Dispute Flares Over Energy Exploration in South China Sea

BEIJING — China and two of its neighbors, Vietnam and India, were locked in a new dispute on Tuesday over energy exploration in the South China Sea, a signal that Beijing plans to continue its hard line in the increasingly contentious waterway.

Vietnam accused a Chinese fishing boat of cutting a seismic cable attached to one of its vessels exploring for oil and gas near the Gulf of Tonkin, an act apparently intended to inhibit Vietnam from pursuing energy deposits.

Vietnam said Tuesday that in retaliation, it would send out new patrols, which would include the marine police, to guard against increasing encroachment by Chinese fishing boats in the South China Sea. India, which operates several joint ventures with Vietnam’s national energy company, Petro Vietnam, said it would consider sending navy vessels to protect its interests in the South China Sea.

The latest episode followed an announcement by Hainan Province in southern China last week that Chinese vessels would board and search ships in contested areas of the waterway, which includes vital shipping lanes through which more than a third of global trade moves.

The new tensions among China, Vietnam and India illustrate in stark terms the competition in the South China Sea for what are believed to be sizable deposits of oil and gas.

Some energy experts in China see the sea as an important new energy frontier close to home that could make China less dependent on its huge oil imports from the Middle East.

On Monday, China’s National Energy Administration named the South China Sea as the main offshore site for natural gas production. Within two years, China aims to produce 150 billion cubic meters of natural gas from fields in the sea, a significant increase from the 20 billion cubic meters produced so far, the agency said.

Earlier this year, China’s third-largest energy company, the state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation, began drilling with a rig in deep water in nondisputed waters off the southern coast of China.

The escalation in the South China Sea comes less than a month after Xi Jinping took office as China’s leader. Mr. Xi appears to have taken a particular interest in the South China Sea and the serious dispute between China and Japan over the islands known as Diaoyu in China and as Senkaku in Japan. Whether any of China’s most recent actions in the South China Sea were associated with Mr. Xi was not clear.

But Mr. Xi does lead a small group of policy makers clustered in the Maritime Rights Office, which serves to coordinate agencies within China, according to Zhu Feng, a professor of international relations at Peking University, and other Chinese experts. The unit is part of the office of the Foreign Affairs Leading Small Group, Mr. Zhu said. The leading small group, now headed by Mr. Xi, is widely believed to be China’s central policy-making group.

China’s Foreign Ministry reiterated on Tuesday that China opposed oil and gas development by other countries in disputed waters of the sea. China maintains that it has “undisputed” sovereignty over the South China Sea, and that only China is allowed to develop the energy resources.

“We hope that concerned countries respect China’s position and rights,” said the Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hong Lei.

Vietnam, which has long been wary of China but enjoys a relationship through its governing Communist Party, summoned the Chinese ambassador on Monday to protest the cutting of the seismic cable, the Vietnamese news media reported.

A Web site run by Petro Vietnam, the oil company, reported that the company’s exploration vessel Binh Minh 02 had its seismic cable severed by a Chinese fishing vessel on Friday. In May 2011, the Vietnamese authorities said a similar cable of the Binh Minh 02 was cut by three Chinese surveillance ships, resulting in weeks of anti-China protests in Hanoi.

In its decree on the new patrols, Vietnam said that civilian ships, supported by the marine police and a border force, would be deployed starting next month to stop foreign vessels that violate fishing laws in waters claimed by Vietnam.

A senior official of Petro Vietnam, Pham Viet Dung, was quoted in the Vietnamese news media as saying that large numbers of Chinese fishing boats, many of them substantial vessels, had recently entered waters claimed by Vietnam. The fishing vessels interfered with the operations of the oil company, he said.

India, whose state-run oil company, the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, has a 45 percent interest in exploration with Petro Vietnam, also reacted strongly.

The head of the Indian Navy, Adm. D. K. Joshi, said that India was prepared to send navy vessels to protect its interests in the sea. “Now, are we preparing for it? Are we having exercises of that nature? The short answer is ‘yes,’ ” Admiral Joshi told reporters in India.

The most recent moves by China in the South China Sea have not won total support at home. Mr. Zhu, the professor, said he did not believe that China had become more assertive in the South China Sea.

But, he said, “the cable cutting is really unfriendly.”

Bree Feng contributed reporting.

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PlayStation 3 was the world’s No.1 Netflix streaming device this year

There are dozens of devices that can stream Netflix (NFLX), but only one can machine be crowned the king of the living room. According to Netflix, that device is Sony’s (SNE) PlayStation 3 console. Without revealing any specific figures, Netflix announced on its blog “in the U.S. and globally, PS3 is the largest TV-connected platform in terms of Netflix viewing” and that “at times, PS3 even surpassed the PC in hours of Netflix enjoyment to become our No. 1 platform overall.” 

Netflix’s blog is quick to mention why the PS3 is the most popular streaming device this year, applauding it for being the first console to have 1080p HD video and 5.1-channel Dolby Digital Plus surround sound, post-play, second screen controls, subtitles and easy app updates.

While the Xbox 360 is gaining ground in terms of how many hours users spend watching videos on it, streaming video services such as Netflix requires an Xbox LIVE Gold subscription. One reason why the PlayStation 3 might be leading Netflix streaming is because it doesn’t require a subscription fee to have access to the Netflix app, or any other streaming video app such as Amazon (AMZN) Instant Video.

“The PlayStation and Netflix communities both share a strong passion for high quality entertainment,” Sony Computer Entertainment of America CEO and president Jack Tretton said. “Netflix provides a fantastic experience for watching TV shows and movies on PS3, and our joint development will continue to produce innovations for our customers that further demonstrate PS3 as the true home for entertainment in the living room.”

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Jets going with Mark Sanchez as starting QB

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. (AP) — Rex Ryan is sticking with Mark Sanchez as the New York Jets' starting quarterback.

The coach announced Wednesday that Sanchez, benched last Sunday against Arizona, will get the start this week over Greg McElroy and Tim Tebow when the Jets play the Jaguars at Jacksonville.

"I have to get this decision right," Ryan said, "and I believe I have."

Sanchez was pulled late in the third quarter, and McElroy came in and led the Jets to the only touchdown of the game on his first NFL drive and helped New York to a 7-6 victory. Sanchez was 10 of 21 for 97 and three interceptions, while McElroy was 5 of 7 for 29 yards and the score, and appeared to spark the team.

Ryan brought all three quarterbacks into a meeting Wednesday morning and told them of his decision. He said he consulted with several people, including his staff, and "put a lot of thought" into it before making up his mind late Tuesday night.

"It's really a decision I feel great about," he said.

It was perhaps the biggest call in Ryan's nearly four years as coach of the Jets, considering the sensitivity of the situation and the possible ramifications. He acknowledged that there were differing opinions among those he spoke to, but said he received no pressure from owner Woody Johnson and added that he was "absolutely" OK with the decision.

"I'm fortunate," he said. "I have a great relationship with my owner, with Woody. ... From the day Mr. Johnson hired me, he said it's 100 percent my decision who plays."

Sanchez, whose confidence was shaken with Sunday's miserable performance, gets a chance to bounce back from the first benching of his NFL career and regain the trust of his teammates. He has struggled the last several weeks, with two touchdowns and five interceptions in his last four games.

"He has to play better and he has to protect the ball better," Ryan said. "As a football team, we have to protect the ball better than we have."

He'll likely be on a short leash against Jacksonville — with McElroy possibly ready to go — but Ryan acknowledged that it might not be a quick hook if he struggles.

"If he throws one interception, it doesn't mean he's going to get benched, necessarily," Ryan said.

It's still uncertain if Tebow will be active against his hometown Jaguars after sustaining two broken ribs. He was medically cleared by team doctors to play, but Ryan chose to keep him active but not play against New England on Thanksgiving night and then made him inactive against Arizona.

If Ryan went with McElroy, a seventh-round pick in 2011 out of Alabama, it would have been a clear message that the franchise is moving on from Sanchez.

"I'll just keep working, go study this film and keep trying to improve," Sanchez said Sunday after the game. "I need to understand where the mistakes came from, keep studying, keep preparing, be ready to play next week and see what happens."

However, money might have played a role, too, with Sanchez owed $8.25 million next year in guarantees. But Ryan adamantly denied that factored into the decision.

"Absolutely zero," he said without hesitating.

Still, the Jets are likely stuck with Sanchez and his contract, so they need to see if he can rebound after the lowest point of his career.

"I believe in Mark," Ryan said. "He has the skill set that is pretty impressive."

If Sanchez can't bounce back, it will be an intriguing offseason for New York, especially since Tebow has not played much since being acquired from Denver in March and might not be back next year.

It didn't appear that Tebow was much of a factor in Ryan's decision. Ryan said all three quarterbacks would be in the mix, but didn't speculate as to whether he would have pulled Sanchez in favor of Tebow last Sunday if he were active.

Tebow was expected to have a major role in the offense, but instead has been just a spare part averaging about seven offensive snaps per game. He has been listed as the No. 2 quarterback on the depth chart, but if the Jets turned to McElroy, it would have meant that the No. 3 guy leapfrogged Tebow to start for the Jets.

Although Ryan said earlier in the week that it wouldn't play a part in his decision, the fact the team is playing on the road for the next two games should also help Sanchez.

He was booed mercilessly by the MetLife Stadium crowd last Sunday, particularly after each interception, and chants for McElroy were heard throughout the game. McElroy was cheered as he warmed up late in the third quarter, and there was growing sentiment among some fans and media that he earned a start after lifting the team.

"This is my opinion," Ryan said, "and I believe that sometimes you don't need to sit a guy for 'X' amount of games."

The Jets are hoping he also sparked Sanchez, whom they deemed the face of the franchise just a few years ago when they traded up in the draft in 2009 and took him with the fifth overall pick. He helped lead New York to consecutive trips to the AFC championship game for the first time in team history, but it has been a bumpy ride since. Sanchez has been criticized the last two seasons for failing to take the next step in his development, and Ryan has been knocked for sticking with the quarterback for too long.

The two have been joined at the hip, and stand side-by-side during the national anthem before every game. Ryan was seen in the locker room consoling Sanchez after the game, his arm on his shoulder as the two spoke for a few minutes. Until last Sunday, the threat of being benched — even with Tebow on the roster — didn't appear to be a real possibility.

Now, Ryan has sent the message to Sanchez: Perform or else. And, Sanchez gets one more shot to save his job this season — and his status as the Jets' franchise quarterback.

"I think Mark is plenty tough," Ryan said. "I don't think there's any doubt he has the mental toughness."

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Well: New Meaning and Drive in Life After Cancer

When people hear the words “You have cancer,” life is suddenly divided into distinct parts. There was their life before cancer, and then there is life after cancer.

The number of people in that second category continues to grow. In June, the National Cancer Institute reported that an estimated 13.7 million living Americans are cancer survivors, and the number will increase to almost 18 million over the next decade. More than half are younger than 70.

A new book, “Picture Your Life After Cancer,” (American Cancer Society) focuses on the living that goes on after a cancer diagnosis. It’s based on a multimedia project by The New York Times that asked readers to submit photos and their personal stories. So far, nearly 1,500 people have shared their experiences — the good, the bad, the challenging and the inspirational — creating a dramatic photo essay of the varied lives people live in the years after diagnosis.

For Susan Schwalb, a 68-year-old artist from Manhattan, a diagnosis of early-stage breast cancer at the age of 62 led to a lumpectomy, followed by a mastectomy and then failed reconstruction surgery. She discovered that cancer was not only a physical challenge but a mental one as well, and she turned to friends and support groups to cope with the emotional strain. When she saw the “Picture Your Life” project, she submitted a photo of herself wearing a paint-splattered artist’s apron.

“What cancer made me do in my own professional life is to pedal faster,” Ms. Schwalb said in an interview. “I’ve encountered some people who decide to enjoy life, retire, work in a garden. I decided I had to have more of what I wanted in life, and I better move fast because maybe I don’t have the long life I imagined I would have.”

Indeed, a common theme of the “Picture Your Life” project is that cancer spurs people to take long-delayed trips, seek out adventure and spend time with their families. Photos of mountain climbs, a ride on a camel, scuba diving excursions and bicycle trips are now part of the online collage.

Dr. David Posner, associate program director of pulmonary medicine at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan, says a diagnosis of metastatic colon cancer at the age of 47 has helped him relate to his own patients with cancer. The past decade has included nine operations, six recurrences and three rounds of chemotherapy, but Dr. Posner said he never missed more than three weeks of work.

“My salvation has been my family and my work,” he said. “When I was at work I wasn’t thinking about myself, and it was very therapeutic. I see my share of cancer patients, and I motivate them and they motivate me.”

Dr. Posner said he decided to be part of “Picture Your Life” because he wants to get the word out that a cancer diagnosis — even a dire one like his — doesn’t have to define your life.

“I think about someone asking me, ‘So how was your last decade — was it wasted or was it a life filled with a lot of happiness and joy?’ ” he said. “The cancer thing was a pain, but for the most part I’ve had a pretty good time.”

The “Picture Your Life” collage includes photo after photo of survivors with their pets. Sandra Elliott, 59, of Claremont, Calif., submitted a picture of herself with her two golden retrievers, Buddy and Molly. They were just puppies when she received a diagnosis of Stage 2 breast cancer in 2003. During her recovery from surgery and chemotherapy treatments, she took the dogs to romp on the Pomona College campus, near her home, and one day a professional photographer snapped the picture.

“No matter how bad I felt that day, no matter how many chemo treatments or doctors appointments, those two little puppies with these big black eyes would look at me with their tails wagging as if to say, ‘It’s time. It’s time. It’s time to go out!’  ” Ms. Elliott recalled.

“I felt so physically horrible, and I’d look at them and the pure joy on their faces and in their bodies for just being out in nature and being able to smell the air, smell the trees, chase a squirrel — that sheer in-the-moment love of life they showed me really lifted my spirit on a daily basis.”

Ms. Elliott still lives with chronic pain as a result of nerve damage from her cancer treatment, and she can relate to others in the “Picture Your Life” project who worry that their cancer will recur or that they’ll never feel completely normal again. But she says a stronger theme runs through all the pictures and stories.

“We have all been forced to find the joy in the smallest things,” she said. “I’m sitting here looking at a geranium about to bloom. These things are out there — we just have to be reminded to look at them. And cancer is a big reminder.”

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Starbucks to Open Another 1,500 Cafes in the U.S.

NEW YORK (AP) — Another Starbucks may soon pop up around the corner, with the world's biggest coffee company planning to add at least 1,500 cafes in the U.S. over the next five years.

The plan, which would boost the number of Starbucks cafes in the country by about 13 percent, was announced at the company's investor day in New York Wednesday. Taking into account Canada and South America, the company plans to add a total of 3,000 new cafes in its broader Americas region.

Worldwide, the company says it will have more than 20,000 cafes by 2014, up from its current count of about 18,000. Much of that growth will come from China, which the company says will surpass Canada as its second-biggest market.

Although Starbucks has been intensifying its growth overseas and building its packaged-goods business back at home, the majority of its revenue still comes from its more than 11,100 cafes in the United States.

In an interview ahead of its investor day, CEO Howard Schultz said the U.S. expansion plans are based "on the current strength of our business"

Just a few months ago, the company had predicted it would open just 1,000 new cafes in the country over the next five years.

The upbeat expansion plans mark a turnaround from Starbucks' struggles during the recession. After hitting a rough patch, the company brought back Schultz as CEO in 2008 and embarked on massive restructuring effort that included closing 10 percent of its U.S. stores.

Cliff Burrows, who heads Starbucks' domestic business, said the problem wasn't that Starbucks was oversaturated, but that the company hadn't been careful about its store openings. In the years leading up to the downturn, the company was opening well over 1,000 stores a year. That led to cafes in locations where signs or traffic might not be optimal, he said.

Burrows said Starbucks has gotten more sophisticated, and noted that the cafes opened in recent years are among the company's best performers.

Sales at new cafes are averaging about $1 million a year, for example, above the company's target of $900,000. It costs about $450,000 to build a new cafe.

Since Starbucks already has a broad footprint, the company's expansion is intended to "deepen" its presence with additional stores in markets across the country, said Troy Alstead, Starbucks' chief financial officer. That means establishing stores — including drive-thrus and smaller cafes — in more convenient locations for customers. And even as it expands, Starbucks said it expects to maintain growth at cafes open at least a year. The figure, a key metric of health, has ranged between 7 percent and 8 percent globally in the past three years.

The continued U.S. sales growth will be fueled by the new products, such as Evolution premium juices and Via single-serve coffee packets. Looking forward, Starbucks is also looking to improve its food menu and is testing a new menu of baked goods from La Boulange, a small San Francisco-based chain it acquired earlier this year. The new croissants, loaf cakes and other items will spread to about 2,500 cafes next year and go national sometime in 2014, Burrows said. The company says only about a third of customers currently buy food with their drinks.

In a test aimed at building sales in the evening hours, the company also started serving beer and wine at about a dozen locations earlier this year, with food such as chicken skewers and dates wrapped in bacon.

And most recently, Starbucks announced plans to acquire Teavana, a chain that has 300 locations in shopping malls. When the announcement was made last month, Schultz said the company would "do for tea what it did for coffee."

That includes plans to expand Teavana's presence beyond the shopping mall with stand-alone shops that have "tea bars" that serve specialty drinks. The company declined to say when Starbucks cafes would begin serving Teavana drinks — and it hasn't decided on whether it will continue to sell Tazo in cafes.

After a string of acquisitions in recent years to build on its core business, Schultz indicated Wednesday that the company would hold off on any additional purchases in the near future, noting that the company has "enough to handle."

To build its packaged-goods business, Starbucks plans to let customers earn points on their My Starbucks loyalty card starting next year when they purchase Starbucks bagged coffees in supermarkets and other outlets. Customers currently earn points only when they make purchases in Starbucks stores.

The picture isn't rosy around the globe, however. Europe remains a sore spot for Starbucks, with a key sales figure falling in the region 1 percent during the latest quarter. In an effort to boost results, the company has been closing underperforming stores and licensing of some of its cafes in the region.

In the United Kingdom, Starbucks is also embroiled in a row over its taxes. The company has been doing business in Britain for 15 years and has 700 outlets but it has yet to record a profit — and therefore pay any taxes.

Starbucks says this is due to a complex process where its taxable profits in the U.K. are calculated after royalties paid to its European headquarters in the Netherlands have been deducted.

Following criticism in the U.K. parliament and a campaign by protest group U.K. Uncut, Starbucks said this week that it was reviewing its tax approach.

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AP reporters Jill Lawless and David Stringer contributed to this report from London

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Egyptians Protesting Draft Constitution Are Met With Tear Gas

CAIRO — Egyptian riot police fired tear gas Tuesday night at tens of thousands of demonstrators who were converging on the presidential palace in Cairo to protest the country’s new draft constitution, which was rushed to completion last week by an assembly dominated by Islamists.

It was the first time that the government of Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president, has resorted to such forcible tactics against demonstrators. The huge scale of the protests on Tuesday dealt a blow to the legitimacy of the new charter, which goes before the country’s voters in a referendum scheduled for Dec. 15.

The secular and anti-Islamist groups that organized the protests say that the draft constitution allows religious authorities too much influence over the Egyptian state, and have even likened it to the blueprints drawn up for Iran by Ayatollah Khomenei before the 1979 revolution there.

Protest organizers are still debating whether to urge Egyptians to vote against the constitution or to boycott the referendum entirely. Either way, many have their eyes on elections for a new parliament that would be held two months after the constitution is approved. They hope to capitalize on a public backlash against the heavy-handed tactics employed in the constitution-drafting process by the president’s Islamist allies to gain seats in the new parliament and diminish the Islamists’ political power.

The country’s private media outlets mounted a protest of their own against the draft constitution’s limits on freedom of expression. Eleven newspapers withheld publication on Tuesday, and at least three private television networks said they would not broadcast on Wednesday.

“You are reading this message because Egypt Independent objects to continued restrictions on media liberties, especially after hundreds of Egyptians gave their lives for freedom and dignity,” declared a short statement set against a black background on the Web site of Egypt Independent, the English-language sister publication of the country’s largest independent daily, Al Masry Al Youm, on Tuesday morning. (By the afternoon, the Web site was back to normal.)

The one-day blackout and the mass march in Cairo were the most pointed actions yet in a push by liberal and secular groups to block the draft constitution, which was approved on Friday by the Islamist-dominated assembly despite the boycotts and objections of almost all its non-Islamist delegates.

Mr. Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood’s political party, has sought to claim authority above any judicial review so that his Islamist allies could get the constitution through quickly, an act that itself prompted loud protests. Mr. Morsi argued that he needed the powers to overcome potential obstructions from judges appointed by Hosni Mubarak, the deposed president, or from secular opponents who he said were seeking to derail the transition to democracy.

His opponents say the Islamists are trying to ram through a flawed constitution that will allow them to push Egyptian society in the direction of religious conservatism.

Among other criticisms, analysts and human rights groups say the draft contains loopholes that could eviscerate its provisions for freedom of expression. Although it ostensibly declares a right to free speech, the constitution also expressly prohibits “insults” to “religious prophets.”

The charter declares that one purpose of the news media is to uphold public morality and the “true nature of the Egyptian family,” and it specifies that government authorization will be required to operate a television station or a Web site.

“The protection of freedom of expression is fatally undermined by all the provisions that limit it,” said Heba Morayef, a researcher with Human Rights Watch who has studied the text. “On paper, they have not protected freedom of expression. It is designed to let the government limit those rights on the basis of ‘morality’ or the vague concept of ‘insult.’ ”

What’s more, critics say, the push to ratify the draft coincides with a cascade of accusations from Egypt’s new Islamist leaders that elements of the media are biased against them, and even that they are part of a counterrevolutionary conspiracy to thwart the transition to democracy rather than let Islamists win.

As part of a decree expanding his own powers until the passage of the constitution, Mr. Morsi recently passed a law for “protection of the revolution” that covered crimes including insults to the president, the Parliament or the courts. And he created a specially designated circuit within the court system to try those suspected of violating the law, along with those accused of abuses against civilians under the Mubarak government.

Mr. Morsi’s justice minister has already initiated investigations against at least three journalists for insulting the judiciary — the branch of government with the most crucial role in protecting the free press, said Ms. Morayef of Human Rights Watch.

“You are calling insulting the authorities a crime against the revolution?” she said. “That is authoritarianism. That is a lack of understanding of what ‘free expression’ means.”

The Web site of the state newspaper Al Ahram reported that at least 60 of its own journalists had joined a march to protest the constitutional restrictions.

Advisers to Mr. Morsi counter that the draft constitution expands on the negligible protections of free expression that prevailed under Mr. Mubarak, and noted that in one of his few previous presidential decrees, Mr. Morsi acted to support media freedom. In the Mubarak era, insulting the president was a crime punishable by imprisonment. But after a newspaper editor was jailed for that offense in late August, Mr. Morsi changed the law to forbid incarceration until a court verdict, allowing the imprisoned journalist, Islam Afifi of Al Dustour, to go free without spending even a night behind bars.

Adding to the suspense, a top Egyptian court on Tuesday postponed an expected session to consider the legitimacy of Mr. Morsi’s expansion of his powers until passage of the constitution.

And his party issued a statement warning prominent leaders of the secular opposition that it would hold them responsible for any acts of violence that occurred. It directed the warning at three former presidential candidates: Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency; Hamdeen Sabahi, a Nasserite party leader; and Amr Moussa, a foreign minister under Mr. Mubarak.

Mayy El Sheikh contributed reporting.

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Is the iPad Mini as Good as the iPad?

The iPad Mini‘s screen doesn’t have the same “resolutionary” Retina display as its bigger brother, but don’t worry: the Apple snobs appear to have gotten over that. After spending time with his new baby-tablet, The New York Times‘s Nick Bilton gave in, calling the gadget his new “Desert Island Device.” (It replaced his iPhone, by the way.) The inferior screen had worried Bilton like it had others, but no longer: ”I used it for two weeks and my concerns about the screen’s quality are completely irrelevant.” It’s not that Bilton prefers the “fuzzy” screen, as he called it. But the portability of the lightweight Mini outweighs that for him, making this tablet, in his opinion, really the best tablet Apple has ever made.

RELATED: Prepare for an iPad Mini This Month

Considering all the fawning over the Retina display on the iPad proper, it’s pretty amazing to see reviewers toss that upgrade for something that Steve Jobs forbid the company to create. Bilton’s not the only one to prefer the new cousin, even if it is technically worse. Noted Apple-phile Jonathan Gruber said he hadn’t touched the fourth-generation iPad that Apple released this year as well “I’ve gone small and fuzzy,” he wrote. When the Retina display first came out, Gruber called it “pure joy” for his “dream iPad.” But a funny thing happened on the way out of the hype cycle: Apple put out something the masses were supposed to like more than the techies, and that just made everyone like it even more. Call it a holiday miracle, but the Apple snobs may be snobs no more.

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Chiefs had given counseling to Belcher, girlfriend

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Kansas City Chiefs officials knew that linebacker Jovan Belcher and his girlfriend were having relationship problems, and the team provided the couple with counseling in an effort to help, a police official said.

Belcher fatally shot Kasandra Perkins, 22, at their Kansas City home Saturday before shooting himself in the head in the Arrowhead Stadium parking lot in front of team officials who were trying to stop him, including general manager Scott Pioli and head coach Romeo Crennel.

Police Sgt. Richard Sharp told The Kansas City Star for a Tuesday story (http://bit.ly/SDwg9m ) that the couple had been arguing over relationship and financial issues for months and that the team had been "bending over backward" trying to help them. Sharp didn't specify how long the couple had been undergoing counseling.

When Belcher arrived at Arrowhead on Saturday, he encountered Pioli in the parking lot and told him the assistance the team had offered hadn't fixed the couple's problems and now "it was too late," Sharp said.

Pioli tried to persuade Belcher to put down his gun as Crennel and linebackers coach Gary Gibbs arrived at the scene.

Belcher thanked the men for everything the team had done for him and asked if Pioli and team owner Clark Hunt would take care of his daughter, The Star reported.

After that, Belcher reportedly said, "Guys, I have to do this."

"I was trying to get him to understand that life is not over," Crennel said Monday. "He still has a chance and let's get this worked out."

When Belcher heard police sirens approaching, he knelt behind a vehicle and shot himself in the head.

Investigators believe Belcher killed himself because he was distraught over shooting Perkins, Sharp said.

"He cared about her," Sharp said. "I don't think he could live with himself."

The night before the killings, Perkins had attended a concert downtown with friends and Belcher had been out at the Power and Light District, police said, while Belcher's mother was watching their 3-month-old baby. Detectives don't know exactly what the couple was arguing about but The Star reported that Belcher was upset that Perkins had stayed out so late.

Autopsies with toxicology tests were performed on both bodies but it could be weeks before results are known, police said.

Police spokesman Darin Snapp said Monday that Belcher's mother was given temporary custody of the couple's daughter.

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Sign Language Researchers Broaden Science Lexicon

Imagine trying to learn biology without ever using the word “organism.” Or studying to become a botanist when the only way of referring to photosynthesis is to spell the word out, letter by painstaking letter.

For deaf students, this game of scientific Password has long been the daily classroom and laboratory experience. Words like “organism” and “photosynthesis” — to say nothing of more obscure and harder-to-spell terms — have no single widely accepted equivalent in sign language. This means that deaf students and their teachers and interpreters must improvise, making it that much harder for the students to excel in science and pursue careers in it.

“Often times, it would involve a lot of finger-spelling and a lot of improvisation,” said Matthew Schwerin, a physicist with the Food and Drug Administration who is deaf, of his years in school. “For the majority of scientific terms,” Mr. Schwerin and his interpreter for the day would “try to find a correct sign for the term, and if nothing was pre-existing, we would come up with a sign that was agreeable with both parties.”

Now thanks to the Internet — particularly the boom in online video — resources for deaf students seeking science-related signs are easier to find and share. Crowdsourcing projects in both American Sign Language and British Sign Language are under way at several universities, enabling people who are deaf to coalesce around signs for commonly used terms.

This year, one of those resources, the Scottish Sensory Centre’s British Sign Language Glossary Project, added 116 new signs for physics and engineering terms, including signs for “light-year,”  (hold one hand up and spread the fingers downward for “light,” then bring both hands together in front of your chest and slowly move them apart for “year”), “mass” and “X-ray” (form an X with your index fingers, then, with the index finger on the right hand, point outward). 

The signs were developed by a team of researchers at the center, a division of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland that develops learning tools for students with visual and auditory impairments. The researchers spent more than a year soliciting ideas from deaf science workers, circulating lists of potential signs and ultimately gathering for “an intense weekend” of final voting, said Audrey Cameron, science adviser for the project. (Dr. Cameron is also deaf, and like all non-hearing people interviewed for this article, answered questions via e-mail.)

Whether the Scottish Sensory Centre’s signs will take hold among its audience remains to be seen. “Some will be adopted, and some will probably never be accepted,” Dr. Cameron said. “We’ll have to wait and see what happens.”

Ideally, the standardization of signs will make it easier for deaf students to keep pace with their hearing classmates during lectures. “I can only choose to look at one thing at a time,” said Mr. Schwerin of the F.D.A., recalling his science education, “and it often meant choosing between the interpreter, the blackboard/screen/material, or taking notes. It was like, pick one, and lose out on the others.”

The problem doesn’t end at graduation. In fact, it only intensifies as new discoveries add unfamiliar terms to the scientific lexicon. “I’ve had numerous meetings where I couldn’t participate properly because the interpreters were not able to understand the jargon and they did not know any scientific signs,” Dr. Cameron said.

One general complaint about efforts to standardize signs for technical terms is the idea that, much like spoken language, sign language should be allowed to develop organically rather than be dictated from above.

“Signs that are developed naturally — i.e., that are tested and refined in everyday conversation — are more likely to be accepted quickly by the community,” said Derek Braun, director of the molecular genetics laboratory at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., which he said was the first biological laboratory designed and administered by deaf scientists.

Since at least the 1970s, deaf scientists have tried to address the lack of uniformity by gathering common signs for scientific terms in printed manuals and on videotapes. The problem has always been getting deaf students and their interpreters to adopt them.

Often, at science conferences, “local interpreters that we never met before would often use different signs for the same terms, leading to confusion,” said Caroline Solomon, a biology professor at Gallaudet University who is deaf.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 4, 2012

An earlier version of this article misstated the origin of the ASL-STEM Forum.  It was developed by researchers at the University of Washington, not Gallaudet University.  Researchers at Gallaudet and the National Institute for the Deaf work with the University of Washington to provide content and help the forum grow.

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Republicans Balk at Obama’s Short-Term Stimulus

WASHINGTON — Republicans and Democrats are struggling to find common ground on a long-term debt deal. But as economic growth has weakened this quarter, they are at odds over what the flagging recovery needs in the immediate future, too.

The Obama administration is arguing that the sluggish economy requires a shot in the arm, and it included tens of billions of dollars of little-noticed stimulus measures in its much-noticed proposal to Congressional leaders last week. But Republicans have countered that the country cannot afford to widen the deficit further, and have balked at including the measures in any eventual deal.

The stimulus measures in the White House’s debt proposal stem from President Obama’s long-since-scuttled American Jobs Act proposal, and include a continuation of emergency support for long-term unemployed workers, an extension of the payroll tax cut, billions in infrastructure investment and a mortgage-refinancing proposal.

“We have a very good plan, a very good mix of tax reforms” and savings, said Timothy F. Geithner, the Treasury secretary, on ABC News last weekend. “We can create some room to invest in things that make America stronger, like rebuilding America’s infrastructure.”

But in his counteroffer, made on Monday, House Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio did not mention any such measures. Republican aides said that securing stimulus was not the main priority given concerns about the country’s fiscal state, and they appeared to be holding back on supporting any stimulus measures to bolster their bargaining position.

“The president is asking for $1.6 trillion worth of new revenue over 10 years, twice as much as he has been asking for in public,” Mr. Boehner said on “Fox News Sunday.” “He has stimulus spending in here that exceeded the amount of new cuts that he was willing to consider. It was not a serious offer.”

As the debate rages in Washington, data has shown the recovery once again sputtering, with the underlying rate of growth too slow to bring down the unemployment rate by much and some of the economic momentum gained in the fall dissipating in the winter.

The weakness comes from the manufacturing and exports slowdown, disruptions from Hurricane Sandy and sluggish underlying wage and spending growth. The storm hit the economic juggernauts of New Jersey and New York hard, pushing down work and wages. On top of that, consumers and businesses might be holding back out of concern for the tax increases and spending cuts scheduled to take place at the first of the year unless Congress and the administration come to some agreement.

In recent weeks, many forecasters have slashed their estimates of growth in the fourth quarter. Macroeconomic Advisers, for instance, estimates the economy is expanding at only a 0.8 percent annual pace, down from 2.8 percent in the third quarter.

“It’s a pretty dramatic slowdown,” said Joel Prakken, the chairman of Macroeconomic Advisers, the St. Louis-based forecasting firm. “There’s weak demand, which just does not portend well for the coming quarters,” he said.

RBC Capital Markets put the current pace of growth at just a 0.2 percent annual rate. The chance of seeing “a negative sign in front of fourth-quarter gross domestic product is nontrivial, to say the least,” Tom Porcelli, chief United States economist at RBC Capital Markets, wrote in a note to clients last week.

If Congress and the Obama administration are able to agree on a budget deal, economists expect that economic growth will pick up in 2013. Stock markets might cheer, businesses might feel more confident about hiring workers and signing contracts and investors might feel more comfortable investing if Congress struck a deal.

The turnaround in the housing market, rising auto sales and higher consumer confidence all bode well, they note. Refinancing — supported by the Federal Reserve’s effort to buy mortgage-backed securities — would also flush more money into households.

Much of the current slowdown might be a result of temporary factors that might fade away, like fluctuations in how factories stock their inventories or the lingering effects of Hurricane Sandy.

Still, recent economic data has come in surprisingly weak. On Monday, the Institute for Supply Management reported that the manufacturing sector contracted in November, with an index of purchasing activity falling to the lowest level since mid-2009.

The report said manufacturers expressed “concern over how and when the fiscal cliff issue will be resolved” as well as a slowdown in demand.

Over all, unemployment remains high, and wage growth weak. Global growth has gone through a slowdown as well. It all adds up to a United States recovery that might remain vulnerable to shocks — like the Midwestern drought that slashed agricultural production this year, or the Japanese tsunami that depressed exports in 2011, or the long-simmering European debt crisis that has spooked financial markets — for years to come.

Economists remain nervous about the combination of the already weak recovery and the prospect of the tax increases and spending cuts — with billions of dollars of fiscal contraction likely to take place even if the White House and Congress reach a deal.

“We are worried about going too fast, too quick on the cuts side,” said former Senator Pete V. Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, on Monday at a meeting with reporters at the Bipartisan Policy Center. He was presenting a plan for a deficit reduction framework along with Alice M. Rivlin, the budget director under President Bill Clinton.

Ms. Rivlin added, “We don’t need an austerity budget.” Indeed, the two budget experts proposed including a one-year income tax rebate to give the recovery some breathing room.

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