Eastern NC tornadoes damage homes, injure a dozen

MOREHEAD CITY, N.C. (AP) — Residents, meteorologists and emergency officials in eastern North Carolina were surveying the damage Saturday from multiple tornadoes that damaged more than 200 homes the previous day and sent more than a dozen people to the emergency room.

Meteorologists said Saturday that tornadoes with winds of more than 111 mph touched down in Pitt and Beaufort counties on Friday, and they were continuing to investigate storm damage.


Elsewhere, Texas, Oklahoma and other states in the Plains and Midwest were bracing for severe storms expected to start Saturday and continue overnight. There, the main threat will be large hail and damaging wind gusts.

In North Carolina, Beaufort County Emergency Management Director John Pack said 16 people were taken to the emergency room when the storms passed through around 7:25 p.m. Friday.

Pack said 200 homes were either heavily damaged or destroyed. Pictures on news websites showed residents salvaging items from crushed mobile homes, along with snapped trees and a mangled utility pole in eastern North Carolina.

"You can track the tornado by the damage." Pack said. "It left a lot damage behind in its approximately five to 10 minutes on the ground."
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A man goes throws a pile of clothing Saturday, April …
A man goes throws a pile of clothing Saturday, April 26, 2014, from the debris after a tornado touch …

Pack said the storm appeared to be about 300 yards wide and was on the ground for 10 miles. He said the line of damage started in the west-northwest portion of the county and traveled to the northeast.

At one point, Pack said, 8,000 people were without power, but most had been restored by Saturday.

Pack also said two major farming operations in the county sustained damages, but he didn't have further details.

In Halifax County, Antonio Richardson said the roof was blown off his home on Friday afternoon. He said he and a friend took shelter under his mobile home.

"It peeled back my roof, just like you would a banana," Richardson told WRAL-TV in Raleigh.

Looming, creeping landslide splits home in Wyoming

JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) — A slow-motion disaster is unfolding in the Wyoming resort town of Jackson as a creeping landslide that split a hillside home in half inches toward more houses and businesses below.
The ground beneath the 100-foot hillside has been giving way an inch at a time since the movement was discovered on April 4.Assistant Town Administrator Roxanne Robinson said by Friday, the rate of movement was doubling every day.Officials say the hillside is unlikely to suddenly collapse like the March 22 landslide in Oso, Wash., that killed 39 people. But the threat is real and authorities are enforcing an evacuation order in hopes of avoiding injuries.

The area has been graded for roads and businesses in recent years, possibly weakening the hillside and setting the stage for the landslide.

Styllish And Elegant Frocks Designs

Frocks have been integrated into eastern clothing to a great extent. No function or party is considered completed unless frocks are used as dresses. Asian frocks are very popular world wide for their diversity
and culture. Hundreds of frocks designs are available according to every occasion. Bridal frocks are heavy and full of work. Party frocks have usually light work. Zari, kora dabka, motifs,  stones and embroidery are used. These works make the look of frocks beautiful and attractive. Most commonly design used for frock is Anarkali style. Other styles are also popular including Air line, Umbrella etc. Dress designers keep bringing in new styles of frocks with time. Following are some beautiful and attractive frock designs. You can follow these designs to create a stylish dress for yourself.

Learn the secret codes to shopping success

NEW YORK, April 16 (Reuters) - As superstore pricing mysteries go, it's not the equivalent of "The Da Vinci Code," but there's still something deliciously elusive about the so-called "Costco Code" that has set the tongues of shopping mavens wagging for the past several months.
At least the plot line is direct enough: If you can interpret what the various sequences of digits and asterisks mean on Costco Wholesale Club price signs, you're on your way to scoring serious bargains.

Here's how it works, according to Costco shoppers spreading the word online: If a price at Costco ends in .99, you're paying full price. But if it ends in, say, a .97, it represents a deal with a special price decided by the manager. And if you happen to see an asterisk in the upper right corner of the sign, then the item is on its way out of the store-and probably at the lowest price you're going to see.

"That asterisk, that's the holy grail," says Kyle James, who runs the shopping blog Rather-Be-Shopping.com (http://www.rather-be-shopping.com/). He has shopped at Costco for 20 years now, and the Redding, California resident has studied the matter of the Costco Code well. By his count, he and his wife have saved at least $300 using the Costco Code over the last seven months.

For the record, he doesn't claim to have discovered it; he says there's been Internet chatter about Costco and its pricing system going back about five years before he took up the topic on his blog.

So is the Costco Code really so much of a pricing potboiler as it seems? No one would know as well as Costco's Richard Galanti, who's the company's executive vice president and chief financial officer.

Indeed he confirms that the codes do exist, though "It's more for efficiency, for the employees," Galanti says. "It's not any sort of secret agent stuff. But you see it on a blog and people think it's a secret. It's just a way of moving some merchandise, to help the fork lift operators and the stocking clerks."

Galanti says that "when a price ends in a '7,' usually it's a buyer designated markdown." And as for those asterisks, "That's what we call a pending delete. Sometimes an item's not selling well and we want to move it out, or it could be the end of the season. Let's say we've got three TV models and the latest and greatest comes out; we might want to bring the newest one in."

But Galanti cautions against reading too much into the price codes, as Costco's margins are low enough (in the 10-11 percent range) that a shopper might have more advantage buying a newer item at the ".99" full price. "The question is, do you want something at the end of its season or at the beginning of a new season?" he asks.

Retail experts say that such pricing codes and systems are common. At his website, James lists price tag codes that he's found for retailers under the juicy heading "Retailer's Big Secret: Crack the Price Tag Code."

Paula Rosenblum, managing partner of RSR Research, a retail technology research and advisory firm says Home Depot indicator is a green tag, while at Office Depot, anything with a price other than 00, 50 or 99 is a markdown.

As for why, chalk it up to something not quite as old as the human desire to crack secret codes, though it does predate computers and the digital age.

"It all goes back to the retail method of accounting, and it's a very old story," Rosenblum says. "Before the days of price scanners, and when there was no technology in the store at all, a seven at the end of a price let associates know where they were with the item. If they couldn't move it in three weeks, it was gone."

Still, she can't help throwing in an observation for consumers who choose to make note of the code, and where asterisks are most likely to appear: "Costco's non-food items don't always move fast enough, so those might be good items to add to the treasure hunt."

Much of James' information from comes from chatting up employees (many of whom have requested anonymity). At Target , for example, he says that the discounting system on clearance items, as told to him by a sales associate, goes like this: "They mark something down every 10 to 15 days. And the upper right hand corner of the clearance tag, which is red and white, has the numbers 15, 30, 50, 75 or 90 on it. And that number indicates the percentage off the original price."

Target would not confirm it uses such a mechanism. "It is not possible to determine the final markdown or timing of the price change from the item's current price," Target spokesman Evan Lapiska said.

But Lewis says his key advice for fellow shoppers on the hunt for price tag secrets is this: "Talk to the employees on the floor. I've found they're pretty open about it."

In a cloning first, scientists create stem cells from adults

 NEW YORK (Reuters) - Scientists have moved a step closer to the goal of creating stem cells perfectly matched to a patient's DNA in order to treat diseases, they announced on Thursday, creating patient-specific cell lines out of the skin cells of two adult men.

The advance, described online in the journal Cell Stem Cell, is the first time researchers have achieved "therapeutic cloning" of adults. Technically called somatic-cell nuclear transfer, therapeutic cloning means producing embryonic cells genetically identical to a donor, usually for the purpose of using those cells to treat disease.


But nuclear transfer is also the first step in reproductive cloning, or producing a genetic duplicate of someone - a technique that has sparked controversy since the 1997 announcement that it was used to create Dolly, the clone of a ewe. In 2005, the United Nations called on countries to ban it, and the United States prohibits the use of federal funds for either reproductive or therapeutic cloning.

The new study was funded by a foundation and the South Korean government.

If confirmed by other labs, it could prove significant because many illnesses that might one day be treated with stem cells, such as heart failure and vision loss, primarily affect adults. Patient-specific stem cells would have to be created from older cells, not infant or fetal ones. That now looks possible, though far from easy: Out of 39 tries, the scientists created stem cells only once for each donor.

Outside experts had different views of the study, which was led by Young Gie Chung of the Research Institute for Stem Cell Research at CHA Health Systems in Los Angeles.

Stem cell biologist George Daley of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute called it "an incremental advance" and "not earth-shattering."

Reproductive biologist Shoukhrat Mitalipov of Oregon Health and Science University, who developed the technique the CHA team adapted, was more positive. "The advance here is showing that (nuclear transfer) looks like it will work with people of all ages," he said in an interview.

A year ago, Mitalipov led the team that used nuclear transfer of fetal and infant DNA to produce stem cells, the first time that had been accomplished in humans of any age.

ELECTRIC JOLT

In therapeutic cloning, scientists use a zap of electricity to fuse a grown cell, usually a skin cell, with an ovum whose own DNA has been removed. The egg divides and multiplies, and within five or six days it develops into an embryo shaped like a hollow sphere.

The interior cells are "pluripotent" stem cells, which have the potential to develop into any kind of human cell.

If the embryo were implanted in a uterus, it could develop into a clone of the DNA donor, which is how Dolly was created. "Without regulations in place, such embryos could also be used for human reproductive cloning, although this would be unsafe and grossly unethical," said Dr Robert Lanza, chief scientist of Massachusetts-based biotech Advanced Cell Technology and a co-author of the new study.

The goal is to grow these embryonic stem cells in lab dishes and coax them to turn into specialized cells for therapeutic use against an illness the DNA donor has, such as Parkinson's disease, heart disease, multiple sclerosis or type-1 diabetes. Because the cells are genetically identical to the donor's, they would not be rejected by the immune system.

Despite more than 15 years of trying, scientists' single success at producing human stem cells through this cloning technique came a year ago. Mitalipov's team at Oregon had fused fetal and infant cells with donated eggs whose DNA had been removed and got them to develop into about 150-cell embryos.

One key to Mitalipov's success was letting the engineered eggs rest for 30 minutes before zapping them to start dividing.

Chung and his colleagues waited two hours before triggering the egg to start dividing, which Lanza believes was a key to their success: "It gives you time for the massive amount of genetic reprogramming required" to turn back the calendar on adult DNA so that it can direct the development of an embryo, he said in an interview.

It worked: They generated two healthy embryos, one from each adult donor, aged 35 and 75.

If each stem-cell line has to be created from scratch for each patient, the low success and expected high costs means that "only a few wealthy old men could do it," said Lanza. A big barrier to producing patient-specific stem-cell lines for tens of millions of people this way is that few women want to donate eggs, a sometimes painful process.

But it may not be necessary to make a unique cell line for each patient. Many people have genetically similar immune systems, Lanza said, so just "100 human embryonic stem cell lines would generate a complete match for over half the (U.S.) population," he said.

School Apologizes for Sending the Wrong Message About Bullying

A Nebraska school is facing criticism for what many are calling an ill-intentioned effort to deal with bullying. Fifth-grade students at Zeman Elementary School in Lincoln were recently given pamphlets containing what may be considered tone-deaf advice, shaming the victim and sending the wrong message to bullies.

More on Yahoo: Bullying Injuries in Schools Dip, but
Still ProblematicThe pamphlet, which was posted to sites such as Reddit and Jezebel, features nine "rules" for students dealing with bullies.  One rule states: "Do not tell on bullies.""The number one reason bullies hate their victims, is because the victims tell on them," the flyer reasons. "Telling makes the bully want to retaliate. Tell an adult only when a real injury or crime (theft of something valuable) has occurred. Would we keep our friends if we tattled on them?"This goes against most antibullying advice, which encourages young people to get a trusted adult involved in the situation before it escalates.More on Yahoo Shine: Parents Slap Daughter's Cyberbullies With Rare Lawsuit

Other rules in the Zeman Elementary guide included "Learn to laugh at yourself," "Do not verbally defend yourself," and "Treat the person who is being mean as if they are trying to help you."

After the pamphlet was sent home with kids, numerous parents complained to the school.  Some parents claimed that the tips weren't so much advice as they were ways to keep the school from having to discipline students.

Not long after the backlash, school officials at Zeman Elementary went on Facebook to issue an apology. (The school itself does not have an official Facebook page, so the post was sent via the Lincoln Public Schools, or LPS, page.) "Our educators at Zeman Elementary School work hard to provide accurate and appropriate lessons and education for our students in how to handle bullying situations," reads the statement. "The flyer was sent home with good intentions, unfortunately, it contained advice that did not accurately reflect LPS best practices regarding response to bullying incidents. We encourage all students and parents to continue to communicate with our staff if you have any questions or concerns about bullying situations."

But according to the LPS communications director, Mary Kay Roth, the flyers weren't supposed to be sent home with kids at all.  In a statement to the Lincoln Journal-Star, Roth referred to the flyer being distributed as a "staff issue" and added that "we're taking care of the staffing error."

Still, not everyone is buying the apology. "Whoever wrote this or was in charge of passing it out should step down or be fired immediately. You're pretty much saying you don't care about bullying and you're not going to deal with it unless the child incurs serious bodily harm," one outraged parent wrote on Facebook.

Another commenter wondered how the fallout would affect the students. "What have the students who were given bad information been told? Have they all been instructed that this was bad information and been given good information? Or is that being left to the parents?"

According to the student services director, Russ Uhing, who spoke with the Journal-Star, the school's fifth-graders are learning about bullying prevention in class, and the advice they're getting is "very different" from the "rules" they were initially given. Meanwhile, the school's Facebook apology included some more reasonable tools for dealing with bullying via a PDF link to a different flyer. Those updated tips, aimed at parents and kids alike, included “Do not minimize or make excuses for bullying behaviors,” “Promote a strong sense of self and confidence in your child,” and “Teach your child to take action when they see others being bullied.” Those tips are bound to be more helpful to kids than rules such as “Do not verbally defend yourself.”

Are we facing another housing bubble?

In a housing or real estate bubble, home prices inflate because of overly optimistic speculation that they'll keep rising. When people can't afford to keep up, the bubble bursts. Demand for homes decreases, while supply goes up and home prices drastically drop.Today, certain markets across America are seeing home prices go up so quickly that people are starting to worry about another bubble. So where do we stand?From 2000 to 2006, home prices were skyrocketing. Why? It was fueled by overly-optimistic speculation on real estate, careless lending standards and very low mortgage rates. At the height of the bubble, homes were overvalued by 39%.

Also see: Shark Tank Secrets of Success -- Building an Untouchable Career

Built on that shaky foundation, when prices cooled millions of people defaulted on their mortgages and the bubble didn’t just burst, it exploded, creating the biggest real estate and credit crisis in modern history.

Fast-forward to the present day, and we’re still in recovery mode. With tighter lending standards it’s harder to buy a home, but in the past two years certain markets have seen prices rise rapidly again, leading some to wonder if history will soon repeat itself.

One area that’s heating up is California — the most overvalued market in the nation. Prices there have increased about 17% year-over-year, with Orange County being the hottest metro area. The increases in California are more generally due in part to investors taking up the tight supply and tech millionaires willing to pay premium prices. The other overvalued metros, like Honolulu, Austin and Miami, are also dealing with high demand and tight supply.

911 calls capture chaos after truck-on-bus crash

ORLAND, Calif. (AP) — With shrieks in the background, a shocked passenger struggled to recount to an emergency dispatcher how a FedEx tractor-trailer smashed into a tour bus carrying high school students. In other 911 calls released Thursday, other witnesses described explosions after the fiery wreck that left 10 people dead.
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The California Highway Patrol released the recordings as investigators returned to the scene about 100 miles north of Sacramento to reconstruct aspects of the crash.

Dozens of injured students escaped through windows before the bus exploded into towering flames just before 6 p.m. April 10.

One student who escaped held back sobs in describing on a 911 call how the FedEx truck barreled across the median of Interstate 5 and smashed into the bus.

A dispatcher assured the student that medical help was coming and told the student to "go as far away as you can safely get" when he learned that the bus was still engulfed in flames.

Later, the dispatcher asked, "What did the bus hit?" and the student started to explain that the truck smashed into its left side. The dispatcher tried to refocus the student: "Just with one or two words, tell me what the bus hit."

"The bus hit a FedEx truck," the student replied. "The FedEx truck came into us."
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File - In this April 10, 2014, file photo, massive …
File - In this April 10, 2014, file photo, massive flames engulf a tractor-trailer and a tour bus ju …

"Was it head on?"

"Yes, head on."

It was not clear whether the student was a boy or girl. None of the 911 callers were identified.

Other calls came from witnesses and nearby residents.

"A bus just exploded," said one woman.

"It just exploded," said one man. "Whatever's on the freeway is on fire."
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In This Photo Provided By The University Of La Verne, …
In This Photo Provided By The University Of La Verne, Trish Arzola, the mother of Arthur "Tury& …

The bus was carrying 44 high school students from the Los Angeles area for a visit to Humboldt State University on California's far north coast. Many stood to be the first in their family to attend college.

Five students and three adult chaperones died, along with the truck and bus drivers.

As the CHP released the recordings, the agency's investigators were reconstructing how the bus driver might have reacted to the sight of the big rig, which burst out of vegetation on the freeway's median into oncoming traffic, sideswiping a car before hitting the bus.

The CHP briefly closed the stretch of Interstate 5 where the crash happened and drove the same model Serta 2014 bus northbound at about 70 mph. The driver braked so investigators could gauge how its speed would have dropped.

On the southbound side, a driver in the same model 2007 Volvo truck released the accelerator, in a similar effort to understand how its speed might have changed.

Video cameras on both vehicles recorded what each driver could have seen before the crash.

The reconstruction did not include any collision. Investigators will use what they learned to calculate how fast each vehicle was traveling before the wreck.

The truck's data recorder was destroyed in the explosion and fire, but investigators said they may be able to recover some data about its speed and maneuvering by other forensic analysis.

Investigators are working through a 3-inch-thick stack of records including the truck's maintenance history and its driver's recent shifts, CHP Capt. Todd Morrison said. The FedEx driver had no prior moving violations, according to the California Department of Motor Vehicles.

It is too early to say whether mechanical failure or driver error caused the truck to careen out of control, Morrison said. That determination by the CHP, and by a parallel investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board, will take months.

The driver of the car struck first by the truck told investigators the truck was in flames before the crash, but Morrison said the CHP has found no evidence to corroborate that account. NTSB investigators also found no physical evidence of a pre-impact fire or other witnesses relating the same story.

Glenn County Coroner Larry Jones said all but two victims have been identified. He said that initially, his office was looking for one student believed to be among the dead, but it turned out the student had never boarded the bus in the first place.

App Claims It Can Help Couples Conceive Girls

From artificial insemination to in vitro fertilization, there's no shortage of ways that technology is helping couples who want to have children. But a new iPhone and Android app called StorkDiet/Girl claims that it can people have a baby girl for a fee of just $9.99.

Alain Hanash, who created the app, used data from a study conducted by two British universities that tracked the eating habits of 740 women who were pregnant for the first time. The study found that 56 percent of the women who followed a low-sodium, low-calcium diet had baby girls. The app, following that approach, tailors a nine-week diet for women who are hoping to get pregnant with a girl.  “It is a natural and scientific based guide that includes a specific maternal diet and conception timing program," according to the app's description.

More on Yahoo Shine: 7 crazy myths for predicting your baby's gender But Dr. Gilbert Webb, a maternal fetal medicine specialist at the Mercy Hospital in St. Louis, is wary of putting too much stock in at-home methods of gender selection. “It may offer some slight edge but not a whole lot,” Webb tells Yahoo Shine.  He warns prospective parents not to think that this app – or anything else – is 100 percent guaranteed. Although the creators of StorkDiet claim that they have an 81 percent success rate, the evidence is inconclusive, according to some medical experts.

More on Yahoo: Couple keeps baby's gender under wraps A Maastricht University study had participants eat plenty of spinach, tofu, and nuts like almonds and cashews, while strictly avoiding high-sodium foods like olives, cured meats, and potatoes in order to produce female offspring. The study boasted a 77 percent success rate in producing girls, but once that number was broken down to account for women who didn’t follow the diet closely enough or who didn’t follow the strategic rules for when to have sex, the data began to fall apart.

Dr. Webb adds that there’s nothing wrong with hoping for a baby of a particular sex, but he cautions against being too attached to one or the other. “If someone is realistic about these techniques, and says 'we'd prefer a girl, but we'd be OK with a boy,' that’s fine. But if they have a strong feeling and latch on to these things with strong wording, they can become neurotic,” he says

When ‘Liking’ a Brand Online Voids the Right to Sue

Might downloading a 50-cent coupon for Cheerios cost you legal rights?

General Mills, the maker of cereals like Cheerios and Chex as well as brands like Bisquick and Betty Crocker, has quietly added language to its website to alert consumers that they give up their right to sue the company if they download coupons, “join” it in online communities like Facebook, enter a company-sponsored sweepstakes or contest or interact with it in a variety of other ways.Instead,
anyone who has received anything that could be construed as a benefit and who then has a dispute with the company over its products will have to use informal negotiation via email or go through arbitration to seek relief, according to the new terms posted on its site.In language added on Tuesday after The New York Times contacted it about the changes, General Mills seemed to go even further, suggesting that buying its products would bind consumers to those terms.“We’ve updated our Privacy Policy,” the company wrote in a thin, gray bar across the top of its home page. “Please note we also have new Legal Terms which require all disputes related to the purchase or use of any General Mills product or service to be resolved through binding arbitration.”

The change in legal terms, which occurred shortly after a judge refused to dismiss a case brought against the company by consumers in California, made General Mills one of the first, if not the first, major food companies to seek to impose what legal experts call “forced arbitration” on consumers.

“Although this is the first case I’ve seen of a food company moving in this direction, others will follow — why wouldn’t you?” said Julia Duncan, director of federal programs and an arbitration expert at the American Association for Justice, a trade group representing plaintiff trial lawyers. “It’s essentially trying to protect the company from all accountability, even when it lies, or say, an employee deliberately adds broken glass to a product.”

General Mills declined to make anyone available for an interview about the changes. “While it rarely happens, arbitration is an efficient way to resolve disputes — and many companies take a similar approach,” the company said in a statement. “We even cover the cost of arbitration in most cases. So this is just a policy update, and we’ve tried to communicate it in a clear and visible way.”

A growing number of companies have adopted similar policies over the years, especially after a 2011 Supreme Court decision, AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, that paved the way for businesses to bar consumers claiming fraud from joining together in a single arbitration. The decision allowed companies to forbid class-action lawsuits with the use of a standard-form contract requiring that disputes be resolved through the informal mechanism of one-on-one arbitration.

Credit card and mobile phone companies have included such limitations on consumers in their contracts, and in 2008, the magazine Mother Jones published an article about a Whataburger fast-food restaurant that hung a sign on its door warning customers that simply by entering the premises, they agreed to settle disputes through arbitration.

Companies have continued to push for expanded protection against litigation, but legal experts said that a food company trying to limit its customers’ ability to litigate against it raised the stakes in a new way.

What if a child allergic to peanuts ate a product that contained trace amounts of nuts but mistakenly did not include that information on its packaging? Food recalls for mislabeling, including failures to identify nuts in products, are not uncommon.

“When you’re talking about food, you’re also talking about things that can kill people,” said Scott L. Nelson, a lawyer at Public Citizen, a nonprofit advocacy group. “There is a huge difference in the stakes, between the benefit you’re getting from this supposed contract you’re entering into by, say, using the company’s website to download a coupon, and the rights they’re saying you’re giving up. That makes this agreement a lot broader than others out there.”

Big food companies are concerned about the growing number of consumers filing class-action lawsuits against them over labeling, ingredients and claims of health threats. Almost every major gathering of industry executives has at least one session on fighting litigation.

Last year, General Mills paid $8.5 million to settle lawsuits over positive health claims made on the packaging of its Yoplait Yoplus yogurt, saying it did not agree with the plaintiff’s accusations but wanted to end the litigation. In December 2012, it agreed to settle another suit by taking the word “strawberry” off the packaging label for Strawberry Fruit Roll-Ups, which did not contain strawberries.

General Mills amended its legal terms after a judge in California on March 26 ruled against its motion to dismiss a case brought by two mothers who contended that the company deceptively marketed its Nature Valley products as “natural” when they contained processed and genetically engineered ingredients.

“The front of the Nature Valley products’ packaging prominently displays the term ‘100% Natural’ that could lead a reasonable consumer to believe the products contain only natural ingredients,” wrote the district judge, William H. Orrick.

He wrote that the packaging claim “appears to be false” because the products contain processed ingredients like high-fructose corn syrup and maltodextrin.

Arbitration experts said courts would probably require General Mills to prove that a customer was aware of its new policy before issuing decisions denying legal action against the company.

The policy is so broadly written, lawyers say, that it is likely to raise interesting legal questions.

For instance, on Tuesday an order was placed through the company’s online store for a Cheerios bowl, before General Mills posted the notice about the change to its legal terms on its home page.

At no point did the order system suggest changes had been made to the legal terms governing the buyer. It offered a link to the company’s privacy policy, and two opt-out boxes for receiving promotional materials through email.

Whether a court would rule that, under the new policy, the buyer of the bowl could not sue General Mills was unclear, since the General Mills home page now included a message about the changes it had made to its legal terms.

“A transaction has taken place that, according to General Mills, includes an agreement to submit to informal negotiation or arbitration in the event of a dispute,” Mr. Nelson said.

He said he did not think a court would agree to enforce the policy if a consumer merely visited a General Mills website, “but we really don’t know.”

“You can bet,” he said, “there will be some subpoenas for computer hard drives in the future.”

Young designers experiment with exuberant homes the size of parking spots

Imagine an urban parking garage, emptied of its cars and filled instead with dozens of parking-spot-size homes.

It’s the vision of a group of more than 80 students, alumni and educators from the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia. They have been experimenting with these car-sized homes, called SCADpads, that could be plunked into any parking garage and instantly provide housing in overpriced downtown areas of major cities. The units are prototypes for urban housing, but students will live in them first to test out the concept.
“We’re targeting decks built in the middle of the 20th century, located in the heart of a city,” says Christian Sottile, dean of the school of building arts at SCAD. “Many of these were built as fallout shelters and will basically be there until the end of time.”

For its experiment, the folks at SCAD built their beta SCADpad neighborhood in the college’s midtown Atlanta parking garage, with incredible views of the city’s sprawling skyline. They took over the fourth floor of the garage, using eight parking spaces to create the three pads. The pads reflect the design aesthetics of the college’s three campuses: SCADpad North America for its Savannah campus, SCADpad Europe reflecting the campus in Lacoste, France, and SCADpad Asia reflecting its Hong Kong campus. Each pad takes up two parking spaces—one for the unit itself and the other for an outdoor garden area—and then there’s space for the community garden and a workbench.Of course, it is no ordinary workbench. It features a 3D printer, capable of printing almost anything a SCADpad resident could want, from dishes to wallpaper to furniture. Residents design their products without keyboard or mouse and instead use their hands in front of an interactive camera to manipulate the computer screen—think of Tom Cruise in “Minority Report.”

“A big part of what we have here is the ability to custom-adjust,” says Victor Ermoli, dean of the school of design at SCAD. “If you need a cooking pan, you go to the bench outside and print that. Whatever your needs are, you can meet them.”

That kind of flexibility is necessary, because inside the pads, “every cubic inch of this space counts,” Ermoli says. The units are only 8 feet wide and 16 feet long, so a grown man standing in one can nearly touch the walls and ceilings when his arms are spread out. There’s room enough for a bed, a sitting area, a bathroom with toilet and sink, and a small kitchen that hides its appliances, like the refrigerator and freezer, inside its cabinet drawers.

These walls do talk

There’s also a long list of technological features. The whole unit is controlled by a tablet—there are no light switches —and the power can be turned off completely by blowing on what Ermoli calls a digital candle, which looks like a glowing triangle near the door of the unit.

The walls can be changed out with new 3D-printed designs, and some walls make certain noises, such as tweeting birds, when touched. With the touch of a button, the windows can be frosted over for privacy, and the bathroom mirrors can remind you to wash your hands. A daylight harvesting system captures light coming in the sides of the garage and channels it over fiber optic cables to the garden, Sottile says.

And because the units are the size of cars, they could theoretically be taken on the road and travel with their owner to a new city, where a different parking garage could be its home, Sottile says.

Students living in the units will test the concept out while the college considers questions of scalability. As it stands now, the cost of a basic unit would be around $40,000 and can be produced in two months, Sottile says. The cost to rent them would be about 40 percent below the median rent price in a city.

Crafts Retailer Michaels Confirms 2.6 Million Credit Cards Compromised by Security Breach

Michaels Stores, the biggest U.S. arts and crafts retailer, on Thursday confirmed that there was a security breach at certain systems that process payment cards at its U.S. stores and that of its unit, Aaron Brothers.

The company said in January that it was working with federal law enforcement officials to investigate a possible data breach.

Michaels Stores said the breach, which took place
between May 8, 2013, and Jan. 27, 2014, may have affected about 2.6 million cards, or about 7 percent of payment cards used at its stores during the period.The company said about 400,000 cards were potentially impacted at its Aaron Brothers unit by the breach, which occurred between June 26, 2013, and Feb. 27, 2014.There was no evidence that data such as customers’ names or personal identification numbers were at risk, Michaels Stores said in a statement.This is the second known data breach since 2011 at Michaels.Michaels, whose major investors are Blackstone Group LP and Bain Capital LP, said cyber-security firms it hired found that malware not encountered previously had been used in the latest attack.

The company said it was working with law enforcement authorities, banks, and payment processors, and that the malware no longer presents a threat.

Michaels, which resubmitted its IPO documents late last month following a restructuring, is the latest U.S. retailer whose systems have been breached.

Last year, the No. 3 U.S. retailer Target suffered a massive security breach that resulted in the theft of some 70 million customer records.

Reuters reported in January that smaller breaches on at least three other well-known U.S. retailers took place and were conducted using similar techniques as the one used on Target.

U.S. retailers are planning to form an industry group for collecting and sharing intelligence in a bid to prevent future attacks.

Michaels, which owns several private brands such as Recollections, Artist’s Loft, and Loops & Threads, competes with Hooby Lobby Stores, Jo-Ann Stores, and Wal-Mart Stores.

Meet Margot Robbie, Scene-Jacking Breakout Star of 'The Wolf of Wall Street'

If there's one more thing to know about "The Wolf of Wall Street" before its release next week, it's that you should be ready to remember scene-stealing, Australian-born newcomer Margot Robbie, who plays Jordan

Belfort's (Leonardo DiCaprio) manipulative second wife, Naomi (aka "The Duchess").
Robbie — who generated some buzz (and tabloid headlines) earlier this year while filming "Focus" with Will Smith — makes a very good impression upon Belfort and his pals when she walks into one of their outlandish parties in the Hamptons. Coincidentally, Robbie made a similarly striking impression upon DiCaprio and director Martin Scorsese during the "Wolf" audition process, due in part to her mastery of the Brooklyn accent, but more so because she was so into their scene she slapped DiCaprio.
Watch an exclusive clip from 'The Wolf of Wall Street':

Yahoo Movies recently caught up with Robbie to talk about all the trappings that come with portraying a Long Island housewife in the '80s (think big hair and spray tans), why she thought DiCaprio was a homeless person when they first met, and her big year in movies, which also included her role as the English-accented first love of leading man Tim (Domnhall Gleeson) in the era-hopping family rom-com "About Time."
[Related: The 25 Best Movies of 2013]
Was your first meeting with Mr. DiCaprio at all similar to your character's first meeting with Jordan Belfort?
Margot Robbie: Ha, no, it wasn't really like that at all. We weren't in the Hamptons, we weren't at a cocktail party, we were in a studio audition room in New York, and he still had his giant beard and long hair from "Django Unchained" because he had just wrapped filming. And I walked into the room and for a heartbeat I thought, "Who is that? Someone sort of homeless-looking in the corner?" And that was Mr. DiCaprio, and then a few minutes later we're doing our scene and I ended up getting carried away and hitting him in the face. So our first encounter was a little interesting but that definitely broke the ice and we've had a great working relationship ever since.
How did you master that Long Island accent?
M.R.: I did a lot of technical training a couple years ago when I was preparing to move to America, to prepare for the standard American accent. So I had all the technical training in place which, now when I start working other accents, I can adapt that knowledge and use it for whatever accent I need.Tim Monich was Leo and my dialect coach on set, he provided me with a lot of voice recordings of actual women from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, where my character was from, and I would just listen to them on my iPod and mimic them. Another thing that bizarrely helped: my acting coach told me when I was first putting my audition on tape, she said, "Pretend like you have acrylic nails on and they've just been painted and the paint is still wet." I said, How does that help my accent?" She said, "Just do it.So I put my hands out and thought, "OK, my fingernails are wet" and suddenly these hand gestures came out and I'm waving my hands around, I've got this attitude, it really worked. It was the perfect combination of the technical training and that bizarre little trick and the expertise of Tim Monich.
So you didn't have to watch any episodes of "The Real Housewives of New Jersey" or anything?
M.R.: No I have little to no patience for reality TV so thankfully I didn't have to resort to that.
One can't help but notice your lovely and very bronze skin in the film. What was the preferred method for achieving that? Spray tanning?
M.R.: Oh gosh, that was once a week on a Sunday night. I would get a spray tan and my acrylic nails put on and be ready to go for another week. It was so disgusting. The smell of the spray tan makes me want to gag now, but yeah, most of the cast would all get spray tans so that we would be overly bronze all the time. It was hilarious.And oddly authentic. It's crazy how certain stereotypes are true.
M.R.: Yeah we looked back at the photos, and they're all weirdly bronze all the time.
[Related: 2014 Golden Globe Nominations By the Numbers]
Speaking of showing off your bronzed skin, how easy or difficult was getting comfortable with those love scenes and skimpy outfits? How did DiCaprio and Scorsese help set you at ease?
M.R.: Everyone on set did their best to make it a comfortable environment to shoot those scenes, but it's still incredibly daunting and uncomfortable. You just have to grit your teeth and do it there is no other option. It's not like, "Will I or won't I?" It's that's what's in the scene, and we have to shoot that by this time tonight, and so you get on with it.
The sooner we get it done, the sooner you can put your clothes back on. So it really was like, "OK, be the character. She would do it, do it." It was weird, but by the end of the film everyone was so used to getting undressed that we didn't care. You took your robe off easily. But the first time? Definitely, I was petrified.

 Well you make her a lot of fun to watch in how she seduces Jordan.
M.R.: That is definitely her source of power, it was fun to wield that over him.
The movie is such a crazy ride. What do you think audiences take away from it?
M.R.: Gosh, I don't know. People keep asking that. I'm still obliged to think I hope they see a greedy lifestyle and in the end living in excess won't make you happy. But I don't think we made this movie to tell a moral story about what's right and wrong. People know what's right and wrong. I think it's a film to look closely at a bunch of crazy characters and this unique insane time of their lives and what they were doing. It's just an entertaining, close-up, uncensored, raw version of that. So I hope people don't look at it and think they want to live that way. But I hope they think it's entertaining three hours of film-watching.
What was your favorite Naomi moment, given all her ups and downs?
M.R.: I really love the last sequence when I ask for a divorce and it escalates into the giant fight scene where I get to smash the window in and scream and all those kinds of things. It was kind of a cathartic moment in the film when everything bubbles over the surface and you explode and then she's gone. That's the last time you see her, and I like that it was out of a drive to protect her kids. It was nice to have that motivating factor.
[Photos: 'The Wolf of Wall Street' New York City Premiere]
We've heard your English accent and now the Brooklyn one. What new accent will we hear from you next?
M.R.: I play a French peasant farm girl [in "Suite Francaise"], but I will be doing an English accent [playing] French. So you'll hear an English accent again, and then the film I just wrapped is "Focus" where I am doing a standard American accent. I play a New York girl, and I don't know what's going to be next. I hope I get another challenging accent to do because they are some of my favorite things to do, perfecting an accent. I'd like to do a Boston accent. I'd love to do a Southern accent next.
Nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Picture, Comedy or Musical, "The Wolf of Wall Street" opens nationwide on Christmas Day.

4 Reasons Running is Best for Weight Loss

Bikini image in sexy style of USA:Any exercise is good exercise, but when it comes to losing weight, it's hard to beat running. After all, running is one of the most efficient ways to burn calories and get fit without having to restrict your diet. If you're
already a runner, keep on keepin' on. If you're not a runner yet but interested in losing weight, here are four reasons running can be the best exercise for weight loss.MORE: 10 Golden Rules for Weight Loss That Lasts.1. Running works even when you're at rest. High-intensity exercise like running stimulates more "afterburn" than low-intensity exercise. That is, even when comparing running with walking the same distance, studies find that running will lead to greater weight loss, most likely because your resting energy expenditure stays elevated after you run. In a long-term comparison study of runners and walkers, calories burned through running led to 90% more weight loss than calories burned through walking.2. Running is time-efficient. Even if the myth that running a mile and walking a mile burn the same number of calories were true (find out the truth about calorie burn here), running is a considerably faster way to burn those calories. Most people can run two or three times as far as they can walk in a given amount of time. At the other end of the spectrum, super-intense but short workouts, such as the "Scientific 7-minute Workout" from the Human Performance Institute, may burn more calories per minute per running, but because they're so short, your total caloric burn isn't as great if you ran.PLUS: The Truth About Running vs. Walking for Weight Loss3. Running is convenient. Though many of us have accumulated a vast arsenal of GPS gadgets and tech tees over the years, little is actually required to go running. You can do it alone. You can do it almost anywhere. You don't need any equipment beyond a pair of running shoes. (And if you're careful about injury and build up slowly, you may not even need those. Check out the Benefits of Barefoot Running for more.) For this reason alone, running is the best workout for weight loss because it's cheap, it's accessible, and there are fewer barriers to maintaining a routine, even while traveling.4. Two words: runner's high. The first rule of exercising for weight loss is that if you don't enjoy it, you won't stick with it. Fortunately, studies support what many runners have experienced on an anecdotal level--running can actually get you high. Scientists have found links between moderate to intense exercise and morphine-like brain chemicals called endocannabinoids, which suggest endorphins alone aren't responsible for the occasional flood of euphoria that rushes over you during a hard run. That floaty, happy sensation you had after your last race--makes you want to go for another run, right?

How a modern caveman could win an Academy Award

There aren't many things more fundamental to our sense of being than the earth beneath our feet -- so much so that it's a synonym for stability ("stand your ground," "down to earth," "grounded").

Ra Paulette, though, doesn't seem to see the earth as most of us do. He looks at the earth and sees -- or, perhaps more accurately, feels -- potential: cathedrals waiting to be freed.

For 20 years, he has been quietly and often secretly carving intricate and by all accounts stunning caverns
into the landscape of New Mexico -- by himself, solely with hand tools: shovel, mattock, scraper. The chambers are filled with arches and whorls and apertures that seem to sculpt the sunlight itself.'A transformative tool'The caves are not enormous; mostly, their square footage would be comparable to rooms or perhaps small houses. His ambitions for them are outsize, though, as he describes in a new documentary shortlisted for an Academy Award, "CaveDigger," directed by Jeffrey Karoff:These caves are designed as transcendent spaces. The fact that the cave is underground and you feel the earth around you yet the sun is pouring in: Those are the juxtapositions of the two metaphors of our life, the inside, the within, and the without. it's a perceptual trick that brings out deep, expansive emotionality."And when he says "transcendent," he isn't just being flowery. "I want to subject mercilessly a person to the aesthetic in a way that stimulates a deep emotionality to the point where it becomes a transformative tool. That's a big goal, but I'm ready for it.I don't put any energy into being a success in the world'He doesn't do it for glory, and he certainly doesn't do it for money: When he's been paid at all for his work, he's generally earned perhaps $15 or $20 an hour.I don't put any energy into being a success in the world," he says. "My strategy is to wait for something from heaven to come along and lay it on me.He has taken a few commissions, not all of which have gone well.[Click here to see a slideshow of Ra Paulette's caves]"Ra's not your typical person, which is what I like about him," says his close friend, ex-girlfriend and onetime patron, Liz Riedel. "He doesn't do things for himself, he does things for art. He does things for other people" -- meaning the viewer of his art, not necessarily the person paying for it.

Riedel and her husband, Shel Neymark, commissioned a piece from him that was supposed to take two months and cost $2,000. They knew what they were getting into, though: They privately doubled his estimate, figuring that Paulette being Paulette, he'd take four months and $4,000.

It took two years -- during which Riedel learned that she had cancer. She underwent grueling treatments. The couple asked Paulette many times to stop, and even believed once or twice that they'd convinced him. Still he refused to leave the project.

"When he has a shovel in his hand, he's like a coke addict with piles of coke. He just loves to keep going and going," Neymark said.

They admit, though: The work he produced for them was transcendent.

'Everyone else grew up and I didn't'

Such tensions are at the heart of Karoff's documentary. Paulette is "living the dream so you don't have to," Karoff says, but it's "not without cost."

Paulette's wife may be the one who bears the cost most, as the documentary makes clear. "Her demands of security are so reasonable," Paulette says, but they aren't demands that he shares. So her role has become the de facto breadwinner, supporting them as an advocate for hospice patients.

"Everyone else grew up and I didn't," Paulette says simply.

And at 67 years old, he says he's now "through working for other people." He'll take no more commissions; instead, he's about three years into a private project that he expects will take 10 years.

"I want people to get a break in the continuity of who they are. And in that break, a lot of things can happen: personal insights, access to enthusiasms. I've seen it happen. It's fun to watch. It keeps me digging."

Doc McStuffins Is Breakout Holiday Toy for Boys and Girls of All Races

Brace yourselves for a nice surprise, parents: One of the most in-demand toys of the holiday season is neither a princess nor a video-game warrior, but a doctor, thanks to Disney Junior’s runaway cartoon hit
Doc McStuffins.    More from Yahoo Shine: GoldieBlox Pulls Beastie Boys Song From Viral Video
Doc is huge,” Jackie Breyer, editor in chief of the trade publication the Toy Insider tells Yahoo Shine about the doll based on the character, as well as other related merchandise. “The Checkup Center is almost impossible to find at this point. But it’s all hot. Anything Doc is huge this year.”Anyone with a little kid won’t be too surprised, as the relatively new show, about a 6-year-old aspiring doctor who admires her doctor mother and treats her toys with help from her dragon and snowman friends, is hugely popular with the 2- to-7-year-old set. It draws an average of 1.3 million viewers weekly, according to the latest Nielsen ratings, and has a viewership of both boys and girls.More on Yahoo: Gov. Walker Urges Parents to Skip Toys and Send the Christmas Money to HimBut the popularity of its merchandise  including Doc dolls, figurines, doctor kits and the Checkup Center is still a breath of fresh air for many reasons, say toy experts. “If anything is surprising, it’s the fact that [it serves] a classic play pattern — it gets kids away from the screens, and they get to role-play and use their imaginations,” Breyer notes. “What kid doesn’t imagine that their toys come to life at some point? Also, it’s aspirational — [the character’s] mom is a doctor.

Marianne Szymanski, president of the consumer research group Toy Tips, notes that the toys are also big with kids who have pets, and who like to treat them as patients. “Taking care of animals is such a play pattern that it's just a perfect fit,” she tells Yahoo Shine. “There wasn’t really anything out there in this category, but this being Disney, it really took off.” Another attribute, she adds, is the fact that it’s something fresh in an industry used to remaking the “same old, same old,” from Legos to Barbie.

Jim Silver, editor in chief of toy review website Time to Play, tells Bloomberg Businessweek that the toys first took off last year during holiday season, surprising retailers, who were largely unprepared for the Doc demand. But this year, the amount of shelf space that Disney’s top retail accounts — Wal-Mart, Target, Toys “R” Us, and Kmart — have given the toys has grown from an average of 5 feet to 20 feet J.D. Edwards, senior VP of Disney Media Networks licensing at Disney Consumer Products, tells Yahoo Shine in an email. Also, to date, more than 1 million of Doc McStuffins Doctor Bag Playsets have sold, and the brand continues to grow — beyond the toy aisle, with bedding, apparel, footwear and band-aids. The Checkup Center was nominated for the Toy Industry Association's Toy of the Year award for 2014.

“I’m very pleased with this product because, guaranteed, you will see kids who become doctors because of this toy,” Richard Gottlieb, founder and president of Global Toy Experts, tells Yahoo Shine. The fact that the character is both female and African-American, he adds, is another big plus. “It’s kind of a postgender product — and the industry has gotten even more gender-specific over the last 20 years,” he says. “Boys might not play with the doll, but I don’t think it’s just about the doll; it’s about a storyline. I think Doc McStuffins crosses many boundaries.”

On the World’s Roads, More American Wheels

DETROIT — The resurgence of the American auto industry has been driven primarily by pent-up demand for new cars and trucks by consumers in the United States.

But a big part of the comeback has also come from an unlikely source: rising exports of vehicles made in the United States for sale in international markets.

Annual exports of American-made vehicles have increased nearly 80 percent from 2009 through
2012. And this year exports are up about 9 percent from last year through the month of October, according to the Commerce Department.And it is not only the Detroit carmakers that are benefiting from the international appeal of American-made models. Factories owned by Japanese and European auto companies in the United States are also steadily expanding their export business, adding jobs and investment to keep pace with overseas demand.

“It’s becoming a more important part of our business every year,” said Robert S. Carter, senior vice president of Toyota’s United States division. “It is a very robust area of growth.”

Indeed, automakers are adding more new models to their roster of export-ready vehicles.

On Thursday, the Ford Motor Company unveiled the latest version of its iconic Mustang muscle car, and it announced that for the first time it would begin exporting it to global markets in 2015.

The introduction of the new Mustang was a global event, with simultaneous presentations in New York; Los Angeles; Barcelona, Spain; Sydney, Australia; and Shanghai — as well as in Ford’s hometown, Dearborn, Mich.

“We think this car has universal appeal,” said Mark Fields, Ford’s chief operating officer. “We’re really excited to ship it to Europe and China and the Asia-Pacific countries.”

Last year, American factories shipped 1.8 million cars, sport utility vehicles and light trucks for sale in international markets, including Canada and Mexico. That figure should reach two million this year.

While that is still a fraction of the estimated 15.5 million vehicles expected to be sold in the United States this year, the growth of exports underscores how competitive American-made models have become worldwide on manufacturing costs and overall quality.

Since emerging from the recession, automakers are benefiting from lower labor and energy costs, along with slimmed-down, more efficient plants. “We are likely to see a continued growth of exports, as the U.S. has a more competitive cost structure than before, better products and more global platforms that can be shipped elsewhere,” said Xavier Mosquet, an auto specialist with the Boston Consulting Group.

At the same time Ford was showing off the new Mustang, Toyota was starting production of its new Highlander sport utility vehicle in Princeton, Ind. Toyota officials said that key markets for the Highlander were Russia and Australia.

While Ford is looking to broaden its Mustang sales in overseas markets, foreign automakers like Toyota view exporting from the United States as an alternative to higher manufacturing costs in their home countries.

“It’s a hedge against currency fluctuations, but it also shows how attractive our products are in places like China, Russia and the Middle East,” said Mr. Carter of Toyota.

Other automakers are following suit. Nissan expects to export about 14 percent of its United States production overseas this year. And Honda predicts that by next year it will export more vehicles from North America — the bulk of them from American plants — than it will bring into the region from Japan.

Last year, Canada and Mexico accounted for about half of exports of American-made vehicles. A decade ago, the vast majority of exports were limited to Canada and Mexico, but demand for American models in is expanding rapidly in other countries.

Exports to Saudi Arabia, for example, have tripled since 2009. And sales to Chinese customers have increased fivefold over the same period.

Last year, Ford exported more than 370,000 vehicles from the United States to foreign markets, an increase of nearly 14 percent from the previous year. The roster of models headed overseas includes the company’s popular Focus and Fusion sedans, as well as sport utility vehicles like the Escape and Explorer.

The new Mustang will be built in Flat Rock, Mich., about 20 miles from Ford’s world headquarters. Ford executives stressed that the car was designed mostly for American buyers, but that its history and appeal had gained admirers in every region of the world.

“More than 50 percent of Mustang fans on Facebook are outside the U.S.,” Mr. Fields said. “And there are 300 Mustang clubs on five continents.”

Like its domestic rivals, General Motors and Chrysler, Ford has drastically trimmed its manufacturing capacity in the United States since the industry tumbled into financial crisis in 2008.

Now Ford’s American plants operate at higher productivity levels, often on three shifts operating nearly around the clock. A growing number of its hourly workers are also receiving lower, entry-level wages that have cut overall manufacturing costs.

Ford has also introduced smaller, more fuel-efficient engines that are attractive to buyers in Europe and other regions where gas prices are high. Mr. Fields said product planners in the United States were attuned to the needs of consumers abroad.

“We’ve changed the heating and air conditioning systems to accommodate very high heat levels in the Middle East,” he said.

Some American brands are proving better suited for export markets than others. G.M., for example, is pushing hard to expand sales of its Cadillac luxury brand outside the United States. But the company said Thursday that it was dropping plans for broad growth of its Chevrolet brand in Europe, where it competes for customers with its Opel division.

One of the biggest success stories in exports has been Chrysler’s rugged line of Jeep sport utility vehicles.

On any given day, the assembly line at Chrysler’s Jefferson North assembly plant in Detroit churns out Jeep Grand Cherokees destined for sale in more than 120 countries.

Global sales of Jeep vehicles increased 19 percent in 2012 over the year earlier, according to Commerce Department statistics. And Chrysler is investing $500 million in its Toledo, Ohio, plant for the new Jeep Cherokee — partly to accommodate the expected demand for the vehicles outside the United States.

Jaclyn Trop contributed reporting.

NASA says giant Saturn hexagon storm might be hundreds of years old

In November, NASA released some incredible composite photographs of Saturn taken from the Cassini spacecraft. In some of the images, you can see streams of liquid erupting from the planet.

This week, NASA has topped that with its most detailed movie of the “hexagon jet stream” erupting from the ringed planet, creating a giant storm that might be hundreds of years old.

The movie shows a complete view of the top of Saturn. And in the middle of it all is the hexagon, a giant 20,000-mile-wide jet stream of winds racing at 200 mph.

It’s a storm that NASA says truly stands alone in the entire solar system.

"The hexagon is just a current of air, and weather features out there that share similarities to this are
notoriously turbulent and unstable," said Andrew Ingersoll, a member of the Cassini imaging team in Pasadena, Calif. "A hurricane on Earth typically lasts a week, but this has been here for decades and who knows  maybe centuries.You can see more images of the storm on NASA’s Cassini hangout page.

NASA says some parts of the storm, known as vortices, cover 2,200 miles, making them twice as big as any known hurricane in Earth’s history. While no one knows for sure, NASA says it believes the giant storm has managed to stay active for so long because Saturn does not have any substantial landmass that could cause the weather pattern to die out.

Cassini first arrived near Saturn in 2004, and its mission is scheduled to end in 2017. However, NASA says the timing is perfect as the planet’s summer solstice occurs during that timeframe and should give Cassini its best views of the storm.

"As we approach Saturn's summer solstice in 2017, lighting conditions over its north pole will improve, and we are excited to track the changes that occur both inside and outside the hexagon boundary," Scott Edgington, Cassini deputy project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a statement.

Disgusting Christmas “Tinner” offers a time-saving alternative for gamers

For gamers who want to enjoy all the traditional components of a Christmas dinner and don't mind doing so in the most disgusting, least appetizing way possible, we present...Christmas Tinner, the Christmas dinner in a can.

Those with sensitive tummies should stop reading now, because this one will haunt your nightmares. There's just no other way to describe a tin can that comes with nine layers of food, one on top of the other.

Pop open the can, and you're greeted with a top layer of scrambled eggs and bacon. But wait, there's more! Below that resides some fruity mincemeat.Still with us? Good, because it's time for the main course: turkey
and potatoes, plus carrots and other side dishes, including gravy, cranberry sauce, and Brussels sprouts or broccoli, depending on your preference. (Apparently, some people who eat Christmas Tinners will draw the line at Brussels sprouts.) At the bottom of the can is your dessert/reward/finish line — Christmas pudding.

What cruel fiend could possibly come up with such a diabolical concept? British video game retailer GAME is selling the cans to its customers after research suggested that nearly 50 percent of UK gamers intend to spend the majority of the holidays playing video games, according to Nintendo Life.

The Daily Mail reports that the Christmas Tinner is undergoing a trial period at the GAME store in Basingstoke, England. If the demand is high enough (?!?), other stores may stock the meal as well

What’s the Secret to Hacker-Proof Passwords?

Is no password hacker-proof anymore?

Researchers at cybersecurity firm Trustwave said this week they found a stash of about two million passwords to major sites, including Facebook (FB), Twitter (TWTR), Google (GOOG) and Yahoo (which operates Yahoo Finance).

The database included stolen information from some 320,000 email accounts, 318,000 Facebook
accounts, and 21,000 Twitter users, nearly 60,000 Yahoo accounts, more than 8,000 LinkedIn accounts, and 70,000 Gmail, Google+ and YouTube accounts, Trustwave said. Two Russian social-networking sites, vk.com and odnoklassniki.ru, were also targeted, as well as 8,000 accounts at ADP, the payroll service provider, according to Trustwave.

"We don't have evidence they logged into these accounts, but they probably did," John Miller, a security research manager at Trustwave, told CNNMoney.

You have ‘terrible’ passwords

Trustwave’s researchers combed through the data to analyze users’ password selection habits – and they weren’t impressed. More than 15,000 of the affected users had “123456” as their password, followed by “123456789,” “1234” and “password.”

The firm said only 5% of the passwords were considered “excellent,” which means they used all four character types (uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers and special characters), and 17% were “good.” Passwords with four or fewer characters of only one type are considered “terrible” – and there were more terrible passwords -- 6% -- than excellent ones.

Every year or so, a report comes out that highlights how vulnerable our passwords are to hackers and identity thieves. And a different list from 2011, for instance, shows the most common passwords are nearly identical to the ones found in Trustwave’s trove. In short, they’re way too simple.

Protect yourself

We asked Nick Berry, data scientist at Facebook, for guidance on how users should go about creating passwords to their myriad email, social networking, banking and other accounts they want to remain private. “I can confirm from my research that people really are staggeringly unimaginative in their selection of passwords,” says Berry, who founded technology consulting firm Data Genetics and has done extensive research on password security. Check out Berry's TEDx Seattle talk about the subject.

While Berry says there are some things users can’t control, there are plenty of steps you can take to help mitigate any potential damage. Some of these tips may be obvious, while other strategies sound secret-agent-worthy. Berry, who works in research capacity at Facebook, was unable to comment about this particular incident, but stated: "We have dedicated teams of people who monitor events such as this, and take whatever action they can to help protect the security of our users".

1. Dual factor. The best strategy, if available on the service you use, is to enable dual-factor authentication, Berry says. This means you need two things to access the service – a traditional password and something you’re in possession of, such as a smart card, dongle or your smartphone. When you attempt to log in to a service that has dual factor, you type in your password and then insert your physical key (or in the case of your smartphone, you get a text message with a temporary password). You need to type in both to get access to the site. If your password is stolen, a thief can’t use the site because they don’t have your phone. “Codes sent to your smartphone are random and change each time used, so even someone looking over your shoulder [sees] the code will not be able to gain benefit from it to replay it,” he says.

An ATM is a classic example of a dual-factor authentication – you need your ATM card and a PIN to access your account. Major sites offer the option as well, including Facebook, Microsoft Outlook, Gmail and Yahoo Mail. Users can opt into a security feature that requires them to enter a code the site sends to their phone when logging on from an unrecognized device.

2. Make it ObsKur3. If dual factor isn’t available, choose a strong distinct password for each service, Berry says. So if any one service is cracked, hackers can’t get access to other accounts that might share the same login information. If you don’t have photographic memory, password managers can handle your complex and obscure passwords

3. Write it down. This might seem oddly un-savvy, but Berry says storing written-down passwords in a safe place is good move. To break a very strong password, a thief has to have physical access to that password, which is only in one location. Unless you’ve been specifically targeted, most cybercrime is performed remotely by anonymous hackers. “A thief breaking into your house is more interested in your credit cards, iPad, flat-screen TV, prescription drugs than a piece of paper with some hieroglyphics that they have to try and correlate back to some website,” Berry says.

4. Pay extra attention to protecting your main email account with an impenetrable password. “You are only as strong as your weakest link,” Berry says. If you forget the password to your Netflix or Gilt account, those sites will offer an "I forgot my password" link, so you can reset it.

5. Use fake answers. If you answer those "secret questions," give bogus answers – but ones you’ll remember, of course, Berry says.  “Someone trying to social engineer your account can probably pretty easily find out the name of your dog (all your friends know), or your mother’s name, or the school you went to,” he says.

6. Don’t save your password. Some online services let users save their password so they don’t have to keep typing it in every time they want to access it. It’s convenient, but might prove problematic if you lose your unlocked cellphone or laptop (especially if you have your email logged in).  “How much damage could someone do in a few minutes if they visit your stock portfolio page or bank account (which probably have your account name cached), and click the 'email me my lost password'?” he says.

7. Set up a burner. Don't enter details into sites you don't trust. And if you have to, Berry suggests using a “burner” account name – an email account you don't care about. “If it gets compromised or spammed, who cares?” he says, as you can abandon it and set up another one.

And, of course, Berry says, never tell anyone – spouse, employees, support staff, best friend – your passwords.