Peregrine Financial founder is sentenced to 50 years in prison

Peregrine Financial Group Inc. founder Russ Wasendorf Sr., whose once-highflying company came apart with high drama last year amid federal charges, has been sentenced to 50 years in prison for stealing $215 million from investors and concealing the theft for 20 years.

U.S. District Judge Linda Reade told Wasendorf at a hearing in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, that he knowingly caused "staggering losses" to investors, employees and creditors that grew larger over 20 years.

Reade said Wasendorf, 64, lacked the courage to stop his fraud sooner and admit that his company was a failure from its inception in the early 1990s.

She also said the collapse of Peregrine Financial Group had rippled across the financial industry, affecting regulatory agencies and the nation as whole.

"By imposing a substantial sentence, the court sends a message that white-collar criminals may serve long prison sentences for stealing money from other people," Reade said.

Wasendorf appeared frail at the sentencing on Thursday. His attorney said he'd lost a substantial amount of weight while being held in jail.

Before the sentencing, Wasendorf issued a broad apology for the damage he caused and said he would accept any sentence imposed.

Wasendorf pleaded guilty in September to misusing at least $100 million to cover business losses at his Cedar Falls brokerage, which did business as PFGBest, and a variety of personal expenses. This week, he agreed with prosecutors that he caused $215 million in losses. Reade ordered Wasendorf to pay that amount in restitution, but said it was "highly unlikely" the victims would ever be compensated in full.

He admitted that he hid the theft from colleagues and regulators by making phony financial statements for nearly two decades.

Wasendorf was found unconscious outside the company's headquarters in July after attempting suicide in his vehicle by connecting a tube to his exhaust pipe. He left a startling suicide note confessing to the fraud, saying he started stealing because his "ego was too big to fail," that he did not feel bad about duping regulators he believed were overzealous and that he had learned to make "convincing forgeries" of bank and financial statements using printers and scanners.

Regulators discovered that PFGBest could not account for more than $200 million in customer funds it was supposed to be holding, and the firm filed for bankruptcy protection. Some 24,000 customers were unable to access their accounts and still have not been fully reimbursed. Customers who opened accounts to trade commodities have received between 30% and 40% of their money back, while customers who traded foreign currency have received nothing because that activity has less legal protection.

Wasendorf used their money to build up a business empire that included a publishing company, a corporate jet, the nicest restaurant in Cedar Falls and a family charity known for making donations to universities and hospitals.

Customer money also helped build what was perhaps the biggest symbol of Wasendorf's home-grown success with a firm he started in a basement 30 years ago: PFG's $20-million headquarters, a three-story glass building that opened in 2009 and included a gym, a day-care center, a Montessori school and a restaurant. The building now is largely empty and up for sale.

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China's ethnic Manchus rediscovering their roots

BEIJING — Nobody would suspect that this impish toddler is of noble lineage. Yiyi has the same buzz cut as other 3-year-old Chinese boys, the familiar habit of scattering his fleet of toy cars across the living room rug.

But his family name gives him away: Yehenala, a famous Manchurian clan that once ruled China.

When Yiyi was born, his father and grandfather made the unusual decision to give him the old Manchu name. Generations earlier, the family had shortened the name to Ye to disguise the fact that they were aristocrats in a communist country founded on the principle of overturning feudalism.

"We are proud of our royal blood," said the boy's father, Ye Jia, a 40-year-old state company employee who says he would change his name too if the bureaucracy wasn't so complicated.

The name is a mouthful in a country where almost all family names are written by a single character and pronounced with a single syllable. Yiyi is the only child with such an exotic name in his Beijing preschool class.

But his father thinks it will serve him well in the long run. "Even his teacher says he's special," Ye said.

Descended from a horse-riding nomadic people of northeastern China, the Manchus were the last imperial rulers of the country, establishing the Qing Dynasty, which lasted from 1644 until 1912. After the abdication of the last emperor, Pu Yi, his clan changed its name to Jin. The Yehenalas, related to Cixi, the empress dowager who was de facto ruler in the late 19th century, became Ye or Na.

A century later, ethnic Manchus are rediscovering their roots.

A few universities have revived the study of the nearly extinct Manchu language, which is more like Mongolian than Chinese. There are culture seminars to study the dance, food and music of Manchuria, even Internet forums. Many people have also begun using their Manchu family names, even if few are legally registered like little Yehenala Yiyi.

Although aristocracy is no longer a dirty word in China (daytime television is full of historical dramas about imperial times and luxury goods are advertised as fit for royalty), China's imperial kin continue to live modestly, not flaunting their lineage like European nobility.

The Ye family has faded black-and-white photographs of Cixi and other illustrious relatives in their brocaded costumes of old, but they are kept tucked away in a folder.

During the Cultural Revolution, Mao Tse-tung's decade-long purge of the elites, the stigma attached to being a member of the old aristocracy was so great that many imperial descedents were unaware of their own lineage. Ye Longpei, Yiyi's 70-year-old grandfather, didn't find out until he was an adult that his own grandfather had been the youngest brother of the empress Cixi.

His father, who was then close to dying, confided the family secret in 1975, in the waning days of the Cultural Revolution, during a walk to the Summer Palace, Cixi's retreat in northwest Beijing.

"That's how shameful it was to be part of the royal family. This is something that nobody would brag about," said Ye, a retired schoolteacher who lives with his son's family in a comfortable but nondescript two-bedroom walk-up apartment south of downtown Beijing.

Chinese history deals harshly with the Qing Dynasty. Pu Yi is still despised as a collaborator for having headed the puppet state of Manchuko, which was established by Japanese occupiers during the 1930s. Some memoirs about Cixi describe an insatiable sexual appetite and cruelty, although her relatives say the stories are fabricated.

"Cixi became the scapegoat for everything that was wrong with old China," said Na Genzheng, a 61-year-old descendant of one of the empress' brothers. One of the more outspoken family representatives, he keeps a photograph of Cixi flanked by tall vases, shrine-like, in a niche in his living room. He specializes in Manchu script, producing loopy calligraphy that looks a little like Arabic written vertically.

"People don't appreciate her contribution and the family's to Chinese culture," he said.

His illustrious ancestor, he said, "lived in a period of transition and promoted reforms learned from Western countries." Cixi's descendants held a large family reunion in 2008 on the 100th anniversary of her death and are trying to salvage her reputation.

Some things Manchu have been incorporated seamlessly into Beijing culture, such as the popular pastry saqima and the figure-hugging dresses known as cheongsam. Like the Yiddish woven into New York slang, Beijingers use Manchu-derived insults such as "moceng," meaning "slow," and "mama huhu," meaning "mediocre" or "careless."

Not all Manchus can trace their lineage to emperors, but many have ties to the former imperial bureaucracy. (In fact, a large number of descendants found jobs in the civil service or in state-owned companies, many joining the Communist Party.) In far western China, near the Kazakhstan border, descendants of a garrison of Qing soldiers still speak a dialect of Manchu, among the few native speakers left in China.

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Are Weak Wii U Sales a Bellwether of Shifting Game Demographics?

Nintendo expects to sell fewer Wii U and 3DS units than originally claimed, according to reports this morning. The company says it sold three million Wii U units through December, but slashed its forecast of 5.5 million Wii U units sold by the end of March to just four million in all. On the Wii U software side, Nintendo is now forecasting 16 million units in the same timeframe, a number that’s down by roughly a third from original expectations.

The 3DS takes a similar hit in the standings: down from 17.5 million units predicted through March to just 15 million units and a commensurate drop in 3DS software sales.

(MORE: Apple to Sell 128GB iPad Starting Next Tuesday)

You can look at this any number of ways. From a numbers standpoint, there’s no doubt that the Wii U lags behind its predecessor in raw sales when you contrast launch windows. But the Wii arrived at just the right time: It was the world’s first fully motion-control-driven game system — a system that went on to capture the imaginations of consumers who’d never really engaged with a game console before. Whatever you thought of the Wii, however much you actually played it in the years that followed, it did more to popularize gaming as a mainstream pastime than any gaming-related device in history.

The Wii U, by contrast, is an evolutionary step forward designed to appeal more to traditional gamers. Though even lacking the Wii’s novelty, the Wii U GamePad is a far more intrepid technological concoction than, say, either Microsoft or Sony’s imitative motion-control approaches. And suggestions that Nintendo’s just mining Apple territory with the Wii U’s tablet-style controller seem shortsighted: With its two-screen dynamic and hybrid haptic/deterministic controls, the Wii U GamePad couldn’t be less like an iPad. Or, put another way, the Wii U is as much a riff on the iPad as the iPad is just a riff on Nintendo’s original dual-screen DS — a handheld that predated Apple’s tablet by six years.

Another explanation for the Wii U’s slow start could be pricing. The Wii U hardly seems a bargain by Nintendo’s own standards. The GameCube sold for $ 200 at rollout in 2001 (no pack-in), while the Wii cost $ 250 at launch and included a game. The Wii U, by comparison, starts at $ 300 for the stripped down model sans game, then jumps $ 50 if you want a decent amount of storage and something to play — a pack-in (Nintendoland) that frankly lacks the distinctive “so that’s what all the hype’s about” flair of Wii Sports.

But let’s cut to the chase: Whither mobile gaming? Isn’t the Wii U’s sluggish start because, well, hello smartphones and tablets? Not so fast: The data we have on this is inconclusive and potentially misleading.

According to NPD research, of the roughly 212 million people playing games in the United States last year, mobile gamers only slightly outranked core gamers. The number of core gamers shrank slightly in 2012 (NPD attributes this in part to the extra-long life cycle of the current consoles) while the number of mobile gamers was up a tick, it’s true. But how many people bought a Wii U because they needed a phone? An Xbox 360 to sync with their computer’s day-planner? Conversely, how many people bought a smartphone or tablet because all they wanted was to play games like Angry Birds or Temple Run 2?

(MORE: Nintendo Wii U Review: A Tale of Two Screens)

How many mobile gamers are buying souped up phones or tablets just to play games, in other words? Anyone? Or is the mobile gaming angle more of a perk, like the Philips head or mini-scissors in a Swiss Army Knife?

I’m not saying mobile gaming isn’t big — because it is. But just as sales of a game like Wii Sports were deceptively high because you couldn’t not buy it when picking up a Wii, talking about the prevalence of mobile gaming in a pre-fab market gets tricky. Is playing games on phones or tablets siphoning gamers from PCs and consoles? It’s impossible to say at this point because we lack the data.

Nintendo can’t be all things to all people any more than Apple’s been to gamers with its iPhone or iPad. If I want to play a game like Ni No Kuni or Guild Wars 2 or Devil May Cry, I wouldn’t look to my smartphone or tablet. Likewise, I have no interest in playing stuff like Angry Birds or Fruit Ninja or Cut the Rope – the same old increasingly tiresome mobile top-sellers for years — on a console or PC. I don’t want to sell the mobile/tablet gaming market short, not with titles like Battle of the Bulge and Radiant Defense or others like Space Hulk, Shadowrun Returns and Warhammer Quest on the horizon, but concluding that the Wii U or 3DS’s slightly-lower-than-expected sales can be attributed to a shift in gamer tastes — from core to mobile/tablet gaming — oversimplifies things in my view.

What we may be looking at in these reduced Nintendo sales numbers — and what I’d expect to continue to see with the launch of new systems from Microsoft and Sony — is segmentation of a market that experienced a kind of cross-demographic boom in the mid-to-late 2000s. Before iPhones and iPads, casual gamers had the PC. The Wii was essentially a way to bring that sort of gamer into the living room. But we’d be torturing indulgence to claim the shift that occurred after 2006 was tantamount to a conversion. Casual gamers, if you’ll pardon that label, are by definition uncommitted gamers. And with buyers already spending considerably more for something like the iPad (and considerably less on that platform for games), would it be such a surprise to find a much pickier audience for a system like the Wii U in 2013 than existed in 2006?

I have no idea what sorts of devices the kind of more core-oriented games I like to play are going to live on a decade from now. All it’d take, for instance, is for Apple to flip a few switches and double down on gaming to shake up the market in ways that could make what happened with the Wii seem tame. But that won’t mean the demise of traditional gamers any more than the rise of touchscreens entails the downfall of deterministic interfaces like keyboards, mice and gamepads. Core gamers aren’t this tiny minority on the verge of extinction, after all.

Far from it, in fact: Revenue contributions from core gamers still outpace all others, reports NPD, which calls the core gaming demographic “vital to the future of the industry.” From a financial standpoint, in other words, whatever the reasons for the Wii U’s lower-than-expected sales, the ball remains clearly in core gaming’s court.

MORE: Murfie Converts Your CDs into a Lossless Online Library, Lets You Sell and Trade Your Music

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Patty Andrews of Andrews Sisters dead at 94

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Patty Andrews, the last surviving member of the singing Andrews Sisters trio whose hits such as the rollicking "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B" and the poignant "I Can Dream, Can't I?" captured the home-front spirit of World War II, died Wednesday. She was 94.

Andrews died of natural causes at her home in the Los Angeles suburb of Northridge, said family spokesman Alan Eichler in a statement.

Patty was the Andrews in the middle, the lead singer and chief clown, whose raucous jitterbugging delighted American servicemen abroad and audiences at home.

She could also deliver sentimental ballads like "I'll Be with You in Apple Blossom Time" with a sincerity that caused hardened GIs far from home to weep.

From the late 1930s through the 1940s, the Andrews Sisters produced one hit record after another, beginning with "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" in 1937 and continuing with "Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar," ''Rum and Coca-Cola" and more. They recorded more than 400 songs and sold over 80 million records, several of them going gold (over a million copies).

Other sisters, notably the Boswells, had become famous as singing acts, but mostly they huddled before a microphone in close harmony. The Andrews Sisters — LaVerne, Maxene and Patty — added a new dimension. During breaks in their singing, they cavorted about the stage in rhythm to the music.

Their voices combined with perfect synergy. As Patty remarked in 1971: "There were just three girls in the family. LaVerne had a very low voice. Maxene's was kind of high, and I was between. It was like God had given us voices to fit our parts."

The Andrews Sisters' rise coincided with the advent of swing music, and their style fit perfectly into the new craze. They aimed at reproducing the sound of three harmonizing trumpets.

"I was listening to Benny Goodman and to all the bands," Patty once remarked. "I was into the feel, so that would go into my own musical ability. I was into swing. I loved the brass section."

Unlike other singing acts, the sisters recorded with popular bands of the '40s, fitting neatly into the styles of Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Jimmy Dorsey, Bob Crosby, Woody Herman, Guy Lombardo, Desi Arnaz and Russ Morgan. They sang dozens of songs on records with Bing Crosby, including the million-seller "Don't Fence Me In." They also recorded with Dick Haymes, Carmen Miranda, Danny Kaye, Al Jolson, Jimmy Durante and Red Foley.

The Andrews' popularity led to a contract with Universal Pictures, where they made a dozen low-budget musical comedies between 1940 and 1944. In 1947, they appeared in "The Road to Rio" with Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour.

The trio continued until LaVerne's death in 1967. By that time the close harmony had turned to discord, and the sisters had been openly feuding.

Bette Midler's 1973 cover of "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" revived interest in the trio. The two survivors joined in 1974 for a Broadway show, "Over Here!" It ran for more than a year, but disputes with the producers led to the cancellation of the national tour of the show, and the sisters did not perform together again.

Patty continued on her own, finding success in Las Vegas and on TV variety shows. Her sister also toured solo until her death in 1995.

Her father, Peter Andrews, was a Greek immigrant who anglicized his name of Andreus when he arrived in America; his wife, Olga, was a Norwegian with a love of music. LaVerne was born in 1911, Maxine (later Maxene) in 1916, Patricia (later Patty, sometimes Patti) in 1918.

All three sisters were born and raised in the Minneapolis area, spending summers in Mound, Minn., on the western shores of Lake Minnetonka, about 20 miles west of Minneapolis.

Listening to the Boswell Sisters on radio, LaVerne played the piano and taught her sisters to sing in harmony; neither Maxene nor Patty ever learned to read music. All three studied singers at the vaudeville house near their father's restaurant. As their skills developed, they moved from amateur shows to vaudeville and singing with bands.

After Peter Andrews moved the family to New York in 1937, his wife, Olga, sought singing dates for the girls. They were often turned down with comments such as: "They sing too loud and they move too much." Olga persisted, and the sisters sang on radio with a hotel band at $15 a week. The broadcasts landed them a contract with Decca Records.

They recorded a few songs, and then came "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen," an old Yiddish song for which Sammy Cahn and Saul Kaplan wrote English lyrics. (The title means, "To Me You Are Beautiful.") It was a smash hit, and the Andrews Sisters were launched into the bigtime.

Their only disappointment was the movies. Universal was a penny-pinching studio that ground out product to fit the lower half of a double bill. The sisters were seldom involved in the plots, being used for musical interludes in film with titles such as "Private Buckaroo," ''Swingtime Johnny" and "Moonlight and Cactus."

Their only hit was "Buck Privates," which made stars of Abbott and Costello and included the trio's blockbuster "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy from Company B."

In 1947, Patty married Martin Melcher, an agent who represented the sisters as well as Doris Day, then at the beginning of her film career. Patty divorced Melcher in 1949 and soon he became Day's husband, manager and producer.

Patty married Walter Weschler, pianist for the sisters, in 1952. He became their manager and demanded more pay for himself and for Patty. The two other sisters rebelled, and their differences with Patty became public. Lawsuits were filed between the two camps.

"We had been together nearly all our lives," Patty explained in 1971. "Then in one year our dream world ended. Our mother died and then our father. All three of us were upset, and we were at each other's throats all the time."

Patty Andrews is survived by her foster daughter, Pam DuBois, a niece and several cousins. Weschler died in 2010.

A memorial service is planned in Los Angeles, with the date to be determined.

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Illness Walks the Runway

A top fashion designer quarantines a sneezing underling, forcing her to work in a closet. An industry P.R. executive makes colleagues douse their hands with Purell. Germ-phobic magazine editors are powerblasting offices with antiseptic wipes and Lysol.

Such is the dread gripping the fashion world as it prepares for New York Fashion Week, beginning Feb. 7, with a killer flu and a stomach-bug norovirus on the loose.

The eight-day event, when fashionistas from around the world pack into small spaces to attend runway shows and parties — only to cram onto the same flights and repeat the process in London, Milan and Paris — is always an occasion for sickness paranoia. In past years, sniffles in the front row could prompt icy stares and social ostracism.

But with this season’s flu panic, the fear is approaching hysteria. Stressed-out designers recoil in horror if someone coughs within earshot. Frail models shiver their way between fittings, terrified someone will spy their runny noses. And frenemies everywhere are reconsidering the wisdom of the double-cheek kiss, the standard greeting of the global fashion tribe. Air kissing seems safe for now.

“This will be the season where everyone in fashion becomes mysteriously nonaffectionate,” said Laura Brown, executive editor of Harper’s Bazaar. Staff members in her West 57th Street offices, she added, have been scouring doorknobs with sanitizing wipes. “We can give a nudge and a wink instead.”

To be fair, much of the paranoia is founded. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, deaths from the current flu season reached “epidemic” levels, in part because of an unusually severe flu strain. Adding to the flulike epidemic is a surging new strain of norovirus, which can cause sudden diarrhea and projectile vomiting, and the worst whooping cough outbreak in 60 years.

And while there is some evidence that the flu season has peaked almost everywhere in the country, except for the West Coast, flu activity continued to be high in New York through the week ending Jan. 19, as tracked by the C.D.C., and on the rise in parts of Europe including Italy. (Milan hosts a fashion week starting Feb. 20.)

Norovirus also seems to be surging abroad; it has reached epidemic levels in France, according to the latest report from the country’s doctor network Réseau Sentinelles, with more than one million French people visiting doctors for it in the past five weeks.

Yet even as flu season appears to be ebbing in New York, it remains a worry inside the fashion bubble. With sleep-deprived colleagues huddled in close quarters day and night, things can go viral quickly, especially in the petri dish that is Fashion Week.

“Fashion people are at risk for a variety of viral syndromes because they work long hours and they move in a pack,” said Dr. Robert Glatter, known in fashion circles for making house (or studio) calls.

Dr. Barry Cohen, whose primary-care office on Spring Street faces Marc Jacobs’s studios, says he has been bombarded with rheumy-eyed industry divas begging for quick fixes. “Fashion people touch each other all day, so they get exposed over and over,” he said.

And when the pack is moving fast and furious, it can’t slow down for the weak. “Fashion Week season is a nonstop assault on the immune system,” said Derek Blasberg, an editor at large for Harper’s Bazaar. “Early shows, late dinners, crammed into tents and airplanes: you don’t want to sit next to anyone coughing, because if you get sick, you’re screwed.”

The viral assault does not end with New York. “By the time we finish the New York shows, we’re already a wreck, because New York simply has too many shows,” said Mickey Boardman, editorial director of Paper magazine. “Then you get on a plane and hit the ground running in London, where there’s always fun parties. You’re eating French fries for dinner and drinking Cokes from your minibar, and your sleep patterns are messed up.”

“You’re putting your life at risk,” he added.

WHILE KEEPING THE WORLD trendy has its hazards, fashionistas have developed stylish tactics to avoid getting the bug. Many have dutifully gotten their flu shots. (It’s not too late, though it takes about two weeks to build up immunity — just in time for London Fashion Week.)

Others follow variations of what could be called the standard fashion-world starvation diet, whether it’s drinking large quantities of SmartWater fortified with packets of the vitamin supplement Emergen-C, or force-feeding themselves nothing but raw greens, like koalas munching eucalyptus leaves. Dr. Glatter says he has even treated some fashion people for diarrhea from eating too much kale.

Then there are the juicers. The designer Cynthia Rowley swears by Juice Press, the three-year-old Manhattan chain popular with fashion insiders for its 17-ounce $10 bottles of cold-pressed fruits and vegetables. “I’m addicted,” said Ms. Rowley, who added that she chugged the stuff with staff members when they were not taking spin classes en masse at SoulCycle.

“Nobody’s sick at my office,” she bragged dangerously. “We work in one room, so if one person drops, they take down the whole team.”

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State fines Chevron $1 million for Richmond refinery fire

Firefighters douse an Aug. 6 fire at a Chevron Corp. refinery in Richmond, Calif. The fire led the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health to issue 25 citations against Chevron. (Aric Crabb / Contra Costa Times / August 7, 2012)

By Marc Lifsher

January 30, 2013, 2:52 p.m.

SACRAMENTO -- California safety officials ordered Chevron Corp. to pay nearly $1 million in penalties for safety violations that led to a massive fire last summer at a refinery at Richmond in the San Francisco Bay Area.

In all, the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health issued 25 citations against California's biggest oil company, including 11 "willful serious" and 12 lesser "serious" violations related to the Aug. 6 blaze, the state said.

The fine, which could be appealed by Chevron, is the highest in Cal-OSHA history, the agency said.

"Ensuring worker safety is the employer's responsibility," said Christine Baker, director of the state Department of Industrial Relations, which oversees Cal-OSHA. "Refineries must take the steps needed to prevent incidents like the August Chevron fire. Failure to do so can pose great dangers to workers, surrounding communities and the environment."

Chevron said it intends to appeal some of the state citations. "Chevron takes our commitment to safe operations seriously," the San Ramon, Calif., company said in a statement. "Although we acknowledge that we failed to live up to our own expectations in this incident, we do not agree with several of the Cal-OSHA findings and its characterization of some  of the alleged violations as 'willful.'"

Chevron at the time of the fire reported that one employee suffered a minor injury. About 200 local residents sought medical help, complaining of respiratory problems.

ALSO:

Huge fire continues to rage at Chevron refinery in Richmond

Chevron refinery fire may spur jump in gas prices

Chevron's refinery, Richmond's peril

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Senate overwhelmingly approves John Kerry for secretary of State

WASHINGTON — The Senate voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to confirm Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) as the next secretary of State, filling a crucial national security spot in President Obama’s second-term Cabinet.

The 94-3 vote clears the way for Kerry to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton after she steps down Friday.

Kerry, who will become America’s 68th top diplomat, failed to win only three Republican votes — those of Sens. John Cornyn and Rafael “Ted” Cruz, both of Texas, and Sen. James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma. 

A spokesman for Cornyn said Kerry supported liberal positions that most Texans oppose. Cruz has criticized Kerry, who fought in the Vietnam War, as anti-military.

Earlier Tuesday, Kerry received the unanimous endorsement of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in a voice vote. He served on the committee for 28 years and chaired it for the last four.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the ranking Republican on the committee, praised Kerry as a “realist” on foreign affairs issues, and said he was always “open to discussion” with colleagues of the opposite party.

Corker, noting that Kerry’s father was a foreign service officer, said he knew of no one “who’s lived a life that’s been ultimately more oriented toward being secretary of State.”

Leading Republican senators had promoted Kerry as an alternative to Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, for the job. Rice withdrew her name from consideration after Republicans criticized her for statements she made on TV talk shows after the deadly Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya.

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RIM faces its day of reckoning with BlackBerry 10 launch

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The innovative line of BlackBerry smartphones that Research In Motion Ltd will formally unveil on Wednesday has already succeeded on one crucial count – getting RIM back in the conversation.

The new BlackBerry 10 has created a buzz among technology watchers and financial analysts, thanks to nifty features that may set it apart in an overcrowded smartphone market. RIM stock has almost tripled over the past four months on hopes the devices can restore RIM to sustained prosperity.

Reviewers like the browser speed and the intuitive keyboard on RIM’s new touchscreen. A feature called BlackBerry Balance, which keeps corporate and personal data separate, could help RIM rebuild its traditional base of big business customers.

It’s a welcome start for RIM, the smartphone pioneer that has teetered on the brink of irrelevance. But success will come only if consumer and business customers embrace the new technology in the weeks and months after CEO Thorsten Heins takes the wraps off the phone at a glitzy New York launch.

RIM is gambling its survival on the much-delayed BlackBerry 10, hoping to claw its way back into an industry now dominated by Apple Inc’s iPhone and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd’s Galaxy.

The timing may be just right. The new phone hits the market just as the iPhone’s remarkable run is showing some signs of slowing.

“I really do believe that the consumer market as a whole is ready for something new,” said Kevin Burden, head of mobility at Strategy Analytics, an industry consulting firm.

“I have to believe that there is some level of user fatigue that plays into the longevity of some of these platforms,” he added, referring to Google Inc’s Android and Apple’s iOS, which are both more than five years old. “RIM is probably timing it right.”

U.S. BATTLEGROUND

To be sure, RIM shares are about 90 percent below a 2008 peak near $ 150 a share and the company still has a tough fight ahead. It may take investors some time to determine whether RIM’s big gamble on an untested technology has paid off.

RIM’s market share collapsed in the three years ahead of the launch. Strategy Analytics data shows RIM’s global share of the smartphone market was about 3.4 percent in the fourth quarter, down from around 20 percent just three years ago.

While RIM has done well in developing markets, it has hemorrhaged customers in the United States, a market that sets technology trends. RIM’s fourth-quarter North American market share fell to 2 percent from more than 40 percent three years ago.

Acknowledging that it is crucial to win back U.S. customers, RIM will hold its main BlackBerry 10 launch in New York, although there are simultaneous events in six cities across the globe.

Underscoring the point, RIM is splurging on a costly Super Bowl ad to tout its new devices and attempt to brighten its faded image in the U.S. market.

BIG QUESTIONS

Over 150 carriers already have tested the new devices and RIM has said the launch will be the largest ever global rollout of a new platform.

The two big questions the market expects RIM to answer on Wednesday are when the phones – a full touch-screen device and one with a traditional physical keyboard – will hit store shelves, and how much they will cost.

The company is expected to unveil specifics on pricing and availability in different regions at the launch.

“The Street is expecting mid-February for a launch. Anything earlier than that is a positive, anything later will be viewed as negative,” said RBC Dominion Securities analyst Paul Treiber.

That said, there are few mysteries to be cleared up on Wednesday. Leaked photos and specifications of the devices have been splashed across the tech world.

“We’ve had the beta devices for a few weeks and in terms of the devices, they are right up there with the competition,” said Andy Ambrozic, head of IT Infrastructure at Ricoh Canada. “The Balance feature is crucial for corporations that are becoming increasingly concerned about data security.”

Scotiabank analyst Gus Papageorgiou feels RIM has a good chance of a comeback. He says the new BB10 operating system outpaces Apple’s iOS platform and Google’s market-leading Android system in every category except app selection and content.

“There is, we believe, huge potential for the platform and devices to bring people back to BlackBerry or draw entirely new users into the platform,” said Papageorgiou, who has a “sector outperform” rating on the stock.

BlackBerry 10 will not be able to compete on the number of apps, but RIM says its operating system will have the largest application library for any new platform at launch, with more than 70,000 apps available.

It has already gathered big-name music and video partners for its BlackBerry 10 storefront, including Walt Disney Studios and Sony Pictures, Universal Music and Warner Music Group.

Wireless carriers already report strong demand for the new devices. Rogers Communications Inc, Canada’s top wireless carrier and the first globally to take pre-orders for the new devices, said orders are already in the thousands.

“Our customers are excited,” said John Boynton, Rogers’ head of marketing, adding that some users are holding off on upgrades in anticipation of the BB10 launch.

(Additional reporting by Alastair Sharp and Allison Martell in Toronto; Editing by Frank McGurty, Janet Guttsman and Andre Grenon)

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Disney closing 'Epic Mickey' video game developer

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Disney is saying goodbye to the developer of "Epic Mickey."

The interactive division of the Walt Disney Co. announced Tuesday that it is closing Junction Point Studios. The Austin, Texas-based video game developer created 2010's "Disney Epic Mickey" and its 2012 sequel "Epic Mickey 2."

Disney says the closure is part of its "effort to address the fast-evolving gaming platforms and marketplace," and to align its resources with its key priorities.

Disney acquired Junction Point Studios in 2007. The studio was led by "Deus Ex" and "Thief" creator Warren Spector.

The original "Epic Mickey" was released for the Nintendo Wii, while "Epic Mickey 2" was available on all major consoles.

Disney unveiled plans earlier this month for a new franchise combining a toy line with a game called "Disney Infinity."

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Well: Ask Well: Squats for Aging Knees

You are already doing many things right, in terms of taking care of your aging knees. In particular, it sounds as if you are keeping your weight under control. Carrying extra pounds undoubtedly strains knees and contributes to pain and eventually arthritis.

You mention weight training, too, which is also valuable. Sturdy leg muscles, particularly those at the front and back of the thighs, stabilize the knee, says Joseph Hart, an assistant professor of kinesiology and certified athletic trainer at the University of Virginia, who often works with patients with knee pain.

An easy exercise to target those muscles is the squat. Although many of us have heard that squats harm knees, the exercise is actually “quite good for the knees, if you do the squats correctly,” Dr. Hart says. Simply stand with your legs shoulder-width apart and bend your legs until your thighs are almost, but not completely, parallel to the ground. Keep your upper body straight. Don’t bend forward, he says, since that movement can strain the knees. Try to complete 20 squats, using no weight at first. When that becomes easy, Dr. Hart suggests, hold a barbell with weights attached. Or simply clutch a full milk carton, which is my cheapskate’s squats routine.

Straight leg lifts are also useful for knee health. Sit on the floor with your back straight and one leg extended and the other bent toward your chest. In this position, lift the straight leg slightly off the ground and hold for 10 seconds. Repeat 10 to 20 times and then switch legs.

You can also find other exercises that target the knees in this video, “Increasing Knee Stability.”

Of course, before starting any exercise program, consult a physician, especially, Dr. Hart says, if your knees often ache, feel stiff or emit a strange, clicking noise, which could be symptoms of arthritis.

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