EU in antitrust probe of Apple, e-book publishers

FILE - In this Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2011 file photo and Apple logo is seen during an announcement at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, Calif.. The European Union's antitrust watchdog announced Tuesday Dec. 6, 2011, is probing whether Apple and five major publishing houses have colluded to restrict competition in the market for e-books. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, file)

FILE - In this Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2011 file photo and Apple logo is seen during an announcement at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, Calif.. The European Union's antitrust watchdog announced Tuesday Dec. 6, 2011, is probing whether Apple and five major publishing houses have colluded to restrict competition in the market for e-books. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, file)

BRUSSELS (AP) ? The European Union's antitrust watchdog is probing whether Apple helped five major publishing houses illegally raise prices for e-books when it launched its iPad tablet and iBookstore in 2010.

The probe, announced Tuesday by the European Commission, offers a glimpse into the fierce fight for shares of the growing e-book market, especially as Apple has tried to take on Amazon and its Kindle e-book reader. It also highlights the struggle for profits between retailers and publishers, as more and more readers download books electronically.

In particular, the Commission is investigating a significant shift in the way the price of e-books is determined that occurred in 2010, just as Cupertino, California-based Apple introduced the iPad and its own online bookshop, iBookstore.

Apple was the first retailer that allowed publishers to move to so-called agency agreements, which let publishers set the price that online bookshops sell e-books to consumers. Until then, publishers were able to set the wholesale price of e-books, while retailers decided what price to sell them on to readers.

"The Commission has concerns that these practices may breach EU antitrust rules that prohibit cartels and restrictive business practices," the regulator said in a statement.

Giving publishers the power to set retail prices could effectively restrict competition between online bookshops, since it takes away individual retailers' powers to set lower prices. Since Apple's deal with the publishers, several other online retailers have also shifted to the agency model, possibly in an attempt to secure the rights to sell popular e-books.

The EU investigation targets publishers Hachette Livre, a unit of France's Lagardere Publishing; Harper Collins, owned by Rupert Murdoch's U.S.-based News Corp.; CBS Corp.'s Simon & Schuster; Penguin, which is owned by U.K. publishing house Pearson Group; and Germany's Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck, which owns Macmillan.

The Commission stressed the probe was in its early stages and did not mean the companies actually broke EU competition law. It follows a similar investigation by Britain's Office of Fair Trading and a class action lawsuit against the same five publishers and Apple filed this summer in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

The U.K. agency on Tuesday closed its own probe, since the Commission has taken over the case, but said it was cooperating closely with the EU investigation. It said its investigation was triggered by several complaints, without naming any names.

Apple representative Bethan Lloyd said the company would decline to comment at this time.

Pearson said the fact that the Commission has opened a probe did not prejudge its outcome. "Pearson does not believe it has breached any laws, and will continue to fully and openly cooperate with the Commission," it said.

Holtzbrinck echoed that statement, saying it found the Commission's case "without reason."

HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster said they are cooperating with the investigation, while Hachette Livre declined to comment.

The e-book market has been dominated by Amazon.com Inc. and its Kindle reader, with both Apple and Barnes & Noble's Nook reader fighting to break in.

In a summary of its complaint, the U.S. law firm Hagens Berman, which filed the U.S. class-action suit, claims that "Apple believed that it needed to neutralize the Kindle when it entered the e-book market with its own e-reader, the iPad, and feared that one day the Kindle might challenge the iPad by digitally distributing other media like music and movies."

The lawsuit also alleges that, following Apple's deals, Amazon was forced to abandon its discount pricing model and move to the agency model.

___

Robert Barr in London, Hillel Italie in New York, Elaine Ganley in Paris, and Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2011-12-06-eBooks-Antitrust%20Probe/id-77b09d71767a4637b7311cedc92be669

austin rivers ows kindle fire review community matt schaub fire island fire island

Putin's party barely hangs onto its majority

CAPTION CORRECTION CORRECTS THE NAME OF PHOTOGRAPHER - Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, with the emblem of the United Russia party in the background, visits the United Russia party headquarters in Moscow, Saturday, Dec. 4, 2011. Exit polls cited by Russian state television showed Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's party with less than 50 percent of the vote in Sunday's parliamentary elections, a significant drop reflecting Russians' growing weariness with his rule. (AP Photo/RIA Novosti, Alexei Nikolsky, Pool)

CAPTION CORRECTION CORRECTS THE NAME OF PHOTOGRAPHER - Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, with the emblem of the United Russia party in the background, visits the United Russia party headquarters in Moscow, Saturday, Dec. 4, 2011. Exit polls cited by Russian state television showed Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's party with less than 50 percent of the vote in Sunday's parliamentary elections, a significant drop reflecting Russians' growing weariness with his rule. (AP Photo/RIA Novosti, Alexei Nikolsky, Pool)

Elizaveta Semenova is helped by her daughter to fill in a ballot paper at her home in the village of Oster, 380 km (237 miles) west of Moscow, Sunday, Dec. 4, 2011. The ballot box has a sign reading: "Election" and the Smolensk region emblem. Russians cast their ballots with muted enthusiasm in national parliamentary elections Sunday, a vote that opinion polls indicate could water down the strength of the party led by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, despite the government's relentless marginalization of opposition groups. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Russian soldiers stand in line at a polling station in Moscow, Russia, on Sunday, Dec. 4, 2011. Russians cast their ballots with muted enthusiasm in national parliamentary elections Sunday, a vote that opinion polls indicate could water down the strength of the party led by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, despite the government's relentless marginalization of opposition groups. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko Jr)

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin casts his ballot at a polling station in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Dec. 4, 2011. Russians cast their ballots with muted enthusiasm in national parliament elections on Sunday, a vote that opinion polls indicate could water down the strength of the country's dominant party. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin greets journalists after voting at a polling station in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Dec. 4, 2011. Russians cast their ballots with muted enthusiasm in national parliament elections on Sunday, a vote that opinion polls indicate could water down the strength of the country's dominant party.(AP Photo/RIA Novosti, Alexei Nikolsky, Pool)

MOSCOW (AP) ? Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's party saw its majority in Russia's parliament weaken sharply, according to preliminary election results released Monday, a humiliating setback for the man who has steadily tightened his grip on the nation for nearly 12 years.

Some opposition politicians and election monitors said even a result of around 50 percent for Putin's United Russia party was inflated because of vote fraud. Their claims were backed by international observers, who pointed to procedural violations and serious indications of ballot stuffing after a campaign slanted in favor of United Russia.

"To me, this election was like a game in which only some players are allowed to compete," Heidi Tagliavini, the head of the international observer mission, said at a news conference.

United Russia is still expected to retain its majority in the lower house and Putin is all but certain to win next March's presidential election, but Sunday's vote badly dented his carefully groomed image. It reflected a strong public frustration with the lack of political competition, ubiquitous official corruption and the gap between rich and poor.

With about 96 percent of precincts counted, United Russia was leading with 49.5 percent of the vote, Central Election Commission chief Vladimir Churov said. He predicted that it will get 238 of the Duma's 450 seats, a sharp drop compared to the previous vote that landed the party a two-thirds majority in the State Duma, allowing it to change the constitution.

Final preliminary results were to be announced on Monday morning, but the count dragged on for longer than expected. Some opposition politicians alleged that election officials may manipulate the vote count to make sure that United Russia gets over 50 percent mark. Mikhail Kasyanov, a former prime minister who is now in opposition, said that Putin badly needs the figure to avoid looking weak.

The monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly wouldn't say if the irregularities could be at the scale to question if United Russia has an unearned majority. But Tagliavini said that of the 150 polling stations where the counting was observed, "34 were assessed to be very bad."

Putin tried to put a positive spin on the returns, saying late Sunday that "we can ensure the stable development of the country with this result." But he appeared glum when speaking to supporters at United Russia headquarters and limited his remarks to a terse statement.

United Russia has been seen increasingly as the party of corrupt officials, and its description as a "party of crooks and thieves" has stuck, flashing up as the first suggestion on Russia's top web search engine.

Seeing the declining fortunes of his party, Putin named his handpicked successor as president, Dmitry Medvedev, to lead United Russia's list. The vote will further weaken positions of Medvedev, whom Putin promised to name prime minister after the presidential vote, a move that has fueled public irritation.

In the runup to the vote, Putin also sought to stem a quick decline in United Russia's popularity by trying to expand its support base with a so-called Popular Front, an umbrella group for unions, professional associations, veteran groups and others. But the effort has brought no visible result, and Putin last month received a stinging blow to his own ego when he was met with catcalls after a mixed martial arts fight at a Moscow arena.

Opposition leader Boris Nemtsov said the vote spelled the end of Putin's "honeymoon" with the nation and predicted that his rule will soon "collapse like a house of cards." ''He needs to hold an honest presidential election and allow opposition candidates to register for the race, if he doesn't want to be booed from Kamchatka to Kaliningrad," Nemtsov said on Ekho Moskvy radio.

Security was tight in central Moscow with police trucks parked in some areas. Police said they arrested more than 100 protesters who tried to stage an unsanctioned rally in Moscow and about 70 others in St. Petersburg.

The Communist Party appeared to benefit most from the protest vote, with exit polls and the early returns predicting it would get nearly 20 percent, up from less than 12 percent four years ago. The socialist Just Russia and the Liberal Democratic Party led by mercurial nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky are also expected to increase their representation in the Duma.

Despite that, Putin should still have no problem getting his laws rubber-stamped. Even the Communists have posed only token opposition in the outgoing Duma, and the two other parties have consistently voted with United Russia.

Medvedev said Monday that United Russia would be ready to build coalitions in the new Duma, even though it will have a majority. He said he may fire governors of the provinces where the party fared particularly badly.

About 60 percent of Russia's 110 million registered voters cast ballots, down from 64 percent four years ago.

Only seven parties were allowed to field candidates for parliament this year, while the most vocal opposition groups were barred from the race. The international monitors said the election administration lacked independence, most media were partial and state authorities interfered unduly at different levels.

This "did not provide the conditions for fair electoral competiton," said Petros Efthymiou, coordinator of the short-term observation mission. "Changes are needed for the will of the people to be respected."

Social media were flooded with messages reporting violations. Many people reported seeing buses deliver groups of people to polling stations, with some of the buses carrying young men who looked like football fans.

"The elections were unprecedented in terms of dirt, pressure and the use of a well-oiled falsification machine," Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov said Monday, alleging that the vote is still being rigged as the count is going on. His party said it recorded violations at some 1,600 polling stations and said they would appeal election results at each of them.

Russia's only independent election monitoring group, Golos, which is funded by U.S. and European grants, has come under heavy official pressure in the past week. Golos' website was incapacitated by hackers on Sunday, and its director Lilya Shibanova and her deputy had their cell phone numbers, email and social media accounts hacked.

Andrey Buzin, chief of Golos election monitoring, said it had received more than 1,500 complaints about violations.

But despite the heavy-handed state interference in the campaign and numerous violations, voters still took advantage of their right to express their choice, observers said.

"Yesterday, it was proven by these voters that not everything was fixed, that the result really matters," said Tiny Kox of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly.

___

Jim Heintz, Lynn Berry and Nataliya Vasilyeva contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-12-05-EU-Russia-Election/id-e9712a125833460680199d1bbd08e342

between two ferns howard stern howard stern joe the plumber weather colorado springs weather colorado springs chaz bono

U.S. Postal Service seeks to end next-day mail (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? The cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service on Monday moved forward with plans to end next-day delivery of letters, postcards and other First Class mail.

Also, in a notice filed with its regulator, it sought approval to close more than half of its 461 processing facilities that have been critical for next-day delivery service.

The agency expects to eliminate about 28,000 jobs as part of the processing facilities plan, said David Williams, USPS vice president for network operations.

The Postal Service, which has been struggling to offset tumbling mail volumes and billion-dollar annual losses, first announced in September that it would study 252 processing sites for possible closure in 2012.

The agency is looking to find $20 billion in annual savings by 2015. It sees reducing its network of post offices and processing plants as key to adjusting as consumers increasingly pay bills online and correspond by email.

Plans to shrink the network would save about $3 billion, officials say.

"The fact of the matter is our network is too big. We've got more capacity in our network than we can afford," Williams told reporters on Monday. "More importantly, we've got to set our network up so that when volume continues to drop, our network is nimble and flexible enough to respond to those volume losses."

The closures would require the Postal Service to adjust its current delivery standards. First Class mail would be delivered in two or three days instead of one to three, with the exception of some pre-sorted mass mailings.

Delivery times for most other more expensive classes of mail, such as Priority Mail and Express Mail, would not change, Williams said. A First Class letter now costs 44 cents.

The Postal Regulatory Commission will study the proposed changes and issue a nonbinding advisory opinion. Williams said the service standards would not change before April 2012.

CUSTOMER EXPECTATIONS

Williams said the Postal Service's market research found that many customers do not expect overnight delivery of letters sent outside their towns or zip codes.

"They're already choosing speed. They're choosing electronic bill payment, they're choosing electronic communication via the Internet and email," he said.

"Our network is simply too big to handle the revenues that are coming in today but, more importantly, way too big for what we're projecting in the future."

The agency lost $5.1 billion in fiscal year 2011 and is projecting a $14 billion loss this year. The U.S. Congress has twice moved the due date for a $5.5 billion payment USPS says it cannot afford.

USPS has said it will run out of money by September of next year without a congressional overhaul of its operations.

The Postal Service has announced a host of other cost-saving ideas, including studying thousands of post offices for possible closure. The agency has asked for permission to end Saturday mail delivery, pull out of federal health and retirement programs, and other new powers.

Senator Tom Carper on Monday issued a statement calling the Postal Service's attempts to shrink its facilities network "less than ideal" and urged passage of postal legislation.

Committees in both houses of Congress have approved postal bills, but neither full chamber is expected to vote on the issue this year.

Postal officials have called for quick action on postal legislation but said current bills do not go far enough to fix the agency's problems.

(Editing by Mohammad Zargham)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111205/bs_nm/us_usa_postal_overnight

arkansas football maggie daley black friday online deals black friday news gamestop albert haynesworth banana republic

ComScore: Android continues to boom, RIM and Microsoft decline

Numbers, numbers, numbers. ComScore is back with a few more of them, this time covering the mobile market during a three-month average period ending in October. The results aren't going to shock you: Android not only continues to dominate the market, it's on the up-and-up. Out of 90 million smartphone users in the US, Android held strong at 46.3 percent (up from 41.9 between May and July). Apple bumped up a full percentage point, while RIM's BlackBerry OS took the largest fall from 21.7 to 17.2 percent. What about Windows Phone? Microsoft's mobile OS fell slightly from 5.7 to 5.4. Moving from mobile platforms to OEMs, Samsung was still the top vendor at 25.5 percent, though it didn't grow or diminish that number. Rounding out the top five was LG (20.6 percent), Motorola (13.6), Apple (10.8) and RIM (6.6). If more numbers are what you crave, check out the full press release -- as well as another chart -- after the break.

Continue reading ComScore: Android continues to boom, RIM and Microsoft decline

ComScore: Android continues to boom, RIM and Microsoft decline originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Dec 2011 15:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Android Community, Fierce Mobile  |   | Email this | Comments

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/UxS60V_c_Xc/

iphone update blackberry outage blackberry outage seal beach ca seal beach seal beach bhutan

Small plane lands on Fla. highway, no one injured (Providence Journal)

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

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/169550899?client_source=feed&format=rss

veterans day thank you veterans day thank you nigel tufnel day black friday deals molokai molokai ashton kutcher twitter

Discovery of a new reprogramming mechanism for tumor cells

Public release date: 4-Dec-2011
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Sonia Armengou
sonia.armengou@irbbarcelona.org
34-934-037-255
Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona)

Nature Medicine publishes a pioneering study about a protein that regulates the expression of hundreds of genes that have a crucial role in the progression of pancreatic cancer, gliomas and possibly many other kinds of tumor

Barcelona, 1st December, 2011.- A study by researchers Ral Mndez, ICREA Research Professor at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) and Pilar Navarro at the IMIM (Institut de Recerca Hospital del Mar, Barcelona) describes a new reprogramming mechanism for the expression of genes responsible for turning a healthy cell into a tumor cell. In the study, published in this week's edition of Nature Medicine, the scientists have identified the protein CPEB4 as a "cellular orchestra conductor" that "activates" hundreds of genes associated with tumor growth.

"The peculiarity is that it would not only be the mutation of a specific gene that promotes tumor growth but the expression of a protein in an incorrect site that "triggers" hundreds of messenger molecules (mRNAs), which transmit gene information for the synthesis of proteins, without these genes being mutated. This process leads to the expression of many "normal" genes but in unsuitable amounts and times that more greatly resemble early embryonic developmental stages rather than the stages of adult organ development", explains Ral Mndez, an expert in the CPEB protein family. "This would be the case of tPA (tissue plasminogen activator), a protein that is not normally found in the healthy pancreas but that shows high expression in pancreatic tumors", clarifies Elena Ortiz-Zapater, the first author of the article, and Pilar Navarro.

Tumors are 80% smaller when CEPB4 is absent

One of the conclusions highlighted in the study is that in the tissues examined, pancreas and brain, CPEB4 is not detected in healthy cells but only in tumor ones. Thus inhibition of this protein would provide a highly specific anti-tumor treatment and with few adverse effects, "one of the main drawbacks of many cancer therapies", says Pilar Navarro, a researcher specialized in pancreatic cancer.

Using experiments involving human cancer cells in mice, these researchers have demonstrated that the decrease in CPEB4 levels in cancer cells reduces the size of tumors by up to 80%. Although the study is limited to two kinds of tumor, according to the co-authors, "given the effects observed in the tumors examined and the type of genes regulated by this mechanism, it is expected to be involved in many other types of cancer".

This study opens up avenues for new treatments for cancer, for which the researchers are designing and analyzing CPEB4 inhibitors of potential therapeutic interest. "The clinical applications are very promising, although intensive research is needed to identify inhibitory molecules and to test them in various models before determining their clinical potential and, in this case, their use in patients", warn Navarro and Mndez.

###

The study involved Francisco X. Real, at the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Oncolgicas (CNIO) and Eduardo Eyras, ICREA researcher, both from the Department of Experimental and Health Sciences at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), together with Mar Iglesias and Francesc Alameda from the Pathology Service at Hospital del Mar.

Reference article:
Key contribution of CPEB4-mediated translational control to cancer progression.
Elena Ortiz-Zapater, David Pineda, Neus Martnez-Bosch, Gonzalo Fernndez-Miranda, Mar Iglesias, Francesc Alameda, Mireia Moreno, Carolina Eliscovic, Eduardo Eyras, Francisco X. Real, Ral Mndez and Pilar Navarro.
Nature Medicine (2011) doi:10.1038/nm.2540

---

[ | 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.

Public release date: 4-Dec-2011
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Sonia Armengou
sonia.armengou@irbbarcelona.org
34-934-037-255
Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona)

Nature Medicine publishes a pioneering study about a protein that regulates the expression of hundreds of genes that have a crucial role in the progression of pancreatic cancer, gliomas and possibly many other kinds of tumor

Barcelona, 1st December, 2011.- A study by researchers Ral Mndez, ICREA Research Professor at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) and Pilar Navarro at the IMIM (Institut de Recerca Hospital del Mar, Barcelona) describes a new reprogramming mechanism for the expression of genes responsible for turning a healthy cell into a tumor cell. In the study, published in this week's edition of Nature Medicine, the scientists have identified the protein CPEB4 as a "cellular orchestra conductor" that "activates" hundreds of genes associated with tumor growth.

"The peculiarity is that it would not only be the mutation of a specific gene that promotes tumor growth but the expression of a protein in an incorrect site that "triggers" hundreds of messenger molecules (mRNAs), which transmit gene information for the synthesis of proteins, without these genes being mutated. This process leads to the expression of many "normal" genes but in unsuitable amounts and times that more greatly resemble early embryonic developmental stages rather than the stages of adult organ development", explains Ral Mndez, an expert in the CPEB protein family. "This would be the case of tPA (tissue plasminogen activator), a protein that is not normally found in the healthy pancreas but that shows high expression in pancreatic tumors", clarifies Elena Ortiz-Zapater, the first author of the article, and Pilar Navarro.

Tumors are 80% smaller when CEPB4 is absent

One of the conclusions highlighted in the study is that in the tissues examined, pancreas and brain, CPEB4 is not detected in healthy cells but only in tumor ones. Thus inhibition of this protein would provide a highly specific anti-tumor treatment and with few adverse effects, "one of the main drawbacks of many cancer therapies", says Pilar Navarro, a researcher specialized in pancreatic cancer.

Using experiments involving human cancer cells in mice, these researchers have demonstrated that the decrease in CPEB4 levels in cancer cells reduces the size of tumors by up to 80%. Although the study is limited to two kinds of tumor, according to the co-authors, "given the effects observed in the tumors examined and the type of genes regulated by this mechanism, it is expected to be involved in many other types of cancer".

This study opens up avenues for new treatments for cancer, for which the researchers are designing and analyzing CPEB4 inhibitors of potential therapeutic interest. "The clinical applications are very promising, although intensive research is needed to identify inhibitory molecules and to test them in various models before determining their clinical potential and, in this case, their use in patients", warn Navarro and Mndez.

###

The study involved Francisco X. Real, at the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Oncolgicas (CNIO) and Eduardo Eyras, ICREA researcher, both from the Department of Experimental and Health Sciences at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), together with Mar Iglesias and Francesc Alameda from the Pathology Service at Hospital del Mar.

Reference article:
Key contribution of CPEB4-mediated translational control to cancer progression.
Elena Ortiz-Zapater, David Pineda, Neus Martnez-Bosch, Gonzalo Fernndez-Miranda, Mar Iglesias, Francesc Alameda, Mireia Moreno, Carolina Eliscovic, Eduardo Eyras, Francisco X. Real, Ral Mndez and Pilar Navarro.
Nature Medicine (2011) doi:10.1038/nm.2540

---

[ | 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/2011-12/ifri-doa120111.php

lemony snicket jim thome jim thome fun fun fun fest fun fun fun fest move your money alabama vs lsu

Art-theft suspect pleads not guilty in NYC (AP)

NEW YORK ? A wine steward suspected in a bicoastal art-theft spree lifted pricey art from New York hotels simply by walking out with the works in a canvas tote bag and then used them to line his own walls, prosecutors said Friday.

Mark Lugo, who just spent more than four months in jail for grabbing a $275,000 Picasso off a San Francisco art gallery wall, was being held without bail after pleading not guilty Friday to grand larceny and other charges in a Manhattan court.

"In an effort to display stolen art in his apartment, this repeat art thief boldly walked out of two Manhattan hotels in broad daylight" with valuable works, District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. said in a statement.

Lugo's New York lawyer, James Montgomery, said the 31-year-old was a "pleasant, engaging" man "who's been struggling with particular difficulties," which he wouldn't detail.

"When the dust settles, and the DA's office calms down a little bit, we'll find that Mr. Lugo is a man who had no commercial motive at all" in the alleged thefts, Montgomery said.

The charges relate to two thefts of a total of six artworks, including what prosecutors called a $350,000 sketch by the French Cubist painter Fernand Leger. But prosecutors said a search of Lugo's former apartment in Hoboken, N.J., turned up four other pieces ? including a Picasso work ? that may have been stolen from Manhattan venues, and they said the investigation was continuing.

Lugo was publicly identified as a suspect in several New York heists since shortly after his July arrest in San Francisco, where police identified him as the man who walked into the Weinstein Gallery, lifted the 1965 Picasso drawing "Tete de Femme" ("Head of a Woman") off the wall, strolled down the street with the sketch under his arm and hopped into a taxi. Police tracked Lugo to a friend's Napa County apartment, where the Picasso was found unframed and prepared for shipping.

At his Hoboken apartment, investigators then found a $430,000 trove of stolen art, carefully and prominently displayed, as well as high-priced wine, authorities said.

Among some 19 artworks at the apartment was Leger's 1917 "Composition with Mechanical Elements," Assistant District Attorney Meghan Hast told a judge. The drawing disappeared June 28 from an employee entrance area at a gallery in the Carlyle Hotel; prosecutors pegged its value at $350,000, though Montgomery said that figure warranted investigating.

Lugo also is charged with stealing a group of five works by the South Korea-born artist Mie Yim, known for her disconcerting images of toy bears and other toy-like creatures, from the Chambers Hotel on June 14. The hotel had bought the Yim works, together called "Pastel on Board," for $1,800 apiece, prosecutors said.

Representatives for the hotels didn't immediately return calls Friday.

The San Francisco district attorney's office has said Lugo also was suspected of several other New York art heists, including the theft of a $30,000 Picasso etching from the William Bennett Gallery on June 27.

While artworks can be equipped with electronic tags that sound alerts when they're moved, some galleries don't use the technology because they sell works and change their exhibits frequently, said Robert K. Wittman, a former investigator for the FBI's national art crime team.

Most art thieves sell or try to sell what they snatch, but a few have stolen to enhance their own collections ? sometimes "for bragging rights," said Wittman, now an art-security consultant based in Chester Heights, Pa.

Lugo, a sometime sommelier and kitchen server at upscale Manhattan restaurants, also is charged in New Jersey with taking $6,000 worth of wine - in the form of three bottles of Chateau Petrus Pomerol - in April from Gary's Wine and Marketplace in Wayne. He hasn't appeared in a New Jersey court yet to answer those charges.

Lugo pleaded guilty in October to grand theft for the San Francisco heist. He finished his 138-day sentence Nov. 21 but was being held until he could be transferred to New York.

Lugo's San Francisco attorney, Douglas Horngrad, has called him "more like someone who was in the midst of a psychiatric episode" than a calculating art thief.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/arts/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111202/ap_on_en_ot/us_purloined_picasso

richard stallman williston north dakota williston north dakota kody brown transylvania terrell owens terrell owens

Shame on You, Ron Paul, for Questioning Gingrich's Conservatism (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | GOP presidential hopeful Ron Paul accused former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of being a "serial hypocrite" and questions his conservative credentials in a new web ad launched by his campaign. Has Paul lost it or something?

ABC News reported that the Paul campaign has prepared a special web advertisement that will be sent to conservative voters by email. The 150-second piece selects certain black/white video clips from Gingrich's appearances over the years and attempts to question his conservative values. Seriously Ron?

Political pieces like this just bother me to no end. Voters deserve better then random, baseless accusations about politicians that have been in office for years. These mini sound bites never do justice to the person depicted and are almost always out of context.

In the video, the Paul campaign also accuses Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., of "right-wing social engineering" and then uses other video of Ryan to criticize the former House speaker. Ron Paul's campaign spokesman said the video is meant "to debunk the myth that the Newt we are seeing on the 2012 campaign trail is the conservative he has been touted to be all along."

Ron Paul doesn't need to stoop to this level of accusation to win over the conservative voters. Gingrich led the 1994 Republican takeover of the U.S. House of Representatives on a very conservative agenda within the infamous Contract With America. Very few voters with any semblance of political know-how would believe that Gingrich could not pass the conservative muster.

The reality here is that some of Paul's policies simply far from mainstream within the Republican Party. He disagrees with many well-established political realities in Washington. Medicare, Medicare and Social Security are not going to go away, and any reform will come slowly. As imperfect as they may be, they are a social safety net that cannot be radically transformed overnight. Change comes at a snail's pace in Washington D.C.

Paul may campaign for sweeping government overhauls such as abolishing the Federal Reserve System. Right, wrong or indifferent, Paul will never be able to enact radical changes like that if he is elected president. Governing is about compromise. We don't elect dictators in this country.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20111202/pl_ac/10577909_shame_on_you_ron_paul_for_questioning_gingrichs_conservatism

marie osmond st louis cardinals josh hamilton beavis and butthead cardinals jennifer nicole lee jennifer nicole lee

Verizon's Galaxy Nexus updated to Android 4.1.0, finally ready to dance?

A lucky human known as "Bradgog" posted the above screenshot to a thread on My Droid World last night, ostensibly heralding the arrival of Android 4.1 on Verizon's Samsung Galaxy Nexus. As you can see in the image (purportedly taken on Verizon's 3G network), the firmware update appears to bring a new baseband radio to the handset, which, in turn, may explain the delay in bringing the device to Big Red's stable. It's hard to say for sure, though we should have a clearer idea any day now.

Verizon's Galaxy Nexus updated to Android 4.1.0, finally ready to dance? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 02 Dec 2011 11:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Phandroid  |  My Droid World  | Email this | Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/02/verizons-galaxy-nexus-updated-to-android-4-1-0-finally-ready-t/

tashard choice tashard choice amityville horror puss in boots the rum diary trailer the rum diary trailer nor easter

Video: Is Iran becoming a pressing foreign policy issue?

U.S. to world: Dude, where's my vacation?

There?s good news and bad news on the American vacation front courtesy of a just-released survey from Expedia.com. Released on Wednesday, the Vacation Deprivation Study revealed that U.S. workers let two days of vacation go unused this year, down from three days last year.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/45483892#45483892

carrie steve wozniak steve wozniak legarrette blount pharrell pharrell silver bullet

Officials extend voting to 2nd day in Congo (AP)

KINSHASA, Congo ? After an election marred by missing ballots and violence, officials extended voting to a second day Tuesday in an attempt to prevent further unrest in sub-Saharan Africa's largest nation.

Country experts had urged the government to postpone Monday's presidential and legislative elections, arguing that a delayed vote was better than a botched one.

Congo is in a race against the clock, though, because the five-year term of President Joseph Kabila expires next week, and the country could face more unrest if he is seen as staying past his constitutional mandate.

The vote is only the second since the end of Congo's last war, and the first to be organized by the government instead of the international community. The election was supposed to mark another step toward peace, but if the results are not accepted by the population, especially the country's fractured opposition, analysts fear it could drag Congo back into conflict.

The spokesman of the election commission, Matthieu Mpita, announced late Monday that the election would be extended into a second day.

"Voters at polling stations that never received ballots and which have not yet opened should await the delivery of the materials," he said. "Voters that are at sites where ballots ran out and where the vote had to be interrupted for whatever reason are asked to stay calm and await further instructions."

Less than 2 percent of roads are paved in Congo, which suffered decades of dictatorship and two civil wars. Some districts are so remote that ballot boxes had to be transported across muddy trails on the heads of porters, and by dugout canoe across churning rivers.

Even in the capital, though, one precinct ran out of ballots late Monday and had to call for more to be delivered, said Jean-Felix Dikamba, the president of one of the polling stations inside the school.

The ballots were delivered in an unmarked car and when the poll workers tried to unload the materials, a mob rushed the car, accusing the poll workers of delivering pre-marked ballots. Police then fired tear gas to disperse angry voters outside.

Elsewhere, five people were killed in the southeastern town of Lubumbashi on Monday after gunmen opened fire on a truck carrying ballots and on a polling center.

The head of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Congo, Roger Meece, told reporters that he had received reports of at least two polling stations being set on fire in the Kananga province.

Congo's territory straddles an area the size of the United States east of the Mississippi ? over 1.4 million square miles, much of it covered by rain forest. The vast forest in the country's east is still inhabited by militias and rebel groups responsible for attacks villages and raping civilians.

The incumbent president is widely expected to win re-election since the opposition is split among 10 candidates, including 79-year-old Etienne Tshisekedi, a longtime opposition leader who is running for president for the first time.

Kabila was first thrust into the position of president a decade ago, after the assassination of his father, Laurent Kabila, the rebel leader who toppled the country's dictator of 32 years, Mobutu Sese Seko.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111129/ap_on_re_af/af_congo_election

walmart jcpenney loft old navy cyber monday best deals cyber monday best deals brownback

Police: Kentucky dad loads groceries, forgets baby (Providence Journal)

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

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/168128641?client_source=feed&format=rss

favicon.ico favicon.ico footloose best iphone 4 case best iphone 4 case sonic youth sonic youth

Gingrich trails in organizing in early-voting Iowa (AP)

DES MOINES, Iowa ? Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich leads the 2012 pack in buzz but trails his rivals in just about every other category in Iowa.

The former House speaker is striving for a remarkable comeback with the smallest staff and the fewest precinct-level campaign backers of the seven candidates competing in the Jan. 3 presidential caucuses that kick off voting in the fight for the GOP nomination.

Gingrich, who casts himself as the idea candidate bucking convention, is betting that his prescriptions for what ails America ? more so than tried-and-true campaign tools ? can help him win in Iowa, a state where a stellar organization traditionally has been the key to turning out supporters to local political meetings called caucuses on a cold, Midwestern winter night.

"The traditional ways might not be the most efficient way. Newt has shown us campaigning now is different," said Katie Koberg, Gingrich's deputy Iowa caucus director. "It's not about how you many staff you can hire."

Can it work? It's a gamble.

Gingrich's task was made more difficult this year after his campaign imploded and Iowa moved its caucuses earlier in the year, on the heels of the holiday season.

But Koberg says a combination of traditional staff work and online recruiting could help Gingrich piece together an organization that could harness the momentum he has gathered.

With just four staff members ? a fifth is scheduled to come aboard Friday ? Gingrich's team in Iowa is at once reaching out through traditional methods, attending party functions and signing up supporters in person, and reaching out in less conventional ways.

For months, Gingrich has led a campaign on life support, raising money on the Internet by capitalizing on highly praised debate performances that, in turn, helped him finance his trip to the next debate.

Gingrich often repeats his campaign's website address during nationally broadcast interviews and debates, which has drawn Iowans into his organization. Interested Iowans get a call back from Koberg or one of her aides, are put on the mailing list, and are asked about volunteer work and, importantly, whether they will caucus for Gingrich.

There are risks to Gingrich's shoestring Iowa campaign. He holds few of his own events, choosing instead to appear at businesses or Republican Party functions. The events don't cost his campaign money to set up, but the audiences may be less reliably interested in hearing him.

On Wednesday night, for instance, he was scheduled to appear at an advocacy group's meeting in western Iowa's Council Bluffs, and Thursday at an insurance company, association meeting and county GOP function in the Des Moines area.

But it's all he can do, given that there are only five weeks until the caucuses. And the approach fits with Gingrich's confidence that his appeal as a tested congressional leader with an array of post-congressional career policy hallmarks will attract Republicans searching for an alternative to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who has been a leader in national polls and in Iowa, despite a less aggressive Iowa campaign.

There's also a recent precedent for a successful, unconventional approach in Iowa.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee vaulted to the top of the polls in Iowa four years ago on a shoestring budget and little organizational structure. However, Huckabee, a former Baptist minister, made deep inroads with Iowa's conservative evangelical clergy and Christian home-school advocates, giving him key niches.

Gingrich, on the other hand, is cobbling together a coalition of evangelicals, with supporters such as longtime social conservative Loras Schulte, and establishment Republicans such as the Iowa House Majority Leader Linda Upmeyer.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111201/ap_on_el_pr/us_gingrich

adam levine vs fashion show 2011 bobby valentine bobby valentine victoria secret fashion show rudolph the red nosed reindeer rudolph the red nosed reindeer

21 or 18? Rick Perry misses the mark on voting age (Los Angeles Times)

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

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/167792632?client_source=feed&format=rss

republican presidential candidates bet hip hop awards 2011 bet hip hop awards 2011 kraken kraken calvin johnson calvin johnson

Easing Emotional Trauma by Dreaming

Link Information - Click to View

Easing Emotional Trauma by Dreaming
Researchers at Berkeley have found evidence that a specific phase of sleep, called rapid eye movement, or REM, plays a key role in helping us deal with troubling emotions. Hope, perhaps, for victims of PTSD?

Source: ABC News
Posted on: Wednesday, Nov 30, 2011, 8:31am
Views: 17

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/115578/Easing_Emotional_Trauma_by_Dreaming

eric decker jr martinez dallas cowboys cheerleaders leftover turkey recipes leftover turkey recipes hugo hugo

Immerse yourself with classic cars with ROAD inc for iPad

ROAD inc is an iPad app for car enthusiasts. It includes 50 landmark automobile models and over 70 videos, 350 HD photos, 3000 documents, and 100 engine sounds. Exploring these classic cars is a very interactive and immersive experience, that even non-car enthusiasts will enjoy this app. Check out...

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/qfr6XjrQunU/story01.htm

daylight savings time humpback whale humpback whale barrel roll anagram 180 degrees askew

Germans arrest suspect in neo-Nazi murder ring (AP)

BERLIN ? German prosecutors say they have arrested a 36-year-old man suspected of helping a neo-Nazi terror ring carry out six suspected murders over the course of a decade.

Federal prosecutors said in a statement that police had arrested a man identified only as Ralf W. early Tuesday on suspicion of abetting six counts of murder and one of attempted murder, in connection with the slayings by the far-right National Socialist Union of several victims with Turkish and Greek roots.

Prosecutors suspect the man of being "closely connected to the three members of the NSU since the 1990s." He is further suspected of having helped organize money and weapons that helped the group to live undetected for years.

Two NSU members are now dead, a third is in custody.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111129/ap_on_re_eu/eu_germany_far_right

breast cancer awareness month barbara walters new ipod touch new ipod touch dwts results vanessa paradis vanessa paradis

SteelSeries Limited Edition Fnatic Sensei gaming mouse | Ubergizmo

Your choice of a gaming mouse is very important when it comes to making sure you are able to get the right shot in at those crucial moments, even more so when you are involved in a team game, as you might need to cover someone else?s back, and a failure in equipment on your part (no, your ego would never have admitted to a failure in skill) might spell the difference between disaster and success. Well, SteelSeries? latest offering to the world would be the Limited Edition Fnatic Sensei gaming mouse, where it will come in an ambidextrous form factor, sporting orange, black and white colors at the same time to keep it stylish ? at least according to SteelSeries? own design house.

Touted by SteelSeries to be ?the most customizable mouse to ever hit the competitive gaming industry?, the SteelSeries Sensei in its limited edition form factor will feature three zones of 16.8 million color illumination options, where the Fnatic logo is not spared. This is no dumb mouse ? it also sports its very own 32 bit ARM processor that is enough to power sophisticated calculations that are done on the mouse directly. There is also no need for any software drivers to have it going. Apart from that, sensitivity settings can also be changed in increments of one from 1 to 5,700 CPI, where there is also an ?overclocked? Double CPI feature that enables one to crank it up all the way to 11,400 DCPI. You won?t have to break the bank for this puppy though, since it retails for just $99.99 ? at the equivalent amount in Euros if you?re living across the pond. [Press Release]

Source: http://www.ubergizmo.com/2011/11/steelseries-limited-edition-fnatic-sensei-gaming-mouse/

amas desean jackson music awards 2011 music awards 2011 jill biden jill biden al mvp

Looking to build, Gingrich eyes South Carolina

FILE - In this Nov. 22, 2011, file photo, Republican presidential candidate and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich speaks during the Republican presidential debate in Washington. Newt Gingrich landed editorial endorsement of NH Union Leader Sunday Nov. 27, 2011, 45 days before GOP primary. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

FILE - In this Nov. 22, 2011, file photo, Republican presidential candidate and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich speaks during the Republican presidential debate in Washington. Newt Gingrich landed editorial endorsement of NH Union Leader Sunday Nov. 27, 2011, 45 days before GOP primary. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

FILE - In this Nov. 19, 2011, file photo Republican presidential hopeful, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, right, greets a young supporter during a town hall event in Peterborough, N.H. Romney enjoys solid leads in New Hampshire polls and remains at the front of the pack nationally. A poll released last week showed him with 42 percent support among likely Republican primary voters in New Hampshire. Gingrich followed with 15 percent in the WMUR-University of New Hampshire Granite State poll. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich looked to turn an endorsement from New Hampshire's largest newspaper into momentum elsewhere, heading to South Carolina for a three-day campaign swing with tea party members.

His leading rival, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, did not schedule campaign appearances on Monday, but his advisers were working to downplay The New Hampshire Union Leader's backing of Gingrich in Romney's back yard. The newspaper's rejection of Romney, who enjoys solid polling leads in that state and has worked to line up activists, stood to potentially reshape the entire campaign.

"We don't back candidates based on popularity polls or big-shot backers. We look for conservatives of courage and conviction who are independent-minded, grounded in their core beliefs about this nation and its people, and best equipped for the job," the newspaper said in its Sunday front-page editorial.

The Union Leader's editorial is a sign that conservative concerns about Romney's shifts on crucial issues of abortion and gay rights were unlikely to fade. Those worries have led Romney to keep Iowa's Jan. 3 caucuses ? where conservatives hold great sway ? at arm's length.

At the same time, the endorsement boosts Gingrich's conservative credentials. He spent the week defending his immigration policies against accusations they represent a form of amnesty. On Monday, Gingrich was to begin a campaign swing through South Carolina, the South's first primary state. There, he will have a town hall meeting with Rep. Tim Scott and tea party activists in Charleston.

Romney, taking a few days' break for the Thanksgiving holiday, has kept focused on a long-term strategy that doesn't lurch from one development to another. Last week, he picked up the backing of Sen. John Thune, a South Dakota conservative, to add to his roster of supporters.

Romney planned to return to the campaign on Tuesday in Florida.

The Union Leader's rejection of Romney wasn't surprising despite his efforts to woo state leaders. The newspaper rejected Romney four years ago in favor of Arizona Sen. John McCain, using front-page columns and editorials to promote McCain and criticize Romney.

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who has a vacation home in the state and has been called a "nearly native son of New Hampshire," absorbed the blow heading into the Jan. 10 vote that's vital to his campaign strategy.

Yet with six weeks until the primary, The Union Leader's move could again shuffle the race, further boosting Gingrich and driving a steady stream of criticism against his rivals. In recent weeks, the former House speaker has seen a surge in some polls as Republicans focus more closely on deciding who they consider best positioned to take on President Barack Obama.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2011-11-28-Campaign-2012/id-ca61bf51b73d44aaab63a43866e5cda7

lemony snicket jim thome jim thome fun fun fun fest fun fun fun fest move your money alabama vs lsu

Surge in Free School Lunches Reflects Economic Crisis

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Millions of students are receiving free or low-cost meals for the first time as their parents have lost jobs or homes in the economic crisis.

Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=44a86e28775cd8ea684026701e673d7f

conrad murray bobby valentine bobby valentine occupy la victoria secret fashion show chapter 11 bankruptcy chapter 11 bankruptcy

'Standing on Ceremony' micro plays left at altar (AP)

NEW YORK ? A set of micro plays about gay marriage that made its debut earlier this month off-Broadway has been jilted.

Producers said Tuesday that "Standing on Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays" at the Minetta Lane Theatre will have its final performance on Dec. 18.

The plays by playwrights including Neil LaBute, Paul Rudnick, Doug Wright and Moises Kaufman opened Nov. 13 with an open-ended run and high hopes.

The cast includes Beth Leavel from "The Drowsy Chaperone", Richard Thomas from "Race", Craig Bierko from "The Music Man", Mark Consuelos from TV's "All My Children", Polly Draper from "thirtysomething" and Harriet Harris from "Thoroughly Modern Millie."

The other playwrights are Mo Gaffney, Jordan Harrison, Wendy MacLeod and Jose Rivera.

___

Online:

http://www.standingonceremony.net

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tv/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111129/ap_en_tv/us_theater_standing_on_ceremony

oregon ducks football the league the ides of march yankees espn magazine espn magazine anywhere but here

VIDEO: Mt. Pleasant artist has artwork diplayed in Rome

By Lisa Satayut
Sun Special Writer

Mt. Pleasant cultural-contemporary artist Lily Kostrzewa explains one of her artworks at her studio downtown Mt. Pleasant. One of her paintings titled ?Lying Nude? was chosen to be part of an international contemporary art exhibition at the ?Museo Storico della Fanteria? Historical Museum of Infantry in Rome, Italy from Nov. 26 to Dec.14. Sun photograph by LISA SATAYUT.

Mt. Pleasant cultural-contemporary artist Lily Kostrzewa is making her way around the world by way of artwork.

One of her paintings titled ?Lying Nude? was chosen to be part of an international contemporary art exhibition at the ?Museo Storico della Fanteria? Historical Museum of Infantry in Rome, Italy from Nov. 26 to Dec. 14.

The exhibition, ?Fragments of stories between the History,? celebrates the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy.

?It is a great honor to be on such a wonderful international stage with contemporary artists from all over the world,? Kostrzewa said.

She describes the painting as a cross-cultural piece.

?I try to bring the Chinese culture to my contemporary art,? Kostrzewa said from her studio in downtown Mt. Pleasant.

?It?s a beautiful foreground with a shiny blue background with Chinese writing and has gold and silver colors,? she said.

?I am so glad this piece is going to be showing in Rome.?

Art has been a passion for Kostrzewa since she was a child. Continued...

?Everybody has their different passion. For me, art has always been a part of my passion since I was a child.?

The purpose of the exhibition in Rome is to join the past with the present through national and international artists.

Kostrzewa was born in Taiwan and moved to the United States when she was 25 years old. Her artwork has also been exhibited in Taiwan, Austria, Canada and Greece.

She also participated in the largest international art competition, ArtPrize 2011, in Grand Rapids.

Kostrzewa recently also landed an art exhibition in Chicago?s Bridgeport art district. Her work will be shown at 4ART INC GALLERY of Zhou B Art Center in Chicago. Her one-minute art video can be viewed at http://www.lilykostrzewa.com/Gallery.html and her biography and other works can be seen at www.lilykostrzewa.com.

Kostrzewa welcomes any visitors to her studio located at 204 Court St. in downtown Mt. Pleasant.

Kostrzewa holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in modern painting, a Master of Arts degree in computer graphics, a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Chinese art as well as an art teaching degree.

Source: http://www.themorningsun.com/articles/2011/11/27/news/doc4ed170528fa3a424004179.txt

kroy biermann nene leakes duggars danny woodhead forgetting sarah marshall jets tom brady