SBYDOWNLOAD

Tara Reid says she once kissed Tom Brady.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 08:33:00 -0700

March 27 (UPI) -- Sharknado star Tara Reid opened up about the celebrities she had kissed while playing "60 Seconds of Kiss" during an Australian radio show Wednesday.
The 38-year-old actress was in a call with the Kyle & Jackie O Show when she was asked to partake in the kiss-and-tell game, in which the co-hosts would name celebrities and Reid had to answer whether she had kissed them or not.

When the name Tom Brady came up, Reid responded, "Have kissed," adding, "Yes, he's pretty good looking."

The New England Patriots quarterback and Reid were rumored to have dated for a brief time back in 2002. He eventually went on to marry Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen, with whom he has three children.

During the game Reid also denied having kissed her American Pie co-star Jason Biggs.

"No way," the actress said when Biggs' name was mentioned.

Reid will next star in the upcoming TV movie Sharknado 2: The Second One.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/2014/03/27/Tara-Reid-says-she-once-kissed-Tom-Brady/7391395948477/#ixzz2xGuajXnk

Linda Ikeji, and indigenous rap star, Olamide, are engaged in a bitter Twitter fight.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 08:22:00 -0700

Nigerian blogger, Linda Ikeji, and indigenous rap star, Olamide, are engaged in a bitter Twitter fight.

The bone of contention from all indications appears to have been provided by Linda Ikeji. The blogger had earlier reported a story that Olamide’s long-term girlfriend and baby-mama, Aisha is allegedly pregnant with another child.

Olamide however insists that the story is false, claiming that he is not yet a father, and that Linda’s story is unfounded and untrue. Fans of both parties have taken sides right now, with many tweeting in support of their camps.

Linda is notorious for getting into the bad books of celebrities, mostly due to what they term as ‘untrue or fake reporting’. Earlier this year, she had a bitter quarrel with Ghanaian actress, Yvonne Nelson.

Check out all the tweets in the gallery above.

Game of Thrones Actor Kristian Nairn Comes Out as Gay.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 14:06:00 -0700

rbidi="on">

Game of Thrones actor Kristian Nairn says he's gay and he's never hidden that fact.

Nairn, who plays gentle giant Hodor on the series, revealed his sexuality Tuesday in an interview with the website WinterIsComing.net. When asked about his character's popularity among gay fans, he replied, "Well, in all honesty, when you talk about 'the gay community,' you are talking about MY community, haha."

But the 38-year-old Irishman says he's always been open about who he is, even if GoT viewers (and reporters) never realized it.

"I've never hidden my sexuality from anyone, my whole life in fact, and I've been waiting for someone to ask about it in an interview, [because] it's not something you just blurt out," he continued. "I've tried to lead questions a few times, to no avail!"

Abigail Breslin

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 13:55:00 -0700

Abigail Kathleen Breslin is an American actress. She is one of the youngest actresses ever to be nominated for an Academy Award.

A native New Yorker born in that city in 1996, Breslin has been in front of the camera since the age of three, making commercials until eventually cast by Shyamalan to play Mel Gibson's daughter in Signs (2002).

Breslin's performance in Signs (2002) garnered her great praise and earned her work on television as well as additional movie roles, including in Raising Helen (2004), in which Breslin had the treat of acting alongside her real-life brother Spencer, and became friends with star Kate Hudson.
As she matured, she became a much sought after actor, and has gone on to win numerous awards for her performances, not to mention an Oscar nomination for her work in Little Miss Sunshine (2006).

Breslin has worked on stage as well, debuting in 2010 as Helen Keller in a revival of "The Miracle Worker."

In 2012, she was signed to an independent record label, and is now working on her debut album.

Date of Birth 14 April 1996 , New York City, New York, USA
Birth Name Abigail Kathleen Breslin
Nickname Abbie
Height 5' 1" (1.55 m).

Bayern Vs Arsenal.Lets predict.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 10 Mar 2014 15:31:00 -0700

Athletico vs Ac milan.Lets Predict,Who will win?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 10 Mar 2014 15:15:00 -0700

Missing Malaysia Airlines plane 'a mystery'.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 10 Mar 2014 14:51:00 -0700

Malaysia's civil aviation chief has said the fate of a missing Malaysia Airlines jet remains "a mystery".

Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said officials had not ruled out hijacking as a cause of the plane's disappearance.

The possible sighting of a yellow life raft was investigated on Monday, but was found to be an unrelated object.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 vanished from radar almost three days ago en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur, with 239 people on board.

Relatives of the missing passengers have been told to prepare for the worst.

Image released by Vietnam's civil aviation authority appears to show object in sea that officials say could be a fragment of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight.
Malaysian officials dismissed the reports of possible debris being spotted in the sea.
Relatives of passengers in Beijing
Relatives in Kuala Lumpur and Beijing are desperate for news of their loved ones.
Malaysia's armed forces chief also said they were co-operating with Chinese intelligence to identify the two passengers on board flight MH370 who were travelling on stolen passports.

Malaysia's acting transport minister, Hishamuddin Hussein, said all of the relevant information concerning those two passengers had now been passed on to the various national intelligence agencies which were investigating the matter.

Earlier, China said the Malaysian authorities needed to "step up their efforts" to find the missing jet which had more than 150 Chinese nationals on board.

"The Malaysian side attaches importance to the incident with a sincere attitude, but in light of the situation, the Malaysian side needs to step up their efforts," a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman told reporters at a regular news briefing, the AFP news agency reports. .

Commander William Marks from the US Seventh Fleet, which is taking part in the search, says he expects the plane's flight recorders to be floating in the water.

"In calm seas, if there were a soccer ball [football] or a basketball floating in the water, the radar could pick it up. They [flight recorders] typically have a radio beacon and so for example our P3 [radar] - if. they are flying within a certain range of that - will pick up that radio beacon. We have not yet picked up anything, but that's typically what those black boxes contain. ".

There are now 40 ships and 34 aircraft from nine different nations taking part in the search in the seas off Vietnam and Malaysia.

Late on Sunday, the Vietnamese authorities said two objects had been sighted in waters south of Vietnam which appeared to resemble aircraft parts, including a door.

The debris was in a similar area to a possible oil slick seen by Vietnamese navy planes on Saturday.

As Alice Budisatrijo reports, Vietnamese ships are on standby to help at a naval base on the island of Phu Quoc.
But Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said on Monday that this sighting had never been officially verified and could not be confirmed.

Samples of the oil had been collected and sent to a laboratory for analysis to see if it came from the plane, he said.

US Navy officials earlier said their aircraft had not seen any debris associated with commercial aircraft wreckage.

บันเทิง : ข่าวทั่วไป

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 10 Mar 2014 14:40:00 -0700

'บอม ธนิน'ซึม!รับเคยคบ'โฟกัส'จริง
'บอม ธนิน'รับเคยคบ'โฟกัส'จริง ลั่นขอโทษ อุบตอบเลิกกัน พร้อมขอปรับปรุงตัว

10 มี.ค.57 "บอม" ธนิน มนูญศิลป์ นักแสดงหนุ่มชื่อดัง "จากละครฮิตซีรี่ย์ "สุภาพบุรุษจุฑาเทพ" แถลงถึงกรณี "โฟกัส" จีระกุล อัดคลิปวิดีโอระบายความรู้สึก ตัดพ้อไม่ให้เกียรติ

โดยหนุ่มบอม เผยว่า ได้เห็นคลิปวิดีโอดังกล่าวแล้ว ทั้งนี้ หนุ่มบอม ยอมรับว่า เคยคบกับ "สาวโฟกัส" แต่ความสัมพันธ์ยังไม่ชัดเจน โดยยังไม่ได้มีการเคลียร์กับทาง "สาวโฟกัส" ตรงนี้หนุ่มบอม กล่าวขอโทษ และไม่มีเจตนาให้เกิดเรื่องไม่ดี ไม่มีเจตนาทำร้ายเขา ไม่ได้ตั้งใจทำให้เขาเสียใจ พร้อมขอโทษแฟนคลับทั้งของหนุ่มบอม และแฟนคลับของโฟกัสด้วย อีกทั้ง ขอให้เรื่องนี้จบ โดยไม่ขอตอบเรื่องของสาวโฟกัสอีก รับได้หากแฟนคลับแอนตี้ ทั้งนี้หนุ่มบอม ยังบอกว่า ขอปรับตัว

สำหรับ ธนิน มนูญศิลป์ หรือ บอมบ์ เกิดเมื่อวันที่ 3 เมษายน พ.ศ. 2533 มีพี่น้อง 3 คน เป็นผู้ชายทั้งหมด โดยเป็นคนกลาง จบการศึกษาชั้นมัธยมศึกษาตอนต้นจากโรงเรียนอัสสัมชัญศรีราชา มัธยมศึกษาตอนปลายจากโรงเรียนสาธิตพิบูลบำเพ็ญ มหาวิทยาลัยบูรพา ปัจจุบันสำเร็จการศึกษาระดับปริญญาตรีจากคณะบริหารธุรกิจ มหาวิทยาลัยอัสสัมชัญ

การเข้ามาสู่การเป็นนักแสดง ช่อง 3 ได้รับเชิญเล่นบทตำรวจในละครเรื่อง ลิขิตเสน่หา ซึ่งแม้จะออกมาแค่ไม่กี่ฉาก แต่ก็เป็นที่กล่าวถึงเป็นอย่างมาก ผลงานต่อมาก็รับเชิญบทคุณหมอ ในละครหนุ่มบ้านไร่กับหวานใจไฮโซ ที่ทันทีหนุ่ม บอมบ์ ธนิน ปรากฏตัวขึ้นบนหน้าจอโทรทัศน์ ในบทคุณหมอหล่อ..มาดเนี๊ยบ สาวน้อยสาวใหญ่ก็พากันถามเหมือนกันว่า "หมอคนนี้..เขาเป็นใครกัน?"

และผลงานที่คิดว่าน่าจะถือเป็นการแจ้งเกิดได้อย่างเต็มตัวก็คือการรับบทพระเอกในละครซีรีส์ชุด "สุภาพบุรุษจุฑาเทพ" ถือได้ว่าเป็นพระเอกที่สตาร์ท ความฮอตมาอย่างเงียบ ๆ แต่ก็แอบแรงแซงทุกโค้งเหมือนกัน สำหรับพระเอก "บอม ธนิน มนูญศิลป์" กับบทบาท คุณชายรัชชานนท์ ในละครเรื่องสุภาพบุรุษจุฑาเทพ ที่มสวมบทบาทคุณชายจอมดื้อ และจอมเจ้าชู้ได้อย่างสมบทบาท ขึ้นแท่นพระเอกป้ายแดงของช่อง3 ที่กำลังมาแรงสุดๆ อีกคน สำหรับ “บอมบ์ ธนิน มนูญศิลป์” พระเอกจากซีรีส์เรื่องดัง “สุภาพบุรุษจุฑาเทพ” ตอน คุณชายรัชชานนท์

Joran van der Sloot Will Face U.S. Charges in Natalee Holloway Case.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 10 Mar 2014 09:49:00 -0700

Joran van der Sloot, the longtime suspect in the 2005 disappearance in Aruba of American teen Natalee

Holloway, finally will face U.S. criminal charges in the case – but not until 2038, at least.

The expected ruling by Peru – made public and announced Sunday in the government's official gazette – requires van der Sloot to first complete his 28-year prison sentence there for the 2010 murder of a Peruvian woman. Only then will Peru extradite him to the United States, where he is accused of extortion for taking $25,000 from Holloway's mother, Beth, in exchange for information about Natalee's fate that proved false.

The undercover cat-and-mouse sting in the spring of 2010 was conducted by Holloway attorney John Q. Kelly, working with the FBI in Aruba, where Natalee Holloway infamously vanished on the final night of a high school graduation trip after she was last seen with van der Sloot.

For years the Dutch national has told shifting accounts of what happened that night, and in a final series of emails and conversations he initiated with Kelly, he vowed to come clean and identify the location of Natalee's remains buried in a house foundation.

In emails Kelly shared exclusively with PEOPLE, van der Sloot wrote on March 30, 2010: "I will do the right thing this situation hurts everyone involved and will continue to do so until it is over. I will take you to Natalee but I do not want it to be known the information came from me. In return I want to receive $250,000."

Disappeared with $25,000

Kelly traveled to Aruba to meet with van der Sloot and arranged a down payment of $25,000 from Beth Holloway. But once van der Sloot had the money in his account, he slipped off the island before he could be arrested. He eventually traveled to Peru, where he met Stephany Flores in a casino and killed her in his hotel room on the exact fifth anniversary of Holloway's May 30, 2005, disappearance.

Joran van der Sloot Will Face U.S. Charges in Natalee Holloway Case| Crime & Courts, Murder, True Crime, Joran van der Sloot, Natalee Holloway

Natalee Holloway

COURTESY OF BETH TWITTY / AP

The federal extortion charges were filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, where Beth Holloway was living, as Van der Sloot was under investigation for the Flores murder.

In one of their final email exchanges, van der Sloot wrote to Kelly on May 17, 2010: "Hey, after talking to my lawyer I will not be turning myself in. I did not tell you the truth so the information you have is worthless check it out all you want but it is not true. I will be in trouble if I do tell you the truth or worse my family will be hurt so I really hope this will all come to an end sooner then I think but I also promise I will tell you the truth if there is ever no more threat you have my word. … I'm sorry for making a fool out of you if that is why you think. I think you are a nice man and a man of your word and I am most definitely not. Take care. Joran."

In an interview last year with PEOPLE, Kelly said: "The $25,000 was Beth's money. She never thought giving him the money would lead her to her daughter. She thought it would lead to him being arrested and being extradited to the U.S. We never thought he would tell the truth or cooperate. The point was to get him on the extortion counts. That's what it was all about. But, he fell through the cracks, got out of Aruba, and used the 25 grand to go to Colombia and then Peru and kill someone."

"The story should be told now to show how bad he really is and how he tried to extort $250,000 from Natalee's mother and just deliberately tortured her for a large sum of money," he said. "We knew that if he took that money and the information was false, which we knew it would be, then he would be charged with these things."

A U.S. judge, acting on a request by Natalee's father Dave Holloway, eventually declared Natalee dead. A body has never been found.

Ariana Grande: Ballet With Chris Brown?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 10 Mar 2014 08:58:00 -0700

Ariana Grande broke out her ballet slippers to teach Chris Brown a thing or two. The two have been teasing music and lyrics back and forth via Twitter for a while now, causing fans to wonder what on earth is going on between the most unlikely pair.

Pretty much everyone knows by now that Grande and Brown are collaborating on something big–and it will likely result in a music video, given the recent hints the two have been dropping.

Ariana Grande’s manager Scooter Braun (yes, the very same Scooter Braun who also manages Justin Bieber) hinted recently about something big going on for Grande–calling it a ‘duet.’ Was he referring to Chris Brown?

Ariana Grande recently admitted that she loved getting back to ballet but that after years away from practicing, she was definitely feeling some pain.

Grande tweeted about that pain to her many fans.

Samsung Galaxy S5 vs. Galaxy Note 3.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 9 Mar 2014 15:06:00 -0700

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Samsung makes so many mobile devices, it's easy to lose track. But if you're looking for the company's two biggest and best flagships, then you'll want to track down the Galaxy S5 and Galaxy Note 3. How does Samsung's new top-tier smartphone compare to its primo phablet? Join Gizmag, as we compare the features and specs of the GS5 and Note 3.Samsung Galaxy S5 vs. Galaxy Note 3.

On the 17th anniversary of the tragic death of The Notorious B.I.G.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 9 Mar 2014 14:29:00 -0700

Exactly six months ago, with our November issue on its way to the printer, we received word that Tupac Shakur had died in Las Vegas after being shot in a drive-by. This time, again as the presses were about to roll, we were hit with more terrible news: Th e Notorious B.I.G., a.k.a. Biggie Smalls, born Christopher Wallace, had been shot and killed while driving away from a party cosponsored by VIBE at an L.A. nightclub.

This latest tragedy came a week after Death Row Records CEO Suge Knight had been sentenced to nine years in prison for parole violation. In just a few short months, two extraordinarily talented young men who were at the center of the stupid and overhyped rivalry between Death Row and Bad Boy, played out so extensively in our pages over the past year, were dead, and another was behind bars.http://sbydownload.blogspot.com

This month we had planned a special Sex issue, an exploration of matters of the heart and the flesh. It's our intention that VIBE cover the whole spectrum of urban culture, including the fun stuff. But as long as our icons keep dying in bursts of gunfire, that kind of fun needs to take a back seat so we can begin rebuilding. As soon as we heard about Biggie, we knew that this issue's cover had to change. The juxtaposition of these grim stories-Biggie's murder, Suge's incarceration-with the remnants of our Sex issue may seem strange, but it's no stranger than the situation we find ourselves in: We set out to write about sex but ended up, once again, having to confront death.

There's a wonderful diversity of individuals in the hip hop community, and in that diversity lies strength. We all need to come together and take responsibility for ourselves and for each other before more lives are lost. If we simply allow things to stay as they are, if we're afraid to take a moral stand, there will be blood on all of our hands. We have passed the point for words; now is the time for action and change.

Let us all pray that this is the last time we at VIBE have to cover the murders of our music's heroes.

Our deepest condolences go out to the Wallace family, Bad Boy Entertainment, and all of Biggie's fans.

--

Everything was looking good for Biggie Smalls on March 8. It was a warm and sunny L.A. Saturday, and he was chillin' like a star. The big man had spent much of the day with his agent, Phil Casey, discussing his upcoming tour with Dru Hill, BLACKstreet, and Heavy D. The day before, he'd presented a Soul Train Award to Toni Braxton before spending the evening in his plush hotel suite, watching the awards show on TV, and talking with a journalist about how far he'd come in his 24 years.

When Biggie showed up at the Peterson Automotive Museum in L.A.'s Mid-Wilshire district Saturday night for a party cosponsored by VIBE, Qwest Records, and Tanqueray, he was dipped in a black suede shirt, a gold chain with a Jesus pendant, and clear-framed wraparound shades. He looked confident and relaxed, a long black cane supporting the slight limp he'd acquired in an automobile accident six months before.

"The party was a nice scene, especially after the stress of the Soul Train Awards," said Kevin Kim, security guard for Big's ex-wife, Faith Evans. "Nothing but celebs there, people having a good time. Everybody was dancin' together; artists hugging each other, congratulating each other on the awards they won." Shortly before midnight, the DJ blew up the spot with Big's new single, "Hypnotize."

"I was sitting across from Biggie for most of the night," said Def Jam president and CEO Russell Simmons. "I was throwin' paper at him, tellin' him how much I liked his record. These girls were dancin' for him, and he was just sittin' there, not even movin' his cane. I told him I wanted to be like him. He was so cool, so funny and calm."

At around 12:35 a.m., fire marshals shut down the party, apparently because of overcrowding. People filed out into the parking structure connected to the museum and found their rides. After bumping some tracks from his then unreleased album, Life After Death:'Til Death Do Us Part , Biggie got into the front-passenger seat of a GMC Suburban. His man D-Rock was driving. Little Caesar from Junior M.A.F.I.A., Big's own lyrical cartel, was in the back. When they turned out of the lot onto Fairfax, they were traveling in a line of three cars. Directly in front of them was another Suburban containing members of Biggie's entourage; behind them, a Blazer with personal security guards.

According to police, the three cars had slowed to a stop at the first intersection, Fairfax and Wilshire, when a dark sedan pulled up along the right-hand side of Biggie's vehicle and someone fired six to 10 shots from a 9mm weapon. Biggie lost consciousness immediately after being shot. He was rushed to nearby Cedars-Sinai Hospital and pronounced dead at 1:15 a.m. Bad Boy Entertainment president Puffy Combs and Faith were both at the hospital when the announcement was made.

The LAPD's Lt. Ross Moen said that the Blazer with Big's security guards chased the dark sedan for a couple of blocks but lost sight of it without getting a license plate number. At press time, the department had assigned 22 detectives to the case and was interviewing 200 witnesses. According to Moen, they had some solid leads but could describe the suspect only as "male, black, early twenties."

"We're not ruling out the fact that this was possibly a hit," said Moen at a press conference the day after the murder. "We're investigating possible connections to other murders in New York, Atlanta, and L.A. We can't ignore the fact that there have been a number of murders involving rap singers recently." Moen said also that they were looking into the possibility of the killing being gang-related, but he wouldn't elaborate.

"This was a hit, something preplanned," said one Compton resident a day after the murder. "And there's going to be a few more hits." According to another source, the hit was pulled off by gang members who came to the party in the entourage of a well-known rap artist and coordinated the shooting over cell phones. Another report put an individual outside the party with a cell phone saying, "He's comin' out now," as Biggie left the party.

Various industry insiders have speculated that the killing had more to do with personal beefs than with rap itself, but that it's now spilling over into the music. "Puffy thought it was all calmed down out here," says Phil Casey. "But at Soul Train there were boos, and they were throwin' up Westside from the balcony. That should have been a sign right there."

Sources close to Bad Boy and Death Row dismissed widespread speculation that Wallace's slaying was payback for Tupac's murder. "It's ludicrous for anyone out there to blame Death Row," said Norris Anderson, who took over as label head after Suge Knight wa s jailed. "We do not condone this activity, and Death Row certainly had nothing to do with it."

"It didn't have nothin' to do with East-West rivalry, but it does now," says one former Death Row artist. "I heard somebody say it's over now. How can it be? Now you're gonna have muthafuckas from the East who gonna just start to shoot at muthafuckas from the West. It shouldn't have to be this way;doesn't make no goddamn sense."

--

September 27, 1994; nightfall
Brooklyn, N.Y.
"Whatup?"

The Notorious B.I.G. sits on the front stoop of a brownstone near the corner of St. James Place and Fulton Street in Do-or-Die-Bed-Stuy. His first album, Ready to Die (which would eventually go double platinum), has been in stores for just over a week, and already every car that passes seems to be playing a different cut. Today Brooklyn; tomorrow-who knows?

As twilight slips into darkness, Big calmly recounts his life story in the same ultrarealistic terms that made his album so damn compelling. As he talks of his own criminal days-doing everything from subway robberies to selling crack to pregnant moms-his eyes begin to fire up. Not with anger, but as if he's watching each episode unfold with the telling.

"When I say I'm Ready to Die, people may be, like, `Oh, he's on some killing himself shit,' " says Biggie. "That's not what I meant." He pulls out a lighter, flicks it, and brings the flame up toward his lips, where a tightly rolled blunt awaits his attention.

"I meant that I was willing to go all out a hundred percent as far as the music was concerned. When I was hustlin', I was doing that shit every day-waking up, putting drugs in my pocket, and not even thinking about the police, stickup men, or my competition. I was riskin' my life, so that meant I was ready to die."

Even at this early stage of his career, it was already clear that Brooklyn couldn't contain Biggie much longer. "Juicy," one of the weaker tracks on the album, was leaping the Billboard charts with alarming speed. The cream of his dreams was within reach: fantasy houses in the country, girls in the pool. And then what?

As he talks, Biggie's eyes suddenly widen with fear. He actually seems frightened at the thought of leaving Brooklyn.

"How real can your music be if you wake up in the morning hearing birds and crickets? I never hear birds when I wake up. Just a lot of construction work, the smell of Chinese takeout, children screaming, and everybody knocking a different track from Ready to Die as they pass down the street," he says. "Brooklyn is the love borough. Everywhere you go, we're already there."

I ask if it's true that he's just gotten married. Biggie turns his head from the street and looks into my eyes before telling me about Faith. "When you start hustlin', you get introduced to shit real fast," he says. "You be gettin' pussy real quick, because you be fuckin' the users sometimes. I done had every kind of bitch. Young bitch, old bitch, users, mothers, grandmothers, dumb bitches-and I never, ever met no girl like my wife. She talks to me like nobody else talked to me before. When I first saw her, she was killing me with those eyes. I rolled up to her and said, You're the type of girl I would marry. She said, `Why don't you?' So I was like, Fuck it, it's on. We had only known each other eight days."

I ask him if that wasn't kind of soon. "She ain't speaking to me right now," he says with a smile, "but it's all good."

When we met again almost three years later, Big and Faith's marriage wasn't all good. They had been involved in a messy separation that got played out in the press. Tupac's B-side "Hit 'Em Up," in which he called Big a "fat muthafucka" and claimed to have slept with Faith, couldn't have helped them work things out.

Biggie clears up the misinformation in matter-of-fact tones: "People was like, `When she stopped fuckin' with Big, she started fuckin' with Tupac, and Big started fuckin' with Lil' Kim.' That's the summary of the Biggie Smalls/ Faith shit right there. But we wasn't fuckin' with each other way before the rumors popped off.

"I married her after knowing her eight days and I was happy," he says. "That was my baby. At the same time, with us being so spontaneous, we did it backwards. Maybe she won't admit it, but I will. We should have got to know each other and then got married . The relationship kind of dissolved, but we're still going to be friends. I love her. We have a baby together, and we're always gonna love our kids. Who knows? Ten years from now we might even get back together."

I ask the baby's name. "Christopher Jordan Wallace," Big proudly replies. And what of his sarcastic comments on wax, like the line on "Brooklyn's Finest," his duet with Jaÿ-Z? "If Fay has twins, she'll probably have two pacs. Get it? Tu...Pac's."

Biggie laughs deep, long, and hard. "I got to make jokes about the shit," he says, his stomach damn near jiggling. "I can't be the nigga running around all serious. The shit is so funny to me because nobody will ever know the truth. They'll always believe what they want to believe. 'Pac says he fucked her. I asked Faith, You fucked him? She said no. I can't get to ask him about it. So am I gonna hate her for the rest of her life thinking she did something, or am I gonna be a man about the situation? If she did it, she can't do it no more, so let's just get on with our lives. I hold grudges but I can't hate nobody, that's not my nature."

--

Born Christopher Wallace to Jamaican parents, the man who would one day call himself the Notorious B.I.G. had strikes against him from the moment he checked into this world on May 21, 1972.

His father left his mother when he was just one and a half. Other than pictures in a scrapbook, Biggie had no tender memories of him. "I didn't know him and I don't want to know him," he says coldly. "Moms should have just pushed him off and not even had me if he wasn't going to handle his business. I couldn't even speak to him. I don't need that cocksucker for nothing."

So little Christopher grew up with his mother in Brooklyn and spent the first 22 years of his life on St. James Place. Working two jobs and attending night school, Voletta Wallace remained a stable presence in her son's life. She tried her best to shield her sensitive, introspective child from the streets.

The only problem was that nobody was protecting the streets from young Wallace. Way before he hooked up with Puff Daddy, Biggie already had visions of becoming a bad boy. "I was a sneaky motherfucker, I guess," he says with a laugh. "I was real, real bad. You know what made it worse? Motherfuckers would tell my mother that I did something, and she just wouldn't believe them. `Not my Christopher,' she would say."

One of Big's earliest interests was art; but growing up young, black, and poor, he found there was little he could do in that field that would change his everyday reality. "Back in third grade they used to say, `Take whatever talent you have and think of something you can do with it,' " he recalls. "I liked to draw, but what could I do with it? Maybe I could be an art dealer-nah, can't see myself doing that. Maybe I could do commercial arts? But once I got introduced to the crack game-commercial arts? Please."

At 13, he was schooled in the game by a member of the Junior M.A.F.I.A. clique (the street gang the rap group took their name from), and things started rolling quickly. In the space of a few weeks he went from begging his mother for ice cream money to never having less that $700 in his pocket, and all the designer gear he could imagine.

Stolen Passports Deepen Mystery of Missing Malaysian Jet.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 9 Mar 2014 10:34:00 -0700

Oil slicks signaled that a missing Malaysian Airline System Bhd. jet may have crashed in the Gulf of Thailand even as the mystery surrounding the plane deepened with the discovery that two passengers used stolen passports.

An air search resumed today after Vietnam's military said it found twin sheens as long as 15 kilometers (9 miles) off the country's south coast yesterday. That may mark the first clue in the disappearance of Flight 370 and the 239 people on board the Boeing Co. 777-200 en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur.

More from Bloomberg.com: Stolen Passports Deepen Mystery of Missing Malaysian Jet

Six nations hunting for the plane had little to go on, with no distress calls, emergency-beacon signals, bad weather or other signs why a cruising airliner would lose touch in one of the safest phases of flight. The prospect of terrorism arose after Austria and Italy said two passengers used passports stolen from their nationals, both men. The stolen passports are being probed and investigations are following all angles, Malaysia's Department of Civil Aviation said today.

"It is very puzzling right now," said John Cox, an accident investigator and chief executive officer at Safety Operating Systems in Washington. "We have conflicting very early lines of evidence."

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There is no indication of terrorism at this point, said a U.S. official following the case who asked not to be identified because the investigation is still in its early stages. The U.S. is working with authorities in the region to explore all possible causes, the official said.

Oil Slicks
The oil-slick sightings have not yet been verified and no evidence of the missing airliner has been found, Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, director-general of the Department of Civil Aviation, said at a briefing today. Search teams are still unable locate the missing aircraft, the airline said today.

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The stolen Austrian passport used to board Flight 370 was from a 30-year-old who reported the theft in 2012 in Thailand, while the Italian was Luigi Maraldi, who disclosed the theft of his documents in August, according to the countries' foreign ministries. Neither man was on the jet, their governments said.

The missing plane was a code-share service with China Southern Airlines Co, which said today it sold seven tickets on the flight, including to people of Austrian and Italian nationality, according to the company's microblog. When asked about the two passengers who boarded the flight with stolen passports, Chairman Si Xianmin told reporters in Beijing today: "The key is with border control and immigration departments on the ground."

‘Highly Suspicious'
An over-water disappearance and stolen passports "raised huge red flags," said John Magaw, a former top U.S. law enforcement and transportation-security official who now works as a consultant. "Those two things right there are highly, highly, highly suspicious."

While the airborne search was halted when darkness fell late yesterday, warships and other vessels continued the hunt even as the passing of more than a day since air controllers lost contact dimmed hopes of avoiding a tragedy.

Malaysia is "sparing no efforts to galvanize the resources within its disposal in the ongoing search and rescue efforts," the foreign ministry said in a statement. The government created a special center to coordinate its crisis response.

Flight 370 departed the Malaysian capital at about 12:41 a.m. local time yesterday and was scheduled to land in Beijing at 6:30 a.m. Security screening was performed as normal at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd. said in a statement.

Passengers, Crew
On board the twin-engine wide-body were 227 passengers and 12 crew members, with Chinese travelers -- 153, including an infant -- accounting for the largest group of nationals, the airline said. Also on the plane were three U.S. citizens, according to the U.S. State Department. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is monitoring the situation.

China, Vietnam, the Philippines, the U.S. and Singapore are assisting Malaysia, with the destroyer Pinckney from the U.S. Navy's 7th Fleet among vessels in the hunt. President Barack Obama was briefed while on a weekend family vacation in Key Largo, Florida, said Josh Earnest, a White House spokesman.

"We believe it is too early to comment on the causes of this incident," said Caitlin Hayden, a National Security Council spokeswoman. "The United States government is in communication across agencies and with international officials to provide any appropriate assistance in the investigation."

The oil slicks discovered by Vietnamese military aircraft were about 140 kilometers south of Tho Chu Island in a body of water known as the Gulf of Thailand, off the South China Sea. Its maximum depth is about 80 meters (.05 mile), according to Thailand's Department of Marine and Coastal Resources.

Watery Grave
If terrorism was involved, a watery grave for the plane may not be a coincidence, said consultant Magaw, who formerly was director of the U.S. Secret Service and led the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives as well as the Transportation Security Administration. Bringing down a jet at sea helps obscure any evidence, he said.

The presence of two passengers with stolen passports is an indicator of possible terrorism, said Magaw, citing intelligence warnings that multiple attackers may seek to elude detection by smuggling different parts of bombs onto planes and then assembling the pieces in bathrooms.

Malaysia immigration officers check foreign passports with biometric features by swiping outbound travelers' documents to see details of their histories and check thumbprints and faces against on-screen photo identifications, said an immigration official at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

Slow System
When the system isn't working, is slow or freezes, officers enter passport details manually to verify a traveler without taking a thumbprint, said the official, who asked not to be identified because of a lack of authorization to speak publicly.

Information is keyed in manually for passports without the biometric enhancements, the official said. Outbound visitors' passports also are checked to ensure that they show stamps proving entry into Malaysia, said the official, who was commenting on procedures in general, not Flight 370.

U.S. officials will work closely with counterparts in China and Malaysia to unravel the mystery, and a particular focus will be on how airport checkpoints worked and whether fliers' shoes were scanned properly for explosives, said Kip Hawley, a former chief of the U.S. Transportation Security Administration who is now a consultant.

Last Communication
Malaysia's last communication with the jet, just before a handoff to Vietnamese authorities, was "normal," according to Azharuddin, director general of the Department of Civil Aviation. Contact was lost a minute before the plane entered Vietnam's airspace, its government said on its website.

The plane disappeared from Malaysian radar at 1:30 a.m. The carrier said the last radar contact with the plane was about 120 nautical miles east of Kota Bahru, near the South China Sea.

Malaysian Air will set up a command center at Kota Bahru, or in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam as soon as the location of the aircraft is established, the airline said today. A disaster-recovery management specialist from Atlanta will be helping the company, it said.

FlightAware, a Houston-based compiler of global air-traffic information, gave the jet's last known altitude as 35,000 feet, as it flew a northeasterly course at 539 mph. Such an airspeed and altitude would be typical of a 777 in cruise mode.

The sudden loss of a plane may suggest a mid-air breakup, which could be caused by a structural failure or an explosion, including one triggered by a bomb, said Cox, the Washington-based accident investigator. A violent breakup would shred the jet into pieces, many of them small and light enough to float, creating a prominent debris field.

Pilot Error
Cox said he was unaware of any reports of such wreckage. A plane descending intact after an inflight emergency, whether caused by mechanical failure or pilot error, would leave less surface debris and be harder to spot, he said. In those cases, the crew typically would have time to radio a distress call.

Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, and First Officer Fariq Ab. Hamid, 27, were the pilots, according to an airline statement. The captain had 18,365 flying hours and joined the company in 1981, while his first officer had 2,763 hours of flying. The first officer joined the Subang Jaya-based airline in 2007.

Boeing's 777 has been involved in only three accidents serious enough to destroy a plane. The only fatalities occurred in last year's Asiana Airlines Inc. crash in San Francisco, where investigators have focused on pilot error. The Chicago-based company is assembling a team to provide technical aid.

Malaysian Airline's 777-200 was 11 years and 10 months old and had fuel to fly to Beijing and beyond, Malaysian Airline Chief Executive Officer Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said.

Mexico Fetes Cuaron's Oscars, but Filmmakers Keep Feet on Ground.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 7 Mar 2014 13:59:00 -0800

MEXICO CITY — As Mexico basks in the glow of its first best director Oscar for Alfonso Cuaron and his blockbuster film Gravity, a new generation of homegrown filmmakers wonders if the magic of the golden statuette will rub off on them.

Cuaron's 3D space thriller scooped seven Oscars, the most of any film on Sunday, and was lauded for groundbreaking special effects conveying space and weightlessness, though it lost the best picture award to drama 12 Years a Slave.

The movie, which stars Sandra Bullock as an astronaut cut loose from her space shuttle, has already earned $700 million at the worldwide box office and Cuaron's win is the first Best Director Oscar for a Latin American.

However, the 52-year-old Cuaron has spent most of his career outside Mexico, after he struggled to raise financing for projects back home, and fellow leading directors Guillermo Del Toro and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu also both moved abroad.

Back in his homeland, a new generation of Mexican directors has been quick to point out Cuaron's work has had little to do with the domestic industry. Gravity was made for an estimated $100 million by Warner Bros. Pictures, while directors in Mexico have to scramble to drum up just $2 million for a film.

Many Mexican independent filmmakers have had more commercial success abroad than in their home country, where filmmakers complain they can't compete against the big budgets of Hollywood studios, whose films dominate screens at cinemas.

“The only place where you cannot see Mexican film is in Mexico,” said Ivan Avila Duenas, who debuted his fourth feature film at the National Autonomous University of Mexico's International Film Festival, FICUNAM, on Sunday.

Though Cuaron cut his teeth in Mexico, most of his best known works have been Hollywood-backed projects.

In the 1990s, he left Mexico to work in the United States, then Britain, and became more known for his movie adaptations of British authors, including the third installment of J.K. Rowling's work, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, as well as P.D. James' dystopian Children of Men.

Ironically, success abroad enabled Cuaron to direct with bigger budgets in Mexico, where his 2001 Spanish-language road trip film Y Tu Mama Tambien, helped launch the international careers of actors Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna.

When Cuaron scored his first hit in the 1990s, Mexican film output was anemic, with only 10 or so films a year. Last year yielded over 100, aided by tax breaks for corporate sponsors and co-productions between Mexican and foreign companies.

Not Made in Mexico

Cuaron's fellow expatriates Del Toro and Inarritu, to whom he paid tribute in his Oscar acceptance speech, have also both been backed by big U.S. studios.

The fact is not lost on those still working in Mexico.

“These three do not make Mexican film. They do not make their film in the Mexican system and their themes do not result from living here in the society where the rest of us live,” said Julian Hernandez, whose brooding, homoerotic films have won international awards and foreign distribution, but which have seen little commercial success in conservative Mexico.

“This makes us all happy, to see a Mexican recognized,” Hernandez said. “But this doesn't mean that it will get any better for Mexican cinema.”

Since the “three amigos” - Cuaron, Del Toro and Inarritu - rose to international fame, another generation of filmmakers has matured and won a string of international awards.

But the new crop have struggled to achieve the same level of box office success and support from Hollywood.

Mexico's art-scene directors have won honors at the world's top festivals in Cannes, Berlin and Venice, with gritty, personal visions that mix elements of fiction and documentary.

Mexican drama Despues de Lucia, or After Lucia, by writer-director Michel Franco, took the top prize in Cannes Film Festival's Un Certain Regard category in 2012.

And the minimalist films of festival favorites Carlos Reygadas and Amat Escalante, who won the best director award in Cannes last year, star non-actors in fictional tales. Last month, Alonso Ruizpalacios won Berlin's best first feature award with his debut Gueros.

Meanwhile, other directors like Eugenio Polgovsky and Juan Carlos Rulfo have pushed the boundaries of documentaries.

“The challenge is getting more of these movies actually distributed and released,” said Robert Koehler, a Los Angeles-based film critic with publication Cinema Scope, who argued that filmmakers should look at Gravity “as the Trojan horse for importing Mexican cinema into the United States.”

After more than a decade of growing critical success, the local industry is finally scoring some big commercial hits.

Last year saw two box office records for local films, first with Nosotros los Nobles (We Are the Nobles) a comedy that lampoons Mexico's upper class, that made over $26 million.

It was followed by Instructions Not Included, which starred TV comic Eugenio Derbez as an Acapulco playboy forced to raise a baby dumped on his doorstep.

Instructions nearly doubled Nobles domestic take and went on to become the top grossing Spanish-language film in the United States, with a worldwide take of over $85 million.

Speaking backstage after winning, Cuaron said he hoped his success would spur more interest in other Mexican filmmakers.

“I don't think there is enough attention paid to Mexican culture and what is happening in Mexico,” he said.

David Moyes thanks Man Utd fans for support in 'difficult' season.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 7 Mar 2014 13:42:00 -0800

Manchester United manager David Moyes has thanked the club's fans for their loyalty in what he admits has been a "difficult" first season.
Moyes succeeded Sir Alex Ferguson, who ended his 26 years as United boss by winning a 13th league title, on 1 July.
United lie seventh after only 13 wins from 27 Premier League games.
“
I have absolutely no doubt we will see great winning sides here again
”
David Moyes
In a magazine sent to United season ticket holders, Moyes wrote: "The difficult season we have experienced was not something that I envisaged."

Moyes, 50, replaced fellow Glaswegian Ferguson, who won 38 trophies during his reign at Old Trafford, which also included two Champions League crowns, five FA Cups and four League Cups.
United lost only five league games in their title-winning season of 2012-13, but have already lost eight times in the current campaign, including home defeats by West Brom, Everton, Newcastle and Tottenham.
They were also beaten 2-1 at home by Swansea in the FA Cup third round and are trailing 2-0 after the first leg of their last-16 Champions League tie with Olympiakos.
"You are accustomed to seeing a successful Manchester United and the backing you have given the players and me throughout the season has been incredible," Moyes continued in his letter.
"Away from home the travelling fans have remained the best in the country, while at Old Trafford your unwavering faith has been noticeable and hugely welcomed.
"Supporting your team when they are winning is easy, but much harder when things are not going as well, and the loyalty you have shown us has been magnificent.
"I have absolutely no doubt we will see great winning sides here again."
Moyes, who began his managerial career at Preston before spending 11 years with Everton, added: "Everything we have been through will make us a better, stronger team and club in the future."

Lionel Messi sees specialists after vomiting during games.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 7 Mar 2014 13:35:00 -0800

Barcelona star Lionel Messi has been to see medical experts after vomiting during recent matches.
Messi, 26, was sick on the field during Argentina's midweek draw in Romania.
"Something is not right, but it doesn't affect his performance. It happens to him regularly," said Barcelona boss Gerardo Martino before Saturday's match at Valladolid.
Magic Messi at Barcelona
Debut: 16 October 2004 against Espanyol

Games: 403

Goals: 340

Club honours: 6 La Liga titles, 3 Champions League titles, 2 Spanish Cups, 2 Uefa Super Cups, 6 Spanish Super Cups, 2 Fifa Club World Cups

Individual honours: Ballon d'Or (2009, 2010, 2011, 2012)

"But it isn't a cause for concern. It doesn't affect him at all in terms of doing his job."
The four-time Ballon d'Or winner also appeared to vomit on the pitch during half-time of Argentina's friendly against Bolivia in March 2013.
It has been previously reported that he has been sick during matches for the Spanish champions.
"He has even gone to see specialists at certain times but their tests have proved inconclusive," added Martino.
Meanwhile, the Barca coach says skipper Carles Puyol, who will leave the Nou Camp at the end of the current season, is irreplaceable.
The 35-year-old Spain defender has made 593 appearances for the reigning La Liga champions since making his senior debut in 1999.
"I've only worked with him for seven or eight months, but that's enough to say what I said," said the Argentine.
"He is the type of player that a club has only once every so often. Life goes on at Barcelona, and the club will look for a replacement, but he'll always be in everyone's heads because he leaves an indelible mark."

Jack Wilshere: Arsene Wenger backs midfielder's World Cup bid.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 7 Mar 2014 13:31:00 -0800

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger will do "absolutely everything" to ensure Jack Wilshere is fit for the World Cup.
The midfielder, 22, was ruled out for eight weeks after breaking a bone in his left foot during England's 1-0 win over Denmark on Wednesday.
England's World Cup campaign begins against Italy on 14 June.
Games Wilshere is likely to miss
Jack Wilshere

8 March Everton (FA Cup, home)
11 March Bayern Munich (Champions League, away)
16 March Tottenham (away)
22 March Chelsea (away)
25 March Swansea (home)
29 March Manchester City (home)
6 April Everton (away)
13 April West Ham (home)
19 April Hull City (away)
"To go to a World Cup for a player is immense and I will do absolutely everything so that he can get there," said Wenger.
Wenger expects fellow midfielders Kim Kallstrom and Aaron Ramsey to be fit within a week.
Ramsey last played on 26 December, while Kallstrom has yet to feature since joining on loan in January.
Wilshere sustained the injury early on in the win over the Danes in what Wenger believes was an "accidental" challenge by Liverpool's Daniel Agger.
A six-week absence was diagnosed but Wenger expects a further two will be needed to recapture full fitness, though he believes a place in Roy Hodgson's England squad for the World Cup is not in jeopardy for Wilshere.
"A fracture is a fracture, it is not muscular or a ligament," said Wenger, 64. "Once it is healed, you do not have to have any restriction in your preparation."
Wilshere, who missed Euro 2012 with an ankle injury, made his senior debut in 2010 but has only earned 15 caps, with injuries limiting his opportunities with the national side.
Wilshere impact
In 23 league appearances this season, Wilshere has scored three times for Arsenal. He has made four assists, half that of Mesut Ozil, who has created more goals for the Gunners than any player in their 2013-14 campaign.

Hodgson will name a 23-man squad and seven back-up players on 13 May, but Wilshere will miss key games for Arsenal before then.
After Saturday's FA Cup quarter-final against Everton, Arsenal face Bayern Munich in the second leg of their Champions League tie.
The third-placed Gunners also face Premier League fixtures against Tottenham, Manchester City and leaders Chelsea in March as they seek to close a four-point gap on Jose Mourinho's side.
In his news conference ahead of this weekend's cup tie against the Toffees, Wenger also revealed Ramsey and Santi Cazorla are "very close" to signing new contracts.
The pair would join Tomas Rosicky and Per Mertesacker in committing their future to the Gunners

Arsenal keeper Lukasz Fabianski likely to leave - Arsene Wenger.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 22 Feb 2014 05:45:00 -0800

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger says goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski is likely to leave the club this summer.
The 28-year-old Poland international has made only 31 league appearances in seven seasons at Emirates Stadium.
He is out of contract at the end of the season and has turned down a new deal.
Wenger said: "Of course it is a possibility that it is his last campaign with us because he wants to play somewhere but if he changes his mind, my door is open."

Fabianski, who signed from Legia Warsaw in 2007, is second choice at Arsenal to fellow Pole Wojciech Szczesny, five years his junior.
He has made six appearances this season, all in cups, with the most recent coming from the bench on Wednesday against Bayern Munich after Szczesny was sent off.
Earlier this month, Fabianksi said: "I want to be number one in the club and in the Polish national team. I have learned a lot at London during very positive and challenging periods.
"With biggest respect to this great club, I didn't accept the extension offer as I am looking forward to a new challenge in England or abroad."

Wayne Rooney: Man Utd striker signs new £300k-a-week deal.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 22 Feb 2014 05:24:00 -0800

Manchester United have confirmed that striker Wayne Rooney has signed a new five-and-a-half-year contract.
The 28-year-old England international has extended his current contract by four years in a deal worth up to £300,000 a week.
Rooney told his website: "I'm happy everything is now finalised and I can carry on concentrating on my football."

Analysis
Image of Phil McNulty
Phil McNulty
Chief football writer
"Manchester United's decision to award Wayne Rooney the most expensive long-term contract in the club's history is more than about just keeping one of their most influential players at Old Trafford.

"This is about a demonstration - some might even say desperation - to show that United under David Moyes can still keep their best players even at a time when their own status in the domestic and European game is reduced, no matter how temporarily."

Rooney moved from Everton in 2004 and is 42 goals shy of passing Sir Bobby Charlton's record of 249 United goals.
He has scored 208 goals in 430 games in all competitions for the Red Devils, and will be 33 at the end of his new deal. He will become a club ambassador when he retires from the game.
Rooney said of potentially breaking Charlton's record: "This is definitely something I would like to achieve. If I managed to do it it'd be something I'd be very proud of. My aim is always to score and create as many goals as possible, so if I can continue to score regularly and break the record then I would be delighted."
Manchester United boss David Moyes added on United's website: "I said last July that Wayne has an outstanding chance to be a true legend of this club's long and rich history. He is just 42 goals away from overtaking Sir Bobby as our record goalscorer and becoming the first United player to hit 250 goals for the club.
"These opportunities only come to special players and I'm confident Wayne will set a new record that will take decades to reach."
Rooney, whose previous £250,000-a-week deal would have expired next year, had looked set to leave Old Trafford last summer after former United manager Sir Alex Ferguson claimed he had asked for a transfer - something the player denied.
Chelsea had more than one bid for him rejected but new boss Moyes insisted he wanted to keep his former Everton player at Old Trafford.
The new deal involves a basic wage of £250,000 a week, but with commercial rights making it more lucrative for the player, up to £300,000.
Moyes told BBC Sport: "We always felt Wayne wanted to stay. He's a great player and hopefully we can keep him at a really high level which he has showed this season.
"We're all delighted. It's part of the rebuilding and part of it is also to make sure you keep the players you really want to keep.
Analysis
Image of David Bond
David Bond
BBC sports editor
"The record signing of Juan Mata from Chelsea in January was the first part of what Woodward and Moyes hope will be a three-step strategy back to the top.

"Rooney's new deal is part two while the summer is phase three. That's when we will really be able to judge how serious the owners are about rebuilding United's under-powered squad.

"Mata's arrival and Rooney's decision to stay - having been courted first by Manchester City and more recently Chelsea - will surely help the club attract top talent before the start of next season."

Read more from David Bond
"Everybody would want him, you could see the clubs who did want him but there was never a chance he was going to leave Manchester United, certainly not on my watch."
It seems likely that next season will be Rooney's first out of the Champions League since his move from Goodison Park 10 years ago.
United are 11 points off the top four, although they could still qualify by winning this season's tournament.
But Rooney said he was not concerned, preferring to concentrate on the club's long-term future.
The Liverpudlian said: "I know that's what some of the press thought but it's not a massive concern for me. This is because I know the direction that this club is going in, and if we don't make it this season then we will come back stronger and claim a Champions League spot next season.
"Let's not forget we still have a chance this year, some of the other teams are playing well but we have a strong squad here and if we have a positive end to the season then who knows what can happen."
Rooney has won five Premier League titles and the Champions League in his time at Old Trafford.
The forward, who returned to first-team action at the end of January after nearly a month out with an injury, has made 28 club appearances this season and scored 11 goals.

Obama: Time to Give America a Raise.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 22 Feb 2014 05:18:00 -0800

U.S. President Barack Obama says restoring the idea of opportunity for everyone requires a year of action from every American, and 2014 is that year.

Obama said in his weekly address Saturday, his recent action included a new requirement that federal contractors paid their employees at least $10.10 an hour.

President Obama said in the year since he asked Congress to raise the minimum wage, six states have passed laws to raise theirs, and more states were working on it.

Watch President Obama's weekly address:

The U.S. leader said there was a bill before Congress that would boost America's minimum wage without requiring any new taxes.

The president said even though Democrats, Independents and many Republicans supported raising the minimum wage, Republicans in Congress did not want to give it a vote.

In the Republican address, Representative Tom Cotton of Arkansas said President Obama's policies spend too much money and concentrate power in Washington. He also said Republicans wanted to repair the damage he said the president has inflicted on the country.

Can Arsenal answer Liverpool questions in FA Cup reunion?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 15 Feb 2014 05:25:00 -0800

Arsene Wenger admitted the scale of Arsenal's Premier League defeat at Liverpool raised questions about his team - questions he must answer when they meet again in the FA Cup fifth round at The Emirates on Sunday.
Liverpool will enter the latest meeting high on confidence after a victory of such significance, but how will Gunners' manager Wenger go about turning the tide and how will Brendan Rodgers attempt to shape a similar outcome?

Rodgers described Liverpool's display in the 5-1 at Anfield as "breathtaking" and BBC Sport pundit Pat Nevin believes Wenger will demand crucial alterations from his side on Sunday.
Play media

'Passive' Arsenal were poor - Wenger
He said: "Wenger will undoubtedly have had a real good look at where they went wrong - and they went wrong in a lot of places. He will know already that Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge are rather good and Raheem Sterling is ridiculously quick.
"And the weakness was that they all pushed up, didn't close down in the midfield and played slightly too high. You can't do that against Liverpool because they will destroy you. Arsenal will know that now.
"Arsenal must make sure the central midfield area is really, really tight. It is the most dangerous area in football and Wenger will know he needs to kill that space.
"Mathieu Flamini is available after suspension and he will be completely and utterly vital. They have to be totally concentrated. At the moment against Liverpool you would have a number of fears, like the pace of Sterling and the quality of other players. You cannot give them space in the little areas between the lines.
"Wenger will play Flamini and he will presumably make sure that the person he puts in beside him does not get drawn forward because Liverpool want you to do that."
Nevin believes Wenger will also be making a crucial psychological points to his players, adding: "Arsenal have really had a great season, they're pretty high up in the league but anyone who bothered to look ahead to what February and March looked like would have realised it was going to be one hell of an effort to keep it all going.
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'Breathtaking' display delights Rodgers
"What he has to say is 'look at the season we have had'. Let's remember they are higher up the league than Liverpool. It was one result and they could even make the argument that from 20 minutes onward they drew 1-1."
Nevin believes Liverpool now present a different tactical conundrum for teams, one Wenger will be only too aware of after that Anfield mauling.
He said: "I believe Arsenal had more possession than Liverpool on Saturday. In a tactical context, Liverpool are a leopard that has changed its spots.
"When Brendan came in he wanted pure domination of possession. Now they actually don't want it, they want to draw teams on to them because Liverpool's strength is their pace in breaking."
Nevin believes Liverpool's adaptability presents the major problem Wenger will need to resolve in order to get a different outcome from last Saturday's humiliation.
"Don't be surprised if Suarez plays more centrally than he did on Saturday, when he was wider on the right, causing problems out there and leaving Daniel Sturridge in the central position. I think Brendan Rodgers is capable of changing it quite regularly.
"I think Sturridge is the main central striker and always should be, whereas Suarez can play anywhere. I still think he is more of a "10" than a centre forward.
"The problem Wenger has got is that there are so many options for Liverpool. They can go 4-2-3-1, with Suarez or Philippe Coutinho coming from deeper areas and all these forward players are so interchangeable and adaptable."
Arsenal's FA Cup history
Arsenal FA Cup winners 2005
Arsenal have won the FA Cup 10 times: 1930, 1936, 1950, 1971, 1979, 1993, 1998, 2002, 2003, 2005

Former Tottenham manager David Pleat told BBC Sport: "Arsene's philosophy won't be turned or changed by one game. He will look at all the aspects of the game: who did Liverpool get in those positions, particularly early on, to exploit a square defence or space behind a defence, and how they failed to cope with the speed of Liverpool's forwards.
"More importantly, from a tactical point of view, he may look at who is providing the ammunition. He might look very closely at the passes Liverpool's forward players are receiving and try to quell the passes with more determination in midfield.
"Playing at home is a big advantage. It is not as though they have to overturn a 5-1 deficit, they just have to win the game. I don't think they will alter the team's shape particularly but I would imagine Tomas Rosicky would figure and possibly Flamini.
"Arsene Wenger is very experienced, very wily. He doesn't give his players too much information. He just gives them enough then gives the player responsibility to carry out basic instructions, to exploit those instructions, then embroider them.
"What he will be saying is that every game is different. All manner of conditions and factors will be different."
According to Pleat, Liverpool manager Rodgers will be doing some plotting of his own based on that emphatic Anfield win.
"He will do some second guessing," said Pleat. "Brendan must wonder how Arsenal will react and then, of course, how he will react to that. All good managers have the foresight to wonder what will happen next.
Liverpool's FA cup history
Liverpool win 2006 FA Cup final
Liverpool have won the FA Cup seven times: 1965, 1974, 1986, 1989, 1992, 2001, 2006

"Brendan has got something unique at Liverpool and quite an advantage. He has got three forwards who, on their own, can take a ball and dribble with speed as an individual.
"I don't know another team in the Premier League who have three attackers who can all dribble, take on an opponent and score a goal - also provided for by the likes of Philippe Coutinho and Steven Gerrard."
Pleat added: "Of course Liverpool's players will be confident after winning the game at Anfield, but I think a lot is to do with how Arsenal start the game. They started poorly at Liverpool. They were asleep and got punished. They couldn't recover.
"At Premier League level if you go two down early it is very, very difficult to recover that position because teams are so good at sitting deep around the box, repelling raids and then countering.
"Many people will favour Liverpool, and that result will give them a very slight advantage, but I don't believe it holds too much water and this is far closer than people would imagine."
Wenger must be successful in producing the answers if Arsenal are remain on course for reclaiming the trophy that provided him and them with their last silverware in 2005.

Obama, Biden Rally Congressional Democrats on Middle Class Agenda.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 15 Feb 2014 05:09:00 -0800

WHITE HOUSE — U.S. President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden rallied House Democrats on Friday, saying they need to be aggressive in pressing the Democratic Party agenda in the months leading to the U.S. mid-term congressional elections.

The president and Biden made their remarks in Cambridge, Maryland at the issues conference of Democrats in the House of Representatives.

It's an annual event at which lawmakers discuss legislative priorities and strategy, and often hear from the titular leader of their party, the president.

This year's gathering came as Democrats gear up for an intense period of campaigning for the November mid-term congressional elections.

Obama largely repeated major points from his State of the Union Address, including his pledge to use executive orders to achieve key objectives when he encounters resistance from Republicans in Congress.

He praised the "courage, unity and discipline" of House Democrats. And he described the recent decision by House Republicans to drop an effort to link political conditions to increasing the federal government's debt limit as a victory.

"We are no longer going to see, I believe, anybody try to hold our government hostage and threaten the full faith and credit of the United States of America in order to contract policy concessions," said Obama. "The fact that we were able to pass a clean debt limit is just one example of why when you guys are unified, you guys stick together, this country is better off and I could not be more thankful and more appreciate and prouder of what you're doing."

House Republicans recently rejected a proposal by their leadership to link the borrowing authority limit to a budget issue, and were helped by minority Democrats in a 221-201 House vote. Obama hopes it will mark a change in Republicans' approach during the remainder of his second term.

The president also highlighted progress in the number of people signing up for insurance under his signature health care reform law, known as Obamacare. His job approval ratings suffered last year from what he acknowledged was the "fumbled" handling of the federal health care website.

But Republicans running for re-election plan to escalate use of the Obamacare issue as they campaign against Democrats. The president said the health care reform eventually will be seen in a positive light.

"I just want to say thank you, for all of you, hanging in their tough, on an issue that I think 10 years from now, five years from now, we're going to look back and say this was a monumental achievement that could not have happened had it not been for this caucus," said Obama.

Biden delivered tough remarks to the gathering, in support of Democratic policies to help the middle class, and critical of positions taken by Republicans.

Americans, Biden said, agree with core Democratic Party positions on a range of issues, including the debt ceiling, immigration reform, stronger background checks for gun purchases and infrastructure.

He said Democrats need to advocate strongly for their agenda in the months leading to to the November mid-term elections.

"Keep your eye on the ball. The American people are where we are. And let's go out and make every single effort not just to defend, but to aggressively push, aggressively push, our agenda," said Biden.

Obama flew later Friday to California, where he focused on federal government responses to drought afflicting virtually the entire state.

He wants Congress to approve a $1-billion Climate Resilience Fund, part of the budget he will send to Capitol Hill next month. This would be separate from the climate action agenda he announced last year.

The proposal would fund research on impacts of climate change, help communities and fund “breakthrough technologies and resilient infrastructure."

It's not certain the president can win approval for the fund, as Republicans have broadly opposed his climate agenda.

Study: Video Games Might Help People with Dyslexia.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 15 Feb 2014 05:04:00 -0800

WASHINGTON — Research suggests that action video games might help people with dyslexia, a learning disorder that makes it difficult for some to read fluidly and comprehend what they read.

Experts say an estimated five to 10 percent of the population suffers from dyslexia, in which they write or perceive printed words and letters as backwards or transposed.

In addition, people with dyslexia appear to have trouble managing competing sensory cues -- that is, they have difficulty shifting their focus quickly from visual to auditory stimuli, according to Vanessa Harrar of Britain’s University of Oxford.

“So, if you are trying to read something and then trying to listen to somebody who’s reading aloud and you’re trying to follow along with what they are reading -- they have to switch their attention from hearing what they are saying to looking at the piece of paper and back again," she said. "And so we found they have quite sluggish shifting of attention across the senses.”

There is a growing body of research that people with dyslexia have trouble in a part of the brain that is involved in integration of the senses, including visual and auditory stimuli.

Harrar, who herself suffers from dyslexia, led a study in which participants were asked to push a button as quickly as possible when they heard a sound, saw a dim flash or experienced both together. The speed of the reactions was recorded and analyzed.

While everyone was fastest when the same type of stimuli repeated itself, the data showed that dyslexics were slower than normal shifting their attention from a flash of light to a sound. The results of the study were published in the journal Current Biology.

Investigators say the finding, while preliminary, suggests that training programs to help people with dyslexia should take sluggish sensory response into account.

Harrar says that playing action video games could be helpful.

“Video game types of things pop out of here and there, they move your eyes around the screen quite quickly in response to things quite quickly, and the more you play a video game the faster you get that kind of thing," she said. "So, the video game is really training the attention system to move quickly.”

Because there are a variety of symptoms associated with dyslexia and no two people are alike, Harrar says her long-term goal is to tailor individual strategies to help people with the disorder.

Beyonce and Jay Z - who rocket from 13th to second place with “Drunk In Love.”.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 14 Feb 2014 14:44:00 -0800

Our other countdown newcomer, and recipient of the “Grammy Bounce”: Beyonce and Jay Z - who rocket from 13th to second place with “Drunk In Love.” If you watched the Grammy telecast back on January 26, you remember Beyonce and Jay Z kicking off the show with “Drunk In Love.” This week, they roar from 13th to second place. If it goes to number one - and at this rate, it should - it will be Beyonce’s first Hot 100 champ since “Single Ladies” in 2008.

'The Monuments Men' Brings History to Life.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 14 Feb 2014 14:39:00 -0800

Is art worth risking life and limb for? This question lies at the heart of George Clooney’s WWII drama “The Monuments Men.” The film, directed and co-written by the actor, is based on the real story of a handful of men sent by the Allied forces to Europe to recover art stolen by the Nazis and return it to their rightful owners.

As WWII came to a close, President Roosevelt authorized a team of art experts to go to German-occupied Europe and salvage masterpieces looted by the Nazis.

George Clooney interprets the real life team leader, George Leslie Stout. From 1944-1945, Stout supervised the recovery and removal of several thousand works of art, hidden in salt mines, churches, and other locations in Europe.

The film and its cast bring to life, with some poetic license, the group called “The Monuments Men.”

A map of some locations of where the team traveled in Europe is now on display at the Smithsonian's American Art Museum in Washington.

Curator Kate Haw says the film accurately portrays the documents and pictures on display.

“Many of the Monuments’ Men came back from the war and became great figures in the museum field and academic field of art history," said Haw.

George Stout founded the first American art conservation laboratory. Captain James Rorimer went on to become the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Matt Damon's character in the film, James Granger, is based on Rorimer.

Character Claire Simone was, in real life, curator Rose Valland. She played a central role in the masterpieces' recovery.

“She was a curator who works at the Jeu de Paume, the museum of contemporary art," said actor Cate Blanchett, who was cast as Claire Simone in the film.

“She was watching all of these Nazi leaders choose the art and send it off to different places," said Damon.

“Rose Valland spoke German but she didn’t let the Nazis know that," Haw said. "And so, she listens carefully to what they were saying. She took copious notes of what was coming into the Jeu de Paume and where it went."

Without Valland’s inventory and pictures she gave Rorimer, many of these masterpieces could have been lost forever.

The Smithsonian exhibit pays tribute to the Monuments Men. But it's Hollywood’s more emotional rendition that has put the team and their operation on the map.