Why We're Obsessed with 'Game of Thrones'

Nationwide, a legion of fans of HBO's Game of Thrones are clearing their schedules for this Sunday at 9 p.m. ET, when the epic tale launches into Season 3. A sizable portion of that fan base is female, which at first blush seems anomalous. Women aren't usually considered the target audience for an epic fantasy fueled by graphic violence and sex. So why are we so enchanted by the characters of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros?

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/why-women-love-game-thrones/1-a-531148?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Awhy-women-love-game-thrones-531148

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Russia: Searches to check for illegal NGO activity

MOSCOW (AP) ? Russian prosecutors are defending their wave of raids on non-governmental organizations, saying they are trying to weed out underground groups and combat money laundering.

The spokeswoman for the prosecutor general's office, Maria Gridneva, spoke Thursday as international criticism over the searches mounted. France and Germany have summoned Russia's ambassadors to explain the searches. The U.S., Britain and the EU have also expressed concerns.

Gridneva said the searches mostly aim to stop groups violating Russia's vaguely worded "extremism" statute.

Prosecutors and other officials have raided as many as 2,000 NGOs in the past month under wildly varying and legally dubious pretenses, according to Pavel Chikov, a member of the presidential human rights council.

Although political NGOs face the worst pressure, the searches have also affected French-language courses in Siberia and birdwatchers.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/russia-searches-check-illegal-ngo-activity-111139517.html

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'Olympus Has Fallen': The Reviews Are In!

Gerard Butler and Morgan Freeman take the action genre back to its 1980s roots.
By Brett White

Gerard Butler and Aaron Eckhart in "Olympus Has Fallen"
Photo: FilmDistrict

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1704174/olympus-has-fallen-reviews.jhtml

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Stripe Partners With Parse To Integrate Mobile Payments For App Developers

Payments startup Stripe is announcing a new partnership with Parse, a mobile app development platform. The company is also revealing that its payments platform is being used by Lyft, Exec, SideCar, OrderAhead, Sesame and Postmates to enable payments in their mobile applications.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/fMj6KyntUkE/

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Live from Expand: Ask The Editors (video)

You've already had the chance to hear from our parade of speakers, but now's the time to ask us some questions! So, what do you want to know?

March 17, 2013 8:00 PM EDT

For a full list of Expand sessions, be sure to check out our event hub.

Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/17/live-ask-the-editors/

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Red Bull Editions Lightning Review: Sweet Energy Drink, Dude!

Red Bull has always tasted suspiciously like found bubble gum—whatever, you don't drink it for the taste, you drink it for the pulse-racing amounts of caffeine and B-Vitamins stored in each can. Until now, that is. Red Bull's just rolled out three new flavor editions of its energy drink and we've got to warn you, they're delicious. At least, compared to what you're used to. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/FwWX4htEbEs/red-bull-editions-lightning-review-sweet-energy-drink-dude

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?Mary Tyler Moore? Star Ed Asner Rushed To The Hospital

“Mary Tyler Moore” Star Ed Asner Rushed To The Hospital

Ed Asner was hospitalized on Tuesday following a medical emergency that occurred during a performance of his live 1-man show “FDR”. Asner, most known for his Emmy-winning role as Lou Grant on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show”, appeared to be struggling on stage and was rushed to an Indiana hospital. The 83-year-old actor was performing ...

“Mary Tyler Moore” Star Ed Asner Rushed To The Hospital Stupid Celebrities Gossip Stupid Celebrities Gossip News

Source: http://stupidcelebrities.net/2013/03/mary-tyler-moore-star-ed-asner-rushed-to-the-hospital/

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No. 5 Georgetown beats No. 17 Syracuse 61-39

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Georgetown coach John Thompson III was noting all the ways ? and there were many ? in which his team's lopsided, Big East-closing victory over Syracuse was significant, when a familiar baritone voice rose from the back of the interview room.

"Kiss Syracuse goodbye!" interrupted Thompson's father.

John Thompson Jr. coached Georgetown to a regular-season title in 1979-80, Year 1 of the Big East, and his son took the Hoyas to the final regular-season title before the conference undergoes massive changes, emphatically ending the rivalry against Syracuse with a 61-39 win Saturday.

On an afternoon that Otto Porter Jr. didn't make a field goal until the second half, No. 5 Georgetown held No. 17 Syracuse to its lowest scoring total in 558 Big East games ? and its fewest points in any game since a 36-35 victory over Kent State on Dec. 1, 1962, back before shot clocks and 3-pointers. It also was the series' biggest margin since Georgetown beat Syracuse by 27 in 1985.

"It's special because the Big East, as we have known it, is ending," Thompson III said. "Georgetown won the first one, and now Georgetown's won the last. So that means a lot."

Porter finished with 10 points, but the national player of the year candidate contributed in plenty of other ways, as usual, with eight rebounds and seven assists. With Syracuse focusing on Porter, Markel Starks scored 19, and freshman D'Vauntes Smith-Rivera had 15 points, five rebounds and five assists for the Hoyas (24-5, 14-4), who will be the No. 1 seed at the Big East tournament next week in New York.

"I don't want anything to get clouded: It's not over. We hope to go up to New York and play well and win that. And then we hope to play well and win the NCAA tournament," Thompson III said. "I'm not saying we've accomplished our goals, by any stretch of the imagination."

Try telling that to Georgetown's fans.

When the game ended, they stormed the court ? even though the favorite won ? and it took a while to clear them away so Georgetown could have a brief ceremony celebrating its title in the last year of the league as it's currently constituted. Georgetown's players even cut down the nets.

The Hoyas have won 12 of their last 13 games, including two wins against Syracuse; Porter scored 33 in a victory at the Carrier Dome on Feb. 23. It's the Hoyas' first two-game sweep of a season series over the Orange since 2001-02.

Syracuse (23-8, 11-7), which had been hoping for a double-bye in the tournament, was led by Michael Carter-Williams' 17 points. But the Orange shot only 32 percent from the field, including 1 for 11 on 3-point tries, and lost for the fourth time in their last five games.

"A blip," Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim called it.

He waxed on and on about the history of the Big East and his school's storied matchups against Georgetown.

"It's been an unbelievable rivalry, and you don't remember one game or two, you remember the total package," Boeheim said.

This regular-season finale was the schools' 89th meeting overall (Syracuse leads 48-41) ? but the last time they will face each other in the regular season as Big East foes. Syracuse is heading to the Atlantic Coast Conference, and Georgetown is one of seven schools splitting away to form a basketball-centric league that will get to keep the Big East name.

By game's end, Hoyas supporters were taunting the Orange with chants of "A-C-C!" Among the announced attendance of 20,972 ? the largest crowd at a Georgetown home game ? were members of Georgetown's past who helped turned games against Syracuse into events, including Patrick Ewing and Alonzo Mourning.

Playing in what might have been his final home game ? he has not said whether he'll return to school for his junior year or declare for the NBA draft ? Porter was the center of attention. When spectators arrived, they found on their seats gray placards with blue type proclaiming, "Player of the Year Otto Porter Jr." During pregame warmups, some fans loudly chanted, "Ot-to! Por-ter!" One person held up a sign reading, "Porter for Pope."

More than 12 minutes into the game, Porter had yet to attempt a shot. But he made his presence felt in other ways at both ends of the court. On the game's opening possession, he blocked C.J. Fair's runner from behind. He later had a steal. He set the screen that freed up Starks for a 3, part of the junior guard's strong start in which he scored Georgetown's first eight points. Smith-Rivera scored Georgetown's next eight.

Porter didn't even try to shoot a field-goal until 7:46 was left in the half, missing a 3-pointer from the corner.

He shrugged off a question about his quiet, 0-for-2 role in the first half, saying: "We were up at the time."

It was apt that there would be lots of defense, given the Big East's reputation. Georgetown and Syracuse both allowed opponents under 60 points per game this season, and they showed why Saturday. With 2? minutes left in the first half, they had combined for more turnovers (14) than field goals (13).

Porter's only points in the first half came on a pair of free throws with 23.9 seconds left that gave Georgetown its biggest lead until then, 25-18.

Porter got going a bit eventually, and his turnaround jumper made it 50-31 with under 8? minutes left. That was pretty much that, as the Hoyas started milking the clock when they had the ball.

When Porter headed to the sideline in the final minute, he and Thompson III hugged.

Afterward, Boeheim said he thinks Porter should be the No. 1 overall pick in the next NBA draft.

"Normally people in this league start saying stuff like that when they want your best player to leave," Thompson III said with a smile. "Since they're leaving, I don't know why he's doing it now. But I agree with him."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/no-5-georgetown-beats-no-17-syracuse-61-190711912--spt.html

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US household wealth regains pre-recession peak

A pair of specialists work at a post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Friday, March 1, 2013. Stocks edged higher on Wall Street, closing out a volatile week, as an upturn in manufacturing outweighed the threat of looming cuts to government spending.(AP Photo/Richard Drew)

A pair of specialists work at a post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Friday, March 1, 2013. Stocks edged higher on Wall Street, closing out a volatile week, as an upturn in manufacturing outweighed the threat of looming cuts to government spending.(AP Photo/Richard Drew)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? It took 5? years.

Surging stock prices and steady home-price increases have finally allowed Americans to regain the $16 trillion in wealth they lost to the Great Recession. The gains are helping support the economy and could lead to further spending and growth.

The recovered wealth ? most of it from higher stock prices ? has been flowing mainly to richer Americans. By contrast, middle class wealth is mostly in the form of home equity, which has risen much less.

Household wealth amounted to $66.1 trillion at the end of 2012, the Federal Reserve said Thursday. That was $1.2 trillion more than three months earlier and 98 percent of the pre-recession peak.

Further increases in stock and home prices this year mean that Americans' net worth has since topped the pre-recession peak of $67.4 trillion, private economists say. Wealth had bottomed at $51.4 trillion in early 2009.

"It's all but certain that we surpassed that peak in the first quarter," said Aaron Smith, senior economist at Moody's Analytics.

Household wealth, or net worth, reflects the value of assets like homes, stocks and bank accounts minus debts like mortgages and credit cards. National home prices have extended their gains this year. And the Standard & Poor's 500 index, a broad gauge of the stock market, has surged 8 percent so far this year.

Some economists caution that the recovered wealth might spur less consumer spending than it did before the recession. Dana Saporta, an economist at Credit Suisse, notes that Americans are now less likely to use the equity in their homes to fuel spending. The value of home equity Americans are cashing out has fallen 90 percent in six years, she said.

And since the housing bust, when home values fell broadly for the first time in decades, many homeowners are skeptical that higher prices will last, Saporta said. They won't necessarily spend more as a result.

Finally, the upper-income Americans who have benefited most from the nation's recovered wealth don't tend to spend as much of their money as Americans overall do.

But they've gotten a lot richer. The Dow Jones industrial average has just set a record high. Since bottoming in March 2009, the Dow has jumped 119 percent. Roughly 80 percent of stocks are held by the richest 10 percent of households.

For the past five years, middle-class Americans have sold stocks and missed out on much of the rebound. During 2012, Americans dumped $204 billion in stocks, the Fed's report showed.

Homes accounted for two-thirds of middle-class assets before the recession, estimates economist Edward Wolff of New York University. Among all U.S. households, they accounted for only one-third of assets. And national home values remain about 30 percent below their peak.

Still, some Americans are benefiting from rising home prices ? and spending more as a result.

Helen Lyons of Takoma Park, Md., bought a home with her husband last year and is already seeing neighbors sell for much higher prices. That's given her confidence that her home purchase will pay off.

"I think we got in at exactly the right time," said Lyons, 24. "We feel like we are sitting on something that is a potential investment, not just a place to live."

The increase in her home's value has led Lyons and her husband, Nick Finio, to repaint the interior, landscape the yard and stain the porch.

"You buy a house, you end up going to Home Depot and spending tons of money," Lyons said.

That helps explain why economists expect Americans' regained wealth to contribute further to the economic recovery. Consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of the economy.

"It should boost consumption, because as people feel wealthier they tend to spend more," Saporta said. "It doesn't necessarily mean that households will go on a spending spree."

Carl Riccadonna, an economist at Deutsche Bank, is a bit more optimistic. He thinks higher home values and some easing of credit requirements by banks will lead Americans to cash out more of their home equity.

Riccadonna forecasts that the increase in home prices alone could boost consumer spending this year by roughly $110 billion ? nearly offsetting the $120 billion cost of higher Social Security taxes that kicked in Jan. 1.

The Fed report also showed that Americans are increasingly taking on more debt, enabling them to spend more. In the October-December quarter, household debt rose 2.4 percent. It was the sharpest gain in nearly five years.

And it marked a shift from when the recession ended in June 2009, after which many households focused on repaying debt rather than borrowing. Economists increasingly think that process, known as "deleveraging," is ending.

"The drag from deleveraging is now a thing of the past," Smith said. "Household credit is once again supporting growth."

Smith noted that the two key trends in the Fed report ? higher wealth and more consumer borrowing ? are likely enabling people to spend more at a critical time: Most workers have had to absorb higher Social Security taxes this year. Someone earning $50,000 has about $1,000 less to spend in 2013. A household with two high-paid workers has up to $4,500 less.

And gas prices have risen sharply. The average price for a gallon is $3.72, roughly 44 cents more than when the year began.

"The combination of what we're seeing in terms of wealth increases and higher household borrowing explains why spending has not fallen more in the face of higher taxes and gasoline prices," Smith said.

Household finances are still improving, even with the increase in borrowing. Total household debt amounted to about 100 percent of after-tax income in the October-December quarter, down from 126 percent in 2007.

___

AP Business Writer Bernard Condon in New York contributed to this report.

___

Follow Chris Rugaber on Twitter at http://Twitter.com/ChrisRugaber

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-03-08-US-Net-Worth/id-16c5a57c777b4e9d8acc171ad1e1014d

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Explore the Sequester's Effects on Higher Education Funding

One question we're getting a lot at the Student Loan Ranger is how the sequester will affect student borrowers. Nobody knows for sure, but there are certain to be short-term consequences that will disproportionately hurt low-income students and there are likely to be long-term ones as well.

The Congressional Research Service defines sequestration as "the permanent cancellation of budgetary resources by a uniform percentage ... applied to all programs, projects, and activities within a budget account." The particular sequester everyone is talking about now was passed as part of the Budget Control Act of 2011.

The idea was that the broad budget cuts--including 8.2 percent to non-exempt, non-defense discretionary funding--in the sequester would be so harmful that they would spur a Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (the "super committee" you may have heard of) to replace them with a bipartisan plan to cut $1.5 trillion over 10 years and incentivize Congress to pass that plan by Dec. 23, 2011. Alas, the super committee failed to create a bipartisan compromise.

[Learn about the proposed Student Loan Forgiveness Act.]

The sequester was supposed to go into effect on January 1 along with the expiration of the temporary Bush tax cuts and the expiration of the payroll tax cut. This confluence of events was labeled the "fiscal cliff" and we examined its potential effects on student loans then. Fortunately, the fiscal cliff was averted in a last-second deal that postponed the sequester until March 1 and reduced the budget cuts to non-exempt, non-defense discretionary funding to a proportional 5.1 percent. The idea was that this would give Congress plenty of time to forge a compromise. This was just a temporary reprieve.

Indeed, Congress and President Obama have again failed to reach agreement and now the sequester has taken effect and is cutting many government programs by that set 5.1 percent. The Department of Education has given some guidance on how this cut will affect education across the country.

[Find programs to help with student loan payments.]

Its estimates include a $725 million cut to Title I funding (which distributes funding to schools and school districts with a high percentage of students from low-income families) that would affect 1.2 million disadvantaged students and a $600 million cut to special education that could result in approximately 70,000 students losing access to Head Start. College access programs like TRIO and GEAR UP will also be cut. The department's estimated state-by-state cuts and cuts to the largest 100 school districts are also available on its website.

In higher education, an estimated 70,000 students who can least afford it will have to borrow more for college as federal work-study grants will be cut by $49 million and supplemental educational opportunity grants for undergraduate students with exceptional financial need will be cut by $37 million.

The sequester mandates increases in student loan origination fees, meaning the cost of borrowing will go up for all federal student loan borrowers. According to the Congressional Research Service, if sequestration had occurred on Jan. 2, 2013, the current 1 percent origination fee on subsidized and unsubsidized Stafford Loans and the 4 percent origination fee on PLUS loans would all have increased by 7.6 percent. Again, this is an increase that will most hurt low income students.

[Discover how some employers help pay student loans.]

In a February 1 letter to the U.S. Senate on Committee Appropriations, Education Secretary Arne Duncan stated that budget cuts, furloughs, and potential layoffs may affect the ability of nonprofit student loan servicers and the Department of Education to provide services to borrowers. It seems likely to the Student Loan Ranger that the ability of borrowers to change repayment plans or consolidate their loans will be hampered.

Unfortunately, this is not the end of it. The Budget Control Act will continue to impose budget caps until 2021. And, while it protects Pell grants from cuts in fiscal year 2013, there is no such protection in future years. That means this perennially imperiled program, as well as other programs that benefit students, will have to fight for funding in a severely constrained budget.

If the pain the sequester will inflict on millions of students seems as unjust and ill-advised to you as it does to the Student Loan Ranger, we urge you to help end it by contacting your senators and representative.

Isaac Bowers is a senior program manager in the Communications and Outreach unit, responsible for Equal Justice Works's educational debt relief initiatives. An expert on educational debt relief, Bowers conducts monthly webinars for a wide range of audiences; advises employers, law schools, and professional organizations; and works with Congress and the Department of Education on federal legislation and regulations. Prior to joining Equal Justice Works, he was a fellow at Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger LLP in San Francisco. He received his J.D. from New York University School of Law.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/explore-sequesters-effects-higher-education-funding-162253620.html

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Rupert Murdoch's News Corp unveils its own Android tablet ...

By Dan Eldridge

We learned today that the Rupert Murdoch-owned News Corporation has unveiled a 10-inch Android tablet designed specifically for schoolchildren. Known as the Amplify Tablet (Amplify is also the name of the News Corp?s education division), the $299 slate was presented earlier today at the?SXSWedu conference in Austin, Texas. Amplify sales reps are said to be currently knocking on the proverbial doors of public schools nationwide.

Joel Klein

According to a press release:

The Amplify Tablet and related services are being piloted this year in school districts across the country in collaboration with AT&T. Tablets purchased by June 30 will be ready for use in classrooms in time for the start of the 2013-2014 school year.

For $299, students will receive training and customer care along with the tablet; a two-year subscription to Amplify?s educational content clocks in at an additional $99 per year.?The Amplify Tablet Plus, meanwhile, is a second option; it comes with a 4G data plan, and because the Amplify is meant to be taken home at night by students, this is the model that will be pitched to those kids who don?t have Wi-Fi access at home. That model?s price tag is $349. On top of that, users will have to agree to a ?two-year mandatory subscription which includes AT&T service for $179 a year,? according to an item from Engadget.

Steep price tags aside, however, the Amplify is said to be?the first ?open tablet-based learning platform designed specifically for K-12 education.? It comes pre-loaded with apps featuring educational quizes and games, and the News Corp?s Amplify educational division will also be providing schools with the infrastructure necessary to store their students? data.

Joel Klein, the chief executive of the Amplify division, is largely credited as being the driving force behind the project; he previously worked as?chancellor of New York schools. ?There?s a huge opportunity if you can get kids excited about educational games,? he says, in a?New York Times?article?about the Amplify.??You can change the learning curve.?

?

Source: http://www.teleread.com/education/rupert-murdochs-news-corp-unveils-its-own-android-tablet/

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Unlocking cell phones should be made legal: White House | Firstpost

Cellphone users should be allowed to switch their devices to any mobile carrier, the White House said on Monday in response to an online petition against the recent banning of the practice.

More than 100,000 people signed the petition protesting the ban on switching imposed by the Library of Congress, which took effect in January. At issue is whether cellphone buyers, who get new devices at a heavily subsidised price in return for committing to long-term contracts, should be able to take their gadgets with them when they change carriers.

Many in the telecoms industry argue that cellphones should be ?locked? ? or prevented from moving freely across networks ??because of the massive subsidies that carriers provide, effectively putting the devices in the hands of more people.

The petition argued that preventing ?unlocking? reduces consumer choice and resale value of phones, which can cost hundreds of dollars without subsidies from carriers like AT&T Inc, Verizon Wireless and Sprint.

Representational Image. Reuters

?The White House agrees with the 114,000+ of you who believe that consumers should be able to unlock their cell phones without risking criminal or other penalties,? R David Edelman, a senior advisor for Internet, Innovation, & Privacy to the Obama administration, wrote in the White House?s response.

?This is particularly important for secondhand or other mobile devices that you might buy or receive as a gift, and want to activate on the wireless network that meets your needs ? even if it isn?t the one on which the device was first activated. All consumers deserve that flexibility.?

The Library of Congress, which among other things is responsible for setting rules and deciding on exemptions related to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, said on Monday the issue would benefit from further debate and that its intention was not to supplant public policy discussion.

The Library of Congress got involved late last year during a rulemaking session conducted by the Register of Copyrights, which advises the organisation. Unidentified participants in the rulemaking process, a technical, legal proceeding that allows members of the public to request exemptions to the copyright act, raised the issue then.

The Library of Congress subsequently decided that cellphones should no longer be exempted from the relevant section of copyright law, triggering the January ban on ?unlocking.?

Reuters

Source: http://www.firstpost.com/tech/unlocking-cell-phones-should-be-made-legal-white-house-648555.html

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St. Louis mayor favored to win primary; fourth term in sight

ST. LOUIS, Missouri (Reuters) - St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay is favored to win a three-way Democratic primary on Tuesday that could clear the way for him to become the longest serving mayor in the city's history and the first to be elected to four terms.

Slay, 57, faces Lewis Reed, 50, president of the city's Board of Aldermen, and former alderman Jimmie Matthews, 67, in the Democratic primary. The winner will face a Green Party candidate in an April 2 general election. There is no Republican in the race.

Reed has run an aggressive campaign, often citing the city's high crime rate, but he has raised only about one-sixth of the $3 million that Slay has.

If Slay wins, he would become the city's longest-serving mayor in the middle of April, surpassing the 12-year, nine-day tenure of Henry Kiel, who served from 1913 to 1925. Slay would be the first to win four four-year terms.

St. Louis, which is located on the Mississippi River and has a population of about 318,000, was hard hit by the 2007-2009 financial crisis.

Slay argues that the tide has turned, citing new technology jobs and the groundbreaking last month of the long-delayed Ballpark Village entertainment district adjacent to Busch Stadium, home of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team.

St. Louis ranks high in violent crime. Its murder rate was 35 per 100,000 residents in 2011, trailing only Detroit and New Orleans among large cities, according to the most recent FBI statistics available.

But Ken Warren, a professor of political science at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, said crime would not resonate as an issue with voters because the numbers, though high nationally, have been dropping for more than a decade.

Warren said Slay was "virtually guaranteed to win for numerous reasons," including a belief that his administration has not been plagued by scandals like past city governments.

Slay's political longevity can be explained by his ability to avoid making enemies, said David Robertson, a political scientist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

"Mayor Slay has governed in a way that has not sparked the kind of passionate, widespread opposition to threaten his incumbency, which is striking because of the serious recession that hurt a lot of other political careers," Robertson said.

Slay, who is white, was endorsed by the city's most powerful black politician, U.S. Representative Lacy Clay. Slay endorsed Clay last year in a primary against another incumbent Democratic congressman, Russ Carnahan.

Slay's two Democratic challengers are black.

Blacks make up 49 percent of the city's population while whites account for 44 percent.

(Reporting By Tim Bross; Editing by Mary Wisniewski, Cynthia Johnston and Paul Simao)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/st-louis-mayor-favored-win-primary-fourth-term-110306417.html

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NY Cardinal Dolan a 'happy warrior' for church

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, talks during an interview with the Associated Press at the Pontifical North American College, in Rome, Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013. Dolan spoke shortly before he watched Pope Benedict XVI leave the Vatican in a helicopter taking the Pope to Castel Gandolfo. Benedict XVI greeted the faithful for the last time as pope on Thursday, telling tearful well-wishers that he is beginning the final stage of his life as "simply a pilgrim," hours before he becomes the first pontiff in 600 years to resign. (AP Photo/Angelo Carconi)

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, talks during an interview with the Associated Press at the Pontifical North American College, in Rome, Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013. Dolan spoke shortly before he watched Pope Benedict XVI leave the Vatican in a helicopter taking the Pope to Castel Gandolfo. Benedict XVI greeted the faithful for the last time as pope on Thursday, telling tearful well-wishers that he is beginning the final stage of his life as "simply a pilgrim," hours before he becomes the first pontiff in 600 years to resign. (AP Photo/Angelo Carconi)

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, waits to see Pope Benedict XVI leave the Vatican in a helicopter taking the Pope to Castel Gandolfo, after an interview with the Associated Press at the Pontifical North American College, in Rome, Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013. Benedict XVI greeted the faithful for the last time as pope on Thursday, telling tearful well-wishers that he is beginning the final stage of his life as "simply a pilgrim," hours before he becomes the first pontiff in 600 years to resign. (AP Photo/Angelo Carconi)

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, talks during an interview with the Associated Press at the Pontifical North American College, in Rome, Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013. Dolan spoke shortly before he watched Pope Benedict XVI leave the Vatican in a helicopter taking the Pope to Castel Gandolfo. Benedict XVI greeted the faithful for the last time as pope on Thursday, telling tearful well-wishers that he is beginning the final stage of his life as "simply a pilgrim," hours before he becomes the first pontiff in 600 years to resign. (AP Photo/Angelo Carconi)

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, talks during an interview with the Associated Press at the Pontifical North American College, in Rome, Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013. Dolan spoke shortly before he watched Pope Benedict XVI leave the Vatican in a helicopter taking the Pope to Castel Gandolfo. Benedict XVI greeted the faithful for the last time as pope on Thursday, telling tearful well-wishers that he is beginning the final stage of his life as "simply a pilgrim," hours before he becomes the first pontiff in 600 years to resign. (AP Photo/Angelo Carconi)

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, talks during an interview with the Associated Press at the Pontifical North American College, in Rome, Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013. Dolan spoke shortly before he watched Pope Benedict XVI leave the Vatican in a helicopter taking the Pope to Castel Gandolfo. Benedict XVI greeted the faithful for the last time as pope on Thursday, telling tearful well-wishers that he is beginning the final stage of his life as "simply a pilgrim," hours before he becomes the first pontiff in 600 years to resign. (AP Photo/Angelo Carconi)

NEW YORK (AP) ? Challenging a White House mandate for birth control coverage in health insurance, New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan sounded like a general rallying the troops.

"The only thing we're certainly not prepared to do is give in," Dolan said at a national bishops' meeting last November. "We're not violating our consciences."

Weeks earlier, he had appeared in a far less formal setting, at New York's Fordham University with comedian Stephen Colbert. From the 3,000 cheering audience members, one student considering the priesthood asked whether he should date. Dolan said it could help decide the right path, then quipped, "By the way, let me give you the phone numbers of my nieces."

___

EDITOR'S NOTE: As the Roman Catholic Church prepares to elect a successor to Pope Benedict XVI, The Associated Press is profiling key cardinals seen as "papabili" ? contenders to the throne. In the secretive world of the Vatican, there is no way to know who is in the running, and history has yielded plenty of surprises. But these are the names that have come up time and again in speculation. Today: Cardinal Timothy Dolan.

___

Catholic News Service calls him a happy warrior for evangelization. Kean University historian Christopher Bellitto calls him the bear-hug bishop. Dolan, 63, is an upbeat, affable defender of Catholic orthodoxy, and a well-known religious figure in the United States.

He holds a job Pope John Paul II once called "archbishop of the capital of the world." His colleagues broke with protocol in 2010 and made him president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, instead of elevating the sitting vice president as expected. And during the 2012 presidential election, Republicans and Democrats competed over which national political convention the cardinal would bless. He did both.

But scholars question whether his charisma and experience are enough for a real shot at succeeding Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. The thinking ahead of the conclave is Dolan's chances are slim.

"It's not a personal attack on his qualities as a cardinal or individual," said Monsignor Michael Fahey, a scholar at Fairfield University in Conn. "Cardinal Dolan has a knack for getting people to feel relaxed and to laugh and to expect the unexpected, but that is not what the church needs right now."

Dolan spent seven years in Rome as rector of the North American College, considered the West Point for U.S. priests, where he had studied for his own ordination years earlier. However, he never worked in a Vatican office or congregation ? experience that would have helped him develop ties with cardinals from other countries and raise his profile in a conclave.

Benedict made Dolan a cardinal just a year ago. Still, the former pope chose the New York archbishop for the honor of delivering a speech to other church leaders in Rome. His address on spreading the faith was highly praised, and he emerged as something of a star of the event, gaining mention in some Italian media as potentially "papabile," or having the qualities of a future pope.

No American has ever served as pontiff. Some cardinals express concerns a superpower pope and the potential for his actions to be viewed as serving the U.S. instead of the church.

Ahead of this conclave, church-watchers seem split over whether that old assumption still applies. Dolan's credentials as upholder of the faith have been especially burnished by the bishops' ongoing conflicts with President Barack Obama. Obama endorses same-sex marriage, supports abortion rights and included the birth control coverage rule in his health care overhaul.

However, Dolan speaks only halting Italian and a little Spanish, and no French or Latin, a huge drawback for a potential leader of a 1.2 billion-member global church. (By contrast, Benedict speaks eight or so languages.) The cardinal's informality and folksy vocabulary, which help make him so approachable in the United States, could actually undermine his chances in Rome. In recent comments about other challenges the church has survived, Dolan noted that some former popes have been "lemons." When taking the stage to greet Colbert, before about 3,000 cheering students, Dolan jokingly kissed Colbert's ring instead of shaking the comedian's hand.

Along with his humor, Dolan can artfully convey church teaching. He earned a doctorate in church history from The Catholic University of America and sprinkles his speeches with details of the early struggles Catholic immigrants trying to carve a place for themselves in Protestant America. Noting that secularism is growing in the U.S, he argues that broader society is in a "drive to neuter religion" and "push religion back into the sacristy." On his blog, "The Gospel in the Digital Age," Dolan writes on a wide range of issues, from gun control to abortion to the future of Catholic schools.

A St. Louis native of Irish ancestry and the oldest of five children, Dolan began his path to the priesthood as a boy. He said he would set up cardboard boxes with sheets to make a play altar in the basement. He attended a seminary prep school in Missouri and by 1985 earned his doctorate. After working as a parish priest, professor and seminary leader, he served briefly as an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of St. Louis before John Paul appointed him in 2002 as archbishop of Milwaukee, which serves about 675,000 parishioners. In 2009, Benedict appointed Dolan archbishop of New York, the nation's second-largest archdiocese after Los Angeles, serving about 2.5 million Catholics.

Like every U.S. bishop in recent years, Dolan has had to grapple with fallout from the clergy sex abuse scandal.

Dolan's predecessor in Milwaukee, Archbishop Rembert Weakland, who had been planning to retire, left abruptly after news broke that the archdiocese had paid a $450,000 settlement to a man claiming Weakland tried to sexually assault him. Weakland admitted an "inappropriate relationship" but denied abuse.

In 2004, Dolan publicly released the names of Milwaukee diocesan priests who had been accused of molesting children. However, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests said he said he didn't work closely enough with civil authorities to also identify accused clergy from religious orders.

Days before Dolan left for the conclave, he sat for a deposition with attorneys for people who said they had been abused as children by clergy working in the Milwaukee archdiocese. Dolan's successor in Milwaukee sought bankruptcy protection for the archdiocese from 570 abuse claims. Advocates for victims have accused Dolan of having tried to shield the Milwaukee archdiocese assets, in part by transferring millions of dollars several years ago into a cemetery trust fund and a parish fund. Dolan denies the accusation.

On the final day of Benedict's pontificate, Dolan stood with seminarians on the roof of the North American College and waved as a helicopter flew overhead, carrying the departing pope to what will be his temporary retirement home, the papal retreat in Castel Gandolfo. In his trademark way, he put any talk of his elevation aside, by recalling a conversation with his mother.

She told him, "You better be back in time for St. Patrick's Day because I want to walk down Fifth Avenue with you in the parade."

___

AP reporter Trisha Thomas contributed from Rome.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-03-03-Pope-Cardinals-Dolan/id-1008a2564b63446fa497226e1d8ab903

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Illegal music file-sharing down 'significantly'

Suzanne Choney , NBC News ? ? ? 1 day

Illegal music file-sharing "declined significantly," down by 17 percent in 2012 compared to 2011, according to The NPD Group.

With more services available, such as Spotify, Last.fm and Pandora for streaming and buying music, and giant digital music retailers like Amazon and Apple, consumers have more choices than ever for getting music legally, easily and relatively cheaply.

"For the music industry, which has been battling digital piracy for over a decade, last year was a year of progress," said Russ Crupnick, NPD's senior vice president of industry analysis, in a statement about the research group's findings, part of its "Annual Music Study 2012" report.

NPD's findings come on the heels of a recent report that says music sales actually saw a small gain, 0.3 percent, in 2012 to $16.5 billion, the industry's first revenue increase in 13 years, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.

Meanwhile, a new, U.S.-based Copyright Alert System is kicking in this week to target consumers who use peer-to-peer software to illegally share music, as well as movies and TV shows. The alert system will be used by five major Internet service providers to notify a customer whose Internet address has been detected sharing files illegally.

Peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing peaked in 2005, NPD said, when about 20 percent of Internet users ages 13 and older used P2P services, such as LimeWire (now shut down), to download music. In 2012, "that number fell to 11 percent."

P2P services are still out there, of course. But The NPD Group notes that the volume of illegally downloaded music files from P2P sites "also declined 26 percent, compared to the previous year."

Also down: the "number of music files being burned and ripped from CDs owned by friends and family fell 44 percent, the number of files swapped from hard drives dropped 25 percent, and the volume of music downloads from digital lockers decreased 28 percent."

The NPD Group says the main reason for the reduced sharing is the "increased use of free, legal music streaming services. In fact nearly half of those who stopped or curtailed file sharing cited the use of streaming services as their primary reason for stopping or reducing their file-sharing activity."

"In recent years, we?ve seen less P2P activity, because the music industry has successfully used litigation to shut down Limewire and other services," said Crupnick. "Many of those who continued to use P2P services reported poor experiences, due to rampant spyware and viruses on illegal P2P sites."

NPD's research was based on 5,406 completed online surveys in the U.S., a spokesman told NBC News. The survey was done between Dec. 12, 2012 and Jan. 9, 2013.

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Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/illegal-music-file-sharing-dropped-significantly-2012-says-npd-1C8590466

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