সোমবার, ২৯ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩

Avalanche fire coach Joe Sacco

Colorado Avalanche head coach Joe Sacco, back, looks on as his players take a break during a time out against the Minnesota Wild in the second period of an NHL hockey game in Denver on Saturday, April 27, 2013. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Colorado Avalanche head coach Joe Sacco, back, looks on as his players take a break during a time out against the Minnesota Wild in the second period of an NHL hockey game in Denver on Saturday, April 27, 2013. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

(AP) ? Colorado Avalanche coach Joe Sacco was fired on Sunday after the team missed the playoffs for the third straight season.

The Avs never got on track in the lockout-shortened season and finished last in the Western Conference.

Sacco was in his fourth season in charge of Colorado and wound up with a 130-134-30 mark. He had one year left on his contract.

"The organization believes a change of leadership behind the bench is needed going forward," general manager Greg Sherman said in a release. "Joe has worked for this franchise for eight seasons and he is a dedicated and hard-working coach. We appreciate all he has done and wish him the best in the future."

The Avs will soon begin their search for a replacement.

Sacco spent two seasons in charge of the organization's American Hockey League affiliate squad, the Lake Erie Monsters, before taking over the Avs in 2009 after the firing of Tony Granato.

A former NHL player, Sacco preached a fast-paced style and it served the youthful Avalanche well in his first season as the team earned a postseason spot. He was even a finalist for the NHL's coach of the year.

But Colorado couldn't duplicate that success.

Moments after a 3-1 loss to Minnesota on Saturday to close out the regular season, Sacco was asked about his future, saying, "We're certainly headed in the right direction."

His team was committed to his up-tempo philosophy. Matt Duchene recently said that Sacco's message was still getting across.

"We've all played the system he's put in place to the best of our ability. We've all worked at it," said Duchene, who finished tied with P.A. Parenteau for the team scoring lead with 43 points. "We're all still buying in and working."

Sacco will be back on the bench later this week when he leads the U.S. squad at the world championships. He will even take several Avalanche players with him, including Paul Stastny and Erik Johnson.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-04-28-HKN-Avalanche-Sacco-Fired/id-d2ac35b07d1e42088478dcb7a53557c9

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Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11 review

Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11 review

Normally, when a company releases two laptops in different sizes (the MacBook Air, anyone?) we review just one: we assume you'll get the gist about the design and trackpad the first time, ya know? So it's funny, then, that we're taking a look at the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11 after we've already tested the Yoga 13 and named it one of our favorite Windows 8 convertibles. They look alike, with an inventive hinge allowing you to fold the screen back like a book cover. The keyboards are the same too, though the 11-incher's is understandably a tad more crowded. They even have the same oddly shaped power port.

Except, of course, they're totally different products. Whereas the Yoga 13 is a proper laptop, with a Core i5 processor and full Windows 8, the Yoga 11 runs Windows RT, and is powered by a Tegra 3 chip (yes, the same one you're used to seeing in Android tablets). That means a big dip in performance, but exponentially longer battery life. Legacy x86 apps are off-limits too, given that this is Windows RT and all. Now that we've set up that equation for you (weaker performance plus longer battery life minus standard Windows apps equals what?) let's meet up after the break to see if this is just as good a deal as its big brother.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/29/lenovo-ideapad-yoga-11-review/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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মঙ্গলবার, ২৩ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩

Taliban take 9 hostage after helicopter's emergency landing

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) ? A Turkish civilian helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing in a Taliban-controlled area of eastern Afghanistan, and the insurgents took all nine people aboard the aircraft hostage, including eight Turks, officials said Monday.

The transport helicopter landed in strong winds and heavy rain on Sunday in a village in the Azra district of Logar province, southeast of Kabul and 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the Pakistan border, said district governor Hamidullah Hamid.

Taliban fighters then captured all nine aboard the helicopter and took them from the area, Hamid told The Associated Press. He said most of the nine civilian hostages are Turks but that one is an Afghan translator.

In Ankara, a spokesman at Turkey's Foreign Ministry told the AP that there were eight Turks aboard the helicopter but did not know if it also was carrying other civilians or what their nationalities were. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with ministry regulations, had no information about the condition of the civilians.

Turkey's semi-official Anadolu news agency quoted Logar Deputy Police Chief Resishan Sadik Abdurrahminzey as saying that "a large number" of policemen were being sent to the region to rescue the hostages.

NATO said the helicopter went down on Sunday, but the International Security Assistance Force did not have any other details. ISAF spokeswoman Erin Stattel said the coalition was assisting in the recovery of the aircraft. She could not say whether the helicopter made a precautionary landing or the Taliban had forced it down.

Logar Deputy Police Chief Rais Khan Abdul Rahimzai said he didn't know what kind of cargo the helicopter was carrying, where it was headed, or whether it was working for NATO.

___

Associated Press writers Amir Shah in Kabul and Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, contributed to this report.

___

Follow Thomas Wagner on Twitter at: www.twitter.com/tjpwagner.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/taliban-capture-9-helicopter-afghanistan-054142913.html

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শনিবার, ২০ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩

The Finish Line: What the bombing was like

This Monday, April 15, 2013 photo provided by Mark Fratto shows his wife, runner Courtney Fratto, and their son Gavin, 3, at mile 20 during the Boston Marathon in Boston. Fratto finished the race just seconds before the first bomb exploded. When the bomb went off just after she crossed the finish line, she ran for safety instead of to the injured. Fratto, a nurse who is the coordinator of intestinal transplants in the Pediatric Transplant Center at Boston Children's Hospital, wishes she could have reacted the way a number of others did. "I could see there was mass casualties," she said. "I have this very horrible guilt that I didn't run and help them.'' (AP Photo/Mark Fratto)

This Monday, April 15, 2013 photo provided by Mark Fratto shows his wife, runner Courtney Fratto, and their son Gavin, 3, at mile 20 during the Boston Marathon in Boston. Fratto finished the race just seconds before the first bomb exploded. When the bomb went off just after she crossed the finish line, she ran for safety instead of to the injured. Fratto, a nurse who is the coordinator of intestinal transplants in the Pediatric Transplant Center at Boston Children's Hospital, wishes she could have reacted the way a number of others did. "I could see there was mass casualties," she said. "I have this very horrible guilt that I didn't run and help them.'' (AP Photo/Mark Fratto)

This image taken and provided by Lucas Carr shows the blood-stained shoes he was wearing during the Boston Marathon, on Monday, April 15, 2013. Army Sgt. Lucas Carr arrived at the finish at 2:48 p.m., and was standing with his girlfriend about 50-yards away when the bombs went off about a minute later. "I knew what it was, knew what the repercussions were," he said. He told his girlfriend to run west, back onto the race course, because he knew everyone else was running the other way. The second bomb, he suspected, was placed where it was because it was along the most obvious escape route for those trying to flee the first. A few seconds later, he was in the melee _ an Army Ranger back in the middle of the blood and casualties he thought he'd left for good when he came home from the Middle East. (AP Photo/Lucas Carr)

FILE - In this Monday, April 15, 2013 file photo, medical workers aid injured people at the finish line of the 2013 Boston Marathon following an explosion in Boston. Runner Lucas Carr can be seen in the upper center of the photo in the yellow Boston Bruins shirt. Carr, an Army Sergeant who served in the middle east, assisted several of the injured by applying tourniquets. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)

This Monday, April 15, 2013 photo provided by Jill Riley shows runner Linda Racicot just a few yards from the finish line during the Boston Marathon in Boston. Racicot finished the Boston Marathon just seconds before the first bomb exploded. She turned 46 on Thursday and just feels happy to be alive. (AP Photo/Jill Riley)

This Monday, April 15, 2013 photo provided by Jeff Lazzarino shows runner Andrew Dupee at mile 15 during the Boston Marathon in Wellesley, Mass. Dupee finished the Boston Marathon just seconds before the first bomb exploded. The private investment adviser at Howland Capital in Boston was running to raise money for charity and to do something special in the year he turned 40. (AP Photo/Jeff Lazzarino)

The woman wearing bib No. 19,255 was a flute instructor from Utah, listening to her son singing through her headphones as if the sound of his voice could somehow will her body the last few yards to the finish line.

Just ahead of her was a pediatric nurse running her first marathon as a tribute to a teenage liver transplant patient. Ten years earlier, Courtney Fratto had attended her first Boston Marathon and told a friend that one day she would run in the race.

This was her day.

The swarm of runners nearing the finish line as the clock ticked toward 3 in the afternoon included a medical supply salesman, a teacher's aide, a financial analyst in her 55th marathon, and a cop who would become the last recorded finisher of the 117th Boston Marathon.

This was their day, too.

On a gorgeous spring afternoon made for running they headed for the finish line that was their goal.

And at 2:50 p.m., hell was unleashed on the most prestigious marathon in the world.

The first explosion knocked a 78-year-old man running alongside them to the ground. The ground shook, smoke filled the air and the screaming began.

Erik Savage tried to make sense out of something that didn't make any sense. The blast had knocked him back, into a semi crouch. His ears ringing, he stood up and instinctively walked toward the chaos, trying to see if there was anyone he could help.

He saw a man and a woman emerge from the smoke. The man's pants had been torn off by the force of the blast.

"My first instinct was, 'Strange. Why is that man not wearing any pants?'" Savage said. "Then I had a quick moment of clarity, which was there was something very wrong and my wife and my 8-year-old and my 4-year-old were 25 yards up the road.

They were caught in a no man's land, eager to finish but even more eager to get out of harm's way. Exhausted, mentally numb and totally spent, they now had to make what could be life and death decisions and deal with shock, too. Their first thoughts were to try somehow to get to safety but they also had husbands, wives and children in the crowd near the bomb site with no way of knowing if they were OK.

Jennifer Herring had already finished her race, helped along by another runner who acted as her eyes on the course. She was in a collection area with other blind runners when the first bomb went off, followed by a second loud explosion.

Suddenly, everyone grew quiet. A guide dog named Smithers, a Golden Retriever, started shaking badly. They took turns petting him, trying to calm him down.

___

A total of 23,336 runners started the Boston Marathon, with 17,580 finishing. The Associated Press analyzed images and data, including the finishing times recorded by chips on competitors' bibs, over the past several days to pinpoint some of the runners who were in the finish line area when the bombs went off. These are some of their stories.

___

THE SERGEANT

Army Sgt. Lucas Carr had heard the all-too-familiar sounds before.

He arrived at the finish at 2:48 p.m., and was standing with his girlfriend about 50 yards away when the bombs went off.

"I knew what it was, knew what the repercussions were," he said.

He told his girlfriend to run west, back onto the race course, because he knew everyone else was running the other way. The second bomb, he suspected, was placed where it was because it was along the most obvious escape route for those trying to flee the first.

A few seconds later, he was in the melee ? an Army Ranger back in the middle of the blood and casualties he thought he'd left behind for good when he returned from the Middle East. Pictures of the 33-year-old helping the wounded have circulated widely in the wake of the bombing.

Another picture, texted to The Associated Press, showed his bloodstained running shoes. "This is not how a marathon is supposed to end. Running shoes drenched in blood!" was the message he sent along with the text.

"I saw things that brought back experiences overseas that I would never want to have anyone witness here," Carr said in an earlier AP interview. "It was an all-too-familiar smell that I can't get out of my body. Tourniquets, tourniquets and more tourniquets I put on people that day. People with limbs missing. You don't want to see that."

Carr was running in his sixth Boston Marathon, and his second to benefit the Boston Bruins Foundation.

A longtime hockey player, the Norwood, Mass., resident runs for Matt Brown, who was paralyzed in a high school game on Jan. 23, 2010. Brown, now in a wheelchair, is overcoming pneumonia and his doctor advised him to skip this year's race.

Carr says they'll both be in it next year. There's still work to be done.

"When it happened, in the aftermath, I felt helpless," he said. "You come home, you readjust, you feel happy for what you did. Then things like this happen and it puts a tainted memory on everything you did and puts you in a position of wanting to get answers now. But it makes you more resilient and vigilant than anything. My job was being a soldier. Everyone's job is being a soldier right now."

___

THE NURSE

Courtney Fratto wishes she could have reacted like Lucas Carr. She wishes she had made a different decision.

The 31-year-old mother of two is a nurse, the coordinator of intestinal transplants in the Pediatric Transplant Center at Boston Children's Hospital.

When the bomb went off just after she crossed the finish line, though, she ran for safety instead of to the injured.

"I could see there was mass casualties,'" she said. "I have this very horrible guilt that I didn't run and help them."

Fratto had just run 26 miles and wasn't thinking clearly. People around her were screaming at others to run and get out in case there was another bomb. Her husband and two young children were in the crowd somewhere near the explosion, and she wouldn't know they were safe for another hour.

Fratto, who lives in Watertown, had never run more than 7 miles in a race before. This was her first marathon, and she was doing it in tribute to a teenage liver transplant patient who asked her if he would ever be healthy enough to run a marathon himself.

Her moment of triumph was fleeting, lasting only a few seconds. Her conscience will bother her a lot longer.

"I feel terrible that I didn't go and help," she said. "I'm, like, haunted by it."

___

THE INVESTOR

Anger. Almost uncontrollable anger and rage.

Andrew Dupee felt it right away. He still feels it now.

The private investment adviser at Howland Capital in Boston was running to raise money for charity and to do something special in the year he turned 40. He had taken three steps over the finish line when he turned to an acquaintance to exchange congratulatory high fives.

The first explosion went off, and immediately he knew. It was a bomb, and someone was trying to kill people.

Dupee doubled over, his fists clenched. He screamed an expletive that probably only he heard.

He would never get his high five, never get to share a celebration with his fellow runners. Members of his team running behind him wouldn't even be allowed the satisfaction of finishing.

"There's nothing about my story particularly unique," Dupee said. "There are many, many other people suffering far, far more than I suffered. There are innocent children, innocent families whose lives will never be the same. The hurt, anger, pain and loss they must feel is a multitude of what I experienced."

____

THE MOTHER

After gutting through 26.2 miles, it's the last thing anyone wants to hear.

"It was just a bunch of people saying 'Run,'" Sue Gruner said.

Down alleyways. Up side streets. Wherever the police told her to go. Finally, she ended up at Copley Square, where she was reunited with her husband, Doug, who had cheered her on.

It was an hour of sheer fright.

"I kept looking side to side, wondering if another one was going to go off," Gruner said.

The Gruners made the trip from Hampshire, Ill., and the plan was to spend a week in Boston ? first for the marathon, then to see the sights and take in the history.

Instead, they returned home Tuesday, the day after the race. Speaking from her home Friday morning, while watching coverage of the manhunt for one of the bombers, Gruner realized what a good decision that was.

A mother of three, she used to go for quick runs after sending the kids to school. Once they got older, she got more serious about training for long-distance.

Boston turned out to be her seventh marathon. "Boston was always on my Bucket List," she said.

She came down the homestretch on the right side of the road, the opposite side of where the explosions occurred. She crossed the finish line at 2:50.

Though she's reluctant to say it, she concedes she feels "like it was my lucky seventh marathon."

"I feel so terrible for the people who are injured and the families who lost their loved ones. I feel so bad," Gruner said. "But when I think about it, I was like, 'Why was I running on the right side?' I don't know. I just feel so lucky that I was."

___

THE MUSICIAN

The heat from the first blast hit Cory Maxfield as she ran the last 75 yards to the finish line.

She felt the impact in her chest and it seemed like the ground was moving under her feet.

A few seconds earlier, the only thing going through Maxwell's mind was getting to the finish. Her iPod was on shuffle, but the song it picked was perfect. It was from Fictionist, her son's rock 'n' roll band, and it was just what she needed to make it over the line.

"I was excited about it because it has a lot of power and energy," the Utah musician said. "I'm so glad it came on when I needed a boost."

Maxfield kept heading toward the finish only to be stopped by a security official trying to get her out of harm's way. Around her it was chaos, with police drawing weapons, volunteers running the other way.

The second bomb went off behind her, and by then she was starting to figure out what was going on.

Her marathon turned into a sprint when someone yelled there was a shooter on the loose.

"For lack of a better plan I just took off and ran for my life and crossed the finish line," she said. "I guess that's not my finest moment but my inclination was to get out of there. I was frightened."

___

THE SCHOOL AIDE

Linda Racicot celebrated her 46th birthday Thursday. She cried that day watching President Obama in Boston, something not unusual for her in the days since the bombing.

She is proud to say she finished the Boston Marathon. She feels guilty, too.

"How can I be happy in my accomplishments when people died and people lost limbs?" she asked.

Her official race photos show her beneath a finish line clock that reads 4:09:29. When the first bomb goes off, the clock reads 4:09:43.

"As I turned I could see the runner go over, the 78-year-old man," she said. "I said to myself, that's a bomb, no question."

Racicot's husband was running a short way behind her, and she worried about him. She worried even more about her daughter and mother-in-law who were standing across from the blast site, outside the Lennox Hotel. In other years they always waited right where the explosion went off, but they switched last year so they could be spotted easier.

The school aide from Weymouth says she will run again, but it will never be the same.

"We're Boston strong," she said. "My daughter, though, will probably never go back. She was traumatized by the whole thing. I don't know if I could ask her to go back."

___

THE LAWYER MOM

"Right on Hereford, left on Boylston, I was almost at the finish."

Running her third Boston Marathon, Vivian Adkins was familiar with the route. She was familiar with the feeling runners get after passing the Mile 21 marker near the top of Heartbreak Hill ? will we ever call it that again? ? and thinking that the hardest part is behind her.

"As I was getting closer to the end, I was in a celebratory mood," she said in an interview. "Not because I had run such a good race ? actually, it was one of my slowest ? but because it was a culmination of years of dreams and accomplishments."

She was about 30 yards from the finish line when she heard the first explosion.

"I ran to the right side rails and crouched down on the ground with my hands over my head and rolled up into a ball. Then I heard the second explosion coming from behind me" she wrote on a bulletin board where she and her friends post summaries of their races. "I knew then I was in the midst of something really bad and got up and ran forward towards the finish line fully aware that I could be hit any moment. ... What did not cross my mind as I was crossing the finish line was that I had finished. I had crossed to what was, hopefully, safety and got past the worst of the carnage."

A lawyer turned stay-at-home mom, Adkins said that the 1,500-word posting, which she wrote on Wednesday morning and titled "Still Making Sense of Boston Marathon 2013," ''helped me to unwind my thoughts." She wrote about the excitement at the starting line, interrupted by a moment of silence for the victims of the Newtown, Conn., school shooting ? "the only reminder that the world is not such a peaceful place."

"But surely that evil would not pierce the marathon where the best of human endeavor is celebrated," she wrote. "It was inconceivable."

Four hours, 9 minutes, 39 seconds and more than 26 miles later, the first bomb went off in front of her. The second one exploded 13 seconds later, behind her. She saw a bundle of yellow balloons float to the sky; she would later recognize them, carried by a woman walking in front the two bombing suspects on the surveillance video playing in a seemingly endless loop on cable news.

She also saw a woman being carried out on a stretcher, "a trail of blood just spraying from her lower body."

"I broke down emotionally at how close I was to death," she wrote. "I recovered my senses enough to go through the motions of the Boston finish chute. My feelings were not those of a finisher; honestly, I didn't know what to think."

___

THE JUDGE

Four hours, 10 minutes, 16 seconds. That's the time stamped next to Roger McMillin's name at the Boston Marathon this year.

Maybe it shouldn't matter this year, but to McMillin, it does.

The retired chief judge of the Mississippi State Court of Appeals needed to break 4:10 to automatically qualify for a return trip to Boston to run in the 2014 marathon.

He was well on his way when he heard the first explosion rock the area near the finish line. Then the second.

"The first thing I remember was over on the side where the bomb went off," McMillin said. "They were trying to get the barricades apart and they couldn't. There were people falling over, people trying to climb over, people basically climbing over each other to get out. I saw one guy with his leg twisted up in and around the metal. I thought he'd end up with a broken leg, or maybe worse than that."

Away from the chaos, trying to find his belongings took nearly an hour of shuffling down alleyways, looking for a route to safety, to say nothing of the bus where his things were being held.

He found them. Dug his cellphone out of his bag to call his daughter, Sally, who was standing near Mile 21 ? at Heartbreak Hill ? to watch her dad make the climb for the third time. She was safe.

McMillin compares the high of running Boston to being invited to step onto the field moments before the Super Bowl starts.

"You've got all these elite runners, who are incredible," he said. "And for a little while at least, you're on the track with them for the same race. An incredible event. An incredible experience."

No newcomer to marathons, McMillin ran his first one, the Chicago Marathon, on Oct. 10, 2010.

"Ten-ten-ten," McMillin said. "I'll always remember that one."

This one, too.

He finished at 2:51 p.m. He would have easily beaten the 4:10 mark had he not slowed when the bombs went off. But his time ? 4:10:16 ? doesn't worry him all that much.

"I'll go run something else and get the time," he said. "Beforehand, I wanted to qualify to come back but I wasn't sure I would come back if I did. Now that all this has transpired, I have a fierce determination to come back one way or another.

"It's a tremendous part of the fabric of our country and we need to do what it takes to preserve it."

___

THE NEW ENGLANDER

Running toward the finish line, Erik Savage turned and ducked when he heard the second explosion. It left his ears ringing. When he stood up, he instinctively walked toward the chaos, trying to see if there was anyone he could help.

That's when he saw the man whose pants had been blown off, and thoughts quickly turned to his own family.

What ensued was what Savage called the "longest 30 minutes of my life. " He got repeated failed-call messages on his iPhone, which was nearly drained of battery because he had used it to listen to music during his four-hour run.

Finally, Savage moved toward a Starbucks on the corner of Berkeley and Boylston. His phone rang. His wife and kids were safe, scooped up by his brother-in-law and taken down an alley adjacent to the Lord and Taylor department store.

Savage grew up in Worcester, about 45 minutes from Boston, and the meaning of the marathon, the Red Sox game and all the other celebrations associated with Patriots' Day have special meaning to him.

"If you grew up next door, in Connecticut, you don't get it," he said. "If you grow up near Boston, you really do."

He said he was struck by the number of first-responders who made their way to the scene within moments of the blasts.

He's planning to run in the New York Marathon later this year and, if he can qualify for Boston next year, he'll be there, too.

"If I don't run I lose the battle," Savage said. "It's everything we fight for, everything that's meaningful in this country. I'll run and run with pride. That's what it means to me."

___

THE BLIND ATHLETES

Jennifer Herring and William Greer were part of the Team With A Vision, a group that raises money for the visually impaired through running. Both are legally blind, and both ran with other runners to guide them.

Herring, a 38-year-old senior software engineer for Abbott Point of Care Inc., had completed her 10th Boston Marathon 25 minutes earlier and was in a holding area waiting for other runners when the bombs went off.

"It was so loud that the dog was shaking and we didn't know what it was," she said in an email shared with the AP. "We were all petting the dog to calm him down not knowing what was going on."

Greer had just one thing on his mind after he completed the marathon and walked from the finish line, five minutes before the bombs went off. He was in the most prestigious marathon in the nation and he wanted his medal.

Greer got it ? just as the bombs went off.

"You've heard people say their stomach dropped? It was a physical feeling, my stomach became really hollow. I just realized how incredibly close I'd come to being right there when it went off."

Greer, who works with the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities in Austin, said he will be back to run again.

"It's a beautiful city and an incredible marathon," he said. "This tragedy will not keep me from running Boston again."

___

THE VETERAN

The Boston Marathon was also the 50th marathon for Jerry Dubner.

He heard the first explosion and saw the smoke just as he crossed the 26-mile mark.

A few seconds later, he heard and felt the second blast.

A seasoned veteran of the long-distance-running game, Dubner knew his limits when he crossed the finish at 2:51 p.m.

"I looked to my left, saw bodies on the ground and blood and realized I was in no position to help out, no condition to help out," Dubner said.

He got out safely, figuring the biggest contribution he could make would be to clear the way and let emergency workers do their job.

"I still have those images in my mind," said Dubner, 55, an actuary in Atlanta. "It really was kind of a surreal situation."

His training for this marathon, which also marked the 21st straight time he'd run the world-famous Boston race, did not go all that well.

"I was not in particularly good shape this year, hadn't trained as much as I usually do," he said. "I was running a lot slower than I usually do. So, just finishing the race was going to be an accomplishment for me. It was going to be an emotional finish for me, and it turns out, the emotion was a different one than what I expected."

___

THE TROOPER

Sean Haggerty was the last official finisher at the 2013 Boston Marathon.

It wasn't because he was the slowest.

The New Hampshire state police sergeant stopped before the finish line to help spectators who were wounded in the bombing. When he finally crossed, at 2:57 p.m. on Monday, he was pushing an injured woman to the medical tent in a wheelchair. He did not know he was the last one to record a time until he was told by a reporter three days later.

"I consider myself not completing the race. I didn't run to the finish line. I ran to offer assistance to those that needed it," said Haggerty, who reluctantly agreed to be interviewed this week.

"When I did have an opportunity, later on, to use someone's cellphone to call my wife and let her know that I was OK, she said she figured that I was because she got the (automated) text message that I had finished. I corrected her and said, 'I didn't finish, I didn't make it to the finish line.'"

He did, but only after he had helped several of the wounded. Haggerty seemed reluctant to talk to a reporter, and said several times during the interview, "I did what hundreds of other people did that day.

"I just happened to be in a position to help," he said. "I saw the initial blast and immediately thought of the evil in the world, but the response showed me that there is a bright spot to it and that is the actions of all the people that I was able to work beside. Those people that I saw who responded were not B.A.A. officials, they were not emergency responders, although they acted extraordinarily. They were ordinary people that were there to watch the race."

Haggerty helped, too.

He borrowed someone's belt and tied it around a woman's leg to help stop the bleeding. He said he has a way to get in touch with the injured woman, when the time is right.

"The focus should be on those people whose lives will be changed forever," he said. "I'll always remember and think about the people that lost their lives. I'll always remember and think about the people that go on with their lives; it will be a bigger challenge for them.

"I'll think about that next year," he said.

Because he will be back.

"It's obviously changed the Boston Marathon forever," said Haggerty, who has run Boston nine times, including the last five. "I certainly will be back next year, for a number of reasons, one of which is that I don't feel at all afraid to return to Boston. I'm confident in the law enforcement folks that are protecting the marathon and other events, not only in Boston but other parts of the world."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-04-20-ATH-Boston-Marathon-The-Finish-Line/id-ab19679e1db14e2bb22ef238dc7cd5a5

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T-Mobile iPhone 5 review

T-Mobile iPhone 5 review

Hands-on with the iPhone 5 on T-Mobile, including call quality and DC-HSPA and LTE data

More than 6 years after the original iPhone was introduced, and almost 6 months after the iPhone 5 was launched, T-Mobile US finally has an Apple phone on their shelves. Along with bright Magenta Apple t-shirts, and some unusual new data plans, T-Mobile is banking on the iPhone 5 being as popular on their network as it's been on every other US network to date. We already have a full review of the iPhone 5 and a detailed walkthrough of iOS 6, so here I'm going to cover everything that makes the T-Mobile iPhone 5 different and, hopefully, special.

T-Mobile iPhone call quality

I am pleased to report that the call quality of T-Mobile network on the iPhone 5 is superb. Voices are clear and I have not experienced any dropped calls. I'd say it's equivalent to my service with AT&T.

T-Mobile iPhone LTE, DC-HSPA+ -- and EDGE -- data speeds

In addition to being the last major U.S. mobile carrier to roll out the iPhone, T-Mobile is also the last major U.S. mobile carrier to roll out next-generation 4G LTE. As such, T-Mobile LTE is currently available in seven cities: Baltimore, Houston, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Jose, and Washington DC. When it comes to T-Mobile, however, that's the not the deal-breaker it might be on Sprint. Where the difference between Sprint CDMA EVDO rev A and LTE is potentially 3mbps to 50+mbps, the difference between T-Mobile DC-HSPA+ and LTE is theoretically only 42mbps to 50+mbps. With but one huge caveat... EDGE.

I live about an hour from San Jose, so I made a small trip to the Silicon Valley to test out T-Mobile's LTE network in San Jose. During the drive between Salinas and San Jose, I was dropped to EDGE for the majority of the trip. I haven't seen that dreaded 'E', in a very long time as an AT&T customer, so this we very disappointing. These EDGE speeds were horrifically low, as well. One time, I literally got 0.00 Mbps upload results. I'm not kidding.

Surprisingly, there were even areas in San Jose where I was on Edge, but most of the time, I was connected to 4G. I spent much of the day at the Children's Museum where my T-Mobile iPhone claimed to have LTE, but every time I attempted to run a speed test, it would drop to 4G. Again, very disappointing.

When I finally found a solid LTE signal at the Valley Fair Mall in front of the Cheesecake Factory, I ran some tests with the Speedtest.net app with impressive results: 31.8 Mbps down, 14.52 Mbps up, and 41 ms ping. AT&T's LTE results at the same location was 22.48 Mbps down, 9.58 Mbps up, and 62 ms ping.

So not bad! I've never seen results like that with AT&T LTE, so I was impressed.

Since T-Mobile LTE is only available in seven cities, the average T-Mobile customer won't actually be using LTE, so T-Mobile's 4G DC-HSPA+ network is what you really care about, and I've seen mixed results.

In San Jose, 4G download speeds were consistently in the mid-teens. But in Salinas, download speeds are more around 5-10 Mbps. Considering AT&T's LTE is in the mid-teens in the same area, though, I guess that's not too bad.

It's also worth noting that Apple updated the current North American GSM iPhone 5 model (A1428) to support T-Mobile's AWS data frequencies. Older iPhones, including older iPhone 5 devices brought to T-Mobile won't have AWS support, and won't provide as good as an experience.

T-Mobile iPhone plans

T-Mobile's new iPhone plans are an interesting experiment. American's are used to getting huge subsidies when they sign contracts, which greatly reduces the up-front price of the phone but locks them to that network for 2 years. People in other countries are used to buying their phones outright but then being able to switch carriers whenever they like. T-Mobile is trying to offer a middle-ground by still reducing the up-front price of the iPhone to $99 (starting) but giving more options, and more flexibility, instead of just one locked-down contract. For some people, this will be complicated and confusing, maybe even uncomfortable and off-putting. For others, it may just be the beginning of a dream come true. It's simply too early to tell.

Price is always a huge factor to consider when choosing a carrier, but coverage should be just as, if not more, important when making a decision. If you're not sure about T-Mobile coverage in your area, ask around your work and/or school, and home, and if you can find a colleague, classmate, or neighbor on T-Mobile, make sure they're delighted with the service in your area.

If T-Mobile is what you decide to go with, there are still some important things to consider. T-Mobile data plans are not "share everything" plans like Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint. So the 500MB plans more closely compare with Verizon and AT&T's 1 GB plans and the 2 GB plans are similar to 4GB on Verizon and AT&T. I say 'similar', because they're not identical -- each line on T-Mobile has its own pool of data.

Another important detail about T-Mobile's plans is that they all technically include unlimited data. The 500MB and 2GB plans are the data caps for high-speed 4G data. If you pass those limits, you will not be charged extra, but you'll be throttled to 3G or 2G speeds.

The bottom line

The biggest thing you have to consider when choosing a carrier for your iPhone is what the coverage is like in the areas you are most of the time. My results may not be equivalent to your hometown, so do your research. Talk to your friends, neighbors, and coworkers who have T-Mobile. For people in my area and in San Jose, I would recommend T-Mobile to those looking to save a few bucks and who aren't concerned about having the absolutely fastest speed; though, In San Jose, LTE speeds are actually faster than AT&T, albeit, a bit spotty.

    


Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/FftKiXP9oso/story01.htm

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রবিবার, ১৪ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩

Troika concludes Greek bailout review, next aid tranche soon: source

By Annika Breidthardt and Renee Maltezou

DUBLIN/ATHENS (Reuters) - An inspection team of international lenders has finished its review of Greece's austerity program, paving the way for another 10 billion euros aid payment, a source with knowledge of the talks said on Saturday.

The deal reached on Friday, concludes the first review by the so-called "troika" of the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank since they unlocked fresh aid in December, staving off a chaotic bankruptcy.

In exchange for the December deal in Greece's 240-billion euro bailout, Athens passed a fresh round of austerity measures.

"The third review mission of the program was completed last night in Athens with a staff level agreement," one delegate with knowledge of the discussions told Reuters.

The official added the Eurogroup of euro zone finance ministers and the IMF's board would each likely discuss the agreement in May, a condition for the money to actually be paid.

Klaus Regling, the head of the euro zone's rescue funds, said on Friday the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), under which Greece's rescue is handled, stood ready to disburse 10 billion euros ($13 billion) to Athens once conditions were met.

"Greece would get 2.8 billion euros after the milestones have been met. In addition, 7.2 billion (euros are) available in bonds to recapitalize the banks. This is based on a tranche already approved last December," he told reporters.

Greece has received about 200 billion euros in rescue loans since its first bailout in May in 2010. But despite imposing a 75-percent debt cut on private-sector bondholders and receiving debt relief from its official lenders last year, it is still far from a return to the bond markets.

After a meeting of European Union finance ministers, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said a 2.8 billion euro March tranche of funds had not been released yet because Greece had not fulfilled some of the bailout milestones.

"The Greek side explained it is fully committed and we hope that this will be the case by the next meeting," Schaeuble said.

The recapitalization of Greece's banks and shrinking the country's spendthrift public sector have been key issues on the agenda of talks with the troika, which resumed its visit in Athens earlier this month.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras met his coalition partners on Saturday to discuss the hot topics and the progress of the troika review. After the meeting, the deputy finance minister said talks with the troika would be wrapped up by Monday.

"I believe the ultimate details of a deal with the troika will be finalized by Monday night," Christos Staikouras said.

Greece has agreed to dismiss 15,000 public sector workers and hire as many younger employees, Staikouras said.

About 4,000 workers will leave by the end of the year and another 11,000 in 2014, party officials said. The state is expected to cut more than 180,000 by 2015.

Socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos said the troika was expected to approve the political leaders' proposals by Sunday.

Under Greece's current bailout plan agreed in November, Athens has to cut 150,000 public sector jobs overall from 2010 to 2015, about a fifth of the total, through hiring curbs, retirement and dismissals.

"We have designed a commonly accepted framework which I hope the troika will accept by Sunday night," Venizelos said. "We must close all the issues."

Lay-offs are a sensitive issue in Greece where unemployment has hit a record high of 27.2 percent and the economy is now in its sixth year of recession but recent polls show that most Greeks want the reform of the public sector and its services.

With the country's constitution protecting state workers from dismissal, Samaras said in an interview with a newspaper that the government could cut staff by scrapping job positions.

There is no doubt we need a smaller but also better public sector," Samaras said. "The constitution doesn't ban the dismissal of state workers whose position has been scrapped."

(Reporting by Annika Breidthardt and Renee Maltezou in Athens; Editing by Ron Askew)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/troika-concludes-greek-bailout-review-next-aid-tranche-102929167--business.html

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CA-BUSINESS Summary

TSX falls sharply as gold leads broad selloff

TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's main stock index fell more than 1 percent on Friday, as weak U.S. economic data dulled hopes for the Canada's export sector, while a sharp drop in gold prices pulled mining stocks to multi-year lows. The mining-heavy TSX materials sector dropped 4.21 percent to its lowest level since 2009, fueled by a 4 percent drop in gold prices and sliding copper, while weak oil prices yanked energy stocks down by 1.95 percent.

FAA sees lessons from Boeing 787 battery woes

NEW YORK/COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado (Reuters) - U.S. regulators are discussing whether the batteries that burned on Boeing Co's 787 Dreamliner hold any lessons for other aircraft or vehicles. George Nield, associate administrator for commercial space transportation at the Federal Aviation Administration, said a dialogue is taking place about whether the overheating of two lithium-ion batteries on the 787 could have broader implications.

Exclusive: G20 to consider cutting debt to well below 90 percent/GDP: document

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Financial leaders of the world's 20 biggest economies will consider next week in Washington a proposal to cut their public debt over the longer term to well below 90 percent of gross domestic product, a document prepared for the meeting showed. The proposal, prepared by the co-chairs of the G20 Working Group on the Framework for Growth, follows agreement of the leaders of G20 countries in June last year to set ambitious debt reduction targets beyond 2016, when, under an earlier agreement from Toronto in 2010, debt was to stop growing.

Troika concludes Greek bailout review, next aid tranche soon: source

DUBLIN/ATHENS (Reuters) - An inspection team of international lenders has finished its review of Greece's austerity program, paving the way for another 10 billion euros aid payment, a source with knowledge of the talks said on Saturday. The deal reached on Friday, concludes the first review by the so-called "troika" of the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank since they unlocked fresh aid in December, staving off a chaotic bankruptcy.

Analysis: JPMorgan's lukewarm results put Dimon under more pressure

NEW YORK (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon, who came through the financial crisis relatively unscathed, is suddenly looking a little less secure. The top U.S. bank by assets reported tepid first-quarter results on Friday. Income in its biggest businesses - investment banking and consumer lending - fell, excluding accounting adjustments. Outstanding loans grew by just 1 percent, and profit margins on lending narrowed. Stock and bond trading revenue fell.

Greek PM says deposits are safe, banks shielded: paper

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek bank deposits are safe and the country's lenders are protected due to a recapitalization scheme which will be completed by the end of April, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said on Saturday. In an interview with Imerisia, Samaras ruled out a tax on deposits over 100,000 euros ($131,000) allaying fears of austerity-hit Greeks that their savings may be at risk after a raid on Cyprus depositors as part of the island's bailout.

Italy's Salini eyes foreign growth after Impregilo merger: report

MILAN (Reuters) - Italian builder Salini, taking over larger rival Impregilo , expects the merged group to double revenues over the next three years helped by expansion in the Americas and Australia, its head said in a newspaper interview. Family-owned Salini, which has built a stake of 86.5 percent in Italy's biggest builder after a takeover bid ended on Friday, told Il Corriere della Sera on Saturday he may consider listing the future merged group on more stock markets.

Austria defies mounting pressure to end bank secrecy

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Austria defied growing pressure to follow Luxembourg in ending bank secrecy, after a group led by Europe's six biggest countries pledged to work together to tackle tax havens. Late on Friday, the finance ministers of Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Spain and Poland announced their desire to jointly push for more bank transparency, a message they will take to the meeting of the Group of 20 top global economies in Washington next week.

Canada says April "optimal" for naming next Bank of Canada chief

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's government would ideally like to name a new Bank of Canada governor this month to replace Mark Carney, who will step down on June 1 to take the helm at the Bank of England, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said on Friday. "Part of the process is my interviews of the short-listed candidates," Flaherty told reporters on a conference call during an official visit to Bermuda.

Wells Fargo profit beats, but mortgage business slows

(Reuters) - Wells Fargo & Co reported a higher-than-expected 23 percent rise in first-quarter profit on Friday, but its mortgage business showed further signs of slowing and net interest margins continued to shrink. The fourth-largest U.S. bank by assets has emerged from the financial crisis as the leading U.S. home lender as other banks have pulled back from a business that burned them during the housing bust. But the bank has now seen a decline in home loans for two consecutive quarters as fewer borrowers refinance at low interest rates.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ca-business-summary-034500857--finance.html

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শনিবার, ১৩ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩

US retail sales drop keeps markets in check

LONDON (AP) ? More disappointing U.S. economic figures weighed on markets Friday after a solid run that's seen the two main U.S. stock indexes strike a series of all-time closing highs.

The Commerce Department reported that retail sales in the U.S. fell 0.4 percent in March from the month before, below expectations for a flat reading. The figures reinforced the sense that the U.S. economy, the world's largest, may be losing some traction following an increase in payroll taxes. They also chime with last week's worse than expected nonfarm payrolls figures for March.

"Recent data suggests that the economy took a step backward in March after coming out of the gates reasonably strongly to start the year," said Jim Baird, chief investment officer for Plante Moran Financial Advisors.

In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares closed 0.5 percent lower at 6,384.39 while Germany's DAX fell 1.6 percent to 7,744.77. The CAC-40 in France dropped 1.2 percent to 3,729.30.

In the U.S., the Dow Jones industrial average was down 0.3 percent at 14,819.19 while the broader S&P 500 index fell 0.6 percent 1,583.70. Mixed earnings from JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo Bank failed to encourage traders to buy.

Even before the retail sales figures, markets had been on the retreat following a week that's seen both the Dow Jones index and the S&P 500 record a run of record highs.

Wall Street's gains have also helped many of Europe's indexes approach multi-year highs, even though many countries there are in recession and the region's debt crisis flares up at regular intervals. Meanwhile, Japan's Nikkei has been riding high following an aggressive new approach from the country's central bank.

The subdued tone was evident in other financial markets, too, with supposedly riskier assets under some pressure. The euro, for example, was trading 0.1 percent lower at $1.3095 even though industrial production across the 17 European Union countries that use the currency rose by a monthly rate of 0.4 percent in February, double market expectations.

Meanwhile, in Dublin, Ireland, European finance ministers approved a seven-year extension to the rescue loans for Ireland and Portugal. That is expected to ease the pressure on the two bailed-out countries to return to bond markets to finance themselves.

Earlier in Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 index retreated 0.5 percent to close at 13,485.14, a slip from the day before when the Tokyo benchmark closed above 13,500 for the first time since August 2008. The Nikkei has surged on the back of the Bank of Japan's aggressive new approach to jolting the world's third-largest economy out of a prolonged slump.

The dollar, which has been surging against the yen following the Bank of Japan's new policy prescription, gave up some recent gains, trading 0.8 percent lower at 98.90 yen. The yen's fall has been a key reason behind the Nikkei's advance as it potentially makes the country's exports cheaper in international markets.

Elsewhere, South Korea's Kospi tumbled 1.3 percent to 1,924.23, as jitters persisted over tensions on the Korean Peninsula. India's Sensex fell 1.5 percent to 18,269.16 while mainland Chinese shares were nearly unchanged. Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 0.1 percent to 22,089.05.

The price of oil was weaker, with the benchmark New York rate down $2.38 at $91.13 a barrel.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-retail-sales-drop-keeps-markets-check-130201544--finance.html

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Pre-caffeine tech: Google death, Bitcoin blah blah blah

Our pre-caffeine roundup is a collection of the hottest, strangest, and most amusing stories of the morning.

Good news everybody! Google wants to help you plan for your digital afterlife!

Looks like Twitter is fixin' to launch a music app, just in time for Coachella.

Nevermind Facebook! The Winklevi now own 1 percent of that Bitcoin everybody won't shut up about.

A San Diego man was arrested for using his phone to take video of a citation being issued to him after a police officer said phones "can be converted to weapons," and the man refused to surrender the device. Guess what happened next!

When you need to get from here to there, you may not always be able to rely on satellite signals like GPS to guide you.This incredibly tiny chip allows position to be tracked and determined, and can be embedded in the smallest of devices.

These Samsung Galaxy Mega phablets make iPhones look like Tic Tacs!

Adam Orth, the Microsoft executive who became Internet-famous last week after tweeting a series of harsh rejoinders against critics of the next Xbox's controversial 'always online' functionality, is no longer with the company.

And oh! Hey look! It's "Where'd You Go, Bernadette," A funny/dark novel about the disintegration of a Microsoft family.

In closing: 27 Reasons You Should Not Get a Cat.

Compiled by Helen A.S. Popkin, who invites you to join her on Twitter and/or Facebook.

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653377/s/2aa5b605/l/0L0Snbcnews0N0Ctechnology0Ctechnolog0Cpre0Ecaffeine0Etech0Egoogle0Edeath0Ebitcoin0Eblah0Eblah0Eblah0E1C93230A42/story01.htm

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শুক্রবার, ১২ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩

Blippy Team Launches Tophatter iPhone App With Surprisingly Fun Live Auctions

tophatter iphoneThe team behind share-your-purchase-information startup Blippy has started talking about its new direction. After pivoting from Blippy to another e-commerce project, it has pivoted again and is now working on a live auction website called Tophatter, and it launched an iPhone app today. Like Blippy, Tophatter is a social shopping product. The vision, according to CEO Ashvin Kumar and COO Andrew Blachman, is to bring a fun, personal touch back to online auctions ? the closest equivalents, Kumar said, aren't sites like eBay, but instead the Home Shopping Network and QVC.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/Fw0HY3etHIc/

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