Saturday, December 31, 2011

Singer Etta James breathing on her own again (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) ? Soul singer Etta James, who is terminally ill with leukemia, has been taken off a respirator and is breathing on her own again, her friend and manager said on Friday.

Lupe De Leon said the "At Last" singer, 73, is soon expected to leave the intensive care unit of a hospital near her home in Riverside, east of Los Angeles.

"The hospital is preparing Etta for release from ICU to a step down unit. She is stable and breathing on her own. Her blood pressure is normal," De Leon said.

James was admitted to the hospital last week because she was struggling to breathe. She has been in failing health for several years and suffers from leukemia, kidney disease and dementia but had previously been cared for at her Southern California home.

Her live-in doctor said earlier in December that James was considered terminally ill, and that she communicates mostly with nods and simple words. The three-time Grammy Award singer earlier battled obesity and was addicted to heroin for many years.

James was a key figure in the early days of R&B music with hit songs like "The Wallflower" and "Good Rockin' Daddy". But it was her 1961 recording of the ballad "At Last" that put her on the map.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Piya Sinha-Roy)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/celebrity/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111231/people_nm/us_ettajames

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'W.E' Composer Talks Golden Globes, Making Music With Madonna

In talking about mainstream award shows and the predictability of their annual nominees lists, the Golden Globes are often the hardest to predict in that their nominees always include a few unexpected surprises. This year, no one was perhaps more pleasantly surprised at hearing the 2012 nominations than composer Abel Korzeniowski, who scored a Best [...]

Source: http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2011/12/28/we-composer-talks-golden-globes-making-music-with-madonna/

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Saturday, December 24, 2011

Alan Gross not part of Cuban prisoner amnesty (AP)

HAVANA ? An American government subcontractor jailed in Cuba for crimes against the state is not among nearly 3,000 prisoners granted amnesty by President Raul Castro on Friday, said a senior Foreign Ministry official.

"Alan Gross is not on the list," Josefina Vidal told The Associated Press, dashing the hopes of Gross' supporters in the United States, who have been pleading with Cuban authorities to release the 62-year-old Maryland native on humanitarian grounds. Vidal heads the Foreign Ministry's North American affairs division.

In a speech to lawmakers, Castro said his country would pardon 2,900 prisoners, including some convicted of political crimes. Castro cited an upcoming visit by Pope Benedict XVI among the reasons for the amnesty, saying the humanitarian act was "a demonstration of the generosity and strength of the revolution."

He said 86 foreign prisoners from 25 countries would be freed, and that diplomats would be notified shortly.

The Cuban leader said the list is filled with inmates who, like Gross, are more than 60 years old or are ailing. Others included in the amnesty are many female inmates and young people who don't have long criminal records.

Those convicted of serious crimes like murder, espionage or drug trafficking are not be part of the amnesty.

Gross was arrested in 2009 and sentenced to 15 years in jail for crimes against the state. The case has frozen already icy relations between Washington and Havana.

Gross's family concedes he was on a USAID-funded democracy building program, but insists his goal was simply to help the island's tiny Jewish community gain better access to the Internet. They say he spoke almost no Spanish and came to Havana repeatedly, hardly the stuff of a master spy.

Cuban officials say the USAID programs seek to overthrow the government.

Gross's supporters have appealed to Castro for a humanitarian release. They say Gross ? who was obese when he was arrested ? has lost more than 100 pounds in jail and is now gaunt and increasingly depressed. Meanwhile, his daughter and elderly mother have both been diagnosed with cancer.

American Jewish leaders have also appealed for Gross's release, saying Hanukkah festivities which began this week were a perfect opportunity.

Other high-profile inmates include two El Salvadoran men convicted of taking part in a bombing spree against Havana tourist hotels in the 1990s that killed an Italian tourist. The men were originally sentenced to death, but had their sentences reduced to life in prison earlier this year.

Cuba this year freed the last of some 75 political prisoners arrested in a notorious 2003 sweep. While others remain jailed for politically motivated crimes, most of those were involved in acts of violence like hijacking.

Rights group Amnesty International no longer includes any Cuban prisoners among its list of "prisoners of conscience" around the world.

Benedict is due to arrive in Cuba in March, though exact dates have not been announced. His visit will be the first by a pontiff since Pope John Paul II's historic tour in 1998.

___

Paul Haven can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/paulhaven/

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111224/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_cuba_prisoner_amnesty

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Friday, December 23, 2011

mg: RT @benhuh: We will move our 1,000 domains off @godaddy unless you drop support of SOPA. We love you guys, but #SOPA-is-cancer to the Fr ...

Twitter / benhuh: We will move our 1,000 dom ... Loader We will move our 1,000 domains off @ unless you drop support of SOPA. We love you guys, but -is-cancer to the Free Web.

Source: http://twitter.com/mg/statuses/150067772771143680

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California OKs third-party slot on presidential ballot

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Source: www.stateline.org --- Wednesday, December 21, 2011
TODAY'S TAKE : California elections officials have granted Americans Elect, a privately funded group hoping to upend the nation's two-party political system, a place on the state's presidential ballot next year. ...

Source: http://feeds.stateline.org/~r/StatelineorgRss-Stories/~3/YwmCE63vAPY/story

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Wednesday, December 7, 2011

AMD shaves 800 million transistors from Bulldozer chip, swears nothing's wrong

When a company cuts 40 percent of its transistors from an upcoming processor, one question comes to mind: why? According to ExtremeTech, AMD issued an update stating that its Bulldozer eight core / four module CPU would feature 1.2 billion transistors, as opposed to the previously stated two billion transistors. The reduction occurred despite the fact that the die size remains unchanged at 315 square millimeters -- putting it on par with AMD's lesser Llano chip -- and depriving the chip of valuable horsepower before I/O, an integrated memory controller or HyperTransport are added. When approached for comment, company representatives stated they were simply correcting a mistake regarding the chip's actual specifications. Before you bemoan the fate of the Bulldozer chip, remember that the drummer from Def Leppard has had a terrific musical career with only one arm, so what's the loss of several hundred million transistors to AMD's latest?

AMD shaves 800 million transistors from Bulldozer chip, swears nothing's wrong originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Dec 2011 01:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/06/amd-shaves-800-million-transistors-from-bulldozer-chip-swears-n/

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