Berlusconi convicted in sex-for-hire trial

FILE - In this Friday, May 11, 2012 file photo, Italian former premier Silvio Berlusconi grimaces as he attends the funeral service of Italian entrepreneur Giampiero Cantoni in Milan. Former Premier Silvio Berlusconi faces a verdict in his sensational sex-for-hire trial, charges that could bring an end to his two-decade political career. Berlusconi is charged with paying an under-age Moroccan teen for sex and then trying to cover it up with phone calls to Milan police officials when she was picked up for alleged theft. Berlusconi and the woman deny having had sex with each other. A court is expected to deliver a verdict Monday, June 24, 2013. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno, File)

FILE - In this Friday, May 11, 2012 file photo, Italian former premier Silvio Berlusconi grimaces as he attends the funeral service of Italian entrepreneur Giampiero Cantoni in Milan. Former Premier Silvio Berlusconi faces a verdict in his sensational sex-for-hire trial, charges that could bring an end to his two-decade political career. Berlusconi is charged with paying an under-age Moroccan teen for sex and then trying to cover it up with phone calls to Milan police officials when she was picked up for alleged theft. Berlusconi and the woman deny having had sex with each other. A court is expected to deliver a verdict Monday, June 24, 2013. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno, File)

Two women reacts outside the courthouse after a verdict against Silvio Berlusconi in Milan, Italy, Monday, June 24, 2013. A Milan court has convicted former Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi of paying for sex with an under-age prostitute during infamous "bunga bunga" parties at his villa and then using his influence to try to cover it up. Berlusconi, 76, was sentenced to seven years in prison and barred from public office for life. The ban on holding office could mean the end of Berlusconi's two-decade political career. However, there are two more levels of appeal before the sentence would become final. The banners read, in Italian: "A sentence to save Italy's dignity" and "All are equal before the law". (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Silvio Berlusconi lawyer Niccolo' Ghedini speaks to reporters outside the courthouse in Milan, Italy, Monday, June 24, 2013. Former Premier Silvio Berlusconi faces a verdict in his sensational sex-for-hire trial, charges that could bring an end to his two-decade political career. Berlusconi is charged with paying an under-age Moroccan teen for sex and then trying to cover it up with phone calls to Milan police officials when she was picked up for alleged theft. Berlusconi and the woman deny having had sex with each other. A court is expected to deliver a verdict Monday. (AP Photo/Paolo Santalucia)

FILE - In this Thursday, April 4, 2013 file photo a tear rolls down the cheek of Karima el-Mahroug, also known as Ruby, a Moroccan woman at the center of former Premier Silvio Berlusconi's sex-for-hire trial, as she reads a statement to reporters during a protest outside the court house, in Milan, Italy. Former Premier Silvio Berlusconi faces a verdict in his sensational sex-for-hire trial, charges that could bring an end to his two-decade political career. Berlusconi is charged with paying an under-age Moroccan teen for sex and then trying to cover it up with phone calls to Milan police officials when she was picked up for alleged theft. Berlusconi and the woman deny having had sex with each other. A court is expected to deliver a verdict Monday, June 24, 2013. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno, file)

FILE -- In this Sept. 27 2012 file photo, former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi attends the presentation of a book in Rome. Former Premier Silvio Berlusconi faces a verdict in his sensational sex-for-hire trial, charges that could bring an end to his two-decade political career. Berlusconi is charged with paying an under-age Moroccan teen for sex and then trying to cover it up with phone calls to Milan police officials when she was picked up for alleged theft. Berlusconi and the woman deny having had sex with each other. A court is expected to deliver a verdict Monday, June 24, 2013. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

MILAN (AP) ? Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's flamboyant former premier, was sentenced to seven years in prison and banned from politics for life Monday for paying an underage prostitute for sex during infamous "bunga bunga" parties and forcing public officials to cover it up.

It was the most damaging setback yet for the 76-year-old Berlusconi, who has been tried numerous times for his business dealings but never before for his personal conduct.

Still, he vowed that his days as a political force are not over. He has two levels of appeal ? and his supporters quickly rallied around him.

The charges against the billionaire media mogul resulted from what became widely known in Italy as "bunga bunga" parties hosted in 2010 by Berlusconi, then the sitting premier, at his villa near Milan, where he wined and dined beautiful young women.

Berlusconi's defense described the dinner parties as elegant soirees; prosecutors said they were sex-fueled gatherings that women were paid to attend. The woman at the center of the scandal, Karima el-Mahroug, better known as Ruby, has described aspiring showgirls stripping provocatively for the then-Italian leader.

Both Berlusconi and el-Mahroug denied ever having sex, and el-Mahroug says she never worked as a prostitute.

After the verdict, Berlusconi said in a message posted on Facebook that he believed he would be acquitted "because in the facts there is really no possibility to convict me."

He called the sentence "incredible, of a violence never seen or heard before, to try to eliminate me from the political life of this country." He pledged to "resist this persecution, because I am absolutely innocent, and I don't want in any way to abandon my battle to make Italy a truly free and just country."

The Milan criminal court's ruling was unexpectedly stiff, going further than the original charges and openly questioning whether many of the young women who testified in Berlusconi's defense had lied on the stand to protect him.

The panel of three judges, all women, said Berlusconi went beyond using his influence to cover up his relationship with the then-17-year-old Moroccan, as originally charged. They said he stepped in to win her release from police custody when she was accused of theft.

As a result, they added one year to the six requested by prosecutors.

The court also said it was turning over to prosecutors files containing the testimony of more than 30 young women who attended the now-infamous "bunga bunga" parties to investigate if they had lied under oath when they denied a sexual character to the gatherings.

Justice Minister Angelino Alfano, who is also secretary of Berlusconi's People of Liberty Party, said he told his political mentor to "hang in there, and keep moving on" in a phone call after the verdict.

Berlusconi was not in court for the sentencing, but his lawyer, Niccolo Ghedini, said he would appeal a decision he called both "largely expected" and "out of reality." The Berlusconi camp has long accused Milan magistrates of mounting a campaign to sideline him politically.

Berlusconi loyalist Daniela Santanche, who attended the sentencing, denounced it as "an outrage, and a political sentence that has nothing to do with justice." But she also said that it should have no impact on the government.

Some political opponents, however, said Berlusconi, who has shaped political discourse in Italy for two decades, should withdraw from politics immediately.

Alessandro Di Battista, a lawmaker in the anti-establishment 5 Star Movement, said Berlusconi "must go to jail. It is outrageous that he is a senator that can make laws. Until he goes to jail, the country is not free." And the left-leaning governor of Apulia, Nicchi Vendola, said Berlusconi should "abandon public life."

Berlusconi does not have any official role in government, but he is a senator in Parliament and retains influence in the uneasy grand coalition between his forces and the center-left Democratic Party that emerged after inconclusive February elections. The Democratic Party issued a statement acknowledging the sentence and in support of the autonomy of the courts.

Berlusconi's high-stakes judicial woes are far from over. He faces a final appeal in a tax fraud conviction for which he has been sentenced to four years in jail and a five-year ban from office.

Roberto D'Alimonte, a political analyst for il Sole 24 Ore daily and professor at Rome's LUISS University, said the tax fraud conviction poses the more immediate threat since Italy's highest court is likely to rule before the statute of limitations runs out.

The sex-for-hire case "weakens him politically, but not that much, because we have seen that his voter base seems to be insulated from the impact of these sentences. We saw in the last elections, everyone thought he was dead, but he came back to life," D'Alimonte said.

While the verdict drew intense international media coverage, with half a dozen satellite vans parked outside the Milan courthouse, there was only a smattering of public interest. A few anti-Berlusconi protesters gathered outside, and just a handful of citizens joined journalists crammed inside the small courtroom.

"For 20 years, he's been running Italy. He's done what he wanted," said Aurelio De Boni, a retired suit salesman from Milan who attended the trial.

Neither Berlusconi nor el-Mahroug testified in this trial. El-Mahroug was called by the defense but failed to show, delaying the trial, and Berlusconi's team eventually dropped her from the witness list.

El-Mahroug, however, did testify in the separate trial of three Berlusconi aides charged with procuring prostitutes for the parties. She told that court that Berlusconi's disco featured aspiring showgirls dressed as sexy nuns and nurses performing striptease acts, and that one woman even dressed up as President Barack Obama.

El-Mahroug, now 20, said in the other trial that she attended about a half-dozen parties at Berlusconi's villa, and that after each, Berlusconi handed her an envelope with up to 3,000 euros ($3,900). She said she later received 30,000 euros cash from the then-premier, paid through an intermediary ? money that she told Berlusconi she wanted to use to open a beauty salon, despite having no formal training.

But she denied ever receiving millions from the billionaire, as she had claimed to acquaintances, saying they were "lies" meant to inflate her own importance.

She was 17 at the time of the alleged encounters but passed herself off as 24. She also claimed she was related to then-Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Berlusconi's lawyers argued that he believed el-Mahroug was indeed Mubarak's niece, and he called police after she was accused of theft in a bid to avoid a diplomatic incident.

Berlusconi, who has been tried numerous times relating to his business dealings, has been convicted in other cases at the trial level. But those convictions have always either been overturned on appeal or else the statute of limitations has run out before Italy's high court could have its say.

The sex-for-hire case is the first involving his personal conduct.

Later this week, Italy's highest court has scheduled a hearing on Berlusconi's appeal to a verdict ordering him to pay 560 million euros ($800 million) to a rival media group over corruption in the acquisition of the Mondadori publishing empire. And a preliminary hearing will begin in Naples to decide if Berlusconi should be tried for allegedly bribing a lawmaker to bolt a previous center-left government under Romano Prodi and join his party, a move that weakened Prodi's slim majority.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-06-24-Italy-Berlusconi%20Trial/id-5abf67d320034d928bc568e7a18adabd

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Judy Reyes: My Daughter Will ?Probably Be a Director?

"She does the lines and then we switch roles and she goes, 'No! Don't say it like that. This is impossible!' She'll probably be a director," she adds.

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

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LA mayor exits after bumpy term, looking ahead

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? The famous smile is intact. But there's a glint of gray in the hair, a hint of melancholy in the voice and a collection of wrinkles he didn't bring with him when he became mayor of Los Angeles eight years ago.

Antonio Villaraigosa makes his exit July 1 after a seesaw run that saw him celebrated as the city's first Hispanic mayor since 1872, praised for bulking up the police department and transit services, but often mocked, fairly or not, as a party boy who cared more about nightlife than his day job at City Hall.

Through most of it, he struggled with a sour economy not of his making. Now 60 and talking again about running for governor, the Democrat looks back and ponders how a former labor organizer ended up chopping thousands of government jobs to keep the books in balance, pushed municipal workers for the first time to pay toward their pensions and health care and clashed with the teachers union that once employed him.

What has he learned?

"You have to be able to say no to your friends," Villaraigosa said during an interview at his soon-to-be former office. "You are making decisions that will have an impact far into the future. Don't worry about what people say right now."

As for complaints, he's heard an earful.

As with any big-city mayor, there's no pleasing everyone, particularly in a city of nearly 4 million people. And the work is never done. He can fairly claim a string of wins, including historically low crime rates, new rail lines in a metropolis strangled by cars and a citywide move away from polluting, coal-fired power. But those gains get tempered by longstanding gripes that he starts more than he finishes and ignores potholes, cracked sidewalks and other basics while globe-trotting and preening for TV cameras.

He promised to transform the city when he was elected in 2005, but proved a shape-shifter himself. At different times he's presented himself as the education mayor, the green mayor, the transportation mayor, the law-and-order mayor. He had plenty of setbacks ? his plan to seize control of schools flopped, for example ? but he also proved resilient, using his political skills to push school improvements even if he wasn't directly in charge.

"He was slow on deciding which of those maybe five or seven dream points, visionary points, he was going to realistically try to tackle," notes Jaime Regalado, former executive director of the Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles.

Regalado considers Villaraigosa the most successful mayor since Tom Bradley, who landed the 1984 Olympics and helped shape the city's modern skyline, but adds that Villaraigosa "dreamed large and delivered far less."

Don't tell that to the mayor. "There was a lot more than got done than didn't. In spades," Villaraigosa says.

The outline of Villaraigosa's life is well etched. Son of a Mexican immigrant, barrio tough and high-school dropout, he lifted himself up and eventually became speaker of the California Assembly, city councilman and in 2005, mayor of the nation's second-most populous city.

His best-known traits remain his energy, charm and quick smile, but those were overmatched during a recession and housing crisis that destroyed jobs and chopped into tax revenues. City Hall shed jobs, many streets were left cracked and pocked, library hours were cut.

Unemployment continues to hover around double-digits, lagging the national recovery. Even with new contributions from workers, a growing bill for pensions and retiree health care threatens money needed for street paving and other services. The freeways remain among the most congested roads in the nation.

Villaraigosa is ready for critics who say the only thing he leaves behind is an empty suit. He's distributing a glossy, 61-page magazine documenting the city's safe streets, gains against smog, new park space and his efforts to rescue some of the city's worst-performing schools. His photo appears more than a dozen times inside.

But you'd have to look elsewhere for details on less flattering episodes, the affair with the newscaster that ended his marriage, the record ethics fine for failing to disclose free tickets to Los Angeles Lakers games and other events and the photo of him with the hard-partying Charlie Sheen in Mexico that surfaced as the mayor's name was being mentioned for a possible Obama administration job. Later, Villaraigosa said he wasn't interested in going to Washington.

As his successor, fellow Democrat Eric Garcetti, has made clear he wants to get down to business, not get down and party, Villaraigosa recently marked his departure at a celebration with former President Bill Clinton and Stevie Wonder.

It will also be a generational change at City Hall. Garcetti, 42, is just a few years older than Villaraigosa's eldest daughter.

The outgoing mayor's future isn't clear, though he expects to hook up with a university or think tank and bank some money with paid speeches, a typical route for a celebrity politician. During the interview he waxed about bucking convention and putting the lie to those who have underestimated him over the years.

He's single, his divorce was quietly settled after a messy split, with four children ranging in age from 38 to 20, the two youngest with his former wife Corina.

"How you are perceived is over a continuum of time," Villaraigosa said. "So I just keep on working. I've kind of always seen that as the antidote. Just keep on working."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/la-mayor-exits-bumpy-term-looking-ahead-140732044.html

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Published research shows promise of new device to detect disease with drop of blood

Public release date: 24-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Sheryl Weinstein
973-596-3436
New Jersey Institute of Technology

An NJIT research professor known for his cutting-edge work with carbon nanotubes is overseeing the manufacture of a prototype lab-on-a-chip that would someday enable a physician to detect disease or virus from just one drop of liquid, including blood. "Scalable nano-bioprobes with sub-cellular resolution for cell detection," Biosensors and Bioelectronics, (Elsevier, Vol. 45), which will publish on July 15, 2013 but is available now online, describes how NJIT research professors Reginald Farrow and Alokik Kanwal, his former postdoctoral fellow, and their team have created a carbon nanotube-based device to noninvasively and quickly detect mobile single cells with the potential to maintain a high degree of spatial resolution.

"Using sensors, we created a device that will allow medical personnel to put a tiny drop of liquid on the active area of the device and measure the cells' electrical properties," said Farrow, the recipient of NJIT's highest research honor, the NJIT Board of Overseers Excellence in Research Prize and Medal. "Although we are not the only people by any means doing this kind of work, what we think is unique is how we measure the electrical properties or patterns of cells and how those properties differ between cell types."

In the article, the NJIT researchers evaluated three different types of cells using three different electrical probes. "It was an exploratory study and we don't want to say that we have a signature," Farrow added. "What we do say here is that these cells differ based on electrical properties. Establishing a signature, however, will take time, although we know that the distribution of electrical charges in a healthy cell changes markedly when it becomes sick."

This research was originally funded by the military as a means to identify biological warfare agents. However, Farrow believes that usage can go much further and potentially detect viruses, bacteria, even cancer. The research may also someday even assess the health of good cells, such as brain neurons. Since 2010, three U.S. patents, "Method of forming nanotube vertical field effect transistor," #7,736,979 (2010); "Nanotube device and method of fabrication" #7,964,143 (2011); "Nanotube device and method of fabrication" #8,257,566 (2012) were awarded for this device. In addition, more patents have been filed.

The device (shown in photo) utilizes standard complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technologies for fabrication, allowing it to be easily scalable (down to a few nanometers). Nanotubes are deposited using electrophoresis after fabrication in order to maintain CMOS compatibility.

The devices are spaced by six microns which is the same size or smaller than a single cell. To demonstrate its capability to detect cells, the researchers performed impedance spectroscopy on mobile human embryonic kidney (HEK) cells, neurons from mice, and yeast cells. Measurements were performed with and without cells and with and without nanotubes. Nanotubes were found to be crucial to successfully detect the presence of cells.

Carbon nanotubes are very strong, electrically conductive structures a single nanometer in diameter. That's one-billionth of a meter, or approximately ten hydrogen atoms in a row. Farrow's breakthrough is a controlled method for firmly bonding one of these submicroscopic, crystalline electrical wires to a specific location on a substrate. His method also introduces the option of simultaneously bonding an array of millions of nanotubes and efficiently manufacturing many devices at the same time.

Being able to position single carbon nanotubes that have specific properties opens the door to further significant advances. Other possibilities include an artificial pancreas, three-dimensional electronic circuits and nanoscale fuel cells with unparalleled energy density.

Farrow has published over 60 papers in peer-reviewed journals and proceedings, received 11 patent awards, 4 while at NJIT, and given 14 invited talks. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the National Institutes of Health, and the U.S. Army's Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center have all supported his research. Farrow was president and conference chair of the 2012 International Symposium on Electron, Ion, and Photon Beams and Nanofabrication. Farrow received his doctorate from Stevens Institute of Technology.

###

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 24-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Sheryl Weinstein
973-596-3436
New Jersey Institute of Technology

An NJIT research professor known for his cutting-edge work with carbon nanotubes is overseeing the manufacture of a prototype lab-on-a-chip that would someday enable a physician to detect disease or virus from just one drop of liquid, including blood. "Scalable nano-bioprobes with sub-cellular resolution for cell detection," Biosensors and Bioelectronics, (Elsevier, Vol. 45), which will publish on July 15, 2013 but is available now online, describes how NJIT research professors Reginald Farrow and Alokik Kanwal, his former postdoctoral fellow, and their team have created a carbon nanotube-based device to noninvasively and quickly detect mobile single cells with the potential to maintain a high degree of spatial resolution.

"Using sensors, we created a device that will allow medical personnel to put a tiny drop of liquid on the active area of the device and measure the cells' electrical properties," said Farrow, the recipient of NJIT's highest research honor, the NJIT Board of Overseers Excellence in Research Prize and Medal. "Although we are not the only people by any means doing this kind of work, what we think is unique is how we measure the electrical properties or patterns of cells and how those properties differ between cell types."

In the article, the NJIT researchers evaluated three different types of cells using three different electrical probes. "It was an exploratory study and we don't want to say that we have a signature," Farrow added. "What we do say here is that these cells differ based on electrical properties. Establishing a signature, however, will take time, although we know that the distribution of electrical charges in a healthy cell changes markedly when it becomes sick."

This research was originally funded by the military as a means to identify biological warfare agents. However, Farrow believes that usage can go much further and potentially detect viruses, bacteria, even cancer. The research may also someday even assess the health of good cells, such as brain neurons. Since 2010, three U.S. patents, "Method of forming nanotube vertical field effect transistor," #7,736,979 (2010); "Nanotube device and method of fabrication" #7,964,143 (2011); "Nanotube device and method of fabrication" #8,257,566 (2012) were awarded for this device. In addition, more patents have been filed.

The device (shown in photo) utilizes standard complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technologies for fabrication, allowing it to be easily scalable (down to a few nanometers). Nanotubes are deposited using electrophoresis after fabrication in order to maintain CMOS compatibility.

The devices are spaced by six microns which is the same size or smaller than a single cell. To demonstrate its capability to detect cells, the researchers performed impedance spectroscopy on mobile human embryonic kidney (HEK) cells, neurons from mice, and yeast cells. Measurements were performed with and without cells and with and without nanotubes. Nanotubes were found to be crucial to successfully detect the presence of cells.

Carbon nanotubes are very strong, electrically conductive structures a single nanometer in diameter. That's one-billionth of a meter, or approximately ten hydrogen atoms in a row. Farrow's breakthrough is a controlled method for firmly bonding one of these submicroscopic, crystalline electrical wires to a specific location on a substrate. His method also introduces the option of simultaneously bonding an array of millions of nanotubes and efficiently manufacturing many devices at the same time.

Being able to position single carbon nanotubes that have specific properties opens the door to further significant advances. Other possibilities include an artificial pancreas, three-dimensional electronic circuits and nanoscale fuel cells with unparalleled energy density.

Farrow has published over 60 papers in peer-reviewed journals and proceedings, received 11 patent awards, 4 while at NJIT, and given 14 invited talks. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the National Institutes of Health, and the U.S. Army's Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center have all supported his research. Farrow was president and conference chair of the 2012 International Symposium on Electron, Ion, and Photon Beams and Nanofabrication. Farrow received his doctorate from Stevens Institute of Technology.

###

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-06/njio-prs062113.php

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Nadal loses to 135th-ranked player at Wimbledon

LONDON (AP) ? In one of Wimbledon's greatest upsets, an ailing Rafael Nadal was knocked out in straight sets Monday by a player ranked 135th ? the Spaniard's first loss in the opening round of a Grand Slam event.

Steve Darcis of Belgium stunned the two-time champion 7-6 (4), 7-6 (8), 6-4. He ended Nadal's 22-match winning streak and eliminated one of the Big Four of men's tennis on the very first day of the grass-court Grand Slam.

Nadal was sidelined for seven months with a left knee injury after losing in the second round of Wimbledon last year. He seemed to be struggling physically. He was unable to turn on the speed or use his legs to spring into his groundstrokes, limping and failing to run for some shots.

Darcis was as surprised as everyone else with the result.

"Rafa Nadal didn't play his best tennis today," the 29-year-old Belgian said. "The first match on grass is always difficult. It's his first one. Of course, it's a big win. I tried to come to the net as soon as I could, not play too far from the baseline. I think it worked pretty good today."

Nadal was coming off his eighth championship at the French Open last month but, on this day, he never looked like the player who has won 12 Grand Slam titles and established himself as one of the greatest players of his generation.

It's the second straight early Wimbledon exit for Nadal, who was ousted in the second round last year by 100th-ranked Lukas Rosol.

After that loss, Nadal took the rest of the year off to recover from the knee problem. Since returning to action this year, he had made it to the finals of all nine tournaments he entered, winning seven.

After winning the French Open, Nadal pulled out of a grass-court tuneup in Halle, Germany. He came to Wimbledon without any serious grass-court preparation.

Darcis is the lowest ranked player to beat Nadal at any tournament since Joachim Johansson ? ranked No. 690 ? defeated the Spaniard in 2006 in Stockholm.

Gustavo Kuerten, in 1997, was the last reigning French Open champion to lose in the first round at Wimbledon.

Darcis, who had won only one previous match at Wimbledon, played the match of his life Monday, going for his shots and moving Nadal from corner to corner. Darcis amassed a total of 53 winners, compared with 32 for Nadal.

Darcis finished the match in style, serving an ace down the middle ? his 13th ? as Nadal failed to chase after the ball.

Earlier, Roger Federer began his bid for a record eighth title at the All England Club with the same dominance that has defined his grass-court greatness.

Ten years after his first Wimbledon championship, Federer opened the tournament on Centre Court as defending champion and looked right as home as he dismantled Victor Hanescu of Romania 6-3, 6-2, 6-0.

This was a grass-court clinic from Federer that lasted 68 minutes. He had 32 winners, seven aces and just six unforced errors.

He won 90 percent of the points when he put his first serve in. When his serve is clicking, Federer usually is unbeatable. On this day, he won his first 15 service points and 24 out of the first 25.

"I'm happy to get out of there early and quickly," Federer said. "So it was a perfect day."

Earlier, Wimbledon produced an upset in the women's draw with fifth-seeded Sara Errani eliminated by Puerto Rican teenager Monica Puig 6-3, 6-2.

Second-seeded Victoria Azarenka overcame a right knee injury from a scary fall beating Maria Joao Koehler of Portugal 6-1, 6-2.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nadal-loses-135th-ranked-player-wimbledon-171755085.html

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Snowden arrives in Moscow

By James Pomfret and Lidia Kelly

HONG KONG/MOSCOW (Reuters) - An aircraft believed to be carrying Edward Snowden landed in Moscow on Sunday after Hong Kong let the former U.S. security contractor leave the territory, despite Washington's efforts to extradite him to face espionage charges.

The anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks said Snowden was heading for a "democratic nation" which it did not name, although a source at the Russian airline Aeroflot said he would fly on within 24 hours to Cuba and then planned to go to Venezuela.

Moscow airport officials said the flight from Hong Kong had landed but could not immediately confirm Snowden was on board. However, a source at Aeroflot said he had booked a seat on the service.

Snowden, who worked for the National Security Agency, had been hiding in Hong Kong since leaking details about U.S. surveillance activities to news media.

A spokesman for the government of Hong Kong, a former British colony which returned to China in 1997, said it had let Snowden depart because a U.S. request to have him arrested did not comply with the law.

The United States wanted him to be extradited to face trial and is likely to be furious about his departure. In Washington, a Justice Department official said it would seek cooperation with countries Snowden may try to go to.

"It's a shocker," said Simon Young, a law professor with Hong Kong University. "I thought he was going to stay and fight it out. The U.S. government will be irate."

A source at Aeroflot said Snowden would fly from Moscow to Cuba on Monday and then planned to go on to Venezuela. The South China Morning Post earlier said his final destination might be Ecuador or Iceland.

The WikiLeaks anti-secrecy website said it helped Snowden find "political asylum in a democratic country".

It added in an update on Twitter that he was accompanied by diplomats and legal advisers and was travelling via a safe route for the purposes of seeking asylum.

"The WikiLeaks legal team and I are interested in preserving Mr Snowden's rights and protecting him as a person," former Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon, legal director of WikiLeaks and lawyer for the group's founder Julian Assange, said in a statement.

"What is being done to Mr Snowden and to Mr Julian Assange - for making or facilitating disclosures in the public interest - is an assault against the people."

Assange has taken sanctuary in the Ecuadorean embassy in London and said last week he would not leave even if Sweden stopped pursuing sexual assault claims against him because he feared arrest on the orders of the United States.

U.S. authorities have charged Snowden with theft of U.S. government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information and wilful communication of classified communications intelligence to an unauthorized person, with the latter two charges falling under the U.S. Espionage Act.

The United States had asked Hong Kong, a special administrative region (SAR) of China, to send Snowden home.

"The U.S. government earlier on made a request to the HKSAR government for the issue of a provisional warrant of arrest against Mr Snowden," the Hong Kong government said in a statement.

"Since the documents provided by the U.S. government did not fully comply with the legal requirements under Hong Kong law, the HKSAR government has requested the U.S. government to provide additional information ... As the HKSAR government has yet to have sufficient information to process the request for provisional warrant of arrest, there is no legal basis to restrict Mr Snowden from leaving Hong Kong."

It did not say what further information it needed.

The White House had no comment.

CHINA SAYS U.S. "BIGGEST VILLAIN"

Although Hong Kong retains an independent legal system, and its own extradition laws, Beijing has control over its foreign affairs. Some observers see Beijing's hand in Snowden's sudden departure.

Iceland refused on Friday to say whether it would grant asylum to Snowden, a former employee of contractor Booz Allen Hamilton who worked at an NSA facility in Hawaii.

Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said earlier this month that Russia would consider granting Snowden asylum if he were to ask for it and pro-Kremlin lawmakers supported the idea, but there has been no indication he has done so.

The South China Morning Post earlier quoted Snowden offering new details about the United States' spy activities, including accusations of U.S. hacking of Chinese mobile telephone companies and targeting China's Tsinghua University.

Documents previously leaked by Snowden revealed that the NSA has access to vast amounts of internet data such as emails, chat rooms and video from large companies, including Facebook and Google, under a government program known as Prism.

China's Xinhua news agency, referring to Snowden's accusations about the hacking of Chinese targets, said they were "clearly troubling signs".

It added: "They demonstrate that the United States, which has long been trying to play innocent as a victim of cyber attacks, has turned out to be the biggest villain in our age."

Venezuela, Cuba and Ecuador are all members of the ALBA bloc, an alliance of leftist governments in Latin America who pride themselves on their "anti-imperialist" credentials.

(Additional reporting by Fayen Wong in Shanghai, Nishant Kumar in Hong Kong and Andrew Cawthorne in Caracas; Alexei Anishchuk and Steve Gutterman in Moscow, and Tabassum Zakaria in Washington; Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Anna Willard and David Stamp)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/former-nsa-contractor-snowden-leaves-hong-kong-moscow-080843121.html

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Booker brings education ideas to NJ Senate race

LAWRENCEVILLE, N.J. (AP) ? Newark Mayor Cory Booker has seen the urgent need to fix the city's failing public schools.

Now that he's a candidate for U.S. Senate, he sees the same urgency in urban areas throughout the state.

The Ivy League-educated mayor has clashed with the teachers unions for his support of merit pay and school vouchers. He tells The Associated Press he wants to create the same educational opportunities for all kids as he had.

But the New Jersey Education Association and American Federation of Teachers are staying neutral in the Democratic primary.

Their endorsement probably would have gone to either of two candidates who have been called stalwart supporters of public schools.

A fourth candidate, Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver, has opposed vouchers but angered the unions by posting pension and health benefits reform bills for a vote.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/booker-brings-education-ideas-nj-senate-race-182232693.html

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