News Corp pays out over hacking claims (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) ? The British newspaper arm of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp settled a string of legal claims over phone hacking on Thursday, and said this was not an admission that management had known about the practice or tried to cover it up.

Murdoch's News International had claimed for years that the hacking of voicemails to generate stories was the work of a single "rogue" reporter who went to jail for the crime in 2007.

However, under a wave of evidence last year it finally admitted that the problem was widespread, sparking a scandal that has rocked the company, the British press, police and the political establishment.

On Thursday, lawyers for victims who had reached settlements said their agreements were based on News Group Newspapers (NGN), publisher of some of News International's titles, acknowledging that senior management were at fault.

They said the company was now seeking to settle all the claims. "News Group has agreed to compensation being assessed on the basis that senior employees and directors of NGN knew about the wrongdoing and sought to conceal it by deliberately deceiving investigators and destroying evidence," the lawyers said in a statement.

But News International said in a "clarification" late on Thursday that despite agreeing the settlements it was not making any admission that senior staff or directors at NGN had known about the wrongdoing or tried to conceal it.

"However, for the purpose of reaching these settlements only, NGN agreed that the damages to be paid to claimants should be assessed as if this was the case," News International said.

In a London court packed with journalists and lawyers, Judge Geoffrey Vos went through each case and heard the grounds for the settlement. At the end of each statement a lawyer for News Corp confirmed the details and offered "sincere apologies."

Settlements announced in court generally ranged from around 30,000 pounds ($46,000) to 60,000 pounds, while some were not revealed. Actor Jude Law accepted 130,000 pounds after he was physically followed abroad as well as in Britain.

"It is clear that I, along with many others, was kept under constant surveillance for a number of years," Law said in a statement. "No aspect of my private life was safe from intrusion by News Group newspapers, including the lives of my children.

"I believe in a free press but what News Group did was an abuse of its freedoms. They were prepared to do anything to sell their newspapers and to make money."

The settlements may lift some immediate pressure off the group, as it will prevent lawyers from poring over further details in open court, and it could result in all cases eventually settling as the size of the payouts set a precedent.

But it could also lead to increased scrutiny of the role played by James Murdoch.

Rupert Murdoch's son James was placed in charge of News International only after the hacking, but has been accused of leading a cover-up. He has denied all knowledge of the scale of the problem and blamed many of those around him for the failings.

PAY-OUT TIME

The court was told that 36 claimants were now ready to settle, including Law, former deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, politician Chris Bryant and other celebrities, while 10 cases were ready to go to court.

News Corp has already received 60 claims and police say there are almost 6,000 potential victims. The legal costs to be paid by News International will also vary hugely, lawyers said.

Lawyers for the victims said they had obtained documents from News International that revealed the scale of the malpractice, partly thanks to the fact that the 12 solicitors' firms involved had joined forces to work together.

"As a result, documents relating to the nature and scale of the conspiracy, a cover-up and the destruction of evidence/email archives by News Group have now been disclosed to the claimants," their statement said.

The long-running case blew up in July when it emerged that the voicemail of missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler, later found murdered, had been hacked into by the News of the World.

News Corp took the drastic step of shutting down the 168-year-old tabloid and pulled its plan to take full control of Britain's highly profitable satellite broadcaster BSkyB.

The scandal had already forced the resignation of Prime Minister David Cameron's spokesman, a former News of the World editor, and later prompted the resignations of senior police officials who were accused of failing to properly investigate the affair.

Three criminal investigations are under way while a judge-led inquiry into Britain's press ethics sits most days, bringing yet more attention to the conduct of the media as it seeks to draw up new regulations.

"I'm grateful to News Group for finally acknowledging, admitting and apologizing for their unlawful voicemail interception," Graham Shear, a lawyer representing victims who also had his own phone hacked, told Reuters.

"But I'm a bit frustrated that they didn't find a way to do this earlier, having previously strenuously defended my own claim and the claims on which I'm acting."

(Additional reporting by Tim Castle; Editing by Peter Graff)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/enindustry/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120120/media_nm/us_newscorp_hacking_compensation

appetizer recipes ufc 141 insight bowl deep impact julia child russell brand files for divorce bowl game schedule

Paleozoic predator predates the dinosaurs

Voltaire Neto

The mammal-like creature known as Pampophoneus biccai takes on a plant-eating Paleozoic creature called a pareiasaur in this artist's conception.

By Alan Boyle

Paleontologists have found the skull of a weird but deadly mammal-like?monster that terrorized Brazil long before dinosaurs ruled the earth.

The specimen is from the Permian period, more than 260 million years ago. The complete skull measures about 13 inches (35 centimeters) in length and was?discovered in 2008 during a scientific excavation on a farm in the pampas region of Rio Grande do Sul in southern Brazil. The skull came from a creature that was part of a class of long-extinct?vertebrates called dinocephalian therapsids, which predated the dinosaurs and were distantly related to mammals.

---

In an interview with Discovery News, lead researcher Juan Carlos Cisneros of Brazil's?Federal University of?Piaui said the critter was a cross between "a tiger and a Komodo dragon, if you can imagine that." A report about the fossil was published?online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The creature has been dubbed Pampaphoneus biccai: The Latin-derived genus name roughly translates as "pampas killer," and the species name pays tribute to Jose Bicca, the landlord?of the farm where the skull was found. The fossil site was identified through an analysis of satellite imagery from Google Earth.

Juan Carlos Cisneros

A photo and a drawing show the skull discovered on a Brazilian farm.

Cisneros told me in an emailed statement that the find is important for two reasons: First,?Pampaphoneus is?the first Paleozoic terrestrial carnivore discovered in South America. Combining this find with earlier discoveries of plant-eaters from the same time frame will help paleontologists "picture a more complete ecosystem during the Permian period," the statement said.

Second, the skull suggests that this South American species was a close relative to similar dinocephalians previously found in Russia and South Africa. That supports the idea that?therapsids were able to disperse easily from one part of the Pangaea supercontinent to the other, during an age?when most of?Earth's modern-day land masses were linked together.

The therapsids were dealt a heavy blow 250 million years ago?in?an extinction event known as the "Great Dying." During the Triassic period?that followed, they gave way to the dinosaurs ??but their distant?relatives?in the mammalian tribe once again rule the earth.

Update for 7:51 p.m. ET: Brian Switek adds to the Permian picture in his Wired Science posting on the "Terrible Heads."

More about the days before the dinosaurs:

---

In addition to Cisneros, the authors of "Carnivorous Dinocephalian from the Middle Permian of Brazil and Tetrapod Dispersal in Pangaea" include Fernando Abdala, Saniye Atayman-G?ven, Bruce Rubidge, A.M. Sel?l Seng?r and Cesar Schultz.

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

Source: http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/17/10176294-predator-ruled-before-dinosaurs

kate upton winter solstice r. kelly x factor finale pro bowl voting kindle fire update college board

Fidel V. Garcia, 63, Naples, Florida

Fidel V. Garcia, age 63 of Naples died January 15, 2012. Formerly of Alamo, Texas, he had been a resident since 1965 and was a member of St. Peter the Apostle Catholic Church. Fidel was an avid music lover and played the acoustic guitar. He is survived by his loving wife, Maria, children, Gracie Cabrera, Fidel Garcia, Jr., Roel (Elizabeth) Garcia, Marisella (Raul Herrera) Garcia, Eric, Joey (Cindy), Stephanie, and Ricky Garcia, 21 grandchildren and 3 great grandchildren. He is also survived by his siblings, Rosa Polendo, Abel, Robert, and Lionel Garcia, Alicia Beltron, Maria Garcia, and Fortino Garcia, Jr, Fidel was preceded in death by his parents Fortino and Maria Garcia, a brother Joel V. Garcia and a sister Anita Lopez. The family will receive friends Thursday, Jan 19 from 5 to 8pm at Fuller Funeral Home, 4735 Tamiami Trail East. A funeral mass will be celebrated Friday, Jan 20th at 10:00 am at St. Peter the Apostle Catholic Church, 5130 Rattlesnake Hammock Road. Burial will follow at Naples Memorial Gardens.

Source: http://nbc2.tributes.com/show/Fidel-V.-Garcia-93134160

terry fator gerard butler brady hoke brady hoke ali lohan new york election new york election

House to take symbolic vote against debt hike (AP)

WASHINGTON ? The House on Wednesday is kicking off another session under GOP control by staging a politically-fueled vote against raising the government's borrowing cap by $1.2 trillion as permitted under last summer's bipartisan debt and budget pact.

Under that law, supported by all of the top GOP leaders on Capitol Hill, the debt limit is automatically raised 15 days after the president officially notifies lawmakers that the government is close to the current $15.2 trillion cap ? unless Congress votes to deny the borrowing increase.

Wednesday's measure to block the debt increase is expected to pass the House easily. But it's a dead issue in the Senate, and Obama's veto power serves as a final guarantee that the increase will go through as intended and that the nation won't face another debt crisis like last summer.

The political dance was designed to permit lawmakers, mostly Republicans, to vote against the debt increase but not actually block it, which would provoke a first-ever, market-rattling default on U.S. government obligations.

Republicans are seizing the measure as an opportunity to highlight the record deficits racked up during Obama's first term in the White House.

"This resolution keeps the government's spending problem in the forefront of our conversation and demonstrates that we in the House are committed to ending the decades-old borrowing and spending mentality in Washington," said Rep. Tom Reed, R-N.Y. "Many want this issue swept under the rug until after Election Day. We will not let that happen."

But Democrats say the whole exercise is little more than political theater.

"If it were to pass and to be signed by the president, everybody, I presume, understands it would be a very negative thing to happen," said Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 Democrat in the House.

Last year's debt agreement permits a total debt limit increase of $2.1 trillion in exchange for an equivalent amount in spending cuts, which would be spread out over the coming decade. The first $900 billion comes from caps on the day-to-day operations of federal agencies.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/uscongress/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120118/ap_on_go_co/us_congress_debt

pharrell silver bullet joshua komisarjevsky russell simmons russell simmons joseph kony joseph kony

Romney's rivals challenge his electability (AP)

COLUMBIA, S.C. ? Mitt Romney's Republican rivals are intensifying their efforts to erode if not eliminate his standing as the man most likely to defeat President Barack Obama this fall, often stressing their own prospects over his in the final few days before South Carolina's potentially decisive weekend primary.

The stepped-up challenge to Romney's electability, in paid television advertising, campaign appearances and the first of two pre-primary debates, appears aimed at one of his principal strengths in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries. Voters in both contests said they prized a candidate's ability to beat Obama over a candidate's conservative credentials, a preference that helped the former Massachusetts governor to his pair of victories.

After spending days challenging Romney's record as a businessman, Newt Gingrich unveiled a television commercial on Tuesday that starts with an announcer saying only the former House speaker can defeat Obama.

The ad makes no mention of Romney, instead showing Gingrich drawing cheers from the audience at Monday's debate in Myrtle Beach when he said, "More people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president American history."

Gingrich also drew sustained applause from businessmen and businesswomen after a speech late Tuesday that made only passing reference to Romney, and none at all to his other rivals. Instead, he outlined his own proposals for lower taxes, less regulation and expanded domestic energy production.

"I believe I am the only candidate in this race who understands the scale of change necessary to get this country working again," Gingrich said. He predicted that if he wins the state's primary, the nomination would follow, adding, "We will run a campaign of paychecks vs. food stamps and we will beat Obama virtually everywhere in this country."

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and Texas Gov. Rick Perry are also hoping to change the perception of voters in the first-in-the-South primary state, sometimes by planting seeds of doubt, at other points sketching dismaying bleak prospects for the party if Romney is atop the ticket this fall.

"As Republicans, we cannot fire our nominee in September," Perry said to Romney from across the debate stage on Monday. "We need to know now. So I hope you'll put your tax records out there this week so the people of South Carolina can take a look and decide if, you know, we got a flawed candidate or not."

Santorum, campaigning in Lexington, S.C., on Tuesday, said Romney is a candidate in the mold of Bob Dole and John McCain, GOP nominees who led the party to defeat in 1996 and 2008. "He's never run as a conservative in a general election," he said.

By contrast, Santorum said he had won a pair of elections to the House from a Democratic district in Pennsylvania, then carried the state in successive Senate campaigns, including in 2000, when George W. Bush lost the state.

The former senator also sought to ease concerns about the double-digit defeat he suffered in 2006.

"I led the ticket even though I lost by a lot," he said, noting that five GOP congressmen lost that year in the state, including two who were under federal investigation.

The increased concentration on electability comes in the wake of polls with Iowa caucus-goers and New Hampshire primary voters, who said the ability to defeat Obama mattered more than a candidate's stands on conservative credentials, moral character or experience.

In Iowa, 31 percent of caucus-goers interviewed for The Associated Press and the television networks said a candidate's ability to defeat Obama mattered most. Romney won the backing of nearly half of them, far outdistancing the rest of the field.

Another 25 percent of caucus-goers interviewed said they cared most about a candidate who was a true conservative. Romney drew the support of a mere 1 percent of them. Among the 24 percent who cited strong moral character, his share was 11 percent.

The findings were roughly similar in New Hampshire, where Romney's margin of victory was larger than the slender eight-vote spread he won over Santorum in Iowa.

Thirty-five percent of New Hampshire voters cited an ability to defeat Obama as the most important factor in deciding which candidate to support, and Romney drew the backing of 63 percent of them.

Among the 13 percent who said they wanted most of all a candidate who was a true conservative, Romney was favored by only 13 percent; among the 22 percent who said strong moral character mattered most, the former Massachusetts governor got 26 percent.

The conclusion, according to a strategist for one of Romney's rivals, is that "a candidate has to show that he can defeat Obama before any of the ideological differences (among Republicans) can come into play. ... Voters don't want to vote for someone they think has no chance against Obama." The strategist declined to be identified by name, citing internal campaign strategy.

In the days since New Hampshire, the change in tone has seemed to accelerate. The five remaining rivals converge Thursday in Charleston for the final debate before Saturday's primary. No Republican since 1980 has won the party's presidential nomination without first capturing the South Carolina primary.

It is unclear if the emphasis on electability has had any impact on Romney's lead in the polls in South Carolina.

But the Romney campaign has responded to Gingrich in the past 24 hours with a new Web video and a telephone conference call to reporters. Both featured former Sen. Jim Talent of Missouri, who was in the House when Gingrich served as speaker of the House. "If we nominate him, he's going to be an unreliable candidate like he was an unreliable leader in the 1990s," he said.

Romney, back in the state a Wednesday after a fundraising trip to New York, slapped at Gingrich's claims as well

"He'd been in Congress two years when Ronald Reagan came to office," he said during an appearance at Wofford College in Spartanburg. Gingrich taking credit for jobs created during Reagan's administration "is like Al Gore taking credit for the Internet."

That was a retort to Gingrich's claim that he played a key role in two conservative revolutions, one led by Reagan in 1980, and the other that he led as speaker after Republicans took control of the House in 1994 after 40 years in the minority.

___

Associated Press writers Kasie Hunt and Shannon McCaffrey contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120118/ap_on_el_pr/us_republicans_electability

nick collins cape coral fl friday night lights christina hendricks emmys emmys tom bosley

The illusion of courage: Why people mispredict their behavior in embarrassing situations

ScienceDaily (Jan. 17, 2012) ? Whether it's investing in stocks, bungee jumping or public speaking, why do we often plan to take risks but then "chicken out" when the moment of truth arrives?

In a new paper in the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, scientists from the University of Colorado Boulder and Carnegie Mellon University argue that this "illusion of courage" is one example of an "empathy gap" -- that is, our inability to imagine how we will behave in future emotional situations. According to the empathy gap theory, when the moment of truth is far off you aren't feeling, and therefore are out of touch with, the fear you are likely to experience when push comes to shove. The research team also included Cornell University's David Dunning and former CMU graduate student Ned Welch, currently a consultant for McKinsey.

In a series of three experiments, the researchers found that people overestimate their willingness to engage in psychologically distant embarrassing public performances, and also found that they could reduce this illusion of courage by inducing immediate emotions that effectively put them in touch with the fear they would experience.

In the first two experiments, college students were asked if they would be willing to engage in a future embarrassing situation -- telling a funny story to their class in one study, and dancing to James Brown's "Sex Machine" in front of the class in the other -- in exchange for a few dollars. Students were either asked outright or after being exposed to short films that aroused mild experiences of fear and anger. Students who did not view movie clips significantly overestimated their willingness to sing or dance. When they experienced negative emotions -- fear and anger -- as a result of watching the movie clips, students were much more accurate in predicting their own future lack of interest in performing.

"Because social anxiety associated with the prospect of facing an embarrassing situation is such a common and powerful emotion in everyday life, we might think that we know ourselves well enough to predict our own behavior in such situations," said Leaf Van Boven, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Colorado Boulder. "But the ample experience most of us should have gained with predicting our own future behavior isn't sufficient to overcome the empathy gap -- our inability to anticipate the impact of emotional states we aren't currently experiencing."

The illusion of courage has practical consequences. "People frequently face potential embarrassing situations in everyday life, and the illusion of courage is likely to cause us to expose ourselves to risks that, when the moment of truth arrives, we wish we hadn't taken," said George Loewenstein, the Herbert A. Simon University Professor of Economics and Psychology within CMU's Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences. "Knowing that, we might choose to be more cautious, or we might use the illusion of courage to help us take risks we think are worth it, knowing full well that we are likely to regret the decision when the moment of truth arrives."

The National Science Foundation, Carnegie Mellon's Center for Integrated Study of the Human Dimensions of Global Change and the National Institute of Mental Health, provided funding for this research.

Recommend this story on Facebook, Twitter,
and Google +1:

Other bookmarking and sharing tools:

---

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Carnegie Mellon University.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Journal Reference:

1. Leaf Van Boven, George Loewenstein, Edward Welch, David Dunning. The illusion of courage in self-predictions: Mispredicting one's own behavior in embarrassing situations. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 2012; 25 (1): 1 DOI: 10.1002/bdm.706

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120117144226.htm

south carolina primary mitt romney doomsday clock nate robinson sharia law sharia law new hampshire primary results

TD Ameritrade fiscal 1Q profit up 5 percent (AP)

OMAHA, Neb. ? TD Ameritrade said Tuesday that its fiscal first-quarter net income grew 5 percent and its revenue was almost unchanged as the online brokerage's trading activity slowed amid worries about the economy.

The Omaha-based company posted $152 million in net income, or about 27 cents per share, in the October-December quarter. That's up from $145 million, or 25 cents per share, in the same quarter in 2010, and topped the 26 cents per share profit that analysts surveyed by FactSet were expecting.

But revenue fell less than 1 percent to $653.4 million from $656.2 million. Analysts expected revenue to grow to $671.5 million.

One of the key drivers of Ameritrade's revenue is the fees it charges for transactions it handles, but trading slipped during the last three months of 2011 due to growing worries about the European debt crisis. The average number of trades per day dipped to 367,479 from 371,916 in the same period a year earlier. In the July-September quarter, there was an average of 415,739 trades per day.

And average commissions and transaction fees per trade fell to $11.90 during the quarter from $12.39 in the last three months of 2010.

"While volumes have improved over December, clients continue to hesitate in their trading and investing in the face of all of the uncertainty in the markets right now," said Fred Tomczyk, Ameritrade's president and CEO, during a conference call with analysts. He said that while there are signs the U.S. economy is improving, it will be a slow recovery, and there remains a "cloud of uncertainty" regarding Europe's financial crisis.

Tomczyk said he thinks trading will improve if the situation in Europe stabilizes and the market starts to move consistently, either up or down. He said trading might also take off if the U.S. economy continues improving during the first quarter.

"What's really important is what happens in the first quarter for the U.S. economy," Tomczyk said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Ameritrade also makes money from fees based on clients' assets, but the current low interest rates are limiting what TD Ameritrade earns on its clients' deposit accounts and other investment products.

Ameritrade said its net new assets grew 11 percent to $10.2 billion from $9.7 billion. The total client assets Ameritrade holds grew 7 percent to $406.3 billion at the end of the quarter from $386.4 billion.

Credit Suisse analyst Howard Chen said in a research note that this was a more challenging quarter for Ameritrade, but the company is limiting expenses and managing capital well. Chen maintains a "Neutral" rating on Ameritrade's stock because of the interest-rate pressure and slower trading outlook.

Ameritrade laid off 145 people between October and December, and severance costs totaled $7 million. But the company also benefited from a lower-than-expected tax rate, so there was a net gain of one cent per share from those two factors.

Ameritrade said it spent about $107 million during the quarter to repurchase 6.7 million shares of its own stock, and plans to pay a dividend of 6 cents per share in February.

Ameritrade's stock declined 19 cents, or 1.2 percent, to $16.11 in afternoon trading.

___

Online:

TD Ameritrade Holding Corp.: http://www.amtd.com

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120117/ap_on_bi_ge/us_earns_td_ameritrade

michael turner split pea soup land of the lost cleveland cavaliers cleveland cavaliers war horse k cups