Adam calls Blake an 'idiot' on 'The Voice'

TV

Craig Berman TODAY contributor

18 hours ago

NBC

Adam Levine and Blake Shelton had a bit of a tiff on "The Voice."

Blake Shelton often comes across as a laid-back dude who stopped by ?The Voice? stage on a lark and is just hangin? out, listening to music and trading insults with friends before going home to drink some beers on his porch. But as Tuesday night showed, even he can lose his cool when he finally gets bored with the back-and-forth barbs.

It all started when "The Voice" coaches were trying to say nice things about C. Perkins to give him a faint bit of hope to cling to in the final moments before Usher kicked him off the show. Blake asked him what the ?C? stood for.

Adam Levine responded, ?It?s C because it sounds cool, man. It?s like if your name was B, you?d be so much cooler than Blake. ?I?m B. Shelton. What?s up?? ?

The audience laughed, and Adam pressed on. ?Maybe you should try that. You need to try something.?

?Kiss my (expletive), Adam,? Blake retorted. And the crowd ?Ooooooooooohed.?

?That?s a lot of smart talk for a guy whose initials are B.S.,? Adam shot back once the noise subsided.

Host Carson Daly put an end to that spat by interrupting. ?We?re wondering who won that knockout round,? he said, killing the moment but reminding everyone that, you know, two actual singers were onstage awaiting their verdict, and maybe everyone should move things along so ?Grimm? could start on time.

Related: It's good to be a stolen woman on 'The Voice'

It seemed like a random thing for Blake to get snippy about, but that wasn?t the first or only dig Adam sent his way Tuesday as the country star and Usher conducted their knockout rounds and selected their singers for the live shows. Adam had earlier called Blake an "idiot" for sending Luke Edgemon home instead of Holly Tucker.

?He?s a whole unique thing. He?s original. He?s different,? Adam said of Luke.

Sure, but the hopeful decided to sing ?Teenage Dream? and sounded too much like a lounge singer. And ? more to the point ? Luke?s not a country singer.

Blake is. So are Holly, Danielle Bradbery, Justin Rivers and The Swon Brothers, the four acts Blake is bringing to the next round. Sensing a theme here? Much like ?Adam?s Angels,? the four women who advanced on Mr. Levine?s team Monday night, Blake clearly had a vision of what he wanted his team to look like, and that?s what he?ll take into next week?s live shows.

Usher went in the opposite direction. With Michelle Chaumel, Cathia, Vedo and Josiah Hawley, he?s got a little bit of everything on his squad. Michelle is super entertaining and has the whole nerd-power thing going for her. Vedo?s a quality R&B performer. Cathia, who Usher stole from Shakira, has a big voice in two languages. And Josiah ... well, he?s a good-looking dude who can sing a little bit, and those kind of folks have been known to do well in singing competitions.

We?ll see how Usher and fellow newcomer Shakira fare once the voters start having a say.

Source: http://www.today.com/entertainment/blake-shelton-adam-levine-feud-voice-6C9692841

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Canadian dollar strengthens to two-and-a-half-month high as GDP tops forecasts

By Solarina Ho

TORONTO (Reuters) - The Canadian dollar touched its highest level against the U.S. dollar in two and a half months on Tuesday following the release of stronger-than-expected Canadian gross domestic product data that showed economic growth gained momentum in February.

Equity markets also rose, while the greenback slipped to a two-month low on expectations the U.S. Federal Reserve will continue its bond buying program and the European Central Bank may cut its benchmark interest rate following disappointing economic data. Both central banks will make policy announcements this week.

"It's a generally positive tone for risk assets today," said David Tulk, chief Canada macro strategist at TD Securities.

The Canadian dollar finished the North American trading session at C$1.0075 versus the U.S. dollar, or 99.26 U.S. cents, not far from the currency's 100-day moving average of C$1.0078. This was stronger than Monday's close at C$1.0116, or 98.85 U.S. cents.

Canada's dollar reached C$1.0054, or 99.46 U.S. cents earlier, its best performance against its U.S. counterpart since February 15.

Statistics Canada said on Tuesday that monthly GDP rose 0.3 percent in February, and the agency revised upward its growth estimate for January, to 0.3 percent from 0.2 percent.

"The strength was pretty broad ... It brings in some upside risks to our forecasts, there's no doubt about that," said Robert Kavcic, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets, adding that 2 percent quarterly growth is no longer impossible.

The hard-hit manufacturing sector continued to recover with 0.8 percent growth, while the end of a labor dispute in professional hockey continued to boost the arts and entertainment sector.

"(It's) a confirmation of our wider narrative that after slowing quite sharply over the second half of 2012, the Canadian economy's on a bit of an uptick, which is definitely encouraging," said Tulk.

"The fact that we can come into (the second quarter) with a little bit more momentum is reasonably constructive and that's helped to lift the currency."

The price of Canadian government debt was higher across the curve, with the two-year bond up 1.9 Canadian cents, yielding 0.923 percent, and the benchmark 10-year bond rising six Canadian cents to yield 1.695 percent.

(Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/canadian-dollar-strengthens-two-half-month-high-gdp-211635316.html

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Shaking things up: Researchers propose new old way to purify carbon nanotubes

May 1, 2013 ? An old, somewhat pass?, trick used to purify protein samples based on their affinity for water has found new fans at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), where materials scientists are using it to divvy up solutions of carbon nanotubes, separating the metallic nanotubes from semiconductors. They say it's a fast, easy and cheap way to produce high-purity samples of carbon nanotubes for use in nanoscale electronics and many other applications.

Carbon nanotubes are formed from rolled-up sheets of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal pattern resembling chicken wire. One of the amazing features of nanotubes is that, depending on just how the sheet rolls up, a quality called chirality, the resulting tube can behave either like a semiconductor, with various properties, or like a metal, with electrical conductance up to 10 times better than copper. One big issue in creating commercially viable electronics based on nanotubes is being able to efficiently sort out the kind you want.

Thinking about how to do this, says NIST researcher Constantine Khripin, brought up the subject of biochemists and so-called "two-phase liquid extraction." "Biologists used this to separate proteins, even viruses," says Khripin, "It's an old technique, it was popular in the 70s, but then HPLC [high-performance liquid chromatography] replaced a lot of those techniques." People use HPLC to partition carbon nanotubes as well, he says, but it's less successful. HPLC divides things by exploiting differences in the mobility of the desired molecules as they travel small columns loaded with tiny spheres, but carbon nanotubes tend to stick to the spheres, reducing yield and eventually clogging the equipment.

The concept of liquid extraction is relatively straightforward. You make a mixture in water of two polymers that you've selected to be just slightly different in their "hydrophobicity," or tendency to mix with water. Add in your sample of stuff to be separated, stir vigorously and wait. The polymer solutions will gradually separate into two distinct portions or "phases," the lighter one on top. And they'll bring along with them those molecules in your sample that share a similar degree of hydrophobicity.

It turns out that this works pretty well with nanotubes because of differences in their electronic structure -- the semiconductor forms, for example, are more hydrophobic than the metallic forms. It's not perfect, of course, but a few sequential separations ends up with a sample where the undesired forms are essentially undetectable.

Be honest. It's not that easy. "No," agrees, Khripin, "People tried this before and it didn't work. The breakthrough was to realize that you need a very subtle difference between the two phases. The difference in hydrophobity between nanotubes is tiny, tiny, tiny." But you can engineer that with careful addition of salts and surfactants.

"This technique uses some vials and a bench-top centrifuge worth a couple hundred dollars, and it takes under a minute," observes team member Jeffrey Fagan. "The other techniques people use require an HPLC on the order of $50,000 and the yields are relatively low, or an ultracentrifuge that takes 12 to 20 hours to separate out the different metals from semiconductors, and it's tricky and cumbersome."

"The nanotube metrology project at NIST has been around for a quite a number of years," says senior team member Ming Zheng. "It has been a constant interest of ours to develop new ways to separate nanotubes, cheaper ways, that industry can use in the development of nanoelectronics and other applications. We really think we have a method here that fits all the criteria that people are looking for. It's easy, it's scalable, it's high resolution -- all the good attributes put together."

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Constantine Y Khripin, Jeffrey A. Fagan, Ming Zheng. Spontaneous Partition of Carbon Nanotubes in Polymer-Modified Aqueous Phases. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2013; : 130423102819007 DOI: 10.1021/ja402762e

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/matter_energy/electronics/~3/Wv5zT60mZqw/130501145146.htm

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Colorado civil union ceremonies begin after midnight

DENVER ? Gay and lesbian couples are expected to line up in Denver and Boulder as civil unions in Colorado become legal just after midnight.

The new law takes effect at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday and both Denver and Boulder will begin issuing licenses immediately.

The statewide advocacy group One Colorado is hosting a celebration early Wednesday morning at Denver's Wellington E. Webb Municipal Office Building. In honor of the occasion, the clerk's office will be open until 3 a.m. to issue civil union licenses to couples eager to take advantage of their rights under the new law.

U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette and Denver Mayor Michael B. Hancock will attend and will help perform civil union ceremonies. Local judges and magistrates will also be on hand to perform civil union ceremonies.

The Boulder County Clerk and Recorder will stay open until around 2 a.m. to offer licenses.

Other counties will wait until after daybreak to start issuing civil union licenses. El Paso County will begin issuing them at 8 a.m. without any fanfare while some Pueblo County officials and advocates plan an 11 a.m. rally on the steps of the county courthouse followed by a mass civil union ceremony.

Colorado is the eighth state to have civil unions or similar laws. Nine states and the District of Columbia allow gay marriage.

Gov. John Hickenlooper signed the bill in March, marking the culmination of a dramatic shift in Colorado, where in 1992 voters approved a ban on discrimination protection for gays and in 2006 made gay marriage illegal under the state constitution.

The law allows unmarried couples, both gay and heterosexual, the ability to form civil unions and get rights similar to those of married couples. They include transferring property, making medical decisions, adopting children and qualifying for health insurance and survivor benefits.

Source: http://www.aspentimes.com/ARTICLE/20130430/NEWS/130439996/-1/RSS

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Russia's oldest rights group told to register as "foreign agent"

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Moscow prosecutors told Russia's oldest human rights group on Tuesday that it must register as a "foreign agent" under a new law that critics say is a move by President Vladimir Putin to silence dissent.

Memorial opened in 1987 to document the Soviet Union's totalitarian past but has also spoken out against the detention of Russians held after an anti-Putin protest last year that turned violent.

"We don't aim to register, we aim to appeal against this," Memorial's head, Aleksander Cherkasov, told Reuters. Much of Memorial's funding comes from abroad, particularly Sweden, Norway, Holland and the European Commission.

Memorial was among the hundreds of groups whose offices have been searched over recent weeks under the new law.

It said the searches were meant to scare them into registering under the rules that demand non-governmental organizations that receive foreign funding and engage in "political activity" register as "foreign agents", a term which carries overtones of treason.

"They say we are engaged in so-called political activity because we defend political prisoners, people sentenced on political grounds, and tracking detentions during street protests," Cherkasov said.

"(The law) is aimed at leaving in place only those organizations that get government financing."

It was not clear what would happen to the many groups that plan to refused the Moscow prosecutor's office to register within a month.

Pavel Chikov, head of Agora, another rights group that does not intend to register, said that 24 groups, including an independent election watchdog and global anti-corruption network Transparency International, were now considered "foreign agents".

Putin had said the inspections of organizations' premises were "routine" and that the law was needed to prevent groups that get financing from abroad from spying for foreign capitals.

Since returning to the Kremlin, Putin has approved several laws that critics say are meant to clamp down on dissent.

(Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/russias-oldest-rights-group-told-register-foreign-agent-181743659.html

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Company IDs 7 killed in Afghanistan plane crash

DETROIT (AP) ? Jamie Brokaw was an experienced navigator who was no stranger to dangerous flying situations and had the skills to stay cool in the face of danger, according to close friend Chris Connerton.

"He was a very good person and very smart person," Connerton told The Associated Press by telephone from Rochester, Minn.

Brokaw, 33, of Monroe, Mich., was among seven Americans killed Monday when their National Air Cargo plane crashed near an Air Force base in Afghanistan. Six of the victims were from Michigan and a seventh was from Kentucky, said Shirley Kaufman, National Air Cargo vice president.

Connerton said Brokaw was a key reason he was able to make it through flight school in Jacksonville, Fla., where they met.

Connerton also described a harrowing flight two years ago from Toledo, Ohio, to an international flight expo in Lakeland, Fla. Connerton said ice had built up on the plane to the point that he could no longer get it to climb.

"If it wasn't for Jamie's navigation and know-how ... we wouldn't have made it," Connerton said.

Killed along with Brokaw in the Afghanistan crash were maintenance worker Gary Stockdale, 51, of Romulus, Mich.; pilots Brad Hasler, 34, of Trenton, Mich., and Jeremy Lipka, 37, of Brooklyn, Mich.; first officer Rinku Summan, 32, of Canton, Mich.; loadmaster Michael Sheets, 36, of Ypsilanti, Mich.; and maintenance crewman Timothy Garrett, 51, of Louisville, Ky.

Building model planes and working on real ones comprised Stockdale's passion, filling the family's basement with models in his youth, jumping into aviation as a career at age 16 ? and later working at two Detroit-area airports.

Stockdale also knew the dangers of flying, his older brother said Tuesday.

"He always said it was dangerous," said Glenn Stockdale, 55. "He would always say, 'You either will die in a car crash or a ball of flame in a plane.'"

Lipka had flow in Iraq as well as Afghanistan and had close calls before, said his stepfather, Dave Buttman.

"There was risk there all the time. He knew the risks. He volunteered to take the trips," Buttman told the Star Tribune of Minneapolis. "Basically, you're taking your chances flying in there and he was just happy to be one of the pilots to do it."

The Dubai-bound Boeing 747-400 ? operated by National Air Cargo ? crashed just after takeoff Monday from Bagram Air Base around 11:20 a.m. local time, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a statement Tuesday.

The accident site is within the perimeter of Bagram Air Base.

The Taliban quickly claimed responsibility for downing the plane, but NATO said the claims were false and there was no sign of insurgent activity in the area at the time of the crash.

The NTSB said it will lead a team of three investigators to assist the Afghanistan Ministry of Transportation and Commercial Aviation in investigating the crash. But a ministry spokesman, Nangoialy Qalatwal, said Tuesday the ministry is not involved with the investigation because it occurred at a military and not a civilian airport.

Kaufman said the plane ? owned by National Airlines, an Orlando, Fla.-based subsidiary of National Air Cargo ? was carrying vehicles and other cargo.

Elena Garrett, of Jeffersonville, Ind., just across the Ohio River from Louisville, said ex-husband Timothy Garrett would have turned 52 on Saturday. They have two daughters together, ages 11 and 12.

"We're all devastated," Elena Garrett said about his death. "We were still best friends. He's the best father I've ever seen (and) ready to help anybody. He would give the shirt off his back for anybody."

Bill Hasler said his family learned Monday morning that his brother, Brad, was one of the crash victims.

"Brad was a wonderful father to two young children, a beloved husband to a wife who is expecting another child, a loving son, and the most loyal and supportive brother I could have ever asked for," Bill Hasler said in a statement. "His influence in the lives of all of us who loved him is immeasurable, and our grief is indescribable."

National Airlines was based until recently at Michigan's Willow Run Airport, west of Detroit. It carries cargo both commercially and for the military, Kaufman said. She said the company employs about 225 people.

Summan had worked 2? years for National Air Cargo, said his wife, Rajnit Summan.

Rajnit Summan said she last spoke to her husband Sunday.

"I told him to be safe," she said.

___

Joan Lowy reported from Washington. Associated Press writers David N. Goodman in Detroit, Elizabeth Campbell in Louisville, Ky., and Patrick Quinn in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/company-ids-7-killed-afghanistan-plane-crash-224039256.html

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Android lacks quality apps for legally streaming sports

We live in a compelling day and age, certainly, thanks to everything our smartphones can do. Furthermore, cable TV, once seen as a necessary fixture in the home, is starting to fade as the streaming business takes off. Right now, there are two things on cable we can't live without: sports and HBO. And that's about it.

HBO, unlike our sports services, is smart. A subscription to HBO, on cable or satellite service, comes with complimentary use of HBO GO, the network's streaming platform, where you can find pretty much all of their original programming plus the movies in the current rotation. Last year, I watched all of the second season of Game of Thrones on my tablet while sitting on my porch at night. It was a precious weekly ritual.

Go-to sports streaming apps

ESPN does something similar with WatchESPN. If you have cable or satellite service with a select provider, you can have live access to all content that plays on the ESPN family of networks (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN Classic and regional ESPN-sponsored broadcasts like the SEC Network). If you've cut the cord, you can watch any of that content that starts outside of primetime (6pm to midnight on weekdays and noon to midnight on weekends) as well as online-exclusive ESPN3 content, of which there is a lot. WatchESPN is an incredibly handy service. Having it means when you want to watch more than one game at a time, as I always do during college football season, I can put one game on the TV, one on my iPad and one on my Galaxy Nexus. And if I have an extra TV, I can stream a fourth game through Xbox Live. ESPN on ABC events, however, are not available on WatchESPN.

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CBS makes a pretty half-hearted attempt at keeping up. Through the CBS Sports Android app, you can stream live college sports events that are broadcast on CBS proper. The CBS Sports Network gets no love. When the NCAA basketball tournament comes around, though, the March Madness app allowed for streaming of every game. That's been a huge boon for many, as a lot of folks were at work during many of the games.

Finally, the standalone subscription service NHL GameCenter has an Android streaming app, and MLB.com at Bat offers games MLB.TV Premium for $19.99 per season.

Overabundance of sports riches

And that, my friends, is the extent of legal sports streaming on mobile devices. Yes, there are some Android apps that hook you into bootleg online feeds of pretty much anything that's on TV anywhere in the world. Considering the number of ads that pop up on these feeds, I imagine that broadcasting your own cable feed is a bit of a moneymaker. These feeds are typically pretty low resolution but also reliable, making them feel like a viable option when you're trying to figure out how you're going to watch all the football games that are starting at 3:30 EST on any given Saturday, or if you're watching at a bar that doesn't get the Pac-12 Network.

What I'm getting at is this: in our golden age of outstanding media, there's little reason for anybody who broadcasts live sporting events to not offer streams of those events, even if said streams would be tied into a cable subscription. The network heads might argue that these streams aren't super lucrative, but I'd bet they're more lucrative than the bootleg streams that pay nothing to the broadcasters. The fact is that there is just so much sports to watch on cable, thanks to four ESPNs, CBS Sports, 20+ Fox Sports regional networks along with Fox Sports Net and the newly announced Fox Sports One, budding college conference networks, pro league-specific networks, part-time sports dabblers like TNT, and so on.

There's so much of it, that it's more than one or two TVs can handle. We must be able to bring our phones and tablets into the mix so we can see all that we want to see. There are a lot of sports fanatics in this country, and the networks are not serving us as well as they should. They need to make us love them, but only ESPN is succeeding at that, at least in terms of live games (their afternoon programming leaves something to be desired).

I can watch every movie available digitally on my phone. I can watch the complete run of The Wire on my phone. I can play online games with my friends on my phone. I can buy anything that exists from my phone. But I can't legally watch any sporting event broadcast in the US on my phone. And that's embarrassing.

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Source: http://www.androidapps.com/sports/articles/13440-android-lacks-quality-apps-for-legally-streaming-sports

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