Texas parents defend daughter, 11, after critics blast her rendition of national anthem

The parents of an 11-year-old Texas girl who has been criticized for her rendition of the ?Star-Spangled Banner? at a Major League Soccer match are defending their daughter amid ?mean and hateful? attacks, they told FoxNews.com.

Harper Gruzins, of Coppell, Texas, admitted it wasn?t her ?best performance? at Saturday?s Dallas-Los Angeles soccer match, but said she had trouble hearing herself amid echoes from the public address system and loud cheers from the 22,000 fans in attendance.

?It wasn?t my best performance because I couldn?t hear myself and the blowhorns got me off key. But God allowed this to happen, so I know it?s what he wants."

- Harper Gruzins, singer-songwriter

?It wasn?t my best performance because I couldn?t hear myself and the blowhorns got me off key,? Harper told FoxNews.com. ?But God allowed this to happen, so I know it?s what he wants. So I wouldn?t change it. Next time I hope there?s no blowhorns.?

Gruzins? performance was characterized by Deadspin.com as the ?worst National Anthem rendition ever,? even exceeding the infamously bad performances of singer Steven Tyler and comedienne Roseanne Barr. That prompted Nancy Churnin of the Dallas Morning News to write about the ?vitriol? associated with the budding singer-songwriter?s three-minute performance.

?Remember, they are adults, and they tampered with the song, with Roseanne grabbling her crotch with the misguided idea that everyone would think that was funny,? Churnin wrote of Tyler and Barr. ?Harper was off key, but she sang the song proudly, enunciating all the words and putting everything she had into it.?

Gruzins? father, Karlis, said the ?mean and hateful? criticisms will not deter his daughter?s dream to follow in the footsteps of performers like Adele, Christina Aguiliera and Christian musician Jamie Grace.

?We believe in our daughter, we support our daughter,? Karlis Gruzins said. ?We think that the things being said about her are mean and hateful. We?re just going to ride it out and support our daughter. That?s our stance on it.?

Kelli Gruzins said her daughter?s performance suffered from technical difficulties, but praised Harper for showing the courage to perform in front of tens of thousands before being old enough to drive or vote.

?She was not used to the echo and she knew once she started,? Kelli Gruzins said of the sound issues. ?But we just know she did her best and this is what she loves to do.?

Harper, who also plays the piano, performs frequently in Texas and will sing at the Grapevine Opry in Grapevine on Aug. 18. Karlis Gruzins said his ?natural tendency? is to stop his daughter from the appearance following the intense criticism surrounding her performance, but he told FoxNews.com he won?t allow that to happen.

?It?s just really sad that people want to take it to this type of extreme,? he said. ?I don?t understand it. My natural tendency is to yank her from everything, but she just loves to do it.?

Source: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/national/~3/pogvML0omGI/

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Candidates look overseas for campaign cash (The Arizona Republic)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

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R. Kelly 'Huge Fan' Of Jay-Z Despite Their Rocky History

'We walked on the moon first, right?' Kellz says of collaboration with Jay-Z that came before Jay and Kanye's Watch the Throne.
By Rob Markman, with reporting by Rebecca Thomas

R. Kelly
Photo: MTV News

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1690783/r-kelly-huge-fan-jay-z.jhtml

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Arafat widow seeks French 'assassination' probe

PARIS (AP) ? The widow of Yasser Arafat on Tuesday formally asked for a French investigation into his death, bringing a complaint of assassination weeks after raising new suspicions that the former Palestinian leader was poisoned before his 2004 death in a French military hospital.

Earlier this month, Palestinian authorities gave final approval for Arafat's body to be exhumed. In recent tests of Arafat's belongings requested by his widow and the Arab satellite network Al-Jazeera, a Swiss lab detected elevated traces of polonium-210 ? a rare and highly lethal substance ? but said the findings were inconclusive and that Arafat's bones would have to be tested. And questions remain about the results of any additional tests after so long.

French doctors have said Arafat died of a massive stroke and had suffered from a blood condition.

A French judge will still have to decide whether to accept the complaint ? also brought on behalf of Suha Arafat's daughter ? and open an investigation. According to a statement from the family's French lawyer, Pierre-Olivier Sur, Tuesday's request was intended to "establish the truth in honor of their husband and father."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-07-31-Arafat's-Death/id-16c6df3eb34a41f7896baae2ae0f7777

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How to avoid traps in plastic electronics

Monday, July 30, 2012

Plastic electronics hold the promise of cheap, mass-produced devices. But plastic semiconductors have an important flaw: the electronic current is influenced by "charge traps" in the material. These traps, which have a negative impact on plastic light-emitting diodes and solar cells, are poorly understood.

However, a new study by a team of researchers from the University of Groningen and the Georgia Institute of Technology reveals a common mechanism underlying these traps and provides a theoretical framework to design trap-free plastic electronics. The results are presented in an advance online publication of the journal Nature Materials.

Plastic semiconductors are made from organic, carbon-based polymers, comprising a tunable forbidden energy gap. In a plastic light-emitting diode (LED), an electron current is injected into a higher molecular orbital, situated just above the energy gap. After injection, the electrons move toward the middle of the LED and fall down in energy across the forbidden energy gap, converting the energy loss into photons. As a result, an electrical current is converted into visible light.

However, during their passage through the semiconductor, a lot of electrons get stuck in traps in the material and can no longer be converted into light. In addition, this trapping process greatly reduces the electron current and moves the location where electrons are converted into photons away from the center of the device.

"This reduces the amount of light the diode can produce," explained Herman Nicolai, first author of the Nature Materials paper.

The traps are poorly understood, and it has been suggested that they are caused by kinks in the polymer chains or impurities in the material.

"We've set out to solve this puzzle by comparing the properties of these traps in nine different polymers," Nicolai explained. "The comparison revealed that the traps in all materials had a very similar energy level."

The Georgia Tech group, led by Jean-Luc Bredas, investigated computationally the electronic structure of a wide range of possible traps. "What we found out from the calculations is that the energy level of the traps measured experimentally matches that produced by a water-oxygen complex," said Bredas.

Nicolai explains that "such a complex could easily be introduced during the manufacturing of the semiconductor material, even if this is done under controlled conditions." The devices Nicolai studied were fabricated in a nitrogen atmosphere, "but this cannot prevent contamination with minute quantities of oxygen and water," he noted.

The fact that the traps have a similar energy level means that it is now possible to estimate the expected electron current in different plastic materials. And it also points the way to trap-free materials. "The trap energy lies in the forbidden energy gap," Nicolai explained.

This energy gap represents the difference in energy of the outer shell in which the electrons circle in their ground state and the higher orbital to which they can be moved to become mobile charge carriers. When such a mobile electron runs into a trap that is within the energy gap it will fall in, because the trap has a lower energy level.

"But if chemists could design semiconducting polymers in which the trap energy is above that of the higher orbital in which the electrons move through the material, they couldn't fall in," he suggested. "In this case, the energy level of the trap would be higher than that of the electron."

The results of this study are therefore important for both plastic LEDs and plastic solar cells. "In both cases, the electron current should not be hindered by charge trapping. With our results, more efficient designs can be made," Nicolai concluded.

###

Georgia Institute of Technology Research News: http://gtresearchnews.gatech.edu

Thanks to Georgia Institute of Technology Research News for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/122135/How_to_avoid_traps_in_plastic_electronics

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Exploring Undo Home finance loan Good and bad | welcome to ...

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When conversing whatisareversemortgage.meapproximately stop house loan good and bad, it?s crucial to mention the main topic of expenses. Consumers will likely be quite likely going to pay desire on the subject of everywhere they receive, and settlement costs, house loan insurance rates together with a very few other upfront expenses. Even though these kind of fees are typically loaned into your lending product, older people really should continue to keep in mind that stop residential loans, similarly to other residential home financing, occur at a price.

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Source: http://www.madeinjapan.us/exploring-undo-home-finance-loan-good-and-bad/

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Two dead, over 100,000 without power after fierce storms

ELMIRA, New York (Reuters) - Two people were dead and more than 100,000 homes and businesses in New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania were without electricity Friday morning after severe thunderstorms swept through the region late Thursday.

The storms spawned a tornado that touched down in Elmira, New York, toppling trees and tearing off roofs, the National Weather Service said.

Officials in Pennsylvania and New York reported two storm-related deaths.

A woman who was camping in Genesee, Pennsylvania, near the New York State line, was killed when she took refuge from the storm in her car and a tree then fell on it, John Hetrick, director of emergency services for Potter County, said.

In New York City, a 61-year-old man in Brooklyn's Cobble Hill neighborhood was killed when scaffolding at a church collapsed on him as the storm passed through near 8 p.m., police said.

"It's possible that lightning struck the top of the roof, causing some bricks to fall on top of the scaffolding, causing the scaffolding to fall on top of the victim," a police spokesman said.

In Elmira, the city's east side took the biggest hit from the tornado. In one four-block neighborhood, most homes had trees toppled upon them, street signs were bent in half and tree trunks had debris wrapped around them. Several cars were crushed by downed trees.

One two-story brick building had most of the second story torn off in the storm.

On Friday morning, most power remained out for the city's 29,000 residents.

Meteorologists said 70-mile-per-hour (113-kph) winds were reported in parts of Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Oklahoma.

As the storms sent black, menacing clouds rolling across some cities, hail ranging from the size of a dime to a quarter fell in some areas of Pennsylvania, AccuWeather.com said.

Pennsylvania accounted for a majority of those still without power, with more than 85,000 customers in the dark early Friday, according to electric companies serving the region.

Roughly 34,000 people in New York were without power, most of them in the southern tier region near Elmira, according to NYSEG. About 13,500 customers in eastern Ohio were still offline, according to AEP Ohio.

The storms formed along a cold front stretching from the Northeast into the Ohio Valley, bringing the threat of damaging winds, hail and tornadoes, according to the Weather Channel.

The storm activity forced the cancellation of over 900 flights on Thursday, according to FlightAware, a Texas-based company that tracks the status of flights. The highest number of cancellations was at LaGuardia Airport in New York.

(Additional reporting by Kevin Gray and Alex Dobuzinskis; Writing by Dan Burns; Editing by Eric Walsh)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/storms-northeast-knock-power-cause-flight-delays-010604070.html

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Olympic extremes: The winning formulas for London 2012

(Sipa Press/Rex Features)

ONE-HUNDREDTH of a second. That could be the difference between an athlete representing their country in this year's Olympic Games in London and one staying at home. Even finer margins can separate medal-winners from also-rans.

The Olympics is the ultimate goal for many sportspeople, and they will go to great lengths to get there. Ever since the modern games began in 1896, any research that might give athletes a boost - no matter how small - is leapt on by coaches. Behind the scenes, every athlete relies on a legion of psychologists, physiologists, engineers, biologists and nutritionists. Their work is a closely guarded secret: nobody will know whether it has been successful until long after the medals have been awarded. But it is possible to make educated guesses about the latest crazes...

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/21c308b0/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cspecial0Colympic0Eextremes0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm

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Iran accuses Israel of plotting Bulgaria bus attack

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Iran's U.N. envoy accused Israel on Wednesday of plotting and carrying out a suicide bomb attack on a bus in Bulgaria a week ago in which five Israeli tourists were killed.

A suicide bomber blew up the bus in a car park at Burgas airport, a popular gateway for tourists visiting Bulgaria's Black Sea coast, killing himself, the Israeli tourists and the Bulgarian bus driver and wounding more than 30 people.

Israel has accused Iran and the Lebanese Islamist group Hezbollah of the bombing. Iran has denied the accusations.

"It's amazing that just a few minutes after the terrorist attack, Israeli officials announced that Iran was behind it," Iran's U.N. Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee told a U.N. Security Council debate on the Middle East. "We have never and will not engage in such a despicable attempt on ... innocent people."

"Such terrorist operation could only be planned and carried out by the same regime whose short history is full of state terrorism operations and assassinations aimed implicating others for narrow political gains," Khazaee said. "I could provide ... many examples showing that this regime killed its own citizens and innocent Jewish people during the last couple of decades.

Israel's U.N. Ambassador Haim Waxman said Iran's fingerprints were all over the bomb attack in Bulgaria, as well as dozens of other plots in recent months around the world.

"These comments are appalling, but not surprising from the same government that says the 9/11 attack was a conspiracy theory and denies the Holocaust," Waxman said in a statement.

Some analysts believe Iran is trying to avenge the assassinations of several scientists involved in its controversial nuclear program that it blames on Israel and the United States. Israeli diplomats have been targeted in several countries in recent months by bombers who the Jewish state maintained had struck on behalf of Tehran.

"The time has come for the world to put an end to this campaign of terror, once and for all," Waxman said.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Jackie Frank)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/iran-accuses-israel-plotting-bulgaria-bus-attack-222443709.html

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Egnyte Review - Best Online Backup

?

Online backups are becoming more and more popular as people realise just how valuable they are for protecting data from disaster.? Once, users relied on their PCs for file storage, as well as the secondary devices, such as CDs and USBs, that they used for backing up data in case something happened to the computer itself.? These secondary devices were useful, of course, but they were not, being subject to the same risks faced by the computer.

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The facility to store data online, away from computers and devices, has been welcomed throughout the computer world. The only problem users face now is deciding which one to choose because, in recent years, such services have proliferated.

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Egnyte HyrbidCloud ? the Features

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Backing Up

Egnyte provides continuous online backup tailor-made for business use. Users can store their data online knowing that it is secure and accessible as and when they need it, from anywhere in the world with an internet connection.

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Egnyte HybridCloud?s service is made up of two components ? Egnyte Cloud File Server, and Egnyte Local Cloud, which is private cloud storage that can hold local copies of files on the PC, network-attached storage, unified storage systems, or virtual machine.? Data stored here is synced automatically with the Cloud File Server, giving users the option of fast access to local files, or the flexibility of remote file access.

?

Data Restoration

Files can be accessed directly from any desktop, laptop, PC or Mac. It is integrated with Explorer on Windows, and Finder on Mac. It can also be accessed from most web browsers, and Egnyte?s? cloud integrations such including QuickOffice,? Google Docs, Salesforce.com, and Ricoh printer/scanners. Access from mobiles, too, is available with native applications for Android, iPhone, and iPad.

?

File Sharing

With Egnyte users can create shared, permission-based folders, for collaboration. The folders can be accessed, at any time and from any location with an internet connection, by employees and clients with the correct authority.

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Users can also share files on an ad-hoc basis, or with a large audience. Links can be created and embedded in emails and documents, as well as web pages. They can be used with social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and with instant messaging tools.

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File Versioning

Egnyte provides file versioning that ensures that, when a change is made to a file, a new version is automatically added to the folder that contains the previous version.? All file versions are time-stamped, and other relevant details, such as the name of the user who carried out the changes, are added.

?

Price Plans

Two plans are available for small business use; the Group Plan, which is suitable for a group of five employees, which provides 150GB (gigabyte) of storage for $24.99 per month, and the Office Plan, which covers ten employees, provides 1TB (terabyte) of storage, and costs $44.99 per month.

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A larger plan exists for big businesses; this one is the Enterprise Plan, which provides 3TB of storage and costs $12.99 per employee, per month.?

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The maximum file size that can be uploaded to the smaller business plan, the Group, is 2GB, but for the other plans, it is unlimited.

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Desktop syncing is provided with every Egnyte account.

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Free Trial

Egnyte offers a free fifteen-day trial which, although it asks for a lot of information during set up, requires no credit card details.

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Security

During transfer of data to online storage, Egnyte uses 256-bit AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) encryption to encode the data. This level of security is trusted by banks as well as the US Government which uses it to protect classified information.

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Once backed up, data is stored on Egnyte RAID6 servers, which are encrypted automatically using 256-bit AES, which ensures that files are not available to anyone without the user?s permission. The encryption key is kept in a secure vault, which is a separate database. In addition, administrators can, if required, replicate data to a secondary Tier II SSAE 16 compliant facility, where it is again replicated on RAID6 servers.

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Customer Support

No telephone support is provided by Egnyte, but users can email 24/7 for assistance. There is a Knowledge Base, with a search facility that can be accessed for information; alongside that, there is a Community Forum, where questions can be asked of other Egnyte users, FAQs, and a variety of informative documents, guides, and training videos.

?

Conclusion

The main drawback to what is a very good online backup solution for business, is the lack of telephone support. In the corporate world, being able to talk to a real person when a problem arises is essential. Having only email support available means that business users will have no idea how long they will have to wait for a response, or even if the response they get will be adequate. This could result in expensive time wasting.

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The price plans with Egnyte are straightforward and easy to understand, and the amount of information that the user has access to for guidance is impressive.

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All in all, Egnyte is business-friendly, apart from the lack of telephone support, and reasonably priced, and will meet the backup and storage needs of many businesses.

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Visit www.egnyte.com

Source: http://www.online-backups.net/egnyte-review/

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Skydiver Leaps from 18 Miles Up in 'Space Jump' Practice

A daredevil leapt from a balloon more than 18 miles above the Earth today (July 25), moving one step closer to a so-called "space jump" that would set the record for the world's highest skydive.

Austrian adventurer?Felix Baumgartner stepped out of his custom-built capsule at an altitude of 96,640 feet (29,456 meters) above southeastern New Mexico, officials with Red Bull Stratos?? the name of Baumgartner's mission ? announced today.

In today's jump, Baumgartner experienced freefall for three minutes and 48 seconds, reaching a top speed of 536 mph (863 kph), project officials said. Baumgartner then opened his parachute and glided to Earth safely about 10 minutes and 30 seconds after stepping into the void.?

Baumgartner has his eyes on an even bigger leap, a "space jump" from 125,000 feet (38,100 m) in the next month or so. (Space, however, is generally considered to begin at an altitude of 62 miles, or 327,000 feet.)?

He's working up to this goal in stepwise fashion, having completed a jump from 71,581 feet (21,818 m) this past March. Before that, his highest-ever skydive was from 30,000 feet (9,144 m) up, team officials said.?

Today's successful leap came tantalizingly close to the current record for highest-altitude skydive, which stands at 102,800 feet (31,333 m). It was set in 1960 by U.S. Air Force Captain Joe Kittinger, who serves as an adviser for Baumgartner's Red Bull Stratos mission.

The Austrian daredevil doesn't take his leaps lightly.

"The pressure is huge, and we not only have to endure but excel," Baumgartner?told ABC News before his jump. "We're excellently prepared, but it's never going to be a fun day. I'm risking my life, after all."

Baumgartner's helium-filled balloon lifted off from Roswell, N.M. this morning and took about 90 minutes to reach the skydiver's jumping-off altitude, officials said.

Baumgartner and his team had hoped to attempt his record jump in 2010, but they were delayed by a legal challenge that claimed the idea of the dive was earlier suggested to Red Bull by California promoter Daniel Hogan. That lawsuit has since been settled out of court, and the Red Bull Stratos mission is moving forward.

Follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall?or SPACE.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook?and?Google+.

Copyright 2012 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/skydiver-leaps-18-miles-space-jump-practice-174330542.html

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