Taylor Swift Gets Interrupted (Again) At 2013 People's Choice Awards

MTV News compiles our seven favorite moments from Wednesday night.
By Emilee Lindner

Taylor Swift and Olivia Munn onstage at the 2013 People's Choice Awards
Photo: Getty Images

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1699929/peoples-choice-awards-taylor-swift-2013.jhtml

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Boeing 787 suffers third mishap in as many days

4 hrs.

NBC News staff and wire reports

Boeing Co's 787 Dreamliner jet suffered a third mishap in as many days on Wednesday, heightening safety concerns after a string of setbacks for the new aircraft.?

Japan's All Nippon Airways said it was forced to cancel a 787 Dreamliner flight scheduled to from fly from Yamaguchi prefecture in western Japan to Tokyo due to brake problems.?

That followed a fuel leak on Tuesday that forced a 787 operated by Japan Airlines to cancel take-off at Boston's Logan International Airport, a day after an electrical fire on another 787 after a JAL flight to Boston from Tokyo.?

Asian customers rallied behind the U.S. planemaker, however, saying such teething troubles were not uncommon on new planes and confirming they had no plans to scale back or cancel orders for the aircraft, which has a list price of $207 million.?

Japan is by far the biggest customer for the Dreamliner to date, with JAL and All Nippon Airways (ANA) operating a total of 24 of the 49 new planes delivered to end-December. The aircraft entered commercial service in November 2011, more than three years behind schedule after a series of production delays. Boeing has sold 848 of the planes.?

JAL spokesman Kazunori Kidosaki said the carrier, which operates seven Dreamliners, had no plans to change orders it has placed for another 38 aircraft. ANA, which has 17 Dreamliners flying its colors, will also stick with its orders for another 49, spokesman Etsuya Uchiyama said.?

State-owned Air India, which on Monday took delivery of the sixth of the 27 Dreamliners it has ordered, said precautionary measures were already in place and its planes were flying smoothly. "It's a new plane, and some minor glitches do happen. It's not a cause of concern," said spokesman G.Prasada Rao.?

There was no immediate suggestion that the 787 Dreamliner, the world's first passenger jet built mainly from carbon-plastic lightweight materials to save fuel, was likely to be grounded as investigators looked into the fire incident.?

Air China, which sees the 787 as a way to expand its international routes, and Hainan Airlines?also said they were keeping their orders for 15 and 10 of the planes.?

"New airplanes more or less will need adjustments, and currently we have no plans to swap or cancel orders," said an executive at future 787 operator Hainan Airlines, who was not authorized to talk to the media and did not want to be named.?

Qatar Airways Chief Executive Akbar Al Baker, who has previously criticized technical problems or delays with Boeing or Airbus jets, said there were no technical problems with the five 787s currently in use by the Gulf carrier.?

"It doesn't mean we are going to cancel our orders. It's a revolutionary airplane," he said.?

Other carriers already flying the Dreamliner are Ethiopian Airlines , LAN Airlines, LOT Polish Airlines and United Airlines .?

40 gallon spill?

The fuel leak on Tuesday was noticed at about 12:25 p.m. ET after the plane had left the gate in preparation for take-off to Tokyo. About 40 gallons spilled, and the jet was towed back to the gate, where passengers disembarked, said Richard Walsh, a spokesman for the transportation authority.?

The plane departed about four hours behind schedule and was due to arrive in Tokyo on Wednesday evening.?

No passengers or crew were injured in either incident, though firefighters were called out on both occasions.?

Boeing shares fell nearly 2.7 percent on Tuesday, following a 2 percent drop on Monday - wiping around $2.8 billion off its market value, or more than a dozen Dreamliners at list price.?

While many Wall Street analysts rate Boeing stock a 'buy' or 'outperform' - the manufacturer has delivered jets faster than the market predicted - some noted the potential for the combination of a fire and a fuel leak to affect public perception of Boeing and the new aircraft.?

People working at OG Travel and Eurex, travel agents in Tokyo, said they had not seen any impact on reservations on flights using the 787 aircraft. "I've not heard of any cancellations following these incidents," Eurex staffer Yasuhiro Hirashiki told Reuters.?

Carter Leake, an analyst at BB&T Capital Markets in Virginia, downgraded Boeing shares, noting that fires are potentially lethal and electrical issues are tough to solve, though he and others stopped short of calling it a game changer for the Seattle-based manufacturer.?

"We're getting to a tipping point where they go from needing to rectify problems to doing major damage control to the image of the company and the plane," said Richard Aboulafia, a defense and aerospace analyst with Teal Group, a consulting firm based in Fairfax, Virginia.?

"While they delivered a large and unexpected number of 787s last year, it's possible that they should have instead focused on identifying glitches and flaws, rather than pushing ahead with volume production," he said.?

Battery fire?

Monday's fire occurred on a 787 plane that had just arrived from Tokyo and whose 183 passengers and crew had disembarked.?

The National Transportation Safety Board said on Tuesday a battery in the auxiliary power unit aboard the plane jet had suffered "severe fire damage" and that surrounding damage was limited to components and structures within about 20 inches. It said the power unit was operating when the fire was discovered.?

Shares in GS Yuasa Corp, the Japanese firm that makes the Dreamliner batteries, fell around 5 percent in Tokyo on Wednesday after dropping 4 percent a day earlier.?

Boeing said it was cooperating with the investigations, but it would be premature to go into detail.?

"However, nothing we've seen in this case indicates a relationship to any previous 787 power system events, which involved power panel faults elsewhere in the aft electrical equipment bay (where the fire occurred)," the company said.?

The Wall Street Journal, citing a source, reported that United Airlines found improperly installed wiring in 787 electrical components associated with the auxiliary power unit, the same electrical system that caused Monday's fire.?

United spokeswoman Christen David said the carrier inspected its 787s after the Boston fire, but she declined to discuss the findings, or to confirm the Journal report.?

The Federal Aviation Administration last month ordered all 787s to be inspected after fuel leaks were found on two aircraft, due, it said, to incorrectly assembled fuel line couplings that could result in power loss or an engine fire.?

Mechanical problems are not uncommon when new planes enter service and they often disrupt airline schedules, experts said.?

"I think we're dealing here with a situation where this aircraft is over-scrutinized for a number of reasons, including the birth difficulties," said Michel Merluzeau, managing partner at defense and aerospace consulting firm G2 Solutions.?

"Don't get me wrong. A battery fire is a very, very serious event. Especially a lithium-ion battery," he added. "And we don't know what the problem is. But the 787s is still a very safe aircraft to fly."?

Reuters contributed to this report.?

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/boeing-787-suffers-third-mishap-many-days-1B7906402

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US troop plan in Afghanistan follows Iraq playbook

WASHINGTON (AP) ? It's the same debate, the same numbers and practically the same plan, but the White House is working harder to keep troops in Afghanistan than it did in similar but failed discussions in Iraq in 2011.

Security remains shaky in both war zones, but current and former U.S. officials say the Obama administration cannot afford to lose in Afghanistan after a dozen years of fighting and an ongoing threat by al-Qaida and its extremist Taliban allies. Defeating al-Qaida and bolstering Afghan forces to prevent the terror network's return there has been a top priority for President Barack Obama since he took office, while ending the war in Iraq was the fulfillment of a campaign promise.

"We've made a lot of progress against al-Qaida, but the job is not done," Doug Lute, the top White House military adviser on Afghanistan, told reporters this week. "The Afghan National Security Forces are a work in progress."

The U.S. has 66,000 troops in Afghanistan, down from a peak of about 100,000 as recently as 2010. Just how many troops might remain is at the heart of widespread discussion in Washington, where Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai meets with Obama on Friday.

As initially in Iraq, U.S. officials are considering keeping between 3,000 and 15,000 American troops in Afghanistan after 2014. That would not happen, however, if U.S. troops are denied legal immunity from prosecution in Afghanistan ? which ultimately is what ended the same negotiations in Iraq.

"We've seen this movie so many times," said Sen. John McCain, the senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, who remains troubled over the Iraq withdrawal. In an interview Wednesday, he urged the White House to keep more than a few thousand troops in Afghanistan "to make a difference and not just become targets for attacks by a resurgent Taliban."

Karzai met Wednesday with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and three members of the Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees. Asked what number of U.S. forces he would like to see in the country, Karzai declined to answer and joked that he was told by the "organizer of the Senate" to keep quiet.

"I hope we get back to Afghanistan with what the Afghans expect of me to take back," Karzai told reporters.

A Pentagon report to Congress in December concluded that only one of 23 Afghan National Army battalions was judged to be capable of operating in the field on its own ? and even then needed international security advisers.

Afghanistan was dubbed "Obama's war" after the president surged troops there in 2009 to chase out extremist militants and eliminate their ability to return. By contrast, Obama as a candidate for president had called Iraq a "dumb war" and made ending it a campaign pledge.

However, the Obama administration negotiated with Baghdad throughout 2011 to keep U.S. troops in Iraq as a sort of insurance policy to block Iran from meddling in Iraq's Shiite-led government and, in turn, re-ignite the country's Sunni insurgency. Ultimately, Iraq's parliament refused to renew an agreement to give legal immunity to thousands of American forces, and the U.S. military left at the end of that year as required under a deadline set in 2008 by the administration of President George W. Bush.

Former Ambassador James F. Jeffrey, a career U.S. diplomat who oversaw the administration's failed negotiations in Baghdad in 2011, said "of course" Obama wanted to keep troops in Iraq and is trying now to keep them in Afghanistan.

"The numbers are eerily familiar and the missions are eerily familiar," said Jeffrey, who retired last year from the State Department. "I see him carrying out the same plan in Afghanistan that he tried to carry out in Iraq."

Jeffrey added: "But this isn't a war that Obama and the Democratic Party hate, and we haven't achieved a military victory there. Once you commit these troops to the ground, you are stuck until you get a military victory. We more or less won the ground war in Iraq; we have not won the ground war in Afghanistan."

A U.S. official in Baghdad, however, recently described a new low in escalating political tensions in Iraq that have prompted violence and protests. Baghdad political analyst Wathiq al-Hasehmi said in an interview this week that the U.S. troop withdrawal was "the biggest mistake ever made by the Americans."

In a conference call this week with reporters to preview Karzai's visit, Lute and deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said the White House would consider withdrawing all American forces from Afghanistan at the end of 2014 ? again following the Iraq model ? if they are no longer needed or are not given legal immunities. White House officials also are quick to point to the costs of deploying forces ? at least an estimated $1 million per soldier each year in Afghanistan ? against competing security concerns elsewhere in the world.

However, that may be a White House negotiating gambit to spook Karzai, who has irritated Washington by accusing U.S. troops of being "occupiers" in Afghanistan when American-led offensives have resulted in civilian deaths. But Karzai also has said he wants the U.S. to continue training and equipping Afghanistan's army and air force, and help protect its people and regional interests.

At the same time, Karzai wants U.S. forces to stay out of urban areas and villages ? raising the question of what mission troops would undertake if they remain. Similarly, American troops stopped securing Iraqi cities in 2009, and morphed into a training-only mission in 2010. By 2011, most soldiers rarely left their secured bases and openly questioned why they were there. Just under 200 active-duty troops are currently in Baghdad, all with diplomatic immunity, to help the U.S. Embassy deliver weapons and equipment to Iraqi security forces.

Republican Rep. Mac Thornberry, the vice chair of the House Armed Service Committee, said the White House might as well withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan next year if it decides to strap the military's mission by only keeping a few thousand there.

"It's nearly worse to leave with too small a presence that endangers our people, than to get everybody out," Thornberry said Wednesday. "If people know you're not serious about staying there, and standing up for them, then they've got to cut deals because the bad guys are staying.

"I worry about the Iraq precedent," he said, "because we left too soon and we are feeling some of the consequences, and I am afraid we'll feel more."

___

Associated Press writers Robert Burns and Donna Cassata in Washington and Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad contributed to this report.

Follow Lara Jakes on Twitter at https://twitter.com/larajakesAP

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-troop-plan-afghanistan-follows-iraq-playbook-221659309.html

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Live from the Engadget CES Stage: an interview with the EFF's Julie Samuels

The topic no one wants to talk about at CES? Yep, it's gonna be a half-hour of frank patent litigation talk with the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Julie Samuels. If you care at all about legal kerfuffles, you're not gonna want to miss this one.

January 9, 2013 5:30 PM EST

Check out our full CES 2013 stage schedule here!

Continue reading Live from the Engadget CES Stage: an interview with the EFF's Julie Samuels

Comments

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/sfMJOLYCjY4/

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Sensational Home Staging Blog: List Price versus STAGED List Price

List Price versus STAGED List Price

By Jennie Norris, ASP Master, IAHSP-Premier, SRS, REO

Owner, Sensational Home Staging

Denver's Premier Home Staging Resource

Do Sellers sell their houses to get SOME of the money possible from the sale?

No.

Sellers want ALL the money possible from the sale ? the BEST PRICE possible so they can maximize the profit from the sale of their house. Not just SOME of the money possible.

Realtors want to earn as much commission as possible from the sale of a house for all their hard work ? at least the ones that are serious about having a successful real estate business. And the fact is a Realtor has a fiduciary responsibility to get their clients the MOST from the sale of their house ? not just some of the potential money. ALL of it.

Imagine if Sellers understood the difference between List Price and STAGED List Price. Wouldn?t ALL of them want to Stage before Listing?

What is the List Price? That is the price the listing agent believes is a fair price for the house based on a comparative or competitive market analysis (CMA). They take a look at recent solds in the neighborhood that are comparable to the current house being listed for sale, and then they factor in the market. Is it going up? Is it a declining market? And they come up with a price RANGE for the house.

A Realtor does not want to price the house too high ? because then they are ?chasing? the market for the sale and Buyers always want ?a good deal? on a house they buy.

That is where Staging comes in.

What is the STAGED List Price? That is the price the listing agent believes the house will sell based on the CMA, the marketed competition AND the fact that the house outshines 85-90% of the other listings. In a hot market, it is often a higher starting point that just the list price. Because the house outshines the competition, it becomes the ?benchmark? for all other properties the buyer is looking at, and ultimately becomes the one they must have. Because Staged houses sell faster than their un-Staged competition, in a slower market they are less likely to experience a price reduction therefore they do sell at a better price than their competition.

A Staged house shows better than the competition and creates this feeling within that makes a Buyer want to buy THAT house. The Staged house feels more spacious, warm, inviting, clean, and easy for a Buyer to envision living inside ? and it gets the offer. Statistics all over the country prove that a Staged house sells faster, and for MORE than the un-Staged competition. In a hot market, this can translate into possibly multiple offers.

Now, Staging is not a magic wand that would allow a Seller to demand ANY price for their house ? they must still be reasonable and with their Realtor?s guidance price the house within the range of where it will sell. But they don?t have to be at the bottom of the range, or even in the middle when the Staging has included updating such as new carpeting, painting, fixtures, and flooring. They can be towards the top of the range which in many markets means thousands of dollars more for the sale of the house.

For certain a Seller needs to honestly assess their house compared to their competition ? and take note of how their house looks compared to others ? that might be Staged ? because if they choose not to Stage, their house will be ?used? to sell the Staged houses.

Did you know that in the Denver area only about 10-15% of the houses are Staged prior to coming on the market? This gives YOUR listing or house an immediate advantage over 85-90% of the marketed competition! Around the country some areas have 50% of the houses being Staged while others are hard pressed to find even 5%.

A Staging Consultation in the Denver area ranges between $125-$350 and the consultation should include a detailed plan for the Seller on what they can do to get their house Staged and show ready. This is a MINIMAL investment compared to the ability to position their house at a better price than the un-Staged competition. Nationwide, the consultations range from $125-$450 depending on where you live and it?s all relative to the market and median price for houses.

Dare I say that the Consultation by a trained Professional Stager one that every Realtor should be using as part of their listing process? Yes.

In fact, the Realtors I have worked with over the years that include Staging as a standard part of their listing process, paying for this service for their clients to ensure it gets done, are the TOP agents in the market. They understand that it?s not worth listing a house unless the house puts its best foot forward ? and makes the right first impression.

If you are listing your house ? you as the Seller need to take control and make sure your house is STAGED prior to coming on the market and pay for the consultation if your agent does not include it. Get a trained Professional Stager to advise you on what you need to do. Or list your house with a Realtor that includes a 3rd party Staging assessment as part of their listing and marketing services.

The STAGED List Price in some market can be $10,000-$50,000 MORE than just the ?list price? ? and buyers will make an offer on the house that is ready for them to move in, is clean, decluttered, does not smell bad, feels spacious, updated, looks fresh and inviting.

The alternative is to not Stage, and just price your house where you hope it sells, and then reduce the price if there is no activity. That price reduction is usually 10-20 TIMES the Staging investment. That leaves a LOT of money on the table!

You see, you don?t SAVE by not Staging ? you either invest it up front or you lose it on the back end with a lower starting point or price reduction(s).

Why do you need a 3rd party to come and tell you what to do? Can?t you just watch one of those shows? The fact is, it?s hard to be objective in your own house ? you live there, you have decorated it with your personal taste and it is hard to separate ourselves from our ?home? when it comes time to sell. Selling is also stressful and Sellers are not always in an objective and receptive frame of mind. Realtors don?t want to be the ones to tell their client there is anything ?wrong? with their house ? whether it?s cleanliness, smells, objects in the house or other changes that have to be made to create the necessary buyer appeal. Investing a few hundred dollars to get an independent assessment from a trained Professional Stager is the key. You can find one in your market by going to the www.Stagedhomes.com site and clicking on the ASP Directory to find a trained and qualified Stager near you.

______________________________________________________________________
If you are a Realtor serving this region or you live in the Denver area and need to sell your house, just pick up the phone and call me to help you get your house prepared for sale.? After 10 years and over 2,700 houses Staged, I have yet to meet a house that I could not properly prepare for sale.?303-717-7918 or 888-93-STAGE.? www.SensationalHome.com

Source: http://sensationalstagedhomeblog.blogspot.com/2013/01/list-price-versus-staged-list-price.html

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Ariz. Mom Stuns Doctors, Beats Deadliest Brain Cancer

Heather Knies was given a death sentence at the age of 24. She battled not one, but two brain tumors -- one of them a grade 4 glioblastoma, the same kind of cancer that killed Sen. Edward Kennedy in 2010.

But today, six years later, she is cancer-free, and her doctors at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Arizona cannot explain it. Her latest MRI is clean, and she is neurologically intact.

The now-32-year-old Knies has not only outlived her life expectancy, she has married and become a mother. Her successful parenthood is remarkable, as intense radiation and chemotherapy can render cancer patients infertile.

Knies's daughter, Zoe, who is 7 months old, celebrated her first Christmas in December.

Knies's doctors say that in rare instances, a patient can break the "biological rules." But most often in those cases, the initial pathology of the tumor was suspect.

In her case, the pathology was "not controversial," according to her surgeon, Dr. Robert Spetzler, director of the Barrow Neurological Institute at Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix.

In his 35 years as a neurosurgeon in the United States, Spetzler said he has never seen such a triumph against a stage 4 glioblastoma.

Courtesy Barrow Neurological Institute

"It's one of the most malignant tumors there is," he said. "Invariably it will come back and pop up somewhere else in the brain and it's uniformly fatal."

"It's not unheard of that that a few survive -- it's a bell curve and there are outliers," he said. "But in her case, not only has she survived, but she is perfectly normal and there is absolutely no evidence of a tumor on her MRI scan."

Knies has a few of her own theories for why she is still alive today.

"One, being God had a plan for me," said Knies. "I also had a great team of doctors and wonderful family and friends with a positive attitude."

"The mind is so much more powerful than anyone can imagine," she said. "People believe that when they get cancer, it will kill them. But I never once thought that."

Spetzler said Knies was "on the young side" for a glioblastoma, but it can occur at any age, "even in infants."

It all began in 2005, when Knies had the first symptom that something was wrong. She had just started a new job as a receptionist at a doctor's office and was driving home from work.

"Suddenly, I didn't understand what the dashed white line meant in the road," said Knies. "I had been driving since I was 15, so I started panicking and called my Mom. She asked, 'Did you take something?'"

Knies could see, but couldn't understand what she was seeing.

"I was only 24 and I was having visual problems," she said. "I can't even describe them."

Her boss, a dermatologist, insisted she see a specialist, and an MRI showed a low-grade tumor that was pressing on the visual reception cord in her brain.

"I had just moved to Phoenix from Missouri. I was just out of college and felt like I had the whole world waiting there for me," said Knies, ever the optimist. "Looking back, it probably grounded me a bit."

She underwent surgery at another institution, and she enrolled in a drug trial for an oral chemotherapy at Duke University, repeating MRIs every three months.

She says doctors told her to, "Go live your life."

But in less than a year one of the scans showed the white flairs of tumor growth.

Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/mom-stuns-doctors-beating-deadliest-brain-cancer/story?id=18135106

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Is Nas The Greatest Hip-Hop Lyricist Ever?

He doesn't think so, but CNN has crowned God's Son over the likes of Jay-Z and Eminem.
By Rob Markman

Nas performs at SXSW 2012
Photo: Getty Images

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1699761/nas-greatest-lyricist-cnn.jhtml

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