Egyptian protesters clash with volunteer members of Muslim brotherhood who guard outside the Egyptian parliament during a rally in Cairo, Egypt, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012. Egypt's newly elected lawmakers took aim at the country's military rulers Tuesday, accusing them of trampling on democratic norms and overstepping their powers by passing laws, including a crucial one regulating presidential elections. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
Egyptian protesters clash with volunteer members of Muslim brotherhood who guard outside the Egyptian parliament during a rally in Cairo, Egypt, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012. Egypt's newly elected lawmakers took aim at the country's military rulers Tuesday, accusing them of trampling on democratic norms and overstepping their powers by passing laws, including a crucial one regulating presidential elections. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
An Egyptian protester holds a shoe in front of volunteer members of the Muslim brotherhood who guard outside the Egyptian parliament during a rally in Cairo, Egypt, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012. Egypt's newly elected lawmakers took aim at the country's military rulers Tuesday, accusing them of trampling on democratic norms and overstepping their powers by passing laws, including a crucial one regulating presidential elections. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
Egyptian protesters, left, spray a burning aerosol over volunteering members of Muslim brotherhood, right, who guard outside the Egyptian parliament in Cairo, Egypt, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012. Egypt's newly elected lawmakers have criticized the country's military rulers in their first working session for what they said was overstepping their legislative powers, issuing laws days ahead of its convening. The lawmakers were referring Tuesday to the decision by the military rulers- in charge of the country's affairs since last year- to issue a law regulating the presidential elections expected later this year . At left, a poster showing one of the killed protesters during Egyptian uprising. (AP Photo)
Saad el-Katatni, a lawmaker from the Muslim Brotherhood and newly nominated Parliament Speaker, top, listens to memebers of Parliament during the first working session in the Egyptian parliament in Cairo, Egypt, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012. Egypt's newly elected lawmakers have criticized the country's military rulers in their first working session for what they said was overstepping their legislative powers, issuing laws days ahead of its convening. The lawmakers were referring Tuesday to the decision by the military rulers in charge of the country's affairs since last year to issue a law regulating the presidential elections expected later this year. (AP Photo/Mohammed Abu Zaid)
CAIRO (AP) ? Egypt's Islamist-dominated parliament flexed its newly acquired powers Tuesday, accusing the country's military rulers of overstepping their powers by imposing a new presidential election law before the legislators were even seated.
The law, which lays out the rules for the vote expected later this year, and other military decrees are shaping up as a litmus test of the relationship between the new lawmakers and the generals who took power after former President Hosni Mubarak stepped down nearly a year ago.
Meanwhile, protesters clashed with Muslim Brotherhood supporters who were forming a human shield outside the parliament in front of the barbed wires and barricades already set up by security forces. Youth activists who led the massive street protests that led to Mubarak's ouster have accused the Islamists of ignoring their demands and siding with the military.
The fundamentalist Brotherhood, which controls nearly half of the seats in the 508-member legislature, has won control of 11 out of the 19 specialized committees inside the parliament, including the key defense and national security committee that would likely be in charge of reviewing the military's budget and other issues.
Protesters outside the parliamentary building in downtown Cairo chanted "You sold the revolution," while others heckled Brotherhood supporters leaving the area. Dr. Mohammed Sultan, head of the Egyptian ambulance service, said 71 people were injured, most from rocks that were thrown, and 30 were hospitalized.
Many leftist and secular activists fear the Brotherhood might form an alliance with the military to ensure it has influence over the drafting of a constitution ? a task that the parliament will oversee.
Lawmakers, however, sought to assert their authority on Tuesday. Many accused the military of trying to avoid public debate by issuing the law before parliament was convened on Jan. 23. The law was published in the official Egyptian Gazette and was not publicly announced.
The law establishes new rules for electing a president and has a controversial provision that rights groups allege would make contesting the results before a court of law impossible. The military, which essentially rules by decree, has on several occasions made contradictory statements about the extent of authority it would allow a legislature one general described as "not representative."
Mohammed el-Beltagy, a member of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, asked parliament to review the law and change it if necessary.
"Let it be a clear message to the Egyptian street that the parliament has become the only and unchallenged legislative authority," el-Beltagy told lawmakers in the nationally televised session.
Mostafa ElNaggar, a member of el-Adl party that was formed after the uprising, agreed.
"This is an early test. We either decide if we will permit any interference in our mission or we won't," he said.
It remains to be seen how the parliament will handle the election law. Some legislators called for the military to repeal them. Others said the review process should be expedited, while some suggested moving up the presidential election date to avoid further clashes with the military rulers over authority.
Many lawmakers and activists have already demanded that parliament review other military decrees issued since the generals took power last February, including a law banning public protest and strikes, as well as a decision to only partially lift of the hated Mubarak-era emergency laws.
The largely secular and urban activist groups want an immediate end to military rule, and have called for the army to return to its barracks before a constitution be written and a president elected.
"It is primarily a challenge for the (Brotherhood) majority," said Hossam Bahgat, a human rights lawyer. "If the Brotherhood wants to send a message to its constituency and the public at large they are now an independent and effective legislature, they have no choice but to reopen (discussion) of these decrees."
Slot-machine maker International Game Technology (NYSE: IGT - News) looks poised to jump on the bandwagon of companies that are increasing their stake in online gaming. The company plans to acquire Double Down Interactive, one of the biggest virtual casino operators on Facebook.
What's it all about? Under this deal, IGT will pay $250 million in cash and $85 million in retention payments over the next two years. Additionally, IGT will pay up to $165 million to Double Down, depending on the latter's performance in the next three years.
All in all, this looks like a large amount to pay for a company the size of Double Down, but it's not as if IGT can't afford it. IGT generated over $400 million in free cash flow over the last year.
So is the cash worth it? This deal will certainly broaden IGT's scope of operations. Already a seller of gaming equipment to casinos, it will now be able to sell virtual products to virtual casinos as well. Being the third-largest social gaming application, Double Down may well provide IGT with a valuable foothold in casino-style social gaming.
Double Down has significantly increased its user count, to 4.7 million now from 3.3 million in October last year, as it capitalizes on the rapidly growing online gaming industry. The industry in itself is expected to grow to $30 billion in 2012 from $20 billion in 2010. What I do like about the deal, however, is the exposure to a new and complementary set of gamers, which is sure to drive IGT's fiscal 2012 earnings. But there's another, larger aspect to it.
What's the catch? The Double Down deal would mean that IGT is investing around $100 for each one of the former's roughly 5 million users. Now that's a lot of money, something that can be justified only if we consider the potential big bucks IGT can earn if online gambling is legalized. In fact, legalization of online poker would be a dream come true for the casino and gaming industries, something that may be fast becoming a reality as the Justice Department considers doing away with the ban on online gambling.
However, IGT isn't alone. Facebook game maker Zynga (Nasdaq: ZNGA - News) has about 30 million players for its online poker game and could be a great partner for a big branded casino. Industry titan MGM (NYSE: MGM - News) has already partnered with Bwin.Party, and Boyd Gaming and is likely putting pressure on other operators to get a foothold in the space while they still can. IGT could be in for a lot of trouble if an operator inks a deal with Zynga.
Stakes in online gambling will be lower than those at real casinos. Nevertheless, the company's exposure to a widespread online audience should create abundant volumes to push up revenue. Looking at it from that aspect, $500 million doesn't seem particularly extravagant to me, after all.
The Foolish bottom line This deal could very well be IGT's royal flush. The company seems to be banking on potential revenue based on the expectations that online poker will be legalized. Till then, let's keep our fingers crossed on this one.
Stay tuned for more on this company's fortune. Add International Game Technology to your Watchlist: Click here.
Navjot Kaur does not own shares of any of the companies mentioned in this article. The Motley Fool owns shares of International Game Technology. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
LIMA (Reuters) ? Fire swept through a rehabilitation clinic for drug addicts and alcoholics in Peru on Saturday, killing 26 patients who were locked in to stop them from fleeing during treatment, local media and witnesses said.
Several survivors said the blaze was started by two patients who wanted to break out of the private "Christ is Love" center in the capital Lima.
"Some inmates wanted to escape and they set fire to some cloths and started throwing them at the manager's office, and then it caught fire inside," said patient Wilmer Garcia.
Most of the victims were thought to have died from smoke inhalation.
Lima Mayor Susana Villaran said the center lacked a municipal licence and that "drastic action" was needed to prevent similar incidents in the Andean country.
"This is a great tragedy," she told local radio. "Families hand over relatives who are suffering drug and alcohol addiction so they can be rehabilitated and often they're desperate. These places must be supervised by the Health Ministry and municipal authorities."
Firefighters and prosecutors have opened investigations into the cause of the fire.
(Reporting by Patricia Velez and Helen Popper; Editing by Xavier Briand)
CHICAGO (Reuters) ? The percentage of workers represented by a union dipped slightly in 2011, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Friday, as organized labor came under attack in states once considered union strongholds, including Wisconsin and Ohio.
In 2011, 11.8 percent of U.S. workers were represented by a union, the BLS said, down from 11.9 percent in 2010 and compared to a peak of 28.3 percent of the workforce in 1954.
Strip out government workers, where 37 percent of the work force nationally is unionized, and union penetration of private industry was just 6.9 percent in 2011, unchanged from 2010.
The total number of union members actually grew slightly last year, to 14,764,000 from 14,715,000 in 2010. But the number of workers represented by organized labor remained steady while the overall number of workers employed in the economy grew, the BLS said.
The number of unionized workers in Wisconsin fell nearly 6 percent in Wisconsin last year, to 358,000 from 380,000, the BLS said, as Republicans passed controversial curbs on the bargaining rights of public sector workers. That bitter debate spurred the largest street marches in Madison since the Vietnam War and two rounds of recall elections so far.
Only 14.1 percent of the state's workers were unionized at the end of 2011, the BLS said, down from 15.1 percent in 2010.
But in other Midwest states that have been battlegrounds for organized labor, the picture was more mixed, the BLS said.
In Indiana, which is poised to enact a right-to-work law banning unions from collecting mandatory dues from workers, union representation actually grew last year, the BLS said.
In 2011, 333,000 workers in the state were represented by a union, up from 313,000 workers in 2010. As a result, 12.4 percent of the state's workforce was union represented in 2011, up from 12.2 percent in 2010.
In Ohio, where an effort to impose union curbs on public workers similar to Wisconsin's was overturned by voters in a November referendum, the percentage of workers represented by a union remained unchanged at 14.7 percent.
The BLS said the highest union penetration rate in 2011 was in New York state, where 24.1 percent of workers were members of a union, followed by Alaska with 22.1 percent of the workforce unionized and Hawaii with 21.5 percent.
The BLS said union presence was weakest in North Carolina, where just 2.9 percent of workers were union members, followed by South Carolina (3.4 percent) and Georgia (3.9 percent).
(Reporting by James Kelleher. Editing by Peter Bohan.)
CHICAGO ? One marker in hand and one in his mouth, Lou Chukman glances up and down from a sketchpad to a reputed Chicago mobster across the courtroom ? drawing feverishly to capture the drama of the judge's verdict before the moment passes.
Sketch artists have been the public's eyes at high-profile trials for decades ? a remnant of an age when drawings in broadsheet papers, school books or travel chronicles were how people glimpsed the world beyond their own.
Today, their ranks are thinning swiftly as states move to lift longstanding bans on cameras in courtrooms. As of a year ago, 14 states still had them ? but at least three, including Illinois this month, have taken steps since then to end the prohibitions.
"When people say to me, `Wow, you are a courtroom artist' ? I always say, `One day, you can tell your grandchildren you met a Stegosaurus," Chukman, 56, explained outside court. "We're an anachronism now, like blacksmiths."
Cutbacks in news budgets and shifts in aesthetic sensibilities toward digitized graphics have all contributed to the form's decline, said Maryland-based sketch artist Art Lien.
While the erosion of the job may not be much noticed by people reading and watching the news, Lien says something significant is being lost. Video or photos can't do what sketch artists can, he said, such as compressing hours of court action onto a single drawing that crystallizes the events.
The best courtroom drawings hang in museums or sell to collectors for thousands of dollars.
"I think people should lament the passing of this art form," Lien said.
But while courtroom drawing has a long history ? artists did illustrations of the Salem witch trials in 1692 ? the artistry can sometimes be sketchy. A bald lawyer ends up with a full head of hair. A defendant has two left hands. A portly judge is drawn rail-thin.
Subjects often complain as they see the drawings during court recesses, said Chicago artist Carol Renaud.
"They'll say, `Hey! My nose is too big.' And sometimes they're right," she conceded. "We do the drawings so fast."
Courtroom drawing doesn't attract most aspiring artists because it doesn't afford the luxury of laboring over a work for days until it's just right, said Andy Austin, who has drawn Chicago's biggest trials over 40 years, including that of serial killer John Wayne Gacy.
"You have to put your work on the air or in a newspaper whether you like it or not," she said.
The job also involves long stretches of tedium punctuated by bursts of action as a witness sobs or defendant faint. It can also get downright creepy.
At Gacy's trial, a client asked Austin for an image of him smiling. So, she sought to catch the eye of the man accused of killing 33 people. When she finally did, she beamed. He beamed back.
"The two of us smiled at each other like the two happiest people in the world until the sketch was finished," Austin recalled in her memoirs, titled "Rule 53," after the directive that bars cameras in U.S. courts.
There's no school specifically for courtroom artists. Many slipped or were nudged into it by circumstance.
Renaud drew fashion illustrations for Marshall Field's commercials into the `90s but lost that job when the department store starting relying on photographers. That led her to courtroom drawing.
Artists sometime get to court early and sketch the empty room. But coming in with a drawing fully finished in advance is seen as unethical.
Some artists use charcoal, water colors or pungent markers, which can leave those sitting nearby queasy. Most start with a quick pencil sketch, then fill it in. Austin draws right off the bat with her color pencils.
"If I overthink it, I get lost," she said. "I have a visceral reaction. I just hope what I feel is conveyed to my pen."
These days, Chukman and Renaud fear for their livelihoods. They make the bulk of their annual income off their court work. Working for a TV station or a newspaper can bring in about $300 a day. A trial lasting a month can mean a $6,000 paycheck. Chukman does other work on the side, including drawing caricatures as gifts.
Austin is semiretired and so she says she worries less. She also notes that federal courts ? where some of the most notorious trials take place, like the two corruption trials of impeached Gov. Rod Blagojevich ? seem more adamant about not allowing cameras.
Still, though Rule 53 remains in place, federal courts are experimenting with cameras in very limited cases.
"If federal courts do follow, that will be the end of us," Austin said.
Renaud holds out hope that, even if the worst happens, there will still be demand from lawyers for courtroom drawings they can hang in their offices. Lien plans to bolster his income by launching a website selling work from historic trials he covered, including of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.
Chukman, a courtroom artist for around 30 years, jokes that if asked for his opinion, he'd have told state-court authorities to keep the ban in place a few more years until he retires.
"I recognize my profession exists simply because of gaps in the law ? and I've been grateful for them," he said wistfully. "This line of work has been good to me."
NEW YORK ? The stock market closed mostly lower Friday, sending the Dow Jones industrial average to its first losing week of 2012, after the government reported that economic growth was slower at the end of last year than economists expected.
The Dow spent the whole day in the red. It ended down 74 points, or 0.6 percent, at 12,660.46. The loss snapped a three-week winning streak for the Dow, which fell 60 points for the week but is still up 3.6 percent for the year.
The Standard & Poor's 500 struggled above even with an hour to go in trading, but it lost the gains and finished down 2.10 points at 1,316.33. The S&P finished the week up a sliver ? 0.95 points.
The Nasdaq composite, which has more than doubled the Dow's gain for the year, edged up 11.27 to 2,816.55. It rose about 30 points this week.
Economic growth for October through December came in at an annual rate of 2.8 percent. That was the fastest of 2011 but lower than the 3 percent that economists were looking for.
Utility companies led the way down with a fall of 1.3 percent. Most of the other nine industries in the S&P also fell, but only slightly, continuing a curious trading pattern this year: Trading has been calm in the past four weeks, a big change from the violent moves up and down that marked much of 2011.
Friday was the 17th day in a row of moves of less than 100 points up or down for the Dow. The last time the index had a longer period of such small moves was a 34-day stretch that started Dec. 3, 2010.
Despite the drift lower, investors displayed some bullishness.
Roughly two stocks rose for every one that fell on the New York Stock Exchange. And the Russell 2000 index of smaller stocks rose nearly 2 percent for the week. Investors tend to sell stocks in the Russell when they're worried, not buy them, because smaller firms often don't have much cash and other resources when times get tough.
"Risk-taking is picking up," says Jeff Schwarte, a portfolio manager at Principal Global Equities. He says his firm has been buying small firms since late last year. "We're still finding attractive stocks."
Next week, investors will turn their attention to Facebook, the powerhouse social network, which appears headed for the most anticipated initial public offering of stock in years.
The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, said Friday that Facebook could raise as much as $10 billion in an offering that would value the company at $75 billion to $100 billion.
That would vault Facebook into the largest public companies in the world, on par with the likes of McDonald's, Amazon.com and Visa. The Journal said Facebook could file IPO papers as early as Wednesday.
Investors earlier in the week had plenty of reason to hope the indexes would keep moving higher.
On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve announced it would likely keep benchmark interest rates near zero through late 2014, more than a year longer than it previously indicated. That helped send the Dow to its highest close since May.
Also lifting spirits: Apple had its best quarter for profits, trouncing expectations.
On Thursday, the Dow kept rising, briefly passing its highest close since the financial crisis three years ago. But the rally faded after news that new home sales in December had dropped, capping a year that ranked the worst for home sales since record-keeping began in 1963.
Among stocks making big moves Friday:
? Chevron fell more than 2 percent, the most of the 30 stocks in the Dow average, after its quarterly profit and revenue came in well below what analysts were expecting. Oil and natural gas production declined.
? Ford fell 4 percent after reporting disappointing earnings because of weak sales in Europe. The company said its results were also hurt by problems at parts suppliers in Thailand because of flooding there.
? Starbucks fell 1 percent after reporting late Thursday that that full-year results were likely to come in less than expectations.
? Procter & Gamble, which makes Tide, Crest and other consumer products, fell less than 1 percent after cutting its earnings outlook.
? Legg Mason dropped 5 percent after the investment management company's earnings fell by half as clients pulled money out. Legg Mason posted earnings of 20 cents per share. Analysts expected 25 cents, according to FactSet.
FILE--A Jan. 18, 2012 file photo shows New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly during a news conference at the New York Police Department in New York. Kelly apologized Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012, for appearing in a documentary movie about terrorism that Muslim groups have criticized as inflammatory, and said his department acted wrongly when it later showed the film to counterterrorism trainees. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens/file)
FILE--A Jan. 18, 2012 file photo shows New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly during a news conference at the New York Police Department in New York. Kelly apologized Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012, for appearing in a documentary movie about terrorism that Muslim groups have criticized as inflammatory, and said his department acted wrongly when it later showed the film to counterterrorism trainees. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens/file)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? A CIA operative's unusual assignment inside the New York Police Department is being cut short after an internal investigation that criticized how the agency established its unprecedented collaboration with city police, The Associated Press has learned.
In its investigation, the CIA's inspector general faulted the agency for sending an officer to New York with little oversight after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and then leaving him there too long, according to officials who have read or been briefed on the inquiry. They spoke only on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the investigation. The CIA said last month that the inspector general cleared the agency of any wrongdoing.
The inspector general opened its investigation after a series of AP articles that revealed how the NYPD, working in close collaboration with the CIA, set up spying operations that put Muslim communities under scrutiny. Plainclothes officers known as "rakers" eavesdropped in businesses, and Muslims not suspected of any wrongdoing were put in intelligence databases.
The CIA officer cited by the inspector general for operating without sufficient supervision, Lawrence Sanchez, was the architect of spying programs that helped make the NYPD one of the nation's most aggressive domestic intelligence agencies. The programs have drawn criticism from Muslims as well as New York and Washington lawmakers.
On Thursday, Muslim activists urged Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to resign and invoked the legacy of the 1960s FBI program COINTELPRO, which spied on political and activist groups.
"We the people find ourselves facing the specter of a 21st century COINTELPRO, once again in the name of safety and security," said Imam Talib Abdur-Rashid of the Islamic Leadership Council of New York.
Sanchez, a CIA veteran who according to his biography spent 15 years overseas in the former Soviet Union, South Asia and the Middle East, was sent to New York to help with information sharing following the 9/11 attacks. While on the CIA payroll from 2002 to 2004, he also helped create and direct police intelligence programs. He then formally joined the NYPD while on a leave of absence from the CIA.
The loosely defined assignment strained relations with the FBI and two consecutive CIA station chiefs in New York who complained that Sanchez's presence undermined their authority. U.S. officials have acknowledged that the rules were murky but they attributed that to the desperate push for better intelligence after the attacks.
Sanchez left the NYPD in 2010. Then, last July, the CIA sent one of its most senior clandestine operatives to work out of the NYPD. That's the officer who now is leaving. While the internal investigation found problems with the oversight of Sanchez's assignment, officials said the rules of the current arrangement were more clearly defined.
Even now, however, confusion remains.
Police Commissioner Kelly said the new officer was working at the NYPD to help share foreign intelligence. Federal officials, however, said he was there on a management sabbatical and was not sharing intelligence.
Kelly and the federal government also are at odds explaining the legal basis for a relationship between a local police department and the CIA, which is not allowed to spy domestically.
This fall, Kelly told the city council that the collaboration was authorized under a presidential order. But under those rules, the assignment would have had to have been approved by the CIA's top lawyer. The AP reported last week there was no such approval.
A CIA spokeswoman, Jennifer Youngblood, said Sanchez was sent to New York at the direction of then-CIA Director George Tenet, who had the authority to move his officers around the world to make sure intelligence was being shared. That arrangement did not require the lawyer's approval, she said.
"Context matters here," Youngblood said. "The CIA stepped up cooperation with law enforcement on counterterrorism after 9/11. It's hard to imagine that anyone is suggesting this was inappropriate or unexpected."
The current officer, whose name remains classified, operates under a more formal arrangement, specified in writing that he works directly for the NYPD. Nevertheless, some U.S. lawmakers have expressed concerns about the assignment, and the federal government's most senior intelligence official, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, has acknowledged the arrangement looks bad and has said it would be addressed.
The CIA officer is working as a special assistant to David Cohen, the NYPD's top intelligence officer. Cohen did not respond to an email Thursday requesting comment.
It's unclear exactly when the CIA officer will leave the police department and what his next job will be. A former station chief in Pakistan and Jordan, he is one of the CIA's most experienced spies. His assignment in New York was expected to last a year.
Kelly, the police commissioner, has defended his department and its Demographics Unit, which monitored conversations in cafes and wrote reports on Muslim businesses. Kelly has said his officers only follow leads. But internal police documents obtained by the AP show that even the most generic lead was used to justify surveillance of entire neighborhoods. Officials involved in the effort also told the AP that the Demographics Unit actually avoided locations where criminal investigations were under way for fear of disrupting them.
Relations between the NYPD and the Muslim community were further strained this week when police acknowledged that it showed nearly 1,500 officers a training video featuring Kelly. The video portrayed Muslims wanting to "infiltrate and dominate" the United States. Kelly apologized but only after police spokesman Paul Browne falsely claimed that the segment showing Kelly had been lifted from a previous interview. Browne later acknowledged that Kelly sat for an exclusive interview with the filmmakers and that Browne himself suggested it.
___
Follow Goldman and Apuzzo at http://twitter.com/goldmandc and http://twitter.com/mattapuzzo . Contact the Washington investigative team at DCinvestigations (at) ap.org.
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. ? New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski is being held out of practice with an injured left ankle.
Gronkowski, who set an NFL record for tight ends with 17 touchdown catches this season, limped off the field in the third quarter of Sunday's 23-20 win over Baltimore in the AFC championship game but returned about five minutes later. On Monday he was seen wearing a removable boot on his left foot.
Coach Bill Belichick said that Gronkowski would not take part Thursday in the team's first practice for the Super Bowl against the New York Giants on Feb. 5.
Asked how Gronkowski was progressing, Belichick said, "good, good."
He was noncommittal on how the Patriots would be affected if Gronkowski plays in the Super Bowl without practicing for it.
"We'll just have to see, you know," Belichick said. "He's not going to practice today, so take it day by day. I'm not going to try to forecast where things will be 10 days from now. We'll just take it day by day."
Gronkowski started all 16 regular-season games and two playoff games. Belichick said he believed Gronkowski took part in just about every practice this season.
Also on Thursday, the Patriots signed to the practice squad tight end Carson Butler, who spent most of the 2010 season on their practice squad and was released Sept. 2. The only other tight end on the roster is Aaron Hernandez. Another tight end, Garrett Mills, is on the practice squad.
As Tea Party state education chief John Huppenthal retreats into his office after an embarrassing national media tour on Arizona's extremist Ethnic Studies crackdown, and Tucson Unified School District administrators continue their slide into a public relations disaster over banishing Mexican American Studies curricula and books, a remarkably diverse array of librarians, educators, writers, civil rights activists and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus is mounting a series of national actions to call attention to educational and civil rights violations and to support local Tucson efforts.
On January 24th, the American Library Association issued a condemnation of Arizona's "suppression of open inquiry and free expression caused by closure of ethnic and cultural studies programs on the basis of partisan or doctrinal disapproval," and the Tucson school district's "restriction of access to educational materials associated with ethnic and cultural studies programs." The national library association, with active chapters across the country, also called on the state to support a new bill to repeal the Ethnic Studies ban.
As a follow up to their extraordinary request to the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice and the Department of Education this week for a federal investigation of civil rights violations by the state of Arizona, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus is urging constituents to change their profile picture on Facebook and Twitter to a special logo -- "You Can't Ban Books, You Can't Ban History" -- on Thursday, January 26, 2012.
On February 1st, teachers and schools around the country have been encouraged by Rethinking Schools, whose nationally acclaimed textbook Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years was confiscated and banished from Tucson schools, to follow the suggestion of former Tucson Mexican American Studies literature teacher Curtis Acosta for a "national day of solidarity where teachers would teach our curriculum all over the nation."
Along with special forums planned across the country, from California to New York, a network of educators in Georgia is sponsoring a "Teach-in" in Atlanta on Saturday, Feb. 4th.
The event is framed as a "Teach-in," where we can inform the community about what's happening, work together to fight censorship and racism in schools, and make plans for future social justice activism. Groups will include:
(1) curricular action, in which participants create lesson plans and activities for PK-12 students on issues of censorship, critical pedagogy, and/or Mexican American history;
(2) censored books dialogue, in which participants learn about the books that were banned and the theories contained within them; and
(3) legislative overview, in which participants discuss legal implications of the ban in Arizona and around the country.
Finally, the group will come back together to plan action steps that can be taken in higher education, PK-12 schools, and communities in Georgia and around the country.
Several national petitions are also being circulating, including a change.org petition by former Mexican American Studies teacher Norma Gonzales, who has called on the Tucson school district to "immediately remove these books from their 'district storage facility' and make them available in each school's library. Knowledge cannot be boxed off and carried away from students who want to learn!"
In a stunning revelation last week, a review of the TUSD library catalog found that there are less than 2 or 3 copies of some of the banished texts in libraries serving more than 60,000 students.
Presente.org, the national Latino and human rights organization, is also circulating a petition to "tell Superintendent Pedicone and the school board to reverse the ban and reinstate the Mexican American Studies program."
In one of the most creative actions to take on Arizona's removal of books and texts, Texas author and literary organizer extraordinaire Tony Diaz is assembling a caravan of renowned authors and librotraficantes to deliver banished books to Arizona students in March.
COATESVILLE, New Zealand?? Kim Dotcom, the founder of file-sharing site Megaupload.com who faces a lengthy jail term in the United States if convicted of racketeering, money laundering and Internet piracy, seems to have a mischievous sense of humor.
Shortly after arriving in New Zealand in 2010 and moving into a sprawling luxury estate near Auckland, Dotcom emailed a neighbor who had raised questions about his character, having previously been convicted as a hacker in Germany.
The email was addressed to the local Neighborhood Watch, a community group aimed at stopping crime in the Coatesville area, a nouveau riche community of hobby farms and wealthy city workers.
"First of all, let me assure you that having a criminal neighbor like me comes with benefits," Dotcom, also known as Kim Schmitz, wrote in the email, which was sent to Reuters by neighbor France Komoroske.
"1. Our newly opened local money laundering facility can help you with your tax fraud optimization. 2. Our network of international insiders can provide you with valuable stock tips. 3. My close personal relations with other (far worse) criminals can help you whenever you have to deal with a nasty neighbor," Dotcom quipped in the email, which Reuters has not been able to corroborate.
Komoroske said the email startled her family.
But Dotcom did try to allay his neighbor's concerns.
"In all seriousness: My wife, two kids and myself love New Zealand and 'We come in peace'," he wrote.
"Fifteen years ago I was a hacker and 10 years ago I was convicted for insider trading. Hardly the kind of crimes you need to start a witch hunt for.
"Since then I have been a good boy, my criminal records have been cleared, and I created a successful Internet company that employs 100+ people," he added.
Dotcom then asked his neighbor to choose.
"Now you can make a choice: 1: Call Interpol, the CIA, and the Queen of England and try to get me on the next plane out of New Zealand. 2: Sit back, relax and give me a chance to do good for New Zealand and possibly the neighborhood."
Doctom then invited his neighbor over for coffee, adding "... and don't forget to bring the cocaine (joke). All the best, Kim."
Komoroske said she replied to Dotcom, saying, "We'd love to come over for coffee. How's tomorrow?"
But the invitation was never taken up, after Dotcom demanded Komoroske bring another neighbor, calling the two of them "leaders of the Coatesville Inquisition movement."
Reuters was unable to contact Dotcom, who is in custody, and an email to his lawyer was not answered.
Other neighbors spoken to by Reuters said Doctom lived almost a reclusive life in his rented 30-acre estate, occasionally seen driving on the local winding roads, but getting his entourage to organize any jobs on the property.
A New Zealand judge on Wednesday ordered Dotcom ? who stands 6-feeet, 6-inches tall and weighs more than 285 lbs ? to be held in custody for another month, saying the suspected Internet pirate posed a significant flight risk.
Dotcom, a German national also known as Kim Tim Jim Vestor, faces a February 22 hearing of an extradition application by the United States.
Prosecutors say Dotcom was the ringleader of a group that netted $175 million by copying and distributing music, movies and other copyrighted content without authorization.
His lawyers say his company, megaupload.com, simply offered online storage, and that he will fight extradition.
Copyright 2012 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
TUESDAY, Jan. 24 (HealthDay News) -- New research suggests that Avodart, a drug used to treat an enlarged prostate gland, may help slow the progression of early stage prostate cancer, reducing the need for aggressive treatment in some men.
Prostate cancer can grow and spread slowly, which is why some men are urged to engage in so-called watchful waiting when the cancer is first diagnosed. Avodart (dutasteride) may help such men feel comfortable with surveillance as opposed to radical treatment, the researchers noted.
"The concept of active surveillance is gaining traction in most parts of the world," said study author Dr. Neil E. Fleshner, head of the division of urology at the Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto. Still, some men are uncomfortable with doing nothing in the face of a cancer diagnosis, he said. "By using this drug, we can improve the proportion of men who remain committed to the surveillance."
The findings are published online Jan. 25 in The Lancet.
According to the U.S. National Cancer Institute, one out of every six men in the United States will develop prostate cancer in his lifetime. But because many of those cancers are low-grade, most will die of something else.
Avodart belongs to a class of drugs called 5-alpha reductase inhibitors. These drugs work by interfering with the effects of certain male hormones on the prostate. In the three-year study, prostate cancer progressed in 38 percent of 144 men with early prostate cancer who were treated with Avodart and 48 percent of the 145 men who received a placebo.
Men seem less anxious about the cancer diagnosis when they are doing something more proactive, Fleshner said. "The drug augments active surveillance and avoids most of the side effects associated with surgery and radiation," he said. Prostate removal surgery and/or radiation can lead to impotence and incontinence, he said.
The medication does have side effects, however, including reversible breast enlargement and tenderness and some sexual dysfunction.
"We know that we are over-treating prostate cancer," said Dr. Louis Potters, chairman of radiation medicine at North Shore University Hospital and Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Manhasset, N.Y.
"In the U.S., patients have a tendency to hear the word 'cancer,' and want to treat it right away," he said. "In these men with early prostate cancer, we can now say, 'Let's put you on this medication, and see what happens over the next couple of months.'"
However, some experts have concerns about 5-alpha reductase inhibitors. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently issued a warning that men who take these drugs to treat enlarged prostate glands may be at increased risk for high-grade prostate cancer.
Dr. Ryan Terlecki, an assistant professor of urology at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C., said this may dampen enthusiasm for use of the drug to treat cancer.
"The overall role that these medications will play for urologists will decrease," Terlecki said. Doctors will likely begin looking toward noninvasive and/or non-medical treatments such as the use of thermal heat to cope with some of the symptoms of prostate conditions, he added.
More information
Learn more about prostate cancer at the American Cancer Society.
NYT: In a bitter skirmish over the definition of depression, a new report contends that a proposed change to the diagnosis would characterize grieving as a disorder and greatly increase the number of people treated for it.
Rice lab mimics Jupiter's Trojan asteroids inside a single atomPublic release date: 24-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jade Boyd jadeboyd@rice.edu 713-348-6778 Rice University
Orbit of captured electron matches orbit of Jupiter's captured asteroids
HOUSTON -- Rice University physicists have gone to extremes to prove that Isaac Newton's classical laws of motion can apply in the atomic world: They've built an accurate model of part of the solar system inside a single atom of potassium.
In a new paper published this week in Physical Review Letters, Rice's team and collaborators at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Vienna University of Technology showed they could cause an electron in an atom to orbit the nucleus in precisely the same way that Jupiter's Trojan asteroids orbit the sun.
The findings uphold a prediction made in 1920 by famed Danish physicist Niels Bohr about the relationship between the then-new science of quantum mechanics and Newton's tried-and-true laws of motion.
"Bohr predicted that quantum mechanical descriptions of the physical world would, for systems of sufficient size, match the classical descriptions provided by Newtonian mechanics," said lead researcher Barry Dunning, Rice's Sam and Helen Worden Professor of Physics and chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy. "Bohr also described the conditions under which this correspondence could be observed. In particular, he said it should be seen in atoms with very high principal quantum numbers, which are exactly what we study in our laboratory."
Bohr was a pioneer of quantum physics. His 1913 atomic model, which is still widely invoked today, postulated a small nucleus surrounded by electrons moving in well-defined orbits and shells. The word "quantum" in quantum mechanics derives from the fact that these orbits can have only certain well-defined energies. Jumps between these orbits lead to absorption or emission of specific amounts of energy termed quanta. As an electron gains energy, its quantum number increases, and it jumps to higher orbits that circle ever farther from the nucleus.
In the new experiments, Rice graduate students Brendan Wyker and Shuzhen Ye began by using an ultraviolet laser to create a Rydberg atom. Rydberg atoms contain a highly excited electron with a very large quantum number. In the Rice experiments, potassium atoms with quantum numbers between 300 and 600 were studied.
"In such excited states, the potassium atoms become hundreds of thousands of times larger than normal and approach the size of a period at the end of a sentence," Dunning said. "Thus, they are good candidates to test Bohr's prediction."
He said comparing the classical and quantum descriptions of the electron orbits is complicated, in part because electrons exist as both particles and waves. To "locate" an electron, physicists calculate the likelihood of finding the electron at different locations at a given time. These predictions are combined to create a "wave function" that describes all the places where the electron might be found. Normally, an electron's wave function looks like a diffuse cloud that surrounds the atomic nucleus, because the electron might be found on any side of the nucleus at a given time.
Dunning and co-workers previously used a tailored sequence of electric field pulses to collapse the wave function of an electron in a Rydberg atom; this limited where it might be found to a localized, comma-shaped area called a "wave packet." This localized wave packet orbited the nucleus of the atom much like a planet orbits the sun. But the effect lasted only for a brief period.
"We wanted to see if we could develop a way to use radio frequency waves to capture this localized electron and make it orbit the nucleus indefinitely without spreading out," Ye said.
They succeeded by applying a radio frequency field that rotated around the nucleus itself. This field ensnared the localized electron and forced it to rotate in lockstep around the nucleus.
A further electric field pulse was used to measure the final result by taking a snapshot of the wave packet and destroying the delicate Rydberg atom in the process. After the experiment had been run tens of thousands of times, all the snapshots were combined to show that Bohr's prediction was correct: The classical and quantum descriptions of the orbiting electron wave packets matched. In fact, the classical description of the wave packet trapped by the rotating field parallels the classical physics that explains the behavior of Jupiter's Trojan asteroids.
Jupiter's 4,000-plus Trojan asteroids -- so called because each is named for a hero of the Trojan wars -- have the same orbit as Jupiter and are contained in comma-shaped clouds that look remarkably similar to the localized wave packets created in the Rice experiments. And just as the wave packet in the atom is trapped by the combined electric field from the nucleus and the rotating wave, the Trojans are trapped by the combined gravitational field of the sun and orbiting Jupiter.
The researchers are now working on their next experiment: They're attempting to localize two electrons and have them orbit the nucleus like two planets in different orbits.
"The level of control that we're able to achieve in these atoms would have been unthinkable just a few years ago and has potential applications in, for example, quantum computing and in controlling chemical reactions using ultrafast lasers," Dunning said.
###
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the Robert A. Welch Foundation, the Austrian Science Fund and the Department of Energy. Paper co-authors include S. Yoshida of the Vienna University of Technology; C.O. Reinhold of Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee; and J. Burgdrfer of Vienna University of Technology and the University of Tennessee.
VIDEO is available at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9sJ-H2hM88
High-resolution images are available for download at:
CAPTION: Rice University graduate student Shuzhen Ye used an ultraviolet laser to create a Rydberg atom in order to study the orbital mechanics of electrons.
CREDIT: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University
A copy of the PRL paper is available at:
http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v108/i4/e043001
Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation's top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is known for its "unconventional wisdom." With 3,708 undergraduates and 2,374 graduate students, Rice's undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is less than 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice has been ranked No. 1 for best quality of life multiple times by the Princeton Review and No. 4 for "best value" among private universities by Kiplinger's Personal Finance. To read "What they're saying about Rice," go to http://www.rice.edu/nationalmedia/Rice.pdf.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Rice lab mimics Jupiter's Trojan asteroids inside a single atomPublic release date: 24-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jade Boyd jadeboyd@rice.edu 713-348-6778 Rice University
Orbit of captured electron matches orbit of Jupiter's captured asteroids
HOUSTON -- Rice University physicists have gone to extremes to prove that Isaac Newton's classical laws of motion can apply in the atomic world: They've built an accurate model of part of the solar system inside a single atom of potassium.
In a new paper published this week in Physical Review Letters, Rice's team and collaborators at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Vienna University of Technology showed they could cause an electron in an atom to orbit the nucleus in precisely the same way that Jupiter's Trojan asteroids orbit the sun.
The findings uphold a prediction made in 1920 by famed Danish physicist Niels Bohr about the relationship between the then-new science of quantum mechanics and Newton's tried-and-true laws of motion.
"Bohr predicted that quantum mechanical descriptions of the physical world would, for systems of sufficient size, match the classical descriptions provided by Newtonian mechanics," said lead researcher Barry Dunning, Rice's Sam and Helen Worden Professor of Physics and chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy. "Bohr also described the conditions under which this correspondence could be observed. In particular, he said it should be seen in atoms with very high principal quantum numbers, which are exactly what we study in our laboratory."
Bohr was a pioneer of quantum physics. His 1913 atomic model, which is still widely invoked today, postulated a small nucleus surrounded by electrons moving in well-defined orbits and shells. The word "quantum" in quantum mechanics derives from the fact that these orbits can have only certain well-defined energies. Jumps between these orbits lead to absorption or emission of specific amounts of energy termed quanta. As an electron gains energy, its quantum number increases, and it jumps to higher orbits that circle ever farther from the nucleus.
In the new experiments, Rice graduate students Brendan Wyker and Shuzhen Ye began by using an ultraviolet laser to create a Rydberg atom. Rydberg atoms contain a highly excited electron with a very large quantum number. In the Rice experiments, potassium atoms with quantum numbers between 300 and 600 were studied.
"In such excited states, the potassium atoms become hundreds of thousands of times larger than normal and approach the size of a period at the end of a sentence," Dunning said. "Thus, they are good candidates to test Bohr's prediction."
He said comparing the classical and quantum descriptions of the electron orbits is complicated, in part because electrons exist as both particles and waves. To "locate" an electron, physicists calculate the likelihood of finding the electron at different locations at a given time. These predictions are combined to create a "wave function" that describes all the places where the electron might be found. Normally, an electron's wave function looks like a diffuse cloud that surrounds the atomic nucleus, because the electron might be found on any side of the nucleus at a given time.
Dunning and co-workers previously used a tailored sequence of electric field pulses to collapse the wave function of an electron in a Rydberg atom; this limited where it might be found to a localized, comma-shaped area called a "wave packet." This localized wave packet orbited the nucleus of the atom much like a planet orbits the sun. But the effect lasted only for a brief period.
"We wanted to see if we could develop a way to use radio frequency waves to capture this localized electron and make it orbit the nucleus indefinitely without spreading out," Ye said.
They succeeded by applying a radio frequency field that rotated around the nucleus itself. This field ensnared the localized electron and forced it to rotate in lockstep around the nucleus.
A further electric field pulse was used to measure the final result by taking a snapshot of the wave packet and destroying the delicate Rydberg atom in the process. After the experiment had been run tens of thousands of times, all the snapshots were combined to show that Bohr's prediction was correct: The classical and quantum descriptions of the orbiting electron wave packets matched. In fact, the classical description of the wave packet trapped by the rotating field parallels the classical physics that explains the behavior of Jupiter's Trojan asteroids.
Jupiter's 4,000-plus Trojan asteroids -- so called because each is named for a hero of the Trojan wars -- have the same orbit as Jupiter and are contained in comma-shaped clouds that look remarkably similar to the localized wave packets created in the Rice experiments. And just as the wave packet in the atom is trapped by the combined electric field from the nucleus and the rotating wave, the Trojans are trapped by the combined gravitational field of the sun and orbiting Jupiter.
The researchers are now working on their next experiment: They're attempting to localize two electrons and have them orbit the nucleus like two planets in different orbits.
"The level of control that we're able to achieve in these atoms would have been unthinkable just a few years ago and has potential applications in, for example, quantum computing and in controlling chemical reactions using ultrafast lasers," Dunning said.
###
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the Robert A. Welch Foundation, the Austrian Science Fund and the Department of Energy. Paper co-authors include S. Yoshida of the Vienna University of Technology; C.O. Reinhold of Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee; and J. Burgdrfer of Vienna University of Technology and the University of Tennessee.
VIDEO is available at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9sJ-H2hM88
High-resolution images are available for download at:
CAPTION: Rice University graduate student Shuzhen Ye used an ultraviolet laser to create a Rydberg atom in order to study the orbital mechanics of electrons.
CREDIT: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University
A copy of the PRL paper is available at:
http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v108/i4/e043001
Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation's top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is known for its "unconventional wisdom." With 3,708 undergraduates and 2,374 graduate students, Rice's undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is less than 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice has been ranked No. 1 for best quality of life multiple times by the Princeton Review and No. 4 for "best value" among private universities by Kiplinger's Personal Finance. To read "What they're saying about Rice," go to http://www.rice.edu/nationalmedia/Rice.pdf.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
COMMENTARY | Few presidential candidates have faced more pressure to make available their tax returns than Mitt Romney. Despite the fact Rick Santorum and Ron Paul have also not released their tax returns, as revealed in a South Carolina debate, the former Massachusetts governor is being singled out by the media. The hyperbole scrutiny of Romney's tax returns reveals bias in the part of the media.
If Romney was a salaried man with less than eight-digit figures in his bank account, he would not have faced the same pressure to release his tax returns as he is now. People love a narrative. A successful and wealthy businessman must have a lot of skeletons in his closet, and hence we need see his tax returns. Even if Romney decides to release his tax returns at this instance, the media will follow up and demand to see returns from previous years and decades.
What the media seems to forget is that they are journalists and not auditors. It is the job of the IRS to scrutinize Romney's tax returns for problems. All the media will do is scouring the Michigan native's returns for politically inexpedient details and magnifies them. The decision to release tax returns should be his to make and for the public to judge.
Legally, Romney has the right not to disclose his tax returns. Moreover, he is only a candidate and not the president. If Romney is elected to the presidency, he will likely follow traditions and release his tax returns every year of his term. The media obsession over Romney's tax returns gives the impression that presidential candidates are required to make public their returns, which is incorrect.
Ultimately, it is more prudent for Romney to release his tax returns as soon as possible to temper the controversy. To his credit, the Michigan native has indicated that he will make available his tax returns in April. Four years ago, GOP nominee John McCain also released his tax returns in April. All in all, Romney's wealth is expected to continue to be a hotly debated topic in the 2012 Republican race.
Heidi Klum and Seal have always seemed completely crazy about each other -- so the news of their impending divorce has come as a complete shock. Married for nearly seven years, the supermodel and crooner had three biological children together and renewed their vows in an anniversary wedding ceremony each year. But behind closed doors, things weren't as rosy as they seemed.
Chicago Bulls guard Derrick Rose sits on the bench with a boot on his injured foot, during the first half of the Bulls' NBA basketball game against the Phoenix Suns, Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Chicago Bulls guard Derrick Rose sits on the bench with a boot on his injured foot, during the first half of the Bulls' NBA basketball game against the Phoenix Suns, Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Chicago Bulls guard Derrick Rose (1) drives to the basket as Toronto Raptors guard Leandro Barbosa (20) guards during the third quarter of an NBA basketball game in Chicago on Saturday, Jan. 14, 2012. The Bulls won 77-64. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
CLEVELAND (AP) ? Chicago Bulls star guard Derrick Rose may miss his third straight game with a toe injury.
Rose did not participate in the team's morning shootaround. Coach Tom Thibodeau said it will be a game-time decision whether the league's MVP plays Friday night against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Rose has been sidelined with a sprained left big toe he first injured Jan. 10.
The Bulls will likely take a cautious approach with Rose, who is averaging 20.8 points and 8.7 assists. Rose hasn't played since last weekend against Toronto.
Even without their top player, the Bulls blew out Phoenix 118-97 on Tuesday. C.J. Watson started for Rose and scored 23 points.
The Bulls have the league's best record at 13-3 and host Charlotte on Saturday.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) ? Google Inc's quarterly results fell short of Wall Street's heightened expectations for the holiday season as declining search advertising rates contributed to a rare miss, triggering a 9 percent slide in its shares.
The No. 1 Internet search engine underperformed on both revenue and earnings in the fourth quarter, disappointing investors who had counted on record U.S. online-commerce to prop up results.
Several analysts zeroed in on an 8 percent drop in cost-per-click, or money paid by marketers to the company for search ads, versus analyst estimates of a slight increase.
"The major question is: Is this a one-time thing or is this something that is going to continue because the nature of the business has changed," said Mayuresh Masurekar, an analyst at Colins Stewart.
Google executives reeled off a number of figures during the conference call that highlighted the company's progress in newer businesses such as display advertising, mobile and social networking.
But the good news did not offset concerns about Google's first year-on-year decline in its CPCs in more than two years, leading to nearly a half-dozen questions from analysts during the call and a terse one-liner from Chief Executive Larry Page who at one point requested that "maybe we can get our next question not about CPCs."
Google executives said the decline in search ad rates was primarily due to the impact of foreign currency exchange fluctuations and changes to the company's advertising formats.
The new ad formats drove a sharp increase in the total number of clicks by websurfers on Google's search ads - up 34 percent year-on-year - even though some of the format changes impacted prices negatively, Google executives explained.
But many analysts wondered whether Google's mobile advertising, which is generally believed to command lower ad rates, played a bigger part in the CPC decline than Google let on.
"This was the first time we've seen a decline in CPC rates since 2009," said Needham & Co analyst Kerry Rice. "It's been a long time and the one thing that's really changed about this is mobile."
Google's shares dived to about $583 in after-hours trade, from the Nasdaq close of $639.57 before the results.
Dave Rolfe, manager of RiverPark-Wedgewood Fund which counts Google as one of its largest holdings, said the stock decline was an "egregious overreaction" by Wall Street and that the declining ad rates did not shake his confidence in the company.
"The company tried to clarify it as best as they could, but it's Google and they're not going to give you every little nuance of it," he said.
"Google is famous for making improvements for their end-users that have short term negative results," he said.
SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT
Google is increasingly investing in mobile and social networking initiatives as it positions its business for new technology trends and squares off against rivals Apple and Facebook.
Google's business providing graphical display ads is generating revenue at a $5 billion annualized run rate, Page said during the call. That's up from the $2.5 billion run rate in October 2010, the last time Google provided a peek at the display business's financial performance.
Google+, the company's recently-launched social network, now has more than 90 million users, compared to 40 million users three months ago.
Perhaps more importantly, Google for the first time provided details about how often people actually use Google+.
According to the company, 60 percent of Google+ members use the service every day, and 80 percent use it every week.
That "engagement" on the social network, which Google hopes can eventually take on Facebook, is key to determining future revenue potential.
"Google+ investments are showing some results. They are investing in future revenue growth," said Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry.
Operating expenses increased to 32 percent of revenue during the fourth quarter, from 30 percent of revenue in the year-ago quarter.
Google said on Thursday it earned $2.71 billion, or $8.22 per share, in the fourth quarter, compared with $2.54 billion, or $7.81 per share, a year earlier.
Excluding certain items, Google earned $9.50 per share, lagging estimates for $10.49 a share.
Page, who took over as CEO in April, said the company was making tough choices about where to focus its efforts, pulling the plug on less successful products so that Google can "double down on the really big bets we have made."
Wall Street is still uneasy about one of Google's biggest bets: its planned $12.5 billion acquisition of smartphone maker Motorola Mobility Holdings. Investors are worried that Google is entering a lower-margin business in which it has no experience, and that the deal might alienate partners that license Google's Android mobile software.
In response to a question on the subject, Page said that he expected Google's relationships with its partners to remain strong once the deal closed, and reiterated that Motorola would be run as a separate company.
Google executives said more than 250 million devices powered by Android, Google's freely distributed smartphone operating system, had been activated since its inception.
"Android is quite simply mind boggling," said Page.
Google's net revenue, which excludes fees shared with partner websites, was $8.13 billion in the fourth quarter, versus $6.37 billion a year earlier. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S were looking for $8.4 billion.
That shortfall marks an unusual slip-up for a company that has exceeded Wall Street's revenue targets for eight consecutive quarters.
(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic in San Francisco; Editing by Phil Berlowitz, Edwin Chan and Steve Orlofsky)
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