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Thursday, October 31, 2013

Live blogging Halloween

Source: http://yahoonews.tumblr.com/post/65605147710/live-coverage-of-halloween
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Bidding on $50 Banksy painting tops $310,000

This undated photo provided by Housing Works shows a painting, which includes an addition to the scene by the secretive British graffiti artist Banksy. After buying a painting of a pastoral scene for $50, Banksy donated it back to the Housing Works thrift shop in New York where he bought it— but only after reworking it, adding a Nazi soldier to the scene. The 23rd Street Housing Works store is auctioning the painting. By Wednesday morning, Oct. 30, 2013, bidding reached $211,000. (AP Photo/Housing Works)

This Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013 screen shot, made with permission from Housing Works, shows their website featuring a auction for a painting which includes an addition to the scene by the secretive British graffiti artist Banksy. After buying a painting of a pastoral scene for $50, Banksy donated it back to the Housing Works thrift shop in New York where he bought it— but only after reworking it, adding a Nazi soldier to the scene. The 23rd Street Housing Works store is auctioning the painting. (AP Photo/Housing Works)

NEW YORK (AP) — Bidding on a painting that British graffiti artist Banksy bought for $50 and altered has climbed to more than $310,000.

Banksy added a Nazi soldier into the pastoral scene after he purchased the painting at a Manhattan thrift shop. He donated it back to the 23rd Street Housing Works store on Tuesday.

The store put it up for auction the same day.

The auction ends Thursday at 8 p.m.

Proceeds will benefit Housing Works' homelessness and AIDS initiatives.

As he does with all his works, the elusive artist posted the image on his website. He titled it, "The banality of the banality of evil."

On Sunday, Banksy posted an essay on his website calling the design of the World Trade Center a "disaster."

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-10-31-Banksy%20Graffiti/id-b874a309968a469a98cd6e78ab463613
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Boston rejoices in World Series victory at home

Boston Red Sox fans celebrate after winning the championship over the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 6 of baseball's World Series Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013, in Boston. The Red Sox won 6-1 to win the series. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

Boston Red Sox fans celebrate in the street near Fenway Park following Game 6 of baseball's World Series between the Red Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals on Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, in Boston. The Red Sox won 6-1 to win the series. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

Boston Red Sox fans celebrate in the street near Fenway Park following Game 6 of baseball's World Series between the Red Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, in Boston. The Red Sox won 6-1 to win the series. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

Boston Red Sox fans celebrate after Boston defeated the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 6 of baseball's World Series Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, in Boston. The Red Sox won 6-1 to win the series. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Boston Red Sox fans celebrate after Boston defeated St. Louis Cardinals in Game 6 of baseball's World Series Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, in Boston. The Red Sox won 6-1 to win the series. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

AMHERST, Mass. (AP) — The Red Sox have now won three World Series in the past decade — but not since the days of Babe Ruth had Boston won a fall classic in its beloved Fenway Park.

The victory sent Boston fans spilling into the streets Wednesday night to celebrate the team's 6-1 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 6. Amid the cheers and high-fives, the white lights of Boston's Prudential Tower read "GO SOX."

"Words cannot describe how I feel," Red Sox fan Sam D'Arrigo said. "This is what being a Boston fan is all about."

The win capped an emotional season for the Red Sox, one heavy with the reminder of the Boston Marathon bombings in April, which left three people dead and more than 260 wounded. Players wore "Boston Strong" logos on their left sleeves and a giant "B Strong" logo was mowed into Fenway's outfield.

"We needed this," said Mark Porcaro of Boston. "They were an easy team to get behind because they stood up for us when we needed them most."

An excited Boston Mayor Tom Menino tweeted: "Get the ducks ready, we're having a parade." He was referring to the duck boat parades the city had had during previous sports celebrations.

After the game, police set up barriers to funnel the crowds away from Fenway Park and mounted police and officers on bicycles patrolled the area. Some fans were obviously intoxicated. A few young men climbed a pole holding a traffic light.

A large group gathered near the marathon finish line, chanting and blocking traffic until police arrived.

Police said on Twitter that they'd arrested nine people for unruly behavior. Throughout the night, the department had tweeted cautionary messages, encouraging fans to "Celebrate with pride" and "Celebrate responsibly." Police later thanked the "tens of thousands" of Red Sox fans who took their warnings seriously.

There were no reports of serious damage but at least one car was overturned.

Officials at the University of Massachusetts said 15 people — all but one of them students — were arrested after thousands gathered on the Amherst campus to celebrate the Red Sox win. Most of those arrested were charged with failing to disperse and two also with assault and battery on a police officer. No injuries were reported.

In New Hampshire, celebrations turned destructive at several college campuses. In the largest incident, University of New Hampshire officials say police used pepper spray and pepper balls to break up a crowd of several hundred students that had gathered at the Durham campus. Officials said some of the students threw bottles and cans at officers; five were arrested on disorderly conduct charges.

At Keene State College, police also used pepper spray after students flipped over a vehicle and threw rocks, glass bottles and ice. No one was arrested.

Boston has hosted several celebrations over the last decade as the Celtics, Patriots, Bruins and Red Sox have all won titles since 2004, but some of the post-championship partying has caused problems. In 2004, a 21-year-old college student was killed by a pepper pellet fired by Boston police during crowd-control efforts following the Red Sox win in the American League Championship Series. In 2008, a 22-year-old man died after police took him into custody during street celebrations of the Celtics' title.

In St. Louis, fans were disappointed that the Cardinals lost.

Ed Moreland watched the game while cleaning offices at a downtown bank building. "We had a good team. We fought for it," he said. "Boston was just a bit stronger."

At The Dubliner, an Irish pub near the St. Louis Convention Center, bartender David Fitzgibbons suggested that collective excitement in the city dissipated after a 3-1 loss in Game 5 that left the Cardinals needing a two-game sweep in Boston to prevail.

"I don't think people's expectations were that high," he said.

Wednesday's game was a triumphant end to a hectic day in Boston — hours before the game, President Barack Obama delivered a talk at historic Faneuil Hall on his embattled heath care reform.

With the World Series and a presidential visit, police were on high alert. The marathon bombing prompted the deployment of extra dogs and undercover officers.

For the citizens of Red Sox Nation, the extra security, the traffic and the closed streets were a small price to pay for baseball glory.

"Since 1918, no one has experienced this," said Russ Stappen of Rockland, Mass., who shelled out several hundred dollars for his ticket. "There's nowhere else I'd rather be."

City officials planned to announce parade plans later Thursday. Boston Duck Tours tweeted after the game that the celebration would be held Saturday.

___

Associated Press writers Jay Lindsay and Bob Salsberg in Boston and Alan Scher Zagier in St. Louis contributed to this report.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-10-31-World%20Series-Boston/id-56ab6c1d68ea41d68a4165d6454e976d
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Why First-Born Kids Do Better in School

Parents scolding their daughter — Forgiving parents are strict with their first born because they hope to establish a perception that will influence the behavior of their younger children as well.

Time and again, research has shown that first-born children are better at a lot of things than their younger siblings. First-borns do better on IQ tests and are more likely to become president of the United States than their kid brothers or sisters. And, at the other end of the spectrum, first-borns are less likely to do drugs and get pregnant as teenagers.

So it probably won’t surprise anyone that first-borns do better in school than their younger siblings, a finding documented in a recent study I wrote with Juan Pantano, an assistant professor of economics at Washington University in St. Louis.

But why birth order appears to matter so much for school achievement level is much less clear.

Many theories have been posited, ranging from genetics to the stability of family life to the teaching dynamics among siblings. Pantano and I offer a different explanation: It comes down to parents’ reputations for maintaining discipline with their kids. Reputations matter for politicians, teachers, and even used car salesmen. Less obvious, but still important, is a parent’s reputation in their children’s eyes.

The basic idea is this: There are two types of parents—those who in our study we call “unforgiving” in that they will punish poor school performance, regardless of the child’s birth order, and those who are “forgiving,” meaning they don’t like to punish any of their children, regardless of birth. The latter type of parent faces a dilemma. If they don’t punish their oldest child’s poor behavior, all of their children will know that mom and dad are pushovers who don’t punish for poor grades. As a result, all the children of forgiving parents will tend to not work hard in school. To avoid this situation, forgiving parents are strict with their first born, hoping to establish a perception that will influence the behavior of their younger children as well. The younger children, seeing their big brother or sister punished, will be less likely to slack off in school because they can’t be sure that mom and dad aren’t really unforgiving types. Call it “trickle down” discipline—you put the most energy into the first-born, trying to set the tone for all. (As Slate’s Matthew Yglesias put it, it’s a cost/benefit calculation. The cost is the disciplining, which most parents don’t enjoy doling out.)

Call it “trickle down” discipline—you put the most energy into the first-born, trying to set the tone for all.

It is only later that these forgiving parents, who really don’t like to punish any of their children, start slacking off in their parenting. So the outcome of this strategic parenting is that while all children benefit from the first born’s punishments, the impact is greatest on the eldest child.

In our study, Pantano and I looked at data from the children of female respondents who themselves were members in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth begun in 1979. We focused on families with more than one child. The survey included detailed information on parenting, and we were able to look at parenting rules as reported by mothers and by their children.

While the data does not contain complete information on grades, it does include information on mothers’ perceptions of their children. In some cases we were able to link mothers’ perceptions to actual performance, and found their perceptions to be accurate. For the purposes of this study, however, the mothers' perceptions still gave us a clear picture of birth-order trends.

Mothers were asked, “Is your child one of the best students in class, above the middle, in the middle, below the middle, or near the bottom of the class?” Based on these mothers’ responses, we found a clear association exists between birth-order and school performance. While 34 percent of first-born children were considered “one of the best in the class,” only 27 percent of those who were fourth in the birth order received such recognition. On the other end of the spectrum, only 7.3 percent of first-borns were considered “below the middle or at the bottom of the class,” while mothers classified 11.7 percent of fourth-borns this way.

After establishing the existence of birth-order effects, we then used the data to explore whether differing parental treatment based on birth order affected how children performed at school. We found that first-borns were more likely to face daily homework monitoring than younger siblings. Again, the reputation model is at play here. The eldest children get the most monitoring in the hopes that younger siblings will observe that poor school performance leads to closer monitoring or loss of privileges, and will then have additional incentives to do well in school.

Perhaps the most interesting feature of the data we use is that mothers were asked hypothetical questions about their children’s performance in school and how they would react.

For each of their children, mothers were asked, “If [your child] brought home a report card with grades lower than expected, how likely would you be to keep a closer eye on [his/her] activities?”

This question lets us look directly at parenting strategy. We found that the more younger siblings a child has, the greater the likelihood that parents will closely supervise the oldest child after that child performs lower than expected on a report card. In fact, with each additional younger sibling, the chances of increased supervision rose by 2.2 percentage points.

So what’s the takeaway? While it is often thought that different levels of attainment across birth order are determined at birth and thus unavoidable, our results suggest otherwise. Rather, our findings show that it matters how parents establish discipline and priorities for their children when they are young. Our evidence strongly suggests that the better performance in school by first-borns and the poorer performance by later-borns is the result of differential parenting.

So, the next time you first-borns complain that mom and dad never let you get away with what your younger siblings did, you can be assured that you’re right. And you’re better off because of it.

Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/10/birth_order_and_school_performance_first_borns_do_better_in_school_because.html
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Kendra Wilkinson Confirms: I’m Pregnant!

She’s been eager to give her son Hank Jr a little brother or sister, and now Kendra Wilkinson has proclaimed she has a bun in the oven.

Confirming the rampant rumors, the “Girls Next Door” dame tweeted a photo of her positive pregnancy test on Thursday (October 30) and a big smile.

Wilkinson added the caption, “Round two. Here we go!! :) #ClearBlueConfirmed,” and now she and hubby Hank Baskett will prepare for the arrival.

Last month, Kendra told press, "We're at that point in our lives where everywhere we look, we're 100%. Now we know it's time to have another child. Last year, we were 50%, a couple of months ago we were 60%, and now we're 100%. We're really happy and that's the time to have a child — when you're happy."

Source: http://celebrity-gossip.net/kendra-wilkinson/kendra-wilkinson-confirms-i%E2%80%99m-pregnant-953035
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China seeks info on Uighurs after deadly crash

Cleaners walk past an area shielded by green nets in front of Tiananmen Gate following a car fire in Beijing, China, Monday, Oct. 28, 2013. A sport-utility vehicle veered into a crowd in front of Beijing’s Forbidden City and then crashed and caught fire Monday, killing three people and injuring several, police said. (AP Photo/Alexander F. Yuan)

An area in front of Tiananmen Gate is shielded following a car fire in Beijing, China, Monday, Oct. 28, 2013. A sport-utility vehicle veered into a crowd in front of Beijing’s Forbidden City and then crashed and caught fire Monday, killing three people and injuring several, police said. (AP Photo/Alexander F. Yuan)

Plainclothes policemen place green net shields in front of Tiananmen Gate following a car fire in Beijing Monday, Oct. 28, 2013. A sport-utility vehicle veered into a crowd in front of Beijing’s Forbidden City and then crashed and caught fire Monday, killing three people and injuring several, police said. The portrait is of the late communist leader Mao Zedong. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

Paramilitary police officers, police officers, and cleaners work in front of Tiananmen Gate following a car fire in Beijing, China, Monday, Oct. 28, 2013. A sport-utility vehicle veered into a crowd in front of Beijing’s Forbidden City and then crashed and caught fire Monday, killing three people and injuring several, police said. (AP Photo/Alexander F. Yuan)

Paramilitary policemen guard and patrol on Tiananmen Square, near Tiananmen Gate, back, where state media says a sports-utility vehicle veered into a crowd, in Beijing, China, Monday, Oct. 28, 2013. The vehicle crashed and caught fire Monday, killing three occupants and injuring tourists and security officers, police said. Several people in the crowd were injured in the crash in front of the iconic Tiananmen Gate around noon, a statement posted on the Beijing police's microblog said. (AP Photo/Alexander F. Yuan)

BEIJING (AP) — Police investigating the apparent car attack at Beijing's Forbidden City searched Tuesday for information on two ethnic Uighur minority suspects, a hotel employee said, a day after the vehicle plowed through a crowd and crashed, killing five people and injuring 38.

Police released no public information about a possible motive for the incident at one of China's most politically sensitive and heavily guarded public spaces, and it was not immediately clear if the two suspects were among the three people killed inside the vehicle.

Two bystanders, including a Filipino woman, also were killed when the sport utility vehicle veered inside of a barrier separating a crowded sidewalk from a busy avenue and then drove toward Tiananmen Gate, which stands opposite the sprawling Tiananmen Square.

Any incident in the area is sensitive because the square was the focus of a 1989 pro-democracy movement that was violently suppressed by the military.

The 38 injured were among the crowds in front of the gate, where a large portrait of Mao Zedong hangs near the southern entrance to the former imperial palace. Three other Filipinos and a Japanese man were among the injured, police said, but there were no immediate details on their conditions.

Zhao Fuzhou, a security official at Beijing's Xinjiang Dasha hotel, said police had circulated a notice searching for information about two suspects with Uighur names in the aftermath of Monday's deaths. Unconfirmed copies of the notice also were widely circulated on the Chinese Internet.

One of the men, identified in the notice as Yusupu Wumaierniyazi, was listed as living at the address of a town in Xinjiang in which 24 police and civilians and 13 militants were killed in an attack on June 26.

Radicals among the Muslim Turkic Uighurs have been fighting a low-intensity insurgency against Chinese rule for years. This summer saw an unusually large number of violent incidents and Chinese security forces say they have been guarding against attacks outside of Xinjiang.

Uighurs are culturally, religiously and linguistically distinct from China's ethnic Han majority and many have chafed under heavy-handed Communist Party rule.

Beijing police said on their microblog that they were taking "effective measures to ensure the capital's safety and stability."

A police statement said the vehicle had burst into flames after crashing at about noon Monday into a guardrail for one of the ancient stone bridges leading to the gate. The adjacent Chang'an Avenue was closed as police and rescue services converged, but police said traffic was restored just over an hour later.

The incident had every appearance of being deliberate, since the driver apparently jumped a curb and traveled about 400 meters (yards) to the spot where the car was said to have caught fire. Along the way, it avoided trees, street lights and at least one security checkpoint.

Photos of the scene that briefly circulated on the Internet showed a vehicle emitting thick smoke at the gate. Injured people, including a young girl, lay on the ground, many of them bleeding heavily.

Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman Raul Hernandez said their information indicated that the woman who died and the injured Filipinos — two women and a man — were tourists. "Our embassy is working to gather more details about this incident and to extend the necessary and appropriate assistance to the victims," he said in a statement.

Police said the other tourist killed was a Chinese man from the southern province of Guangdong.

Attendants and nearby concession stand vendors who were asked about the incident all said they were not clear on what happened. Such employees are generally understood to be part-time police informants.

Just west of the square lies the Great Hall of the People, the seat of China's parliament, while many of China's top leaders live and work just a few hundred meters (yards) away in the tightly guarded Zhongnanhai compound.

___

Associated Press writer Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, contributed to this report.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-10-29-China-Tiananmen-Car%20Fire/id-246a2fc195954cb9823be9bcf42210b5
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Dualshock 4 and PlayStation Eye shipping weeks ahead of PS4 launch

November 15th is still a ways off, but if you pre-ordered accessories along with your PlayStation 4 you could get a taste of the future right now. NeoGAF's ever-vigilant community noticed that some who've pre-ordered peripherals at Amazon and GameStop are already playing with the DualShock 4 controller and PlayStation 4 camera, posting their spoils to YouTube. While you can't do much with either yet, at least PS3 owners can use the new controller with certain games -- the familiarity might give them a leg up in Killzone Shadow Fall come launch day.

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/28/ps4-controller-camera-available-now/?ncid=rss_truncated
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