With wary eye on the U.S., China courts India

By Frank Jack Daniel and Rajesh Kumar Singh

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, smiling and effusive, was out to smooth ruffled feathers in India this week, promising to ease tensions and increase trade between Asia's fastest growing economies in his first trip overseas since taking office.

"China will make your dream come true," Li told a banquet hall filled with Chinese and Indian business executives in the financial capital of Mumbai as he wound up his visit on Tuesday.

China's overtures, which come amid worries in Beijing that it is being encircled by the United States and its allies, however met with a cool response.

India has been shaken by a recent border spat with China and is cautious about Beijing's friendship with rival Pakistan, where Li flies on Wednesday. New Delhi is also concerned about a ballooning trade deficit with China and a flood of cheap Chinese-made goods undercutting local manufacturers.

While India's relations with the United States are cordial and it is a major purchaser of its weapons, New Delhi has stayed away from a close strategic alliance.

"We would not like to see India become a tool of other major countries, especially the U.S., to counterbalance or check or contain China," said Hu Shisheng, an India specialist at CICIR, a Chinese government-backed think tank in Beijing.

"We want, through closer relations, to support New Delhi's policy that maintains equal distance. It's not realistic to expect India to be closer to one country than the other."

Li, who is travelling with executives from 41 Chinese companies, said the two rapidly-growing economies should free up bilateral trade and do more business together, instead of relying on others for development.

"With a long border and extensive common interests, China and India should not seek cooperation from afar while neglecting the partner close by," he said in a speech to businessmen and diplomats earlier on Tuesday.

Chatty and relaxed, Li repeatedly took Prime Minister Manmohan Singh by the hand and said a visit to India 27 years ago influenced him much as exposure to the sub-continent had affected Steve Jobs, the legendary co-founder of Apple.

Singh smiled back, but hardened India's stance on the long-standing territorial dispute between the two nations, saying broader ties could not blossom without peace on the border.

In the past, India has sought to separate the border dispute from wider relations. The difference this time was that Li's visit came just weeks after Chinese troops set up camp 19 km (12 miles) inside territory India claims as its own.

The stand-off, which only ended on May 3 after three weeks of high-level negotiations, caused a public outcry in India. It overshadowed preparations for Li's trip and may explain the lack of significant bilateral agreements signed.

SEVERELY TESTED

Despite the large commercial delegation, only one major business pact was signed, a $1 billion debt-for-fuel deal between China and Essar Energy PLC Lt, part of India's Essar group. Smaller pacts added a total $500 million in deals.

China and India disagree about large areas of their 4,000 km (2,500 mile) border and fought a brief war 50 years ago.

There has not been a shooting incident in decades but the feud prevents normal trade relations between neighbors, who account for 40 percent of the world's population.

Lalit Mansingh, a former Indian foreign secretary, the top official in the external affairs ministry, said he detected a new openness between the leaders of the two countries, and a willingness to tackle thorny issues. But he said the recent border confrontation had severely tested India's patience.

"They don't want us to get closer to the Americans. But ironically, that is exactly what they are doing by being extremely provocative at the border," Mansingh told Reuters, adding that China was also irking neighbors with maritime disputes with Japan and nations in Southeast Asia.

"By picking up a fight with every single neighbor after a period of friendship with all neighbors, the Chinese are, in fact, getting people together in a line up against them."

On the back of this week's visit, both Prime Minister Singh and Premier Li are due to visit each others respective rivals.

Next week, Singh is headed to Japan, which is engaged in an increasingly edgy dispute with China over a group of islets in the seas between them.

Li goes to Pakistan, where he is to sign agreements to develop the Chinese-managed Gwadar port.

India has often been nervous about Chinese agreements with its neighbors that are not strictly military but could be leveraged in a conflict.

Indians sometimes refer to these as a "string of pearls," which include China's ties with Pakistan, access to a Myanmar naval base, Chinese construction of a deepwater port in Hambantota, Sri Lanka, and its deepening ties with Nepal and the Maldives. Its force deployments in Tibet add to India's stress.

In Beijing, there are worries that the country is being encircled by the U.S. strategic pivot to Asia and its allies like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines and more recently, Vietnam. China has also been closely watching the improvement of U.S. ties with Myanmar and India.

TRADE GRIPES

After the border, India's biggest gripe with China is over trade. From almost nothing in the 1990s, bilateral trade hit a peak of $73 billion in 2011, heavily skewed in China's favor.

In comparison, China's annual trade with Japan is close to $300 billion. On Tuesday, Li pitched hard for closer economic cooperation and said Chinese companies could help India rapidly modernize its skeletal infrastructure.

"Our industrial structures are highly complementary, India has a competitive edge in IT, software and bio-medicine, while China is seeing rapid expansion of its machinery, textiles and emerging industries," Li said, and offered talks on a free trade agreement.

But India complains that China does not give its pharmaceutical and IT companies fair market access.

One Indian trade official, speaking to Reuters, burst out laughing at the free trade proposal, saying there was no way India would consider it until the trade imbalance was addressed.

That may take some time.

In a joint statement signed on Monday, China reiterated it would increase access for Indian products. The same was said on a visit by Premier Wen Jiabao in 2010 - but last financial year, India's bilateral trade deficit grew to $41 billion.

(Additional reporting by Annie Banerji, Satarupa Bhattacharjya and Devidutta Tripathy in NEW DELHI; Henry Foy in MUMBAI and Terril Jones in BEIJING; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/wary-eye-u-china-courts-india-210259171.html

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Don't wear socks, hot Pakistanis told amid power crisis

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan has told civil servants not to wear socks as the country turns off air-conditioners amid a chronic power crisis and soaring temperatures.

The government has turned off all air-conditioning in its offices as the country endures blackouts of up to 20 hours a day in some places.

"There shall be no more use of air-conditioners in public offices till such time that substantial improvement in the energy situation takes place," a cabinet directive said.

As part of a new dress code, moccasins or sandals must be worn without socks.

The power shortages have sparked violent protests and crippled key industries, costing hundreds of thousands of jobs in a country already beset by high unemployment, a failing economy, widespread poverty and a Taliban insurgency.

The "load-shedding" means many families cannot pump water, let alone run air-conditioners, with a disastrous knock-on effect on health and domestic life.

Frustration over the power cuts contributed to the former ruling party's poor showing in a May 11 general election.

Two ministers in charge of water and power explained what can be done to end power cuts in parts of the country enduring temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius and above - absolutely nothing, it seems, except raise prices.

Ministers Musadiq Malik and Sohail Wajahat Siddiqui "expressed their inability to overcome the crisis", the Daily Times quoted them as telling a news conference in Lahore, where the temperature was 40 C (104 degrees Fahrenheit) on Monday.

"They have termed financial constraints as a major, and incompetence as a minor, hurdle in resolving the issue," the newspaper said.

"Presenting the realistic picture, the ministers announced that they were going to increase the price of electricity and gas for all sectors."

They gave no details but said the problem would get worse before it gets better.

About two-thirds of Pakistan's energy is generated by oil and gas and there are widespread gas shortages, with cars run by CNG, compressed natural gas, queuing up for hours overnight to fill their tanks.

(Reporting by Nick Macfie; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pakistan-holds-news-conference-cant-end-power-blackouts-064456087.html

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PFT: Why Chargers are shielding Te'o from media

AP

It?s essentially a Te?obargo, and the Chargers now admit they won?t be making their second-round pick available to the media at all until the middle of June.

So why are they not letting Te?o talk?? Chargers director of public relations Bill Johnston addressed the situation today on XTRA Sports 1360 in San Diego.

?Right now, anything that he does . . . makes news,? Johnston said.? ?Right now, the news that people are talking about with him is really not the news that we want him to be talking about.? Really, he?s a rookie, he?s a second-round draft pick, yet everybody wants to talk to him.? Well, why?? Well, it all goes back to that stuff that happened back in the winter, and back when he was at Notre Dame.

?To us, that?s not what we want him talking about.? We want him focused on becoming a Charger, on becoming a better player.? Learning our system.? Getting comfortable here.? We want him talking football, talking Chargers, and that?s all we want him focused on right now.? So we?re doing what we think is in his best interests to stay focused and become the best player he can.?

That really doesn?t make much sense, frankly.? Media availability inherently is a distraction, regardless of the topics addressed.? Any time spent talking to the media takes away from Te?o's effort to become a better player and learn the system.

Moreover, the furor regarding the Lennay Kukua nonsense largely has subsided.? It wasn?t, for example, much of an issue during the first session between Te?o and the media on May 10, in connection with the team?s rookie minicamp.

Of course, the controversy can remain relevant if Te?o does things to keep it relevant.? For example, he chose to attend the Maxim party honoring a list of women that included the non-existent Kukua.? Under the circumstances, it?s fair game to ask him why he did it.

It?s not fair game for the Chargers to protect him, or anyone other player simply because the team wants him to talk about certain subjects and not others.? Watch the video from the May 10 session; the kid can handle himself well.? Besides, they picked him knowing what having him on the team would entail.? It?s short-sighted to treat him differently than every other player.

Think of the message that sends this to the locker room, at a time when he?d love nothing more than to simply be one of the guys.? He?s necessarily not one of the guys, because the team is giving him different treatment than the rest of his teammates.

Meanwhile, the team is making the issue even bigger than it should be, giving Te?o yet another topic to address when he finally talks to the media and making it harder for him to lay the foundation for a positive relationship with the folks who buy ink by the truckload.

While it?s hard for any organization to reverse a decision that has been made and implemented, the best move for the Chargers would be to treat Te?o no differently than any other player ? and to hope that the media eventually will do the same thing.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/05/20/chargers-explain-decision-to-shield-teo-from-media/related/

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Bacteria use hydrogen, carbon dioxide to produce electricity

May 19, 2013 ? Researchers have engineered a strain of electricity-producing bacteria that can grow using hydrogen gas as its sole electron donor and carbon dioxide as its sole source of carbon.

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst report their findings at the 113th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology.

"This represents the first result of current production solely on hydrogen," says Amit Kumar, a researcher on the study who, along with his co-authors are part of the Lovley Lab Group at the university.

Under the leadership of Derek Lovley the lab group has been studying Geobacter bacteria since Lovley first isolated Geobacter metallireducens in sand sediment from the Potomac River in 1987. Geobacter species are of interest because of their bioremediation, bioenergy potential, novel electron transfer capabilities, the ability to transfer electrons outside the cell and transport these electrons over long distances via conductive filaments known as microbial nanowires.

Kumar and his colleagues studied a relative of G. metallireducens called Geobacter sulfurreducens, which has the ability to produce electricity by reducing organic carbon compounds with a graphite electrode like iron oxide or gold to serve as the sole electron acceptor. They genetically engineered a strain of the bacteria that did not need organic carbon to grow in a microbial fuel cell.

"The adapted strain readily produced electrical current in microbial fuel cells with hydrogen gas as the sole electron donor and no organic carbon source," says Kumar, who notes that when the hydrogen supply to the microbial fuel cell was intermittently stopped electrical current dropped significantly and cells attached to the electrodes did not generate any significant current.

This research was supported by funding by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Office of Naval Research.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/strange_science/~3/3a3kqr5Cp7M/130519191102.htm

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Paul Krugman: Today's Austerity Policies Based On 'A Mythical 70s That Never Was'

They say hindsight is 20/20, but according to Paul Krugman it may actually be much worse than that when it comes to economic policy-making.

The Nobel-Prize winning economist and New York Times columnist wrote in a blog post Sunday that current policymakers are basing their decisions to cut spending, leading in many cases to high unemployment, on the false notion that the recession of the late 1970s and early 1980s was caused by too much government debt and too many government handouts.

During the period leading up to that recession government debt was low and stable or falling as a share of the economy. What actually caused the recession of the late 1970s, Krugman writes, was an unfortunate vicious cycle of workers demanding more money because they expected prices to rise, companies raising prices to pay for their increased costs as well as big oil price shocks.

?It would be bad enough if we were basing policy today on lessons from the 70s,? Krugman wrote in the blog post Sunday. ?It?s even worse that we?re basing policy today on a mythical 70s that never was.?

Though Krugman has been criticizing some policymakers? obsession with austerity for years, the strategy has recently come under fire after a widely-cited paper by Harvard economists Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff thought to prove that high levels of government debt correlated with economic downturns, turned out to be riddled with errors. For their part, Reinhart and Rogoff have tried to disown the austerity movement -- which included Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the U.K.?s George Osborne and other prominent politicians -- which cited their research as a way to justify their policies.

Earlier this month former President Bill Clinton backed Krugman?s argument that a laser-sharp focus on cutting the deficit can lead to high unemployment and other economic problems, saying ?It's obvious that if you overdo austerity, you get Europe.?

The average unemployment rate in the Eurozone is at a record 12.1 percent and the region is currently mired in the longest recession in its history. Some experts blame the region?s policymakers? obsessive focus on slashing government debt for the eurozone?s economic woes.

At least in the U.S., it turns out runaway debt may not be as much of a concern as originally thought, despite politicians? panic. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found earlier this month that the deficit is likely to shrink rapidly through 2015.

Also on HuffPost:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/19/krugman-austerity-policies_n_3303198.html

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Damaged trains being removed from wreck site

Emergency personnel work at the scene where two Metro North commuter trains collided, Friday, May 17, 2013 near Fairfield, Conn. Bill Kaempffer, a spokesman for Bridgeport public safety, told The Associated Press approximately 49 people were injured, including four with serious injuries. About 250 people were on board the two trains, he said. (AP Photo/The Connecticut Post, Christian Abraham) MANDATORY CREDIT: CONNECTICUT POST, CHRISTIAN ABRAHAM

Emergency personnel work at the scene where two Metro North commuter trains collided, Friday, May 17, 2013 near Fairfield, Conn. Bill Kaempffer, a spokesman for Bridgeport public safety, told The Associated Press approximately 49 people were injured, including four with serious injuries. About 250 people were on board the two trains, he said. (AP Photo/The Connecticut Post, Christian Abraham) MANDATORY CREDIT: CONNECTICUT POST, CHRISTIAN ABRAHAM

Emergency workers arrive the scene of a train collision, Friday, may 17, 2013 in Fairfield, Conn. A New York-area commuter railroad says two trains have collided in Connecticut. The railroad says the accident involved a New York-bound train leaving New Haven. It derailed and hit a westbound train near Fairfield, Conn. Some cars on the second train also derailed. (AP Photo/The Connecticut Post, Christian Abraham) MANDATORY CREDIT

Injured passengers are removed from the scene of a train collision, Friday, May 17, 2013 in Fairfield, Conn. Two commuter trains serving New York City collided in Connecticut during Friday's evening rush hour, injuring about 50 people, authorities said. There were no reports of fatalities. (AP Photo/The Connecticut Post, Christian Abraham) MANDATORY CREDIT

Map locates Bridgeport, Conn

Metro-North Railroad officials tour the scene of the train derailment, Saturday, May 18, 2013 in Bridgeport, Conn. Officials described a devastating scene of shattered cars and other damage where two trains packed with rush-hour commuters collided in Connecticut, saying Saturday it's fortunate that no one was killed and that there weren't even more injuries. (AP Photo/The Connecticut Post, Christian Abraham) MANDATORY CREDIT

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) ? Commuter trains damaged in a crash in Connecticut were being removed Sunday in the first step to making repairs and restoring service, the agency that runs Metro-North said.

Aaron Donovan, spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said the National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the crash, gave Metro-North the OK to remove the trains. Hundreds of feet of track need to be repaired, he said.

"We have a lot of work ahead of us, to restore signals and overhead wires," Donovan said.

Later Sunday, the Connecticut Department of Transportation will announce jointly with Metro-North a plan for the rush-hour commute beginning Monday.

Investigators are looking at a broken section of rail to see if it is connected to the derailment and collision outside Bridgeport that left dozens injured. Seventy-two people were sent to the hospital Friday evening after an eastbound train from New York City derailed and was hit by a westbound train. Nine remain hospitalized.

Service has been suspended between South Norwalk and New Haven, which includes stops at 12 stations.

Donovan compared the loss of service to a "very significant storm."

Most recently, the Waterbury branch of Metro-North was down immediately after the massive Feb. 9-10 snowstorm that blanketed the Northeast.

Investigators said Saturday that the crash was not the result of foul play, but a fractured section of rail is being studied to determine if it is connected to the accident. National Transportation Safety Board member Earl Weener said the broken rail is of substantial interest to investigators and a portion of the track will be sent to a lab for analysis.

Weener said it's not clear if the accident caused the fracture or if the rail was broken before the crash. He said he won't speculate on the cause of the derailment and emphasized the investigation was in its early stages. Officials earlier described devastating damage and said it was fortunate no one was killed.

The crash damaged the tracks and threatened to snarl travel in the Northeast Corridor. The crash also caused Amtrak to suspend service between New York and Boston.

NTSB investigators arrived Saturday and are expected to be on site for seven to 10 days. They will look at the brakes and performance of the trains, the condition of the tracks, crew performance and train signal information, among other things.

The MTA operates the Metro-North Railroad, the second-largest commuter railroad in the nation. The Metro-North main lines ? the Hudson, Harlem, and New Haven ? run northward from New York City's Grand Central Terminal into suburban New York and Connecticut.

The last significant train collision involving Metro-North occurred in 1988 when a train engineer was killed in Mount Vernon, N.Y., when one train empty of passengers rear-ended another, railroad officials said.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-05-19-US-Trains-Collide-Conn/id-0ce2fe8f357a4d45bb06aa74443a4304

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A look at why the Benghazi issue keeps coming back

FILE ? In this Jan.23, 2013, file photo U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham pounds her fist as she testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the deadly September attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. Republicans and Democrats began condemning each other's response to Benghazi within hours of the first shots fired. The issue has flared and dimmed ever since, revived by new testimony, reports or documents like newly released emails. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

FILE ? In this Jan.23, 2013, file photo U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham pounds her fist as she testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the deadly September attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. Republicans and Democrats began condemning each other's response to Benghazi within hours of the first shots fired. The issue has flared and dimmed ever since, revived by new testimony, reports or documents like newly released emails. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., left, welcomes Gregory Hicks, former deputy chief of mission in Libya, number two in rank to slain U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, as he arrives to testify about last year's deadly assault on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, May 8, 2013. At right is Eric Nordstrom, the State Department's former regional security officer in Libya. House Republicans, led by Issa, insist the Obama administration is covering up information about the attack, rejecting administration assurances to the contrary and stoking a controversy with implications for the 2016 presidential race. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

FILE ? In this Nov. 27, 2012, file photo Senate Armed Services Committee members, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., foreground, and Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., speak to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington after meeting with UN Ambassador Susan Rice to discuss statements she made about the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya that killed four Americans. Republicans and Democrats began condemning each other's response to Benghazi within hours of the first shots fired. The issue has flared and dimmed ever since, revived by new testimony, reports or documents like newly released emails. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The night of smoke, chaos, gunfire and grenades that killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, is well-documented. Eight months later, it is the decisions made back in Washington that remain murky and in perpetual dispute.

Why were a diplomatic outpost and the visiting U.S. ambassador left so poorly protected? Should the Pentagon have rushed jets or special forces to the rescue when the assault began? Did President Barack Obama's administration obscure the true nature of the terrorist attack to help him get re-elected?

Congressional Republicans are poking for evidence of incompetence and cover-up in the ashes of the Sept. 11 anniversary attack. Obama dismisses their probes as a politically driven "sideshow."

The release this past week of 100 pages of government emails and notes is the latest fodder, as numerous Benghazi investigations continue.

A look at the issue:

___

WHY NOW?

Republicans and Democrats began condemning each other's response to Benghazi within hours of the first shots fired. The issue has flared and dimmed ever since, revived by new testimony, reports or documents like the newly released emails.

Republican lawmakers say they won't stop until they get their questions answered.

Democrats accuse the GOP of flogging the issue for partisan gain.

The focus on Benghazi and other controversies makes it harder for Obama to press his second-term agenda. Emphasizing the State Department's failings during her tenure could be especially damaging to former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the early favorite among Democrats who might seek the presidency in 2016.

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a possible Republican presidential candidate, already is arguing that the attack "precludes Hillary Clinton from ever holding office."

The controversy also helps Republicans raise money and fire up their conservative base heading into next year's congressional elections.

___

SEPT. 11, 2012

The night of the attack, as described by the State Department's review board and other accounts:

Seven Americans are at State's temporary residential compound in Benghazi that night: U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, visiting from the embassy in Tripoli; computer specialist Sean Smith and five diplomatic security officers. They are a minority among U.S. personnel in Benghazi; most work for the CIA, which operates a secret "annex" about a mile away.

Egyptian demonstrators had scaled the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo hours earlier to protest an American amateur filmmaker's video mocking the Prophet Muhammad. But there were no demonstrations that day in Benghazi. The attack begins suddenly around 9:40 p.m. - gunfire, explosions, sounds of chanting and then dozens of armed men swarming through the compound's main entrance. Libyans hired to guard the compound flee.

A security officer hustles Stevens and Smith into a fortified "safe room." It fills with blinding smoke when the attackers set the building on fire with diesel fuel, and the two men become separated from the security officer.

A CIA team from the annex arrives about 25 minutes into the attack and helps search for the two diplomats inside the smoke-filled room, while gunfire continues outside. Only Smith's body is found. Eventually the U.S. personnel escape in armored vehicles, plowing through gunfire and grenade blasts to the CIA annex across town. Rocket-propelled grenades and mortar fire target the annex intermittently for an hour after midnight.

A team of six security officials summoned from Tripoli arrives around 5 a.m. Soon after, another assault on the annex begins. A mortar blast kills CIA security contractors Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. About an hour later, a Libyan military unit arrives to help evacuate the U.S. personnel.

After the Americans fled the diplomatic compound, Benghazi civilians found Ambassador Stevens in the wreckage and drove him to a hospital, but he couldn't be saved. Like Smith, he died of smoke inhalation.

Stevens is the first U.S. ambassador killed by militants since 1979.

___

POLITICAL FROM THE FIRST

The calamity in Benghazi was the kind of autumn surprise that can rock a presidential race.

The night of Sept. 11, before word of Stevens' death was out, Republican nominee Mitt Romney issued a hurried statement about violence in Egypt and Libya, criticizing the State Department as too sympathetic to Muslim protesters. Critics, even some in his own party, faulted Romney for politicizing a crisis before the facts were in.

A month later in a combative presidential debate, Romney took another tack. He jumped on Obama for being too slow to acknowledge that terrorism was committed on his watch.

"It took the president 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror," Romney insisted.

"Get the transcript," Obama snapped back, referring to his remarks the day after the assault.

In that Rose Garden appearance and similar words the next day, Obama had said that "acts of terror" would not shake U.S. resolve. He also condemned the violent protests that were sweeping through Muslim nations, sparked by anger over the Muhammad video.

In interviews over the next two weeks, Obama blamed the attack on extremists but steered clear of using any form of the word "terror." Other administration officials did the same and continued to conflate the Benghazi attack with the protests elsewhere.

Finally, at a Sept. 20 news briefing, White House spokesman Jay Carney said it was "self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack."

___

THE TALKING POINTS

The question of the moment: Were the "talking points" drawn up within days of the attack deliberately misleading?

The document, outlining the government's public message, was sent to members of Congress and to Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, who made the round of Sunday morning talk shows five days after the attack.

Republicans accuse Rice of deceiving the American people. They say that, working from the talking points, she passed off an attack by heavily armed terrorists possibly linked to al-Qaida as something less damaging to Obama's terror-fighting credentials.

Rice described the attack as a "horrific incident where some mob was hijacked, ultimately, by a handful of extremists."

The White House says Rice reflected the best information available while facts were still being gathered. Republican critics say the administration should have known by then that there was no mob of protesters and the attack was a premeditated act of terrorism.

Two months after her TV interviews, the controversy ended Rice's chance of following Clinton as secretary of state.

___

STILL TALKING

Those talking points from September are in the news now because of new revelations about how they were crafted.

Republicans demanded to see emails exchanged by administration officials who revised and edited the talking points. On Wednesday, the White House publicly released 100 pages of emails and notes, saying congressional Republicans had misrepresented what they say.

Most of the email back-and-forth is between the State Department and the CIA, the entities whose facilities were attacked in Benghazi. White House and FBI officials were also in the discussions.

From the first draft, the CIA described the attack in Benghazi as a spontaneous outgrowth of the movie protests that began in Egypt - which indicates that was the theory in Washington then. However, the No. 2 diplomatic official in Libya at the time says he knew immediately it wasn't true and was demoted after he questioned the version of events Rice recited on TV.

One edit especially has been criticized as political: Victoria Nuland, then State's spokeswoman, sought removal of a reference to a CIA warning about the potential for anti-American demonstrations in Cairo and jihadists trying to break into that embassy. Nuland wrote that "could be abused" by lawmakers to criticize her department for failing to take heed.

Also deleted were references to the CIA's past warnings about dangerous extremists linked to al-Qaida in Benghazi.

After many deletions, the meat of the talking points read: "The currently available information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi and subsequently its annex. There are indications that extremists participated in the violent demonstrations."

___

UNPROTECTED

The month after Obama was re-elected, an independent review board issued its harsh verdict.

Senior officials in Washington had failed to protect the Benghazi mission, even after diplomats in Libya asked for more security, said the panel appointed by the State Department.

Since the overthrow of dictator Moammar Gadhafi, eastern Libya has been plagued by violence and awash with heavily armed militias. The U.S. compound as well as British diplomats and the Red Cross had been targeted by explosives in smaller attacks several times over the spring and summer.

The danger was obvious.

And yet security was "inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place," the Accountability Review Board concluded.

Four State Department officials were reassigned or resigned as a result.

"We clearly fell down on the job with regard to Benghazi," Deputy Secretary of State William Burns told lawmakers.

Republicans put the focus on Clinton's responsibility. In combative congressional hearings in January, the outgoing secretary of state said the cables from Benghazi seeking help never reached her.

"I did not see these requests. They did not come to me," she said. "I did not approve them. I did not deny them."

Obama called the poor security "a huge problem" and said changes would be made to protect risky posts.

Democrats tried to shift some blame to congressional Republicans, complaining that they cut $300 million from the Obama administration's budget request of $2.6 billion for diplomatic and embassy security in 2012.

___

WHERE WAS THE CAVALRY?

Could the military have done more to help on Sept. 11? A former top diplomat thinks so.

Gregory Hicks, who was Stevens' No. 2 and monitoring the crisis from Tripoli that night, suggests that sending fighter jets or even a cargo plane overhead might have scared off the insurgents with a show of force. That might have saved the lives of the two CIA contractors by preventing the final assault on the CIA annex, which came about eight hours after the first attack on the diplomatic mission, Hicks told a House committee.

Hicks also said four members of a special forces team in Tripoli wanted to fly on a Libyan plane to Benghazi but were told to stand down. Pentagon officials said the evacuation was already beginning by then and those forces would have arrived too late.

Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate there wasn't enough information about what was happening on the ground to send in aircraft. For example, for several hours officials didn't know what had happened to the ambassador.

Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta made the same point. "You can't just willy-nilly send F-16s there and blow the hell out of a place without knowing what's taking place," Panetta told senators.

State's review board concluded the military did what it could. An unarmed Predator drone flew over the diplomatic post beginning shortly after 11 p.m. to gather information. Two military personnel were with the team from Tripoli that arrived at the CIA annex in the morning. A C-17 from Germany carried the evacuated Americans out of Tripoli. Special operations forces and other personnel who were deployed from Europe and the United States in response to the crisis didn't reach Libya in time to help.

"The interagency response was timely and appropriate," according to the review board, "but there simply was not enough time given the speed of the attacks for armed U.S. military assets to have made a difference."

___

WHAT'S NEXT

The FBI is still investigating who carried out the attack, and Attorney General Eric Holder says there has been "very, very substantial progress."

Republicans on five House committees are pursuing inquiries. Many GOP lawmakers are pushing House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to appoint a special select committee to investigate.

The leaders of the review board, veteran diplomat Thomas Pickering and former Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen, have offered to testify publicly about their findings and to answer critics who say the probe was incomplete. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight committee, has issued a subpoena to compel Pickering to testify in closed session first.

And congressional Republicans say they will keep pressing for more documents, such as details of military orders during the attack.

___

Associated Press writer Donna Cassata contributed to this report.

___

Follow Connie Cass on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ConnieCass

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-05-19-AP-US-Benghazi-News-Guide/id-4b5c1e96bd004943990d2e9d729b50b9

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Zach Galifianakis' 'Hangover' ends, but comedic party keeps rolling

By Kurt Schlosser
NBC News

Zach Galifianakis warned Brian Williams that viewers would turn off a long interview piece with the actor if it aired on "Rock Center." But after watching several candid minutes with the comedian and "Hangover" star on Friday night, it was hard not to be left wanting more.

Galifianakis, the bearded comic turned reluctant big-time star, opened up to Williams about more than just the buddy-movie trilogy that has made his extended Greek moniker a household name.

They talked about life on the North Carolina farm where Galifianakis, 43, and his wife Quinn Lundberg spend part of each year. "I have donkeys. I have blueberries," Galifianakis said. "But enough about your Brooklyn apartment," Williams countered. "I asked about North Carolina."

NBC News

Cue the whistling: Galifianakis says a 6th grade visit from the man behind the iconic theme song of "The Andy Griffith Show" convinced him he should go into show business. "I remember being affected by that whistler, thinking I could maybe try to do something like that with my life. Not whistling ... but telling diarrhea jokes."

But it's no joke that life at home on the farm has framed Galifianakis' view of Hollywood and all that comes with being a celebrity. "It's not for me. I'm not into that scene," he said. "It's so stupid. It's all so dumb. It's so weird to me."

And for a man with the last name Galifianakis, there's a punchline waiting in the wings. "If I've always wanted to have my name up in lights I would have changed it to Don't Walk." Nod. Wink. Cheers.

Starring roles on television aside, it's the "Hangover" movies which did put Galifianakis' name in lights. Alan -- the portly, man-purse carrying sidekick to Bradley Cooper's Phil and Ed Helms' Stu -- is back in theaters May 23 in the third and final movie.

And any interview with Galifianakis wouldn't be complete without actually being interviewed with ferns for a backdrop, something he's turned into comedic art with his fake Internet talk show "Between Two Ferns."?Williams brought the two ferns to the interview and Galifianakis was game for a lengthy chat among the plants.

"This is the longest conversation I've had with anyone in, like, seven years," Galifianakis said, contradicting his earlier directive to Williams to "do a couple of jokes and then get out."

Source: http://rockcenter.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/17/18323679-zach-galifianakis-hangover-ends-but-the-comedic-party-keeps-rolling?lite

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Gallup Review To Show New Details On What Went Wrong

BOSTON -- Gallup, the company that has faced intense criticism after its polling consistently understated President Barack Obama's support during the 2012 campaign, shared details of its ongoing review of its election polling methods on Saturday.

Over a four-week period before the November 2012 election, Gallup's daily tracking poll showed Republican opponent Mitt Romney leading by margins ranging from 1 to 7 percentage points, including a 4-point Romney lead just 10 days before the election. Obama defeated Romney by a 51 to 47 percent margin.

Shortly after the election Gallup's editor-in-chief Frank Newport pledged to conduct an internal review of Gallup's telephone survey methodology. As promised, Newport reviewed on Saturday the kinds of studies conducted on issues including drawing samples, interviewing voters, and how to weight data and select the likely electorate. The company pledges to make the findings of its ongoing review publicly available.

Although much analysis is now complete and set to be unveiled June 4, the investigation awaits "a major experiment" in conjunction with the gubernatorial campaigns in the fall.

"We take it seriously" when polls misfire, Newport explained on Saturday. "We've been doing presidential polling since 1936 which is what put George Gallup on the map ...The results [in 2012] certainly were not what we wanted them to be from Gallup's perspective."

Newport's remarks came during a private, on-the-record briefing in Boston attended by The Huffington Post, and a handful of other pollsters and academic researchers at the annual American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) conference.

Michael Traugott, a University of Michigan political scientist and survey methodologist retained by the company for the review, said he recommended broadening the scope and timing of the inquiry.

"Early on," Traugott said, "Frank and I had a conversation, about trying to learn what we could from an investigation of the data" collected during the 2012 campaign, "but then using that information to design a series of experiments going forward."

Traugott also said he recommended reviewing all of Gallup's methods and assessing the data collected before the 2012 campaign. "We have been assembling data on presidential approval back to 2002 as a benchmark to look at the Gallup data in relations to other data and also party identification data going back."

His analysis confirms, for example, that by "a small but consistent amount," ratings of President George W. Bush "were a little bit higher than the average" of other pollsters "and the Obama ratings were a little bit lower than the average." Those findings are consistent with a Huffington Post investigation of Gallup's results published in June 2012.

Traugott also clarified that Gallup "has agreed to make all of this information publicly available." He stressed that both he and Newport, as former presidents of AAPOR "are firmly committed to transparency. And this is an ongoing part of our relationship as well."

When pressed on whether that included releasing raw respondent-level data, Newport said that although they are "still making the final decisions, we think we'll try to make the data available as well." Such data will allow other scholars and researchers to attempt to replicate Traugott's findings and test other theories. On Saturday, Newport also asked assembled AAPOR researchers for further input on a list of 20 specific parts -- virtually every aspect -- of Gallup's methodology included in the review.

While Newport declined to reveal specific findings from the review ahead of the June 4 announcement, he shared some new information.

One of the experiments, for example, checked on potential bias associated with the Gallup brand name by running a full "shadow" sample to a recent Gallup poll in which respondents were told the polster was "Selection Research Incorporated," rather than Gallup. "The Gallup name significantly increased the response rate," Newport said, but without producing differences in the demographics of the resulting sample.

Newport also explained that earlier this year, the company changed how it asks respondents to describe their race, replacing yes/no questions critiqued in last year's Huffington Post investigation with a question in which respondents could select more than one in a list of potential answers. That change allowed for a related modification to Gallup's weighting procedure. "We think that's already had some impact on our data," Newport said.

It is difficult, Traugott explained, to reconstruct Gallup's problems "retrospectively" using the data collected last fall. Instead, he convinced Gallup to conduct experiments to determine if alternative methods would have produced different and more accurate results.

Because such experiments only make sense "in the context of a campaign," Traugott explained, they decided to undertake them during the upcoming gubernatorial campaigns in Virginia and possibly New Jersey. He stressed that the experiments would only be used for further analysis, and would not be released publicly before the election.

Three academic survey methodologists are joining Traugott in the investigation: Chris Wlezien from Temple University, an expert in likely voter models; James Wagner from the University of Michigan, an authority in telephone survey operations; and Frauke Kreuter from the University of Maryland, an expert on sampling and weighting.

Shortly after the election, Newport speculated that "it is likely that we could see significantly fewer polls conducted in the 2016 election." Asked Saturday if he was signaling Gallup's intention to withdraw from polling in the next presidential race, Newport replied, "Well, check back with us in 2016. I don't know what any polling organization is doing in 2016," given the increasing challenges to traditional pollster methods.

However, despite the months of criticism, Newport was upbeat about the potential for improvements with advances in technology. He spoke favorably about a future in which "polling is augmented by non-probability data, administrative data, social media data."

"I think it is an exciting time," he said later. "Rather than doing things the same way in any business, it's always exciting when technology in particular opens up all these other opportunities."

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/18/gallup-review-polls_n_3299895.html

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Residents capture amazing videos in the face of tornadoes

A series of 16 violent tornadoes ransacked north Texas this week, killing six people and flattening entire neighborhoods. Seven people who were reported missing early Friday morning have now been accounted for, but the storms aren't over yet.

Severe thunderstorms were brewing in Alabama and Mississippi, and the Plains and the Midwest face threats of even more tornadoes this weekend, according the Weather Channel.

Some residents and daredevil storm chasers captured amazing footage as twisters plowed through Texas. We've rounded up some of the best videos.

A resident in Granbury, Texas took this video Wednesday as a tornado pounded the area just on the other side of Lake Granbury.

Tornado chaser Jason Cooley shot this footage Wednesday of a tornado that slammed into cities near Dallas. "We gotta go," says one woman in the video as the twister approaches. Later in the video, a man says, "We were just in a tornado."

One Texas resident captured a hail storm as it pounded DeCordova, Texas just before a major tornado hit Granbury, Texas on Wednesday.

Amy Castaneda created this Vine showing the size of the hail that pummeled Grandbury, Texas on Wednesday. The large hail damaged homes and injured residents. (Click image to view the Vine)

These images capture the destruction in the wake of the multiple tornadoes that tore through Texas.
Click image to see more photos of the damage. (AP Photo/The Dallas Morning News, Tom Fox)

Click here to follow Torrey on Twitter.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/residents-capture-amazing-videos-face-tornadoes-005322352.html

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Stocks rise on hopeful signs for the US economy

NEW YORK (AP) ? Encouraging news about the U.S. economy extended the stock market's rally Friday.

Small-company stocks rose the most, a sign that investors are taking on more risk. Two companies soared in their stock-market debuts in the latest indication that the market for initial public offerings is reviving.

A gauge of future economic activity rose more than analysts had expected, as did a measure of consumer confidence, adding to evidence that the economy is steadily recovering.

Stocks closed higher for a fourth straight week. Indexes are at record levels after surging this year on optimism about the economy and record corporate earnings. The market is also being supported by ongoing stimulus from the Federal Reserve, which is keeping long-term borrowing costs at historically low levels.

"This slow but relatively steady growth, that keeps inflation in check and keeps interest rates low, is actually a pretty healthy environment for the stock market," said Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab & Co. "Right now we are very optimistic."

General Motors rose $1.03, or 3.2 percent, to $33.42. The automaker's stock is trading above the $33 price of its November, 2010 initial public offering for the first time in two years.

Northrop Grumman gained $3.17, or 3.2 percent, to $82.19 after the defense contractor said its board approved the repurchase of another $4 billion in stock, and that it plans to buy back a quarter of its outstanding shares by the end of 2015.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 121.18 points, or 0.8 percent, to 15,354.40. The index gained 1.6 percent for the week and is up 17.2 percent for the year.

The index started higher, then drifted through the rest of the morning. The index added to its gains in the afternoon, climbing about 70 points in the last two hours of the day.

The Standard & Poor' 500 index rose 15.65 points, or 1 percent, to 1,666.12. The gauge is up 2 percent this week and has gained 16.8 percent this year.

After some lackluster reports on the economy Thursday, including slowing manufacturing and an increase in applications for unemployment benefits, Friday's reports were a tonic for investors.

The Conference Board said its index of leading economic indicators rose 0.6 percent last month after a revised decline of 0.2 percent in March. The index is intended to predict how the economy will be doing in three to six months.

The University of Michigan's preliminary survey of consumer confidence climbed to 83.7. Economists had predicted that the gauge would climb to 76.8.

The strength of the rally in stocks has taken many by surprise, leaving investors waiting for a drop in prices to get into the market, said Jim Anderson, an investment specialist at JPMorgan. The S&P 500 index hasn't fallen for two consecutive days in a month.

"Everyone is waiting for a pullback," Anderson said. "Every client asks me, 'When are we getting a pullback?' With so many people waiting for it, and pouncing on it when it arrives, it's over so quickly."

As well as giving stocks a lift, the positive economic reports also pushed government bond yields higher. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 1.96 percent from 1.88 percent Thursday as investors favored riskier assets.

The yield, which moves inversely to its prices, has jumped since May 3 after the government reported that hiring picked up sharply in April. The note started trading that day at 1.63 percent, its low for the year.

The move to riskier assets also gave small stocks a lift. The Russell 2000, an index of smaller companies, rose 10.94 points, or 1.1 percent, to 996.28. The index has surged this month and is performing better than both the Dow and the S&P 500 for the year. It's up 17.3 percent so far in 2013.

Small stocks are doing well partly because they are more focused on the U.S., which is recovering, and don't rely as much on sales from recession-plagued Europe, as larger companies do.

Gold fell for a seventh straight day, dropping $22.20, or 1.6 percent, to $1,364 an ounce. The precious metal is down almost 20 percent this year and has fallen out of favor as an alternative investment as the stock market has surged this year.

The demand for gold as an alternative asset is also being undermined by a recent surge in the U.S. dollar. The U.S. currency advanced against both the euro and the yen Friday. The ICE dollar index, which measures the strength of the U.S. currency against a group of six currencies, is at its highest in two years.

The price of oil rose 86 cents, or 0.9 percent, to $96.02 a barrel.

The Nasdaq composite climbed 33.72 points, or 1 percent, to 3,498. The technology-heavy stock index got a small boost from Facebook, which climbed 12 cents, or 0.5 percent, to $26.25 on the one-year anniversary of its initial public offering.

Facebook slumped in the first four months after its market debut on concern that it wasn't doing enough to develop mobile advertising. Despite recovering since then, it's still trading below its IPO price of $38.

Two software companies had more success in their stock market debuts on Friday. Marketo surged $10.10, or 77.7 percent, to $23.10 on its stock market debut. Tableau software rose $19.75, or 63.7 percent, to $50.75 on its first day of trading.

The standout performance made the two companies the two best performing IPOs of the year. So far, 22 companies have prices stock sales in May, making this the biggest month for stock market debuts since November 2007, according to Renaissance Capital.

Among other stocks making big moves;

? J.C. Penney fell 78 cents, or 4.2 percent, to $18.01 after the retailer reported a loss that was worse than analysts' already dismal estimates. The retailer is reeling from the fallout from a failed turnaround plan orchestrated by its former CEO Ron Johnson, who was ousted last month after less than a year and a half on the job.

? Autodesk fell $2.67, or 6.7 percent, to $37.11, after the design software company posted disappointing first-quarter results and lowered its forecasts for the year.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/stocks-rise-hopeful-signs-us-economy-142804549.html

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Eminem wasn't stabbed -- claim was hoax

Celebs

Gael Fashingbauer Cooper TODAY

2 hours ago

AP file

Eminem is just fine, his representatives say.

The text of the Facebook message was grim: "Rapper Eminem left nearly DEAD after being stabbed 4 times in NYC!" But the claim was untrue, and the attached photo of a tattooed man's back with deep slash marks was not a picture of the rapper.

"These happen all the time. He's fine," a representative of the rapper told SPIN.

But the creepy claim gained some traction among music fans anyway, as many who saw it on Facebook and Twitter shared it without verifying the facts.

Those who click on the link, supposedly to see a video of the attack (!), are forced to share the link with their Facebook friends. "After sharing the post, the link redirects to a survey website promising ?free prizes? along with more Eminem stabbing news, which, of course, never comes," the International Business Times reports.

As the International Business Times notes, the same photo of a man's slashed back was used in a similar scam in 2011 to claim that Justin Bieber was stabbed -- he was not.

A new Eminem album is due out soon, and rumors are that it may include an appearance by comic Chris Rock.

Source: http://www.today.com/entertainment/eminem-wasnt-stabbed-claim-was-facebook-hoax-1C9962947

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How Much Would It Cost to Build the Starship Enterprise?

So you want to build the Enterprise. Don't we all! Well good news: according to some quick, messy, napkin math, it's possible. Kind of. The bad news? It's going to be stupid expensive. But not unfathomably so! Start scrounging up your space-pennies.

Read more...

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/Mcls1L23Qn0/how-much-would-it-cost-to-build-the-starship-enterprise-506174071

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JK Shin: Galaxy S4 to top 10 million sold next week

Galaxy ?S4 could pass the 10 million mark twice as quickly as the S3

JK Shin has told the Korean press that he expects the Samsung Galaxy S4 to pass 10 million units sold next week. Speaking with the Korea Times, the Samsung co-CEO said he was "confident" the milestone would be met, adding "it is selling much faster than the previous model S3."

The Galaxy S4 benefits from having launched across three major U.S. carriers at the same time as the global launch. By contrast, the U.S. release of the S3 took place several months behind the initial European launch. That device passed the 10 million mark in late July 2012, having begun shipping a little under two months earlier. If the S4 hits 10 million next week, it'd mean S4s are being shifted twice as fast as last year's S3. It'd also make it Samsung's fastest-selling smartphone, the Korea Times notes.

The last set of shipment numbers reported in the Korean press suggested 6 million GS4s had shipped as of May 10. Today's Korea Times article refers to units sold, not units shipped, so it's possible the distinction may have been lost in translation. Either way, that's a lot of Galaxy S4s.

Source: Korea Times; via: Engadget

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/NDmTSDuNA4A/story01.htm

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Marchand delivers to lift Bruins over Rangers 3-2

Boston Bruins left wing Brad Marchand (63) beats New York Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist (30) for the game-winning goal during overtime in Game 1 of an NHL hockey playoffs Eastern Conference semifinal in Boston, Thursday, May 16, 2013. Rangers right wing Mats Zuccarello (36), right, looks on. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Boston Bruins left wing Brad Marchand (63) beats New York Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist (30) for the game-winning goal during overtime in Game 1 of an NHL hockey playoffs Eastern Conference semifinal in Boston, Thursday, May 16, 2013. Rangers right wing Mats Zuccarello (36), right, looks on. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Boston Bruins left wing Brad Marchand celebrates following his game-winning goal against New York Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist during overtime in Game 1 of an NHL hockey playoffs Eastern Conference semifinal game in Boston, Thursday, May 16, 2013. The Bruins won 3-2. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Fans, top, celebrate as Boston Bruins defenseman Torey Krug, front right, is congratulated by teammate Dougie Hamilton after his goal against the New York Rangers during the third period in Game 1 of an NHL hockey playoffs Eastern Conference semifinal game in Boston, Thursday, May 16, 2013. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

New York Rangers' Derick Brassard (16) and Brian Boyle (22) celebrate after teammate Ryan McDonagh scored against Boston Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask, right, during the second period in Game 1 of an NHL hockey playoffs Eastern Conference semifinal game in Boston, Thursday, May 16, 2013. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

New York Rangers defenseman Michael Del Zotto (4) grabs his head after being hit by the puck during the first period in Game 1 of an NHL hockey playoffs Eastern Conference semifinal game against the Boston Bruins in Boston, Thursday, May 16, 2013. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

BOSTON (AP) ? Brad Marchand left the morning skate early. The Bruins were thrilled he was on the ice at the end of the game Thursday night.

More precisely, just a few feet from the empty side of the net.

Patrice Bergeron made a perfect pass across the slot and Marchand tipped the puck in with 4:20 left in the first overtime. That gave Boston a 3-2 win over the New York Rangers in the opener of their Eastern Conference best-of-seven semifinal.

"That's what he needed to do. Get off the ice early so he could score that winning goal," Bruins coach Claude Julien joked after the first playoff game between the Original Six teams in 40 years. "Whatever works is good for us."

He said the reason was "minor" for Marchand's early departure but provided no details.

Marchand, perhaps, did.

"I didn't want to waste my energy there this morning. I felt I had some good jump tonight," he said with a smile. "Claude knows I hate morning skates."

Whatever the reason, Marchand had one of his best games of the playoffs. After leading the Bruins with 18 goals in the regular season, he finally got his first in this year's postseason.

"It's always frustrating" not to score, Marchand said, "but there's so many other areas of the game. It's always nice to get the first one and you hope you just keep going."

He might just do that in Game 2 at home on Sunday if Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist doesn't improve.

After consecutive shutouts in the last two games against the Washington Capitals in the opening round, last year's Vezina Trophy winner and this year's finalist for the award allowed two soft goals then admitted he made a mistake on Marchand's.

"I thought I made a bad decision," Lundqvist said. "I was too focused on the puck. I kind of knew (Marchand) was coming in the middle, but I was just too locked in on the puck."

Boston's last three wins and New York's last three losses all have been in overtime.

The Bruins had more offensive pressure throughout the game and led 48-35 in shots on goal. In overtime, they had six shots on an early power play and outshot the Rangers 16-5.

"If anything, I think (the power play) should have gotten us going because we were out there for a while and got the job done," New York's Dan Girardi said.

Zdeno Chara scored the first goal at 12:23 of the first period before Ryan McDonagh tied the game with just 1.3 seconds left in the period. And just 14 seconds into the second, Derek Stepan gave the Rangers a 2-1 lead.

But at 2:55, rookie Torey Krug tied it with his first career goal in his fourth NHL game and first in the postseason. He was called up from Providence of the AHL on Tuesday when Dennis Seidenberg joined two other veteran defensemen, Andrew Ference and Wade Redden, on the sidelines with injuries.

"The key to every power play is to get pucks to the net," Krug said. "That's one of the strengths of my game."

The Bruins nearly won in regulation, but Johnny Boychuk's shot from the right point clanged off the left post with one-tenth of a second left.

Both teams advanced with Game 7 victories Monday night. The Rangers beat the Washington Capitals 5-0. The Bruins became the first team to overcome a three-goal deficit in the third period of a seventh game and beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 5-4 on Bergeron's goal in overtime.

"I really thought our guys turned the page on that historical game," Julien said. "At the same time, they wanted to take what was necessary to start the series, and that was momentum, the good feeling that we have from that game."

On the deciding goal, Marchand carried the puck up the right side, passed it to Bergeron and kept going toward the net. Bergeron passed across the slot and Marchand tipped it past Lundqvist.

"I told Marchand when we were pretty close to each other on the wall to go back door," Bergeron said. "It was good to see him score because I thought he had some pretty good looks tonight."

The Bruins carried the play throughout overtime. They applied constant pressure, but couldn't score during a power play when Derek Dorsett was penalized for interference at 2:20 of overtime.

"I thought it was pretty even going into the overtime," Rangers coach John Tortorella said. "But we got spanked in the overtime."

The Bruins ended Lundqvist's shutout streak at 152 minutes, 23 seconds when he gave up a Chara's soft goal. Lundqvist appeared to have a good view of the 50-foot slap shot from just in front of the middle of the blue line and got a piece of the puck, but it trickled by him.

And when he couldn't stop Marchand, his overtime woes continued.

"It was a tough overtime period for us. They came hard," Lundqvist said. "My record is terrible in overtime, but I've just got to stick with it, play my game and hopefully it'll turn around."

NOTES: Bergeron and Gregory Campbell were the only Bruins without a shot on goal. ... Stepan's goal was the sixth against the Bruins in the first two minutes of a period in their eight playoff games. ... The teams last met in the playoffs in 1973 when the Rangers won the first-round series in five games. The previous year, they faced each other in the Stanley Cup finals, and the Bruins won in six. ... Boston's Jaromir Jagr, a former Ranger, is the only player on either team who had been born the last time the teams met in the playoffs, April 10, 1973.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-05-17-Rangers-Bruins%20Folo/id-58022ea2eb3d4348b7cc8eadb8c957d2

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Another round for the House on 'Obamacare' (The Arizona Republic)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

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