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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/TKiPHNixzmQ/'Zero Dark Thirty' Star
The CRAZIEST Part of Navy SEAL Training Was ...
Exclusive Video
Pratt -- who also stars on "Parks & Recreation" -- was out in NY yesterday when we talked about the legendary obstacle course at the Naval Amphibious Base Coronado near San Diego.
"I barely touched the tip of what these guys have to go through," Pratt says ... explaining that the REAL training program "helps to boil down the toughest mofos on the planet."
So, what task was the toughest for Pratt? Check out the clip.
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Mike Doyle and Erin Cummings
Mike Doyle has snagged the starring role in The Last Word, a paranormal thriller being directed by Simon Rumley (Red White & Blue).
Erin Cummings and Sean Patrick Flanery are also joining the project as leads.
A7SLE Films principals Peter Facinelli and Rob DeFranco, along with Eric Gores and Frank Mancuso Jr. of Boss Media, are producing the project, which began shooting in Shreveport, La., this week.
Based on true events, Word centers on the strange and tragic aftermath endured by the participants in the trial of a young man in Texas who was wrongly convicted and executed for the rape and murder of a nun.
In the Ben Ketai-written movie, a convicted man is executed for his crimes, but not before cursing those who sent him to his death. Soon enough, the people involved in the case, from witnesses to jurors, begin dying. When one juror's son's life in threatened, the man sets out to prove that the wrong person was convicted and reverse the curse.
Doyle will play the juror and father while Flanery will portray the district attorney. Cummings will play Doyle's wife.
Doyle, repped by Gersh and Untitled Entertainment, just days ago wrapped Clint Eastwood’s adaptation of Jersey Boys, in which he plays noted record producer Bob Crewe. He also has You’re Not You, with Emmy Rossum and Hilary Swank, in postproduction.
Cummings appeared in the TV series Spartacus: War of the Damned as well as cult movie Bitch Slap, and more recently appeared in The Iceman, the well-regarded drama starring Michael Shannon. She also has Cold Comes the Night, a thriller starring Bryan Cranston and Alice Eve, in the can. She is repped by Paradigm, Untitled and Del Shaw.
Flanery is coming off an extended gig on Dexter’s last season and is repped by APA, Inphenate and Morris Yorn.
Rome (AFP) - Italy contacted Germany on Wednesday over what to do with the body of Nazi war criminal Erich Priebke who has caused outrage even after his death in Rome at the age of 100 last week.
The furore comes at a particularly sensitive time on the day that Italy commemorates the 70th anniversary of the decimation of Rome's historic Jewish community after a raid by Nazi troops.
"We are in contact with Germany," Rome's prefect Giuseppe Pecoraro told reporters.
German foreign ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer said there had been "informal contacts" but no "official request from the Italian side" for the body to be sent back to Priebke's native land.
Schaefer said it was up to Priebke's family to decide what to do with the body, which is currently at a military airport near Rome.
Media reports said it would likely be kept there overnight despite earlier statements from officials that a solution would be found Wednesday.
Under Italian law, decisions on what to do with the body have to be taken by direct heirs but the ANSA news agency reported that neither of Priebke's two sons have travelled to Italy or contacted Italian authorities about their wishes.
Clashes erupted in a town near Rome on Tuesday as a Catholic ultra-conservative sect tried to hold a funeral for the unrepentant former SS officer who took part in a 1944 massacre of 335 civilians.
The funeral was cancelled by a police order after some neo-Nazi sympathisers broke into the seminary in Albano Laziale and tried to stage a rally as hundreds of protesters outside shouted "Assassin!"
Police detained two far-right activists, some of whom were seen fighting with bottles and chains against groups of leftist protesters.
The coffin was then driven out in a van in the night as a rock was thrown at the windscreen.
Protesters had earlier kicked and spat on the hearse as it arrived for the start of the funeral.
The Holocaust denier died on Friday and the Vatican issued an unprecedented order forbidding any Catholic church in Rome from holding a funeral.
The possibility of him being buried in a German military cemetery in Italy was mooted but then rejected because Priebke did not die in wartime.
His lawyer, Paolo Giachini, said one possibility would be "cremation with a Catholic rite".
Priebke had been living under house arrest in the Italian capital after being extradited in 1998 from Argentina, where he had fled with a Vatican travel document soon after World War II.
Priebke had wanted to be buried in Argentina next to his wife but the government there earlier said it would not accept the body.
Jewish groups and relatives of the people he executed said he should be cremated and his ashes scattered to erase every trace.
There is concern that a burial could create a pilgrimage point for neo-Nazi sympathisers.
In any case a spokesman for the mayor of Priebke's birthplace of Hennigsdorf, near Berlin, told Germany's Rbb radio the town would refuse the body.
The row coincides with the anniversary of the round-up of the Jews from the Rome Ghetto on October 16, 1943.
More than 1,000 Jews were taken away to concentration camps and only 16 returned.
As Rome held a day of remembrance, mayor Ignazio Marino said the city "could not accept the funeral of a man who actively took part in the massacre of 335 people, shooting them in the back of the neck."
Nazi German occupiers ordered the mass killing in the Ardeatine caves near Rome as retaliation for a partisan attack which had killed 33 German soldiers.
They shot 10 Italians for every dead German, and five more who were brought to the caves by mistake.
There were 75 Jews among the victims.
President Giorgio Napolitano, wearing a white kippah skullcap, attended a synagogue ceremony with Holocaust survivors, as the head of Rome's Jewish community urged Italy not to forget.
"The Italy which gave birth to Fascism has a duty to nurture memories, for itself and Europe," Riccardo Pacifici told hundreds gathered.
He later unveiled a plaque at Rome's Tiburtina station, where -- six days after the round-up -- 1,024 Jews were put on trains for the camps.
A woman walks by an advertisement of LG Electronics' smartphone G2 in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013. The G2 and the G Pad 8.3, the flagship smartphone and tablet from LG Electronics Inc., are great mobile devices that have fantastic screens, top-end cameras and ample processing power. But making solid devices is not enough to stand apart from the crowd in the ultra-competitive mobile phone market, which probably pushed LG to make some bold design decisions in a bid to differentiate its G series from Samsung’s Galaxy line and Apple’s iPad mini. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
A woman walks by an advertisement of LG Electronics' smartphone G2 in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013. The G2 and the G Pad 8.3, the flagship smartphone and tablet from LG Electronics Inc., are great mobile devices that have fantastic screens, top-end cameras and ample processing power. But making solid devices is not enough to stand apart from the crowd in the ultra-competitive mobile phone market, which probably pushed LG to make some bold design decisions in a bid to differentiate its G series from Samsung’s Galaxy line and Apple’s iPad mini. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
A man touches an LG Electronics' G Pad 8.3 tablet in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013. The G2 and the G Pad 8.3, the flagship smartphone and tablet from LG Electronics Inc., are great mobile devices that have fantastic screens, top-end cameras and ample processing power. But making solid devices is not enough to stand apart from the crowd in the ultra-competitive mobile phone market, which probably pushed LG to make some bold design decisions in a bid to differentiate its G series from Samsung’s Galaxy line and Apple’s iPad mini. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The G2 and the G Pad 8.3, the flagship smartphone and tablet from LG Electronics Inc., are great mobile devices that have fantastic screens, top-end cameras and ample processing power.
But making an impressive device is not enough to stand apart from the crowd in the ultra-competitive mobile phone market, which probably pushed LG to make some bold design decisions in a bid to differentiate its G series from Samsung's Galaxy line and Apple's iPad mini.
For the G2, which was released last month in the U.S., LG moved the power and volume controls to the back of the phone. For the G Pad, which goes on sale in the U.S. next week, LG added a full HD screen, a rarity in 8-inch tablet computers.
While these design choices set the G2 and the G Pad apart from 'me too' devices trying to catch up with Samsung and Apple, they might also limit their appeal.
Not everyone will be pleased with having to change the basic habits of smartphone operation. They will scratch their heads looking for those buttons just like I did. The full HD screen display makes the G Pad a couple of hundred dollars more expensive than other 8-inch tablets.
It took a couple of days before my index finger ceased pressing a volume key when I intended to press a power key. But after that, I realized having a power button on the back makes it easier to use a big handset with one hand. The G2 has a 5.2-inch screen.
LG came up with a double-tap gesture to activate the phone. I found it easier and quicker than pressing a home button and then sliding to unlock as with my iPhone 4S. This double-tap to start also applies to the G Pad.
LG removed the physical home button on the front for the G2 and the G Pad. Instead, virtual buttons for back, home and menu actions appear when the screen is activated. I preferred these virtual buttons over physical ones because I could touch them with the same gesture and pressure I applied to the touchscreen. One downside of Samsung's Galaxy devices is that the touchscreen and the three buttons for home, back and menu options all need a different level of pressure to be activated.
LG's virtual buttons rotated with the screen when I tilted the G2 or the G Pad to a landscape mode. That made them easy to access when I watched a movie in the landscape mode with the G Pad. Removing the physical home button also gives the screen more space in the phone.
But the design elements that make the G2 and the G Pad different from rivals stopped there.
LG has packed the G2 with other features but many of them were no better than what is already available. For example, a feature called Task Slider allows multitasking by swiping the screen with three fingers to hide or reopen an application. But Android users are familiar with an extended press of the home button to bring up a list of applications in use, which is quick and more intuitive.
The G2 will be a great choice but only for people who don't mind re-learning how to use a smartphone. In the U.S., the G2 smartphone is available at $200 with a two-year contract or $600 without a contract from a carrier.
For people who are willing to pay a premium for the 8.3-inch tablet's full HD screen, the G Pad will also be a decent choice. While the U.S. price is yet to be announced, in South Korea the tablet is offered at 550,000 won ($515).
___
Follow Youkyung Lee on Twitter: www.twitter.com/YKLeeAP
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-10-16-Digital%20Life-Tech%20Test-LG%20Smartphone/id-6837c9a98aa4430a967f136335afafa1FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — Two members of a notorious family that authorities say once tried to set up a whites-only nation in America were arrested this week in Arizona on federal firearms charges after a raid on a sprawling ranch where dozens of weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition were seized.
Kirby Kehoe and his 37-year-old son, Cheyne, had an initial court appearance Tuesday in Flagstaff. Cheyne Kehoe's attorney declined to discuss the case, while a lawyer for Kirby Kehoe did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Authorities received a tip that Kirby Kehoe had weapons on his 40-acre property near Ash Fork, about 140 miles north of Phoenix, said Tom Mangan, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Both men have previous felony convictions and are banned from possessing firearms.
The Kehoe family has been well-known to law enforcement since the 1990s when authorities say they provided weapons to various white supremacists who committed robberies across the Midwest. Authorities also said the family was involved in a plot to overthrow the federal government and establish the Aryan Peoples Republic in the Pacific Northwest.
Another son, Chevie Kehoe, is serving a life sentence in federal prison for his role in the 1996 killings of an Arkansas gun dealer, his wife and their 8-year-old daughter as part of the plot.
Cheyne Kehoe was sentenced in 1998 to more than 24 years in prison for his role in a shootout with Ohio police during a traffic stop about 40 miles northeast of Cincinnati. His sentence later was reduced to 11 years. No officers were injured in the gun battle, but a passer-by was wounded by a bullet fragment.
The family patriarch, Kirby Kehoe, was sentenced in 1999 to nearly four years in prison for racketeering and possession of illegal weapons in a case related to the plot aimed at overthrowing the government. The elder Kehoe, however, has maintained he was never involved in his sons' efforts to establish a whites-only nation and that he isn't a racist.
Mangan said due to the violent nature of the family's past, authorities planned the Monday raid carefully, first setting up surveillance on the property before moving in with search warrants, heavily armed tactical teams and armored vehicles.
He said the raid was conducted in cooperation with law enforcement from around the country and was planned to avoid the potential for a violent confrontation.
"The reason and rationale for having executed the warrant on the property in that manner was driven by public safety, just based on the past history of this individual and the sons," Mangan said Tuesday. "When a traffic stop was being conducted in Ohio, it turned into a nationwide manhunt, and we obviously didn't want to revisit that issue."
Kirby Kehoe is due back in court Thursday for a preliminary and detention hearing. Cheyne Kehoe's next court appearance is set for Oct. 22.
___
Skoloff reported from Phoenix
Pitbull is one of a growing list of celebrities who have opened their wallets or given their names to charter schools.
Pitbull is one of a growing list of celebrities who have opened their wallets or given their names to charter schools.
Rapper Pitbull (Armando Christian Pérez) is the latest in a long list of celebrities lending their star power to the flourishing charter school movement. Alicia Keyes, Denzel Washington, Shakira, Oprah — all support or sponsor charter schools.
The Sports Leadership And Management Academy (SLAM), Pitbull's new public charter school for students in grades six through 12, opened this fall in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood. Pitbull says SLAM's sports theme has a vocational bent as a way to hook kids for whom school is boring.
"If sports is what you love, one way or another, it's a business you can get involved with ... whether you're a therapist, an attorney, a broadcaster," he says. "They're already labeling me 'Mr. Education.' "
It's an interesting twist, considering that at the last school Pitbull attended, the principal couldn't wait to get rid of him. "He literally told me, 'I don't want you in my school ... gonna give you your diploma ... get out of here.' "
Pitbull's parting words were: "Thank you."
Seventeen-year-old Austin Rivera says he transferred to SLAM after Pitbull spoke at his previous school. "He came from nothing and became something huge. ... It shows like not a lot of people are handed everything," Austin says.
"[A] lot of these kids are so creative ... but no one believes in them. ... No one motives them," Pitbull says. "I relate to them ... but then I give it to them raw."
The rapper's parents fled Cuba and settled in Miami, where they struggled. His father went to jail for dealing drugs. And at 16, Pitbull began dealing, too — and rapping. He chose the name "Pitbull" because, he says, pit bulls are too stupid to lose. The name and the "outlaw" image stuck.
Pitbull's breakthrough hit came in 2004 with a song titled "Culo," a vulgar word in Spanish and "booty" in the rap vernacular.
It wasn't long before Pitbull was making millions, touring with rappers Eminem and 50 Cent. Pitbull's problems with drugs and alcohol, his womanizing and his profanity-laced lyrics didn't exactly qualify him for opening a charter school. Surprisingly, parents and educators at SLAM didn't think that should disqualify him, either.
Critics say Pitbull is not the issue. It's the school itself that they find objectionable.
"[I] don't know if it's going to provide something useful at the end of the day," says Raquel Regalado, who is on the Miami-Dade County Public Schools' school board. "I guess you can expect Pitbull to show up every now and then, and that's cool if you're a Pitbull fan ... [but] how does that translate into academic achievement? That's the difficult part of this that parents don't understand. ... I think it's a marketing ploy, honestly."
Nina Reese, who heads the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, says she's not about to apologize for supporting the rapper's school.
"Whether it's Pitbull or Meryl Streep in Rhode Island or Sandra Bullock in Louisiana," she says, "charters do benefit from celebrities because public schools, they do have to market themselves to families because these are schools of choice."
Reese says she has no problem with Pitbull's music, either.
"We're not endorsing his music, but welcoming him as an investor," Reese says. Besides, she adds, everybody is entitled to their own tastes. "I admit that I'm a fan of his music."
Three of Pitbull's six children attend charter schools.
"I'm not just a charter school advocate. ... I'm a charter school parent," Pitbull said when talking at this year's National Charter School Conference in D.C. "And that makes me one of you."
The celebrity dating rumors are constantly changing (and rarely true), and now Jamie Foxx and Katie Holmes have found themselves at the center of the latest high-profile headline.
On Tuesday (October 15), In Touch published an article claiming that the "Dawson's Creek" actress and the "White House Down" hunk were romantically linked after being spotted dancing together at a party in August.
However, Jamie decided to nip this rumor in the bud by dishing the truth to "Entertainment Tonight," stating, "[The rumors] are one hundred percent not true.”
Explaining more on the specific mentioned situation, Foxx adds, “In fact, it’s quite hilarious because we simply danced at a charity event along with a lot of other people.”
Christopher Reeve in Superman: The Movie.
Christopher Reeve in Superman: The Movie.
Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle, a documentary in three hour-long segments that will premiere back to back (to back) tonight on many PBS stations, begins with a curious image: Vincent Zurzolo of Metropolis Comics explains that a recent copy of Action Comics #1, which contained the first appearance of Superman, recently sold for over $2 million. He shows us Action Comics #1, and then ... he locks it in a safe.
It makes all the sense in the world: it's worth a couple million dollars. You lock it up. But locking it in a safe is an interesting image in part because it underscores what makes comics — and, more specifically, superheroes — a complex cultural phenomenon for a lot of people. As they've become more collectible, as they've become fetish objects, as they've become obsessions for their most ardent fans, they've become harder and more imposing for other people to wrap their minds around. And that's too bad, because comics — and, more specifically superheroes — make a marvelous lens through which to look at American popular culture more generally, even if you're not an enthusiast.
That's what Superheroes does well. None of what's here is going to be a big surprise to people who follow comics closely, but it's a fine three-hour tour of superheroes as an example for other people of the way popular culture is always in a dialogue with the other things that are going on around it.
In the evolution of superheroes over these three hours, you see the markings of immigration, World War II, the civil rights movement, the Space Age, censorship, feminism, corporatization of media, the evolution of print and the rise of digital, and the eternal nature of merchandising. You don't learn about superheroes just to understand how superheroes work; you learn about superheroes because it helps explain how everything in entertainment works and has worked for almost a hundred years. (This is also a recurring theme of Monkey See comics blogger Glen Weldon's book about Superman, by the way.)
There's a nice balance in the documentary between good and thoughtful placing of culture in context on one hand, and colorful stories on the other. Maybe you've heard all of Stan Lee's stories, but if you haven't, he's fun to listen to. The same goes for Jim Steranko, an artist who has maybe the best hair you'll see on PBS this year. (And that includes Downton Abbey.) And they speak pretty candidly at times — it's fascinating to hear one of the artists say he was always a pacifist, he always considered himself pro-civil-rights, but that when feminism came along, his first thought was that he should support it, rather than that he did entirely understand it.
You can't really understand current entertainment culture without comics and superheroes — for good or for ill — and while Superheroes isn't news to the ardent fan, it's a good and entertaining backgrounder for the curious, which is always to be appreciated.
A London newspaper stand.
A London newspaper stand.
(Editor's Note: Starting this week, we're introducing a weekday feature of headlines from newspapers around the world.)
Britain's Guardian reports on former minister David Maclean, a member of Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative Party, saying Britain's spy agencies may be operating outside the law in the mass surveillance of the Internet. His remarks come amid revelations about surveillance programs unveiled by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
In the Middle East, Israel's Haaretz newspaper reports on negotiations between Western nations and Iran in Geneva over the Islamic republic's nuclear program. It says the U.S. will continue to pressure Tehran until it has taken major steps to halt the program.
Lebanon's Daily Star reports that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said an international conference to set up a transitional government in Syria must be organized soon.
South Africa's Cape Times says a veteran member of the African National Congress lodged a complaint against a fellow party official for making allegedly anti-Semitic comments in Cape Town last week.
The China Daily reports on Britain's plan to make it easier for Chinese tourists and investors to visit the country.
India's Hindu newspaper says three senior officials were suspended in the wake of the deadly stampede near a temple in the town of Ratangarh in the central state of Madhya Pradesh. More than 100 people were killed in the stampede on a bridge that people feared was near collapse.
Singing Machine Introduces Home, the World's First Smart Bluetooth Speaker that Turns into a Party-Starting Karaoke Machine
The elegantly designed Home delivers soulful, room-filling sound as a Bluetooth speaker by day, and turns up the fun at night by transforming into a Singing Machine with instant access to more than 8,000 songs
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., Oct. 10, 2013 -- Singing Machine, one of the first companies to bring karaoke into American homes, today announced the Singing Machine Home™, an elegant speaker that pumps out room-filling sound and wirelessly connects to any Bluetooth-enabled device including smartphones, tablets, laptops and more. When the mood is right, Home turns into an on-demand, Wi-Fi-enabled karaoke machine. It plugs into your TV via HDMI and connects to the cloud wirelessly. With one click, you have instant access to Singing Machine Play™, a platform that streams more than 8,000 HD karaoke music videos.
Singing Machine Home comes with a hybrid Mic-Remote that makes it easy to navigate the Play platform on your TV to queue up a playlist and even pick avatars for you and your friends so that you know when it's your turn to sing. Rolling out to BestBuy.com and Best Buy stores in late October, Singing Machine Home allows you to fully experience your music, whether you are listening to a classical mix on a lazy Sunday afternoon or belting your favorite jam into the mic on Friday night with friends.
"With the Singing Machine Home, we've created a sleek Bluetooth speaker and karaoke machine in one that earns its place as a centerpiece in your home," says Singing Machine CEO Gary Atkinson. "This is the first karaoke machine to have a truly streamlined, grown-up style and versatile technology so that it is used every day. The Home is about experiencing music, delivering great sound and creating fun memories with friends and family."
Founded more than 30 years ago, the Singing Machine company has sold millions of karaoke machines, evolving as music technology changed from cassettes to digital audio files. Now, with the Home, the company is breaking preconceived notions of what karaoke machines should look like and is turning the industry on its head.
"At-home karaoke is still wildly popular but many companies in our industry are slow to change. The latest models are big and boxy with lots of knobs, and get put in the basement or a closet when they're not being used. Access to music has also been a major challenge, with machine owners needing to buy tons of CDs or download individual karaoke songs for a dollar each just to make a playlist," says Atkinson. "Home solves these problems with its modern design, simple set up, access to one of the world's largest libraries of karaoke videos, and versatility so it can be used every day. On top of that, we've integrated the latest Bluetooth, streaming, Wi-Fi and cloud-based technology because we know this is how people want to interact with their devices today."
Soulful Wireless Audio
Designed with carefully engineered acoustics, Singing Machine Home is packed with 2.1 omnidirectional sound, two tweeters and a pumping subwoofer for a full range of superior high and low notes. Home easily fills any room with sound and makes sharing your music simple. It connects to any Bluetooth-enabled device to play your music whether you stream from Pandora or Spotify, or have your own curated collection of songs. Plus with a range up to 33 feet, you can roam the room with your smartphone, tablet or MP3 player, and play DJ without needing to walk back to the speaker to control your music. The speaker's minimalistic yet distinctive design includes a reflective bottom cabinet that mirrors its surroundings, making it fit perfectly into any interior.
Mega Karaoke Library
When it's time to turn up the fun, Home is ready. Plugged into your TV, Home connects to Singing Machine Play via Wi-Fi and transforms into a searchable vault of your favorite karaoke videos. Powered by The KARAOKE Channel (owned by the Stingray Digital Media Group), Play offers one of the largest, licensed, libraries of HD karaoke videos in the world with more than 8,000 videos hosted in the cloud. Three subscription levels provide convenient, affordable options to meet your streaming needs whether you want access for an impromptu party or your weekly karaoke night. A free trial lets you try before subscribing.
Intelligent Wireless Mic-Remote
Singing Machine Home comes with a wireless microphone that works double-time as a remote to browse or search Play's karaoke library by artist, song, decade or popularity. The smart mic has auto mute and unmute functionality, and allows you to select songs in advance to queue up a video playlist. You can also select your own avatar to see who is up next. Home will play from day to night without interruption; no music management required. When the party is over, Home stays put, and is your wireless speaker again.
Availability & Pricing
Singing Machine Home will be available for $299 and is rolling out to BestBuy.com and Best Buy stores in late October.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Private equity firm KKR & Co LP
KKR and other small shareholders will receive new convertible preferred equity in First Data in return for their $300 million cash investment, First Data said in a statement on Monday.
The cash will be used, along with $1.4 billion in new senior payable-in-kind (PIK) notes with a 14.5 percent coupon due 2019, to retire most of First Data's $2 billion of 11.5 percent senior PIK notes due 2016.
Frank Bisignano, a former co-chief operating officer for JPMorgan Chase & Co
"While the company has successfully extended the maturities for some $21 billion of debt through the second quarter of this year, this agreement allows us to address the junior-most of the debt structure and an element that has been of interest to investors," Bisignano said in the statement.
One of the mega leveraged buyouts that came to epitomize the credit binge that preceded that 2008 financial crisis, First Data has proved to be a challenging investment for KKR, which valued it at 70 cents on the dollar as of the end of June.
KKR and its co-investors invested $7.2 billion as equity in the company in 2007, according to regulatory filings.
"Fitch believes this refinancing is a modest positive for the credit by opening up a path to further extend the company's capital structure... The end result is essentially a viable five-year-plus runway for the company to grow out of its currently highly levered capital structure," the credit rating agency said in a note on Monday.
Since he was named CEO of First Data in April, Bisignano has taken a number of steps to improve profitability, including boosting the proportion of employee compensation that is paid out in stock, a move that Fitch expects to save the company about $60 million in the first year.
First Data's biggest challenge is increasing its cashflow to significantly pay down debt. Before bringing Bisignano onboard, the company explored selling its financial services business to raise cash, but then dropped the idea, people familiar with the matter said at the time.
(Reporting by Greg Roumeliotis in New York; Editing by Carol Bishopric)
Continue reading Sneak attack?? Google will supposedly launch the Nexus 5 and Android 4.4 next Tuesday at BGR
Source: http://mobilitybeat.com/the-boy-genius-report/140205/sneak-attack-google-will-supposedly-launch-the-nexus-5-and-android-44-next-tuesday/MEXICO CITY -- Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has been released from a military hospital three days after undergoing surgery to remove a thyroid nodule.
The president issued a brief statement as he left Mexico City's Central Military Hospital on Saturday, saying he feels "very well."
The 47-year-old Pena Nieto says he will continue to rest over the weekend at the presidential residence, though he also will have some private meetings. He says he'll be back to a full schedule next week.
Doctors say they found no evidence of malignancy in the nodule removed on Wednesday.
Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/08/03/3540902/mexican-president-out-of-hospital.html
nor easter nor easter veep los angeles kings timothy leary jonathan frid pujols
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? The driver parked outside a hotel and surveyed the leisurely summer scene at the Venice Beach boardwalk: Hundreds of people were sitting at cafes, walking along the seashore or shopping at vendors selling jewelry or art.
Then, according to surveillance video, the man got into a large black car, steered around a vehicle barrier and accelerated mercilessly through the crowd, hitting one person after another as bystanders tried desperately to get out of the way.
Saturday's hit-and-run killed an Italian woman on her honeymoon and hurt 11 others who only a moment earlier had been enjoying an afternoon near the beach at the height of vacation season.
A couple of hours later, authorities arrested a man on suspicion of murder after he walked into a police station in neighboring Santa Monica and said he was involved.
Nathan Louis Campbell, 38, of Los Angeles, remained jailed Sunday on $1 million bail.
Police declined to discuss a motive but Deputy Chief Kirk Albanese said there was no indication that the attack was a terrorist act or that anyone else was involved.
By the time it was over, the driver had covered about a quarter of a mile along the boardwalk before fleeing. The entire incident was over in minutes.
Mustafa Balci, 44, and his wife Yesim Balci, 48, were sitting in lawn chairs at their booth on Saturday, as they had daily for the last three years when they saw a large black sedan roaring directly toward them from a side street.
Three people were knocked to the ground and within seconds the car was at their booth. It swerved left, sideswiping a picnic table holding their wares ? the traditional Turkish blue glassware of the eye to ward off the evil eye, and wall hangings of Jesus and Virgin Mary tapestries.
The car hit three customers looking at the items, and slammed into Mustafa Balci's knees pushing him backward, breaking a table, smashing a mirror and scattering everything. Yesim Balci was flung 8 feet, tumbling backward and landing facedown.
"I couldn't see her when I woke up, I looked up and was like where is she? I yelled, 'Are you around? Are you alive?' She yelled back, 'I'm alive,'" Mustafa Balci said. "I thought both of us would be dead."
Balci was helped up by strangers who took him over to his wife. He lied down next to her as paramedics responded to the scene. The couple were taken along with three others to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, treated for minor injuries and released. Yesim Balci had her ankle taped up, blood seeping through the back, and bruises all over her body; she could no longer raise her left arm.
On Sunday, the boardwalk featured the typical summer crowd, people on roller blades, beach cruisers, performers and regular vendors. The Balcis were also back at their booth to take stock of their losses.
A broken picnic table was behind them, and a box of their damaged wares in front of them. They estimated that 90 percent of their goods were broken, at a loss of $6,000 for handmade goods whose raw materials were shipped from Turkey. They don't have any health insurance and aren't sure how they will make up the losses.
"We're not here to work or sell anything, we're here for damage control, to take our stuff and go home and rest," Mustafa Balci said.
The evening melee injured another vendor next to them who did fortune telling, as well as one of the vendor's customers, Balci said.
People were "stumbling around, blood dripping down their legs, looking confused not knowing what had happened, people screaming," said Louisa Hodge, who described "blocks and blocks of people just strewn across the sidewalk."
The Italian woman was identified as Alice Gruppioni, 32. Her family in Bologna told the Italian news agency LaPresse that she had been on her honeymoon after a July 20 wedding.
Gruppioni worked as a manager for the family business Sira group, which makes radiators. Her father, Valerio Gruppioni, runs the company and was formerly president of the Bologna soccer team, according to LaPresse.
The family declined to speak to The Associated Press on Sunday.
Another person was critically injured. Two others were taken to hospitals in serious condition. Eight suffered less serious injuries, police said.
According to security video and witness accounts, the driver parked next to the Cadillac Hotel and twice walked out to the boardwalk before getting into the Dodge Avenger. He carefully maneuvered between a storefront and metal poles that had been erected to prevent anyone from driving onto the boardwalk.
Then he stepped on the accelerator and plunged into the crowd.
"I heard a big 'boom, boom,' like the sound of someone going up and down the curb, it was super loud," said Alex Hagan, who was working the desk at the hotel.
The driver knocked over two mannequins and an ATM and started hitting people, swerving from side to side and often running straight into victims. Video showed the car struck at least three vendors ? a fortune teller, a couple selling jewelry and a woman who does tattooing.
Two women who appeared to be in their 60s were also hit. Many people ran after the car, screaming and cursing as it sped away, Hagan said.
Golestan Alipour was bartending at Candle Cafe & Grill when the menacing vehicle drew near.
"The restaurant was full. Everybody ran," Alipour said.
Witnesses said the car was traveling at about 35 to 40 mph along the boardwalk.
The driver eventually turned up a side street and headed away from the ocean. The car was later found abandoned less than two miles away, police said.
At the scene, detectives searched for evidence across the boardwalk, which is in a part of Los Angeles known for eccentricities. The 1.5-mile ribbon of asphalt ? which runs along the sand a few hundred yards from the ocean ? is home to galleries, restaurants, tattoo shops, skateboard parks and the famous outdoor weight room known as Muscle Beach. It can draw as many as 150,000 people on summer weekends.
Hodge said she and her friend, Ashley Taylor, had noted the large number of people walking along the seaside.
"It was a really nice day. There were tons of people out. In fact, we were talking about how packed it was, because we were having a hard time getting through all the people," Hodge said.
The two women stopped to buy ice cream and a couple of hats, which may have saved their lives. They stepped out of a store as emergency crews arrived.
Hodge saw a man and woman lying next to each other, wearing head braces, barely able to move but grasping hands.
Los Angeles Councilman Mike Bonin said there have been previous problems with motorists accidentally driving onto the boardwalk, especially during the evening, because many entrances aren't blocked and there are no signs warning them about entering a pedestrian area.
However, four yellow metal poles blocked the roadway used by the hit-and-run driver, who squeezed past the barrier by driving onto a sidewalk, authorities said.
"The frightening part," Bonin said, was that this part of the boardwalk was "one of the more protected streets."
The crash was not far from where an elderly driver sped through an open-air farmer's market in Santa Monica in 2003, killing 10 people and injuring more than 70 others.
Investigators said George Weller, who was 86 at the time, mistakenly stepped on the gas instead of the brake and then panicked. He was doing up to 60 mph when he plowed through the market. Weller was convicted of 10 counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and was sentenced to probation.
___
Associated Press Writer Colleen Barry in Milan contributed to this report.
Tami Abdollah can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/latams
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hit-run-driver-accelerated-onto-la-boardwalk-205014265.html
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Conspiracy theorists, start your engines: On the wind-blown steppes of central Asia, in an isolated corner of Kazakhstan, there's a large pentagram etched into the Earth's surface. And now an archaeologist has revealed the source of the mysterious structure.
The five-pointed star surrounded by a circle, located on the southern shore of the Upper Tobol Reservoir, shows up vividly on Google Maps. There are almost no other signs of human habitation in the area; the closest settlement is the city of Lisakovsk, about 12 miles (20 kilometers) to the east.
The region surrounding Lisakovsk is riddled with ancient archaeological ruins. Bronze Age settlements, cemeteries and burial grounds ? many of which have yet to be explored ? dot the windswept landscape. [10 Strangest Sights on Google Earth]
What is this bizarre symbol, measuring roughly 1,200 feet (366 meters) in diameter, doing on the side of a desolate lake in northern Kazakhstan? Naturally, many online comments have already linked the site with devil worship, nefarious religious sects or denizens of the underworld.?
It certainly doesn't help that, upon zooming into the center of the pentagram, viewers will see two places highlighted by previous visitors to Google Maps: One spot is called Adam, the other, Lucifer ? a name often linked to Satan.
The pentagram is an ancient symbol used by many (non-Satanic) cultures and religious groups. It has been adopted by the Mesopotamians, Pythagoreans (followers of Pythagoras, the ancient Greek mathematician), Christians, Freemasons and Wiccans.
The Kazakh pentagram certainly isn't the first odd discovery gleaned from Google Maps. Etched onto the desert floor of New Mexico are two large diamonds surrounded by a pair of overlapping circles. This is reportedly the site of a hidden bunker belonging to the Church of Scientology, according to the author of a book on the religious group.
Deep in the Gobi Desert, viewers of Google Maps can find a Yagi antenna array, a device that looks like a giant piece of cracked glass but is used for atmospheric research. And in a remote corner of Nevada, there's an enormous KFC advertisement, featuring the smiling face of Colonel Sanders.
Though it's difficult to discern from an aerial photograph exactly what the Kazakh pentagram is, Emma Usmanova, an archaeologist with years of experience working in the Lisakovsk area, has an answer.
"It is the outline of a park made in the form of a star," Usmanova told LiveScience. The star was a popular symbol during the Soviet era (Kazakhstan was a part of the former Soviet Union until its dissolution in 1991). Stars were often used throughout the Soviet Union to decorate building facades, flags and monuments. (Several online comments had suggested the star shape was the abandoned site of a Soviet-era lakeside campground.)
The star in the Soviet-era lakeside park is marked by roadways that are now lined with trees, Usmanova explained, which make the star shape even more distinct in aerial photos. Additional images of the site, now abandoned and overgrown with weeds, can be seen at englishrussia.com.
Follow Marc Lallanilla on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.
Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mysterious-pentagram-google-maps-explained-143152708.html
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Correction: While the Super Nintendo had Satellaview in 1995, the Mega Drive/Genesis had XBand in 1994 and SEGA Net Work System in 1990 (which admittedly only allowed downloading games, a service provided on the Atari 2600 as well). The XBand was designed to allow multiplayer with certain games on it?s service in a vein similar to the Satellaview. For the first TRUE online gamine, the SEGA Saturn featured that with the SEGA Netlink that only had a few games support it, but was comparable to PC Online gaming at the time, which neither the Satellaview nor the XBand could achieve to such a degree.
Source: http://www.duelinganalogs.com/infographic/the-evolution-of-gaming-consoles/
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Remittances to Mexico fell 7.2% to US$1.95bn in June from US$2.1bn in the year-ago month, according to figures from central bank Banco de M?xico.
The majority of June remittances (US$1.91bn) were sent through electronic transfers, followed by cash and in specie transfers (US$25.4mn) and money orders (US$13mn).
June figures mark a 12-month consecutive trend of year-on-year declines in Mexico-bound remittances. However June remittances declined less than the 8.4% forecast by analysts, local paper El Universal said in a report.
As Mexico's second longest period of remittance decline, the trend is preceded by the 17 months of decline Mexico experienced between November 2008 and March 2010 during the financial crisis.
Alejandro Cervantes, analyst for Mexican financial group Banorte-IXE, expects the trend to reverse in line with favorable changes in the US labor market, the paper reported him as saying.
Mexico is the world's third largest remittances receiver, preceded by India and China, according to the World Bank.
Source: http://member.bnamericas.com/news/banking/remittances-to-mexico-mark-year-long-decline-in-june
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Security is one of the most important, yet oft-neglected facets of modern mobile life. Whether you're using an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, your entire life, and a lot of your friends', families', and associates' lives, are right there on your device. From contact information to location data, messages to photos and video, website logins to payment methods, if someone gains access to your device, and your stuff, it can make that life, those lives, annoying at best, catastrophic at worst. Adding security does require more time and effort than going without, but nowhere nearly as much time and effort as it takes to recover after your stuff is spied, stolen, or otherwise violated. It's security week on Talk Mobile, so while you probably already know the basics, we're going to share the very best of the tough stuff!
If you're not using a Passcode lock on your iPhone, you absolutely should. Not only does it protect your iPhone from casual snooping - or from people tweeting "poopin" the minute you leave it unattended - it prevents thieves from getting your data, and enables hardware encryption to make sure all your stuff is safe. While the basic 4-number pin offers that base-level of protection, there just aren't enough 4 number variations to keep your stuff really safe. For that you need a stronger Passcode. If an alphanumeric password is too annoying for you to enter on mobile, you can turn it on anyway, enter a longer (than 4) set of numbers, and get some of the benefits without making it overly arduous to enter.
What good is a super-strong Passcode lock if anyone and everyone can see your messages, Notification Center alerts, and use Siri or Passbook right from your Lock screen. Sure, it's incredibly convenient to be able to glance at incoming messages and quickly add things to Reminders or Notes, but for those times when you don't think you can safely leave your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad lying around without people snooping, remember you can turn all that Lock screen stuff off.
Security works best in layers, and defensive depth means having as many layers are possible. While there aren't any biometrics on iOS so "something you are" isn't possible - yet - in addition to the password's "something you know" you can add a token's "something you have". It's not full-on multi-factor authentication, but it is 2-step verification and, when it comes to security, 2 steps really are better than one. You will have to enter an app-specific password, or an additional pincode/password the first time you set up the service on your device, but it'll make it more than twice as strong for only a minimal amount of extra effort. Do it.
Let's say you're not looking at porn - we don't judge! - but you still want to make sure cookies, web history, and other information about your browsing doesn't get recorded and tracked across the internet. Safari pioneered private browsing, so that's easy to do. But what about things like location data, contacts, and other sensitive information? What if you, intentionally or simply inattentively, gave access to all off that, and more, to other apps? No worries. Again, iOS makes it easy to review and change your privacy settings. So do many online services as well. Lastly, if you're on a network you don't trust, and have access to a VPN service, that can help keep your data private as well.
If you didn't initially use Safari's private browsing, or you want to clear other personal, private, potentially embarrassing, compromising, or just plain awkward data on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, including messages, mail, photos, and more, you can. You even have the nuclear option of securely wiping your entire device, and killing old backups, so you can start over fresh, clean, and safe.
Security is at constant war with convenience. Fortunately, in order to tip the scales slightly more towards convenience, there are password managers. Due to the lack of browser plugins on iOS, iPhone and iPad password managers aren't as well integrated as they are on Mac or Windows, but there are still many on the App Store to choose from.
Those are our top 5 tips for taking your iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad security to the next level! If you've got any other tips, or alternate ways to keep stuff safe on iOS, let us know!
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/Ffeiu5auNBw/story01.htm
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WASHINGTON (AP) ? The United States issued an extraordinary global travel warning to Americans Friday about the threat of an al-Qaida attack and closed down 21 embassies and consulates across the Muslim world for the weekend.
The alert was the first of its kind since an announcement preceding the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. This one comes with the scars still fresh from last year's deadly Sept. 11 attack on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, and with the Obama administration and Congress determined to prevent any similar breach of an American Embassy or consulate.
"There is a significant threat stream and we're reacting to it," said Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He told ABC News in an interview to be aired Sunday that the threat was "more specific" than previous ones and the "intent is to attack Western, not just U.S. interests."
The State Department warning urged American travelers to take extra precautions overseas, citing potential dangers involved with public transportation systems and other prime sites for tourists and noting that previous terrorist attacks have centered on subway and rail networks as well as airplanes and boats. It suggested travelers sign up for State Department alerts and register with U.S. consulates in the countries they visit.
The statement said that al-Qaida or its allies might target either U.S. government or private American interests. The alert expires on Aug. 31.
The State Department said the potential for terrorism was particularly acute in the Middle East and North Africa, with a possible attack occurring on or coming from the Arabian Peninsula.
U.S. officials pointed specifically to Yemen, the home of al-Qaida's most dangerous offshoot and the network blamed for several notable terrorist plots on the United States, from the foiled Christmas Day 2009 effort to bomb an airliner over Detroit to the explosives-laden parcels intercepted the following year aboard cargo flights.
"Current information suggests that al-Qaida and affiliated organizations continue to plan terrorist attacks both in the region and beyond, and that they may focus efforts to conduct attacks in the period between now and the end of August," a department statement said.
The alert was posted a day after the U.S. announced it would shut many diplomatic facilities Sunday. Spokeswoman Marie Harf said the department acted out of an "abundance of caution" and that some missions may stay closed for longer than a day. Sunday is a business day in Muslim countries, and the diplomatic offices affected stretch from Mauritania in northwest Africa to Afghanistan.
"I don't know if I can say there was a specific threat," said Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, the House Foreign Affairs Committee's top Democrat, who was briefed on the State Department's decision. "There is concern over the potentiality of violence."
Although the warning coincided with "Al-Quds Day," the last Friday of the Islamic month of Ramadan when people in Iran and some Arab countries express their solidarity with the Palestinians and their opposition to Israel, U.S. officials played down any connection. They said the threat wasn't directed toward a specific American diplomatic facility.
The concern by American officials over the Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is not new, given the terror branch's gains in territory and reach during Yemen's prolonged Arab Spring-related instability.
The group made significant territorial gains last year, capturing towns and cities in the south amid a power struggle in the capital that ended with the resignation of Yemen's longtime leader, Ali Abdullah Saleh. A U.S.-aided counteroffensive by the government has since pushed the militants back.
Yemen's current president, Abdo Rabby Mansour Hadi, met with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House on Thursday, where both leaders cited strong counterterrorism cooperation. Earlier this week, Yemen's military reported a U.S. drone strike killed six alleged al-Qaida militants in the group's southern strongholds.
As recently as June, the group's commander, Qasim al-Rimi, released an Arabic-language video urging attacks on U.S. targets and praising the ethnic Chechen brothers accused of carrying out the Boston Marathon bombings. "Making these bombs has become in everyone's ... reach," he said, according to the English subtitles on the video, reposted by private U.S. intelligence firm the IntelCenter.
"The blinking red intelligence appears to be pointing toward an Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula plot," said Seth Jones, counterterror expert at the Rand Corp., referring to the branch of al-Qaida known as AQAP.
Britain also took action Friday in Yemen, announcing it would close its embassy there on Sunday and Monday as a precaution.
Britain, which closely coordinates on intelligence matters with Washington, stopped short of releasing a similar region-wide alert but added that some embassy staff in Yemen had been withdrawn "due to security concerns." British embassies and consulates elsewhere in the Middle East were to remain open.
Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., the House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, said the embassy threat was linked to al-Qaida and concerned the Middle East and Central Asia.
"In this instance, we can take a step to better protect our personnel and, out of an abundance of caution, we should," Royce said. He declined to say if the National Security Agency's much-debated surveillance program helped reveal the threat.
The New York Times reported Friday night that American officials said the U.S. had intercepted electronic communications among senior operatives of al-Qaida.
Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence panel, also supported the department's decision to go public with its concerns.
"The most important thing we have to do is protect American lives," he said, describing the threat as "not the regular chitchat" picked up from would-be militants on the Internet or elsewhere.
The State Department issued another warning a year ago about potential violence connected to the Sept. 11 anniversary. Dozens of American installations were besieged by protests over reports of an anti-Islam video made by an American resident, and in Benghazi, Libya, the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed when militants assaulted a diplomatic post.
The administration no longer says Benghazi was related to the demonstrations. But the attack continues to be a flashpoint of contention with Republicans in Congress who say Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and others in the government misled the country about the nature of the attack after failing to provide adequate diplomatic protection.
___
Associated Press writers Donna Cassata, Sagar Meghani and Kimberly Dozier in Washington and Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.
___
State Department alerts: travel.state.gov
Smart Traveler Enrollment Program: step.state.gov
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/global-travel-warning-us-cites-al-qaida-threat-214616758.html
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WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Food and Drug Administration says an outbreak of stomach illnesses in Iowa and Nebraska is linked to salad mix served at local Olive Garden and Red Lobster restaurants and supplied by a Mexican farm.
The outbreak of cyclospora infections has sickened more than 400 people in 16 states in all. The agency says it is still working to determine whether the salad mix is the source of illnesses in the other 14 states.
"It is not yet clear whether the cases reported from other states are all part of the same outbreak," the agency said in a statement. "The investigation of increased cases of cyclosporiasis in other states continues."
Both Olive Garden and Red Lobster are owned by Orlando-based Darden Restaurants. In a statement, Darden spokesman Mike Bernstein said the FDA's announcement is "new information."
"Nothing we have seen prior to this announcement gave us any reason to be concerned about the products we've received from this supplier," Bernstein said.
The FDA said it traced illnesses from the restaurants in Nebraska and Iowa to Taylor Farms de Mexico, the Mexican branch of Salinas, Calif.-based Taylor Farms. The company, which provides produce to the food service industry, said its facility located about 180 miles north of Mexico City in San Miguel de Allende is the only one of its 12 sites to be connected to the cases.
In an email, the chairman and CEO of Taylor Farms, Bruce Taylor, said the Mexican plant produced 48 million servings of salads for thousands of restaurants in the Midwest and eastern U.S. in June, the month the outbreak started. He said the facility has an extensive water testing program.
"All our tests have been negative and we have no evidence of cyclospora in our product," Taylor said. "We are working closely with the FDA to continue this investigation."
Taylor said Taylor Farms de Mexico does not supply Olive Garden and Red Lobster restaurants in Texas, the state with the second most illnesses in the outbreak. According to CDC, 113 of the illnesses reported so far were in Texas. Iowa has had 146 illnesses and Nebraska 81.
In an additional statement on the company's website, Taylor Farms says the Mexican facility is "state of the art and has an exceptional food safety record." The statement said the product is out of the food supply.
The FDA said it had audited the Mexican processing facility in 2011 and found "no notable issues," according to the agency. The agency said it would increase surveillance efforts for green leafy products imported from Mexico.
The most recent known illness in the two states linked to the infected salad was in Nebraska a month ago. The typical shelf life for a salad mix is up to 14 days.
There have been more recent illnesses in other states. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the most recent illness was July 23 but centers did not specify a location.
The agency said its investigation has not implicated any packaged salad sold in grocery stores.
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Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcjalonick
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fda-links-stomach-bug-2-states-mexican-farm-213132839.html
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At a meeting of the the Internal Affairs Committee on reducing weapons, headed by MK Miri Regev, Aharonovich stated that as part of the gun reform in Israel, anyone who wishes to receive a gun permit will be required to undergo a medical and psychological examination. "If they won't pass the psychologist's test, they'll have to see a psychiatrist," he said.
The minister announced that a new police order will be introduced under which an individual who has not renewed his license in over six months will be subject to criminal investigation. Aharonovich said that over 290,000 guns are in the hands of private individuals and security guards, and that he strives to lower that number.
Read the article: YNet (Israel)
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