't stop when you get to the last page.

Connect the dots. Supplement the information that is pushed toward you with information you pull on your own. Use Google or LinkedIn or other platforms just now emerging to uncover alumni stories. Ask questions that embarrass administrators. Ask questions that make them beam. Stroll on the campus mall; have a fruit smoothie in the local coffee shop. See if you can find a place to park.

Invest time before you invest dollars.

Financial considerations may be transparent, but understanding the pleasures and burdens of personal choice requires a bit practice.

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Top Online Franchise Businesses - Work At Home

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Reiki for Stress Reduction and Spirituality | Healthy Lifestyle Plus

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How to change the device name of your iPhone or iPad over-the-air (OTA)

With iOS 5 going PC-free, you can now change the name of your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad right on the device itself. That's right, no more connecting via USB to iTunes on the desktop or fighting sync to get it done. With just a few taps in one app, you can now make sure your device has a memorable name for everything from iCloud backup and restore to Wi-Fi Personal Hotspot tethering.

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Listening and Longing: Music Lovers in the Age of Barnum

Daniel Cavicchi takes a detailed look at 19th-century music consumers.

June 25, 2012

Listening and Longing: Music Lovers in the Age of Barnum By Daniel Cavicchi Wesleyan University Press 280 pp.

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Reviewed by Robert Christgau for The Barnes & Noble Review

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Music was booming in America well before Edison's 1877 invention of the phonograph transformed it into a utility as ubiquitous as electricity and flush toilets, which took about 50 years. By 1900 there were symphony orchestras in Pittsburgh and St. Louis, opera houses in Newberry, South Carolina, and Central City, Colorado, and added to these exceptional cases were countless theaters in which music of every kind was performed willy-nilly, often on the same bill. In 1870, American strivers bought 80 home pianos daily and filled their benches with sheet music; a decade later, local brass bands were epidemic as sales of cornets and trombones skyrocketed. Yet because 19th-century America produced no opera or symphony composers of note, all this action is still ignored by a defensively snobbish American musicological establishment.

Music scholar Daniel Cavicchi isn't a musicologist and doesn't think overmuch about composers. He teaches American studies at the Rhode Island School of Design, and traces his ethnographic approach to music scholarship to the Music in Daily Life Project overseen by the seminal popular music scholar Charles Keil at SUNY Buffalo. In 1993 Cavicchi, Keil, and Susan D. Crafts published My Music: 41 interviews with everyday fans that explode the fantasy of exclusive "taste subcultures" so dear to sociologists and marketers (and critics too) just by recounting musical preferences that cross more genre boundaries than experts consider appropriate. In 1998, he turned his Brown Ph.D. thesis into Tramps Like Us: Music & Meaning Among Springsteen Fans, dominated by summaries of and longish quotes from about 100 Bruce devotees that focus on feelings and experiences while barely touching the music itself ? even though Cavicchi's candid passion for that music helps ground and humanize the material.

As a critic, I have reservations about a method Cavicchi never suggests is the only way to address music. But as a democrat I welcome it. "My Music"
changed the way I think about fandom and established Cavicchi's right to write music history his way. The result is Listening and Longing: Music Lovers in the Age of Barnum, a detailed look at 19th-century music consumers that at a mere 192 pages stands as a painstaking, groundbreaking work of scholarship that adds substantially to our understanding of all that disrespected action. Cavicchi's approach propels him well beyond music proper. He believes that in the context of such "cultures of hearing" as oratory and hucksterism, "music lovers," as he likes to call them, were key players in the 19th century's fundamental identity-building project. As country boys tried their luck in the city and young middle-class women edged away from hearth and home, they developed their own ideas about pleasure, leisure, and class. Transformed inexorably into atomized cultural and economic actors, they struggled to make the most of it and enjoyed themselves along the way.

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Bright colors make a man's summer wardrobe shine

MILAN (AP) ? Midway through the four-day menswear preview showings, it was clear that Italian designers are looking ahead to a bright summer in 2013.

Bold shades of blue, red, yellow and green, plus pink, orange, turquoise and lime, light up the current runway, bursting into color like fireworks on the 4th of July. Monochromatic, two-tone, fluorescent or metallic, they give extra pep to a classic suit, a blazer or a pair of cotton slacks.

The only designers so far to have shied from the new color movement are Dolce&Gabbana who preferred Sicilian black and Tomas Maier for Bottega Veneta who stuck to conservative brown and blue.

But Maier embraced the craze for floral and geometric prints, which have shown up everywhere. However, he dimmed the effect, covering his large floral prints with a film of delicate organza, a usually feminine fabric.

The overall summer silhouette is on the casual side, with slim but not tight-fitting pants, a comfortable fit for jackets and lightweight outerwear including raincoats, bomber jackets and wind breakers.

While the colors are bold, the fabrics are light from cotton to silk to the see-through organza.

Bags are big and roomy, and usually come with a shoulder strap for easier carrying.

Footwear is sporty, with the rebirth of the sneaker and simple training shoe, often in bright fluorescent shades. There are also sturdy leather sandals and classic lace-ups, updated with colorful soles.

____

PRADA

Miuccia Prada always puts together a great show.

The designer's latest collection presented Sunday evening, the second day of preview showings for summer 2013 menswear, was happy, snappy and just minimalist enough to insure the label's reputation as the most avant-garde maison of Italian fashion.

Young lads and mature men walked down the sloped, pristine white runway wearing nothing more than revisited track suits.

Prada created an entire collection and a brand new look, starting with the white-band theme of sportswear items.

First, she put the white bands on the inside instead of outside of a trouser leg, then she accentuated the same white band for the neckline of the accompanying T-shirt top. Like musical variations on a theme, the imaginative designer worked the bands into different components of her summer wardrobe from shirts to jackets to overcoats. As the show went on, the bands changed color and became ever larger, culminating in a two-tone effect for a simple polo shirt or the lapel of a jacket.

Meanwhile, the white band also showed up under the arm of a lightweight raincoat or became the cross strap of a flat leather sandal.

Not satisfied to limit the new inventions to the male population, Prada put together a his-and-her version of most of the outfits.

For the girls, however, the T-shirts came in luxurious dyed fur. All the female models wore a tennis band around their head to accentuate the sporty feel of the collection.

The new Prada bag is unisex. Big and boxy, it can be carried by hand and double as an overnighter.

____

BOTTEGA VENETA

The latest Bottega Veneta collection is inspired by the pullover ? or as creative director Tomas Maier puts it ? "a top that you pull over your head."

In his fashion notes for the summer 2013 menswear collection, the designer points out that the pullover is a universal piece that can be found in both traditional and contemporary cultures.

What Maier fails to add is that a Bottega Veneta pullover is not just any pullover. The designer puts into this seemingly simple attire the manufacturing expertise, the fabric and the attention to detail which make the difference.

Many of his summer pullovers are actually tunics. They come in light wool or cotton silk and casually caress the body, giving the impression of effortless elegance. Sometimes these tunics are worn with comfortable cropped trousers; at other times their hemline hangs down from under the jacket of a cotton suit.

Many of this season's Bottega Veneta shirt/pullovers have a lace-up front reminiscent of frontier buckskin garb, especially when they come in super-soft suede and are paired with fringed ankle boots. A V-neck cashmere pullover has side-seam zips for extra freedom.

The summer silhouette is sporty without losing its class. Jackets and trousers have a classic fit. Colors ? unlike the garish shades seen on a number of the current menswear runways ? are calm tones of brown, from beige to tobacco, or a quiet series of blues.

Maier also leaves loud prints to his colleagues, preferring a delicate floral print which fades into the fabric of his jackets and pullovers or makes up the fabric of a suit or pair of pants, veiled with a subtle layer of organza.

The renowned Bottega Veneta bags on this round are extra large and come in functional brown leather, with an elongated strap so that they can be worn across the body. It all looks so simple, and yet somehow no other designer can carry off the intricate workmanship behind the collection with such nonchalance.

____

VERSACE

Donatella Versace has always put up a good fashion fight.

For next summer she outfits a man facing today's tough world with clothes fit for an ancient Roman arena.

"The new gladiators are the young. I would like to see them fighting for a goal," she told reporters ahead of her Saturday night show, which closed the first day of menswear preview showings in Milan for summer 2013.

The designer opened the show with a bare-chested model sporting a gilded warrior belt, wrestling trunks and high-laced centurion sandals fashioned in contemporary sneaker fabric.

Throughout the show, Versace came back to the gladiator theme, decorating T-shirts and tunics with gilded embroidery, pairing the centurion sandal with evening wear and offering the Roman-inspired boxer robe as a lightweight overcoat.

When she wasn't in the combat arena, Versace drew inspiration from the Memphis Group ? the 1980s furniture movement which opted for a colorful style in contrast to conventional home furnishings.

She used famous graphic prints to liven up classic suits as well as summer shirts and tote bags.

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Does know what travel insurance is or how I should go about ...

Best answer:

Answer by Barkley Hound
It cover loses due to accidents, weather, lost luggage, sickness, missed flights, etc. You can buy it along with prepaid tours or from a travel agency.

Give your answer to this question below!

Posted in Travel Insurance | Tagged about, insurance, know, obtaining, should, travel |

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Daytime Emmys: Who Were the Big Winners?

Host Anderson Cooper kicked off the 39th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards on June 23 with a humorous duet with another daytime icon: none other than Sesame Street's Oscar the Grouch!

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Washington Nationals (40-28) at Baltimore Orioles (40-30), 7:15 p.m. (ET)

In the Washington Nationals stacked rotation, Edwin Jackson is often a forgotten man, but he has pitched much better than his 3-4 record would indicate.

Jackson has an ERA of 3.02, which is on pace to be his lowest in six years as a starter. He's often been dominant, as hitters are batting just .213 against him, eighth-best in the National League.

The right-hander has allowed two earned runs or fewer in four consecutive starts. He was the hard-luck loser on June 17 against the Yankees, going six innings while allowing seven hits and two runs.

Jackson has had success against the Orioles in his career, going 5-1 with a 3.25 ERA in 10 games, though he has a 5.16 ERA in 22 2/3 innings at Camden Yards.

For the Orioles, Wei-Yin Chen will attempt to win his fourth straight game for the first time in his major league career.

The Taiwanese lefty is coming off arguably his best performance as an Oriole on June 17, earning the win over the Braves by tossing seven scoreless innings.

Chen's seven wins is tops on the team, and his 3.36 ERA is second to only Jason Hammel's 2.87 among Oriole starters.

In Friday's series opener, the Orioles came out on top, 2-1, behind another masterful performance from Jason Hammel.

Hammel (8-2) followed up a shutout on June 16 with an eight- inning gem, allowing five hits and no earned runs while striking out 10. In the process, he lowered his season ERA to 2.61.

"His outings the last two times out, and really most of the year, have been fun to watch," Orioles manager Buck Showalter said. "When you have command of that many pitches in your repertoire and you put him and (catcher Matt) Wieters on the same team, you like your chances. He was outstanding."

Baltimore got out to an early 1-0 lead after a Mark Reynolds home run in the bottom of the second, his sixth of the year.

The Nationals tied the game up 1-1 with a Roger Bernadina RBI groundout in the top of the fifth, only for the Orioles to respond in the bottom of the inning with a J.J. Hardy RBI double, which proved to be the game winner.

Jim Johnson pitched a scoreless ninth inning for his 21st save.

Jordan Zimmermann (3-6) pitched well in defeat, allowing two earned runs and eight hits over seven innings of work.

The win for the Orioles snapped a three-game losing streak, and they are just 1 1/2-games behind the Yankees for first place in the AL East.

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China docks spacecraft manually

24 June 2012 Last updated at 07:00 ET

(L-R) Liu Wang, Jing Haipeng and China's first female astronaut, Liu Yang, smiling after completing the exercise

China has successfully completed its first ever manual docking of a spacecraft with another space module.

Astronauts on the Shenzhou-9 spacecraft docked with the Tiangong-1 lab module without relying on an automated system.

State television broadcast images of Jing Haipeng, Liu Wang and China's first female astronaut, Liu Yang, smiling after completing the exercise.

The docking is seen as a key step in the building of a space station, which China hopes to finish by 2020.

A manual docking procedure would be used in the event of a failure with the automated system.

It is regarded as a difficult manoeuvre, bringing gently together two orbiting vessels travelling at thousands of miles an hour.

Liu Wang took charge of the operation, while Liu Yang conducted aerospace experiments.

"The success of the manual docking mission represents a major breakthrough. It was a precise and perfect docking," said Wu Ping, spokeswoman for China's manned space programme.

Manual docking was mastered by the USSR and US in the 1960s.

The Shenzhou-9 spacecraft was launched on 16 June.

It carried out a successful automatic docking when it reached the Tiangong-1 module on 18 June.

Every move of the mission has been watched with patriotic pride by China's state media, the BBC's John Sudworth in Shanghai reports.

Even the astronauts' first space meal - rice, pickled pork, barbecue sauce and tea - was reported, our correspondent says.

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Ecuador?s president considers bizarre asylum bid by WikiLeaks? Julian Assange

David Stringer The Associated Press

LONDON?Ecuador?s embassy in London said Saturday that ambassador Anna Alban was travelling to her country?s capital to brief President Rafael Correa on the bizarre request for political asylum made by Wikileaks chief Julian Assange.

Assange took refuge inside the embassy on Tuesday and remains camped out in an office there after his legal options ran out for avoiding extradition from Britain to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning for alleged sex crimes.

Correa, Ecuador?s leftist president, has said his government is considering Assange?s request, but has not indicated when a decision will be made.

In a statement, the country?s embassy said Saturday that Alban had boarded a flight to Quito to personally brief Correa on the situation.

?While in Ecuador she will be holding a series of meetings with officials at the ministry of foreign affairs before meeting President Correa to personally brief him on Mr. Assange?s application for political asylum,? the statement said. ?She will also fully brief the president on her recent meeting with officials of the U.K. Government.?

Speaking Thursday from inside the embassy, Assange said he had made his bid for asylum because the ?Ecuadoreans were sympathetic in relation to my struggles.? He had previously interviewed Correa, with whom he shares skepticism toward the United States.

?Ecuador presently finds itself in a unique situation and it is important that those responsible making the final decision on Mr. Assange?s application are fully briefed on all aspects of the present,? the embassy said in its statement.

Assange has been fighting since 2010 to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over alleged sexual assaults on two women. Assange denies the claims, and says the case against him is politically motivated.

Both he and supporters insist that if he was sent to Sweden he would then likely become the target of a U.S. request to extradite him there over allegations linked to his leaking of hundreds of thousands of secret U.S. documents via the secret-spilling WikiLeaks website.

U.S. soldier, Pfc. Bradley Manning, a 24-year-old from Crescent, Oklahoma, has been charged with aiding the enemy by passing the secret files to WikiLeaks and is awaiting trial.

A Virginia grand jury is studying evidence that might link Assange to Manning, but no action has yet been taken.

?We are hoping what I am doing now will draw attention to the underlying issues,? Assange told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio in an interview Thursday.

Correa said his country would discuss the case with Britain, Sweden and the United States before reaching a final decision.

While inside the embassy, Assange remains outside the reach of British authorities ? but police are poised to arrest him the moment he steps foot outside the building.

Police said Assange will be arrested for breaching the terms of his bail, which included an overnight curfew at a registered address.

Assange?s lawyer Jennifer Robinson said Saturday that filmmaker Michael Moore has sent Assange a message of support, urging him not to despair.

Robinson posted an email sent by Moore, among supporters who offered money to meet Assange?s 200,000 pounds ($316,000) bail, to her Twitter account.

In the message, sent Wednesday, Moore told the WikiLeaks founder it was a crime ?that you even have to seek asylum, and I stand with you through this. Do not despair.?

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Google Celebrates Alan Turing with a Turing Machine Doodle

Alan Turing is being honored with a Google doodle this weekend on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the birth of the pioneering British computer scientist and father of artificial intelligence.

Turing (June 23, 1912-June 7, 1954) worked as a code breaker during World War II, heading the team tasked with cracking German naval codes at Britain's Government Code and Cypher School (GCCS). Prior to the war while a student at Cambridge, he developed his famous "Turing machine," a variation of which is depicted in Google's animated Turing doodle below.

A Turing machine is not an actual computer but rather a hypothetical one that still serves as a fundamental tool for understanding how algorithms, computer programming, and computing itself works. Turing described his conceptual computer, which he referred to as a Logical Computing Machine, in his 1948 essay "Intelligent Machinery" as having:

"...an unlimited memory capacity obtained in the form of an infinite tape marked out into squares, on each of which a symbol could be printed. At any moment there is one symbol in the machine; it is called the scanned symbol. The machine can alter the scanned symbol and its behavior is in part determined by that symbol, but the symbols on the tape elsewhere do not affect the behavior of the machine. However, the tape can be moved back and forth through the machine, this being one of the elementary operations of the machine. Any symbol on the tape may therefore eventually have an innings."

Turing did help design and build functional computational machines in the 1940s and 50s, including groundbreaking experimental computers like the Automatic Computing Engine (ACE) while working at Britain's National Physical Laboratory and the Manchester machines at the Royal Society Computing Machine Laboratory run by the famous mathematician and code breaker Max Newman at Manchester University.

But he is most famous today for the "Turing test." This proposed method for determining if a machine can "think" is considered the basis of the science of artificial intelligence.

There is actually some controversy over how Turing proposed to test machines for intelligence in his 1950 essay "Computing Machinery and Intelligence." In the essay, Turing describes question-and-answer games that involve a "blind" player interrogating two other players, one a human and one a computer, to try to determine the gender of each. In different versions of the game, the players attempt to either trick or assist the interrogator in making his or her final determination of gender.

Turing proposes that if the interrogator is as often right (or wrong) about the computer's gender as the human's, then the computer can be described as "intelligent." However, Turing tests have evolved into a form used today known as the standard Turing test where the interrogator is attempting to simply determine which of the two players being questioned is a human and which is a computer?a formulation of the game that some argue Turing intended while others believe he did not.

The annual Loebner Prize competition, initiated in 1990 by the American inventor Hugh Loebner, uses a standard Turing test on computer programs entered in the contest to determine which is the most human-like.

Turing was gay during a time when homosexuality was persecuted under the law in the U.K. He was convicted of illegal homosexual acts in 1952 and forced to undergo chemical castration treatment to avoid a prison term.

His death by cyanide poisoning just a few weeks before his 42nd birthday was ruled a suicide at the time, though some believe it may have been accidental. In 2009, the British government formally apologized for the persecution of Turing.

For more on Google's doodles, meanwhile, see the slideshow below. Recently, the company has honored Robert Moog, considered by many to be a pioneer in the electronic music space, as well as artist Keith Haring, zipper pioneer Gideon Sundback, Howard Carter, a British archaeologist best known for uncovering the tomb of King Tutankhamen in Egypt, and Peter Carl Faberg?, the famed jeweler and goldsmith to the Russian Imperial Court.

For more from Damon, follow him on Twitter @dpoeter.

For the top stories in tech, follow us on Twitter at @PCMag.

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"Troika" report on Greece seen unlikely before summit

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An Old President Starts a New War on Terror

Jul 2, 2012, Vol. 17, No. 40

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Iran: Cyber attack on nuclear facilities detected

Iran has detected a planned "massive cyber attack" against its nuclear facilities, state television said on Thursday, after talks with major powers this week failed to resolve a row over Tehran's disputed nuclear activities.

Iran's Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi said the country's arch enemies the United States and Israel, along with Britain, had planned the attack.

"Based on obtained information, America and the Zionist regime (Israel) along with the MI6 planned an operation to launch a massive cyber attack against Iran's facilities following the meeting between Iran and the P5+1 in Moscow," Iran's English-language Press TV quoted him as saying.

"They still seek to carry out the plan, but we have taken necessary measures," he added, without elaborating.

Security experts said last month a highly sophisticated computer virus, dubbed "Flame", had infected computers in Iran and other Middle Eastern countries.

Iranian officials were quick to say the country had defeated the virus, capable of snatching data and eavesdropping on computer users. It was not clear if the cyber attack referred to by Moslehi was "Flame", or a new virus.

Iran's nuclear program came under attack in 2010 by the Stuxnet computer worm which caused centrifuges to fail at the main Iranian enrichment facility. Tehran accused the United States and Israel of deploying Stuxnet.

Iran has been locked in a row for nearly a decade with Western countries over its disputed nuclear program which the West believes is aimed at making nuclear weapons.

Tehran denies the charge, saying it only wants peaceful nuclear technology to generate.

Earlier this month current and former U.S. officials said the United States under former President George W. Bush began building Stuxnet to try to prevent Tehran from completing suspected nuclear weapons work without resorting to risky military strikes against Iranian facilities.

They said President Barack Obama accelerated the efforts after succeeding Bush in 2009.

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World powers and Iran failed to secure a breakthrough at talks on Tehran's nuclear program in Moscow on Tuesday, despite the threat of a new Middle East conflict if diplomacy collapses.

After two days of talks, European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said significant differences remained and the two sides had agreed only on a technical follow-up meeting in Istanbul on July 3.

Tehran has repeatedly said that as a member of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it can develop a full nuclear fuel cycle, and, if this is recognized, talks with the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council ? Britain, France, Russia, China, the United States ? and Germany (the P5+1) can succeed.

"If the other side agrees to recognize Iran's (nuclear) rights based on international regulations, Iran is ready to negotiate anything," Ali Akbar Velayati, an adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency on Thursday.

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012. Check for restrictions at: http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp

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