PepsiCo cuts ties with Lil Wayne over crude lyrics

FILE - In this Feb. 1, 2013 file photo, recording artist Lil Wayne meets fans and celebrates his contemporary street wear apparel brand TRUKFIT at his hometown Macy's, in New Orleans. A letter from Lil Wayne to the offended family of Emmett Till did not go far enough and relatives of the late civil rights icon are seeking a meeting with the rapper and representatives from PepsiCo to discuss their commercial partnership. The New Orleans rapper made the brief offensive reference to Till on Future's song "Karate Chop" earlier this year. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - In this Feb. 1, 2013 file photo, recording artist Lil Wayne meets fans and celebrates his contemporary street wear apparel brand TRUKFIT at his hometown Macy's, in New Orleans. A letter from Lil Wayne to the offended family of Emmett Till did not go far enough and relatives of the late civil rights icon are seeking a meeting with the rapper and representatives from PepsiCo to discuss their commercial partnership. The New Orleans rapper made the brief offensive reference to Till on Future's song "Karate Chop" earlier this year. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)

NEW YORK (AP) ? PepsiCo is bowing to public pressure for the second time in a week and cutting ties with Lil Wayne over the rapper's crude lyrical reference to civil rights martyr Emmett Till.

Lil Wayne, one of the biggest stars in pop music, had a deal to promote the company's Mountain Dew soda.

Earlier this week, PepsiCo also pulled an online ad for the neon-colored soda that was criticized for portraying racial stereotypes and making light of violence toward women. That ad was developed by rapper Tyler, the Creator.

On Friday, PepsiCo said in a statement that Wayne's "offensive reference to a revered civil rights icon does not reflect the values of our brand." It declined to provide any further comment.

A publicist for Lil Wayne, Sarah Cunningham, said that the split was due to "creative differences" and that it was an amicable parting.

"That's about all I can tell you at this time," she said.

Wayne had sent the Till family a letter offering empathy and saying that he would not reference Till or the family in his music, particularly in an inappropriate manner.

But the Till family said the letter fell short of an apology.

"It's mindboggling to me that they partnered with him in the first place," said the Rev. Wheeler Parker Jr., a Till cousin and witness to his abduction. "Major corporations should scrutinize who they endorse, don't let greed or money determine who you sponsor."

Parker's written statement said Wayne's lyrics not only insulted Till's memory but degraded women as well.

Rev. Al Sharpton, who had been working with the Till family to arrange a meeting with Lil Wayne and PepsiCo officials, said in a telephone interview that he hopes the decision ultimately is less about punishing individual rappers and more a cultural "teaching moment."

"Otherwise we're just waiting on the next train crash instead of trying to really resolve our problem and learn from these experiences and set a tone in the country that's healthy for everybody," he said.

Sharpton said that he and the Till family still plan to meet with PepsiCo officials next week.

The controversy erupted after Wayne made the reference to Till on Future's song "Karate Chop" earlier this year. He refers to a violent sexual act on a woman and says he wants to do as much damage as was done to Till.

The black teen from Chicago was in Mississippi visiting family in 1955 when he was killed, allegedly for whistling at a white woman. He was beaten, had his eyes gouged out and was shot in the head before his assailants tied a cotton gin fan to his body with barbed wire and tossed it into a river.

Two white men, including the woman's husband, were acquitted by an all-white jury.

Till's body was recovered and returned to Chicago where his mother, Mamie Till, insisted on having an open casket at his funeral. The pictures of his battered body helped push civil rights into the cultural conversation.

Music and media industry executive Paul Porter, who comments on music issues on his website RapRehab.com, said he thought PepsiCo's decision was an effort by the company "to do the right thing now."

Porter, who had complained publicly and to PepsiCo about Lil Wayne and the Mountain Dew video by Tyler, the Creator, said the company is "doing a whole evaluation of the process" involving its commercials and musicians. His comments were based on his conversations with the company.

"I commend them for making this strong judgment," he said. "Lil Wayne's apology was not an apology."

Earlier this month, Rick Ross also lost his deal with Reebok after he rapped about raping a woman who had been drugged. As for the Mountain Dew ad by Tyler, the Creator, PepsiCo said it pulled the spot immediately after learning people found it offensive.

The ad portrayed a battered white woman being urged to identify her attacker from a lineup of black men and a talking goat that has appeared in other Mountain Dew ads. Tyler, the Creator has noted that the men in the lineup were played by his friends and members of Odd Future, a Los Angeles-based rap collective.

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Talbott reported from Nashville, Tenn. AP Television Writer Lynn Elber contributed to this report from Los Angeles.

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Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-05-03-Lil%20Wayne-PepsiCo/id-bc73a8d6f2f94e09a5d015e09e414470

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Second U.S. cargo plane crashes in Central Asia

Why can she never win?? Poor Jennifer Aniston, lonely lady of Los Angeles, scorned bride and future crone. All she wants to do is marry Justin Theroux as planned, but of course then her ex, Brad Pitt, had to go and make plans to marry Angelina Jolie this summer, thus ruining everything. So Aniston is pushing back her wedding plans, it's said, to an unknown time, in the fear that the two events will be associated. So tragic. Jennifer Aniston just cannot get a break. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/second-u-cargo-plane-crashes-central-asia-111606575.html

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Is Google Glass Bad for Your Eyes?

Google Glass is capable of some amazing things. Just look at this first crop of videos shot wearing a them. But given how much damage you do to your eyes staring at screens in the first place, will Google Glass harm your eyes in the long run?

Google has a pretty strongly-worded warning for potential wearers under the Glass FAQ section (emphasis added):

Glass isn?t for everyone.

Like when wearing glasses, some people may feel eye strain or get a headache. If you?ve had Lasik surgery, ask your doctor about risks of eye impact damage before using Glass. Don?t let children under 13 use Glass as it could harm developing vision. Also, kids might break Glass or hurt themselves, and Google?s terms of service don?t permit those under 13 to register a Google account. If Glass is not for you and you wish to return it, do so before the end of the applicable refund period.

So no Glass for kids under 13. But that's basically just legalese with a heaping dose of caution, Dr. Jim Sheedy, Director of Optometric Research at Pacific College of Optometry's Vision Performance Institute told Gizmodo.

"I don't see any particular reason why smart glasses would be especially harmful to children. The manufacturer warning about usage by children is given out of caution and from a position of legal prudence. As smart glasses become more commonly used, as I expect they will, we will all become more comfortable with advocating their usage by children."

So probably okay for kids, but what about the rest of us? We already stare at laptops and phones and tablets all day long, which isn't exactly ideal. You've probably experienced eye ache, dry eyes, and other common symptoms of discomfort. But Google Glass is a different use case. While we're married to our computers for hours a day, Google Glass was designed to spend less time in action. Maybe you're always wearing Glass, but you only use it when you need it, whether you're just responding to a message or listening to Glass tell you to take a right at the next street. There's not a display constantly running in front of your retinas, though. In fact, even if you did use Glass continuously, you'd only get about a full hour of battery life.

Experts aren't particularly concerned. Sheedy said he doesn't foresee any degenerative risks stemming from wearing the glasses and he doesn't see any reason that they would cause any damage to your eye balls.

Glass has some built-in limitations, that, intentional or not, actively limit eye strain. For example, video records in 10-second snippets by default. And you can write a text message just by telling Glass what to say, rather than having to stare at a screen. From that standpoint, your eyes might prefer that you text on Glass rather than your smartphone's LCD. Sure, donning Google Glass might make you look like a cyborg, but it was engineered to get tech out of the way. It's understandably difficult to think of it that way when you're, you know, wearing a computer smack on your face?or looking at someone else who is. But that's another topic entirely.

As far as any real vision problems go, Sheedy says the potential risk posed has more to do with the eye's shift from different visual fields of reality. When you're moving through space, you have certain receptors that tell your brain where you're situated. But when you're given some sort of stimulation?a map flashing before their eyes, for example?the brain gets confused, and that can cause symptoms like dizziness, or in the most extreme cases, nausea, which Sheedy has seen in his the Vision Lab's studies on 3D.

But the spatial recognition problems aren't something most people experience. In a recent Q&A with Google, Harvard ophthalmology professor Dr. Eli Peli says these problems are probably minimal.

"Some people's eyes take a bit longer to adjust to these systems," he said. "That's to be expected. Theories about potentially serious consequences like confusion or disorientation were raised in the media and had echoes in the literature in the 1990s, but they were associated with virtual reality type displays that completely enclosed the viewer."

A Google spokesperson told us in a statement:

"We've studied design comfort and safety very closely, and we haven't found cause for concern. It's something we'll continue to watch carefully. We have been working with ophthalmologists throughout our development process."

Of course, it's only natural that Google's outlook on this is all going to be positive. They're the ones selling the $1,500 Star Trek shades. And for most of us, this is all still very hypothetical; right now Glass remains in the hands of a very few beta-testing Explorers. But if and when Glass does go mainstream, you shouldn't worry one bit about your eyes. Which is just as well; there are enough cost and privacy concerns to keep you occupied as is.

Source: http://gizmodo.com/is-google-glass-bad-for-your-eyes-484466332

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NKorea sentences US man in possible bid for talks

A photo provided by Bobby Lee, shows Kenneth Bae, right, and Bobby Lee together when they were freshmen students at the University of Oregon in 1988. Bae is being detained in North Korea and could face the death penalty if he is convicted on charges that he planned to overthrow the North Korean government. (AP Photo/The Register-Guard, Bobby Lee)

A photo provided by Bobby Lee, shows Kenneth Bae, right, and Bobby Lee together when they were freshmen students at the University of Oregon in 1988. Bae is being detained in North Korea and could face the death penalty if he is convicted on charges that he planned to overthrow the North Korean government. (AP Photo/The Register-Guard, Bobby Lee)

In this March 20, 2013 photo, a North Korean flag hangs inside the interior of Pyongyang?s Supreme Court. North Korea says it will soon deliver a verdict in the case of detained American Kenneth Bae it accuses of trying to overthrow the government, further complicating already fraught relations between Pyongyang and Washington. The announcement about Bae comes in the middle of a lull after weeks of war threats and other provocative acts by North Korea against the U.S. and South Korea. Bae, identified in North Korean state media by his Korean name, Pae Jun Ho, is a tour operator of Korean descent who was arrested after arriving with a tour on Nov. 3 in Rason, a special economic zone bordering China and Russia. (AP Photo)

In this March 20, 2013 photo, a North Korean flag hangs inside the interior of Pyongyang?s Supreme Court. North Korea says it will soon deliver a verdict in the case of detained American Kenneth Bae it accuses of trying to overthrow the government, further complicating already fraught relations between Pyongyang and Washington. The announcement about Bae comes in the middle of a lull after weeks of war threats and other provocative acts by North Korea against the U.S. and South Korea. Bae, identified in North Korean state media by his Korean name, Pae Jun Ho, is a tour operator of Korean descent who was arrested after arriving with a tour on Nov. 3 in Rason, a special economic zone bordering China and Russia. (AP Photo)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) ? A Korean American detained for six months in North Korea has been sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for "hostile acts" against the state, the North's media said Thursday ? a move that could trigger a visit by a high-profile American if history is any guide.

Kenneth Bae, 44, a Washington state man described by friends as a devout Christian and a tour operator, is at least the sixth American detained in North Korea since 2009. The others eventually were deported or released without serving out their terms, some after trips to Pyongyang by prominent Americans, including former U.S. presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.

With already abysmal U.S.-North Korean ties worsening since a long-range rocket-launch more than a year ago, Pyongyang is fishing for another such meeting, said Ahn Chan-il, head of the World Institute for North Korea Studies think tank in South Korea.

"North Korea is using Bae as bait to make such a visit happen. An American bigwig visiting Pyongyang would also burnish Kim Jong Un's leadership profile," Ahn said. Kim took power after his father, Kim Jong Il, died in December 2011.

The authoritarian country has faced increasing criticism over its nuclear weapons ambitions. Disarmament talks including the Koreas, the United States, Japan, China and Russia fell apart in 2009. Several rounds of U.N. sanctions have not encouraged the North to give up its small cache of nuclear devices, which Pyongyang says it must not only keep but expand to protect itself from a hostile Washington.

Pyongyang's tone has softened somewhat recently, following weeks of violent rhetoric, including threats of nuclear war and missile strikes. There have been tentative signs of interest in diplomacy, and a major source of North Korean outrage ? annual U.S.-South Korean military drills ? ended Tuesday.

In Washington, the U.S. State Department said it was working with the Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang to confirm the report of Bae's sentencing. The United States lacks formal diplomatic ties with North Korea and relies on Sweden for diplomatic matters involving U.S. citizens there. The Swedish ambassador in Pyongyang, Karl-Olof Andersson, referred queries to the State Department.

"While Washington will do everything possible to spare an innocent American from years of hard labor, U.S. officials are aware that in all likelihood the North Korean regime wants a meeting to demonstrate that the United States in effect confers legitimacy on the North's nuclear-weapon-state status," Patrick Cronin, a senior analyst with the Washington-based Center for a New American Security, said in an email.

Cronin called Bae's conviction "a hasty gambit to force a direct dialogue with the United States."

Bae's trial on charges of "committing hostile acts" against North Korea took place in the Supreme Court on Tuesday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency said. The announcement came just days after KCNA said Saturday that authorities would soon indict and try him. KCNA has referred to Bae as Pae Jun Ho, the North Korean spelling for his Korean name.

Bae, from Lynnwood, Washington, was arrested in early November in Rason, a special economic zone in North Korea's far northeastern region bordering China and Russia, state media said. The exact nature of Bae's alleged crimes has not been revealed.

Friends and colleagues say Bae was based in the Chinese border city of Dalian and traveled frequently to North Korea to feed orphans. Bae's mother in the United States did not answer calls seeking comment Thursday.

There are parallels to a case in 2009. After Pyongyang's launch of a long-range rocket and its second underground nuclear test that year, two American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor after sneaking across the border from China.

They later were pardoned on humanitarian grounds and released to Clinton, who met with then-leader Kim Jong Il. U.S.-North Korea talks came later that year.

In 2011, Carter visited North Korea to win the release of imprisoned American Aijalon Gomes, who had been sentenced to eight years of hard labor for crossing illegally into the North from China.

Korean American Eddie Jun was released in 2011 after Robert King, the U.S. envoy on North Korean human rights, traveled to Pyongyang. Jun had been detained for half a year over an unspecified crime.

Jun and Gomes are also devout Christians. While North Korea's constitution guarantees freedom of religion, in practice only sanctioned services are tolerated by the government.

U.N. and U.S. officials accuse North Korea of treating opponents brutally. Foreign nationals have told varying stories about their detentions in North Korea.

The two journalists sentenced to hard labor in 2009 stayed in a guest house instead of a labor camp due to medical concerns.

Ali Lameda, a member of Venezuela's Communist Party and a poet invited to the North in 1966 to work as a Spanish translator, said that he was detained in a damp, filthy cell without trial the following year after facing espionage allegations that he denied. He later spent six years in prison after a one-day trial, he said.

___

Associated Press writers Jean H. Lee in Seoul and Lou Kesten in Washington contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-05-02-NKorea-American%20Detained/id-7f5e4a2eb079453ca6adbaba7fcaf898

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Alyssa Milano: Our Bodies Are Not Made for Bikinis

"Our bodies are not made to look good in a string bikini!" the Mistresses star says.

Source: http://feeds.celebritybabies.com/~r/celebrity-babies/~3/KKIBkZAOkcc/

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Deal of the Day: SPE Top Pouch for Galaxy Note and Galaxy Note 2

The May 1 ShopAndroid.com Deal of the Day is the SPE Top Pouch for Galaxy Note and Galaxy Note 2. This pouch is a slim, genuine leather top case that fits your device perfectly for all-around protection. It features an extendable top flap which is used to secure your device inside the pouch. Easily slide the flap through the stitched opening on the front of the case and your smartphone is safe against drops and scratches. Comes in black, brown or white.

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Allergan delays drug that would rival Regeneron's Eylea

By Esha Dey and Ransdell Pierson

(Reuters) - Allergan Inc said approval of its Darpin eye drug could be delayed up to two years, providing a new boost to Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc whose successful treatment, Eylea, stands to gain from a lack of new competition.

Shares of Allergan, which makes wrinkle treatment Botox, fell 13.1 percent after the company said mid-stage trial results of Darpin did not warrant an immediate move into far larger late-stage trials. Regeneron shares closed up 10.3 percent.

If eventually approved, Darpin would also compete with Roche Holding AG's, Lucentis, to treat age-related macular degeneration - the most common form of blindness in the elderly.

Adnan Butt, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets, said Darpin's delay was "great news" for Regeneron. He noted that Wall Street had feared the Allergan drug might have a superior clinical profile to Eylea.

"This gives Eylea even more time to become entrenched as the drug to beat," Butt said.

He estimates that each year of Darpin delay will translate into an upside of about $15 to $20 for Regeneron shares, now trading at about $240.

Eylea, which was approved in November 2011, had sales last year of $838 million. Regeneron expects 2013 Eylea sales of $1.2 billion to $1.3 billion. Company officials would not comment on the setback for Allergan's drug.

Regeneron is expected to report first quarter results on Friday and could update its sales projections.

Allergan Chief Executive David Pyott said on a conference call that a mid-stage trial of Darpin showed some product differentiation over Lucentis, but did not support directly moving to late-stage development.

The company now plans to perform additional mid-stage trials to assess Darpin, which will delay its potential approval by one to two years.

"There was a rush to ascribe a lot of value to Darpin and our view is that this is still very much an unproven asset with limited data," Piper Jaffray analyst David Amsellem said.

"The earliest it could get to market now is likely 2019," Amsellem said. "If you couple that with the setback of the hair loss product, the late-stage pipeline for Allergan right now is really quite thin."

A mid-stage trial of Allergan's hair loss treatment Bimatoprost Scalp also failed to provide sufficient efficacy to proceed to a late-stage study, further weighing on company shares.

ROOM TO GROW

Regeneron in the past two years has vaulted seemingly out of nowhere to become one of the world's biggest biotechnology companies, thanks largely to Eylea.

The company has repeatedly raised its sales forecasts for the drug, which is injected into the eye, as it steadily steals market share from Lucentis.

Some specialty pharmacies also use Roche's Avastin cancer drug, which works the same way as Lucentis, but is far less expensive, when divided into smaller portions for treating macular degeneration.

Roche has said that dividing Avastin through a procedure not closely monitored by health regulators, called compounding, could compromise its sterility.

Regeneron Chief Executive Leonard Schleifer said in a recent interview that sales of Eylea could jump sharply if potential rivals stumble, or if U.S. regulators clamp down on the compounding of Avastin for eye use.

Moreover, he said some analysts believe Eylea sales could swell if it is approved for a new indication called diabetic macular edema now in late-stage trials. Lucentis is already approved for the condition.

"So Eylea is a growth story unto itself, with lots of room to still grow," Schleifer said.

Allergan on Wednesday also posted a higher-than-expected quarterly profit, helped by strong sales of Botox.

Net income for the first quarter fell to $12.5 million, or 4 cents per share, due to a loss of $259 million from discontinued operations. Profit was $229.8 million, or 74 cents per share, a year earlier.

Excluding special items, Allergan earned 98 cents per share. Analysts were expecting 96 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Global company sales rose 8 percent to $1.46 billion, above Wall Street's average estimate of $1.44 billion.

Sales of Botox, which is also approved for treating migraine headaches, overactive bladder and underarm sweating, rose 15 percent to $457.9 million.

Allergan said it now expects 2013 adjusted earnings of $4.70 to $4.76 per share, compared with its prior outlook of $4.75 to $4.83 a share.

The company forecast a second-quarter profit of $1.18 to $1.20 per share, below analysts' average estimate of $1.22 a share. The new forecasts reflect the impact of its MAP Pharmaceuticals acquisition earlier this year.

Allergan shares fell $14.88 to $98.67 on the New York Stock Exchange, while Regeneron shares rose $25.15 to $237.29.

(Reporting by Esha Dey in Bangalore and Bill Berkrot in New York; Editing by Michele Gershberg, Sreejiraj Eluvangal, Carol Bishopric and Andre Grenon)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/allergan-delays-drug-rival-regenerons-eylea-185323020.html

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