When multiple drivers are used in a system, a "filter network", called a crossover, is used to separate the incoming signal into different frequency bands appropriate for each driver. A loudspeaker system with n separate frequency bands is described as "n-way speakers": a 2-way system will have woofer and tweeter speakers; a 3-way system is either a combination of woofer, mid-range and tweeter or subwoofer, woofer and tweeter.

The modern design of moving-coil drivers was established by Oliver Lodge in (1898). The moving coil principle was patented in 1924 by Chester W. Rice and Edward W. Kellogg.

Wireless Outdoor Speakers

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) –
Three months before his death, Michael Jackson committed to co-directing and financing a movie -- a poignant drama about foster children -- and planned to get started as soon as he completed his London concerts.

The news is the latest in a series of revelations that are helping to shed light on the pop star's passions and projects, even as the investigation into his abuse of prescription drugs and a tussle over custody of his children rage on.

The movie project also is eerily keyed to one of the most haunting aspects of Jackson's life: his apparent feeling that the Jackson 5's huge success robbed him of his childhood.

"He was very excited about making movies and wanted his hands on everything, from working on screenplays to producing, to writing the music. However, he never showed any interest in acting," B-movie producer, writer and director Bryan Michael Stoller said of Jackson, who starred in the 1978 pic "The Wiz."

Stoller said he had a 23-year friendship with the pop star and was his partner in the film company Magic Shadows. He was to have co-directed the movie, called "They Cage the Animals at Night," which Stoller said they had been developing for seven years.

INSPIRED BY BOOK

The project was based on a 1985 book about the real-life experiences of author Jennings Michael Burch, who bounced around foster homes as a child. Jackson showed the book to Stoller in 2002 at his Neverland estate and asked if he wanted to produce and co-direct a movie version.

"Michael told me often he felt like he grew up as an orphan, like a foster kid, because he never was in one home," Stoller said. "To him every hotel was like a different foster home. He said he used to sit in the window and see kids playing outside and cry because he couldn't be part of that."

Stoller optioned the book for $1 -- initially without telling Burch about Jackson's involvement. When he did tell him, Stoller said the author was excited to work with the singer.

Jackson, meanwhile, was concerned that Burch, then 67 and suffering from cancer, might not survive to see the movie made. So Stoller suggested bringing Burch to Neverland in 2003, where Jackson turned the tables and interviewed him for what was to be a TV special and for the eventual DVD.

During their highly charged conversation, Jackson asked the author if he had ever considered suicide. Burch said he had, and Jackson said he too had considered it during his darkest days. (A clip from this footage is available at THR.com.)

Stoller recorded their meeting, an addition to a collection of videos he made with Jackson over the years, and to hours of audio recordings from their meetings.

Stoller told The Hollywood Reporter he has now come forward because he believes this material humanizes his friend at a time when much myth-making about Jackson is taking place. The producer also is marketing his video, audio and photos either for outright sale or as a project he would produce and direct.

He said he already has had interest from NBC, CBS and E!

But insiders in the Jackson camp said there was no formal deal in place for any Jackson involvement in "Cage"; discussions between the artist and Stoller occurred when Jackson was without management, which may have frowned on any distractions as he prepared for the London shows.

'CAST AWAY' CAST OFF

Jackson's last film foray was a 2005 comedic farce, "Miss Cast Away and the Island Girls," produced, written and directed by Stoller and starring Eric Roberts. Jackson is briefly in the movie as Agent M.J., who comes to the rescue of various characters on a beam of light. The movie was a direct-to-DVD release sold briefly at Blockbuster stores.

When Jackson was indicted on child molestation charges shortly after its release, Blockbuster pulled the film from its shelves. "Miss Cast Away" has been sold overseas by Showcase Entertainment, and Stoller said he has offers for a new domestic video release for Jackson's last movie appearance.

"They Cage the Animals" also was affected by the molestation charges, Stoller said. In 2003 the producer arranged a three-hour meeting in a Universal City hotel between Jackson and Mel Gibson, who besides being an actor is a producer and partner in Icon Prods. "They got along great," Stoller said. "It was kind of funny. Mel was a little nervous. He was hugging a pillow the whole time, kind of playing with it. Michael was kind of shy."

Icon signed a deal to develop the project with a budget of $12 million-$20 million, according to Stoller, who was paid by Icon to write the screenplay. A couple of months later, when Jackson was indicted in Santa Barbara, Calif., Icon dropped the project, and Gibson stopped returning Stoller's phone calls. There were news reports in 2005 that Icon had dropped the project. A spokesman for Icon said the company briefly was involved in developing it in 1995 but had lost interest by 1997. Stoller has a copy of his contract with Icon dated 2002.

Stoller said Icon still owns the screenplay, but an Icon representative rebutted that, saying the company has had no involvement or ownership for 10 years. Gibson declined comment for this report.

WATCHING MOVIES

Jackson lost contact with Stoller for about two years during the period when the singer was on trial. But after his acquittal, Jackson reached out to him. They had watched dozens of movies in the Neverland theater; Stoller said Jackson's favorite was "To Kill a Mockingbird," and that they also discussed doing a remake of the comedy musical "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang."

"When Jackson called in 2007, he still had movies on his mind," Stoller said. "He had begun to purchase movie production equipment. He was always asking how things work, but I never saw him really work things. But he wanted all the toys. He bought a dolly and wanted me to show the kids how to use it because they were using it as a play toy, riding around on it."

Jackson wasn't interested in making a blockbuster. "He wanted to do movies the Academy would like," Stoller recalled.

Three months before Jackson's death, he and Stoller had "a pretty serious meeting" about reviving "They Cage the Animals" as an indie feature, the producer said.

"Michael was going to put up $8 million and not have to deal with any studios or producers and then take it to the studios afterward," Stoller said. "He was very passionate about being a director. He was determined to make this movie."

(Editing by SheriLinden at Reuters)

WASHINGTON – House Democrats want to give doctors a $245 billion sweetener that helps ensure their critical support for a health care overhaul bill. Next up: trying to explain how they could do it without breaking President Barack Obama's promise that health legislation won't increase the federal deficit.
Obama reiterated the pledge in a "CBS Evening News" interview Tuesday, saying: "It's got to be deficit neutral. It can't add to our deficits."
So what of the Congressional Budget Office's conclusion that the House bill does add to the deficit?
Democrats and the Obama administration argue that the $245 billion included for doctors — the approximate 10-year cost of adjusting Medicare reimbursement rates so physicians don't face big annual pay cuts — does not have to be counted in the overall cost of the health care bill.
Their only-in-Washington reasoning is that they already decided to exempt it from congressional "pay-as-you-go" rules that require new programs to be paid for. In other words, it doesn't have to be paid for because they decided it doesn't have to be paid for.
The administration also says that since Obama already included the so-called "doc fix" in his 10-year budget proposal, it doesn't have to be counted again in the health overhaul bill.
"It so happens they added that to this piece of legislation, but that's sort of already baked into our fiscal trajectory," White House budget director Peter Orszag said last weekend on "Fox News Sunday."
"We're looking at what's happening with regard to new policy," Orszag added. "And with regard to new policy, this is deficit neutral over the first decade."
Old policy or new, no one disputes that the "doc fix" does in fact add to the deficit. And the administration's position carried no weight with the CBO when it released its analysis of the House Democrats' bill.
The CBO, Congress' nonpartisan budget scorekeeper, said Friday that enacting the legislation "would result in a net increase to the federal budget deficit of $239 billion over the 2010-2019 period." The increase is mostly because of Democrats' failure to pay for the "doc fix," but CBO didn't even bother to entertain the notion that its cost should be excluded.
The response from House Democrats? A wave of triumphant press releases claiming — misleadingly — that CBO's estimates backed up their claims that their bill was deficit neutral.
The issue is providing ammunition for Republicans, who are accusing Obama of breaking his deficit-neutrality promise. And health experts scoff at the Democrats' fuzzy math.
"Of course it adds to the deficit," said Alex Vachon, a health policy analyst. But at the same time, Vachon and others give the Obama administration and congressional Democrats some credit for attempting to permanently fix the doctor payment issue.
Since its enactment in 1997 the so-called "sustainable growth rate" mechanism, which uses a complex formula to establishes annual target costs for physicians' services under Medicare, has not kept up with actual costs.
That's required Congress to step in almost annually with one-year fixes to prevent doctors from facing ever-bigger potential cuts in payment rates. The cut that loomed for doctors in 2010 was 21 percent. Without a permanent redo of the payment formula, Congress would presumably have had to continue to do one-year fixes, something that would also have cost money and that doctors hated because of the uncertainty involved.
The "doc fix" has been a top priority for the American Medical Association, which cited its inclusion as a key reason for its endorsement of the House Democrats' sweeping health care bill.
In the Senate, Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., who is presiding over negotiations aimed at a bipartisan agreement on health care, said the issue of paying for the "doc fix" has not yet come up in the talks.
Robert Laszewski, a former insurance company executive who's now a consultant to industry, contended doctors were "paid off" to support the House bill.

"The AMA would not have endorsed the House bill without the doc fix," Laszewski said. "The fact that the CBO has said the doc fix would add hundreds of billions of dollars to the cost of the bill makes clear how much it is worth to the docs."

Asked to comment, the AMA provided a written statement from the group's president, Dr. James Rohack: "Expansion of health care coverage, elimination of denials for pre-existing conditions and repeal of the flawed Medicare physician payment formula are all reasons the AMA supports the House bill."

___

AP Special Correspondent David Espo contributed to this report.

SEATTLE – Apple Inc. seems to have missed the memo — you know, the one about the recession.
Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple coasted past Wall Street's expectations for its fiscal third quarter on a wave of laptop and iPhone sales. It did it during a quarter in which total computer shipments fell worldwide. And it did it without sacrificing profit.
Investors sent Apple's stock up $6.82, or 4.5 percent, to $158.33 in after-hours trading Tuesday. Shares had dipped $1.40 to end regular trading at $151.51.
"Times are tough. Apple continues to post pretty strong numbers," said Shaw Wu, an analyst for Kaufman Bros. "It's pretty incredible. It truly is."
Apple, the closest thing the tech industry has to a luxury brand, said earnings for the three months that ended June 27 jumped 15 percent to $1.23 billion, or $1.35 per share. Apple's profit was $1.07 billion, or $1.19 per share, in the same period last year.
The company, which recently welcomed CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs back from medical leave, said sales increased 12 percent to $8.34 billion from $7.46 billion in the year-ago quarter.
Apple beat Wall Street's forecast on both measures. Analysts were expecting Apple to earn $1.17 per share — less than last year — on $8.20 billion in revenue, according to a Thomson Reuters survey.
"In a better economy I think we would have sold even more," Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer said in an interview.
Apple said it sold more than 5.2 million iPhones in the quarter, more than seven times what it sold in the 2008 quarter, thanks in part to a newly released version of the device.
Apple also sold 4 percent more Mac computers than a year ago, with a 13 percent rise in laptop unit sales more than making up for a 10 percent drop in desktops. Meanwhile, researchers recently reported a 3 percent to 5 percent decline for the overall worldwide PC market in the same period.
Apple's decision to cut laptop prices during the quarter helped it buck the industry trend, even though the move dragged laptop revenue down 2 percent. Tim Cook, Apple's chief operating officer, said Mac sales picked up after the company announced the cuts, its first major price reductions in the recession.
Cook said Mac revenue was also hurt as businesses that typically buy more expensive models continued to put off technology spending. Other computer makers, such as Dell Inc., have also said customers are holding on to their existing machines for longer than normal.
Wu noted that lowering prices didn't eat into Apple's gross margin, which improved from a year ago and beat his expectations. Apple said component costs weren't as high as anticipated, and Wu said he thinks the Mac remained one of Apple's most profitable businesses.
The main weak spot was Apple's iPod line. Even though iPod Touch unit sales more than doubled, total iPod unit sales fell 7 percent, hurt by declines in what Apple considers its traditional MP3 players — iPod Classic, Nano and Shuffle. Oppenheimer told analysts on a conference call that such declines are to be expected as Apple "cannibalizes" iPod sales by offering similar features, plus access to thousands of third-party applications, in the $229-and-up iPod Touch and the iPhone — the cheapest of which is now $99, plus a monthly service contract.
Apple's revenue increased in every region, including the U.S. and Europe. Average revenue in each of Apple's retail stores was $5.9 million, lower than the $6.8 million Apple reported at the same time last year.
At the end of the quarter, Apple's cash hoard totaled $31.1 billion, up from $28.9 billion at the end of the previous quarter.
For the current fourth quarter, Apple said it expects to earn $1.18 to $1.23 per share on $8.7 billion to $8.9 billion in sales. Analysts are looking for a stronger performance — profit of $1.30 per share on revenue of $9.1 billion — but Apple's guidance is typically conservative.

HARTFORD, Conn. – ESPN reporter Erin Andrews was secretly videotaped in the nude while she was alone in a hotel room, and the video was posted on the Internet, her attorney said.
The blurry, five-minute video shows Andrews standing in front of a hotel room mirror. It's unknown when or where it was shot.
Andrews' attorney, Marshall Grossman, confirmed Tuesday that the video posted on the Internet shows the 31-year-old reporter. He said she decided to confirm it "to put an end to rumor and speculation and to put the perpetrator and those who are complicit on notice that they act at their peril."
Andrews plans to seek criminal charges and file civil lawsuits against the person who shot the video and anyone who publishes the material, Grossman said.
"While alone in the privacy of her hotel room, Erin Andrews was surreptitiously videotaped without her knowledge or consent," Grossman said in an earlier statement. "She was the victim of a crime and is taking action to protect herself and help ensure that others are not similarly violated in the future."
Andrews has covered hockey, college football, college basketball and Major League Baseball for the network since 2004, often as a sideline reporter during games.
A former dance team member at the University of Florida, Andrews was something of an Internet sensation even before the video's circulation. She has been referred to as "Erin Pageviews" because of the traffic that video clips and photos of her generate, and Playboy magazine named her "sexiest sportscaster" in both 2008 and 2009.
She last appeared on the network as part of its ESPY Awards broadcast on Sunday, and is scheduled to be off until September, when she will be covering college football, ESPN spokesman Josh Krulewitz said.
"Erin has been grievously wronged here," Krulewitz said. "Our people and resources are in full support of her as she deals with this abhorrent act."
It was not clear when the video first appeared on the Internet. Most of the links to it had been removed by Tuesday.
Several TV networks and newspapers aired brief clips or printed screen grabs of it Tuesday. Grossman responded to an e-mail question about whether he plans to go after those outlets by reiterating his statement that Andrews plans to seek civil charges against "anyone who has published the material."
He would not say what law enforcement agencies might be investigating.
ESPN is based in Bristol, but Connecticut State Police were not involved in an investigation into the video, said Lt. J. Paul Vance, a department spokesman. Vance said investigations into Internet crimes often begin in the victim's home state or wherever the video was shot, if that can be determined.
A phone call to a listing for Andrews in Georgia went unanswered. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said it was not involved in any investigation of the video.
Video voyeurism laws vary from state to state. In Connecticut, it is considered a felony and can result in a prison sentence of up to five years, Vance said.
FBI spokesman Paul Bresson said the FBI was not involved in the case, and was unsure if there was any federal jurisdiction.
Ephraim Cohen, a spokesman for the video portal Dailymotion, could not confirm the video had actually appeared on his company's site, but said it may have been there months ago. He said a search for the name of the user who purportedly uploaded the video showed the person had opened an account in February, but had since closed it.
"As far as we can tell, the user took the account and the video down a while ago," he said.

Illegal videos often are posted to multiple sites such as YouTube and Dailymotion, which remove them as soon as they are found. The videos also often circulate on peer-to-peer or file-sharing sites, much like illegal music downloads.

Graham Cluley, who writes a blog for the antivirus software maker Sophos, wrote that several links purporting to send Internet users to the Andrews video actually sent them to sites with malicious software and computer viruses.

He said the some of the hackers actually include a portion of the video on their sites, apparently hoping that the malware gets passed along as users share the link with friends.

"They keep on using (videos like this) because it works," Cluley said. "If more people thought with their head rather than with their trousers, maybe less of these viruses would spread on our computers."

Krulewitz, the ESPN spokesman, said the network has decided not to cover the issue as a news story, "particularly since it has no bearing on her role as an on-air reporter."

Membership Management Software

Computer software is often regarded as anything but hardware, meaning that the "hard" are the parts that are tangible while the "soft" part is the intangible objects inside the computer. Software encompasses an extremely wide array of products and technologies developed using different techniques like programming languages, scripting languages or even microcode or a FPGA state. The types of software include web pages developed by technologies like HTML, PHP, Perl, JSP, ASP.NET, XML, and desktop applications like OpenOffice, Microsoft Word developed by technologies like C, C++, Java, C#, etc. Software usually runs on an underlying software operating systems such as the Linux or Microsoft Windows. Software also includes video games and the logic systems of modern consumer devices such as automobiles, televisions, toasters, etc.

The term "software" was first used in this sense by John W. Tukey in 1958. In computer science and software engineering, computer software is all computer programs. The theory that is the basis for most modern software was first proposed by Alan Turing in his 1935 essay Computable numbers with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem.

NEW YORK (Reuters) –
President Barack Obama had a tough-love message for fellow African-Americans on Thursday, urging black parents to push their children to think beyond dreams of being sports stars or rap music performers.

Obama's election as the first African-American president buoyed the black community. At the 100th anniversary celebration of the NAACP, the country's oldest civil rights group, he urged blacks to take greater responsibility for themselves and move away from reliance on government programs.

"We need a new mindset, a new set of attitudes -- because one of the most durable and destructive legacies of discrimination is the way that we have internalized a sense of limitation; how so many in our community have come to expect so little of ourselves," he said.

Obama told a packed ballroom at a Manhattan hotel that blacks need to recapture the spirit of the civil rights movement of a half century ago to tackle problems that have struck African-Americans disproportionately -- joblessness, spiraling healthcare costs and HIV-AIDS.

"What is required to overcome today's barriers is the same as was needed then -- the same commitment. The same sense of urgency. The same sense of sacrifice," he said.

Obama said parents need to force their children to set aside the video games and get to bed at a reasonable hour, and push them to set their sights beyond such iconic figures as NBA star LeBron James and rap singer Lil Wayne.

Education is the path to a better future, said Obama.

"Our kids can't all aspire to be the next LeBron or Lil Wayne. I want them aspiring to be scientists and engineers, doctors and teachers, not just ballers and rappers. I want them aspiring to be a Supreme Court justice. I want them aspiring to be president of the United States," he said.

Obama noted that his own life could have taken a different path, had it not been for his mother's urgings.

'SHE TOOK NO LIP'

"That mother of mine gave me love; she pushed me, and cared about my education," he said. "She took no lip and taught me right from wrong. Because of her, I had a chance to make the most of my abilities. I had the chance to make the most of my opportunities. I had the chance to make the most of life."

Obama was on one of his first major political outings since he took office January 20.

In Holmdel, New Jersey, he spoke twice for Gov. Jon Corzine, who is seeking re-election but lagging badly in the polls against Republican nominee Chris Christie.

New Jersey and Virginia hold gubernatorial elections in November. Though local issues typically define who wins, the outcome is likely to be viewed as an early referendum on Obama's leadership, ahead of the 2010 congressional elections.

Obama himself enjoys strong public approval ratings well over 50 percent, but they have been dropping in recent weeks from the lofty heights he had enjoyed in the first months of his presidency, suggesting his political honeymoon was coming to an end as Americans begin to examine his policies.

Obama said in recession-hit New Jersey that turning around the jobless rate is usually one of the lagging indicators at the end of an economic downturn.

After earlier in the week announcing it was now his economy to fix, he was tough in his criticism of Republicans, blaming them for getting the country into the current predicament.

Corzine, speaking to thousands at an open-air arena, attempted to tie his Republican opponents to the unpopular presidency of George W. Bush, a strategy similar to that which Obama employed in defeating John McCain last November.

"The same people who miserably failed in the White House now want you to hand the keys to the statehouse to them. No way!" Corzine said.

NEW YORK – Kiefer Sutherland won't be in Manhattan court this week to answer allegations that he head-butted a fashion designer.
A spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney's office says the actor's scheduled court appearance Friday on an assault charge has been postponed. A new date has not been set yet.
The star of the Fox TV show "24" was charged May 7 with misdemeanor assault after designer Jack McCollough said he head-butted him and broke his nose at a Manhattan nightclub.
Sutherland and McCollough issued a joint statement a few weeks later saying they had resolved their differences, clearing the way for charges to be dropped. Sutherland apologized to McCollough in the statement.
Sutherland's lawyer did not return a call for comment Thursday.

COLUMBIA, S.C. – South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford shed his fiscal conservatism on several taxpayer-funded international trips, including a South American jaunt that included time with his mistress, choosing expensive first-class or business-class seats while his aides sat in coach.
Sanford, who once criticized other state officials for costly travel, charged the state more than $37,600 for one first-class and four business-class flights overseas since November 2005, expense records show. Other state employees flew in the back of the plane at a fraction of the price, according to the documents.
The Republican governor, who balked at taking federal stimulus money after arguing it was an unwise use of taxpayer funds, charged the state $8,687 for a Delta Airlines trip to Brazil last year that included a leg in business class, state expense records show.
That trip ended with the governor's now well-publicized visit to his Argentine mistress, Maria Belen Chapur, and marked what he says was the start of a nearly year-long sexual affair with the woman he's called his "soul mate."
Other state employees spent less than $2,000 each on economy seats for the Brazil flight, according to the records, released by two state agencies under South Carolina's Freedom of Information Act.
Sanford has since repaid $3,300 for part of that Brazil-Argentina trip.
His spokesman defended the governor's state travel as "very judicious."
"He compares very favorably with previous administrations on use of the state plane, and we believe he would compare favorably on his use of other state travel as well," spokesman Joel Sawyer said.
But Sanford's habit of more costly travel at the taxpayers' expense contradicts his claim of frugality. When first running for governor in 2002, the former congressman, who once boasted of sleeping on a cot in his office to save money, blasted incumbent state officials for their expensive flights.
"This kind of lavish spending with taxpayers footing the bill just doesn't make any sense to me," Sanford said in one campaign ad. "If I become your governor, I'll fix that problem."
State Senate Minority Leader John Land recalls the criticism that candidate Sanford heaped on others.
"I reckon he's a hypocrite," the Democrat said. "He goes before the Christian right and professes to be one thing and yet his conduct is something else. He goes before the people of the state and talks about his fiscal conservatism. But yet when you see him in action, he's going first class and spending the state taxpayers' money."
In interviews earlier this month with The Associated Press, the governor said he paid his own way when visiting his mistress during a New York rendezvous last September.
Asked if he flew coach, Sanford was quick to point out his personal thrifty side. "Yeah. You remember, I am paying," he said with a laugh.
State travel records for Sanford, who took office in January 2003, are available only back to the fall of 2005, and the documents show a persistent pattern of expensive state travel.
For example, he charged taxpayers $12,172 for travel to China in 2007, which included business-class accommodations on United Airlines, complete with upgraded food, drinks and an oversized reclining chair.
State Rep. Nikki Haley, a Republican, was a member of the state mission to China. A leading ally of Sanford's in the legislature, Haley had just wrapped up her freshman term when she was invited to attend the World Economic Forum with the governor.
She recalled a dozen or so delegates, mostly from the business community, but said she couldn't remember whether she flew coach or first class. Although expense records released by the state Commerce Department and comptroller's office do not show the type of ticket purchased, her flight cost $6,842.

"It was a big deal that we were the only state in the country that was asked to bring a delegation," Haley said. "It was very prestigious."

Other state employees who went on the trip charged the state between $1,905 and $3,963 each for their flights, the expense records show.

The records provide details of several other high-priced trips.

The state paid more than $5,000 for Sanford to fly to Poland in April, including at least part of the trip in the more expensive business-class seating. Using a different airline, Sanford's Commerce Secretary Joe Taylor also flew in business class on part of his journey, the records show. The state has not released all expense records from that trip.

Sanford spent $4,685 of taxpayer money on a Lufthansa business-class flight to Munich in April 2007.

The governor also flew in the most expensive "envoy class," also referred to as first class, on a U.S. Airways flight to London in 2006 at a cost of $7,065, according to the documents.

__

Blackledge reported from Washington, D.C.

TEHRAN (Reuters) –
Newly re-elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday his next government "would bring down the global arrogance," signaling a tougher approach by Tehran toward the West after last month's disputed election.

Ahmadinejad, in his first provincial trip after the June 12 presidential vote, said Iran's enemies had tried to interfere and foment aggression in the country, referring to mass opposition protests against the official election result.

The hardline president, who often rails against the West, said the Islamic Republic wanted "logic and negotiations" but that Western powers had insulted the Iranian nation and should apologize.

Iranian leaders often refer to the United States and its allies as the "global arrogance."

"As soon as the new government is established, with power and authority, ten times more than before, it will enter the global scene and will bring down the global arrogance," he told a big crowd in the northeastern city of Mashhad.

"They should wait as a new wave of revolutionary thinking ... from the Iranian nation is on the way and we will not allow the arrogant (powers) to even have one night of good sleep," Ahmadinejad said, according to state broadcaster IRIB.

Opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi, Ahmadinejad's main challenger in the election, says it was rigged in the incumbent's favor. The authorities reject charges of vote fraud.

Iran has accused Britain and the United States, which have criticised a crackdown on opposition protests, of interfering in its internal affairs. London and Washington reject the charge.

"In this recent election the enemy tried to bring the battlefront to the interior of this country," Ahmadinejad said.

"But I have told the enemies ... that this nation ... will strike you in the face so hard you will lose your way home," he said in comments translated by English-language Press TV.

He also voiced continued defiance in a row over Iran's disputed nuclear ambitions, saying major powers "will not be able to take away the smallest amount of Iran's rights."

Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful power purposes. Western countries suspect it is aimed at making bombs.

(Reporting by Zahra Hosseinian; writing by Fredrik Dahl; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

LONDON – An ugly scramble is brewing over the swine flu vaccine — and when it becomes available, Britain, the United States and other nations could find that the contracts they signed with pharmaceutical companies are easily broken.
Experts warn that during a global epidemic, which the world is in now, governments may be under tremendous pressure to protect their own citizens first before allowing companies to ship doses of vaccine out of the country.
That does not bode well for many nations, including the United States, which makes only 20 percent of the regular flu vaccines it uses, or Britain, where all of its flu vaccines are produced abroad.
"This isn't rocket science," said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. "If there is severe disease, countries will want to hang onto the vaccine for their own citizens."
Experts say politicians would not be able to withstand the pressure.
"The consequences of shipping vaccine to another country when your own people don't have it would be devastating," added David Fedson, a retired vaccine industry executive.
About 70 percent of the world's existing flu vaccines are made in Europe, and only a handful of countries are self-sufficient in vaccines. The U.S. has limited flu vaccine facilities, and because factories can't be built overnight, there is no quick fix to boost vaccine supplies.
Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced it was spending $884 million to buy extra supplies of two key ingredients for a swine flu vaccine. The U.S. has contracts to get swine flu vaccines from Sanofi Pasteur, MedImmune, GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis. Sanofi Pasteur and MedImmune both have vaccine plants in the U.S., while GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis have plants in Europe.
Even if the U.S. held onto all the swine flu vaccine produced domestically, it would still not be enough for all Americans.
About 80 million Americans are vaccinated against the seasonal flu every year. In 2004, when problems with the U.S.' flu vaccine supply at a British factory hit, there were less than 54 million shots available. Flu vaccines were saved for those in high-risk groups like the elderly and pregnant women, and officials asked other people to simply forgo their usual flu shot.
If there are limited swine flu shots during a pandemic that turns more serious, experts are not sure people will be as willing to skip getting a vaccine.
Last week, the World Health Organization reported nearly 95,000 cases of swine flu, including 429 deaths worldwide. If swine flu turns deadlier in the winter, the main flu season in the Northern Hemisphere, countries will likely be clamoring for any available vaccines.
"Pandemic vaccine will be a valuable and scarce resource, like oil or food during a famine," said David Fidler, a professor of law at Indiana University who has consulted for WHO. "We've seen how countries behave in those situations, and it's not encouraging."
Britain claims it will start vaccinating people in August, Italy says it will begin by the end of the year, and many other countries have similar strategies. Those mass vaccination plans could be derailed by problems making the vaccine and by other countries' refusal to ship it abroad.
If the virus remains mild, this could all be moot. Experts estimate swine flu to be about as dangerous as seasonal flu, and there usually isn't a high demand for those vaccines. Still, regular flu kills up to 500,000 people a year.
In past pandemics, or global epidemics, vaccines were never exported before the country that produced them got enough for its own population first.
Unlike the last two pandemics in 1957 and 1968, however, many more countries this time around have struck deals with companies which they say guarantee them first access to vaccine. Yet in a global health emergency, those contracts may ultimately be meaningless.
Countries with flu vaccine plants might decide to seize all vaccines and ban their export, thus breaking the pharmaceutical contracts promising other countries vaccine supplies. These private contracts are not binding international law between two countries, according to Fidler.

He said most vaccine contracts include a clause allowing them to be broken under extraordinary circumstances, such as a health emergency. That would leave the countries who had brokered such deals not only without vaccine, but without legal recourse.

"There's nothing in international law that helps you resolve this, it's just a political nightmare happening in the midst of an epidemiological nightmare," Fidler said.

Britain has ordered 60 million doses, enough to cover its entire population. But those doses are being manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline PLC and Baxter International Inc., whose production plants are in Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic. Neither Britain's department of health or the vaccine manufacturers would comment on delivery plans.

On Thursday, Britain's chief medical officer estimated that as many as 75,000 Britons could eventually be killed by the swine flu pandemic, if 1 in 3 people are infected.

Osterholm said about 80 percent of the United States' pandemic vaccine supply will be coming from abroad and he is very concerned about when it might arrive. Timing could be everything to avoid a vaccine spat.

"It's easy to move vaccine around if the disease is relatively mild. But if it is more severe, countries may not be willing to let it go," he said.

So far, swine flu remains a relatively mild disease, and most people don't need medical treatment to get better. But experts fear the virus could mutate into a more dangerous form. And during the flu season, when the virus spreads more easily, more people will probably fall sick and die.

Public health officials are aware that so-called "vaccine wars" might break out if the swine flu outbreak worsens, but are loathe to even discuss the topic.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, an agency of the European Union, said it had no mandate to advise countries in such circumstances. WHO said it was not aware of any nations planning to block the shipment of vaccines and said it would work to ensure all countries get enough doses to protect their health workers.

Questions also remain about when a swine flu vaccine will even be available, as WHO reported this week that a fully licensed vaccine might not be ready until the end of the year.

With little or no safety data about a swine flu vaccine, governments that are planning to roll out mass campaigns are taking a gamble, since any rare side effects won't show up until millions of people start getting the shots.

Experts say government promises about when vaccines will arrive should be taken with a huge grain of salt.

"Many pieces of the puzzle are missing," Osterholm said. "Anyone who pretends to have a well-defined schedule of vaccine delivery is obviously very poorly informed."

The Starting Point is a snapshot of the news stories that occurred overnight. Look for updates throughout the day on Yahoo! News and in the news box on Yahoo.com.

Top story overnight: The number of U.S. households on the verge of foreclosure soared nearly 15 percent in the first half of the year, affecting more than 1.5 million homes, The Associated Press reported. Although the Obama administration launched a $50 billion plan in March to give the lending industry incentives to modify mortgages and lower payments, a new report from RealtyTrac showed that over 336,000 households, or 1 in every 380 homes, received at least one foreclosure-related notice in June. Nevada, Arizona, Florida, California and Utah suffered the highest rates of foreclosure.
In other news: A Taliban commander in Afghanistan claims that a missing U.S. soldier is being held unharmed by insurgents, Reuters reported. Mawlavi Sangin accused the U.S. military of harassing and arresting Afghans in the southeastern provinces, and threatened to kill the soldier if these actions did not cease. The U.S. military said the soldier has been missing since late June and was presumed captured.Gunmen shot and killed a U.N. employee and a bodyguard today during a failed kidnap attempt at a Pakistan refugee camp, The AP reported. The assailants allegedly tried to abduct the U.N. worker, then opened fire when he resisted. The slain worker was identified as Zill-e-Usman, a 59-year-old Pakistani who was in charge of the U.N.'s relief efforts at the Kacha Garhi camp near Peshawar. Another guard and a local U.N. worker were also wounded in the attack.Finally, a former surgical technician who is suspected of exposing nearly 6,000 patients to hepatitis C in Colorado may also have infected 2,800 more patients in New York. Kristen Diane Parker, 26, is accused of injecting herself with painkillers meant for patients, then filling the used syringes with saline solution, even though she knew she was infected. According to The AP, patients who had surgery at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco between Oct. 8, 2007 and Feb. 28, 2008 are being urged by the health department to get tested for the blood-borne disease. At the time of this writing, 10 cases of Hep C have been linked to Denver's Rose Medical Center, where Parker worked until April.Most-read stories overnight: A New York City teenager plead guilty to charges of animal cruelty and attempted burglary on Wednesday, The AP reported. Authorities said Cheyenne Cherry, 17, and a 14-year-old accomplice ransacked a Bronx apartment on May 6, then placed a kitten inside an oven where it roasted to death. Cherry, who admitted her role in the incident, will serve a year in jail.Readers were also interested in this accident story out of Michigan. A gas tanker carrying approximately 13,000 gallons of fuel exploded on I-75 north of Detroit last night. The blast, which sent flames hundreds of feet into the air, caused an overpass to collapse onto the interstate below. At the time of this writing, no evacuations or warnings have been issued for nearby residents. Click here to view pictures from the scene.Looking ahead: President Barack Obama will address the NAACP tonight and celebrate the organization's 100th birthday. More women are scheduled to testify today and accuse evangelist Tony Alamo of taking them as underage brides. A verdict is expected in the case of a Chinese-born engineer accused of passing trade secrets on the U.S. space program to China. And, nominations for the 61st Primetime Emmy Awards will be announced this morning. The show, with Neil Patrick Harris as host, is scheduled to air on Sept. 20 from the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles.Poll: Twtpoll is undergoing maintenance so there will be no poll today.Today in history: Forty years ago, Apollo 11 blasted off from Cape Kennedy on the first manned mission to the moon.Birthdays: Actor Mark Indelicato, 15. Actress AnnaLynne McCord, 22. Musician Ed Kowalczyk, 38. Actor Corey Feldman, 38. Actress Rain Pryor, 40. Football Hall of Famer Barry Sanders, 41. Actor/comedian Will Ferrell, 42. Actress Phoebe Cates, 46. Former NFL kicker Gary Anderson, 50. Dancer Michael Flatley, 51. Playwright Tony Kushner, 53. Musician Stewart Copeland (The Police), 57. Singer/actor Ruben Blades, 61. Violinist Pinchas Zukerman, 61. Tennis Hall of Famer Margaret Smith Court, 67. Former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, 77. Note: Want to receive The Starting Point in your e-mail box? Subscribe to our new mailing list by sending a blank e-mail to ystartingpoint-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

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--Jade Walker is the overnight editor of Yahoo! News. News doesn't stop when the lights go out, and neither does Jade.

**Yahoo! News bloggers compile the best news content from our providers and scour the Web for the most interesting news stories so you don't have to.

NEW YORK (Reuters) –
Stock index futures turned positive on Thursday after JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) posted quarterly results showing it beat net earnings and revenue estimates.

S&P 500 futures were 1.60 points higher and were about even with fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures climbed 27 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures added 0.50 points.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Theodore d'Afflisio)

WASHINGTON – Lawyers have their own code words, and when they start talking, it's difficult for non-lawyers to understand what they are saying.
Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., a doctor, said as much on Wednesday at Judge Sonia Sotomayor's Supreme Court confirmation hearing. "When two lawyers talk, most of us who aren't lawyers — like I'm not — have trouble following," he said. Sotomayor and most members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are lawyers, so some of the words they're using may be confusing.
A look at the meaning of some of the terms cropping up in the hearing:
• Chevron deference. A legal test for determining whether a court should accept a federal agency's interpretation of its own rules and regulations. It comes from the Supreme Court ruling in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council. Chevron deference generally means that judges do not substitute their own interpretation of agency rules for a reasonable interpretation made by the agency. Sotomayor said the same thing. "To the extent that an agency interpretation is not inconsistent with congressional commands, expressed commercial commands, a judge can't substitute their own judgment of what policies should be or regulations should be, but is commanded to give deference," she said.
• Pro bono. Latin for "for the public good." What it actually means is work lawyers do for free for "the public good." Even though senators have focused on her "wise Latina remark," Sotomayor said the majority of her speeches are about "public service and pro bono work."
• Jurisprudence. From the Latin term juris prudentia, defined as "the study, knowledge or science of law." A long word that means judicial philosophy. Sotomayor said a lawyer who claimed that she has liberal instincts "has not read my jurisprudence for 17 years."
• Stare decisis. To stand by a previous decision — one way of saying to be guided by precedent. Sotomayor used the term when asked about a 5-4 Supreme Court decision in 2005, Kelo v. City of New London, that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses for private economic development.
• Judicial precedent. A ruling that establishes a principle that another court later relies on when presented with a similar circumstance. Supreme Court and judicial nominees always say they will follow judicial precedent. However, once confirmed to lifetime seats, judges can use any reasoning. Sotomayor said Tuesday a court should only depart from precedent "very, very cautiously."
• Per curiam. By the court. A ruling that is handed down by a court but unsigned by the individual judges. It is usually accompanied by little if any explanation of how judges reached their decision. Republicans complained that Sotomayor and two other judges on an appeals court panel provided only cursory reasoning when they ruled per curiam against white firefighters in their discrimination lawsuit in New Haven, Conn. "We can't handle the volume of our work if we were writing long decisions in every case," Sotomayor said. "But, more importantly, because not every case requires a long opinion if a district court opinion has been clear and thorough on an issue."
• Fundamental rights. Some rights are fundamental in a legal sense, others are not. The Constitution is the leading but not sole authority on which is which. A right that the Supreme Court deems fundamental is much harder to restrict than other rights. At issue in the Sotomayor hearing is whether the right to bear arms is a fundamental right beyond the reach of state and local gun controls. The Supreme Court hasn't decided whether bearing arms is a fundamental right. It might consider the question this fall.
• En banc. A French term meaning cases heard by all appeals judges in a circuit, not just one judge or a panel of them. Usually done with cases of special importance or complexity.
• Petition for certiorari. The term for appealing a ruling to the Supreme Court.

GROZNY, Russia – The Kremlin-installed leader of Chechnya has said he will personally oversee the investigation into the brazen murder of a top human rights activist — even though the victim's colleagues accuse Ramzan Kadyrov's security forces of involvement.
The United States and the European Union have condemned Wednesday's daylight shooting of Natalya Estermirova, a daring investigator of rights abuses in Russia's troubled North Caucasus. She worked with human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov and reporter Anna Politkovskaya, also killed likely for their work.
The murder of Estemirova, whose body was found late Wednesday with bullet holes in the head roadside in the Ingushetia region, west of Chechnya, appeared to confirm that Russia remains a place where political murders are committed without fear of reprisal.
Her funeral was expected later Thursday in Grozny.
Colleagues of Estermirova accuse Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov of involvement in her murder. Estemirova investigated rights violations in his province.
But Kadyrov, in typically brash fashion, has vowed to bring the perpetrators of a murder he called "cynical" and "provocative" to justice.
His spokesman Alvi Kerimov told the AP on Thursday that Kadyrov has promised two investigations — one official and one "unofficial, according to Chechen traditions." It was unclear exactly what this meant, and there was no elaboration.
Kadyrov was also accused by some of involvement in Politkovskaya's slaying in 2006, but Kadyrov reportedly replied "I don't kill women."
Estemirova in 2007 was the first recipient of an Anna Politkovskaya memorial award, given by the Reach All Women in War charity, and received other European awards for her work.
She had collected evidence of rights abuses in Chechnya since 1999, when the second separatist war began in the province after the Soviet collapse of 1991. She was a key researcher for a recent Human Rights Watch report that accused Chechen authorities of burning more than two dozen houses in the past year to punish relatives of alleged rebels.
Estemirova, a 50-year-old single mother, was kidnapped Wednesday morning, according to the prominent rights organization she worked for, Memorial. Chairman Oleg Orlov said that four men forced her into a car in the Chechen capital, Grozny, where she lived. He said witnesses heard her yell that she was being abducted.
About nine hours later, her body was found.
Russian news agencies on Thursday quoted a spokesman for federal investigators as saying the working theory was that Estemirova's field of work was the killers' motive.
Russia's mountainous southern fringe is beset by increasingly frequent shootings and kidnappings linked to Islamist insurgents, criminal elements and ethnic feuds. Some of the violence is a lingering insurgency after two bloody wars in the last two years devastated Chechnya.
In the Kabardino-Balkaria province one policeman was killed and another injured in a drive-by shooting early Thursday, and Russian news agencies reported the slaying of the head of a village in nearby Dagestan.