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Thursday, February 7, 2013

Stewie the world's longest cat dies in Nevada

FILE - In this file photo taken July 1, 2009, Robin Henderson stretches out her Maine Coon cat Stewie outside of her home in Reno, Nev. The Reno owner of the longest domestic cat in the world says Stewie died Monday, Feb. 4, 2013 after a yearlong battle with cancer. Guinness World Records declared Stewie the record-holder in August 2010, measuring 48.5 inches from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail. (AP Photo/Reno Gazette-Journal, Andy Barron)

RENO, Nev. (AP) ? Stewie the Cat, the longest domestic cat in the world at more than 4 feet long from nose to tail, has died.

Stewie was surrounded by family when he succumbed to a yearlong battle with cancer Monday evening at his Reno home, owner Robin Hendrickson said Tuesday. He was 8.

Guinness World Records declared Stewie the record-holder in August 2010, measuring 48.5 inches from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail.

Hundreds of fans flooded Stewie's Facebook site with memories and condolences Tuesday. The Maine Coon cat was a certified therapy animal that frequently visited a Reno senior center and helped promote animal welfare awareness with the Nevada Humane Society.

"Stewie was always very social and loved meeting new people," Hendrickson said. "He has touched many lives, and for that I am grateful."

Stewie's full name was Mymains Stewart Gilligan. Hendrickson bought him from a breeder in Hermiston, Oregon, in 2005. Last month, he attended the International Cat Show in Portland, Oregon.

"He did really well at the show, even though he wasn't feeling totally perfect," said Stewie's breeder, Valerie Horton, who also serves as the show's entry clerk. "He loved being there because he loved the public. He always did."

Horton said Maine Coons are the largest domestic breed of cats. She's been raising them since 1980.

"It's the luck of the draw," Horton said. "We mostly breed for type and temperament, and then hope for the size. Stewie's father came from some very large cats."

Guinness World Records officials did not immediately respond to inquiries about a successor to Stewie's record. The previous record-holder, Leo, a 48-inch-long Maine Coon owned by Frieda Ireland of Chicago, died several years ago.

Stewie was diagnosed in early 2012 with Lymphosarcoma, a malignant disease of the lymphoid tissues. He responded successfully to chemotherapy and was declared cancer-free, but the remission period was brief, and a vet recently found another, more aggressive tumor on his kidneys, Hendrickson said.

"I knew that although we could fight it, the end was near and so I wanted to simply make him comfortable and let him enjoy the time he did have," she said.

____

Associated Press writer Steven DuBois contributed to this report from Portland, Ore.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-02-05-ODD--World's%20Longest%20Cat/id-d6c7194c8f4748c6afaee2d2d011333c

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Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Goodell: New Orleans 'terrific,' despite blackout

Fans and members of the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers wait for power to return in the Superdome during an outage in the second half of the NFL Super Bowl XLVII football game, Sunday, Feb. 3, 2013, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell speaks during a news conference after NFL Super Bowl XLVII football game Monday, Feb. 4, 2013, in New Orleans. The Ravens defeated the San Francisco 49ers 34-31. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

A power outage affects about half the lights in the Superdome during the second half of the NFL Super Bowl XLVII football game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens, Sunday, Feb. 3, 2013, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell walks on the field before the NFL Super Bowl XLVII football game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens, Sunday, Feb. 3, 2013, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell poses for a photo with MVP Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco at a news conference after NFL Super Bowl XLVII football game Monday, Feb. 4, 2013, in New Orleans. The Ravens defeated the San Francisco 49ers 34-31. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

NEW ORLEANS (AP) ? The blackout at the Superdome will not stop the Super Bowl from returning to New Orleans.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said that despite the electrical outage which delayed Sunday night's game for 34 minutes, the city did a "terrific" job hosting its first pro football championship in the post-Katrina era.

"Let me reiterate again what an extraordinary job the city of New Orleans has done," said Goodell, speaking Monday at a post-Super Bowl media conference held for the game's most valuable player, Baltimore quarterback Joe Flacco, and winning coach John Harbaugh. "The most important thing is to make sure people understand it was a fantastic week."

New Orleans has hosted 10 Super Bowls, including Baltimore's 34-31 victory over San Francisco, tied for the most with Miami.

While serving as the site of America's biggest sporting event and focus of an unofficial national holiday gets any place a lot of attention, this game had special meaning for New Orleans.

The city last hosted the Super Bowl in 2002 and officials were hoping this would serve as the ultimate showcase ? on a global scale ? of how far it has come since being devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The storm winds tore holes in the roof of the Superdome and there was water damage from the rain that affected electrical systems and caused mold to spread. More than $330 million has been spent to upgrade the facility, which has hosted the annual Sugar Bowl, Saints games, two BCS title games and a men's Final Four since the storm.

Yet the loss of power was an embarrassment that quickly became perhaps the signature moment of the Ravens' win.

Goodell said not to worry.

"I do not think this will have an effect on future Super Bowls in New Orleans," he said. "I fully expect to be back here for Super Bowls. I hope we will be back. We want to be back here."

Local officials have said they will bid to host an 11th Super Bowl in 2018 to coincide with the 300th anniversary of the city's founding. Goodell made it sound like that is still in play.

"This will not affect the view of the NFL of the success of the game here in New Orleans," Goodell said. "We know that they have an interest in future Super Bowls and we look forward to evaluating that. Going forward, I do not think this will have an effect at all on what I think will be remembered as one of the great Super Bowl weeks."

Goodell said he had no concerns about the adequacy of the Superdome going forward because "this is clearly something that can be fixed and it's clearly something we can prepare for and we will."

For Goodell, it seemed, it was important to recognize how much fans and the league's business partners enjoyed dining at the city's renowned restaurants, attending parties in the home of Mardi Gras, and the ease of moving around with everything centrally located downtown.

It wasn't the first time Goodell has stuck up for the city.

He has been widely credited with working behind the scenes to get the Superdome renovated on a fast track after Katrina struck. It reopened in September 2006, in time for the Saints to return permanently to New Orleans after spending one season displaced to San Antonio.

Still, some Saints fans were critical of Goodell's handling of the league's bounty investigation of the team, and resulting sanctions that included the full season suspension of coach Sean Payton.

"After all we've been through here in New Orleans, it seems like we can't escape the worldwide attention of these kinds of events," said Doug Thornton, vice president of SMG, which manages both the Superdome and neighboring New Orleans Arena for the state. "It was an unfortunate circumstance at such a great moment for the city. I think the city was just spectacular this week. The host committee did a great job. It was a flawless event up to that point and it was just a spectacular week.

"So obviously for me, it was a disappointing moment."

Thornton said nothing inside the Superdome malfunctioned, but that the stadium's power supply was cut off from a nearby substation, and that once power was restored, everything inside the dome resumed normal operation.

Thornton also dismissed reports that the halftime show featuring Beyonce had anything to do with the outage, pointing out that that portion of the event was on independent generator power. In fact, Thornton said the dome's electrical system, which has not once failed since the storm, used less power during the Super Bowl than a typical Saints game.

Flacco also praised New Orleans as a host.

The Ravens quarterback recalled how much he enjoyed getting out on Saturday and visiting the French Quarter to clear his mind the day before the biggest game of his life. During that afternoon he stopped by Cafe du Monde, on the edge of scenic Jackson Square, where locals and tourists alike enjoy French doughnuts with powdered sugar and cafe au lait.

He added: "I really just wanted to try those beignets, or however you say it, which were unbelievable, by the way."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-02-04-Super%20Bowl-New%20Orleans/id-3698ef4378254d92b392afc70838a2f8

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Tuesday, February 5, 2013

This Text String Crashes Almost Any App on a Mac Running Mountain Lion

Here's a weird little OS X quirk: the eight-character code above seems to cause pretty much any app on a Mac running Mountain Lion to crash, instantly. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/SojTtzd6Iag/this-text-string-crashes-almost-any-app-on-a-mac-running-mountain-lion

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King Richard III found after 500 years

LEICESTER (Reuters) - A skeleton with a cleaved skull and a curved spine entombed under a car park is that of Richard III, scientific tests confirmed, solving a 500-year-old mystery about the final resting place of the last English king to die in battle.

Richard, depicted by William Shakespeare as a monstrous tyrant who murdered two princes in the Tower of London, was killed fighting his eventual successor Henry Tudor at the Battle of Bosworth Field in central England in 1485.

In one of the most significant archaeological discoveries of recent times, a team from the University of Leicester said evidence showed that a skeleton found last year during excavations of a mediaeval friary under a parking lot in the city was indeed that of Richard.

After a detailed academic presentation focusing on the life, wounds and physique of Richard III, the lead archaeologist on the project, Richard Buckley, announced his conclusion to cheers and applause.

"It's the academic conclusion of the University of Leicester that beyond reasonable doubt the individual exhumed at Grey Friars in September 2012 is indeed Richard III, the last Plantagenet king of England," Buckley said.

Academics said DNA taken from the body matched that of Michael Ibsen, a Canadian-born furniture maker in London who genealogists said was the direct descendant of Richard's sister, Anne of York.

The skeleton showed signs of injuries consistent with wounds received in battle; a bladed implement appeared to have cleaved part of the rear of the skull while a barbed metal arrowhead was found between vertebrae of the skeleton's upper back.

While the findings may solve one riddle about Richard, the last Plantagenet king of England remains a complex figure whose life, made famous by Shakespeare's history play, deeply divides opinion among historians in Britain and abroad.

(Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Maria Golovnina and Peter Millership)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/king-richard-iii-found-under-car-park-researchers-104327880.html

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Stock market has worst day this year; Dow off 129

The stock market is closing out its worst day so far this year, bringing the Dow average back below 14,000.

The drop, which erased 129 points from the Dow Jones industrial average, came on the first trading day after the index closed above 14,000 for the first time since the financial crisis.

The Dow ended at 13,880 Monday, down 0.9 percent.

Other indexes fell slightly more. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 17 points to end at 1,495, a loss of 1.2 percent.

Technology stocks fell more than other sectors, pulling the Nasdaq lower. The technology-heavy index fell almost 48 points, or 1.5 percent, to 3,131.

Falling stocks outnumbered rising ones nearly four to one on the New York Stock Exchange. Volume was average, 3.4 billion shares.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/stock-market-worst-day-dow-off-129-211726397--finance.html

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Monday, February 4, 2013

Biden: US would hold direct talks if Iran serious

United States' Vice President Joe Biden speaks to media prior to a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, unseen, at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Friday, Feb. 1, 2013. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

US Vice President Joe Biden, right, and Sheikh Moaz al-Khatib, Syria's top opposition leader, shake hands at the Security Conference in Munich, southern Germany, on Saturday, Feb. 2, 2013. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

US Vice President Joe Biden, right, laughs as he talks to Sergey Lavrov, Foreign Minister of Russia, during the International Security Conference in Munich, southern Germany, on Saturday, Feb. 2, 2013. The Munich Security Conference started Friday afternoon with experts from 90 delegations. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, right, and Sheikh Moaz Al-Khatib, President of the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, shake hands during the Security Conference in Munich, southern Germany, on Friday, Feb. 1, 2013. The 49th Munich Security Conference starts Friday afternoon with experts from 90 delegations including US Vice President Joe Biden. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, right, and Lakhdar Brahimi, Joint Special Representative of the Unietd Nations and the League of Arab States on Syria, shake hands during the Security Conference in Munich, southern Germany, on Friday, Feb. 1, 2013. The 49th Munich Security Conference starts Friday afternoon with experts from 90 delegations Including US Vice President Joe Biden. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

MUNICH (AP) ? The United States is prepared to hold direct talks with Iran in the standoff over its nuclear ambitions, Vice President Joe Biden said Saturday ? but he insisted that Tehran must show it is serious and Washington won't engage in such talks merely "for the exercise."

During a trip to an international security conference in Germany, Biden also addressed Syria's civil war. He met with top Syrian opposition leader Moaz al-Khatib and with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov of Russia, a longtime ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Separately, al-Khatib met with Lavrov for the first time, offering a glimmer of hope for stalled diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict, though the Russian minister later sounded skeptical.

Washington has indicated in the past that it's prepared to talk directly with Iran, and talks involving all five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany have made little headway while several rounds of international sanctions have cut into Iran's oil sales and financial transactions.

Last month Iran, in a defiant move ahead of new talks expected soon with the six powers, announced plans to vastly increase its pace of uranium enrichment. That can be used to make both reactor fuel and the fissile core of warheads.

Biden told an international security conference that "there is still time, there is still space for diplomacy backed by pressure to succeed." He did not specify any timeframe.

He insisted that "the ball is in the government of Iran's court" to show that it's negotiating in good faith.

Asked when Washington might hold direct talks with Tehran, Biden replied: "When the Iranian leadership, the supreme leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei), is serious."

The U.S. has long made clear that it is prepared to meet directly with the Iranian leadership, he added ? "that offer stands but it must be real and tangible and there has to be an agenda that they're prepared to speak to."

"We are not just prepared to do it for the exercise," Biden told the Munich Security Conference.

Russia's Lavrov, whose country is a key player in the six-nation talks with Iran, said it was important to offer Iran clear incentives to resolve the nuclear standoff. "We have to convince Iran that it is not about the regime change," he said.

Iran insists it does not want nuclear arms and argues it has a right to enrich uranium for a civilian nuclear power program, but suspicion persists that the real aim is nuclear weapons. Iran's foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, is to address the conference Sunday.

While Russia and the U.S. have worked together on Iran, their differences over Syria were on display again at the conference in Munich, an annual gathering of top security officials.

In his speech, Biden stressed the conviction of the U.S. and many others that "President Assad ? a tyrant hell-bent on clinging to power ? is no longer fit to lead the Syrian people and he must go." He said that "the opposition continues to grow stronger."

He later held separate meetings with Lavrov, international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, and Syria's top opposition leader, Moaz al-Khatib.

On the sidelines of the conference, Lavrov in turn met for the first time with al-Khatib ? who in December rejected a previous Russian invitation for talks, Russian news agency ITAR-Tass reported.

On Friday, al-Khatib said he was willing to sit down for talks with Assad's government to "ease the pain of the Syrian people."

Lavrov welcomed that initiative, and said on his flight back to Moscow that Russia and the Syrian opposition plan to stay in regular contact, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported.

"This is an important step, given that the coalition was created on the platform of rejecting talks with the regime," he said. "But I think that realism will prevail. Naturally, this does not guarantee that dialogue will start, as the opposition does not have a negotiating team and there are many different groups to agree on a single delegation."

At the conference, Biden told an audience including Lavrov that despite differences, "we can all agree on the increasingly deep plight of the Syrian people and the responsibility of the international community to address that plight."

But Lavrov fired back that "there are a lot of question marks about the Western approaches to those developments," in the region, and questioning when it is "permissible to cooperate with regimes and when is it legitimate to argue for their removal."

Lavrov also suggested Biden's statement that Assad must go was counterproductive.

"The persistence of those who say that priority No. 1 is the removal of President Assad ? I think it's the single biggest reason for the continued tragedy in Syria."

Asked whether Russia might be prepared to endorse humanitarian corridors protected by air power, Lavrov bluntly replied: "No. Any threat of use of force will be unacceptable."

____

Jim Heintz contributed from Moscow.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-02-02-Germany-Security%20Conference/id-7b6a16a68fc34ec2891f53b79a87b41f

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Sunday, February 3, 2013

Super Bowl Cheerleading Controversy: Isolated Incident or Larger ...

I have to defend the question. At one time flight attendants, once known as stewardesses, had to meet certain standards of weight, beauty, youth, and chest, waist and hip measurements. It was a given that appearance affected their job. Now flight attendants are judged on their ability to perform social work in the air. The same could be said of cheerleading; not that they would have to perform social work, but dance routines and gymnastics, plus this woman was 1.6 pounds over the weight limit. Standards of beauty change are constantly changing.

Source: http://marthasvineyard.patch.com/articles/super-bowl-cheerleading-controversy-isolated-incident-or-larger-issue-16186f28

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