Chilling 911 call records 1st clue of problem in SC home where 6 found shot to death

GREENWOOD, S.C. –  A chilling 911 call was the first clue that something was terribly wrong inside a one-story rural home in South Carolina where six people, including the gunman, were later found shot to death.
Facing problems with the law and in his personal life, 27-year-old Bryan Sweatt told a police dispatcher he was about to kill himself.
With a woman's voice crying in the background, the dispatcher asked if he had a gun. His reply: "a 44." The phone line went dead.
Sometime after, police say Sweatt killed his girlfriend, her parents, two children living in the Greenwood home and himself.
Police don't have a definite motive, but Sweatt was in a custody battle with the girlfriend and was facing a burglary charge that could have landed him behind bars.

Read More: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/10/31/chilling-11-call-records-1st-clue-problem-in-sc-home-where-6-found-shot-to/

Matthew McConaughey: A midcareer makeover like no other

BEVERLY HILLS – Matthew McConaughey is riding on the best reviews of his life, but that Texas charm is still steering.
"Matthew has an idea for your interview," says a studio publicist, calling the morning of a scheduled breakfast. Wouldn't it be great, the voice on the line posited, if the interview were to take place in a quieter area, with the University of Texas football game on in the background?
The actor grins widely a few minutes later as he greets an amused entertainment reporter in a hotel room. The UT-Oklahoma game "happens once a year!" the UT alum says, turning the television's sound way down. "There it is. In the background. It kicks off so early on the West Coast."
To his credit, the actor stays fully focused as he dives into the making of Dallas Buyers Club (opening in New York and L.A. on Friday), the true story of Ron Woodroof, a brash, homophobic Texas cowboy who contracted HIV in 1985 and was told he had 30 days to live.
"You made a mistake," McConaughey (as Woodroof) tells his doctor (Jennifer Garner) in disgust. "That ain't me."
Repelled by the inaccessibility of a local clinical trial administering HIV antiviral drug AZT, Woodroof crosses into Mexico to buy drugs unapproved by the FDA. His health stabilizes, a light bulb goes off at the black-market potential, and he begrudgingly cuts in a transsexual he met at the hospital, Rayon (Jared Leto), who can drum up business in the gay community.

Read more : http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2013/10/29/mcconaughey-inside-dallas-buyers-club/3289473/

Dax Shepard, Kristen Bell had 'world's worst wedding'

Star weddings are usually glamorous and beautiful.
But Dax Shepard told Jimmy Kimmel on Monday night that his nuptials with Kristen Bell were nothing to brag about.
The actor/comic, 38, tied the knot with Bell, 33, on Oct. 17, but it wasn't a typically lavish Hollywood ceremony. It took place at the Beverly Hills County Clerk's office and cost just under $150 from start to finish.
"So we went to the Beverly Hills courthouse and, all in, with fuel to get there, $142 out the door," he said.
And then Kimmel showed a photo of their wedding cake. "Friends of ours came to the courthouse, and it was just Kristen and I at this lonely courthouse, so they brought us this cake afterwards. World's Worst Wedding!" he said, laughing. "How many people can say they threw 'The World's Worst Wedding'?"

SOURCE : http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2013/10/29/dax-shepard-kristen-bell-had-worlds-worst-wedding/3296009/

Google looks to triple Glass testers

Computerworld - Google is looking to triple the number of people testing Glass before the official rollout of the wearable computers next year.

The company announced in a post on Google+ Tuesday that over the next few weeks all of its Glass Explorers, or prototype testers, will be able to invite three people to join the program. They'll have to pay the $1,500 price tag for the computerized eyeglasses, but they'll be able to join the original 8,000 Glass testers.
The new testers also won't have to travel to a Google base, like San Francisco or New York, to pick up their prototypes as others had to. Glass will be shipped directly to them.
"They'll be able to buy Glass online and can have it shipped to their home, office, treehouse or igloo," Google wrote in the post. "We're counting on you to get Glass to the people you think will make great Explorers. More Explorers means more feedback, and more feedback means better Glass."

Google also announced that all of its Explorers won't have to buy new models of Glass when they begin to ship. They can exchange their prototypes for the new versions.
"We want to say 'thank you' for all the amazing feedback we've been getting, so later this year, all Explorers will have a one-time option to swap out their existing Glass for a new one," wrote Google. "This hardware update will allow your Glass to work with future lines of shades and prescription frames, and we'll also include a mono earbud."
That deal, however, won't apply to the latest Glass Explorers.
Google explained that only Explorers who purchased Glass before Oct. 28 are eligible. And once the program is open, they'll have 60 days to register for the exchange. After that, the offer expires.
The company said it will notify testers in November about the Exchange option.
Earlier this year, Google sources had been saying that Glass officially would be released late this year. However, that date has been pushed back to 2014.
The confusion began at the company's popular Google I/O conference in May. During the conference, several Googlers said Glass would ship in 2013, despite the fact that Eric Schmidt, Google's former CEO and current executive chairman, had said earlier that Glass wouldn't be released formally until 2014.
Analysts at Google I/O said Schmidt was likely playing it safe in case the ship date did extend beyond 2013. That seemingly is what happened; all Googlers now say Glass will ship next year.

SOURCE : http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9243606/Google_looks_to_triple_Glass_testers

Apple Forecasting Slower Holiday Sales Amid Samsung Gains

Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s forecast for the slowest holiday sales growth in a half decade reflects how iPhones and iPads aren’t providing the growth surges they once did as competition accelerates in the saturated mobile market.
The trend was outlined yesterday when Cupertino, California-based Apple said revenue for the current quarter would be $55 billion to $58 billion, up 0.9 percent to 6.4 percent, from $54.5 billion a year earlier. That would be the slowest holiday-sales rise since 2008, when revenue jumped 6 percent. Profit will be about the same as last year, based on Apple’s predictions for gross margins.

The forecast is a turnaround from previous years such as 2011 and 2012 when Apple saw holiday sales swell by more than 70 percent. While Apple’s devices have upended the technology industry, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook has overseen a stock fall of 25 percent in the past year as profit declined for the first time in a decade. The world’s most-valuable company is grappling with competitors led by Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) that are exerting pricing pressure through lower-priced smartphones and tablets.
“The question is, can they return to growth?” said Walter Piecyk, an analyst at BTIG in New York. “You had a company that was growing, and then it went negative.”
There are signs Apple will regain its footing in 2014, with profit margins stabilizing and sales in countries like China expanding, said Piecyk. The company generated $5.73 billion in China last quarter, up 5.6 percent from a year earlier, while sales in Japan rose 41 percent to $3.34 billion after it forged a deal with the country’s largest carrier, NTT Docomo Inc. (9437), to sell the iPhone.

Bright Spots

“The product line is seeing strong demand,” said Laurence Balter, an analyst at Oracle Investment Research. “They need to get back on a positive climb.”
Apple is rolling out new iPhones and iPads for the end-of-year shopping season, which is the company’s most important quarter. Cook, speaking on a conference call yesterday, said the new iPhone 5s is backlogged and that he expects new iPads to be similarly popular.
Apple will begin selling a new iPad Air Nov. 1, followed later in the month by an updated iPad mini with a high-definition screen.
“It’s going to be an iPad Christmas,” Cook said on the call. He also hinted that products are in development for release next year, including new categories where the company doesn’t currently do business.

Battling Competitors

New products would help expand Apple’s sales as the smartphone and tablet markets have become more crowded. Apple had about 13.4 percent of the global smartphone market last quarter, down from 15.6 percent last year, according to market researcher Strategy Analytics. Samsung’s share rose to 35.2 percent from 32.9 percent. Apple’s share of the tablet market has also declined, as rivals introduce new products and lure customers with lower-cost alternatives.
The competition has hit Apple’s gross margins, as the company faced higher costs to introduce its new iPhones and iPads ahead of the holidays. The company forecast margins of 36.5 percent to 37.5 percent for the current quarter, compared with analysts’ projection for 38 percent on average, according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Gross margins are closely watched by investors because it indicates how well the company is managing costs.
Apple fell as much as 5.1 percent in extended trading after it released quarterly results, then recovered to almost its closing level of $529.88 after Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer said margins would have been better, if not for a new accounting method Apple is using for software.

IPhone, IPad

Apple said sales for its fiscal fourth quarter ended in September rose 4.2 percent to $37.5 billion. IPhone sales, including about a week of the new 5s and 5c models on store shelves, were 33.8 million, more than the 32.8 million predicted by analysts on average in a Bloomberg survey. The company also sold 14.1 million iPads, compared with an estimated 14.3 million. Apple sold 4.6 million Mac computers.
Profit for the quarter fell 8.6 percent to $7.51 billion, or $8.26 a share, above the $7.92 projected by analysts on average and the third-consecutive period of declines.
“This is a company that has routinely blown the doors off their estimates, so meeting or just exceeding is probably a disappointment,” said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at BMO Private Bank, which has $66 billion under management.
Margins Bottoming?
CFO Oppenheimer said gross margins are being weighed down by higher costs for new products, currency pressure from conversions in Japan and Australia, and an accounting change related to revenue adjustments for software that the company is now giving away for free with new iPhone, iPads and Macs.
Without the deferred revenue, Apple’s gross margin outlook would have been about 38 percent, Oppenheimer said.
“We’re going to work hard to work down the cost curve,” he said.
If Apple hits the high-end of its forecast for gross margins in the current quarter, it would the first time in five quarters they haven’t declined. Margins hit a record 47 percent in 2012.
“Apple is laying down some markers that it’s not a broken growth company,” said David Rolfe, chief investment officer at Wedgewood Partners Inc.

Read More : http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-29/apple-forecasting-slower-holiday-sales-amid-samsung-gains.html

China probes terror links in Tiananmen crash

BEIJING — Chinese authorities named a pair of suspects from a heavily Muslim western region of the country as suspicions grew that a deadly car crash and fire near Tiananmen Square was a terror attack.
Five people were dead after the vehicle plowed through dozens of pedestrians and police at the center of the capital city at lunchtime Monday.
Strengthening suspicions it was an act of terror by Muslims from China's northwest, the Beijing police issued a notice late Monday to hotels in the Chinese capital that named two suspects from the Xinjiang region, according to the text of the notice posted online by some Chinese Internet users, and reported Tuesday by the Global Times, a Communist Party-run newspaper.
Xinjiang, a huge area of desert and mountain in Chinese Central Asia, has witnessed regular unrest in recent years involving the Muslim Uighur ethnic group, now only a slim majority of Xinjiang's population after decades of immigration by China's majority Han people.
The Uighur have long complained about repressive rule by Beijing. The Chinese government argues it has brought badly-needed development, and says violent incidents there are fomented by 'hostile foreign forces'.
The two named suspects are both male, with Uighur-sounding names. One is aged 25 from Pishan county, and the other is 43 from Shanshan county, where Chinese authorities said rioters killed 22 civilians and 2 policemen in June. The notice told hotel management to watch out for "suspicious" people and vehicles dating back to October 1, and gave four license number plates from Xinjiang, perhaps suggesting further incidents are feared.
The Beijing police confirmed to the Global Times that they had issued the notice to hotels, but did comment on the "major case" itself.
Killed were the driver, two passengers, a female tourist from the Philippines and a male tourist from South China's Guangdong province, and 38 people were injured, reported Qianlong.com, a Beijing government news website. Authorities cleared Tiananmen Square, home to Mao's tomb, after the crash.
An official investigation is underway, reported Xinhua, the state news agency. The unusual nature of the incident, and the way the vehicle had been driven some distance along the sidewalk, injuring and scattering pedestrians, quickly led to speculation online that the vehicle was used in a deliberate attack.
Photos posted online showed the vehicle ablaze beside the historic bridges that lead visitors under the famous portrait of Chairman Mao and into the Forbidden City, the former residence of China's emperors.
Tiananmen Square is not only a big tourist draw but also the political heart of China, and therefore one of the most sensitive areas in the country. Leaders of the ruling Communist Party live and work nearby. Major party and government events take place at the adjacent Great Hall of the People, where a national women's congress was underway Monday.
Most famous abroad for the 1989 democracy protests, put down by force, the square still draws occasional and isolated protests that are quickly snuffed out by uniformed and plainclothes security officers who patrol the square and its environs.
Fire extinguishers are positioned in several areas to stop attempts at self-immolation.
Just as the square itself is often closed before and during sensitive political anniversaries or events, even the Chinese characters for Tiananmen Square sometimes trigger China's wide array of Internet censorship tools. Although some Internet comments were deleted Monday, many posts and pictures remained available.
From 1999 to 2001, followers of Falun Gong, a spiritual group banned in China, staged protests at the square, including some self-immolations. More common in recent years are occasional petitioners, sometimes distributing leaflets describing their grievances at the hands of local authorities. But the apparent use of a car as a battering ram, followed by a possibly self-started fire, would represent a deadly, new tactic.
"I was shocked when I heard the news from colleagues," said a traffic warden surnamed Chen, who works close to Tiananmen Gate, where all traces of the incident were swiftly removed Monday afternoon. "I thought this must be the safest place in China."

Read More : http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/10/29/tiananmen-square-crash-suspects/3293397/

3 brothers under age 5 die in Bronx fire

(CNN) -- A blaze in a New York apartment killed three brothers under age 5 late Friday, police said.

The brothers were ages 5, 2 and 4 months, CNN affiliate WABC reported. Their mother and sisters ages 4 and 4 months escaped the flames and smoke in the Bronx apartment.

They received treatment for smoke inhalation at a hospital, the affiliate said.

At least three more people suffered injuries and were taken to hospital, the fire department said. Firefighters had the blaze under control late Friday.

SOURCE : http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/26/us/bronx-deadly-fire/