Kerry hopes Iran aiming for diplomatic solution in nuclear talks

It began as a seemingly awkward Jack Nicholson introduction of the very long list on nominees, but the Best Picture denouement?at a very long Oscars ceremony on Sunday turned into a surprise appearance by Michelle Obama, via satellite from the Governors' Ball in Washington, D.C.?where earlier she had sat next to Chris Christie?to introduce and announce the winner,?Argo.?

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/kerry-hopes-iran-aiming-diplomatic-solution-nuclear-talks-120857547.html

mia amar e stoudemire m.i.a. adrianne curry hoekstra best superbowl commercials 2012 best super bowl ads

The Finnish Love Themselves Some Dallas Dirt: Kari Lehtonen's ...

My house of the week for my CultureMap Dallas column was goaltender Kari Lehtonen?s University Park shocker over on Bryn Mawr: very ?presidential? Georgian on the outside, a total?knock-your-socks-off contemporary stunner on the inside complete with a huge glossy pea green desk! Turns out the Finns are going gaga over the listing, or maybe Kari! In any case, Jennifer Chininis at CultureMap Dallas tells me traffic for the story is coming in from Finland like crazy. Who knows, maybe we can sell them some MORE Dallas homes: I sure would like to know what they are saying about us!

This is one of Julie Provenzano?s ?Star? listings at?3230 Bryn Mawr Dr.?Built by?Gage Homes in late 2009, the home is 6,400 square feet of pure, clean lines and classic floor plan: foyer, sweeping staircase, living on the left, dining on the right, and kitchen and den straight ahead. A well-done layout sure lets in the light, and the lot is a UP hefty at 70-by-106. There is a?bar with wine grotto, full butler?s pantry that is practically a pastry kitchen, and an enormous and well-engineered kitchen. The study off the living room with that pea green desk is connected by three glass doors for optional entertainment?flow?and streaming sunlight.

The bedrooms, including the huge master suite with breakfast bar, are all upstairs. Each of the three guest bedrooms has its own bathroom, plus there?s a game room over the garage. The third floor has been finished out as a fifth guest bedroom. And in case Kari is ever caught by an errant hockey puck, there is a shaft for a future elevator. This puppy is only $2,395,000 and turns out it was styled by the same interior designer spruced up Loui Eriksson?s baby?s-butt smooth contemporary in Preston Hollow.

About that designer: I am hunting her down, even if I have to go to Finland to find her. My furs are in need of a good work-out!

?

?

Source: http://www.candysdirt.com/2013/02/25/the-finnish-love-themselves-some-dallas-dirt-kari-lehtonens-house-is-killing-it-over-on-culturemap-dallas/

julia child Ron Palillo Chad Johnson Twitter Helen Gurley Brown Kathi Goertzen Johnny Pesky spice girls

SciArt on Google+

A couple of years ago, when the massive and amazing all-in-one scienceblogging.org was launching, the organizers asked if I thought there were enough artists blogging about science-related artwork to make an RSS feed that would update a few times a day or week, that could collect science-based artists under one roof. I said sure, and launched the Science Artists Feed.

It?s a couple of years on, and I?m happy to say the Science Artists Feed has grown to over 170 blogs, and updates with tremendous speed. ?In the past, I?ve highlighted posts that caught my eye in the Scumble series of posts. The Feed became a great way for me and others to keep our eyes on what was happening in the most innovative rapidly-changing field of art today.

Times change. RSS feeds still play a vital role. But communication and engagement have largely moved around.

Group blogs and blogs featuring science-based art ? blogs like ART Evolved, Mad Art Lab, Street Anatomy, SONSI, here on Symbiartic and many more ? keep changing and growing while featuring a bewildering array of artists. Artists on the cutting edge of our understanding of everything from dinosaurs to microbes to nebulae.

I have been dissatisfied with the Science Artists Feed for a while. While I think it?s useful, and it?s amazing that each month I still receive a couple of requests to join, it really wasn?t a community. So last December, we at Symbiartic started the Google+ SciArt Circle Community.

Click the image to see the Community!

The community has grown pretty quickly, and we?re continuing to moderate new members though the posts are publicly visible.

From the description:

This community invites creators to post their own artwork and links, or bloggers writing interviews and review of science-art to post their own links.

This is a public community so everyone may enjoy the content posted by artists. To join, make sure we know you are a creator! Fill out your profile.

Imagery enables insight and transforms understanding. Your science-related visual art is welcome here!

One of my goals with the community is to avoid ?gee-whiz? link spam. It?s all too easy to fill up the community with content of the ??I saw this cool science-artsy thing on the internet one time? ?-type. By encouraging the creators to post their own work, we have a more enriching discussions about how they made it and why. Here are a few examples from the community page:

?

Mieke Roth's Ultimate Croc Anatomy Project

Mieke Roth has been keeping us updated about her Ultimate Croc Anatomy Project. Watch for more about this on Symbiartic soon and check out her IndieGoGo page! ?Donate now for this ambitious project to generate a 3D crocodile, inside and out.

?

SciArt Hangout!

Parasitologist and artist Tommy Leung (Symbiartic interview here) has been hosting regular SciArt Hangouts on weekends ? join the Community to keep up to date or follow Tommy on Twitter @The_Episiarch.

?

New work by Louise Hughes.

Artists such as Louise Hughes have been sharing new galleryshow openings and events.

?

The community is lively, varied, and friendly. I can?t wait to see what new connections and collaborations develop here. ?Come check it out on Google+!

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=68f6ca254799fd42965feaa721d04f19

oakland news alec baldwin alec baldwin college basketball oakland pinnacle airlines kansas vs kentucky

Oscars Red Carpet: The Best Moments You Didn't See

MTV News' memorable run-ins with Kristen Stewart, Jennifer Lawrence and other A-listers — with co-host Al Roker?
By Josh Horowitz

Kristen Stewart at the 2013 Oscars
Photo: Getty Images

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1702524/oscars-2013-red-carpet-best-moments.jhtml

matt bomer westminster kennel club dog show jeremy lin game winner chocolate covered strawberries shrimp scampi kate upton si cover lobster recipes

Father Charged for Leaving Toddler in Truck while at Strip Club ...

VAN NUYS, Calif. ? A father is facing charges after he allegedly left his 2-year-old daughter in a truck while he went inside a strip club and got drunk.

24-year-old Santos Barillas, a Canoga Park resident, was charged with child endangerment among other charges.

911 dispatchers got a call just after midnight that the toddler was locked in the truck outside the 7557 Club on Woodley Avenue.

Officers arrived at the location to find the man asleep with the child in the back seat of the Toyota pickup.

The man was taken into custody and child services were called to assist with the care of the little girl.

Investigators interviewed several bar patrons and workers who confirmed the man was inside the club without the child.

The suspect was allegedly intoxicated at the time of his arrest.

The temperature had dropped into the 40s overnight in the area of the club.

Christina Pascucci reports.

Source: http://ktla.com/2013/02/25/father-charged-for-leaving-toddler-in-truck-while-at-strip-club/

evan mathis staff sgt. robert bales jason russell norfolk state st patrick s day parade duke invisible children

India says warned of bombs that killed 16 in IT hub Hyderabad

HYDERABAD, India (Reuters) - India had intelligence agency warnings of a security threat several days before two bombs went off in a market in the city of Hyderabad, the interior minister said on Friday, adding that the death toll had risen to 16.

Four people were in critical condition after the near-simultaneous explosion of the bombs planted on bicycles on Thursday, Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde told parliament after visiting the site and a hospital treating some of the 117 wounded.

Hyderabad is a major IT centre in India, only second to Bangalore. Microsoft and Google have centers in the city. The blasts happened in a market near a middle-class neighborhood across the city from the business district.

Shinde faced anger over the attack from opposition politicians who questioned whether the government had done enough to prevent it after the warning. Police said two of three security cameras at the market were not working at the time.

No group claimed responsibility and Shinde said it was too early to make accusations.

Pakistan condemned the attack. India often blames its Muslim neighbor and old rival for militant attacks including a commando-style assault in Mumbai that killed 166 people in 2008.

"Being itself a victim of terrorism, Pakistan fully understands and shares the pain and agony of the people of India," the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Police were deployed throughout Hyderabad to prevent violence between Hindus and Muslims in the city where there has recently been tension between the two communities. Bomb blasts in India have in the past led to clashes.

The Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the main opposition force in the country, called for a one-day strike in Hyderabad on Friday to protest against the attack.

Shinde said the federal government had warned states of an unspecified threat though no particular target was identified.

"A general alert was given in the past two to three days to the whole country. And that's all," he told reporters.

The explosions come less than two weeks after India hanged a man from the disputed Kashmir region, Afzal Guru, for involvement in an attack on parliament in 2001. Authorities say a bomb that killed 17 at Delhi High Court in 2011 was planted by militants who wanted Guru's death sentence commuted.

How effective the government is in preventing militant is a political issue in India and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Congress party has had to fend off accusations by the BJP of being weak on security.

The hanging of Guru, who denied involvement in the parliament attack, was seen by some commentators as a show of strength by a government gearing up for a general election due by early next year.

Senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj criticized the government for not doing enough to prevent the Hyderabad blasts.

"What exactly did you do to stop it?" Swaraj asked during a special debate in parliament.

(Writing by Frank Jack Daniel; Additional reporting by Satarupa Bhattacharjya and Annie Banerji; Editing by Matthias Williams and Robert Birsel)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/india-says-warned-bombs-killed-16-hub-hyderabad-110603491.html

London 2012 Slalom Canoe Alex Morgan Misty May Treanor Lolo Jones Aly Raisman Marvin Hamlisch Megan Rossee

French troops help with hostage probe

Yaounde - French special forces have arrived in northern Cameroon to help locate a French family who were kidnapped on Tuesday and moved to Nigeria, a local governor said on Wednesday.

The abduction of three adults and four children highlights the risk to French nationals and interests in Africa since Paris sent forces to Mali to oust Islamist rebels.

?French special forces came in yesterday from N'Djamena to help with the investigation. They left yesterday and came back today,? Augustine Fonka Awa, governor of Cameroon's Far North Region, told Reuters by telephone.

He declined to say how many French military arrived from their regional base in Chad's capital, which is about 60km from where the French tourists were taken.

French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Wednesday evidence pointed to Nigerian Islamists Boko Haram, but there did not appear to be a direct link to France's intervention in Mali.

?We believe it's the Boko Haram group that carried out the kidnapping, but we don't know for sure. Unfortunately, terror breeds terror,? Le Drian told France 2 television.

Asked to confirm or deny whether France had sent special forces, a spokesperson at the Defence Ministry in Paris said only that their presence was an unfounded rumour.

?French gendarmes visited the site of the kidnapping yesterday in coordination with Cameroonian police to assess the situation and were protected by French military,? he said.

Two Yaounde-based agents from the French DGSE foreign intelligence agency were dispatched to the kidnap zone to work with Cameroon's secret service and a French army helicopter was sent to help look for the hostages, French BFM TV reported without citing sources.

Joseph Dion Ngute, a junior minister at Cameroon's foreign ministry, told French television the kidnappers put the hostages on motorcycles and stole another car before heading to Nigeria.

?Our forces and the Nigerian forces were alerted, but before they reacted the kidnappers had vanished.?

Security in the Dabanga area where they were taken, 10km from the Nigerian border, has been reinforced and ?urgent measures? to locate the family put in place, he said.

It was the first case of foreigners being seized in the mostly Muslim north of Cameroon, a former French colony. But the region - like others in West and North Africa with typically porous borders - is considered within the operational sphere of Boko Haram and fellow Nigerian Islamist militants Ansaru.

The father of the family, which included children aged between five and 12, worked for utility GDF Suez and French television reported he was from a family of winemakers in the Burgundy region.

?It is expected that French forces will engage in resolving this issue from within Cameroonian borders, with the support of the Cameroon government,? said Nadia Ahidjo of AfricaPractice, an Africa-focused consulting firm.

Nigerian army spokesman Colonel Sagir Musa said ?the armed forces were on alert... ready to apprehend any criminal elements or terrorist that come into our areas?.

France has about 6 000 nationals in Cameroon. It issued a travel warning on Tuesday advising its citizens not to travel to the extreme north and for those already there to leave.

Cameroon is a largely secular state where 70 percent are Christian. About 24 percent are Muslim and mainly live in the three northern regions of the country. Until now there have been no known links between with Islamists in northern Nigeria.

Boko Haram poses a big threat to stability in Nigeria, Africa's top oil-producing state. Western governments worry they could link up with other Islamist groups in the region.

France intervened in Mali last month after Islamists seized the north and pushed south towards the capital Bamako.

French-led forces have since driven the Islamists from north Mali towns into remote desert and mountains.

?It's these groups that are calling for the same fundamentalism, whether it's in Mali or in Somalia or in Nigeria. These groups threaten our security,? Le Drian said.

French President Francois Hollande said the kidnappings would not stop France from pursuing its operation in Mali.

The kidnapping brought the number of French held hostage in isolated regions of west and north Africa to 15, including one abducted by Nigerian al-Qaeda-linked Ansaru in December. - Reuters

Source: http://www.iol.co.za/french-troops-help-with-hostage-probe-1.1474101

college football rankings Steel Magnolias Niels Bohr the Rumble 2012 Columbus Day 2012 carlina white Sam Champion Engaged