NBC says its website is safe after security scare

BOSTON (Reuters) - U.S. media company NBC Universal said late on Thursday that its NBC.com website was safe to visit following a security scare prompted by reports that it was infected with malicious software designed for banking fraud and cyber espionage.

"A problem was identified and it has been fixed," an NBC Universal spokeswoman told Reuters. She declined to elaborate on the nature of the problem.

Earlier on Thursday, several security experts had advised Internet users to avoid the site altogether, saying it had been compromised by malicious software.

The Dutch computer security firm SurfRight said on its HitmanPro blog that the site of its NBC television network was tainted with viruses known as the Citadel and ZeroAccess that are used for banking fraud, cyber espionage and other computer crimes.

The NBC spokeswoman said she could not confirm whether any users had been infected. But she said that no account information about users of the site had been compromised.

Earlier in the day, Facebook Inc blocked users from accessing the NBC.com website following reports that the site was infected with a computer virus.

Facebook users were told "This link has been reported as abusive" on Thursday when they attempted to access the NBC.com website.

NBC is controlled by Comcast Inc, which is buying out minority owner General Electric Co.

(Reporting By Jim Finkle and Jennifer Saba; Editing by Gary Hill, Bernard Orr)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nbc-says-nbc-com-now-safe-visit-215417943--sector.html

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Crime writer wins lawsuit against money advisers

BOSTON (AP) ? A federal jury awarded crime writer Patricia Cornwell nearly $51 million Tuesday in her lawsuit against her former financial management company and a former principal in the firm.

The author best known for her series of novels featuring medical examiner Kay Scarpetta claimed that Anchin, Block & Anchin LLP was negligent in handling her finances and cost her millions in losses or unaccounted for revenue.

Lawyers for the New York firm and former principal Evan Snapper said there was no money missing from Cornwell's accounts. They blamed losses on the economic downturn and what they called Cornwell's extravagant lifestyle, which included Ferraris, helicopters and a temporary apartment in New York City she rented for $40,000 per month.

Cornwell, 56, testified that Anchin moved her from a conservative management strategy to an aggressive one without her permission. She said she fired the firm in 2009 after discovering that her net worth was a little under $13 million, despite having eight-figure earnings in each of the previous four years.

Cornwell said the firm caused her to miss a book deadline for the first time in her career when it failed to find her a suitable place to write after renovation work on her house in Concord went on much longer than expected.

"This was very destabilizing. I really lost my ability to focus and concentrate. I did not know what the book was about anymore," Cornwell said.

The lawsuit said the missed deadline caused Cornwell to lose one year's income: about $15 million in non-recoverable advances and commission.

Cornwell's relationship with Anchin began in 2004. Cornwell said Anchin agreed to manage all her money and the assets of her company, Cornwell Entertainment Inc.

The lawsuit alleged negligence and breach of contract.

Cornwell said she was thrilled with the verdict.

"God bless justice," she said. "It's a huge relief and it's been a huge ordeal." She also thanked the jury for "giving up seven weeks of their lives."

Lawyers for the firm and Snapper portrayed Cornwell as a demanding client who relied on them for everything from bringing her clothes to the tailor to arranging care for her mother.

"I'm very disappointed," Snapper said after the verdict was announced.

On the stand, he strongly denied Cornwell's allegations.

"I did not steal any money from anyone," he said. "The money was there."

Frank Schettino, a managing partner at Anchin, Block & Anchin, said the firm plans to explore its legal options, including appealing the verdict.

"For more than 90 years, the professionals at Anchin have built a reputation for honesty and integrity," Schettino said in a statement. "The firm will endure despite today's outcome."

Snapper pleaded guilty in 2011 to lying about the source of 21 contributions of $2,300 each to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

Snapper acknowledged that he knew that the contributors did not make the donations in 2008, but instead they were reimbursed from an account belonging to Cornwell. He admitted the reimbursements caused Clinton's presidential committee unwittingly to file false reports with the Federal Election Commission identifying the 21 donors as the contributors.

Cornwell has lived in the Boston area for the last six years. She is married to Staci Gruber, a neuroscientist and assistant psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School. The lawsuit alleged that Anchin also mishandled Gruber's finances.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/crime-writer-wins-lawsuit-against-money-advisers-192635951.html

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NASA loses contact with ISS for three hours

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Wall Street extends losses; Nasdaq off 1 percent

DEAR ABBY: My boyfriend, "Doug" (24), and I (22) have been in a long-distance relationship for a year, but we were friends for a couple of years before that. I had never had a serious relationship before and lacked experience. Doug has not only been in two other long-term relationships, but has had sex with more than 15 women. One of them is an amateur porn actress.I knew about this, but it didn't bother me until recently. Doug had a party, and while he was drunk he told one of his buddies -- in front of me -- that he should watch a certain porn film starring his ex-girlfriend. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/wall-st-set-flat-open-data-fed-minutes-141316207--finance.html

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Withhold Answers from Yourself to Help You Learn Better

Learning new things is all about putting your brain in a space where it's challenged. With guides, walkthroughs, and how-tos for just about everything out there, it's easy to forget just how important it is to not always know the answers. To really learn, writer Annie Murphy Paul suggests you intentionally withhold answers from yourself.

In most cases, an answer to your problem is probably out there. While it's always quicker to look up the solution, every now and again it's good to force yourself to work it out on your own. Paul explains:

We've heard a lot lately about the benefits of experiencing and overcoming failure. One way to get these benefits is to set things up so that you're sure to fail?by tackling a difficult problem without any instruction or assistance. Manu Kapur, a researcher at the Learning Sciences Lab at the National Institute of Education of Singapore, has reported (in the Journal of the Learning Sciences) that people who try solving math problems in this way don't come up with the right answer?but they do generate a lot of ideas about the nature of the problems and about what potential solutions would look like, leading them to perform better on such problems in the future... you can implement it in your own learning by allowing yourself to struggle with a problem for a while before seeking help or information.

We know failure is important, but setting yourself up for it isn't the easiest thing. So, next time you have some extra time to spend on a project, dig into it before you really know what you're doing. You might not walk away with the Mona Lisa, but you'll be better suited to tackle the problem in the future.

FULL TEXT: Why Feeling Confused Will Help You Learn Better | Annie Murphy Paul

Photo by Karl Baron.

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/jZGrsY_Xo_4/withhold-answers-from-yourself-to-help-you-learn-better

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Nudes check out nudes at Austrian museum

VIENNA (AP) ? These museum goers didn't just leave their coats at the coat check. They handed over their shirts, trousers and underwear.

Everything, in fact, except their shoes and socks. After all, the stone floor can get chilly when you're touring an art exhibit in the nude, which was what more than 60 art lovers did in a special after-hours showing at Vienna's prestigious Leopold museum.

For many, the tour of "Nude Men from 1800 to Today" ? an exhibit of 300 paintings, photographs, drawings and sculptures focused on the bare male ? was a goose-bump-raising instance of life imitating art.

"I can't say I'm sweating," said office worker Herbert Korvas as he stood waiting in the atrium with other young men, wearing only socks, sneakers and a smile. Despite the cold, he said he was drawn to the idea of naked museum viewing "because it was something different."

But after a while it really wasn't. With no other viewers around, nude quickly became the new normal as the visitors quickly gathered around a ? dressed ? exhibition guide and moved slowly from one art work to the next, listening intently to their history.

And they weren't the first visitors to get naked either, despite the hoopla around the event that drew dozens of reporters and camera teams from Austria and elsewhere.

A man had already stripped at the exhibition of pictures and sculptures in November, calmly sauntering through the exhibition and dressing again only after a security guard asked him to do so. That act made news ? and sparked demand for Monday's all-nude showing, said museum spokesman Klaus Pokorny.

"We got requests from all over the world from people who were inspired by the exhibition ... who asked us, 'Can we visit the exhibition naked?'" he said.

On Monday, interest was definitely skewed along gender lines. Irina Wolf smiled as she looked around at the mostly male crowd lining up for tickets.

"I'm at a big advantage here," she said. "Only men around."

While Wolf said she is not someone who regularly strips in public places, the 40-something computer engineer and occasional theater critic, said "I want to see how I relate to such a group."

For others, Monday's event fulfilled a long-cherished wish ? even though they had a hard time explaining why.

Florian Kahlenberg from Munich said he found it "interesting to stroll through a museum naked," adding. "I've always wanted to do that."

Few visitors, naked or dressed, have complained about the show, despite some explicit material showing sexual acts. Described as among the most successful ever staged by the Leopold, it has drawn well over 100,000 people.

That fits with Vienna's relaxed attitude. Its turn-of-the-century decadence allowed Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt to flourish, and the Leopold itself has a world-class collection of those and other artists known for their explicit depiction of the flesh.

But the Austrian capital's acceptance of nudity goes beyond museum exhibits. Thousands of men, women and children skinny dip daily in the Danube along stretches reserved for them during the summer, while racy lingerie ads dot huge billboards across the city all year round and a mass-circulation daily regularly prints photos of half-naked women.

Still, there are limits to Viennese tolerance. The Leopold was forced into cover-up mode last year after complaints over promotional posters plastered city-wide that showed three young and athletic men of different races wearing nothing but blue, white and red socks and soccer boots.

Swaths of red tape were subsequently placed over their sensitive parts.

____

Associated Press video journalist Philipp Jenne contributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nudes-check-nudes-austrian-museum-083032430.html

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General John Allen to retire, won't take NATO nomination

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Marine General John Allen, who led NATO forces in Afghanistan and was caught up but later cleared in the scandal that forced CIA chief David Petraeus to resign, said Tuesday he will retire and forgo his nomination to become NATO's supreme allied commander because of his wife's health.

The decision ends the career of one of the U.S. military's most well-known leaders, who until February 10 spent 19 months in Afghanistan trying to help wind down America's longest war and strengthen Afghanistan's military to fight insurgency.

Beyond the pressures of war, Allen faced a media frenzy over a high-profile Pentagon investigation that in January cleared him of wrongdoing in his email exchanges with a Florida socialite, Jill Kelley.

The emails came to light in an investigation of CIA chief and former General David Petraeus, who preceded Allen in Afghanistan and resigned his CIA position in November over an extramarital affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell.

President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Leon made no mention of that probe in statements on Tuesday, instead extolling Allen's 38-year military career. Obama cited Allen's "extraordinary service" in the Afghan war.

"Today, I met with General John Allen and accepted his request to retire from the military so that he can address health issues within his family," Obama said in a statement.

"I am grateful for the sacrifices made by his family in supporting him during his service."

Allen, in a statement, did not give details about his decision. "The reasons for my decision are personal. I did not come to it lightly or quickly, but given the considerations behind it, I recognized in the end it was the only choice I could make."

"While I won't go into the details, my primary concern is for the health of my wife, who has sacrificed so much for so long," he said.

HAILED AS BRILLIANT STRATEGIST

He said his wife, Kathy, had stood beside him for more than 35 years and he had spent much time away from her and his two daughters. "It is now my turn to stand beside them, to be there for them when they need me most," Allen said.

In an interview with the Washington Post, Allen said he wanted to focus on helping his wife cope with chronic health issues that included an autoimmune disorder.

Allen, as the head of U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan, was known for his ability to work with tribal sheikhs, a skill that also helped him turn the tide against al Qaeda in Anbar province in Iraq five years ago.

But his time in Afghanistan also was marked by a spate of incidents that enraged Afghans. They included video images of troops urinating on Taliban corpses and the burning of Korans and religious texts taken from a prison library. There were also a surge in so-called "insider attacks" on international forces by their Afghan partners.

Panetta called Allen one of the military's most outstanding battlefield leaders and a brilliant strategist, predicting Allen's leadership in Afghanistan would be remembered as "pivotal" to the 11-year-old campaign.

"The strategy he developed and implemented has put us on the right path towards completing this mission, with Afghan forces now on track to step into the lead for security nationwide this spring and to assume full security responsibility by the end of next year," Panetta said.

The White House had put his nomination to NATO on hold but after Allen was cleared said it intended to move forward with his nomination to the military's top job in Europe.

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland and Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Will Dunham, Bill Trott and Cynthia Osterman)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/general-john-allen-retire-not-nato-nomination-180147484.html

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