Launch Center puts Messages, Facebook, Twitter, a flashlight and more in your iPhone Notification Center [Macworld 2012]

Launch Center, a new shortcuts app for iPhone, aims to make everything from sending messages and mail to posting on Facebook and Twitter, to turning on your LED flashlight, faster

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/WkeujsSZqx4/story01.htm

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Need for courtroom artists fade as cameras move in (AP)

CHICAGO ? One marker in hand and one in his mouth, Lou Chukman glances up and down from a sketchpad to a reputed Chicago mobster across the courtroom ? drawing feverishly to capture the drama of the judge's verdict before the moment passes.

Sketch artists have been the public's eyes at high-profile trials for decades ? a remnant of an age when drawings in broadsheet papers, school books or travel chronicles were how people glimpsed the world beyond their own.

Today, their ranks are thinning swiftly as states move to lift longstanding bans on cameras in courtrooms. As of a year ago, 14 states still had them ? but at least three, including Illinois this month, have taken steps since then to end the prohibitions.

"When people say to me, `Wow, you are a courtroom artist' ? I always say, `One day, you can tell your grandchildren you met a Stegosaurus," Chukman, 56, explained outside court. "We're an anachronism now, like blacksmiths."

Cutbacks in news budgets and shifts in aesthetic sensibilities toward digitized graphics have all contributed to the form's decline, said Maryland-based sketch artist Art Lien.

While the erosion of the job may not be much noticed by people reading and watching the news, Lien says something significant is being lost. Video or photos can't do what sketch artists can, he said, such as compressing hours of court action onto a single drawing that crystallizes the events.

The best courtroom drawings hang in museums or sell to collectors for thousands of dollars.

"I think people should lament the passing of this art form," Lien said.

But while courtroom drawing has a long history ? artists did illustrations of the Salem witch trials in 1692 ? the artistry can sometimes be sketchy. A bald lawyer ends up with a full head of hair. A defendant has two left hands. A portly judge is drawn rail-thin.

Subjects often complain as they see the drawings during court recesses, said Chicago artist Carol Renaud.

"They'll say, `Hey! My nose is too big.' And sometimes they're right," she conceded. "We do the drawings so fast."

Courtroom drawing doesn't attract most aspiring artists because it doesn't afford the luxury of laboring over a work for days until it's just right, said Andy Austin, who has drawn Chicago's biggest trials over 40 years, including that of serial killer John Wayne Gacy.

"You have to put your work on the air or in a newspaper whether you like it or not," she said.

The job also involves long stretches of tedium punctuated by bursts of action as a witness sobs or defendant faint. It can also get downright creepy.

At Gacy's trial, a client asked Austin for an image of him smiling. So, she sought to catch the eye of the man accused of killing 33 people. When she finally did, she beamed. He beamed back.

"The two of us smiled at each other like the two happiest people in the world until the sketch was finished," Austin recalled in her memoirs, titled "Rule 53," after the directive that bars cameras in U.S. courts.

There's no school specifically for courtroom artists. Many slipped or were nudged into it by circumstance.

Renaud drew fashion illustrations for Marshall Field's commercials into the `90s but lost that job when the department store starting relying on photographers. That led her to courtroom drawing.

Artists sometime get to court early and sketch the empty room. But coming in with a drawing fully finished in advance is seen as unethical.

Some artists use charcoal, water colors or pungent markers, which can leave those sitting nearby queasy. Most start with a quick pencil sketch, then fill it in. Austin draws right off the bat with her color pencils.

"If I overthink it, I get lost," she said. "I have a visceral reaction. I just hope what I feel is conveyed to my pen."

These days, Chukman and Renaud fear for their livelihoods. They make the bulk of their annual income off their court work. Working for a TV station or a newspaper can bring in about $300 a day. A trial lasting a month can mean a $6,000 paycheck. Chukman does other work on the side, including drawing caricatures as gifts.

Austin is semiretired and so she says she worries less. She also notes that federal courts ? where some of the most notorious trials take place, like the two corruption trials of impeached Gov. Rod Blagojevich ? seem more adamant about not allowing cameras.

Still, though Rule 53 remains in place, federal courts are experimenting with cameras in very limited cases.

"If federal courts do follow, that will be the end of us," Austin said.

Renaud holds out hope that, even if the worst happens, there will still be demand from lawyers for courtroom drawings they can hang in their offices. Lien plans to bolster his income by launching a website selling work from historic trials he covered, including of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.

Chukman, a courtroom artist for around 30 years, jokes that if asked for his opinion, he'd have told state-court authorities to keep the ban in place a few more years until he retires.

"I recognize my profession exists simply because of gaps in the law ? and I've been grateful for them," he said wistfully. "This line of work has been good to me."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120127/ap_on_re_us/us_camera_in_courts_sketch_artist

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House wants Google privacy answers

Lawmakers on the House Energy and Commerce Committee asked Google Inc. on Thursday to provide answers about recent changes to the search engine's privacy policy.

In a letter to Google Chief Executive Larry Page, the lawmakers said the company's announcement "raises questions about whether consumers can opt-out of the new data sharing system either globally or on a product-by-product basis."

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46154167/ns/technology_and_science-security/

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Conn. home invasion killer is sentenced to death

By NBC News and news services

AP file

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- A Connecticut man was sentenced Friday to die for killing a woman and her two daughters during a night of terror in their suburban home, a gruesome crime that unsettled the suburbs and halted momentum to abolish the death penalty in the state.

Joshua Komisarjevsky will be joining Steven Hayes on death row for killing Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11. He is scheduled to be executed in July.

The girls were tied to their beds and doused in gasoline before the house was set ablaze; they died of smoke inhalation. Komisarjevsky was convicted of the killings and of sexually assaulting Michaela.

The only survivor, Dr. William Petit, was beaten with a baseball bat and tied up but escaped.

"I will never find peace within. My life will be a continuation of the hurt I caused," Komisarjevsky?said in court. "The clock is now ticking and I owe a debt I cannot repay."

Komisarjevsky said he walked out of court condemned to die by 12 members of the community.?

"It's a surreal experience, being condemned to die," Komisarjevsky said.


Forgiveness is not his to have, he said, and he needs to forgive his worst enemy -- himself.

Read story at NBCConnecticut.com

Before the sentencing, Judge Jon Blue said sentencing another human being to death is the most somber task a judge can have.

The court then?heard some emotional victim impact statements from the Hawke and Petit families.

Petit read his statement as a slide show of his family played on the screen.

Petit called the crime a "personal holocaust" as he testified during the sentencing hearing. He said his wife was his friend and confidante, and a wonderful mother. He also noted that Hayley would have been in medical school by now and that Michaela loved to cook and sing.

"I lost my family and my home," he said. "They were three special people. Your children are your jewels."

Michaela came into the world smiling, Petit said. He recently received a card from one of Michaela's friends. It said it was sad to know that she wouldn't be in 10th grade this year.

"I miss her running to the door and yelling 'Dada's home,'? Petit said.

'Was it worth the price?'
The Rev. Richard Hawke?spoke directly to the?convicted killer?and said he?s presided over many funerals, but never dreamed he would bury his daughter and grandchildren. It was the worst thing he?s had to go through.??

"Was it worth the price?" he asked at one point.

If Jennifer, Hayley and Michaela could endure the pain that Komisarjevsky put them through, their families can endure the pain of the trials,?Hawke said.

?You have not only destroyed your family, you have destroyed your own and destroyed a noble family name,? Hawke told the man who killed his family members.

The statement from Jennifer?s mother, Marybelle Hawke, was also played in court and she said the love of family will carry them through.

The Petit and Hawke families left court before the sentence was handed down.

Lawyers fought for jurors to hear videotaped testimony from Komisarjevsky?s 9-year-old daughter, but the defendant made a plea against it.?

Last month, a jury delivered the death verdict for Komisarjevsky after finding him guilty of the crimes. On Friday, the judge handed down that sentence.

The Associated Press and NBCConnecticut.com contributed to this report.

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News

Source: http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/27/10251592-second-conn-home-invasion-killer-is-sentenced-to-death

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Australia's Gillard dragged away from Aboriginal protest

Lukas Coch / EPA

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard is escorted by police and bodyguards out of a restaurant after aboriginal Tent Embassy protesters tried to get into the building in Canberra, Australia, on Thursday.

By msnbc.com staff and news services

CANBERRA -- Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard was dragged away by security guards Thursday after she was trapped in a restaurant by rowdy protesters demonstrating for indigenous rights following a ceremony to mark Australia's national day.

Some 200 supporters of Aboriginal rights surrounded a Canberra restaurant and banged on its windows while Gillard and opposition leader Tony Abbott were inside officiating at an award ceremony.


The protesters were marching at the nearby Aboriginal Tent Embassy to mark 40 years since its establishment and rushed the restaurant in response to comments by Abbott earlier in the day, The Australian newspaper reported.

"Look, I can understand why the Tent Embassy was established all those years ago. I think a lot has changed for the better since then," Abbott said earlier Thursday.

"I think the indigenous people of Australia can be very proud of the respect in which they are held by every Australian and yes, I think a lot has changed since then and I think it probably is time to move on from that," he said.

The newspaper reported that according to protesters, his remarks were interpreted as a call to take down the Tent Embassy, a ramshackle collection of tents and temporary shelters in the national capital that is a center point of protests against Australia Day.

David Crosling / AP, file

The Aboriginal Tent Embassy, set up in 1972, sits on the lawn of the Old Parliament House building in Canberra.

Invasion Day
Australia Day marks the arrival of the first fleet of British colonists in Sydney on Jan. 26, 1788. Many Aborigines call it Invasion Day because the land was settled without a treaty with traditional owners.

Around 50 police escorted the political leaders from a side door to a car. Gillard stumbled, losing a shoe. Her personal security guard wrapped his arms around her and supported her to the waiting car, shielding her from the angry crowd.

Darkinjung Aboriginal Land Council Leader Sean?Gordon?told The Sydney Morning Herald that Abbott's comments had been read out to the crowd, which had been rallying peacefully until then.

"It was like waving a red flag at a bull," he said.

Protesters chanted "shame" and "racist" outside the restaurant.

One of the Tent Embassy's founders, Michael Anderson, said after the incident that Abbott's remarks were "madness," the Herald reported.

"What he said amounts to inciting racial riots," he said.

Gillard was unharmed and hosted another Australia Day function at her official residence in Canberra later Thursday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

More from msnbc.com and NBC News:

Source: http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/26/10239774-australias-gillard-dragged-away-from-aboriginal-protest

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Video: Inside the great GOP divide

Surprising 30 percent rise in home births

A small, but growing trend of women in the US are choosing home births, a new government report finds. These mostly over 35, non-Hispanic white women are "consciously rejecting the system" of hospital deliveries, says the researcher.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/46155119#46155119

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Syrian troops fight rebels near Damascus (Reuters)

HARASTA, Syria (Reuters) ? A 10-month-old revolt against President Bashar al-Assad edged closer to the Syrian capital on Thursday as troops battled rebels in a town just north of Damascus and a provincial governor spoke of negotiating local ceasefires.

A Syrian officer told Reuters clashes had been under way in Douma since the morning. Security forces were searching houses for arms and wanted suspects. Reporters were shown home-made grenades among other seized weapons.

The officer was speaking in the tense suburb of Harasta nearby, where troops were deployed in strength.

The opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said security forces had detained 200 people in raids in Douma, a hotbed of protests and armed rebellion against Assad.

Gunfire was close enough to be heard from central Damascus during the night.

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For graphic on Arab League http://link.reuters.com/pev65s

For graphic on Syria toll http://link.reuters.com/xav85s

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"Many of them (in the opposition) have been misled. They will eventually come back to the right way," Hussein Makhlouf, governor of Damascus countryside, told Arab League monitors before they headed for some of the capital's troubled suburbs.

"We have started a dialogue with them, including some armed groups that are controlling positions there," Makhlouf said.

He told the observers that the authorities were using "the same approach as in Zabadani, so the same scenario will happen."

This month the military withdrew armored vehicles encircling the rebel-held town of Zabadani, near the border with Lebanon, after negotiating a truce with its defenders.

Arab observers stopped at an entrance to the Damascus suburb of Irbin, where a dozen soldiers stood guard. Beyond them a crowd of about 100 anti-Assad protesters shouted slogans. The troops showed the monitors the bodies of a soldier and another person they said had been killed in the morning.

The Arab observers soon drove away from the scene without going into the township.

There was no immediate word on casualties in the fighting near Damascus.

DEADLY VIOLENCE

Elsewhere, three people were killed in Homs, a sniper killed a 58-year-old woman in Hama and a 14-year-old boy was killed in the southern city of Deraa, the British-based Observatory said.

The state news agency SANA said "terrorists" had assassinated a colonel in Homs and detonated a bomb in Deraa province, killing an army lieutenant as he tried to defuse it.

SANA said 21 soldiers, security personnel and civilians killed by "armed terrorist groups" were buried on Thursday. It also reported pro-Assad demonstrations in several cities.

The monitors, now without 55 Gulf Arab colleagues withdrawn by their governments this week in protest at continued bloodshed, were resuming work after a one-week gap during which the Arab League prolonged their mission by another month.

Syrian opposition groups have accused the observer mission, which deployed on December 26, of giving Assad diplomatic cover to pursue a crackdown on protesters and rebels in which more than 5,000 people have been killed since March, by a U.N. tally.

The Arab League called on Sunday for Assad to quit as part of a transition plan for which it is seeking U.N. support.

Western and Arab diplomats are working on a draft Security Council resolution on Syria. Russia said it would promote its own text, but did not rule out a compromise.

Russia, one of Syria's few remaining allies along with Iran, has rejected sanctions or military action against Assad.

The Security Council could vote as early as next week on a Western-Arab draft resolution, council diplomats said.

Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby urged Damascus to end military operations against "defenseless civilians."

In recent months, an insurgency by army deserters and other rebels has increasingly eclipsed peaceful protests against more than four decades of rule by the Assad family.

Activists said the army deployment and clashes in townships around Damascus were a response to insurgents' growing strength.

"The Free Syrian Army (FSA) has almost complete control of some areas of the Damascus countryside and some control in Douma and Harasta," an activist said by telephone from Harasta.

Other activists in Douma, Harasta and Irbin said security forces had gathered in their towns after rebels retreated because they could not fight pitched battles with the army.

"Assad's army has armored vehicles and anti-aircraft guns while we only have rifles and rocket-propelled grenades," said an FSA fighter who called himself Abu Thaer.

The Arab League has suspended Syria and called for Assad to hand over to his deputy, pending the formation of an unity government, constitutional and security reform, and elections.

Michael Posner, the U.S. State Department's top human rights official, said Washington would work with the League to end the bloodshed in Syria, reiterating that Assad must go.

(Additional reporting by Erika Solomon in Beirut, Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman, John Irish in Paris and Tom Perry in Cairo; Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120126/wl_nm/us_syria

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Native dog breeds risk extinction

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