09/20/14 ~ CROSS RIVER UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

Saturday, 20 September 2014

POLITICS NEWS: White House does not expect Obama, Iran's Rouhani to meet at U.N.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said on Friday it did not expect President Barack Obama and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani would hold a meeting when they are in New York for the United Nations General Assembly next week.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said more details on individual meetings between Obama and world leaders at the United Nations would be announced early next week, but he did not anticipate one with Rouhani being added to the schedule.

Last year Obama and Rouhani, then the newly elected president, held a historic telephone call but did not get together as some had expected at the U.N. gathering.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason)

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TECHNOLOGY NYSE tests systems, to brief investors before Alibaba's debut

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - The New York Stock Exchange tested its trading systems over the summer to make sure Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's (BABA.N) market debut on Friday goes without a hitch, after the Chinese e-commerce company's initial public offering raised $21.8 billion.

Alibaba chose the NYSE over rival exchange operator Nasdaq OMX Group Inc (NDAQ.O) to list its shares in part because it worried about Nasdaq's ability to handle a massive IPO after Facebook Inc's (FB.O) botched market debut in 2012, sources have previously said.

Nasdaq systems buckled under the tremendous volume of orders for Facebook's stock, leading to hours of delay and losses to investors.

In a bid to avoid any glitch from marring Alibaba's market debut, the NYSE conducted two mock trading sessions to ensure brokers are able to connect to its systems and do everything they normally do during daily trading, said David Ethridge, who is in charge of IPOs at the NYSE, a unit of Intercontinental Exchange Inc (ICE.N).

The exercises, held for a few hours on the afternoons of July 12 and Sept. 6, both Saturdays, allowed brokers to test their messaging systems, which transmit their orders and receive the all-important confirmation messages that wreaked havoc on Nasdaq's system.

"It's really about orders and message traffic," said Ethridge, who traveled to China before and after Alibaba chose the iconic Big Board as its listing venue. Customers could ask all the questions they need answered so that "we all feel good going into this thing."

The NYSE also plans to hold a conference call at 8:30 a.m. (1230 GMT) to provide operational updates to members of the trading, technology and operations segments of the industry.

Alibaba's shares priced at $68 per share, at the top end of the range, on Thursday, valuing the company at $167.6 billion. Its shares are expected to start trading some time after the market opens on Friday. It could be the largest-ever initial public offering if underwriters exercise an option to sell more shares, as many expect.

Alibaba, which was founded 15 years ago in former English teacher Jack Ma's one-bedroom apartment, is responsible for 80 percent of online sales in China. As a result, investors, eager to buy into China's rapid growth and evolving Internet sector, have been clamoring to get shares.

NYSE's testing comes after a series of glitches in recent years roiled markets and weighed on investor confidence, placing a bigger focus on operational risk by both regulators and market participants. Market operators have been testing their systems to ensure order routing systems function properly.

Nasdaq, for example, has said it responded to Facebook by putting extra safeguards in place, creating new positions within the company to improve communications with the industry and regulators when errors occur, and establishing an engineering team to monitor and analyze daily performance.

TWITTER MODEL

NYSE often conducts systems testing during the weekends, but it was only last October, ahead of Twitter Inc's (TWTR.N) market debut, that it opened up for an IPO simulation requested by member firms, many of which participated in Facebook's IPO.

"We did it for Twitter, in response to another transaction that had caused people to be somewhat uncomfortable," Ethridge said. "That got everybody comfortable on Twitter going into it, and it went fine."

Still, each IPO is different because of the number of shares offered and the make-up of demand in the after-market, when investors who were unable to completely fill their order book before initial trading begins must enter the market. Estimating the number of sellers also is important to ensure a successful market debut.

Ethridge said after the pricing, a lengthy process of allocating shares to all the parties that agreed to take part in the IPO begins. It can go into the wee hours as underwriters divvy up shares among investors.

To ensure trading at the open of the IPO and during the day goes smoothly, the NYSE will work with a so-called stabilization agent, which is Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) in Alibaba's case, Ethridge said. Goldman will determine when to open trading in Alibaba and at what price, and will manage the flow of orders.

General Motors Co's (GM.N) shares started trading about 10 minutes after market open in their debut, while Twitter took about 70 minutes to open. Every IPO is different, Ethridge said.

(Editing by Paritosh Bansal, Bernard Orr)

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POLITICS NEWS: Texas gubernatorial candidates court Hispanic vote in debate

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(Reuters) - Heading into the final weeks of the campaign, Texas gubernatorial candidates Republican Greg Abbott and Democrat Wendy Davis held their first debate in a Rio Grande Valley border town as they targeted support from Hispanic voters.

Friday's televised debate in Edinburg, Texas, gave both a chance to appeal to Hispanics, an increasingly important voting bloc in a solidly Republican state that has not elected a Democrat to statewide office in two decades.

Abbott, the state attorney general, holds a commanding lead in polling and fundraising over Davis, a state senator who drew national attention with an ultimately unsuccessful filibuster which sought to stop legislation restricting abortion.

Edinburg is in Hildago County, which is 91 percent Hispanic and where about one in three people live in poverty.

Among the contentious issues covered in the debate were voter ID laws, and the management of a border crisis that in recent months saw thousands of unaccompanied children from Central America crossing into Texas from Mexico, thrusting the Rio Grande Valley into the national spotlight.

"I'm in favor of requiring voter IDs," said Abbott. "Voter fraud is real and the voter IDs is the only way to stop it."

Davis accused her opponent of defending "a law to suppress minority voting," referring to federal court rulings that the state's voter ID regulations and changes to the redrawing of electoral boundaries that were defended by Abbott are discriminatory toward Hispanics.

She has focused her campaign on education, women's rights, equal pay and her personal story of overcoming poverty to attend Harvard Law School.

Both parties know the booming Hispanic population in Texas could upend Republican dominance by 2030 when Hispanics, who are Democrat-leaning, become a majority in the state.

Abbott and Davis both have campaigned in south Texas and their campaigns have Spanish-language websites. Democratic Latina State Senator Leticia Van de Putte is running for lieutenant governor and Abbott has made his Hispanic wife, Cecilia, a prominent part of his campaign.

Abbott's first television commercial was produced in English and Spanish, and featured an endorsement by his Hispanic mother-in-law, Mary Lucy Phalen.

"The Hispanic vote is very important to both parties for different reasons," Republican strategist Bill Miller said. "Democrats need a very big turnout if they hope to win, and Republican are trying to hold their own."

(Reporting by Marice Richter in Dallas; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Simon Cameron-Moore)

POLITICS NEWS: Spending, war disputes to dog post-election, lame-duck Congress

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress will face a contentious post-election session in November dominated by a longer-term spending bill and more wrenching questions over President Barack Obama's strategy to defeat Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.

Lawmakers darted home on Thursday after approving stopgap funding to avert a government shutdown and authorizing the arming and training of moderate Syrian rebels. But those measures last only until Dec. 11, so Congress will have to revisit them after the Nov. 4 election.

Some lawmakers from both parties said this week's vote on arming and training Syrian rebels is not enough. They want to revamp the current authorizations to use military force, which date back more than a decade and were focused on hunting down al-Qaeda leaders and ousting Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

"The (authorization) that exists is very stale. It doesn't apply to the circumstance, and I think that's a widely shared view," said Representative Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat.

Some Republicans want to give Obama more tools beyond air strikes to destroy the militant group, which has taken over large parts of Syria and Iraq, including the use of U.S. combat troops.

"I lean toward giving the president more latitude, and some of my colleagues want to be more restrictive," said Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona.

Senator Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, this week proposed a new authorization that explicitly forbids the use of U.S. ground forces against Islamic State.

The war powers debate will coincide with efforts by House and Senate appropriators to craft a massive, "omnibus" spending bill for fiscal 2015. Work so far on the 12 normal spending bills - seven passed by the House and none by the Senate - will form the basis of the $1.014 trillion measure.

"We have a more solid base to negotiate from because we've passed appropriations bills, and the Senate hasn't passed any," a House Republican aide said.

Although the overall spending levels are largely unchanged, there will be disagreements over House-passed cuts to housing and transportation programs and Republican-drafted environmental provisions aimed at thwarting new regulations for mine waste and agricultural runoff.

The temporary spending measure passed this week includes funds to battle the Ebola epidemic in West Africa and allow border security agencies to shift funds around to deal with an influx of migrant children from Central America at the Mexican border. Congress will need to address those issues in the spending bill.

Republicans need to pick up six seats in November to take control of the Senate. If that happens and, as expected, they strengthen their majority in the House, some issues may be delayed until the new year, when they can flex their new political strength.

In the Senate, a Republican victory could prompt Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada to focus the 15-day post-election session on approving as many nominations for federal judges and Cabinet officials as possible in a last gasp for the Democratic majority.

There will be other issues clamoring for attention from lawmakers:

- The federal terrorism risk insurance program created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks expires on Dec. 31 and needs House approval. The Senate passed an extension by a wide margin, but conservatives have argued for reforms. [ID:nL2N0PS1SP]

- Lawmakers from both parties want to extend about 50 temporary tax breaks worth about $85 billion. Republicans blocked a bill on the so-called "tax extenders" in the Senate earlier this year because of a dispute over amendments.

- Senate Democrats want to curb corporate buyout deals known as "inversions," in which U.S. companies move their tax domiciles overseas to get lower rates. They could possibly add it to the tax extenders package.

- Republicans want to pass a measure to allow faster negotiations for trade deals, which they argue will bolster efforts to secure free trade agreements with Europe and several Asian countries.

(Additional reporting by Emily Stephenson, Patricia Zengerle and Richard Cowan; Editing by John Whitesides and Jonathan Oatis)

TECHNOLOGY BATTLE: Yahoo options volume hits record on Alibaba's market debut

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's record public offering of shares on Friday further spurred already elevated activity in Yahoo Inc's options, pushing volume on the U.S. Internet company to a one-day record high.

Shares of Alibaba, in which Yahoo holds a big stake, surged 38 percent in their first day of trading on Friday, valuing the company at $231 billion by the close of trading.

Investors eager for a bite of the Chinese e-commerce giant had turned their attention to Yahoo options in recent days, sending options volume in Yahoo steadily higher over the last month. Yahoo sold some $8 billion worth of shares in the offering, but it still has a 16.3 percent stake in the company.

Options trading in Yahoo spiked to 5.4 times normal, with a record 1.83 million contracts traded, nearly 35 percent higher than the previous one-day record set in 2008, according to options analytics firm Trade Alert data.

About 1.26 million calls and 568,000 puts traded on Friday. The calls leading puts is consistent with the run-up into the Alibaba IPO over the past two weeks, Henry Schwartz, president at Trade Alert said.

The 30-day implied volatility in Yahoo's options was down about 18.1 percent at 41.56 percent on Friday, according to data from options analytics firm Livevol Inc.

The drop in the implied volatility is a result of the "risk" around the Alibaba IPO being out of the way, Ophir Gottlieb, chief executive officer at Los Angeles-based Capital Market Laboratories LLC, said.

Yahoo shares lost 2.7 percent to close at $40.93 on Nasdaq on Friday with about 222 million shares traded, its busiest day since May 2008.

(Reporting by Saqib Iqbal Ahmed; Editing by James Dalgleish)

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TECHNOLOGY Los Angeles iPad rollout for schools slowed by technical challenges: report

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - An ambitious $1.3 billion program to provide an iPad or other device to every Los Angeles public school student has been slowed by technical challenges, with curriculum that was supposed to be built into the technology often incomplete, an independent report has found.

The report marked a potential setback for a program that Superintendent John Deasy last year heralded as a civil rights initiative to help his district's largely disadvantaged students, but which has since emerged as a political controversy.

The Los Angeles Unified School District launched the country's largest technology rollout of its kind in 2013 by vowing to equip each of its roughly 650,000 students with an iPad by the end of this year.

But the rollout encountered problems, including students bypassing security measures to access prohibited content. Critics also complained about the process used to select Apple to provide iPads and Pearson to provide its built-in curriculum.

In the latest setback, the American Institutes for Research, hired by the school district to evaluate the iPad rollout, found a number of problems with the program in a report released on Wednesday.

"At nearly all schools, staff stated that the Pearson curriculum that was promised during initial ... trainings was not available during the school year," the report said.

In only one classroom out of 245 was a teacher observed by researchers to use the Pearson curriculum application on the iPad, the report found.

The district last month suspended its contract with Apple, as Deasy announced other companies would be invited to potentially step in to provide devices.

Officials had no current timeline for when the rollout would be completed. Spokeswoman Shannon Haber said the district has spent $61 million on 109,000 iPads and related equipment.

School board member Steven Zimmer told Reuters the report highlighted concerns about the business deal the district reached with Apple and Pearson.

"I'd be very hard pressed to find a contract that I voted for that I've been more disappointed with," he said.

Pearson said in a statement that its curriculum was developed in collaboration with experts, educators and students in an ongoing process "to ensure the curriculum is continuously updated and improved with feedback from classrooms across the country."

Apple representatives did not respond to emails seeking comment. Deasy, who was criticized for appearing in a video for Apple in 2011, denied this month that he and other officials had exhibited favoritism toward Apple or Pearson.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Peter Cooney and Ken Wills)

TECHNOLOGY NEWS: Some consumers say Apple is losing its 'cool' factor

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SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Holly Riggle, a 29-year-old white-collar worker from Ohio, is just the kind of everyday customer Apple Inc (AAPL.O) would love to have for its new iPhone 6, which launches Friday.

But Riggle is sticking to her Android smartphone, calling Apple less "original" than it was under former Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs. She is one of the 16 percent of respondents in a Reuters/Ipsos poll who said Apple had become somewhat or much less cool in the last two years.

By comparison, some 11 percent of respondents said that Android had lost some sheen in the same timeframe. In a similar poll a year ago, 14.3 percent of 1,379 people surveyed thought Apple had lost its cool image between 2011 and 2012.

While still a juggernaut, with analysts expecting sales of around 9 million iPhone 6s in its launch weekend, Apple may be losing some of its shine, according to the poll.

More Americans feel that Apple has lost its "coolness" quotient than has the Android brand, according to the poll, conducted Sept. 8-13 and had a margin of error of 2.9 percent.

When questioned on how they perceive five popular technology brands - Apple, Android, Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O), Dell Inc [DI.UL] and Hewlett-Packard Co (HPQ.N) - respondents gave the highest coolness factor rating to the Android brand, which includes devices such as Samsung and others that run on Google Inc's (GOOGL.O) mobile operating software.

About 50 percent said that in the last one to two years, the Android brand had grown cooler, compared with 48 percent who voted for Apple.

Although the poll is based on a limited sample, it reflects how Android products, which tend to be less expensive, have caused Apple to shed some of its buzz.

"Especially when you have competitors who are doing a lot of innovative things themselves and great advertising, it's not surprising that Apple doesn't have the same cachet and coolness that it once did," said Kevin Lane Keller, a branding expert and professor at Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business.

APPLE VERSUS ANDROID

The mobile phone wars have become a lot like politics, with battling Democrats and Republicans, said Rob Janoff, the designer of the Apple logo and an independent branding and design expert based in Chicago.

"You can't carry that magic forever," Janoff said, but that does not mean consumers should dismiss mature brands. "I think people have to accept that companies that are out there, they age."

Last year when it launched its previous version of the iPhone, Apple sold 9 million iPhone 5Ss and 5Cs in the first three days in stores. But drawing a comparison with the iPhone 6 is tricky as sales are based on availability, and Apple has not shared comparable details.

Also, this time the iPhone is not launching in China on Friday, unlike last time, Shannon Cross, an analyst with Cross Research, explained.

Many customers will need to wait until next month for their new iPhones after Apple logged a record 4 million first-day pre-orders, double the number for the iPhone 5 two years ago.

Errand-service TaskRabbit, said about 550 people in the United States and London have hired individuals at $25 an hour to stand in line at Apple stores to grab the new iPhone. This was up from 350 requests during the iPhone 5 launch two year ago.

San Francisco-based startup has not disclosed its total user base but has grown considerably in the last year and expects to add about 2.5 million users by the end of 2014.

Apple's iPhone is "easily broken and expensive to fix," said Jim Jackson, a 55-year old from Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, who participated in the survey.

"Apple is following Samsung at this point in terms of design," Jackson added. "A couple of years ago they were making fun of Samsung because Samsung grew big and now they've gone big," he said, referring to the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and 5.5-inch iPhone 6-Plus that will hit store shelves on Friday.

That was the only area where Riggle saw innovation at Apple.

"The only new idea they've come up with is that they're adjusting the size of their products," she said.

(Reporting by Malathi Nayak; Editing by Ken Wills and Lisa Shumaker)

TECHNOLOGY Rivals dash to support Apple Pay for fear of losing out

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FRANKFURT (Reuters) - In the hype-fueled technology industry, "revolutionary" is a word in danger of losing its meaning.

But Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) new mobile payments system - unveiled just ten days ago - is already winning over the heavyweights of the financial industry and signaling the likely demise of lesser payment alternatives.

Its secret? Apple Pay preserves many existing relationships while inserting a new dominant player - itself - as kingmaker. Its potential audience? The 800 million Apple users who have already connected credit and debit cards to iTunes accounts.

"Apple's approach appears to be collaborative with traditional payment networks, instead of competitive, and it's much less disruptive," says Nathalie Reinelt, a payments expert with banking consultancy Aite Group.

Apple Pay allows consumers using new Apple phones or soon-to-be-released tablets and smartwatches to buy things by simply holding the device up to readers installed by store merchants. Launched on Friday in the new iPhone 6s, it was first unveiled on Sept 9, when the giants of the credit card industry - Visa (V.N), MasterCard (MA.N) and American Express (AXP.N) - declared their commitment to making the Apple service work.

Big brand retailers have also signed up and now major banks are racing to out-do on another in promoting the service to customers, hoping to win the lion's share of their spending and the lucrative transaction business that comes with that.

Softcard, the U.S. consortium of top U.S. mobile network operators, AT&T (T.N) , Verizon (VZ.N) and T-Mobile USA [TUII.UL], said last week that it was working with Apple to develop a SIM-card based version in 2015.

And French payments company Ingenico (INGC.PA) signed a deal this week with Loewe, the Spanish luxury handbag and fashion retailer owned by LVMH (LVMH.PA), to provide Apple Pay services for its network of 160 stores in 34 countries.

"Without a doubt, the rush is on to cooperate," said Forrester Research payments analyst Denée Carrington.

Square, the credit-card reader start-up that is the second act for Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, has said its terminals used by many retailers will accept Apple Pay from customers.

Apple is already working with Twitter (TWTR.N) to create a "Buy Now" button for Twitter users and with Facebook (FB.O) to offer an Apple Pay "Buy" button to its users, according to Trip Chowdhry, a financial analyst at Global Equities Research.

NOT SO FAST

Payment systems connect consumers to their money through an extremely complex supply chain of banks, credit card issuers, transaction processors, retailers and other merchants who both cooperate and brutally compete with each other for advantage.

Also involved are hundreds of independent payment technology firms - from start-ups to mid-sized players - who have built up healthy businesses spotting and then supplying missing pieces of the system. Banks, telecom network operators and major retailers turn to such specialists to create bespoke payment systems.

It's these mid-size mobile payments suppliers that have the most to lose from Apple's end to end payments system.

Monitise Plc (MONI.L) appears to be an early casualty of this rapid redrawing of industry alliances. The London-listed company set out 11 years ago as an innovative company making payments work on an array of different mobile phones and in the process doubling revenues each year until recently.

Key to its success was backing from Visa, the world's largest credit card company, which helped it win deals with banks and financial transaction providers worldwide.

But on Thursday Visa said it was looking to sell its remaining stake in Monitise in order to focus on its own in-house systems, costing Monitise one-third of its market value, or about 290 million pounds.

"What was a complex environment with hundreds of phone types now has two: (Google) Android and Apple," notes Thomas Noyes, former head of sales channels at Citigroup's Global Consumer banking business who now heads Silicon Valley data-sharing firm Commerce Signals.

Adds Forrester's Carrington: "It does give other smaller, as well as larger players like (eBay's (EBAY.O)) PayPal, reasons to pause."

Even the world's largest credit card companies are rushing to embrace Apple because they otherwise risk being cut out of the action, says Ben Robinson, chief strategy officer at banking software supplier Temenos (TEMN.S).

"If I can make a payment to a merchant simply by touching my phone or sending a message ... that merchant can get value immediately from that transaction without in any way having to use (the major credit card companies)," Robinson says.

He made the comments in Geneva this week while announcing the results of a global poll of 198 senior bankers.

The Temenos survey found that 23 percent of respondents cited technology firms as their biggest competitive threat, ahead of other big banks, cited by 20 percent. Such fears have been on the rise from 11 percent in 2012 to 18 percent in 2013.

(Additional reporting by Tom Miles in Geneva and Noor Zainab Hussain in Bangalore; Editing by Sophie Walker)

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CELEBRITY NEWS: After ‘Finding Goodluck’, Sexy Actress, Shan George Says – I Am Not Dating Mikel Obi

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She is bold, expressive and frank – sometimes brutally so. She speaks her mind – often times in a manner that may be considered politically incorrect or in such a manner that may rankle a few nerves.

A case in point is the kerfuffle she dropped last month when she was credited to have said that most married actresses in Nollywood sleep around like dogs – a statement she later stated was quoted out of context by a writer who has an ax to grind with her.

Those who know sexy Cross River born actress and producer – Shan George will tell you she is the sweetest and nicest person any one can hope to have as a friend, but who often times, is highly misunderstood. Having been one of the most enduring faces in the industry, with film credits in dozens, she recently took her talents into the world of production. Her eagerly anticipated directorial debut of her movie "Finding Goodluck" which was premiered in Lagos in May 2012 was a roaring success. The premier which was attended by Nollywood A-List stars as well as the Nigerian Jet-set and glitterati class saw fans applauding her skills as a producer and actress.

In the film, Shan acted the role of a diligent inspector and also parades other notable Nollywood stars such as Kalu Ikeagwu who played the role of the governor of the state under siege and whose son – Goodluck had been kidnapped, Franca Anaka, Ekere Nkanga and others.

'Finding Goodluck' is a film were the forces of good are arrayed against those of evil. There is a general air of insecurity in an imaginary state, and residents are being exposed to all manner of criminal activities, including robbery, kidnapping and the police appears to have been compromised. There seems to be some collusion between the political class and the law enforcement agencies in the perpetration of the crimes. The good cops led by an Inspector played by Shan George are determined to rid the state of the menace that these criminals present, which among others will be to rescue the son of the governor who had been kidnapped.

Asked why she did a crime movie with a politics theme, Shan said "I am an unapologetic supporter of the Nigerian police and also a keen observer of our political terrains. Even though Nigerians do not generally rate the police well, even though they seem to see the force as being corrupt, I think given the challenges they daily face in order to keep us safe, I think they deserve our love and understanding. Even though there are a few rotten elements within the force, I think the majority of the officers and men of the force are decent and patriotic Nigerians. The film celebrates those heroes, who daily put their lives on the line to fight criminals, who sometimes may be better equipped than these good men. I also think that though there are some politicians who are not motivated by the desire to do good, and regard politics as blood sport, there are those who have used their offices to do good."

Shan also condemned in a strong terms the recent news that circulated on line that she was photograph nude. "I am really disappointed by the level of ignorance of some people in today's world. I mean how low can they get? I went out with some friends of mine to mark my birthday and we were all dressed in swim suit-bikinis. There was no indecent exposure – we were just having fun. The pictures are all on the net. Yet someone after seeing the pictures – went and wrote that I was photographed nude. Can you imagine that? I can't imagine if the writer cannot recognize someone wearing a swimming trunk and a naked picture. It is very annoying. I have morals and I would never pose nude – not for a million dollars. You know what I have come to see that in this industry: there are some people who are haters and instead of applauding your efforts, would rather take delight in painting you in colors that do not represent who you are. But I am glad that the majority of my fans worldwide know who I am."

Recently too, a picture of Shan was posted on line where she was seen seemingly cavorting with the top Chelsea soccer star – Mikel Obi, leading to the speculation that she and Mikel were dating.

When asked, Shan was incredulous "This is really getting crazy. So I can't even have a drink with someone, just innocently, without being linked romantically with the person? Mikel Obi is a talented soccer player whose skills I appreciate. I am his big fan and when they won the Champions Cup last May, I was over the moon with excitement for him and his team mates. We met and had a drink in Lagos recently and that was that! Nothing romantic happened between us. I am not dating Mikel Obi and I hope some of these traffickers of lies can go have themselves some life."

"Finding Goodluck" – an action-packed movie which those who saw it already have given excellent reviews will be released soon in America by Executive Image movies.

The movie won a total of eight awards at the Cross River Movie Awards held penultimate week in Calabar.

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TECHNOLOGY NEWS: Facebook's Oculus unveils new virtual reality prototype device

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Facebook Inc's Oculus VR unit announced an upgraded prototype of its virtual reality headset that has higher resolution and built-in audio, but the company said it is not ready to sell a device to consumers.

The new Crescent Bay device also is lighter than the most recent prototype of the Oculus Rift headset the company has made available to developers, Chief Executive Brendan Iribe said on Saturday at an Oculus developers conference in Hollywood.

"This is not the consumer product," Iribe said. But he added that "it is much, much closer."

Facebook, the world's largest social network, acquired two-year-old Oculus in July for $2 billion, making a bet that the untested technology will emerge as a new social and communications platform.

The Oculus Rift goggles create a 360-degree view that immerses players in fantasy settings. Users mount the device on their heads with a strap.

(Reporting by Lisa Richwine; Editing by Dan Grebler)

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SPORTS NEWS: NFL's Ravens knew about Rice video within hours: ESPN

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(Reuters) - The Baltimore Ravens knew about the video of star running back Ray Rice knocking out his then-girlfriend in an elevator within hours of the assault and the NFL team later sought leniency for him, ESPN reported on Friday.

ESPN's "Outside the Lines" said it spoke to more than 20 sources for the report, including team officials, current and former league officials, NFL Players Association representatives and associates, and advisers and friends of Rice.

It said it found "a pattern of misinformation and misdirection" employed by the Ravens and the league since the incident at an Atlantic City, New Jersey, casino on Valentine's Day in February.

ESPN said the Ravens' director of security learned of the video when he reached an Atlantic City police officer by phone. The officer described the footage of the assault within hours of it happening.

In response, the Baltimore Ravens said the ESPN report contained "numerous errors, inaccuracies, false assumptions and, perhaps, misunderstandings."

"The Ravens will address all of these next week in Baltimore after our trip to Cleveland for Sunday's game against the Browns," the team said in a statement on Friday.

ESPN said Ravens coach John Harbaugh wanted the team to cut Rice in February after an earlier video surfaced showing the player dragging the unconscious woman, Janay Palmer, who he has since married, from the elevator. Owner Steve Bisciotti, president Dick Cass and general manager Ozzie Newsome opposed the move, ESPN said.

Instead, "Outside the Lines" reported, they launched extensive public and private campaigns pushing for leniency for Rice from the judicial system in Atlantic County, from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, and from some in the Ravens camp who were arguing that the running back should be dropped.

ESPN said many of its sources chose to speak to reporters only on condition of anonymity, citing the NFL's investigation led by former FBI chief Robert Mueller.

It said its interviews, when viewed together, showed a league and a franchise whose actions, and inaction, "combined to conceal, or ignore, the graphic violence of Rice's assault."

When only the video of Rice dragging the woman out of the elevator was public, Goodell suspended Rice for the first two games of the season. However, when the TMZ website released a video of the punch inside the elevator, public furor erupted, Goodell suspended Rice for six games, and the Ravens cut him.

Goodell, who said he had been unaware of the second, more violent video until TMZ posted it, held a news conference on Friday to say the NFL was working to address domestic violence incidents such as Rice's and other players' that have been aired in recent weeks.

(Writing by Daniel Wallis in Denver)

SPORTS Sacramento's bid to win Major League Soccer franchise gets high marks

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SACRAMENTO Calif. (Reuters) - Sacramento's dark-horse bid to secure a Major League Soccer franchise won praise from league officials on Friday, who promised to continue serious negotiations with boosters led by mayor and former basketball star Kevin Johnson.

League officials touring the California capital city praised the site of a proposed downtown stadium and the success of the minor league Sacramento Republic FC, which is in the semi-finals at its level and has been selling out tickets since coming to town last spring.

"In a short period of time, what this team has come to mean to this community is remarkable," Mark Abbott, deputy commissioner of Major League Soccer, said at a news conference at a former railyard that is the site of the proposed new soccer stadium. "I leave incredibly impressed with what we've seen."

He called the city's effort "tremendous."

Abbott and other officials toured the proposed stadium site on Thursday afternoon and attended a rally and concert for fans that night. League officials met with the ownership group of the Republic, the owner of the proposed stadium site, Johnson and others.

The city is making its play for Major League Soccer just a year after Johnson led a successful effort to keep the former owners of the Sacramento Kings of the National Basketball Association from selling that franchise to a group that wanted to move it to Seattle.

If the city wins the MLS franchise, the team will play at a new $100 million stadium planned for the railyard site, near the location of a massive new sports and entertainment complex in the works for the Kings.

The plan's backers say soccer will appeal to millennials the city is already wooing with a thriving midtown hipster scene, and to Latinos, who comprise nearly a quarter of the city's residents, as well as other groups.

Sacramento was hard-hit by the economic downturn and parts of downtown remain shabby. Homeless people mingle with well-heeled lobbyists and government workers on its streets, and a 1980s-era shopping mall being demolished to make way for the Kings' arena was so neglected that the second floor sloped downward.

A soccer franchise with a downtown stadium could help revitalize the city and mark it as a regional center for sports, analysts say.

Sacramento is competing against several cities, including Minneapolis, San Antonio and Austin, Texas, for an expansion team planned by the league.

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Bill Trott)

GOLF NEWS: Donaldson leads Ryder Cup quartet, Gallacher misses cut

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LONDON (Reuters) - Jamie Donaldson warmed up for next week's Ryder Cup by shooting a second-round 67 to finish four shots behind leader Shane Lowry in the Wales Open at Celtic Manor on Friday.

Welshman Donaldson was three strokes ahead of his Ryder Cup team mate Thomas Bjorn of Denmark and five clear of England's Lee Westwood, who shot a 69 after a disappointing opening 73 to make the cut.

"I needed a couple more rounds," Westwood told the European Tour website.

"I was not particularly competitive yesterday, it was pretty scratchy, but today was more solid. A few iffy shots but it was nice to finish with two birdies in the last four holes to ensure being here for the weekend and two more competitive rounds."

Scotland's Stephen Gallacher missed out on the weekend, however, as a solid 70 failed to repair the damage of a dismal first-round 78 and he will have an extra two days practice before making his Ryder Cup debut at Gleneagles.

"Yesterday was quite tough," Gallacher said after a round containing two birdies and one bogey.

"It was tough to get going and get my head around it but today was a lot better. I was maybe trying a wee bit too hard yesterday.

"I feel good, I'm physically and mentally good so I am really looking forward to next week."

Ireland's Lowry shot a sparkling 65 to lead the field by one shot from Dutchman Joost Luiten and Belgian Nicolas Colsaerts, a hero of Europe's victory over the United States in the 2012 Ryder Cup.

(Reporting by Ed Osmond, editing by Justin Palmer)

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EDUCATIONAL NEWS: Cross River State College of Education Expel 13, Rusticate 140 Students

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Arising from its recent academic board meeting on Tuesday September 16, 2014, the management of Cross River State College of Education Akamkpa, has expelled 13 students and rusticated 140 others who were involved in examination malpractice during the second semester of 2012/2013 and first semester 2013/2014 examinations.

This was made known in a statement dated Thursday 18th September, 2014 and signed by the Registrar of the school, Barrister Uno Ogban.

The expelled students are advised by the statement to immediately vacate the premises of the College as they are no more students while the rusticated ones are with effect from September 16th, 2014 barred from participating in any academic activities in the College until the one academic session elapse.

It was also advised that any of the affected students who had already completed his/her examination will have his/her result/certificate withheld or withdrawn depending on the category of the punishment such student falls.

From School of Sciences 37 students were involved: 2 from Chemistry/Integrated Science and Chemistry/Biology were expelled, while Mathematics/Economics 10 students, 4 from Chemistry/Integrated Science, 5 from Physics, 14 from Biology/Integrated Science, and 2 from Physical and Health Education were also rusticated.

In School of Vocational and Technical Education 26 students were rusticated while 22 from Business Education, 3 from Agricultural Education and 1 in Technical Education, were also expelled.

In School of Languages 33 students were involved: 4 expelled, 2 from English/Music, one student from English Double Major and one from English/French. While 10 from English/Social Studies, 7 from English Double Major, 2 from English/History, with English/Christian Religious Studies 4, English/French 2, and 4 from English/Music were rusticated.

School of Education had 21 students: 14 from Primary Education Studies Double Major, 4 from Early Childhood Care Education were rusticated while 3 from Primary Education Studies Double Major were expelled.

School of Arts and Social Sciences was not left out as 52 were involved with 4 expelled; 2 from Economics/Social Studies, 1 from Social Studies/Music and 1 from an unnamed department.

14 Political Science students were rusticated, 17 others were also rusticated from Economics/Social Studies, 4 from Geography/Social Studies, 5 from History/Social Studies, and 8 from Christian Religious Studies/Social Studies.

And the last on the list were 4 freshers in PRE-NCE who were also expelled.

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TENNIS SPORTS NEWS: Ivanovic downs Kerber, to meet Wozniacki in Tokyo final

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TOKYO (Reuters) - Ana Ivanovic overcame a slow start to beat top seed Angelique Kerber 7-5 6-3 in the semi-final of the Pan Pacific Open on Saturday to set up a title clash with second seed Caroline Wozniacki.

World number 10 Ivanovic, seeded third in the $1 million event, was down 5-3 in the opening set but went on to win 10 of the next 13 games to seal her victory against her eighth ranked German opponent.

"In the beginning it really took me some time to adjust to her game. It wasn't like my previous matches," Ivanovic said.

"But once I adjusted and got more aggressive it started to go my way, and I'm really happy with the win today because she's always such a tough and challenging opponent."

The win boosts the former world number one's bid to qualify for the season-ending WTA Finals in Singapore as it did for her opponent in Sunday's final.

Wozniacki, also a former top-ranked player, was the first to book her spot for the final after a tough match against an aggressive Garbine Muguruza.

The Danish player saved 19 of the 23 break points she faced in the match, including all nine in the first set, to win 6-4 2-6 6-2 against the 20-year-old Spaniard.

Muguruza gave it her all, hitting 53 winners in the match but was hurt by the 50 unforced errors she committed.

"She was playing really, really well and very aggressively, but I just kept fighting and staying in there, and I think at the end I had just a little bit more energy than she did," Wozniacki said.

Ivanovic is currently number eight in the race for Singapore, ahead of Wozniacki, and both are leading contenders for a spot in the five places left for the event.

(Writing by Sudipto Ganguly in Mumbai; editing by Amlan Chakraborty)

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SPORTS NEWS: Nishikori says hopes to fill Li void in Asia

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(Reuters) - The retirement of China's Li Na may have robbed Asian tennis of its brightest star, but U.S. Open finalist Kei Nishikori has put up his hand to fill the breach.

With Li's departure, the 24-year-old Japanese is now Asia's top player, having reached a career high ranking of eight after his fairytale run at Flushing Meadows.

"I was shocked. It is sad that I can't see her play anymore," Nishikori told reporters in Hong Kong, where he helped launch the ATP tour's Asian swing of tournaments.

"I think Li Na and some other Chinese ladies have done so many amazing things for Asian tennis.

"She won grand slams that we have never done before. I hope she can still be involved in tennis and I hope I can be the next one to lead Asian tennis."

Having become the first man from an Asian country to reach a grand slam final, Nishikori would appear a worthy successor to the 32-year-old Chinese, who became the continent's first grand slam title winner with her breakthrough at the 2011 French Open.

Li's late-blooming career -- she won at Roland Garros when 29 and at Melbourne Park this year as a 31-year-old -- should also give Nishikori some confidence that his best tennis is ahead of him.

With Li out of the picture, Nishikori is also far and away the continent's top earner, ranked ninth in the sport's top 10 overall, according to an annual survey released by Forbes.com last month.

The value of Brand Nishikori has soared with his grand slam success, marketing experts say, and he can expect to rise further up the Forbes list to compete with the likes of Roger Federer, Rafa Nadal and Maria Sharapova.

Hand-in-hand with that will be endless demands on his time from sponsors, media and tennis officials, an off-court whirlwind that Li struggled to deal with in the wake of her maiden triumph at Roland Garros and blamed, in large part, for a dip in form that lasted more than a year.

As the local headliner for the ATP's Asian swing, a clump of five hard-court tournaments starting in Kuala Lumpur on Monday and finishing with the Masters series event in Shanghai next month, Nishikori had a taste of what to expect in Hong Kong as the continent's main attraction.

On Friday, before Li had posted her retirement letter on social media accounts, Nishikori had already made several TV studio appearances with local broadcasters.

Another round of interviews at a dim sum lunch followed a photo-op on a traditional junk boat sailing across the harbor.

A larger media conference with dozens of reporters preceded a trip to a local tennis club for a coaching clinic with juniors, with the day capped off as guest of honor at an evening cocktail party hosted by the ATP.

"Kei has had very little downtime since New York and made a huge effort to come to Hong Kong today to help promote the ATP World Tour tournaments in Asia," said Alison Lee, a senior ATP executive. "He is a superstar who is gracious and inspiring to millions of people in this region."

Nishikori can expect more of the same as he bids to become the first Asian man to qualify for the ATP's World Tour finals.

Where China's women put tennis firmly on the map in Asia, leading to an explosion of WTA events across the continent over the past decade, Japanese men currently hold the key for the men's tour.

Nishikori is one of an all-time high of 18 Asian players, including seven from Japan, currently in the top 200.

Where there were only five Asian men finishing in the top 200 at the end of the 2003 season, there were 12 in 2013, according to ATP figures.

Strong performances in the Asian swing, where Nishikori will compete at Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo and Shanghai, could seal Nishikori's spot among the top eight to reach the World Tour finals, a small but important milestone for the continent's rise in the men's game.

(Editing by Amlan Chakraborty)

TOP NEWS As G20 chases growth goal, members differ on how to get there

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CAIRNS Australia (Reuters) - Financial leaders of the Group of 20 top economies remain committed to chasing higher global growth, but were divided on how to achieve it as Germany pushed back at calls from the United States and others for more immediate stimulus.

Opening a meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bankers, Australian Treasurer Joe Hockey outlined on Saturday an ambitious agenda of boosting world growth, fireproofing the global banking system and closing tax loopholes for giant multinationals.

"We have the opportunity to change the destiny of the global economy," said Hockey, who back in February launched a campaign to add 2 percentage points to world growth by 2018 as part of Australia's presidency of the G20.

That goal has seemed ever more distant as members from China to Japan, Germany and Russia have all stumbled in recent months. Just this week, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) slashed its growth forecasts for most major economies.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew called for the euro zone and Japan to do more to boost demand and revive activity, signaling out Germany as having scope to do much more thanks to its burgeoning trade surplus.

Berlin was none too pleased.

"We will not agree on short-sighted stimuli," a German G20 delegate said, arguing that in most countries debt was still too high to allow for increased spending.

Germany has been under intense pressure to allow the euro zone to ease back on fiscal austerity and to boost its own economy through more government spending or tax cuts.

More than 900 individual growth proposals had been submitted and analyzed by officials, said Canadian Finance Minister Joe Oliver, the co-head of a G20 working group on growth. "We believe that these actions in total - and if implemented, and that is key - would come very close to 2 percent," he told Reuters.

French Finance Minister Michel Sapin was certainly putting the accent on near-term stimulus.

"I want to repeat and say again that the immediate concern with the shorter term is very much expressed," he said was his message to his G20 colleagues. "The immediate concern is really to recover growth while global growth in 2014 is still subdued."

GEOPOLITICS A THORN

The outlook for activity has not been helped by geopolitical tensions, from fighting in the Middle East to the strife between Russia and Ukraine.

Hockey said Australia, as the G20 host this year, had sought feedback from other G20 members on whether Russia should attend the meeting of leaders in Brisbane in November.

There had been calls from some quarters to block President Vladimir Putin from attending the summit given Russia's actions in Ukraine and the downing of airliner MH17.

The overwhelming consensus was that the door be left open to continue engagement with Russia, said Hockey.

Geopolitical tensions were also high on the agenda when financial policymakers of Japan, China and South Korea held their first trilateral meeting in more than two years in Cairns on Friday.

Another risk discussed was the Ebola epidemic as Sierra Leone began a three-day lockdown to try and stem the disease.

World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim on Friday warned of the economic danger if fear of the disease caused consumers and travelers to change their behavior.

So serious was the situation, he said, that the United Nations was taking a leading role. Sources indicated the G20 communique on Sunday would include the need for international cooperation in fighting the outbreak.

"The (UN) Secretary General is handling Ebola as if it were sort of an outbreak of war, where instead of sending peacekeeping troops, we're going to send in people who are going to be battling Ebola," Kim said.

TAX TROUBLES

Also on the drawing board at the G20 are plans to stem the loss of revenue from multinationals shifting their profits to low-tax countries, potentially reclaiming billions of dollars.

Taxation arrangements of global companies such as Google Inc, Apple Inc and Amazon.com Inc have become a hot political topic following media and parliamentary investigations into how many companies reduce their bills.

The OECD has unveiled a series of measures that, if implemented by members, could stop companies from employing many commonly used practices to shift profits into low-tax centers.

Since countries began targeting cross-border loopholes five years ago, an additional 37 billion euros ($47.5 billion) in tax had been recovered, OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria said, adding that firms were estimated to be holding $2 trillion in low- or no-tax countries.

"The whole world needs to go after tax cheats," Hockey said about the measures, which he hopes will be adopted by at least 44 countries.

(Additional reporting by Leika Kihara, Ian Chua, Byron Kaye and Cecile Lefort; Writing by Wayne Cole; Editing by John Mair)

TOP NEWS Goodell tackles NFL domestic abuse crisis with vow to reform

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - A chastened NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said on Friday that the league's poor response to its domestic violence crisis will prompt an overhaul of how it deals with player behavior and punishment in America's most popular sports league.

Goodell has been under fire since the NFL's slow and fumbled response to the domestic violence incident involving Baltimore Ravens star Ray Rice, whose knock-out punch to his then-fiancee was captured in a video that went viral last week.

"I got it wrong in the handling of the Ray Rice matter," Goodell told a packed news conference. "And I'm sorry for that. I got it wrong on a number of levels, from the process that I led to the decision that I reached."

It was the embattled commissioner's first public appearance in more than a week, after the number of domestic violence cases involving players grew to five, teams bowed to public pressure and major sponsors criticized the league.

Doubts about Goodell's leadership had spiraled due to his failure to address the issue in public earlier. But Goodell said he never considered resigning from the post he has held since 2006.

Rules governing personal conduct for players and other employees will change, he said, and experts from outside the league will help it shape that new policy.

A "conduct committee" will be established by the NFL to review policy, a significant concession for an organization known for its top-down, fortress-like approach to management.

"We will get our house in order," Goodell said."I know this because we will make it happen," he said. "Nothing is off the table. Let me say it again, we will implement new conduct policies."

Players often criticize Goodell as being "judge, jury and executioner" on disciplinary matters, as he hands out punishment and rules on most appeals.

While Goodell offered no specifics on what the future would be like, it was clear he was preparing to cede a measure of the near-absolute authority that had made him one of the most powerful and well-paid figures in all of sports.

Although the committee could make the NFL punishment process more democratic, it also allows Goodell to distance himself from future controversies in how the league metes out discipline.

Goodell said he will discuss many of the pending changes with the union but NFL Players Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith was not at the news conference, raising some eyebrows.

'TOOK THE BLAME'

The domestic violence issue emerged when Goodell suspended Rice for two games after he knocked out fiancee Janay Palmer, who is now his wife, in a New Jersey casino elevator in February. Many saw the commissioner's penalty as too light.

Only when a video of the punch emerged on the website TMZ on Sept. 8 did Goodell decide to suspend Rice indefinitely. The Ravens then cut him from the team.

ESPN said on Friday the Ravens knew about the second video within hours of the assault and later sought leniency for Rice. The Ravens said the report contained "numerous errors" which it will address next week.

Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson, the NFL's most valuable player in 2012, and defensive end Greg Hardy of the Carolina Panthers have been placed on the league's "exempt" list until their domestic violence cases are resolved.

Sponsors who have billions invested in the NFL were unusually critical of the league this week, including brewing giant Anheuser-Busch.

Goodell, normally stoic but on Friday apologetic, spoke slowly and in a halting voice. He said personnel and staff will be required to undergo training on the prevention of domestic violence and sexual assault starting within 30 days.

He said the league will partner with the National Domestic Violence Hotline and National Sexual Violence Resource Center.

"I feel passionately that working in the NFL in any capacity is a privilege, something that we must earn every day and never take for granted," Goodell said. "The vast majority of players, owners and coaches it the NFL, stand tall."

He said the league will work with players, their union, coaches, owners and outside experts to set the right standards for changing the league's policies for domestic violence. He said the panel will examine the commissioner's role in determining punishments.

Since the controversy erupted, Goodell has strengthened the league's penalties for domestic abuse.

Goodell's long-awaited appearance got mixed reviews in the football world and some like former NFL coach Tony Dungy said they had hoped for more answers.

"It was a step in the right direction," Dungy tweeted. "He definitely took the blame."

But calls for Goodell's resignation did not stop.

"The big reset button needs to be pushed on the NFL right now and it starts by Roger Goodell stepping down," former New England Patriots linebacker Tedy Bruschi said on ESPN, where he now works as a commentator.

(Additional reporting by Eric Kelsey in Los Angeles and Daniel Wallis in Denver; Writing by Steve Ginsburg; Editing by Mary Milliken and Bill Trott and Simon Cameron-Moore)

TOP NEWS French jets strike in Iraq, expanding U.S.-led campaign against Islamic State

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BAGHDAD/PARIS (Reuters) - French jets struck a suspected Islamic State target in Iraq for the first time on Friday, expanding a U.S.-led military campaign against militants who have seized a third of the country and also control large parts of neighboring Syria.

President Francois Hollande said Rafale jets hit "a logistics depot of the terrorists" near the city of Mosul, which has been held by Islamic State for more than three months. It promised more operations in coming days.

The French military action, which follows U.S. air strikes in northern Iraq and near the capital Baghdad, appeared to win qualified endorsement from Iraq's top Shi'ite leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

In a Friday sermon, delivered by one of his aides, the elderly cleric acknowledged Iraq needed foreign help but said Iraq must not become subservient to outside powers.

"Even if Iraq is in need of help from its brothers and friends in fighting black terrorism, maintaining the sovereignty and independence of its decisions is of the highest importance," Sistani's spokesman Sheikh Abdul Mehdi Karbala'i said.

Sistani speaks for millions of Iraq's majority Shi'ites and has a worldwide following.

Islamic State fighters, who have controlled much of Syria's eastern oil and agricultural provinces for more than a year, swept through mainly Sunni Muslim regions of north Iraq in mid-June, seizing cities including Mosul and Tikrit and halting only a few dozen miles (km) north of the capital Baghdad.

Iraq's army and Shi'ite militia forces have battled the Islamic State and other Sunni militants, but failed to make significant territorial gains.

Car bombs, some of them claimed by Islamic State, have been a near daily occurrence in the capital. On Friday, two car bombs killed nine people in Baghdad and a bomb in the majority Kurdish city of Kirkuk in the north killed eight people, security sources said.

Washington launched air strikes for the first time in August to halt an IS advance on the Kurdish autonomous capital Arbil. Since then it has tried to build an international coalition to destroy the radical Sunni Muslim group, saying more than 40 countries, including Arab nations, have offered assistance.

The air strikes have helped Kurds claw back lost territory. This week they retook ground in the northern province of Nineveh including villages in the Khazer area and several others further west around the town of Zummar, which remains under IS control.

Elsewhere in Nineveh, Islamic State offered another sign of its growing authority over Iraqis, creating a police force "to implement the orders of the religious judiciary" , according to a well-known militant Islamist website.

French officials said Friday's mission involved two Rafale fighter jets, a supply plane and a Navy reconnaissance plane. Four air strikes were carried out in the space of half an hour, destroying a storage facility containing vehicles, arms and fuel, a spokesman for Defense Minister Jean-Yves LeDrian said.

Hollande has said French military action would be limited to Iraq and no ground troops would be sent.

KURDISH EXODUS

In neighboring Syria, Western powers are more reluctant to launch military strikes which could be seen to bolster President Bashar al-Assad after they repeatedly called for his departure over his military response to popular protests in 2011.

But U.S. President Barack Obama said last week he had authorized air strikes in Syria too and would not hesitate to take action, although he also stressed plans to arm "moderate" Syrian rebel fighters to help them take on Islamic State.

Exploiting the security vacuum in the north of the country, Islamic State fighters have expanded their reach, attacking mainly Kurdish villages near the border with Turkey over the last two days, driving out a wave of refugees.

Several thousand Syrian Kurds began crossing into Turkey on Friday, fleeing IS fighters who are besieging the mainly Kurdish town of Ayn al-Arab, known as Kobani in Kurdish.

Turkey is already sheltering more than 1.3 million Syrian refugees and fears hundreds of thousands more, waiting in the mountains on the Syrian side of the 900-km (560-mile) border, could seek to cross as fighting escalates.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks developments in the civil war, said on Friday IS had seized three more villages near Kobani, bringing to 24 the number it has taken.

The attack on Kobani prompted a Kurdish militant call to the youth of Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast to join the fight against IS and came days after the U.S. military said the help of Syrian Kurds would be needed against the Islamist militants.

The president of Iraq's Kurdistan region also called for international action. "I call on the international community to use every means as soon as possible to protect Kobani," President Masoud Barzani said.

(Addition reporting by Isabel Coles in Arbil and Raheem Salman in Baghdad; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

SHOCKING NEWS: Poisoned Texas doctor says lover gave him 'sweet tasting' coffee

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HOUSTON (Reuters) - A Texas doctor, who prosecutors said was poisoned by an obsessed colleague and lover, testified on Friday in her criminal trial that the woman served him a sweet cup of coffee one morning even though he preferred his black.

Dr. Ana Maria Gonzalez-Angulo, 43, an oncologist, is charged with aggravated assault of a family member, a charge that covers domestic violence in dating relationships, for allegedly spiking Dr. George Blumenschein's coffee in January 2013.
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"It was very, very sweet," Blumenschein testified.

Blumenschein, 50, said he asked Gonzalez-Angulo why the coffee was sweet and she told him she had used Splenda, an artificial sweetener.

"I found it odd that she put Splenda in the coffee, I like it black and she knows that," Blumenschein said.

Prosecutors contend the coffee was laced with ethylene glycol, a colorless and odorless chemical commonly found in anti-freeze and science labs that has a sweet taste.

The doctors, cancer researchers at University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, developed a romantic relationship as they worked long hours together in the lab, at her home and during frequent trips out of town, Blumenschein testified.

"We were very good friends. I was close to her, I trusted her," Blumenschein said.

Gonzalez-Angulo asked Blumenschein to try a coffee blend that morning, he said. When he complained about the taste, she told him to finish it because it was expensive, he said.

Blumenschein said he felt very ill later in the day and was admitted to an emergency room 16 hours after drinking the coffee.

He was diagnosed with central nervous system damage, cardiopulmonary complications and renal failure that night. He survived after undergoing dialysis, he said.

A kidney specialist saw a hazy quality in Blumenschein's urine and alerted authorities after finding signs consistent with ethylene glycol poisoning.

Blumenschein said Gonzalez-Angulo admitted, after the alleged poisoning, that she had access to ethylene glycol.

Prosecutors contend she was obsessed with Blumenschein, with whom she had been in an affair for two years.

An attorney for Gonzalez-Angulo has told jurors his client is innocent and that experts who have testified have done a little more than guesswork.

Gonzalez-Angulo would face five to 99 years in prison if convicted. Blumenschein's testimony is expected to continue on Monday when the trial resumes.

(Editing by David Bailey and Bill Trott)

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WAR NEWS: Kiev, rebels agree to extra measures to ensure Ukraine cease-fire

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MINSK (Reuters) - Pro-Russian separatists and representatives from Kiev and Moscow agreed on Saturday on further measures to ensure a cease-fire between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian separatists.

Violations of a Sept. 5 cease-fire between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian separatists, whom Kiev says have been reinforced by Russian weapons and soldiers crossing over the two countries' porous border, have kept Ukrainian troops on full alert.

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Former president Leonid Kuchma, representing Kiev at talks of the "contact group", said the two sides had agreed to move artillery 15 kilometers (9 miles) away from the front line on both sides, to create a 30 kilometer (18 mile) buffer zone.

"Heavy artillery will be moved 15 kilometers away from the front line," said Kuchma after the talks that lasted several hours in a hotel in central Minsk.

He also said that monitors from the European rights and security OSCE watchdog would be checking the 30 kilometer buffer zone along the front line.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko agreed to a cease-fire with the rebels shortly after Ukrainian forces suffered reverses on the battlefield that saw them lose a southern swath of the Donetsk region along the border with Russia.

Kiev says Russia has helped the rebels with weapons and more than 1,000 Russian troops.

Russia denies it has any role in eastern Ukraine.

(Reporting by Andrei Makhovsky, Writing by Thomas Grove; Editing by Ken Wills)

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CRIMINAL NEWS: Purdue shooter sentenced to 65 years in prison

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An Indiana man who admitted fatally stabbing and shooting a fellow Purdue University student inside a crowded classroom was sentenced Friday to the maximum 65 years in prison after telling a judge he lied about being mentally ill.

Tippecanoe Superior Court Judge Thomas Busch cited Cody Cousins' lack of remorse, the viciousness of the Jan. 21 attack on Andrew Boldt and Cousins' apparent pride in Boldt's death in rejecting the defense's request that Cousins be found guilty but mentally ill.
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"That's not insanity. That's not mental illness," Busch said, calling the slaying a "crime of hatred" and likening it to the biblical story of Cain and Abel.

Both Cousins and Boldt were teaching assistants in Purdue's electrical engineering program at the time of the attack.

Prosecutor Pat Harrington said Cousins, who had struggled in some classes and left Purdue at one point, envied Boldt, whom witnesses described as a humble man and top student.

"Andrew was everything he was not," Harrington said.

Boldt, of West Bend, Wisconsin, was shot five times, including three times in the face, and suffered 19 cuts as horrified students looked on.

"This is the worst homicide I've ever seen," said Dr. Elmo Griggs, the pathologist who performed Boldt's autopsy.

Cousins pleaded guilty to the slaying last month. Defense attorneys argued that the 24-year-old Warsaw man was mentally ill at the time of the attack and asked that he receive treatment now instead of upon his release from prison.

Defense attorney Kirk Freeman said his client was "so sick, he may not know he's sick."

Cousins' mother testified that there was a history of mental illness in her family and said she had her son hospitalized on a 72-hour psychiatric hold in the summer of 2013.

Cousins told Judge Busch at a May 8 hearing that he was taking medication to treat schizophrenia. But he testified Friday that he lied to doctors about having auditory hallucinations.

"I killed Andrew Boldt because I wanted to," he said.

Experts who examined Cousins said he didn't show signs of mental illness the day Boldt was killed.

Boldt's parents testified Friday that they cry every day over the loss of their son.

"Every single day I think of how terrified he must have been, having that gun pointed to him," Mary Boldt said during a statement she directed at Cousins. "It brings me to tears.

"Mr. Cousins, you blasted holes in many, many hearts."

Cousins has been jailed since his arrest soon after the attack. He will receive credit for time served.

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ENTERTAINMENT NEWS: Sophia Loren, Italy's national icon, turns 80 with book of memoirs

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ROME (Reuters) - Sophia Loren, Italy's national cinema icon and eternal diva, turns 80 this week and is marking the milestone with a book of memoirs revealing details of her rags-to-riches life.

For the 300-page "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow - My Life," Loren went into what she called her "trunk of memories" to fish out old pictures, letters and notes from the likes of Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra, Audrey Hepburn and Richard Burton, not to mention Italian soul mate Marcello Mastroianni.

The result includes plenty of juicy tales, such as how she stopped Marlon Brando's physical advances with a fulminating glare and how Grant suggested they should pray to make the right decision when they were falling in love on a film set.

The book reads like a who's who of world cinema in the past 60 years as it chronicles the life of an illegitimate southern Italian street urchin who became one of the world's most glamorous film stars.

Its title comes from the 1963 three-part comedy anthology directed by cinema great Vittorio De Sica in which she played three different roles. The "tomorrow" part appears to be her way of saying her career is not over. Her last film - an adaption of Jean Cocteau's "The Human Voice" - was released this year.

Each time Loren marks a major milestone it is almost a national event, in part a bittersweet reminder that the boom times she epitomized at the height of her fame are gone.

One television channel has been running only Loren films all week as a tribute to the woman who won two Oscars, first in 1961 for her tragic portrayal of a war-time mother in De Sica's neo-realistic classic "La Ciociara" (Two Women).

Photo exhibitions and roundtables are being held about the extraordinary rise to planetary stardom of a poor teenager discovered by a film producer who later married her and made her what one critic called Italy's greatest export after pasta.

But, as the book shows, behind the mesmerizing olive green eyes and silken cappuccino skin of her youth was a will of steel and an exceptional talent.

Such has been her unfading allure that one Roman Catholic cardinal quipped several years ago that while cloning was ethically wrong, an exception might be made for Loren.

FROM "TOOTHPICK" TO DIVA

The book starts with Loren preparing a recent Christmas dinner for her two sons and four grandchildren in her house in Switzerland. She retires to her bedroom to open the "trunk of secrets", and begins telling her amazing story.

Sofia Scicolone (she later changed the spelling of her first name to 'ph' and took the stage name Loren) was born in Rome on Sept. 20, 1934, the daughter of a frustrated actress whose lover had refused to marry her.

She grew up in Pozzuoli, a poor town near Naples, and remembered begging for food from U.S. soldiers during World War Two. She was so thin her nickname was stuzzicadenti (toothpick).

Her mother took her to Rome, where she earned a small income for both of them by modeling for pulp magazines and winning prizes in beauty contests. At one contest in the early 1950s she was spotted by Carlo Ponti, who secured her first roles and was for the rest of his life the chief architect of her career. She and Ponti, who died in 2007 at the age of 94, were married for five decades.

In the book she describes her relations with several leading men and reveals how she cut off an advance by Brando when they were filming 1967's "A Countess from Hong Kong".

"All of a sudden he put his hands on me. I turned in all tranquillity and blew his face, like a cat stroked the wrong way and said, 'Don't you ever dare to do that again. Never again!'," she writes. "As I pulverized him with my eyes he seemed small, defenseless, almost a victim of his own notoriety. He never did it again but it was very difficult working with him after that."

Grant was a different story. The two became infatuated in 1956 when she was only 22 and already romantically linked to her future husband Ponti. Grant was 52 and on his third marriage.

He asked her to marry him while they were filming "The Pride and the Passion," and the book includes photographs of his love notes. One says: "Forgive me, dear girl. I press you too much. Pray - and so will I - until next week. Goodbye Sophia. Cary".

Prayer was a word that appeared repeatedly in notes from Grant, who died in 1986. Another reads: "You'll be in my prayers. If you think and pray with me, for the same thing and purpose, all will be right and life will be good".

She also describes the 17 days she spent in jail in Italy in 1982 as part of a plea bargain over a failure to file an income tax return. At the time she blamed her accountant.

The book is published by Rizzoli in Italy and is due to be published in English in the United States in December by Atria Books, a division of Simon and Schuster.

(Reporting By Philip Pullella; Editing by Michael Roddy and Sonya Hepinstall)

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ENTERTAINMENT NEWS: Sophia Loren, Italy's national icon, turns 80 with book of memoirs

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