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Sunday, June 23, 2013

NSA leaker charged with espionage, theft

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Justice Department has charged former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden with espionage and theft of government property in the NSA surveillance case.

Snowden, believed to be holed up in Hong Kong, has admitted providing information to the news media about two highly classified NSA surveillance programs.

A one-page criminal complaint unsealed Friday in federal court in Alexandria, Va., says Snowden engaged in unauthorized communication of national defense information and willful communication of classified communications intelligence information. Both are charges under the Espionage Act. Snowden also is charged with theft of government property. All three crimes carry a maximum 10-year prison penalty.

The federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia where the complaint was filed is headquarters for Snowden's former employer, government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.

The complaint is dated June 14, five days after Snowden's name first surfaced as the leaker of information about the two programs in which the NSA gathered telephone and Internet records to ferret out terror plots.

The complaint could become an integral part of a U.S. government effort to have Snowden extradited from Hong Kong, a process that could turn into a prolonged legal battle. Snowden could contest extradition on grounds of political persecution. In general, the extradition agreement between the U.S. and Hong Kong excepts political offenses from the obligation to turn over a person.

Hong Kong had no immediate reaction.

In Iceland, a business executive said Friday that a private plane was on standby to transport Snowden from Hong Kong to Iceland, although Iceland's government says it has not received an asylum request from Snowden.

Business executive Olafur Vignir Sigurvinsson said he has been in contact with someone representing Snowden and has not spoken to the American himself. Private donations are being collected to pay for the flight, he said.

"There are a number of people that are interested in freedom of speech and recognize the importance of knowing who is spying on us," Sigurvinsson said. "We are people that care about privacy."

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, welcomed the charges. "I've always thought this was a treasonous act," he said in a statement. "I hope Hong Kong's government will take him into custody and extradite him to the U.S."

Michael di Pretoro, a retired 30-year veteran with the FBI who served from 1990 to 1994 as the legal liaison officer at the American consulate in Hong Kong, said "relations between U.S. and Hong Kong law enforcement personnel are historically quite good."

"In my time, I felt the degree of cooperation was outstanding to the extent that I almost felt I was in an FBI field office," said di Pretoro.

The U.S. and Hong Kong cooperate on law enforcement matters and have a standing agreement on the surrender of fugitives.

However, Snowden's appeal rights could drag out any extradition proceeding.

The success or failure of any extradition proceeding depends on what the suspect is charged with under U.S. law and how it corresponds to Hong Kong law under the treaty. In order for Hong Kong officials to honor the extradition request, they have to have some applicable statute under their law that corresponds with a violation of U.S. law.

Disclosure of the criminal complaint came as President Barack Obama held his first meeting with a privacy and civil liberties board as his intelligence chief sought ways to help Americans understand more about sweeping government surveillance efforts exposed by Snowden.

The five members of the little-known Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board met with Obama for an hour in the White House Situation Room, questioning the president on the two NSA programs that have stoked controversy.

One program collects billions of U.S. phone records. The second gathers audio, video, email, photographic and Internet search usage of foreign nationals overseas, and probably some Americans in the process, who use major providers such as Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Yahoo.

___

Associated Press writer Jenna Gottlieb in Reykjavik, Iceland, contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nsa-leaker-charged-espionage-theft-001952096.html

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Some immigrants excluded from health care overhaul

PHOENIX (AP) ? President Barack Obama has championed two sweeping policy changes that could transform how people live in the United States: affordable health care for all and a path to citizenship for the 11 million immigrants illegally in the country.

But many immigrants will have to wait more than a decade to qualify for health care benefits under the proposed immigration overhaul being debated by Congress, ensuring a huge swath of people will remain uninsured as the centerpiece of Obama's health care law launches next year.

Lawmakers pushing the immigration bill said adding more recipients to an already costly benefit would make it unaffordable.

Health care analysts and immigration proponents argue that denying coverage will saddle local governments with the burden of uninsured immigrants. They also fear a crisis down the road as immigrants become eligible for coverage, but are older, sicker and require more expensive care. Those placed on provisional status would become the nation's second-largest population of uninsured, or about 25 percent, according to a 2012 study by the Urban Institute.

"All health research shows that the older you get, the sicker you become, so these people will be sicker and will be more expensive on the system," said Matthew O'Brien, who runs a health clinic for immigrants in Philadelphia and researches health trends at Temple University.

The Affordable Care Act will make health insurance accessible for millions of uninsured people starting in January through taxpayer-subsidized private policies for middle-class families and expanded access to Medicaid, the program for low-income people funded by federal and state dollars. The proposed immigration overhaul explicitly states immigrants cannot receive Medicaid or receive the health subsidies for more than a decade after they qualify for legal status, and only after certain financial and security requirements have been met.

Immigrants with provisional status may obtain insurance through employers, but many are unskilled and undereducated, and tend to work low-wage jobs at small businesses that don't have to provide the benefit under the health care law. Immigrants illegally in the country also can access community health centers, but the officials who run those clinics said they are overwhelmed by the demand.

"We can't help everybody," said Bethy Mathis, executive director of Wesley Community Center in Phoenix. The clinic serves 7,000 patients a year who seek everything from vaccinations and relief from minor medical problems to care for long-term health conditions such as diabetes.

Debate over whether immigrants illegally in the country should be eligible for federal benefits nearly sank Obama's health care reform before it was passed by Congress in 2010. For lawmakers pushing immigration reform, there was no question that immigrants would continue to be excluded.

"That's one of the privileges of citizenship," said Republican Sen. John McCain, one of the so-called Gang of Eight pushing the immigration bill, during a conference call with reporters. "That's just what it is. I don't know why we would want to provide Obamacare to someone who is not a citizen of this country."

The issue has received more attention in recent weeks. Some House Republicans have threatened to kill the immigration bill unless immigrants are required to pay for all their health care costs even after they gain legal status. Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, meanwhile, said she wants the government to distribute at least $250 million to state and local governments because they are the ones who will feel the financial pain of immigrants being left out of the health care law.

Pregnant women, children, seniors and the disabled are eligible for emergency Medicaid services regardless of their immigration status.

The politics behind the bill offer little solace to immigrant families struggling with growing medical bills.

Isabel Castillo came to the U.S. illegally with her parents when she was a child. She's now 28 and has not gone for an annual physical exam since 2007. Every pain triggers debate over whether it's worth a medical visit or not.

"You are like, 'God, should I go, should I wait? The bill is going to be so high,'" Castillo said. "You just wait until you can't tolerate the pain anymore and then you go to the emergency room."

Immigrants who are U.S. citizens are also affected by the limits on health care access if they provide for family members here illegally.

High school student Jacqueline Garcia of Phoenix works two jobs to support her 13-year-old brother and 52-year-old grandmother, who has severe diabetes. The woman's mobility is limited, her vision and memory are fading and she sometimes suffers from seizures. The children were born in the United States and are being raised by the grandmother, who does not have lawful status and as a result does not qualify for Medicaid.

"Every time she gets sick, I have to take her to the doctor. It's really expensive," Garcia said. "What if my grandmother doesn't make it for the 10 years? I mean, I am always going to be struggling. That's too long."

Opponents said they understand the concerns of immigrants not getting health care, but it becomes an issue of the added expense.

"We aren't saying people shouldn't get health care. The question is who is going to pay for it?" said Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a national group that opposes the immigration overhaul. "They would all be on Medicaid or heavily subsidized in some other way."

Critics of the decision said immigrants are eager to pay for affordable health care insurance and already support federal benefits by paying sales and income taxes. They note that adults unable to overcome health emergencies are less likely to contribute to the workforce and society.

"The risk of them being uninsured if they are in the country illegally is the same risk of anyone else in the country not being insured," said Stephen Zuckerman, a health economist for the Urban Institute. "It's always more expensive to treat people at a more advanced stage of disease."

In North Carolina, Jessica Sanchez-Rodriguez said she has undergone a series of surgeries and medicines to treat her spina bifida, a developmental congenital disorder, and an ailment that leads to brain swelling. Her parents brought her illegally from Mexico when she was 11 months old. As a minor, she received subsidized medical care, but she was cut off when she turned 18 in February.

Her family is trying to raise money for a $55,000 surgery to connect a catheter to her bladder.

"It's terrible," Sanchez-Rodriguez said. "I have to go to school with these pains."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/immigrants-excluded-health-care-overhaul-083920285.html

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Saturday, June 22, 2013

Brazil: 250K protest against govt corruption

SAO PAULO (AP) ? More than 250,000 anti-government demonstrators again took to streets in several Brazilian cities Saturday and engaged police in some isolated, intense conflicts. Anger over political corruption emerged as the unifying issue for the demonstrators, who vowed to stay in the streets until concrete steps are taken to reform the political system.

Across Brazil, protesters gathered to denounce legislation, known as PEC 37, that would limit the power of federal prosecutors to investigate crimes ? which many fear would hinder attempts to jail corrupt politicians.

Federal prosecutors were behind the investigation into the biggest corruption case in Brazil's history, the so-called "mensalao" cash-for-votes scheme that came to light in 2005 and involved top aides of former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva buying off members of congress to vote for their legislation.

Last year, the supreme court condemned two dozen people in connection to the case, which was hailed as a watershed moment in Brazil's fight against corruption. However, those condemned have yet to be jailed because of appeals, a delay that has enraged Brazilians.

The protests continued despite a prime-time speech the night before from President Dilma Rousseff, a former leftist guerrilla who was tortured during Brazil's military dictatorship. She tried to appease demonstrators by reiterating that peaceful protests were a welcome, democratic action and emphasizing that she would not condone corruption in her government.

"Dilma is underestimating the resolve of the people on the corruption issue," said Mayara Fernandes, a medical student who took part in a march Saturday in Sao Paulo. "She talked and talked and said nothing. Nobody can take the corruption of this country anymore."

The wave of protests began as opposition to transportation fare hikes, then became a laundry list of causes including anger at high taxes, poor services and high World Cup spending, before coalescing around the issue of rampant government corruption. They have become the largest public demonstrations Latin America's biggest nation has seen in two decades.

Across Brazil, police estimated that about 60,000 demonstrators gathered in a central square in the city of Belo Horizonte, 30,000 shut down a main business avenue in Sao Paulo, and another 30,000 gathered in the city in southern Brazil where a nightclub fire killed over 240 mostly university students, deaths many argued could have been avoided with better government oversight of fire laws. Tens of thousands more protested in more than 100 Brazilian cities, bringing the nationwide total to 250,000, according to a police count published on the website of the Globo TV network, Brazil's largest.

In Belo Horizonte, police used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse protesters who tried to pass through a barrier and hurled rocks at a car dealership. Salvador also saw protests turn violent.

During her pre-recorded TV speech, Rousseff promised that she would always battle corruption and that she would meet with peaceful protesters, governors and the mayors of big cities to create a national plan to improve urban transportation and use oil royalties for investments in education.

Many Brazilians, shocked by a week of protests and violence, hoped that Rousseff's words after several days of silence from the leader would soothe tensions and help avoid more violence, but not all were convinced by her promises of action.

Victoria Villela, a 21-year-old university student in the Sao Paulo protest, said she was "frustrated and exhausted by the endless corruption of our government."

"It was good Dilma spoke, but this movement has moved too far, there was not much she could really say. All my friends were talking on Facebook about how she said nothing that satisfied them. I think the protests are going to continue for a long time and the crowds will still be huge."

Around her, fathers held young boys aloft on their shoulders, older women gathered in clusters with their faces bearing yellow and green stripes, the colors of Brazil's flag.

In the northeastern city of Salvador, where Brazil's national football team played Italy and won 4-2 in a Confederations Cup match, some 5,000 protesters gathered about 3 miles (5 kilometers) from the stadium, shouting demands for better schools and transportation and denouncing heavy spending on next year's World Cup.

They blocked a main road and clashed with riot police who moved in to clear the street. Protesters said police used rubber bullets and even tossed tear gas canisters from a helicopter hovering overhead. The protesters scattered and fled to a nearby shopping mall, where they tried to take shelter in an underground parking garage.

"We sat down and the police came and asked us to free up one lane for traffic. As we were organizing our group to do just that, the police lost their patience and began to shoot at us and throw (tear gas) canisters," said Rodrigo Dorado.

That was exactly the type of conflict Rousseff said needed to end, not just so Brazilians could begin a peaceful national discussion about corruption but because much of the violence is taking place in cities hosting foreign tourists attending the Confederations Cup.

Brazil's news media, which had blasted Rousseff in recent days for her lack of response to the protests, seemed largely unimpressed with her careful speech, but noted the difficult situation facing a government trying to understand a mass movement with no central leaders and a flood of demands.

With "no objective information about the nature of the organization of the protests," wrote Igor Gielow in a column for Brazil's biggest newspaper, Folha de S. Paulo, "Dilma resorted to an innocuous speech to cool down spirits."

At its height, some 1 million anti-government demonstrators took to the streets nationwide on Thursday night with grievances ranging from public services to the billions of dollars spent preparing for international sports events.

Outside the stadium in Belo Horizonte where Mexico and Japan met in a Confederations Cup game, Dadiana Gamaleliel, a 32-year-old physiotherapist, held up a banner that read: "Not against the games, in favor of the nation."

"I am protesting on behalf of the whole nation because this must be a nation where people have a voice ... we don't have a voice anymore," she said.

She said Rousseff's speech wouldn't "change anything."

"She spoke in a general way and didn't say what she would do," she said. "We will continue this until we are heard."

___

Associated press writers Tales Azzoni and Ricardo Zuniga in Salvador, Stan Lehman in Sao Paulo and Rob Harris in Belo Horizonte contributed to this report

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/brazil-250k-protest-against-govt-corruption-015658186.html

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Life after Kinect: PrimeSense's plans for a post-Microsoft future

When PrimeSense founder Aviad Maizels put a prototype of a 3D sensor on a chip in front of Microsoft in 2006, he had no idea it would lead to the biggest turning point in the Israeli startup's history. Four years later, its partnership with the Redmond giant resulted in Kinect, the motion-sensing camera that made headlines around the world. In 2013, however, Microsoft unveiled an all-new Kinect, the result of years of entirely in-house development -- without PrimeSense's assistance. As fate would have it, the company returned to its chip-making origins a year ago, creating a new product called Capri, a cheaper, lower-power and tinier version of its 3D system-on-a-chip; so tiny, in fact, that it's designed to be embedded inside tablets, laptops, thin displays and smartphones. With 3D use cases that go far beyond Dance Central, the Capri is the latest sign that PrimeSense is ready to break free from its video game roots.

Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming, Tablets, Wireless, Microsoft, ASUS, Nintendo

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Source: Wikipedia, Wikipedia, Openni, Wired UK, PrimeSense, Calcalist (Google Translate)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/21/life-after-kinect-primesense-post-microsoft/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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Yahoo's Mayer shines spotlight on video

By Alexei Oreskovic

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - As Marissa Mayer approaches her one-year anniversary as chief executive of Yahoo, she's hewing closely to the struggling Web portal's traditional advertising model--and eyeing more video programming of every stripe as central to the strategy.

"We're working on various methods in terms of how we can increase our video views, and watching," Mayer said at the Reuters Global Technology Summit on Thursday. "It's clear to me that our video business is something that's growing a lot. It's something that we'd like to accelerate."

Yahoo is currently bidding to acquire Hulu, the online hub for TV programming owned by Walt Disney Co and News Corp, sources with knowledge of the situation have told Reuters.

Mayer would not comment on the bid for Hulu.

The Web pioneer was looking at buying French video site DailyMotion but had to abandon the effort after objections from the French government.

Yahoo also has a growing menu of original video programming, such as the critically-acclaimed Burning Love TV reality show spoof, and it recently acquired the rights to the archive of Saturday Night Live television programs.

Online video commands higher ad rates than other types of Web content and has become a fiercely competitive arena as it is increasingly viewed as a bulwark against the steady decline in prices for online display ads.

On Thursday, Instagram, the mobile photo-sharing app owned by Facebook Inc, introduced a new feature that allows users to create 15-second videos. Facebook itself is reported to be readying an online video ad format. Google Inc's YouTube, the world's No.1 online video destination, is expected to generate $5 billion in revenue this year, according to RBC Capital Markets.

Mayer took the top job at Yahoo after a tumultuous period in which the company had churned through several CEOs and many of its top executives and engineers jumped ship.

She has revamped key products such as mail and the Yahoo home page, implemented morale-boosting measures like free food, and jumpstarted acquisitions. On Thursday, Yahoo closed its $1.1 billion acquisition of Tumblr, a blogging service that is one of the Web's most popular hubs of user-generated content.

Yahoo's stock has surged roughly 70 percent since Mayer became CEO. But Wall Street analysts say much of the gain has come from stock buybacks and from Yahoo's Asian assets, including a 24 percent stake in Chinese e-commerce giant and potential IPO debutante Alibaba Group.

PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY

Yahoo's biggest near-term goal and most important yardstick by which to measure its progress will be the rate of increase in the amount of time users spend on its websites, Mayer said.

"Yahoo's ability to generate revenue for a thousand pages is reasonably good," Mayer said. "The challenge for Yahoo at the moment is traffic. How do we grow traffic? How do we gain usage? Because that ultimately will drive up revenue."

While rivals such as Google have experimented with new revenue streams, including subscription music services and online retailing, Mayer said Yahoo remains squarely focused on advertising.

"I believe in ads, I like ads. We may try some other things but Yahoo is an ad company," Mayer said, but added that it does not mean Yahoo will cut on its own original programming.

The company's headcount has decreased by about 1,000 employees during her first year, through a combination of attrition and ramped-up performance management, with staffers now getting reviewed on a quarterly basis instead of every year, she said.

But Mayer said the company was aggressively pursuing new talent: job applications recently peaked at 10,000 a week, more than twice the level of a year ago.

At the same time, Mayer has moved to cut back the thickets of bureaucracy that she said had sprouted across the company over its 18-year history.

Mayer installed a system called PB&J, short for Process, Bureaucracy and Jams. That has eliminated roughly 700 irksome or unnecessary procedures within the company, such as forcing employees to undergo a special orientation for the company gym.

"I understand that we are geeks and we may not be that coordinated but I think we can all figure out how to use a treadmill without an orientation," Mayer said.

Some industry-watchers assumed the PB&J moniker was an homage to the so-called "peanut butter manifesto," in which former Yahoo executives warned of problems plaguing the company.

Mayer said the real story was much simpler.

"Most days for lunch I have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich," she explained. "So sitting there I was like 'Can we call it something simple and fun like PB&J?' And we kind of backed into process, bureaucracy and jams. But it works."

Follow Reuters Summits on Twitter @Reuters_Summits

(Additional reporting by Poornima Gupta and Edwin Chan. Editing by Jonathan Weber and Edwina Gibbs)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/yahoos-mayer-shines-spotlight-video-150750346.html

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Brazil leader remains mute amid protests

People are reflected in the glass window of a commercial building that was damaged during protests in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday, June 21, 2013. Police and protesters fought in the streets into the early hours Friday as Brazilians swarmed through Brazilian cities in the biggest demonstrations yet against a government viewed as corrupt at all levels and unresponsive to its people. President Dilma Rousseff called an emergency meeting of her top Cabinet members for Friday morning, more than a week after the protests began. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

A bus stop's window lays shattered below the seats after protests in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, Friday, June 21, 2013. Police and protesters fought in the streets into the early hours Friday in the biggest demonstrations yet against a government viewed as corrupt at all levels and unresponsive to its people. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

A man walks near the entrance of a commercial building that was damaged during protests in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday, June 21, 2013. Police and protesters fought in the streets into the early hours Friday as Brazilians swarmed through Brazilian cities in the biggest demonstrations yet against a government viewed as corrupt at all levels and unresponsive to its people. President Dilma Rousseff called an emergency meeting of her top Cabinet members for Friday morning, more than a week after the protests began. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

A government worker takes pictures of glass that was broken the previous night when protesters tried to enter Itamaraty Palace, the foreign ministry's headquarters, in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, Friday, June 21, 2013. Police and protesters fought in the streets into the early hours Friday in the biggest demonstrations yet against a government viewed as corrupt at all levels and unresponsive to its people. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

Police guard the building of Brazil's National Congress during a protest in Brasilia, Brazil, Thursday, June 20, 2013. More than half a million Brazilians poured into the streets of at least 80 Brazilian cities Thursday in demonstrations that saw violent clashes and renewed calls for an end to government corruption and demands for better public services. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) ? Brazilians struggled Friday to comprehend the protests shaking their nation after 1 million anti-government demonstrators took to the streets the previous night in scores of cities, with clusters battling police and destroying swaths of storefronts and government buildings.

President Dilma Rousseff held an emergency meeting about the protests with the nation's justice minister but didn't make any comment afterward, continuing her largely silent response to the unrest.

Her aides said they didn't know if she would address the nation in an attempt to calm protesters, but she was expected to meet in the afternoon with top bishops from the Catholic Church about the protests' possible effects on a papal visit still scheduled next month in Rio and Sao Paulo state.

Rousseff, a former leftist guerrilla who was imprisoned and tortured during Brazil's military dictatorship, has done little more than show brief support for the protesters since the biggest demonstrations seen here in decades began a week ago. That mute reaction has triggered furious criticism that she has let the situation spiral out of control.

There were also growing calls on social media and in mass emails for a general strike next week. However, Brazil's two largest nationwide unions, the Central Workers Union and the Union Force, said they knew nothing about such an action.

A Thursday night protest in Sao Paulo was the first with a strong union presence, with members wearing matching shirts and a marching drum corps leading them down a main avenue. But the majority of protesters across Brazil have called for a movement with no political parties or unions, widely considering them tinged with corruption.

So far, the protests have represented an amorphous explosion of discontent over everything from high crime to poor education to the high cost of hosting the upcoming World Cup and Olympics in Brazil.

The lack of much organization or concrete demands behind the protests has made a unified government response nearly impossible. Several cities have cancelled the transit fare hikes that had originally sparked the demonstrations a week ago, but the outrage has only grown more intense.

The one group behind the reversal of the transit fare hike, the Free Fare Movement, said on Friday it would not call any more protests. However, it wasn't clear what impact that might have on a movement that has moved far beyond its original complaint.

"Dilma Rousseff and (Brasilia Gov.) Agnelo Queiroz are the epitome of Brazilian rulers," wrote political commentator Fernando Rodrigues in the country's biggest newspaper, Folha de S. Paulo.

"They embody the perplexity and the lack of leadership capabilities of several parties' politicians vis-a-vis the new phenomena of protests without leaders or defined proposals. ... It seems they are just waiting and hoping the tsunami will end."

Gilberto Carvalho, the secretary general of the presidency, provided little direction Friday after a meeting to discuss Pope Francis' planned July visit.

"We can't anticipate the future," Carvalho said. "We don't know what it's going to be like. Perhaps things will not be so intense (as the recent protests) but we have to be prepared for anything."

Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota hit back at protesters the morning after his modernist ministry building was attacked by an enraged crowd. At one point, smoke billowed from the building and windows were shattered along its perimeter.

Standing before the battered ministry, he told reporters he "was very angry" that protesters attacked a structure "that represents the search for understanding through dialogue." Patriota called for protesters "to convey their demands peacefully."

"I believe that the great majority of the protesters are not taking part in this violence and are instead looking to improve Brazil's democracy via legitimate forms of protest," Patriota said.

The majority of protesters have been peaceful, and crowds have taken to chanting "No violence! No violence!" when small groups have prepared to burn and smash. The more violent demonstrators have taken over once night has fallen.

Protesters and police clashed in several cities into the early hours Friday.

At least one protester was killed in Sao Paulo state when a driver apparently became enraged about being unable to travel along a street and rammed his car into a group of demonstrators.

In Rio de Janeiro, where an estimated 300,000 demonstrators poured into the seaside city's center, running clashes played out between riot police and clusters of mostly young men with T-shirts wrapped around their faces. But peaceful protesters were also caught up in the fray, too, as police fired tear gas canisters into their midst and at times indiscriminately used pepper spray.

At least 40 people were injured in Rio, including protesters such as Michele Menezes, a wisp of a woman whose youthful face and braces belied her 26 years. Bleeding and with her hair singed from the explosion of a tear gas canister, she said she and others took refuge from the violence in an open bar, only to have a police officer toss the canister inside.

The blast ripped through Menezes' jeans, tearing two coin-sized holes on the back of her thighs, and peppered her upper arm with a rash of small holes.

"I was leaving a peaceful protest and it's not the thugs that attack me but the police themselves," said Menezes, removing her wire-rim glasses to wipe her bloodshot eyes.

She later took refuge in a hotel, along with about two dozen youths, families and others who said they had been repeatedly hit with pepper spray by motorcycle police as they also sheltered inside a bar.

Protesters said they would not back down.

"I saw some pretty scary things, but they're not going to shake me. There's another march on the 22nd and I'm going to be there," said 19-year-old university student Fernanda Szuster.

Asked if her parents knew she was joining in the protests, Szuster said: "They know and they're proud. They also protested when they were young. So they think it's great."

Clashes were also reported in the Amazon jungle city of Belem, Porto Alegre in the south, the university town Campinas north of Sao Paulo, the northeastern city of Salvador and dozens of other towns.

The protests took place one week after a violent police crackdown on a small demonstration against an increase in bus and subway fares in Sao Paulo galvanized Brazilians to take their grievances to the streets.

The unrest is hitting the nation as it hosts the Confederations Cup soccer tournament, with tens of thousands of foreign visitors in attendance.

Mass protests have been rare in this country of 190 million people in recent years, and the mushrooming demonstrations of the past week caught Brazilian government officials by surprise while delighting many citizens.

Despite the energy on the street, many protesters said they were unsure how the movement would win real political concessions.

"This is the start of a structural change in Brazil," said Aline Campos, a 29-year-old publicist in Brasilia. "People now want to make sure their money is well spent, that it's not wasted through corruption."

___

Barchfield reported from Rio de Janeiro and Brooks from Sao Paulo. Associated Press writer Stan Lehman in Sao Paulo contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-06-21-Brazil-Protests/id-2f6a6abef3aa41fa9ac6ccc402898b64

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Instagram announces new video service

Instagram video

Today at Facebook HQ, Instagram announced a new video service. The focus is on simplicity, beauty and community. You get 15 seconds of video to work with, though you can stitch together multiple clips. There are 13 different video-exclusive filters to apply, and you can pick which frame is the thumbnail. Sounds like a serious Vine competitor, though it doesn't loop in the same obnoxious way; just tap and hold to play videos. They're also going to be including some really great stabilization software called Cinema.

You can get downloading the update now at the link below. Any Instagrammers pumped about this? Will they be able to do for video what they've done for photos, or is this just a Vine lookalike?