If you're not the type to take care of your belongings, you might want to check out Outlier's new Minimal Backpack when you're on the hunt for a new bag. You can think of it as the Tonka truck of carry-alls, except that instead of metal it's actually made from a lightweight fabric called Dyneema that has a strength-to-weight ratio that's about ten to fifteen times stronger than steel.
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ALLEN PARK, Mich. (AP) — Ndamukong Suh has been fined by the NFL.
Again.
The Detroit Lions defensive tackle was docked $31,500 by the league for a hit on Cleveland Browns quarterback Brandon Weeden, a person familiar with the decision told The Associated Press. The person spoke Wednesday on condition of anonymity because the fine had not been announced.
Suh insisted earlier in the day he was unaware the NFL was reviewing his actions during Sunday's game, but acknowledged being used to the scrutiny.
"I think there is always going to be a microscope on me," he said. "I think there has been a microscope on me since I was first drafted."
Since Detroit selected Suh No. 2 overall in 2010, he has been fined seven times for more than $200,000. He lost $165,294 in pay during a two-game suspension in his second season for stomping on the right arm of Green Bay's Evan Dietrich-Smith.
Earlier this season, Suh was docked $100,000 for an illegal block on Minnesota center John Sullivan in Week 1 during an interception return. He lost an appeal last week, upholding the largest fine in NFL history for on-field conduct, not counting suspensions.
Suh wasn't penalized for his latest act that drew discipline, but it was shown on a video posted on NFL.com as vice president of officiating Dean Blandino said he wanted to look at it more for "potential helmet to the body."
Lions center Dominic Raiola — perhaps Suh's most vocal supporter — saw Suh's hit on Weeden after he threw a pass and said it was "ridiculous" that the league was even considering discipline.
"The guy is violent, football is a violent game," Raiola said. "I don't think you can ever make hitting somebody soft."
Raiola noted the officials had a better view, and didn't throw a flag.
"They were right there," Raiola recalled. "It was a football play, to me. But I guess maybe my view of football now is different than the way football is viewed now. I really don't know what they're looking at."
Suh knows the league is looking at everything he does, saying nothing in life is fair, but said it won't make him want to leave the game.
"Not everything is going to go your way in life," he said. "I understood that and grew up that way. It's just like for me, I wanted a Nintendo 64 when I was little and my mom said, 'No.' I had to deal with it."
And, now the Cincinnati Bengals (4-2) have to deal Suh on Sunday when they play at Detroit (4-2). Bengals left tackle Andrew Whitworth said Suh's after-whistle hits have diminished his ability to be known as a great player, but doesn't think he's a dirty player.
"He's not dirtier than guys that played the game back in the day," Whitford said. "The real truth is now he plays the game in an era where there's a TV camera covering every single possible thing on the field and a lot of stuff gets put on film. People know about it. Outside of that, people would never even know some of these antics. I think he plays the game on the borderline level with a lot of intensity and sometimes it carries on into extra stuff."
NOTES: Lions WR Calvin Johnson (right knee), RB Joique Bell (ribs) and CB Rashean Mathis (groin) were limited Wednesday while S Louis Delmas (knee) and OT Jason Fox (knee) were held out of practice. ... WR Patrick Edwards, who was cut earlier this week, was added to the practice squad and FB Shaun Chapas was released from the practice squad.
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Online:
AP NFL website www.pro32.ap.org
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Follow Larry Lage on Twitter: http://twitter.com/larrylage
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-10-16-FBN-Lions-Suh/id-9984f7bfe57049c4951ad598a295165eSenate Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., walks to the Senate floor after agreeing to the framework of a deal to avoid default and reopen the government on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013 in Washington. The partial government shutdown is in its third week and less than two days before the Treasury Department says it will be unable to borrow and will rely on a cash cushion to pay the country's bills. (AP Photo/ Carolyn Kaster)
Senate Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., walks to the Senate floor after agreeing to the framework of a deal to avoid default and reopen the government on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013 in Washington. The partial government shutdown is in its third week and less than two days before the Treasury Department says it will be unable to borrow and will rely on a cash cushion to pay the country's bills. (AP Photo/ Carolyn Kaster)
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, speaks to reporters waiting outside a closed-door meeting of Senate Republicans as news emerged that leaders reached a last-minute agreement to avert a threatened Treasury default and reopen the government after a partial, 16-day shutdown, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013. Cruz said he would not try to block the agreement. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio arrives on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013, in Washington. Chaos among Republicans in the House of Representatives has left it to bipartisan leaders in the Senate to craft a last-minute deal to fend off a looming U.S. default and to reopen the federal government as a partial shutdown entered its 16th day. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Senate Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., walks to his office after arriving on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013 in Washington. Aides to Senate Democrat Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the leaders resumed talks Tuesday night and voiced optimism about striking an agreement Wednesday that could pass both houses of Congress and reach President Barack Obama's desk before Thursday, when the U.S. Treasury says it will begin running out of cash. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is followed by reporters as he walks to a Senate GOP meeting on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013 in Washington. The partial government shutdown is in its third week and less than two days before the Treasury Department says it will be unable to borrow and will rely on a cash cushion to pay the country's bills. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate leaders announced last-minute agreement Wednesday to avert a threatened Treasury default and reopen the government after a partial, 16-day shutdown. Congress raced to pass the measure by day's end.
The Dow Jones industrial average soared on the news that the threat of default was fading, flirting with a 200-point gain in morning trading.
"This is a time for reconciliation," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of the agreement he had forged with the GOP leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
McConnell said that with the accord, Republicans had sealed a deal to have spending in one area of the budget decline for two years in a row, adding, "we're not going back."
One prominent tea party lawmaker, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, said he would oppose the plan, but not seek to delay its passage.
That was a key concession that signaled a strong possibility that both houses could act by day's end. That, in turn, would allow President Barack Obama to sign the bill into law ahead of the Thursday deadline that Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew had set for action to raise the $16.7 trillion debt limit.
Officials said the proposal called for the Treasury to have authority to continue borrowing through Feb. 7, and the government would reopen through Jan. 15.
There was no official comment from the White House, although congressional officials said administration aides had been kept fully informed of the negotiations.
In political terms, the final agreement was almost entirely along lines Obama had set when the impasse began last month. Tea party conservatives had initially demanded the defunding of the health care law as the price for providing essential federal funding.
Under a strategy set by Obama and Reid, Democrats said they would not negotiate with Republicans in exchange for performing what the White House called basic functions of keeping the government in operation and preventing Treasury from defaulting on its obligations.
A long line of polls charted a steep decline in public approval for Republicans in the course of what Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., pronounced a "shameful episode" in the nation's history.
While the emerging deal could well meet resistance from conservatives in the Republican-controlled House, the Democratic Leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, has signaled she will support the plan and her rank and file is expected to vote for it in overwhelming numbers.
That raised the possibility that more Democrats than Republicans would back it, potentially causing additional problems for House Speaker John Boehner as he struggles to manage his tea party-heavy majority.
Boehner and the House Republican leadership met in a different part of the Capitol to plan their next move. A spokesman, Michael Steel, said afterward that no decision had been made "about how or when a potential Senate agreement could be voted on in the House."
The developments came one day before the deadline Lew had set for Congress to raise the current $16.7 trillion debt limit. Without action by lawmakers, he said, Treasury could not be certain it had the ability to pay bills as they come due.
In addition to raising the debt limit, the proposal would give lawmakers a vote to disapprove the increase. Obama would have the right to veto their opposition, ensuring he would prevail.
House and Senate negotiators would be appointed to seek a deficit-reduction deal. At the last minute, Reid and McConnell jettisoned a plan to give federal agencies increased flexibility in coping with the effects of across-the-board cuts. Officials said that would be a topic for the negotiations expected to begin shortly.
Despite initial Republican demands for the defunding of the health care law often derided as "Obamacare," the pending agreement makes only one modest change in the program. It requires individuals and families seeking subsidies to purchase coverage to verify their incomes before qualifying.
There were some dire warnings from the financial world a day after the Fitch credit rating agency said Tuesday it was reviewing its AAA rating on U.S. government debt for possible downgrade.
John Chambers, chairman of Standard & Poor's Sovereign Debt Committee, told "CBS This Morning" on Wednesday that a U.S. government default on its debts would be "much worse than Lehman Brothers," the investment firm whose 2008 collapse led to the global financial crisis.
Aides to Reid and McConnell said the two men had resumed talks, including a Tuesday night conversation, and were hopeful about striking an agreement that could pass both houses.
It was expected to mirror a deal the leaders had neared Monday. That agreement was described as extending the debt limit through Feb. 7, immediately reopening the government fully and keeping agencies running until Jan. 15 — leaving lawmakers clashing over the same disputes in the near future.
It also set a mid-December deadline for bipartisan budget negotiators to report on efforts to reach compromise on longer-term issues like spending cuts. And it likely would require the Obama administration to certify that it can verify the income of people who qualify for federal subsidies for medical insurance under the 2010 health care law.
But that emerging Senate pact was put on hold Tuesday, an extraordinary day that highlighted how unruly rank-and-file House Republicans can be, even when the stakes are high. Facing solid Democratic opposition, Boehner tried in vain to write legislation that would satisfy GOP lawmakers, especially conservatives.
Boehner crafted two versions of the bill, but neither made it to a House vote because both faced certain defeat. Working against him was word during the day from the influential group Heritage Action for America that his legislation was not conservative enough — a worrisome threat for many GOP lawmakers whose biggest electoral fears are of primary challenges from the right.
The last of Boehner's two bills had the same dates as the emerging Senate plan on the debt limit and shutdown.
But it also blocked federal payments for the president, members of Congress and other officials to help pay for their health care coverage. And it prevented the Obama administration from shifting funds among different accounts — as past Treasury secretaries have done — to let the government keep paying bills briefly after the federal debt limit is reached.
Boehner's inability to produce a bill that could pass his own chamber likely means he will have to let the House vote on a Senate compromise, even if that means it would pass with strong Democratic and weak GOP support. House Republican leaders have tried to avoid that scenario for fear that it would threaten their leadership, and some Republicans worried openly about that.
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Associated Press writers David Espo, Andrew Taylor, Charles Babington, Stephen Ohlemacher, Henry C. Jackson and Donna Cassata contributed to this report.
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-10-16-Budget%20Battle/id-9d1de6f49f0a42c9b0b01a270f7f2641
Andreessen Horowitz-backed Aviate, a startup working to build a better interface for interacting with an increasing number of mobile apps stored on our devices, is today launching into public beta. Since its alpha debut this summer, the company racked up over 70,000 sign-ups from those looking to give this new Android launcher experience a try, and all of these early adopters will now be invited in to begin testing Aviate for themselves. Meanwhile, those signing up from this point forward will be gradually allowed in over the coming weeks as Aviate scales up to support the influx of new users.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/TJ7vqYYqojw/EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton, left, walks next to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, right, during a photo opportunity prior to the start of two days of closed-door nuclear talks Tuesday, October 15, 2013, at the United Nations offices in Geneva, Switzerland. Iran's overtures to the West are being tested as the U.S. and its partners sit down for the first talks on Tehran's nuclear program since the election of a reformist Iranian president. Negotiations between Iran and the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany began Tuesday morning at the main United Nations building in Geneva. (AP Photo/Fabrice Coffrini, pool)
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton, left, walks next to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, right, during a photo opportunity prior to the start of two days of closed-door nuclear talks Tuesday, October 15, 2013, at the United Nations offices in Geneva, Switzerland. Iran's overtures to the West are being tested as the U.S. and its partners sit down for the first talks on Tehran's nuclear program since the election of a reformist Iranian president. Negotiations between Iran and the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany began Tuesday morning at the main United Nations building in Geneva. (AP Photo/Fabrice Coffrini, pool)
US Under Secretary for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman, center, waits for the start of the two days of closed-door nuclear talks on Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2013 at the United Nations offices in Geneva, Switzerland. Iran's overtures to the West are being tested as the U.S. and its partners sit down for the first talks on Tehran's nuclear program since the election of a reformist Iranian president. Negotiations between Iran and the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany began Tuesday morning. (AP Photo/Fabrice Coffrini, pool)
Political director at the French Foreign Ministry Jacques Audibert looks on at the start of the two days of closed-door nuclear talks on Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2013 at the United Nations offices in Geneva, Switzerland. Iran's overtures to the West are being tested as the U.S. and its partners sit down for the first talks on Tehran's nuclear program since the election of a reformist Iranian president. Negotiations between Iran and the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany began Tuesday morning. (AP Photo/Fabrice Coffrini, pool)
General view prior to the start of the two days of closed-door nuclear talks on Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2013 at the United Nations offices in Geneva, Switzerland. Iran's overtures to the West are being tested as the U.S. and its partners sit down for the first talks on Tehran's nuclear program since the election of a reformist Iranian president. Negotiations between Iran and the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany began Tuesday morning at the main United Nations building in Geneva. (AP Photo/Fabrice Coffrini, pool))
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton, left, talks to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, right, during a photo opportunity prior to the start of two days of closed-door nuclear talks Tuesday, October 15, 2013, at the United Nations offices in Geneva, Switzerland. Iran's overtures to the West are being tested as the U.S. and its partners sit down for the first talks on Tehran's nuclear program since the election of a reformist Iranian president. Negotiations between Iran and the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany began Tuesday morning at the main United Nations building in Geneva. (AP Photo/Fabrice Coffrini, pool)
GENEVA (AP) — Six world powers sat down with Iran for a closer look Wednesday at what Tehran is describing as a possible breakthrough deal that could lessen suspicions it is interested in nuclear arms and lead to the easing of sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Iran says it is not interested in getting the bomb. Its proposal Tuesday to the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany focused on their demands that uranium enrichment and other activities that could be used to make nuclear arms be stopped or reduced.
No details were made public. But comments from Western officials meeting with Iranian negotiators indicated interest in the proposal, described by Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi as designed to allow Iran to leave the "dark" path of international isolation.
Iran's version of success is for painful international sanctions to be lifted in exchange for possible concessions it had been previously unwilling to consider, such as increased monitoring and scaling back of uranium enrichment — a potential path to nuclear arms and the centerpiece of the impasse with the West.
International talks designed to reduce fears that Iran may make such arms have been stalled for most of their 10-year history, with Tehran insisting it has no interest in weapons production, while resisting both enticements and sanctions designed to force it into ending uranium enrichment and other activities that could be used to make weapons.
But negotiations appear now to be driven by the new wind generated since reformist President Hassan Rouhani was elected in June.
Wednesday's meeting started several hours late, as the six powers discussed further steps among themselves before the talks resumed for a closer look at the proposal.
Asked for details beyond broad outlines made public by the Iranians ahead of the talks, a member of one of the delegations at the table said the plan offered reductions in both the levels of uranium enrichment being conducted by Iran and the number of centrifuges doing the enrichment — a key demand of the six powers.
An Iranian official said any plan would be implemented in three stages lasting from six months to a year. Both men demanded anonymity because they were not allowed to discuss the confidential plan.
Iran's state TV, which closely reflects government views, said Tehran offered to discuss uranium enrichment levels. The report also said Iran proposed adopting the additional protocols of the U.N.'s nuclear treaty — effectively opening its nuclear facilities to wider inspection and monitoring — if the West recognizes Iran's right to enrich uranium.
But the Iranian official said any acceptance of the protocols would be one of the last steps in implementing the plan.
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-10-16-Iran-Nuclear%20Talks/id-15756820968b42c093fe86965de048c2
UK supermarkets carrying their own branded tablets is apparently a thing now, and Argos has joined Tesco with its launch of the 7-inch MyTablet. Though the �100 price trumps the �119 Hudl, the tab is decidedly more budget, featuring a 7-inch, 1,024 x 600 screen, dual-core 1.6-Ghz CPU, 2-megapixel ...Cloudy skies shroud the Capitol on Monday. Congress is at an impasse as Democrats and Republicans remain at odds over the crises gripping the nation.
Cloudy skies shroud the Capitol on Monday. Congress is at an impasse as Democrats and Republicans remain at odds over the crises gripping the nation.
It's one of the oldest axioms in politics: Voters always say they want to "throw the bums out," except when it comes to their own representative. That's why the re-election rate for House members is typically over 90 percent.
Heading into the 2014 midterms, that long-standing rule appears to be holding true. But against the backdrop of the federal government shutdown, a potential default and general dysfunction in Washington, there are signs it's reaching a straining point.
According to a new Pew Research poll released Tuesday, anti-incumbency sentiment among voters is a high point — and even the local congressman isn't immune to the anger. A record-low 48 percent of registered voters want their own representative to win re-election in 2014, while 38 percent said they want to see their representative in Congress defeated — the highest percentage in more than two decades.
A record-high 74 percent of registered voters said most members of Congress should not be re-elected next year; just 18 percent of registered voters said most representatives should be re-elected.
In November 2009 — the most comparable point during the 2010 election cycle, when 58 incumbents lost re-election — 53 percent of those Pew surveyed thought most representatives should not be re-elected, while 52 percent thought their own representative deserved another term in Congress.
Pew found that Democrats were slightly more likely to say their representative should be re-elected (54 percent) than Republicans (47 percent) and independents (43 percent).
The poll was conducted during the second week of the shutdown from Oct. 9-13.
WASHINGTON (AP) — House GOP leaders Tuesday floated a plan to fellow Republicans to counter an emerging Senate deal to reopen the government and forestall an economy-rattling default on U.S. obligations. But the plan got mixed reviews from the rank and file and it was not clear whether it could pass the chamber.
The measure would suspend a new tax on medical devices for two years and take away the federal government's contributions to lawmakers' health care and top administration officials. It would also fund the government through Jan. 15 and give Treasury the ability to borrow normally through Feb. 7.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said he's "trying to find a path forward" but that "there have been no decisions about exactly what we will do." He told a news conference, "There are a lot of opinions about what direction to go."
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., involved in negotiations with Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, blasted the House plan as a blatant attack on bipartisanship.
"It can't pass the Senate and it won't pass the Senate," Reid said.
The move came as a partial shutdown entered its third week and less than two days before the Treasury Department says it will be unable to borrow and will rely on a this cash cushion to pay the country's bills.
The House GOP plan wouldn't win nearly as many concessions from President Barack Obama as Republicans had sought but it would set up another battle with the White House early next year.
"The jury is still out," said Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas.
Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., said he was not sure he could vote for the plan because it did not address the debt. "I have to know a lot more than I know now," he said.
The House move comes after conservative lawmakers rebelled at the outlines of an emerging Senate plan by Reid and GOP leader McConnell. Those two hoped to seal an agreement on Tuesday, just two days before the Treasury Department says it will run out of borrowing capacity.
The White House and Democrats quickly came out against the Republican plan. Obama planned to meet with House Democratic leaders Tuesday afternoon as negotiations continue.
"The latest proposal from House Republicans does just that in a partisan attempt to appease a small group of tea party Republicans who forced the government shutdown in the first place," said White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage. "Democrats and Republicans in the Senate have been working in a bipartisan, good-faith effort .... With only a couple days remaining until the United States exhausts its borrowing authority, it's time for the House to do the same."
"GOP's latest plan is designed to torpedo the bipartisan Sen solution," tweeted Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md. "Plan is not only reckless, it's tantamount to default."
Political pressure is building on Republicans to reopen the government and GOP leaders are clearly fearful of failing to act to avert a default on U.S. obligations.
Republicans are in a difficult spot, relinquishing many of their core demands as they take a beating in the polls. Rep. Steve Southerland, R-Fla., led GOP lawmakers in several verses of "Amazing Grace."
"We have to stick together now," said Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas.
Like the House GOP bill, the emerging Senate measure — though not finalized — would reopen the government through Jan. 15 and permit the Treasury to borrow normally until early to mid-February, easing dual crises that have sapped confidence in the economy and taken a sledgehammer to the GOP's poll numbers.
"There are productive negotiations going on with the Republican leader," Reid said as he opened the Senate Tuesday. "I'm confident we'll be able to reach a comprehensive agreement this week in time to avert a catastrophic default."
On Wall Street, stocks were mixed early Tuesday, with investors somewhat optimistic over a potential deal.
"We're willing to get the government open. We want to get the government open," Scalise said. "Hopefully they get something done that addresses the spending issue."
The competing House and Senate plans are a far cry from the assault on "Obamacare" that tea party Republicans originally demanded as a condition for a short-term funding bill to keep the government fully operational. It lacks the budget cuts demanded by Republicans in exchange for increasing the government's $16.7 trillion borrowing cap.
Nor do either the House or Senate frameworks contain any of a secondary set of House GOP demands, like a one-year delay in the health law's mandate that individuals buy insurance.
Another difference between the Democrats and Republicans involves a Democratic move to repeal a $63 fee that companies must pay for each person they cover under the big health care overhaul beginning in 2014. Unions oppose the fee and Senate Democrats are pressing to repeal it, but House Republicans are positioning to block them and Senate Republicans are adamantly opposed as well.
Democrats were standing against a GOP-backed proposal to suspend a medical device tax that was enacted as part of the health care law, but might not be able to win a floor vote since many Democrats oppose the tax too.
Democratic and Republican aides described the outlines of the potential agreement on condition of anonymity because the discussions were ongoing.
But with GOP poll numbers plummeting and the country growing weary of a shutdown entering its third week, Senate Republicans in particular were eager to end the shutdown — and avoid an even greater crisis if the government were to default later this month.
Any legislation backed by both Reid and McConnell can be expected to sail through the Senate, though any individual senators could delay it.
But it's another story in the House. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, signaled that conservative members of the House were deeply skeptical. He said any bill had to have serious spending cuts for him to vote to raise the debt ceiling and said he thought Obama and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew had more flexibility than they had said publicly.
"No deal is better than a bad deal," Barton said.
In addition to approving legislation to fund the government until late this year and avert a possible debt crisis later this week or month, the potential pact would set up broader budget negotiations between the GOP-controlled House and Democratic-led Senate. One goal of those talks would be to ease automatic spending cuts that began in March and could deepen in January, when about $20 billion in further cuts are set to slam the Pentagon.
Democrats also were seeking to preserve the Treasury Department's ability to use extraordinary accounting measures to buy additional time after the government reaches any extended debt ceiling. Such measures have permitted Treasury to avert a default for almost five months since the government officially hit the debt limit in mid-May, but wouldn't buy anywhere near that kind of time next year, experts said.
The House GOP plan would repeal the extraordinary measures, which would make the Feb 7 date a hard deadline to revisit the fight.
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Associated Press writers Donna Cassata, David Espo, Henry C. Jackson, Julie Pace and Alan Fram contributed to this report.
13 hours ago
ABC
Elizabeth Berkley and Val Chmerkovskiy got "So Excited" on "Dancing With the Stars."
Monday night was Memorable Year night on "Dancing With the Stars," wherein the stars shared the times that really moved them — through dance. But by the end of the show, it was viewers who found themselves waltzing down memory lane.
That's because actress Elizabeth Berkley took them back to school — Bayside High, class of 1993, to be exact.
Yes, channeling her "Saved by the Bell" alter ego, Jessie Spano, Berkley delivered a faithful, hilarious and oh-so-apt tribute to a fan-favorite scene for the classic sitcom — the moment Zach (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) found her strung on the hard stuff … caffeine pills.
In the ballroom version of events, Elizabeth was flying high on "DWTS"-brand jive pills, and when partner Val Chmerkovskiy confronted her, she couldn't contain herself.
"I'm so excited! I'm so excited! I'm so … ready," she said hysterically before kicking off a jive to the only possible song to suit the setup, "I'm So Excited."
As she bounced her way through the high-stepping routine (while Mario Lopez, aka A.C. Slater, looked on), "Saved by the Bell" fans stepped over to Twitter to express their own excitement.
But unfortunately for Elizabeth, the "Dancing" judges weren't quite as excited.
Well, returning head judge Len Goodman liked what he saw and Bruno Tonioli thought it was fun, but Carrie Ann Inaba nitpicked the kicks and spotted a small slip early in the dance.
All of that resulted in a 26 for Elizabeth, and on any other night, that would have been a boon. But the scores were sky-high for other dancers on Memorable Year night, and a 26 left Elizabeth in jeopardy.
Good thing for her, scores only mean so much on "Dancing With the Stars."
As if to prove that point, Christina Milian hit the dance floor with a cha-cha that wowed the panel. Bruno called it "indecently hot." Carrie Ann dubbed it "something special." And Len not only considered it "fantastic, he handed out the first 10 of the season for the hip-shaking dance (giving her a total of 28 points).
But when it was all over, it turned out to be Christina's last dance of the season. Those scores couldn't counteract a lack of viewer votes.
The news came as a shock to Christina, who turned to pro partner Mark Ballas and said, "What?!" when her elimination was announced.
"It's a true shock," she said. "I wasn't expecting that."
The night was full of shocks.
Just as surprising as Christina's not-so-helpful 10 from Len was Amber Riley's 7 from Len — after performing one heck of a high-energy foxtrot.
Amber was on point throughout the routine, as reflected in the scores she got from Carrie Ann (9) and Bruno (yet another 10 for the season). But Len's problem with the performance didn't have anything to do with her. It was simply the fact that pro Derek Hough just didn't put enough foxtrot into their foxtrot.
Corbin Bleu got a shocking score too. His foxtrot continued the 10-trend (thanks to Bruno), but he almost saw double perfect digits. It seems Carrie Ann would have given him a 10 too, but she deducted a point for a lift at the beginning of the dance.
Corbin's partner, Karina Smirnoff, protested, insisting her toe always stayed on the floor. The video backs up her story, but as host Tom Bergeron informed fans later in the evening, judge's scores can't be changed.
Still, it's a safe bet that Leah Remini wishes they could be. After delivering a dance to celebrate her liberation from … well, most likely the Church of Scientology, but she didn't name names Monday night, Leah learned that her contemporary routine didn't leave Len and the gang smiling.
They gave her just 22 points, and she held back from giving them a piece of her mind.
"What am I thinking? You don't want to know," she told Tom. "No, you really don't. It's not for this audience."
Yowza.
As for the rest of the pack, Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi, Jack Osbourne and Brant Daugherty all tied with 27 points for their respectable efforts for the night. And Bill Engvall, with just 24 points, at least edged out Leah and escaped last place.
'Donatella,' 'Fashion!,' and R. Kelly collabo 'Do What U Want' among the album's 15 songs.
By Gil Kaufman
Photo by Joe Klamar/AFP/GettyImages
One dreary October Saturday I was sitting in a Starbucks in downtown Washington reading my review copy of Brad Stone’s The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon. My iPhone was running low on charge, and the charger I normally keep in my bag was gone. There was a Radio Shack across the street. They had the charger I needed and the price was perfectly reasonable. While ringing me up, the cashier asked the inevitable question: Would I like to pay Radio Shack extra money for a worthless one-year warranty that clearly made no sense whatsoever for such a low-value piece of commodity electronics?
Of course he didn’t exactly put it that way. But that was the value proposition. And you could tell by his demoralized tone that he neither expected nor wanted me to buy the warranty. Yet whether at Radio Shack, at Best Buy, or at the former Circuit City, this sort of tactic is integral to the business model. Stone doesn’t have much to say about Radio Shack or Best Buy or Barnes & Noble in his book. But he should, because the real nature of Amazon’s achievement is about customer relations, not just online ordering.
The story of Bezos’ personal life is well-told in The Everything Store, forming a sort of entrepreneurial stations of the cross. There’s a childhood gifted with educational opportunities but marred by the absence of his biological father (“belonging to a unicycle troupe didn’t pay much,” Stone writes). There’s the relentless drive and determination from an early age. There’s the youthful job at D. E. Shaw & Company, the hedge fund whose mercurial founder redefined the industry and showed the power of thinking outside the box. We’ve got the daring decision to start a new company—literally in a garage at first. Then comes the key early six-figure investment in the company by Bezos’ mom and stepdad—a forceful reminder of the deeply uneven playing field in American life.
If you’re interested in the company, Stone’s history is consistently engaging and full of amusing anecdotes. Bezos’ high-school valedictorian speech outlined “his dream of saving humanity by creating permanent colonies in orbiting space stations while turning the planet into an enormous nature preserve.” During the company’s early years, executives from Seattle had to help staff up distribution centers during the holiday rush. The strong labor market made it hard to obtain quality temp help; one early hire dispatched to Delaware “watched one worker get fired for intoxication and then wet himself while he tried to protest.” At a high-level executive meeting shortly before the launch of Amazon Web Services, Bezos unilaterally lowered the price. When warned that would cause the company to lose money on AWS for a long time, the CEO simply replied, “Great!”—he thought high profits would only attract competition.
The best part of the book is set during the early-to-mid aughts, when the post-dot-com blues raised serious questions as to whether the company could continue to exist at all. Of today’s tech giants, the vast majority were either founded well before (Apple, Microsoft) or well after (Google, Facebook) the great technology mania of the 1990s. Most companies from that era failed, of course. And most of the survivors such as AOL, Yahoo, and eBay, are more or less struggling. Amazon stands alone as a dial-up-era company thriving in the present day. But this was a close thing. The 1999 iteration of Amazon had all the problems of a classic money-bleeding bubble company. It was only a well-timed European bond issue that let Amazon avoid a disastrous financial crunch.
Amazon subsisted for several years thanks to cash injections from deals it made to run the website back-ends of several big box retailers, including Toys-R-Us, Target, Borders, and Circuit City. These tales, coming from a time when Amazon was neither a fascinating startup nor a dominant player, are not well-known, and they nicely illustrate the combination of hard work, intelligence, and old-fashioned dumb luck it takes to succeed in business.
As the book goes on and Amazon survives, then thrives, then dominates, the shrewd business dealings of its CEO can begin to look more menacing. Scrappy negotiating from a startup feels more like bullying from an incumbent. Stone’s recounting of the hardball tactics Bezos used to acquire Zappos and Diapers.com are slightly horrifying. Faced with promising newcomers to e-commerce spaces that he wanted to add to his empire, Bezos in both cases opened with lowball acquisition offers. When rebuffed, instead of negotiating he launched ferocious price wars, selling shoes and diapers at far below wholesale cost. Once it was clear Bezos would rather lose millions destroying rivals than spend them on higher acquisition prices, both firms were induced to sell and join the Amazon family. And hey, at least those Web startups got buyout offers and ultimately made money from Bezos’ empire-building. Bookstore chains just got stomped on.
But throughout it all, Amazon stays remarkably true to its core vision of long-term growth via customer satisfaction. The company and its CEO are not without their dark sides, but it’s never consumers who have cause to complain. When Bezos throws sharp elbows his tactic is almost always to lower prices. The official company line that everything they do is in pursuit of better serving their customers sounds self-serving, but as best anyone can tell it’s true. Even in its best years, Amazon’s profit margins are thin, and in recent quarters they’ve been losing money. I once described the company as “a charitable organization being run by elements of the investment community for the benefit of consumers,” which prompted a reply from Bezos who explained that long-term shareholder value is created by building long-term relationships with customers.
This is where the absence of a comparative perspective in Stone’s book hurts it. Bezos’ core ideas—long-term focus, consumers first—are correct but hardly earth-shattering. But while most companies just pay lip service to this stuff, Amazon stands out by actually doing it. The deep structure of American financial capitalism almost compels focus on the next quarterly earnings report. That, rather than stupidity, is what leaves Radio Shack addicted to brand-killing warranty pitches and kept Barnes & Noble perennially a day late and a dollar short on the Web. CEOs are loath to deliberately take a short-term profit hit, no matter the long-term upside. Companies change and adapt not when they should, but when they have no choice—and by then it’s usually too late.
What makes Bezos probably the greatest businessman in America today (I should note that Slate has an affiliate relationship with Amazon, though unlike our former corporate partners at the Washington Post we’re not owned by Jeff Bezos) is his ability to actually stick with these ideas. It’s not so much that he sees things other executives miss, but that he manages to actually do them. Nobody has been better at keeping Wall Street’s confidence even during a quarter or two of bad earnings, or at keeping his team’s confidence even during a year or two of bad stock performance. Stone’s narrow focus occasionally exaggerates the originality of Bezos’ vision (Amazon wasn’t the first online bookstore, or the first company to focus on everyday low prices, or the first vendor of cloud computing services) while understating his unusual mastery of the larger corporate game.
With the holiday season fast approaching, it looks like Nokia is eager to bump up sales in the UK lest it get trounced by the competition. For Vodafone customers shopping around for a new Windows Phone, that means getting a free year-long Netflix subscription with the purchase of a Lumia 1020. ...Affecting drama exposes a brutal real-world phenomenon.
Reykjavik International Film Festival, New Visions
P.J. Boudousque, James C. Burns, Chris Petrovski, Octavius J. Johnson, Nicholas Bateman, Stephanie Simbari, Mackenzie Sidwell Graff, Clayton LaDue, Tommy Nash, Scott MacArthur, Michael Rousselet, Brandon Bilotta
Vincent Grashaw
In chain-gang movies of the past, men wound up condemned to inhumane lock-ups and open-ended sentences because they had no loved ones to come looking for them. Today, according to Vincent Grashaw's ire-raising Coldwater, loved ones pay to give their children to despots, trying to fix their own parenting failures by sending troubled teens to privately run rehab centers that are unregulated by the government and often brutal. Grashaw's convincing drama distills this underexposed world into the story of a single young man trying to survive a system designed to break him. Emotionally accessible but formally reserved enough not to feel like a cause movie, the picture has plenty of potential beyond the fest circuit if given the right kind of attention.
P.J. Boudousque plays Brad Lunders, who is awakened one morning by strangers -- not policemen -- dangling handcuffs above his cheek. As his mother watches on, he's dragged out of his home and thrown into a van with other boys, bound for a remote camp surrounded by razor wire and ruled by thugs. This is Coldwater, where his parents hope he'll be scared straight after a few years of small-time drug dealing and related trouble.
The camp's director is gruff retired Marine Colonel Frank Reichert (James C. Burns) whose talk is blustery but makes a hard-boiled sense: Give up whatever ideas you have about yourself, he tells his new charges, because they clearly aren't working for you. His employees, however -- former inmates who've supposedly bettered themselves -- don't know what the second word in "tough love" means: They're sadistic instead of stern, doling out arbitrary and extreme punishments. Reichert is blind to their abuses; whether that's by choice or ignorance, we don't yet know.
As Grashaw fleshes out the dehumanizing environment here, he offers occasional glimpses of Lunders's life before incarceration, with buddy Gabriel Nunez (Chris Petrovski) as a semi-innocent sidekick who wound up suffering for Brad's poor judgment. As he enters his second year at Coldwater -- now a line-toeing inmate who might graduate soon from trusty to guard -- Nunez is sent to the camp, a newly-hardened kid whose attitude is bad enough it might get him killed.
Grashaw has an affinity for the misdirected energies of these troubled teens and their despair in the face of their jailers' capricious punishments. He and co-screenwriter Mark Penney) introduce incidents that tie the story to prison films of the past, then gradually exploit the novelty of this setting, heightening the mood of isolation with glimpses of outside authorities who should be able to see what's going on here and intervene, but fail to in sometimes wrenching ways. The script's dramatic finale is shockingly violent but just within the bounds of the credible, an eruption of justified rage that speaks for the real-world youths (dozens since 1980, according to closing titles) who have died in juvenile rehab centers the government refuses to monitor.
Production Company: Flying Pig Productions
Cast: P.J. Boudousque, James C. Burns, Chris Petrovski, Octavius J. Johnson, Nicholas Bateman, Stephanie Simbari, Mackenzie Sidwell Graff, Clayton LaDue, Tommy Nash, Scott MacArthur, Michael Rousselet, Brandon Bilotta
Director: Vincent Grashaw
Screenwriters: Vincent Grashaw, Mark Penney
Producers: Kris Dorrance, Dave Gare, Vincent Grashaw
Executive producers: Joe Bilotta, Mike Dorrance
Director of photography: Jayson Crothers
Production designer: Geoff Flint
Music: Chris Chatham, Mark Miserocchi, Flying Pig Productions
Costume designer: Tricia Grashaw
Editor: Eddie Mikasa
Sales: Continental Media
No rating, 103 minutes
Zade Rosenthal/Universal Studios and DreamWorks
"Cowboys & Aliens"
Universal Pictures might have thought that comic book author Steven John Busti's lawsuit over the 2011 film Cowboys & Aliens was frivolous, but the studio still spent more than $186,000 on lawyers defending it.
Busti sued in Texas federal court, claiming that a 2006 graphic novel about aliens crash-landing in the Wild West infringed his 1995 story, titled Cowboys & Aliens. The plaintiff asserted that the movie was derivative of the graphic novel, and thus, another infringement of his work.
In late August, U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks dismissed the lawsuit. His ruling didn't dwell on the movie -- the judge said he was "spared the necessity of watching Cowboys & Aliens more than once" -- but rejected the copyright claim because the graphic novel wasn't "strikingly similar" to Busti's comic.
Now comes an arguably closer call as the judge has to decide whether Universal should be allowed to recover the $186,000 paid to attorneys at Haynes & Boone, who say they spent 544 hours on the case at a $250-$400 per-hour rate.
In a motion for attorneys' fees, the defendants (including Platinum Studios) point to the judge's decision that there was "no fact issue as to factual copying," "no evidence of access," "no showing of striking similarity" and "overwhelming, conclusive evidence of independent creation." Busti was also warned by defendants that his claims were barred by the statute of limitations and that he failed to state the basic elements of a claim.
In response, Busti points to the judge's findings of a number of similar elements shared by both works, which didn't rise to copyright infringement, but what he says wasn't a claim "frivolous or objectively unreasonable." (Busti also appealed the judge's order on Monday to the 5th Circuit.)
You be the judge. Here's the court's ruling, which starts out with a Johnny Cash lyric with aliens added.
In other entertainment law news:
