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Obama vows his nominee to the Supreme Court will be in touch with challenges facing ordinary Americans.

The water leak at the Indian Point 2 plant in Buchanan, N.Y., is stirring concern about its underground pipes.

NYT_VideoPlayerStart({playerType:"article",videoId:"1194839805298",adxPagename:"dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/video"});I left Friday morning for Omaha, where I'll be attending Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting this weekend. Each year, this event attracts throngs of Berkshire shareholders and admirers of Warren Buffett, the renown investor who runs the company. I'll be posting updates throughout the weekend on DealBook and on Twitter (@andrewrsorkin and @nytimesdealbook). The meeting begins [...].

In its final meeting before the Tony Awards nominations are announced, the administration committee for the Tonys decided on the eligibility of several actors and one play revival, "The Norman Conquests," for possible nominations.

The 2010 budget plan also calls for 2,270 more layoffs of city employees, on top of 10,000 the mayor had already recommended.

NEW YORK (AP) -- A new book disputes widely held assumptions that President Franklin D. Roosevelt was insensitive to the plight of European Jews under the Nazis, and instead concludes that he tried to arrange resettlement for thousands of refugees in the late 1930s, only to be thwarted by his own State Department....

With the choice of Carol Ann Duffy, the post held by such poets as Dryden, Tennyson, Wordsworth and Ted Hughes went to a woman for the first time.<br clear="both" style="clear: both;"/> <br clear="both" style="clear: both;"/> <a href="http://ads.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=a6f1e1d5dcdca9cef61a18d9850b49ff&p=1"><img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://ads.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=a6f1e1d5dcdca9cef61a18d9850b49ff&p=1"/></a>

ATLANTA (AP) -- The swine flu virus that has frightened the world is beginning to look a little less ominous. New York City officials reported Friday that the swine flu still has not spread beyond a few schools. In Mexico, very few relatives of flu victims seem to have caught the virus....

ATLANTA (AP) -- The swine flu virus that has frightened the world is beginning to look a little less ominous. New York City officials reported Friday that the swine flu still has not spread beyond a few schools. In Mexico, very few relatives of flu victims seem to have caught the virus....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama pledged Friday to name a Supreme Court justice who combines "empathy and understanding" with an impeccable legal background to succeed liberal David Souter, whose abrupt retirement announcement set off speculation the next justice could be a woman, a Hispanic or both....

BAGHDAD (AP) -- The U.S. death toll for April rose to 18, the military said Friday, making it the deadliest in seven months for American forces in Iraq. The sharp increase from the previous month came as a series of bombings also pushed Iraqi deaths to their highest level this year....

HONG KONG (AP) -- Hong Kong quarantined hundreds of hotel guests and workers Friday after a tourist from Mexico tested positive for swine flu, Asia's first confirmed case of the disease. With memories of 2003's deadly SARS outbreak still fresh, the government moved quickly to track those exposed to the infected man and contain the potential spread of the disease....

He'll meet with the committee Dems to discuss climate change legislation and possibly health care.

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Now an HBO original series, True Blood?the New York Times bestselling Sookie Stackhouse series continues. Except for Sookie Stackhouse, folks in Bon Temps, Louisiana, know little about vamps?and nothing about weres. Until now. The weres and shifters have finally decided to reveal their existence to the ordinary world. At first all goes well. Then the mutilated body of a were-panther is found near the bar where Sookie works?and she feels compelled to discover (read more)

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From the Publisher Dan Brown?s new novel, the eagerly awaited follow-up to his #1 international phenomenon, The Da Vinci Code, which was the bestselling hardcover adult novel of all time, will be published on September 15, 2009. The Lost Symbol will once again feature Dan Brown?s unforgettable protagonist, Robert Langdon. ?The Lost Symbol is a brilliant and compelling thriller. Dan Brown?s prodigious talent for storytelling, in(read more)

Can we achieve bipartisanship through our biceps? Absolutely, says fitness guru Denise Austin.

[Below is the original script. Some changes may have been made during the recording of this audio podcast.]

Amidst the hubbub surrounding the current pandemic threat from swine flu, an epidemiological mystery has been unfolding. Authorities have designated Edgar Hernandez, a 5-year-old from La Gloria in the Mexican state of Veracruz as "Patient Zero" – at least he is the earliest case they have found so far. Virologists have determined that the mutating flu is a combination of several older flu strains, commonly associated with pigs. And La Gloria is home to nearly a million pigs on a nearby factory farm. [More]

There are four more cases of H1N1 influenza, also referred to as swine flu, in the state of Massachusetts, the Department of Health said Friday, bringing the total to six cases.

HONG KONG (AP) -- Hong Kong quarantined hundreds of hotel guests and workers Friday after a tourist from Mexico tested positive for swine flu, Asia's first confirmed case of the disease....

The Jackson Square Citizens Advisory Committee, which is supposed to give the BRA citizen input on development in the area, decided last week to ban the press from all its meetings, the JP Gazette reported.

The BRA says it would prefer the meetings be open but that it has no control over the committee.

MIAMI (AP) -- Immigrants and their families gathered at rallies across the country Friday to push for changes to U.S. immigration policy, but as a swine flu outbreak continued to spread, attendance at some events was smaller than organizers had hoped....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In the days following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, alleged al-Qaida operations mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed intended to use his free Hotmail account to direct a U.S.-based operative to carry out an attack, according to a guilty plea agreement filed by Al Saleh Kahlah al-Marri in federal court....

NEW YORK (AP) -- A new book disputes widely held assumptions that President Franklin D. Roosevelt was insensitive to the plight of European Jews under the Nazis, and instead concludes that he tried to arrange resettlement for thousands of refugees in the late 1930s, only to be thwarted by his own State Department....

Five coalition soldiers have been killed after coming under attack from insurgents in eastern Afghanistan, Nato says.

Hundreds of immigrants and their allies braved the rain today in San Francisco to join a spirited march, calling for an end to immigration raids and legalization for the nation's estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants. They were among tens of thousands...

ScienceDaily is reporting that an electronic nose developed by NASA for monitoring potential leaks on the ISS may be able to sniff out brain cancer. "The electronic nose, which is to be installed on the International Space Station in order to automatically monitor the station's air, can detect contaminants within a range of one to approximately 10,000 parts per million. In a series of experiments, the Brain Mapping Foundation used NASA's electronic nose to sniff brain cancer cells and cells in other organs. Their data demonstrates that the electronic nose can sense differences in odor from normal versus cancerous cells. These experiments will help pave the way for more sophisticated biochemical analysis and experimentation."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A second person in the UK catches swine flu without having visited Mexico, tests have confirmed.

A second person in the UK catches swine flu without having visited Mexico, tests have confirmed.

Leaders of The Boston Globe's largest union have asked the newspaper's owners to extend the deadline for millions of dollars worth of concessions after discovering what they are calling a $4.5 million accounting error.

World News

Michelle Obama Wears $540 Designer Sneakers to Feed the Poor FOXNews It's a first lady faux pas -- wearing expensive, high-fashion French designer sneakers to a food bank. Michelle Obama wore the sneakers, made by Lanvin, while helping feed the poor at a Washington food bank on Wednesday. Michelle Obama Sneakers Lanvin Shoes ! LALATE Michelle Obama's mystery man identified Chicago Sun-Times RushLimbaugh.com (subscription) - Economic Times - Chicago Sun-Times all 16 news articles

President Barack Obama pledged Friday to name a Supreme Court justice who combines "empathy and understanding" with an impeccable legal background to succeed liberal David Souter, whose abrupt retirement announcement set off speculation the next justice could...

The Vallejo girl who made national headlines when she escaped from kidnapper Curtis Dean Anderson in 2000 was seriously injured early today in a pickup truck crash, authorities said. Midsi Sanchez, 16, was ejected from the passenger side of a 2006 Toyota...

FOXNews

US Supreme Court Vacancy An Early Test For Sen Specter
Wall Street Journal - Brent Kendall
By Brent Kendall Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--President Barack Obama's first nomination to the US Supreme Court could be an early test for Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter as a newly minted Democrat.
Specter's Defection Could Help Republicans Block a Nominee to ... FOXNews
Specter says he'll return donors' money, if asked Philadelphia Inquirer
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all 7,639 news articles

Two American marines and a sailor were killed during a military operation in Anbar, the vast province west of Baghdad where combat operations and violence have declined dramatically.

The news that President Obama will nominate a judge to the Supreme Court fanned the speculative flames in legal and political circles.

Brazil begins clearing residents from an area designated indigenous territory by a landmark court ruling.

Brazil begins clearing residents from an area designated indigenous territory by a landmark court ruling.

guardian.co.uk

A grown-up Matthew McConaughey faces his "Ghosts"
Reuters - Cristy Lytal
By Cristy Lytal LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Moviemaking has finally collided with real life for formerly freewheeling actor Matthew McConaughey, not only in his new romantic comedy "The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past," but in his career choices, too.
Video: Matthew McConaughey's Loves CBS
'Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past': Payback, By Kurt Loder MTV.com
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all 735 news articles

The swine flu virus that has frightened the world is beginning to look a little less ominous. New York City officials reported Friday that the swine flu still has not spread beyond a few schools. In Mexico, very few relatives of flu victims seem to have...

MiamiHerald.com

US carriers cutting service to Mexico The Associated Press DALLAS (AP) - Continental Airlines Inc. and Delta said Friday they will reduce service to Mexico, as swine flu fears keeps many US travelers from venturing south of the border. Continental to cut its Mexico flight capacity by half MarketWatch Continental to cut Mexico flights by half Bizjournals.com Atlanta Journal Constitution - Reuters - The Plain Dealer - cleveland.com - Daily Report (registration) all 657 news articles

AP - A new jury problem surfaced Friday in the terrorism conspiracy trial of six men when panel members asked a federal judge to remove a juror because she supposedly refused to deliberate.

MiamiHerald.com

Derby Long Shots Don't Let the Odds Get Them Down
New York Times - Joe Drape
By JOE DRAPE LOUISVILLE, Ky. - By now, almost everyone knows the story of Tom McCarthy and General Quarters. He was a retired high school principal who had owned and trained horses for four decades.
The Kentucky Derby - A Rainy Proposition Sports Network
The Kentucky Derby - A Rainy Proposition MiamiHerald.com
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all 1,509 news articles

Bolivian President Evo Morales takes over a subsidiary of British oil company BP, as part of his nationalisation campaign.

Bolivian President Evo Morales takes over a subsidiary of British oil company BP, as part of his nationalisation campaign.

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) -- Washington State University will cut 371 jobs and eliminate several academic programs to make up a $54 million deficit in its budget for the next two years, the school said Friday....

A flight coming from Germany was diverted to Boston after a woman on the plane complained of flu-like symptoms.

Financial Post

Bank stress test results delayed CNNMoney.com - Jennifer Liberto, Scott Spoerry Wall Street will have to wait until May 7 to find about how 19 big banks did on the stress tests as regulators push back release of results by three days. Regulators Said to Plan Stress-Test Disclosures May 7 Bloomberg Crisis Q&A: What If My Bank Fails The Stress Test? Wall Street Journal The Associated Press - United Press International - NBC Chicago - Newsweek all 483 news articles

After terrorizing tech managers, Owen Thomas has decided to join 'em. Emerging from the shadows to replace him as the Valleywag, is Ryan Tate who's already relishing the idea of life in the sunshine.

Owen took the Valleywag reins from our overlord Nick Denton himself and has fiercely worked his Silicon Valley sources for gossip and scoops. In December, Valleywag was merged into Gawker, and when we tried to talk him into staying he said he misses the management headaches of running his own site. He's keeping mum on his new gig, but we hear it involves the letters N, B, and C and will focus on Bay Area news.

As night editor, Ryan lets me sleep easier at night. But it's time for him to rejoin the land of the living and the tech beat is a natural for him. Based in San Francisco, he started his journalism career at mags like Upside and Business 2.0 before the dot-com boom went bust. He joined Gawker last year from San Francisco Business Times. The night gig is by design one for a generalist, but he's come up with plenty of news at the intersection of business and media, such as Bloomberg's premature obituary for Apple CEO Steve Jobs and exposing the underbelly of Arianna Huffington's blog empire. Now part of the larger Gawker family, he'll still have room to write about his other areas of fascination, like military aviation shills and Fox News' slimy PR shop.

And that means there's a job opening at Gawker. I'm looking for a new night editor who's primarily responsible for keeping track of any breaking news after about 7 p.m. East Coast time, as well as getting a jump on the dawn's news stories. Since hours pretty brutal in the U.S., I'm especially interested in hearing from people who live in Australia or Europe. If you're reading this from overseas or are nocturnal by nature, email me.

MIAMI (AP) -- The Department of Veterans Affairs says a fifth patient has tested positive for HIV and another seven have tested positive for hepatitis after being exposed to contaminated medical equipment at three VA hospitals....

Government health officials warned dieters and body builders Friday to immediately stop using Hydroxycut, a widely sold supplement linked to cases of serious liver damage and at least one death. The Food and Drug Administration said the company that makes the...

AP - The Department of Veterans Affairs says a fifth patient has tested positive for HIV and another seven have tested positive for hepatitis after being exposed to contaminated medical equipment at three VA hospitals.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Government health officials warned dieters and body builders Friday to immediately stop using Hydroxycut, a widely sold supplement linked to cases of serious liver damage and at least one death....

A homeless man accused of raping two women at the Radisson Hotel on Stuart Street was ordered held on $1 million bail during his arraignment on Friday.

AP - Government health officials warned dieters and body builders Friday to immediately stop using Hydroxycut, a widely sold supplement linked to cases of serious liver damage and at least one death.

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- A top Mexican medical officer accused the World Health Organization of responding too slowly to early signs of the swine flu scare. The world agency said it was Mexico that failed to respond to its request to alert other nations to the first hints of the outbreak....

A woman recently released after serving time in federal prison for a series of San Francisco bank robberies has pleaded guilty to holding up one of the same banks she targeted the first time around, authorities said today. Elisa Monique Lipkins, 43, admitted...

PNM posts 1Q profit, reversing loss Forbes AP , 05.01.09, 05:21 PM EDT Energy holding company PNM Resources Inc. said Friday it posted a first-quarter net profit of $95.4 million, reversing a loss from a year earlier, driven mainly by the sale of its natural gas utility. PNM financial performance improves in Q1 Bizjournals.com PNM Resources, Inc. Q1 2009 Earnings Call Transcript Seeking Alpha MarketWatch (press release) - Trading Markets (press release) all 19 news articles

ABC News

FDA to dieters: Don't use supplement Hydroxycut
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - Government health officials warned dieters and body builders Friday to immediately stop using Hydroxycut, a widely sold supplement linked to cases of serious liver damage and at least one death.
FDA Warns Consumers to Stop Taking Hydroxycut Products Wall Street Journal
FDA Recalls Dietary Supplements Tied to 1 Death, Liver Damage Forbes
WWAY NewsChannel 3 - Los Angeles Times - Health Jackal - CBS42
all 711 news articles

KLEW

Idaho Names Highway Stimulus Projects
LocalNews8.com
BOISE - Idaho Governor CL "Butch" Otter today announced that eight shovel-ready highway projects - creating 2800 jobs and injecting $148 million into Idaho's economy - will be advertised for bid in May and June.
Idaho's Otter still trying to win gas-tax hike Forbes
Governor announces highway projects Idaho Press-Tribune
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all 187 news articles

BBC News

Chevron 1Q profit falls 64 pct as oil prices drop Forbes - John Porretto By JOHN PORRETTO , 05.01.09, 05:16 PM EDT The top international oil companies were expected to deliver the ugliest first-quarter results in several years, and there were few surprises. Despite Slump, Major US Oil Cos Forge Ahead With Investment Wall Street Journal Chevron profit slides on weak oil Reuters Bloomberg - Bizjournals.com - MarketWatch - Wall Street Journal all 718 news articles

ABC News

Mixed Reviews For ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine'
MTV.com
FROM MTV.COM: “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” leaked online on April 1 for all to watch on their computer screens. A month later, the full version has arrived on bigger screens in movie theaters across the country.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (PG-13, 107 minutes) Washington Post
How big will 'Wolverine' be? AZ Central.com
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all 2,773 news articles

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- By all accounts, there is blame to go around for the 2006 starvation death of disabled teenager Danieal Kelly. Her mother pleaded guilty to murder this week for criminally neglecting the once-vivacious girl. Her case worker and a supervisor are charged with involuntary manslaughter for alleged "ghost visits" to the family's squalid home....

Key developments on swine flu outbreaks, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, World Health Organization and government officials: _Deaths: 15 confirmed in Mexico and one confirmed in U.S., a toddler from Mexico who died in Texas....

AP - By all accounts, there is blame to go around for the 2006 starvation death of disabled teenager Danieal Kelly. Her mother pleaded guilty to murder this week for criminally neglecting the once-vivacious girl. Her case worker and a supervisor are charged with involuntary manslaughter for alleged "ghost visits" to the family's squalid home.

Justice David H. Souter formally told the White House on Friday that he will retire from the Supreme Court at the end of the current term.<br clear="both" style="clear: both;"/> <br clear="both" style="clear: both;"/> <a href="http://ads.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=c5f90479dec30b18b70f8eacf379a7e9&p=1"><img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://ads.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=c5f90479dec30b18b70f8eacf379a7e9&p=1"/></a>

AP - A British woman accused of downing prescription drugs, two or three bottles of wine and liquid soap from a London-bound jetliner's lavatory before scuffling with flight attendants will remain in jail in Maine over the weekend.

Singer, actor and impressionist Danny Gans, a one-time minor league baseball player who spent more than a decade as one of the most popular entertainers in Las Vegas, died suddenly Friday, authorities said. He was 52. Gans was pronounced dead in his bed...

COLUMBUS, N.M. (AP) -- This dusty little border town with almost no visible means of support has been seeing something of a boom in the past year: Brand-new Lincoln Navigators and Cadillac Escalades with flashy hubcaps are parked just off the bleak main drag. Homes are selling quickly, sometimes for cash. The source of this sudden wealth? An influx of Mexican drug smugglers, investigators say....

A Gannett Co. executive on Friday was named senior vice president of advertising for The San Francisco Chronicle/SFGate.com. Jeff Bergin, 47, was most recently vice president of sales for Gannett's U.S. Community Publishing Division. He has worked in a...

NEW YORK (AP) -- The mother of John "Junior" Gotti interrupted a hearing on her son's racketeering case Friday by telling a federal judge that the government is trying to kill him before he even gets to trial....

US manufacturing activity fell further in April - but at a slower pace than in March - figures suggest.

AP - The mother of John "Junior" Gotti interrupted a hearing on her son's racketeering case Friday by telling a federal judge that the government is trying to kill him before he even gets to trial.

CLEVELAND (AP) -- A federal appeals court opened the way again Friday for the Justice Department to deport alleged Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk to Germany to face 29,000 counts of accessory to murder. The three-judge ruling from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati denied a stay of deportation for the 89-year-old retired autoworker from his suburban Cleveland home....

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Danny Gans, one of the most popular entertainers on the Las Vegas Strip for the last decade, died in his sleep Friday. He was 52. Gans was found dead about 3 a.m. by his wife, Julie, at their home in Henderson, said Wynn Resorts spokeswoman Jennifer Dunne....

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) -- The U.S. Forest Service is closing thousands of caves and former mines in national forests in 33 states in an effort to control a fungus that has already killed an estimated 500,000 bats....

Federal drug regulators warned consumers to stop using the Hydroxycut line of popular weight-loss products, citing reports of a death due to liver failure and other serious health problems.

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. (AP) -- A furnace repairman was accused of poking holes in a bathroom wall where he was working in order to invade a woman's privacy. The thirty-five-year-old man was charged with disorderly conduct and invasion of privacy....

AP - A furnace repairman was accused of poking holes in a bathroom wall where he was working in order to invade a woman's privacy. The thirty-five-year-old man was charged with disorderly conduct and invasion of privacy.

The Age

Microsoft Says All Windows 7 Versions Run on Netbooks NewsFactor Network - Mark Long By Mark Long While Microsoft will allow manufacturers to install Windows 7 Starter on low-cost netbooks, Windows General Manager Mike Ybarra said all versions of Windows 7 may work on many netbooks. Microsoft to give away Windows 7 for almost 13 months DVICE Microsoft issues Windows 7 RC on road to October launch Apple Insider ChannelWeb - ZDNet - eWeek - Tom's Hardware Guide all 689 news articles

Imagine all the folks on the waiting list for the Chevy Volt or a plug-in Toyota Prius plugged in their cars at once. The result? Blackout, as the world's largest machine (otherwise known as the electric grid) is overloaded. [More]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama voiced hope Friday that the swine flu virus will run its course "like ordinary flus" as officials reported more than two dozen new cases and scores more schools shut down....

Court watchers think President Barack Obama will choose a woman for his first nomination to the Supreme Court, where only one of nine seats is held by a female _ Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. With Justice David Souter expected to retire this year, here are the...

ABC News

Space Shuttle Layoffs Begin eWeek - Roy Mark Despite concerns in Congress, NASA begins the first steps in decommissioning the space shuttle fleet with 160 layoffs. By September 2010, more than 900 shuttle employees are expected to be lose their jobs. NASA Begins Job Cuts for Shuttle Retirement Space.com Unit marks 50 years of NASA support Air Force Link TG Daily - io9 - RedOrbit - The Write Stuff all 451 news articles

A court-martial is under way in Alaska for an airman on charges he laced his wife's food with ulcer medication to force her to miscarry. Airman 1st Class Scott Boie of Milton, Wis., is charged with assault and causing the death of the unborn child. Boie's...

Beauty contenstant on gay marriage, and other gems in this week's top ten best quotes.

CharlotteObserver.com

Vikings draft pick Harvin hospitalized in Atlanta
The Associated Press
EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. (AP) - The Minnesota Vikings first-round draft pick Percy Harvin has been hospitalized due to severe dehydration Coach Brad Childress says Harvin became ill Thursday on a flight to Atlanta.
Vikings rookie Percy Harvin hospitalized in Atlanta; swine flu ... Pro Football Weekly
Percy Harvin Tested for H1N1 Flu FOX 9 News
Viking Update (subscription) - Daily Norseman - Minneapolis Star Tribune - Pioneer Press
all 396 news articles

Telegraph.co.uk

White House joins FaceBook, Twitter, MySpace
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - OMG. The White House is joining the popular social network sites of Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. The White House on Friday added the features to its main Web page, whitehouse.
Meet White House 2.0, same as White House 1.0 (but on Twitter!) VentureBeat
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Over on Boing Boing Gadgets, our Steven's leveled up his pizza stone by building a cheap, effective refractory brick enclosure in his oven that lets him attain very high temperatures and kick-ass pizzas.

You're going to pre-heat to 500F. But how do you know when the stone is ready? You could give it maybe 30 minutes and hope for the best. Or, splurge a little. A $45 infrared digital thermometer is not only a fun toy, it's the perfect way to assess surface temp from a safe distance.

Open the oven and quickly shine the beam onto the stone every 15 minutes. Any more often than that will a) let more heat escape, and b) lower your spirits. Compared to when I pre-heated the pizza stone all by its lonesome, getting the stone up to 470F when surrounded by the brick house took 30 minutes longer. Makes sense, you've just added twice as much ceramic or terra cotta to the mix.

How To: build the ultimate, cheap home pizza oven

Discuss this on Boing Boing Gadgets

Cartoon for Today, May 01, 2009

Molly sends us this clockwork study desk built by naturalist John Muir while at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1861-1863:

I invented a desk in which the books I had to study were arranged in order at the beginning of each term. I also made a bed which set me on my feet every morning at the hour determined on, and in dark winter mornings just as the bed set me on the floor it lighted a lamp. Then, after the minutes allowed for dressing had elapsed, a click was heard and the first book to be studied was pushed up from a rack below the top of the desk, thrown open, and allowed to remain there the number of minutes required. Then the machinery closed the book and allowed it to drop back into its stall, then moved the rack forward and threw up the next in order, and so on, all the day being divided according to the times of recitation, and time required and allotted to each study.

(Thanks, Molly!)

Click for larger size. (Thanks, Sebastian, Mark K., and Stefanie.)

The Money Times

NYMEX-Crude ends up on technicals, economic data Reuters NEW YORK, May 1 (Reuters) - US crude futures rose 4 percent on Friday to settle above $53 a barrel in what sources called a technical breakout as improved consumer confidence and the dollar's weakness versus the euro helped lift prices. Oil Rises to a Five-Week High as Consumer Confidence Improves Bloomberg Oil rises on economic hopes; ends week up $3.2% MarketWatch CNNMoney.com - The Associated Press - Wall Street Journal - Reuters all 554 news articles

ITProPortal

Apple's push into chips could unnerve suppliers Reuters - Gabriel Madway, Clare Baldwin By Gabriel Madway and Clare Baldwin - Analysis SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc (AAPL.O) appears to be pushing toward designing its own microchips for the iPhone, a move that would give it greater control but inevitably affect its base of suppliers. Apple building a secret chip empire -- and a competitive advantage ITworld.com ipod touch Net share grew 36% in April CNNMoney.com ITProPortal - Infopackets all 13 news articles

ABC News

iPhone's killer app: eBooks? CNET News - Dave Rosenberg by Dave Rosenberg O'Reilly's Ben Lorica took a look (slides below) at the developers behind the most successful applications on the iPhone and found that eBooks may be the killer app, simply because there is a such of wealth of offerings. Apple's app store thinks small CNNMoney.com Will the people pay for quality iPhone games? msnbc.com FierceWireless - ZDNet Blogs - PC World - Wired News all 228 news articles

BBC News

Manufacturing declines at slower rate in April The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - US manufacturing activity in April posted its best showing since September, when the financial crisis erupted. The performance was driven by a rise in new orders reflecting higher business and consumer spending. Manufacturing rebound in the works CNNMoney.com Manufacturing contraction slows in April, ISM says MarketWatch Bloomberg - Reuters - International Business Times - msnbc.com all 435 news articles

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) -- The sheriff's deputy who was criticized for his poor response to a tip that eventually led to the discovery of Caylee Anthony's remains had failed to follow up on a call from another tipster who thought the missing toddler's remains would be found in woods near her home, according to documents released Friday....

AP - The sheriff's deputy who was criticized for his poor response to a tip that eventually led to the discovery of Caylee Anthony's remains had failed to follow up on a call from another tipster who thought the missing toddler's remains would be found in woods near her home, according to documents released Friday.

An anonymous reader writes "Supercomputer software models predict that swine flu will likely go pandemic sometime next week, but flu chips capable of detecting the virus within four hours are already rolling off the assembly line. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which has designated swine flu as the '2009 H1N1 flu virus,' is modeling the spread of the virus using modeling software designed by the Department of Defense back when avian flu was a perceived threat. Now those programs are being run on cluster supercomputers and predict that officials are not implementing enough social distancing--such as closing all schools--to prevent a pandemic. Companies that designed flu-detecting chips for avian flu, are quickly retrofitting them to detect swine flu, with the first flu chips being delivered to labs today." Relatedly, at least one bio-surveillance firm is claiming they detected and warned the CDC and the WHO about the swine flu problem in Mexico over two weeks before the alert was issued.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

AFP

Washington Post Swings To 1Q Loss; Ad Slump Deepens Wall Street Journal Washington Post Co. (WPO) reported Friday that it swung to a first-quarter loss and higher charges as its struggling newspaper and magazine units continued to weigh on results, with the advertising slump worsening at its namesake newspaper. S&P may cut Washington Post's rating on revenue slide Reuters Washington Post takes loss on charges, ad declines MarketWatch CNBC - MSN Money - Washington Post - Bizjournals.com all 217 news articles

The president says he'll consult with both parties in replacing retiring Justice David Souter, whose replacement is unlikely to alter the court's ideological balance.

With the announced retirement of Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter, President Obama said today that he would seek a replacement with "a sharp and independent mind."

New York Times

Mexico confirms 15 deaths, 358 cases of A/H1N1 flu
Xinhua - Mu Xuequan
MEXICO CITY, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Mexican Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova reported on Friday that 15 people have died of and 358 were infected with influenza A/H1N1 virus, after the analysis of 776 samples.
Video: H1N1 Virus WTNH
The revenge of the swine Inquirer.net
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all 46,392 news articles

fox4kc.com

Kraske: Is Sebelius the true bipartisan queen? Brownback survives ... Kansas City Star What was striking about a visit to the Capitol last week was just how relieved - to use a form of that word again - many lawmakers were to have Gov. Kan. gov: Pay cut for state workers not needed Forbes Parkinson calls for shared sacrifice Kansas.com KCTribune.com - NTV - Kansas City Star - NTV all 48 news articles

Reigning champion Novak Djokovic will play Roger Federer in the semi-final of the Rome Masters, while Rafael Nadal also reaches the last four.

English visitors bring cricket delight to Afghanistan

Two former lobbyists had been charged under the Espionage Act for disseminating sensitive information.<br clear="both" style="clear: both;"/> <br clear="both" style="clear: both;"/> <a href="http://ads.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=b3280448db1236af8e5a4d45f2d6807b&p=1"><img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://ads.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=b3280448db1236af8e5a4d45f2d6807b&p=1"/></a>

John Higgins leads 15-9 and needs two frames to reach his fourth World Championship final after a brave fightback by Mark Allen.

Globe and Mail

Chrysler's 48% Drop in Sales Is Industry's Worst New York Times - Nick Bunkley By NICK BUNKLEY DETROIT - Chrysler said Friday that its sales fell 48 percent in April, the steepest drop in the industry, as the company descended into bankruptcy. GM sales down 34 percent Bizjournals.com Auto Sales Remain Bleak In April; Toyota Lags CNNMoney.com Reuters - BBC News - Bloomberg - Wall Street Journal all 427 news articles

While 11.2 is still months away there’s still plenty of activity going on with openSUSE. In addition to last week’s milestone release, you can also get your hands on openSUSE 11.1 Reloaded. This is a respin of openSUSE 11.1, including KDE 4.2.2 packages and updates to 11.1.

This is an installable live CD that features the KDE 4.2.2 packages from the openSUSE Build Service repo. The live CD was created by Stephan ‘Beineri’ Binner, and is useful for people who want to test out KDE 4.2 and users who are doing new installs and want the most recent openSUSE updates straight out of the box.

See the KDE 4.2.2 announcement for more information on the improvements and new features in KDE 4.2.2.

Some features in openSUSE’s distribution of KDE differ slightly from a stock install of KDE. The “cashew” (Toolbox) is not enabled by default. It ships with the “Aya” theme and includes some bugfixes and enhancements over the stock 4.2.2 release. The Reloaded live CD also defaults to the KDE4 versions of Amarok (2.0.2) and Digikam (0.10).

A Note of Caution

Please note that this is not an “official” openSUSE release, and has not undergone the same kind of testing that stable releases receive.

Additional openSUSE KDE News

As Will Stephenson points out, if you’re following the KDE:KDE4:Factory:Desktop repository, you’ll soon start getting KDE 4.3 packages. If you want to keep on with the KDE 4.2 packages, use the new KDE:42 repo. The live CD is pre-configured to use this repository, so no need to worry about getting moved to 4.3 unless you change it.

See Important news for openSUSE KDE4 users for more information about KDE repos in the openSUSE Build Service and package naming changes.

The preliminary estimates raise doubts about the likelihood of even a modest recovery in the months ahead.

Mexicans face price hikes amid swine flu panic

Attorneys for Chrysler LLC said the company will file a motion by Saturday morning to sell substantially all of its assets to Italian automaker Fiat Group SpA, but that won't include eight plants, including five that the automaker revealed it will shutter by the end of next year.

NEW YORK (AP) -- You wake up one morning and you're feeling achy and feverish. The directions from health officials battling swine flu are clear: Stay home from work. Don't risk infecting others. And certainly don't send a sick kid to school....

Upstream Online

Brazil ADRs Rally on Economic Outlook; Petrobras, Vale Gain Bloomberg - Allen Wan By Allen Wan May 1 (Bloomberg) -- Brazilian stocks trading in the US rose to the highest in seven months, led by Cia. Vale do Rio Doce and Petroleo Brasileiro SA, as commodity prices rallied on the prospect the global recession will end later this year ... CORRECT:Brazil Petrobras, Partners Start Tests At Tupi Oil Field Wall Street Journal Brazil Petrobras Completes Buy Of ExxonMobil's Chile Assets CNNMoney.com Bloomberg - Wall Street Journal - Wall Street Journal - Wall Street Journal all 89 news articles

BOSTON (AP) -- Miranda Smith is an only child and an honor student. So it was with great anticipation that her mom, aunt and grandparents planned to drive for hours to her graduation ceremony at Cisco Junior College in central Texas....

FOXNews

GM, Chrysler Woes Weigh On Industry; Recovery Hopes Delayed CNNMoney.com DETROIT -(Dow Jones)- US vehicle sales were worse than expected in April, muting optimism that the beleaguered auto industry is poised to rebound even amid turmoil at General Motors Corp. Video: Barack Obama announces Chrysler to file for bankruptcy ITN NEWS Comment by Gary Chaison Prof. of Industrial Relations, Clark University Reuters - Wall Street Journal - Detroit Free Press all 11,208 news articles

CBBC Newsround

Research: Birds can dance to music United Press International SAN DIEGO, May 1 (UPI) -- Two US studies suggest parrots and other species of bird can keep rhythm with musical beats. Dr. Aniruddh Patel, a researcher at The Neurosciences Institute in San Diego and lead author of one of the studies, said he and his ... This Cockatoo Can Shake His Tail Feathers NPR Parrots Can Dance Slashdot National Geographic - CNN - Women on the Web - Telegraph.co.uk all 240 news articles

WJBF-TV

Major wholesale bank shuttered CNNMoney.com - Catherine Clifford By Catherine Clifford, CNNMoney.com staff writer The government is engaged in a far-reaching - and expensive - effort to rescue the economy. US regulators seize Silverton commercial bank Reuters Silverton Bank in Atlanta Seized by Regulator Amid Recession Bloomberg MarketWatch - Bizjournals.com - The Business Insider - CFO.com Magazine all 127 news articles

A sailor from Freetown has been killed in Iraq.

To build code for TeleMetrum, we’re using SDCC, the Small Device C Compiler as the CPU inside the cc1111 is an 8051 clone, an 8-bit microprocessor for which SDCC has excellent support (more about the flight software later).

SDCC version 2.9.0 was recently uploaded to Debian unstable, and when I built our flight software with the new version, I discovered a bug in the display of strings formatted by printf. First assuming that the bug was in my source code, I tried to figure out what I’d done wrong, but then I eventually looked that the 8051 assembly output (ick) and discovered that the compiler was generating the wrong code for pointers when passed to a varargs function. A bit of hacking and I soon had a short test case that demonstrated the bug:

extern void f(char *x, ...);

void
func(__xdata char *s)
{
    f("hi", s);
}

I filed a brief bug report and attached the test case, then went to download the current source code to see if I couldn’t uncover the source of the bug. I have to say that reading through the SDCC source code was reasonably pleasant; a competent compiler in very little code that was easy to grasp. I eventually located the bug, and discovered that it was from a change made last December as part of a pointer-related optimization, and I posted a patch that I found would fix the specific problem I had found.

The nicest part came next — once I’d posted the patch, a reasonably lively discussion between Maarten Brock, Borut Ražem and Raphael Neider came to a quick concensus about what the desired behavior in this case would be.

Then, Maarten Brock applied my patch to the project and, much to my amazement, he included a regression test that verified the desired behaviour in both the case that I had uncovered and several other cases as well.

I just want to applaud these developers for building a great compiler and running a great project.

US car sales continued to struggle in April as cash-conscious consumers remained reluctant to buy new vehicles

US car sales continued to struggle in April as cash-conscious consumers remained reluctant to buy new vehicles

Maggie Koerth-Baker is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. A freelance science and health journalist, Maggie lives in Minneapolis, brain dumps on Twitter, and writes quite often for mental_floss magazine.

A Stanford team that's studying the public's knowledge of, and response to, H1N1 flu, has a survey and they're looking for willing participants to fill it out. Here's team member Marcel Salathé:

There is a possibility that the situation might develop into a pandemic if the virus continues to spread around the globe. The news media report excessively about this threat, and while health officials urge people to stay calm, there is an increased level of anxiety in the population.
Models have predicted that when a disease breaks out, changes in behavior in response to an outbreak, and in particular in response to information about an outbreak, can alter the progression of an epidemic. While this makes intuitive sense, there is no good data to test such a hypothesis. One of the major problems is that emotional reactions and behavioral response to an epidemic is generally assessed quite some time after the epidemic has fizzled out."

Short version: They're trying to figure out whether the info dump about H1N1 flu that you're getting from the media and the Web might really be enough to educate us all right out of a pandemic. I know that theory has come up in the comments threads on my previous flu postings. Let's help find out it if it works!

Take the survey here

EDIT: Marcel Salathé answers a couple of reader questions from the comments thread here. First, about when the results will come out and how you can see them:

There are a number of options. We will collect data while the epidemic runs its course - how long that's going to take is unpredictable, so I cannot really say more about the timeline - we just don't know yet. But we're constantly monitoring the data, and once we start finding interesting patterns we will certainly publish those quickly and make them open access. Feel free to publish my Stanford email address, and people who want to the results can send me an email."

Second, are Boing Boing readers completely screwing up the data by virtue of their savvyness? Salathé says it's a concern, but he doesn't think it will mess things up too badly, and he needs the volume of response more:

I am relatively confident that once we have a large enough sample we will get a good feeling for the average level of concern in the population. Yes, it might be that the ones responding to the survey are not the ones most panicky. On the other hand, one could also make the argument that people who are absolutely unruffled and calm might not be bothered to take the survey either. There can always be bias in any direction. In principle, any online survey has the potential for bias (by the fact alone that the survey is online) - but with a large enough sample one can avoid most of the problems regarding bias."

Boing Boing also isn't the only large-volume return place Salathé has published the survey link, so he's confident his results won't be all-BB, all the time. He does say that if you've got suggestions on more places to publish the survey link that are likely to be BB's polar opposite, you should contact him.

ISLAMABAD (AP) -- Pakistani troops backed by attack helicopters stepped up an operation to push the Taliban farther away from the capital Friday, saying they killed at least 55 fighters. But the government was resisting Western pressure to expand the crackdown and abandon peace talks with militants who want to impose their brand of Islam across this nuclear-armed country....

WEARE, N.H. (AP) -- When U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter retires this summer, you won't find him living in a beachfront condo or lakeside retreat....

ABC News

Is Mobile Next For Hulu? ChannelWeb Hulu's deal with Disney, in which Disney bought a 30 percent stake in Hulu, adds a powerhouse to the online video site's already formidable content lineup -- so where does Hulu go from here? Will streaming television kill the iTunes Store? Macworld What Disney-Hulu Means for Apple BusinessWeek DVICE - New York Times - Wall Street Journal - Media Buyer Planner all 633 news articles

The arrival of a Mexican traveler with the flu at a Hong Kong hospital re-awoke memories of the SARS outbreak.<br clear="both" style="clear: both;"/> <br clear="both" style="clear: both;"/> <a href="http://ads.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=e4da274075fca687346ee6792288ab1e&p=1"><img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://ads.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=e4da274075fca687346ee6792288ab1e&p=1"/></a>

MIAMI (AP) -- A new jury problem surfaced Friday in the terrorism conspiracy trial of six men when panel members asked a federal judge to remove a juror because she supposedly refused to deliberate....

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) -- The U.S. Forest Service is closing thousands of caves and former mines in national forests in 33 states in an effort to control a fungus that has already killed an estimated 500,000 bats....

New York Daily News

$300K settlement in discrimination suit against Gov. David Paterson New York Daily News AP ALBANY, NY - A racial discrimination suit stemming from Gov. David Paterson's takeover of the state Senate's Democratic minority in 2003 has been settled for $300000. $300K settlement in Paterson discrimination suit WTEN Democrat Governor Of New York Pays $300000 To Settle ... Reiten Television KXMB Bismarck American Spectator - Nashville Scene all 164 news articles

AFP

Obama to host Afghan, Pakistan summit Wednesday
AFP
WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President Barack Obama will host a summit with his Afghan and Pakistani counterparts on Wednesday amid growing US concern over the deteriorating situation in the region, the White House said.
Video: Pakistan and Afghanistan - The Presidency, Ep. 13 U.S. News & World Report
Obama to host Afghan, Pakistani presidents Washington Times
The Associated Press - Xinhua - Monsters and Critics.com - Times of India
all 783 news articles

US sports entrepreneur Stan Kroenke became Arsenal Football Club's largest shareholder after spending up to £50m to lift his stake to 28.3 per cent

Boston Globe

Stocks rise on day, week CNNMoney.com Wall Street manages modest gains on the first day of May as investors consider economic news, profit reports. By Alexandra Twin, CNNMoney. US Stocks Lower; GM Weak, Industrials And Energy Cos. Rise Wall Street Journal US Stocks Are Flat After Manufacturing Reports New York Times Reuters - Bloomberg - MarketWatch - Forbes all 1,682 news articles

Even if epidemiologists never find "the smoking pig" that originated the swine flu outbreak, genetic analysis shows that the disease sweeping across the world is derived from viruses that arose in American factory farms.

ELLENSBURG, Wash. (AP) -- About 300 students at Central Washington University marched across the campus in Ellensburg today and rallied to protest a likely tuition increase....

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- More than 100 people are searching for a visually impaired man from Michigan who disappeared while hiking the Appalachian Trail in Virginia....

AP - More than 100 people are searching for a visually impaired man from Michigan who disappeared while hiking the Appalachian Trail in Virginia.

How the humble egg plays a vital role in manufacture

You may have seen him before: Snowball the Dancing Cockatoo. ScienceNOW Daily News reports on a Current Biology study - a neurobiologist went to study the bird and sees dancing as a phenomenon connected to the ability to imitate sounds. A companion paper looks for dancing ability in a number of animals, but only found it in animals that were able to vocally mimic sounds.

If you haven't watched the video you definitely have have to. If you have... it's worth watching some again. :-)

An anonymous reader writes to tell us that as the European Parliament elections loom StudiVZ, Germany's largest social networking site, has opened up to political parties for election campaigning. That is, if you aren't the Pirate Party. "The other political parties were allowed to have a special account to show they are an organization and not an individual. The Pirate Party, however, was not allowed to have one and instead operated on a standard user account registered by an individual. StudiVZ noticed that the Pirate Party account was not a "real person" and despite it having a thriving network with hundreds of followers, it was summarily deleted. This means that it is impossible for the Pirate Party to have a presence at all on the largest social networking site in Germany."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

AP - Federal prosecutors are going to try again to convict a former naval officer and his wife of defrauding a fund for the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.

US Supreme Court Justice David Souter is to step down at the end of the court's term in June, President Barack Obama confirms.

Your editor has long been a user of the Tomboy note-taking tool. Tomboy makes it easy to gather thoughts, organize them, and pull them up on demand; it is, beyond doubt, a useful productivity tool. But all is not perfect with Tomboy. Some people have complained about its faults for a while; Hubert Figuiere, instead, chose to do something about it in the form of the Gnote utility. So now, of course, people are complaining about Gnote instead. Click below (subscribers only) for a look at Gnote and the discussion it has started.

(Download the MP4 here, or watch on YouTube.) Today's edition of Boing Boing Video is an animated short by Giles Timms -- "Manifestations" stars a cartoon critter named Mr. Chip who seeks anime love in a psychedelic, ever-morphing virtual world. The music is by Welsh composer Ceri Frost. Mr. Chip also stars in a mini Flash game which you can play here.

RSS feed for new episodes here, YouTube channel here, subscribe on iTunes here. Get Twitter updates every time there's a new ep by following @boingboingvideo, and here are blog post archives for Boing Boing Video. (Special thanks to Boing Boing's video hosting partner Episodic).

---

BB VIDEO Q&A: ANIMATOR GILES TIMMS

BBV: Where are you based, and what do you do?

Giles: At the moment I live in Santa Monica, LA and attend the Animation Workshop at UCLA's Department of Theater, Film and Television. So I'm a student in the MFA program, but I also work freelance, such as the recent Deathcab for Cutie "Grapevine Fires" video with Walter Robot Studios.

BBV: What is the story behind this lovely animation?

Giles: That it's important for us to find love in this world, whoever and wherever we may be. And that love can exist between the most unlikely of characters, such as the cartoon creature Mr. Chip and the Tadahiro Uesugi inspired girly girl. Love knows no boundaries.

BBV: I love the cute little boxy central character. Who is he, and what's his story?

Giles: The little green guy is Mr. Chip. He originally appeared as the central character in a mini puzzle flash game that I made. Mr. Chip is quite small and unassuming, but he has the heart of a lion and isn't afraid to go after what he seeks. And he can be very resourceful in a MacGyver sort of way. It was these qualities that led to his development as the main character in Manifestations.

(Interview continues after the jump)

BBV: What are some of the sources of visual or cultural inspiration that drive your work?

Giles: Visually I'm inspired by work that is textural, stylized and painterly. So for animators I like Yuriy Norshteyn, Igor Kovalyov and Koji Yamamura. I also reference a lot of comic book artists and illustrators, such as Rhode Montijo, Mike Mignola and Ashley Wood for similar stylistic inspiration.

Culturally, history and its motifs are important so that my work can seem grounded in something real even if quite surreal. I'm particularly inspired by history that shows us the indomitable human spirit rising above tragedy.

Recently I've met lots of people both in LA and at UCLA who have helped me find my voice as an artist and filmmaker but the four biggest influences have been Ceri Frost, Walter Robot, Celia Mercer and Howard Suber. Ceri is a Welsh composer who has been very generous with his music and support, both of which have helped me grow as an artist. I also had the good fortune to take a class from Bill, of Walter Robot Studios, at UCLA and work first hand with him and Chris on their 'Grapevine Fires' music video. Celia Mercer is the Area Head of the MFA program at UCLA and has been very supportive of my trials in animation and filmmaking. Also, Howard Suber, Professor Emeritus at UCLA, is an amazing guy whose lectures, anecdotes and insights inspire me as an artist (I like to think of him as the Yoda of UCLA).

And lastly, my girlfriend =)

BBV: What are you working on now?

Giles: Another animated short with music by Ceri Frost, for a song called 'Dead All Along' with dancing bones and skeletons. And trying to graduate in June!

LONDON (AP) -- Poor countries likely to suffer most in a swine flu outbreak have the smallest stockpiles of antiviral medicines to fight it....

BBC News

Tweexchange Is The Ultimate Twitter Name Marketplace Washington Post Twitter handles are quickly becoming as desirable as domains and Tweexchange hopes to capitalize on this by providing a marketplace for Twitter members to exchange, buy or find Twitter usernames from other existing members. Why Most Twitter Users Give Up PC World Twitter breach gives behind-the-scenes Obama peek Register TechNewsWorld - The Associated Press - PC Magazine - Bizjournals.com all 292 news articles

LONDON (AP) -- Queen Elizabeth II was at home at Windsor Castle, the sentries who guard her were on duty, and the large park surrounding the magnificent building was full of tourists on a Sunday afternoon. So it didn't take long for people to realize that something was out of order when an inebriated couple arrived from a nearby restaurant and began having sex on a grass bank outside the castle, according to witnesses....

# yum update
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, presto, refresh-packagekit
…
Size of all updates downloaded from Presto-enabled repositories: 2.4M
Size of updates that would have been downloaded if Presto wasn’t enabled: 24M
This is a savings of 90 percent

Now that’s sweet. That was an update from yesterday’s Rawhide to today. The Presto feature in Fedora 11 will allow your software updates to simply take less time than ever before. The above may not be representative of every single usage, but I didn’t take any time to craft a scenario from scratch. All I did was to run this command:

su -c 'yum install yum-presto'

Then I ran a yum update as usual. Of course, the graphical utility PackageKit also picks up this improvement, since it’s an elegant wrapper around yum. In future releases, we may turn on the Presto feature by default.

Yet another reason to look forward to Fedora 11!

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- One of seven soldiers accused in the death of a fellow paratrooper who had to be restrained after becoming unruly outside a Fayetteville bar will go on trial, Fort Bragg officials said Friday....

After another day of on-and-off hacking, wrapping cdrdao and cdparanoia binaries in my task interfaces I mentioned before, I inserted a CD by Bloc Party called ‘Silent Alarm’, ran a command, and saw the following output on my screen:
[gst-git] [thomas@ana trunk]$ PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:`pwd` python examples/readhtoa.py
Found Hidden Track One Audio from frame 0 to 15220
runner done
Checksums match
[gst-git] [thomas@ana trunk]$ ls -l track00.wav
-rw----- 1 thomas thomas 35797484 2009-05-01 21:56 track00.wav

I’m going to guess this is the first piece of Linux code that is able to automatically find and rip the hidden track at the start of a CD. (Feel free to correct me using your choice of alliterative insult if I am wrong!)

It’s time to start collecting all my new-found wisdom in something more permanently written down, but that will be for tomorrow.

The space shuttle, the iconic orbiter that has been at the core of NASA's manned spaceflight program for decades, is headed into retirement next year, a shutdown process that will likely mean thousands of job losses. The formal phaseout process resumed today after a temporary hold initiated last year to give the incoming president time to reconsider the shuttle's fate. But the Obama administration has not intervened, and NASA announced that about 160 pink slips will be handed out today with many more to come over the next few months. [More]

MiamiHerald.com

Regular flu shots this fall, maybe swine jab too
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - Americans might have to line up twice next winter for flu shots - once for the regular jab and again later for swine flu protection.
Video: Work in progress to find flu vaccine WIVB
Swine flu genetics suggest a vaccine is possible Science News
Reuters - Washington Post - Inland Empire News - Forbes
all 1,501 news articles

News In Photos

The true dimensions of the U.S. credit crisis will become much clearer next week with the release of results from unprecedented government "stress tests" of the nation's 19 largest banks and their capital needs.

A major police hunt has begun after a man was shot dead outside Wandsworth Prison in south-west London.

David Nalley, a Fedora Ambassador, joins us to discuss the upcoming SouthEast Linux Fest, and getting a free OLPC to help develop a 4th grade math curriculum on them..

This item belongs to: movies/opensource_movies.

This item has files of the following types: 512Kb MPEG4, Animated GIF, Cinepack, Metadata, Ogg Video, Thumbnail

MyFox Los Angeles

L.A. teachers union to announce one-day strike to fight layoffs Los Angeles Times - Howard Blume The union representing Los Angeles teachers is moments away from announcing plans for a one-day strike on May 15 to protest the pending layoffs of as many as 3500 teachers. Staff Editorial Daily Sundial Nearly 1400 sign up for retirement at Los Angeles Unified School ... Los Angeles Daily News California Healthline - L.A. Watts Times (subscription) - Los Angeles Times - Los Angeles Daily News all 21 news articles

Chrysler began its stint in bankruptcy court wiith a plea for haste and a warning that hundreds of thousands of jobs could be lost if it cannot execute its proposed restructuring within two months

RTT News

Allergan to Tend to Botox Label; Net Falls 64% Wall Street Journal - Kelly Nolan By KELLY NOLAN Allergan Inc. said Friday it will work with the US Food and Drug Administration to update labeling on Botox, a day after the agency ordered stronger warnings for the anti-wrinkle drug. BIOTECH STOCKS MarketWatch Allergan 1Q profit falls on charges, sales drop Forbes Bizjournals.com - Schaeffers Research - Trading Markets (press release) - StreetInsider.com (subscription) all 52 news articles

SEATTLE (AP) -- The University of Washington is cutting its men's and women's swimming programs....

ITProPortal

Mobile Phone Sales Figures Not Pretty BusinessWeek - Andy Reinhardt Two market research companies, IDC and Strategy Analytics, released their figures on Apr. 30 for first-quarter mobile phone sales. Global Q1 mobile mkt shrank at fastest ever pace Reuters Mobile Phone Shipments To Fall By 13 Percent Says Analysts ITProPortal FierceWireless - TMCnet - IT PRO - EE Times Deutschland all 44 news articles

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Tackling an issue sure to rouse sports fans, lawmakers pressed college football officials Friday to switch the Bowl Championship Series to a playoff, with one Texas Republican likening the current system to communism and joking it should be labeled "BS," not "BCS."...

Extreme penalties for garden variety crimes hurts Texas and Texas taxpayers

KLEW

WSU budget plan includes 370 job cuts Seattle Post Intelligencer - Nicholas K. Geranios By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS AP WRITER SPOKANE, Wash. -- Washington State University will cut 371 jobs and eliminate several academic programs to make up a $54 million deficit in its budget for the next two years, the school said Friday. WSU says 370 jobs will be cut Moscow-Pullman Daily News WSU to cut programs, jobs The Spokesman Review Capital Press (subscription) - The Daily Evergreen all 30 news articles

Catholic News Agency

Are war casualties morally equivalent to abortion deaths? USA Today My post yesterday on the latest developments in the Notre Dame commencement flap, has prompted an instructive range of responses. Two in particular take me to task for an observation about former ambassador to the Vatican Mary Ann Glendon. Some say anti-abortion protests have gone too far WSBT-TV Notre Dame won't give top honor amid Obama protest The Associated Press Fort Wayne Journal Gazette - Catholic News Agency - Catholic Culture - Boston Globe all 615 news articles

BBC News

Obama Vows ‘Independent' Replacement for Souter
New York Times - Jim Wilson
President Obama, with, from left, his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, White House Counsel Greg Craig and Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, spoke on Friday about the upcoming retirement of Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter.
Video: Pres. Obama on Souter Retirement C-SPAN
Conservatives prepare for Supreme battle CNN
Washington Post - The Associated Press - NPR - Reuters
all 3,321 news articles

U.S. manufacturing activity in April posted its best showing since September, when the financial crisis erupted. The performance was driven by a rise in new orders reflecting higher business and consumer spending.

New Zealand Herald

Swine Flu Suspected in Thousands, With ‘Less Severe' Illness
Bloomberg - Tom Randall
By Tom Randall May 1 (Bloomberg) -- Swine flu reached 14 countries on three continents, killing at a slower rate than past global outbreaks, world health officials said.
Hong Kong seals off hotel where H1N1 flu found Reuters
Hong Kong to Quarantine 300 at Hotel for Week After Flu Confirmed Wall Street Journal
HotelChatter - United Press International - NewsHour - Bloomberg
all 2,050 news articles

Flir's 1st-quarter profit jumps 49 pct on sales Forbes AP , 05.01.09, 03:40 PM EDT Flir Systems Inc., which makes infrared imaging cameras for commercial and military use, said Friday its fourth-quarter profit rose 49 percent on higher sales, and reaffirmed its 2009 profit outlook. Flir bucks the trends, reports large profit Bizjournals.com Flir Posts Strong Q1 Photonics.com Hillsboro Argus - OregonLive.com - RTT News - RTT News all 29 news articles

CLEVELAND (AP) -- A federal appeals court opened the way again Friday for the Justice Department to deport alleged Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk to Germany to face 29,000 counts of accessory to murder....

The property entrepreneur, through his Elsina vehicle, has called an extraordinary general meeting at Bramdean Alternatives, the investment fund managed by Nicola Horlick's Bramdean Asset Management

AFP

Fed to launch program bolstering commercial loans MarketWatch - Ronald D. Orol By Ronald D. Orol, MarketWatch WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The Federal Reserve announced Friday it will take a key consumer-lending program and expanded it to help jump-start the commercial real-estate lending industry. New TALF program launches in June The Associated Press How Risky is the Fed Balance Sheet? Zacks.com Briefing.com - Bloomberg - Wall Street Journal - Briefing.com all 262 news articles

NEW YORK (AP) -- Attorneys for Chrysler LLC said the company will file a motion by Saturday morning to sell substantially all of its assets to Italian automaker Fiat Group SpA, but that won't include eight plants, including five that the automaker revealed it will shutter by the end of next year....

More than 100 sheep worth a total of about £20,000 are stolen from a farm near Ballygally in County Antrim.

Traders put in more of the "buy" orders Friday that propelled the market in April to its best one-month performance in nine years.

The release was pushed back, in part because some of the banks still disagree with the government’s conclusions.

E! Online

Obama's Press Conference Draws 28.8 Million Television Broadcast NEW YORK: Nielsen said the president's Wednesday prime-time press conference drew an audience of 28.8 million people. The event marked his 100 th day in office and pulled in an 18.8 household rating on 10 TV networks at 8 pm Eastern Standard Time. Fox Beats Obama California Chronicle Obama Presser: Diminishing Returns? TIME NewsMax.com - E! Online - New York Times Blogs - Hot Air all 55 news articles

Health officials are saying prevention and preparation are key to fighting swine flu, and if empty store shelves where disinfectants and face masks once sat are a sign, consumers are taking that advice to heart.

BALTIMORE (AP) -- With a swine flu outbreak spreading across the nation, more than half the states have yet to stockpile the number of flu-treatment doses recommended by the federal government, an Associated Press survey found....

DryShips posts Q1 profit before items, shares rise Forbes - Sakthi Prasad, Ajay Kamalakaran By Sakthi Prasad BANGALORE, May 1 (Reuters) - Greek dry bulk carrier DryShips Inc posted a quarterly profit, before one-time items, beating maket estimates, helped by lower operating costs, and also due to long-term charter contracts that partly ... dryships Up With Better-Than-Expected 1Q, Boosts Shippers Wall Street Journal Earnings roundup: DryShips posts loss on charge CanadianBusiness.com CNNMoney.com (press release) - Fairplay (subscription) - StreetInsider.com (subscription) all 31 news articles

The Federal Reserve will release results Thursday of "stress tests" for the 19 large banks at the center of the nation's financial crisis. The results will shed light on which banks may need government support to withstand a more severe recession.

U.S. stocks rose on Friday as surging oil prices pushed energy shares higher and fresh economic data suggested key parts of the economy could be stabilizing.

coondoggie writes to tell us that the Federal Trade Commission has backed off of the new Red Flag Rule designed to protect consumer information yet again. Complaining about cost of implementation, the enforcement date of the rule has been pushed back to August 1, 2009 to give businesses and institutions time to implement identity theft prevention programs. "The FTC, federal bank regulatory agencies, and the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) issued the Red Flags Rules as part of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions (FACT) Act of 2003. The final rules require financial and credit institutions that hold any consumer account, or other account for which there is a reasonably foreseeable risk of identity theft, to develop and implement an Identity Theft Prevention Program for combating identity theft in connection with new and existing accounts, the FTC said."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Obama’s first pick could reignite abortion fights.

A federal study released today explains for the first time the link between global mercury emissions and the contamination of tuna and other marine life in the North Pacific Ocean. [More]

TrustedReviews

Apple: The low-price leader? Macworld - Jason Snell by Jason Snell, Macworld.com This morning all the ads on my radio were about sales, deals, and other ways to save money (by spending it). Apple Cutting imac and macbook Prices, Sources Says eWeek Apple files patent for improving aesthetics of carbon fiber Ars Technica Mac Rumors - CIO Today - Washington Post - ChannelWeb all 94 news articles

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) -- Prosecutors moved Friday to dismiss all charges against two former pro-Israel lobbyists accused of disclosing U.S. defense secrets, ending a four-year legal battle that promised to put former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other Bush administration insiders on the witness stand....

The UK is rapidly sliding down the ranks of the world's tax-friendly destinations as new higher rates mean entrepreneurs and business owners could be better off in traditional offshore havens and many other countries around the world

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary
___________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                                                            May 1, 2009

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
AT NATURALIZATION CEREMONY
FOR ACTIVE DUTY SERVICE MEMBERS

East Room

1:27 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you.  Thank you so much.  This is a lot of fun.  This makes so much of the hard work we do worth it, to see this ceremony here today.  It is my honor and my personal pleasure to be the first to address you as my fellow Americans.  (Applause.)  And welcome to your White House.  (Applause.)  Now, I know this day carries a lot of meaning not only for you, but for your family members and your fellow service members who join you today.

Each of you has a unique story to tell about the journey that led you here.  You hail from every corner of the Earth -- from Southeast Asia to Central Europe, from West Africa to South America.  Some of you came to this country as young children, because your parents wanted to give you a better life in the land of opportunity.  Others traveled here as adults, enduring hardship and sacrifice, to provide for your own families.

But all of you have one thing in common:  You're here because you have not merely chosen to live in this country; you've chosen to serve this country.

You're here for the same reason that Jeonathan Zapata is here.  Jeonathan recently returned from serving as part of our efforts in Afghanistan.  He actually helped man the 400,000th aircraft landing aboard the USS Kitty Hawk.  And Jeonathan wanted to serve the country he considers his own -- even though he was not yet a citizen -- because America had been so good to him, from the time he came here from Nicaragua as a child.  "By serving in the military," Jeonathan says, "I can also give back to the U.S."

So, Jeonathan, I'd like you to stand.  (Applause.)

You're here for the same reason -- you can sit down now, Jeonathan -- (applause.)  You're here for the same reason that Chryshann Pierre is here.  Chryshann, where are you?  There you are.  (Applause.)  Chryshann is an Army Specialist returning from service in Iraq late last year.  Originally she joined the military because she wanted to provide stability for her three children.  But then she discovered something she did not expect: She loves being in the Army.  (Laughter.)  In fact, she even said that she loved basic training.  Chryshann, you've got to be pretty tough to love basic training.  (Laughter.)

You all have your own stories -- you can sit down, Chryshann -- (applause.) You all have your own stories of how you came to this country.  And you all have your own personal reasons for why you joined the military.  But in the service that you render, in the sacrifices that each of you have made and will continue to make, in the commitment you've shown to your adopted nation, you're part of a larger story -- America's story.

For more than two centuries, this nation has been a beacon of hope and opportunity -- a place that has drawn enterprising men and women from around the world who have sought to build a life as good as their talents and their hard work would allow.  And generation after generation of immigrants have come to these shores because they believe that in America all things are possible.

So you are not only living examples of that promise; you're also serving to defend that promise for future generations.  And your service reminds all of us that much of the strength of this country is drawn from those who have chosen to call it home.  It's not lost on me or anybody here today that at a time when we face an economic crisis born in many ways of irresponsibility, there are those who are actively pursuing greater responsibility.

And one person here today who fits that description well enough is Jeanne Ebongue Tapo -- right here.  She grew up in a poor family in Gabon, Africa, the daughter of a single mother raising five children by herself.  And Jeanne immigrated to the United States to provide for her family and to pursue her dream of becoming a dentist.  And that's why she joined the Navy.  And she hoped she'd have the opportunity to work and see the world and also earn her education.

And that's exactly what she has been able to do.  She has started college; she's had the chance to travel.  And even though she's had to make sacrifices to be apart from her loved ones, the people she's met in the Navy have become like a "family away from home."  And she's had the chance to be a part of what it feels like -- what feels like a small community and, at the same time, to be part of something much larger than herself.  So Jeanne, thank you.  (Applause.)

Despite all the -- all that she's faced, despite all the obstacles that she's overcome, Jeanne has made it her mission to serve others.  "At the end of the day," she said, "the only thing that matters is that I helped."

As our newest Americans, all of you remind us just how precious our citizenship is -- of how much it's worth and why it's worth protecting.  You all remind us that citizenship is not just a collection of rights, it's also a set of responsibilities; that America's success is not a gift, it is hard-won.  It depends on each of us doing our part.

So thank you all for your service.  I am extraordinarily proud of you.  And your nation is grateful to you.

So now it is also my privilege to present a distinguished American with an award in recognition of the many contributions of naturalized citizens like all of you.  It's called the "Outstanding American by Choice" Award.  It's given to -- it's given by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and it is my honor to award it to Peter Lemon.  And let me tell you a little bit about Peter.  Peter was just 19 years old, and a citizen for just seven years, when he and his platoon came under fire in the Tay Ninh Province of Vietnam.

Wounded by shrapnel from a mortar that exploded near his foxhole, Specialist Lemon kept fighting to protect his position against wave after wave of attack.  The battle raged for hours.  He was wounded a second time, and then a third.  But he refused to give up, even leaving his foxhole and exposed himself to enemy fire in order to continue to defend his fellow Rangers.

In fact, once the fight was over, Specialist Lemon refused to be evacuated until others had been taken to a field hospital. And Pete would spend a month in the hospital himself to recover from his injuries.  Soon after he returned home, he would be presented with the Medal of Honor by President Nixon. 

Today, Peter Lemon is a proud father and a proud veteran -- as well as an author and a filmmaker.  And he has devoted his time and energies to talking about what his own experiences have meant to him and what he has learned -- to encourage each and every one of us that the way to make the most of our talents is to make a difference in the lives of others.

His experience is a testament to the men and women who have come to this country to build a better life for themselves and their families -- and who have, by their commitment and contribution, made America a much better place as well.

So it is my honor to present this "Outstanding American by Choice" Award to Peter Lemon.  Peter, will you please come here? (Applause.)

(The award is presented.)

One of you might win this someday.  You're already well on the way. 

END
1:34 P.M. EDT

The GNOME Journal is back! A brand new issue has just been published! It features an interview with Stormy Peters, the Executive Director of the GNOME Foundation by Jayson Rowe, a review of the Gourmet Recipe Manager application by Sriram Ramkrishna, a look at the GConf Configuation System for developers by Natan Yellin, an Introduction to the Message Indicator for developers by Ken VanDine, and a letter from our editor, Jim Hodapp.

Special thanks goes to Paul Cutler who coordinated the release of this edition!

Read now: http://www.gnomejournal.org

The Federal Reserve announced Friday that it will launch a much-awaited program in June to bolster commercial real-estate lending.

Mobile Today

Google sued for 'stealing' Android name Register Google and 47 other international corporations have been sued in a US District Court for trademark infringement over their use of the word "Android. Google And Others Sued Over ‘Android' For Trademark Infringement MocoNews Google Sued Over Android Name... But Was It Actually Being Used? Techdirt Tom's Guide - Digitaltrends.com - Özel Web Tasarım - National Business Review all 27 news articles

Stocks that moved substantially or traded heavily Friday on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Stock Market: NYSE Dow Chemical Co., down 30 cents $15.70

Villagers in La Gloria, Mexico, stunned at why the virus hit them first, are seeking answers

PASCO, Wash. (AP) -- For 25 years, Commissioner Bill Platts sat behind the Benton County District Court bench, doling out advice and punishment to shoplifters, speeders and teens caught with alcohol....

The Associated Press

Quotes from Newark immigration rally
Philadelphia Inquirer
AP AP "This really should be the year we have more people, more motivation, more hope, because the president has offered to work on immigration reform, but the reality is the economy is so bad that people have been saying; 'I can't miss a day of work ...
Immigrants push for reforms at rallies across US The Associated Press
Immigration Agents to Turn Focus to Employers New York Times
Wall Street Journal - WQAD - Americas Quarterly - Boston Globe
all 716 news articles

ABC News

Cuomo Expands Pension Probe to Unregistered Agents Bloomberg - Karen Freifeld By Karen Freifeld May 1 (Bloomberg) -- New York widened its investigation of pension-fund corruption by helping form a multistate task force and issuing subpoenas to probe the role of unregistered and unlicensed agents in arranging for others to manage ... 100 Subpoenas Issued in Pension Case New York Times NY atty general expands pension pay-to-play probe The Associated Press WXXI - Wall Street Journal - NBC New York - The Associated Press all 596 news articles

The 32-year-old boyfriend of Baby P's mother is convicted of raping a two-year-old girl in north London.

A Southern California woman's accusation this week that her long-dead stepfather was the Zodiac killer just took on a new, strange twist: Another daughter of the man is coming forward to angrily denounce the charge. Janice Hendrickson, who is trying to keep...

Wireless and Mobile News

mocoNews - Boost Mobile Overwhelmed By Popularity Of $50 Unlimited ... Washington Post The good news is that Boost Mobile's new $50 unlimited calling-and-texting plan is attracting hundreds of thousands of new customers. Boost acknowledges being 'overwhelmed' by unlimited texting ... FierceWireless Texting delays mar popularity of $50 Boost plan The Associated Press Forbes - Gerson Lehrman Group all 101 news articles

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- A man who took 19 hostages at a small-town North Carolina newspaper more than two decades ago in a supposed bid to call attention to government corruption died Friday in prison....

Obama on flu: We've brought in the 'cavalry'

Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai says the government is broke and no state worker is earning more than $100 a month.

About 300 people at a Hong Kong hotel are placed under quarantine after a guest tests positive for swine flu.

More than 300 people at a Hong Kong hotel are placed under quarantine after a Mexican guest tests positive for swine flu.

Two women are being nominated to lead the University of California's campuses in Davis and San Francisco. UC President Mark Yudof said Friday he will recommend Susan Desmond-Hellmann as chancellor at UCSF, and Linda Katehi as chancellor of UC Davis. The...

US regulators will delay the release of stress test results for the country's 19 biggest banks until next Thursday, after some of the lenders objected to government demands that they needed to raise more capital.

PHILADELPHIA----Atlas Pipeline Partners, L.P. reported today that it has declared a quarterly cash distribution for the first quarter 2009 of $0.15 per common limited partner unit, payable Friday, May 15, 2009 to holders of record as of Monday, May 11, 2009.

You might have thought that Botox, the popular drug made from botulinum toxin, was simple spot treatment for everything from frown lines to muscle spasms. But studies have shown that the effects of the drugs can actually spread throughout the body, causing difficulty swallowing and breathing and even death. Acting on this mounting data, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced strict new labeling requirements for Botox and similar products yesterday, reports The New York Times. [More]

guardian.co.uk

Berkshire's Munger Favors ‘100% Ban' on Credit Swaps Bloomberg - Betty Liu, Shannon D. Harrington, Erik Holm By Betty Liu, Shannon D. Harrington and Erik Holm May 1 (Bloomberg) -- Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Vice Chairman Charles Munger said he supports an outright ban of credit- default swaps to prevent speculators from profiting on the failure of companies. What Would You Ask Warren Buffett? New York Times Here's the Story on Berkshire's Munger Wall Street Journal guardian.co.uk - Zacks.com - Times Online - Barron's Blogs all 469 news articles

Entrepreneur

US allows more firms to seek small business loans Reuters - David Lawder By David Lawder WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration will allow about 70000 more firms to apply for small business loans guaranteed by the government by temporarily raising size limits for the program, government officials said on Friday. US Small Business Admin Temporarily Eases Lending Standard Wall Street Journal SBA to temporarily change size standard for loan Forbes Automotive News - Western Edition - OregonLive.com - Wall Street Journal Blogs all 117 news articles

Last week, The New York Times reported that CIA interrogators subjected 9/11 plotter Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah to a total of 266 episodes of waterboarding between 2002 and 2003. More recently news broke that top Bush administration officials, including Condoleezza Rice and John Ashcroft, had condoned the practice as early as 2002. [More]

Boston University Police report that a woman leaving the rear of 685 Comm. Ave. around 9 p.m. on April 28 was attacked by two would-be muggers:

One of the male suspects was holding a folding pocket knife and demanded the victim's pocketbook. The victim then struggled with the suspects over the purse. The second suspect then displayed a knife by opening the blade and grabbed the victim by her hair. During the scuffle one of the suspects hit the victim in the jaw but she continued to struggle and was able to knock the knife from one of the suspect's hands and both suspects then fled in the direction of Granby St.

Police described the alleged perps as two 20-something white guys, one blond, about 6' tall and weighing 180 pounds:

The victim further stated that both males appeared to be students by their clothes and young appearance.

The Linux Journal's annual Readers' Choice Awards take the pulse of the Linux community, allowing readers to choose their favorites in a number of categories, and write-ins also are accepted. This year, more than 6,000 individuals voted for their favorite Linux solutions—one of the biggest turnouts in in Linux Journal history. And Linux in a Nutshell won the award for Favorite Linux Book of All Time. Our thanks to everyone who voted for this book. We think it's a classic and we're glad that you do, too!

MIDLAND, Wash. (AP) -- The wood-planing machines at the Opco Inc. mill in Midland are noisy, but neighbor Leona Turosik, 86, doesn't mind - especially now that the mill might close....

AP - Waiting for the Legislature's budget committee to start its work, state Rep. Robin Vos lacked the power of the majority party, but he did have the power of the tweet.

I got a summer internship at Google in Zürich, Switzerland, so I’ll be moving there this summer. Any DD working there ?

I already went to Zürich once last year and it was quite a cool place. I briefly met Cate and I know that there are other DDs there (hi Madduck!). I look forward to meeting more of you.

Now there are two issues I’d like help with, dear Züricher Lazyweb, housing and flight to DebConf.

Can I haz apartment

Looking for an apartment in Zürich seems very very very hard.. So far I only found a few apartment/hotel geared towards rich expats staying for few months (the kind like Citadines). It’s ungodly expensive (like 2200+ CHF a month for one room), but sure available and well placed..

Here’s what I need:

• from beginning of June to end of August (I have a friend willing to let me crash in so middle of June is okay)
• either one room (for myself) or up to 2 or 3 (I’d be flatsharing then)
• about or less than ~1500 CHF for one room, or less than ~2000 CHF for two and ~3000 CHF for three, you got the idea
• reasonably close transport-wise from Enge, 20-30 minutes by public transport or, even better bike, would be cool

I don’t have much more criterias, as long as I can find something. We’re about a few dozens Google interns all (desperately) looking for accomodation in Zürich. We’re all good neighbours, don’t party all night and all have very good references. Please contact me if you \<know someone who\>* know something, I’d be very grateful.

Can I haz DebConf

I’m going to DebConf this year in Spain, along with all the Google Summer of Code students who can make it. I’m going to reserve my flight in the next few days. I think I’ll only go to DebConf proper, arriving on the 23rd and leaving on the 31st of July.

• Here’s my tentative travel plan:
  • Swissair flight 2026, 23rd July, Zürich 12:25 - Madrid 14:45
  • Renfe train, 23rd July, Madrid 16:40 - Cáceres 20:02
  • DebConf!
  • Renfe train, 31st July, Cáceres 5:08 - Madrid 9:43

• Either:
  • Visit Madrid
  • Swissair flight 2033, 2nd August, Madrid 19:45 - Zürich 21:55
• Or:
  • Air France flight 1301, 2nd August, Madrid 12:40 - Paris 14:45
  • Visit home
  • SNCF train TGV Lyria 9217, 2nd August, Paris 17:54 - Zürich 22:26

I’m not decided yet on the last point.

So, any of you coming to DebConf from Zürich ?

World Magazine

US Report on Religious Freedom: 'Watch' Cuba, Venezuela Voice of America By VOA News The US Commission on International Religious Freedom is recommending that the State Department closely "watch" Cuba and Venezuela for violations of religious freedoms. Commission lists threats to religious freedom Deseret News Religious freedom panel adds Nigeria to list of world's worst ... Associated Baptist Press Washington Times - World Magazine - Journal of Turkish Weekly - Christian Broadcasting Network all 132 news articles

Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo said that as many as half of the intermediaries in pension transactions in New York State and New York City were not properly registered.

The US drops espionage-related charges against two pro-Israel lobbyists, saying it was unlikely to win.

Rain or shine, we review the day's biggest stock stories.

Voice of America

Biden kicked out of country after flu remarks?
Christian Science Monitor - Jimmy Orr
By Jimmy Orr | 05.01.09 Things have gotten so bad for the vice president following his disastrous Today Show appearance that he's been exiled?
Airlines upset with Biden's suggestion to avoid air travel because ... Bizjournals.com
Ruben Navarrette: Joe Biden's remarks stoked fears about flu pandemic CNN
Voice of America - Boston Globe - Wall Street Journal - CBS News
all 1,366 news articles

CNET News

Palm Eos Coming To Sprint? InformationWeek - Marin Perez Palm fans were in a tizzy yesterday, as news leaked out that the Eos would be the follow-up to the Pre. The device had a very slim design, nice specs, and would reportedly be available for AT&T. Analysts Doubt Reports of Thin Palm Eos Phone NewsFactor Network Palm Eos May Be Offered by Sprint Brighthand NetworkWorld.com - Mobile Burn - San Francisco Chronicle - Mobile Magazine all 85 news articles

bowman9991 writes "James Cameron's first movie since 'Titanic', his upcoming science fiction epic 'Avatar', has a budget pushing US$200 million and enough hype to power a mission to Mars. Now it appears the 3D technology he created to turn his vision into a reality, the key to Avatar's success or failure, may be habit forming. Dr. Mario Mendez, a behavioral neurologist at the University of California, said it is entirely possible Cameron's 3D technology could tap brain systems that are undisturbed by conventional 2D movies. Cameron himself believes 3D viewing 'is so close to a real experience that it actually triggers memory creation in a way that 2D viewing doesn't' and that stereoscopic (3D) viewing uses more neurons, which would further heighten its impact."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) -- This summer, the guy running the Tilt-A-Whirl at the beach might be a laid-off, middle-aged accountant instead of the usual bored teenager. And the towel boy at the pool might be from East Providence instead of Eastern Europe....

AFP

Her Rival Now Her Boss, Clinton Settles Into New Role New York Times - Brendan Smialowski Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday. By MARK LANDLER WASHINGTON - Hillary Rodham Clinton insists her transition from presidential contender to secretary of state has been seamless, ... Clinton says work just beginning as she completes 100 days AFP Everyone feeling okay? Flu watch humor at the State presser Foreign Policy The Associated Press - CBS News - MiamiHerald.com - Arkansas Times all 99 news articles

Dmitry Medvedev's growing political stature is increasing the possibility that he will stand for re-election in 2012 despite assumptions that those polls would see Vladimir Putin's return, according to a top Kremlin adviser

Despite a surprise boost in consumer confidence, buying was mild in the markets on Friday. Soaring higher in its very own dramatic "race to the 200-day" was Comcast, which added more than 5% on Friday.

Six men are jailed for up to four-and-a-half years on charges relating to election fraud during a council vote in Slough in 2007.

BOGART, Ga. (AP) -- Authorities on Friday swarmed a heavily wooded area in north Georgia where a wrecked red Jeep belonging to a former professor suspected of killing his wife and two others was discovered not far from his home....

Although Democratic heavyweights are lining up to support Senator Arlen Specter in his 2010 re-election bid, liberal activists have vowed to oppose any efforts to clear the Democratic field for him.

Maggie Koerth-Baker is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. A freelance science and health journalist, Maggie lives in Minneapolis, brain dumps on Twitter, and writes quite often for mental_floss magazine.

As with every spring, the rains fall, the sun shines, and I remain hopelessly inept as a gardener. Or, maybe, "inept" isn't quite the right word. "Lazy" and "impatient". There, that's the ticket. So, despite fantasizing repeatedly about the wonderful life we would lead if only we got around to putting in some vegetables this year, my husband and I have never gotten around to putting in some vegetables. At best, we keep the lawn mowed and free of vehicles on blocks.

But that may be changing because, last week, Baker brought home a copy of The All New Square Foot Gardening guide, a book written by a retired engineer, which manages to make home veggie patches appealing to both my laissez-faire approach to plant life, and Baker's (who is, himself, an engineer) tendencies towards efficiency-obsession and Maker glee. The book promises to help you grow more, in less space, with less work. OK, I'm game.

The basic idea is that most people try to garden like they're making a miniature farmstead---with wide rows, hills and furrows, plowed into the earth of your backyard. And, frankly, all that adds up to a pain in the ass. Tilling sucks. Your dirt probably isn't ideal for growing things. You get weeds that need to be dealt with every day. The watering process wastes water and usually ends up with some plants drowning and other plants parched. And all you want is a freakin' salad.

Square-foot gardening, on the other hand, is all about eliminating those problems. Instead of tilling the dirt and pumping in fertilizer, you build a big box, put a liner on the bottom, and fill it with a mixture of peat moss, vermiculite and compost. Great soil. And no weed seeds to sprout up.Because you make the box small enough to reach everything without stepping in the dirt, your soil stays aerated. Because you don't have to weed, you can grow plants from fewer seeds, closer together, with each box broken down into neat, anal-retentive grids. The idea of a garden that can be plotted out on graph paper is already making Baker salivate.

The watering solution is particularly slick. Instead of moving around a sprayer that never seems to successfully dampen the full area you've aimed it at (and chucks water onto places that don't need it), you hook up a pipe system to your box and screw in the hose. Plant stuff than needs lots of water closer to the pipe, and stuff that needs less further away. Then you can turn the water on (at a lower pressure than you'd use for spraying) and let it trickle down.

I'll be honest, as the wife of an engineer, I end up poking a lot of fun at the hyper-planning, "let us sit down and work out the numbers before we toast that bread" mindset. But it's all in fun. I promise. You engineers can be as detail-oriented as you want to be, as long as you keep offering up great solutions like this.

Image of a nicely gridded-up square foot garden courtesy shygantic, via a Creative Commons license.

PORT GAMBLE, Wash. (AP) -- The Hood Canal floating bridge, the major route between Washington's northern Olympic Peninsula and the rest of the state, closed early Friday for a six-week renovation....

AFP

Quicken Offers Free iPhone Apps RedOrbit Intuit has designed a Quicken application for Apple Inc's iPhone to help users monitor their spending during this period of economic woes. Manage your money with Quicken Online Mobile for iPhone CNET Crave Blog Quicken Online strikes back at upstarts with iphone app VentureBeat Los Angeles Times - iLounge - ITvoir all 38 news articles

A class action lawsuit on behalf of all persons who purchased the common stock of Sequenom, Inc. between June 4, 2008 and April 29, 2009 has been filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California alleging violations of the Federal securities laws against Sequenom and its senior executive officers.

Research in Motion Ltd.'s stock got a nearly 4 percent boost Friday on an upgrade from UBS that predicted the weakened enterprise market is a "captive" audience for the BlackBerry smartphones that will soon need to alleviate its pent-up need for replacements.

NBC Universal says Nora O'Brien, its executive in charge of drama programming, has died. Spokesman Curt King says O'Brien died Wednesday after collapsing in Berkeley, Calif., on the set of a TV series in development for NBC.

Folks at the Linux Foundation have just posted a bunch of video from the 2009 Collaboration Summit, including our panel on 8 April, Measuring Community Contribution (Flash video … but they do have a downloadable OGG!)  Joe ‘Zonker’ Brockmeier (OpenSUSE community manager) led the panel that included James Bottomly (Linux kernel SCSI maintainer etc.), Dan Frye (IBM’s VP of their open source dev group), Jono Bacon (Ubuntu community manager), and me.  You can see lots of sympatico between everyone, good will, and all that.  Call me a pushover, but I like these guys. :)  You can also hear the nice discussion between Bottomly and Frye, where they are in violent agreement over past IBM mistakes, which The Reg tried to turn in to a controversy.

(Updated with correct date of Wednesday 8 April for the panel.)

BAGHDAD (AP) -- The anger in Baghdad's main Shiite district was raw and restless after twin car bombings took more than 50 lives earlier this week. But the true measure of the rage - in Iraqi terms - came the following morning: Morgues and streets were not full of Sunnis killed in payback violence....

"Palatino holds the sad record for being the world's most heavily pirated typeface design, no thanks to Monotype's Book Antiqua, which has been given without royalty to every Microsoft Office user in the world." — John Butler

Yes, I'm listening to that Jonathan Coulton song. Time to close the browser tabs and go outside. (And the coffee place is out of scones today...coincidence?)

Bruce Perens: A Cyber-Attack on an American City. "I hope those responsible for emergency services, be they in business or government, are learning the lessons of Morgan Hill. The first lesson is what stayed up: stand-alone radio systems and not much else."

Are the spammers the good guys here? "Each week, Chinese Internet users receive 10 million e-mail messages and 70 million instant messages from the consortium."

moot wins, Time Inc. loses (the other loser: ReCAPTCHA.) Next time, write your own image labeling CAPTCHA—you could tag your whole archives with the griefer labor required to pwn one poll.

Al Giordano: How “The NAFTA Flu” Exploded "Smithfield Farms Fled US Environmental Laws to Open a Gigantic Pig Farm in Mexico, and All We Got Was this Lousy Swine Flu."

Red Hat getting the open source message out to the US federal government: Federal IT on a Budget Forum.

More hinky stuff to filter out of user-submitted data: JavaScript for hackers.

Yet another Git tutorial, this one from Charles Duan. Good explanation of rebasing.

IPC::ShareLite -- Perl module to do SysV IPC.

Protesters clashed with riot police in Germany, Turkey and Greece, while thousands angry at the government's responses to the global financial crisis took to the streets in France

NEW YORK (AP) -- Mayor Michael Bloomberg's election-year budget spares teachers, police officers and firefighters from his layoffs, but the billionaire former CEO refuses to consider proposals to raise taxes on the rich....

AP - Mayor Michael Bloomberg's election-year budget spares teachers, police officers and firefighters from his layoffs, but the billionaire former CEO refuses to consider proposals to raise taxes on the rich.

Las Vegas Sands Corp. today announced that it will hold its quarterly conference call to discuss financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2009, on Tuesday, May 5, 2009.

The Harvard Dental Clinic will be closed through May 6 after Boston health officials learned a cluster of students are suffering from flu-like symptoms. Two students are now "probable" swine flu cases, and seven others have flu-like symptoms.

The critically endangered western gray whale (Esrichtiius robustus) has won a small victory in its fight for survival: some oil exploration companies have decided to delay seismic testing off the coasts of Russia. [More]

Oil prices finished the week with a late surge above $53 a barrel as traders looked past tepid economic reports and latched onto signs that U.S. manufacturing was on the mend.

It's hard to ague when people are wearing masks, the T is cleaning trains in the middle of the day, Harvard Medical students are told to stay home and a plane is forced to land at Logan because a passenger felt achy.

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Just checked in this piece to the master branch of the Go-OO repository, to support sorting of DataPilot’s field members using custom sort lists. I’ve extended the popup window I wrote for the hide field members functionality to provide this additional sorting functionality. The result is the following popup window:

In the upper half of the window I’ve added a menu-like control, with the custom sort lists being provided in the submenu. The UI is fully functional, but still a bit rough around the edges. The custom sort list submenu, in particular, may need some additional work to handle a large set of custom sort lists, a sort list that is very long, or stuff like that. But as long as your sort list is in modest size, it should work just fine.

This feature didn’t make it in to 3.1 since we are in a stabilization phase for 3.1. But as soon as we branch master for the stable 3.1 branch, I will enable this feature in the default build in the master branch.

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Televisa is cutting all "nonessential" kisses from its soap operas. A song called the "Influenza Cumbia" is climbing the charts. Cringe-worthy swine flu jokes are spreading faster than the illness ever could....