Prosthetic leg discovered in search for Zahra Baker - Charlotte Observer

Posted: Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2010

Search crews scouring a wooded area Wednesday found a prosthetic leg that could belong to Zahra Baker, the 10-year-old Hickory girl missing for almost three weeks and presumed dead.

The leg was found in an area off Christie Road in Caldwell County, Hickory Police Chief Tom Adkins said. He also said crews have returned to the family's home in Hickory to search for any additional evidence there Wednesday.

Adkins said crews have found some additional evidence there, but wouldn't say what that evidence was.

Zahra used a prosthetic leg after losing one of her legs to bone cancer at age 5. She was reported missing Oct. 9, but police said they haven't found anyone besides her father and stepmother who report seeing her alive since Sept. 25.

The search for her has taken law enforcement from her house in Hickory to rural land outside Morganton, from houses the family used to live in near Granite Falls to a Caldwell County landfill and many other sites.

So far, searchers have come up empty in the hunt for her body. Police believe Zahra is dead.

Her stepmother, Elisa Baker, was charged with obstruction of justice after police say she admitted writing a phony ransom note. Elisa Baker was brought to several search sites Tuesday, and authorities said she was cooperating with the investigation. Zahra's father Adam Baker was arrested this week on unrelated charges of assault and writing bad checks.

No one has been charged in Zahra's disappearance.

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Argentina's powerful ex-president Kirchner dies - Reuters

* Kirchner was contender for 2011 presidential race

* He oversaw Argentina's recovery from economic crash

* Critics saw him as divisive, authoritarian figure

* Argentina asset prices rally following news (Adds fresh quotes, color on supporters)

By Helen Popper and Nicolas Misculin

BUENOS AIRES, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Argentina's Nestor Kirchner, the president's powerful husband and a top contender to succeed her next year, died on Wednesday, lifting stock and bond prices but heightening uncertainty ahead of the election.

Kirchner, 60, was president between 2003 and 2007 and is credited by many with putting South America's No. 2 economy back on its feet after a devastating 2001/02 crisis, but critics reviled his combative style and interventionist economic policies. He died of a heart attack.

Argentine bond and stock prices rose on news of the death of the center-leftist, who kept a firm hold on the reins of power even after his wife Cristina Fernandez was elected to succeed him in 2007.

Kirchner's death raises questions about the government's strategy for the presidential election next October, and may encourage Fernandez to run for a second term and adopt a less confrontational stance in a bid to garner broader backing.

"History will rightly remember him as one of the best presidents of the last 50 years," said Ricardo Garcia, 52, a lawyer who joined tens of thousands of supporters in front of the famous pink presidential palace.

"The country is no longer on its knees like it was in the 1990s," he added, referring to an era of free-market economic policies that Kirchner frequently blamed for causing the 2001/02 meltdown.

Supporters tied bunches of roses and condolence messages to the railings of the palace, some reading "Thank you Nestor" and "Stay strong Cristina." The blue-and-white national flag flew at half staff during the day, a public holiday.

Kirchner, who died in the southern city of El Calafate, was still popular when he left the presidency. But his approval ratings have since fallen -- especially among middle class Argentines, dented by messy disputes with farmers and leading media conglomerate Grupo Clarin. (CLA.BA)

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Full coverage of Kirchner's death: [ID:nARGENTINA]

Political risks in Argentina: [ID:nRISKAR]

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Tom Dart won&apos;t run for Chicago mayor - Chicago Tribune

Tom Dart, on paper, looked like an almost ideal candidate for Chicago mayor: A likable Cook County sheriff who had attracted positive press and boasted a solid, South Side pedigree.

So it was easy to overlook a few factors. He lost the only tough race he'd ever run, for Illinois treasurer eight years ago. He's a father with several young kids. And he's never raised the kind of cash he'd need to run for such a high office.

When it came time for a final gut check, Dart looked inside and decided running for mayor wasn't for him.

"I'm disappointing people, but at the end of the day I have to look myself in the mirror," said Dart, clad in jeans and a Mount Carmel High School basketball fleece at a hastily called news conference outside the County Jail he oversees.

Dart's decision clears the field of one of the top candidates vying for the job to succeed Mayor Richard Daley, who said last month that he wouldn't seek another term in February. In recent weeks, the field has thinned as numerous aldermen, congressmen and county officials have bowed out.

Since Daley's announcement, Dart had been telling supporters he planned to run and was gearing up his campaign, even gathering more than 25,000 signatures — twice the required amount — to get his name on the ballot.

Dart was expected to be a top-tier candidate, a counterweight to Rahm Emanuel, the former North Side congressman and White House chief of staff who has been bruising his way through Chicago as he ramps up a run. Dart, who hails from the 19th Ward, had stronger ties to progressive unions and working-class voters who weren't necessarily predisposed to support Emanuel.

Dart has long yearned to be mayor. But as he sought support around the city, the contrast with Emanuel was clear to ward committeemen and political powerbrokers.

"(Dart) wasn't making the hard sell," one committeeman said. "There was an opinion out that that he wasn't up to the battle, especially with Rahm coming in like a bulldozer."

Even when Dart was aggressive in working the phones, he trod into territory Emanuel already covered, sometimes twice. Many Democrats said they noticed Dart's fledgling campaign was somewhat disorganized and having difficulty gaining traction.

Although Dart had hired Joe Trippi, a political strategist with a national profile, the two had never worked together. In the past, both Dart and Emanuel employed AKPD Message and Media, the political consulting firm once run by President Barack Obama's senior adviser, David Axelrod. But Emanuel hired them before Dart had a chance.

Dart's departure was viewed in many political circles as a boon for Emanuel.

"There's little doubt this helps Emanuel's campaign," said another Democratic ward committeeman who spoke on the condition of anonymity, "but it helps all the candidates in the race to some degree."

One of the city's most knowledgeable political pros, Ald. Richard Mell, 33rd, said Dart's decision gives Emanuel a distinct advantage. "I think Rahm would be the beneficiary of that," he said.

Emanuel acknowledged Dart's decision changes the race's "dynamics" but dismissed the idea he pushed him out.

"He took a gut check of that decision," Emanuel said. "Tom Dart does not get scared" out of a race.

Dart said no back-channel overtures were made by other candidates to encourage him not to run.

Others potential candidates include City Clerk Miguel del Valle, former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, former Chicago Board of Education President Gery Chico, Ald. Robert Fioretti, 2nd, state Sen. James T. Meeks, U.S. Rep. Danny Davis, and Cook County Board of Review Commissioner Larry Rogers Jr.

Dart said fundraising, political support and the fear of losing had nothing to do with his decision. Instead, it was all about his family. He and his wife, Patricia, have five children ranging in age from 1 to 9. Dart said running a mayoral campaign and then running the city if he won was too much.

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Barnes & Noble introduces Nook Color - Afterdawn.com

Barnes & Noble has introduced the new Nook Color e-reader this week, hoping to gain an advantage over the rival Amazon Kindle in the quickly growing e-reader market. The Nook Color will use an IPS LCD screen, the same type of display used by the Apple iPad.

Barnes & Noble's new Nook Color will be 7-inches, run Android 2.1, and have eight-hour battery life per charge. Current Nooks and Kindles (using e-ink displays) have battery lives as long as two weeks per charge.

The display will have 1024x600 resolution with 16 million colors.

Additionally, the device has Wi-Fi (but lacks 3G), 8GB of internal storage and a microSD slot.

The Nook Color will also launch with deals with magazine publishers, a strong advantage over black-and-white e-readers.

Available at Best Buy, Wal-Mart and online starting November 19th, the e-reader will cost $250.

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Light, Trim MacBook Air Has Feel of iPad—But It&apos;ll Cost You - Wall Street Journal

Some of the nicest, if little discussed, benefits of using an Apple iPad tablet are that it starts instantly, resumes where you left off, and has a long enough battery life that you aren't constantly fretting about running out of juice or looking for a place to plug it in. And it can do a lot of things for which people use laptops.

What if somebody designed an actual laptop that worked this way—you know, a computer with a real keyboard and a larger screen that could run traditional computer software and store more files than an iPad? And what if it was almost as light and portable as an iPad? Well, somebody has, and that somebody is Apple itself.

Walt Mossberg tests two new MacBook Air laptops and finds they really do offer the different, more iPad-like experience that Apple claims they do. But if you're a heavy-duty user, who needs lots of power and file storage they may be too lightweight.

The computer in question is the company's new MacBook Air, which went on sale last week, starting at $999—a price that's very low for an Apple laptop, though hardly a bargain for a Windows one. The new Air comes in two sizes. The base $999 model has an 11.6-inch screen (versus 9.7 inches for an iPad) and weighs 2.3 pounds (versus 1.5 pounds for an iPad). The larger—but still thin and light—model starts at $1,299, has a 13.3-inch screen, and weighs 2.9 pounds.

I've been testing both versions, but especially the 11.6-inch model, and I find that, despite a few drawbacks, they really do offer the different, more iPad-like experience Apple claims they do. Battery life is strong, and the wake up from sleep is almost instant, even after long periods of being unused.

Like their predecessors in the Air family, these are gorgeous, very thin and light, but very sturdy aluminum computers. And, like their predecessors, or like iPads and smartphones, they rely on solid-state storage—flash chips—instead of a conventional hard disk to hold all your files. But Apple has dramatically reduced the physical size of the flash storage to make room for larger sealed-in batteries, so battery life is longer. It has also cut the price from the last version of the Air, a 13-inch model that cost $1,799 with a solid-state drive.

Getty Images Apple's new MacBook Air laptop.

Also, the company has re-engineered the way these new Airs sleep, adding a long "standby" period of very low power consumption that Apple says lasts up to 30 days. This standby mode kicks in after about an hour of idle time, and replaces the traditional hibernation system, where your current activity is saved to a conventional hard disk just before the battery dies. With hibernation, getting back to where you were can be slow and somewhat uncertain. With the new "standby" mode, the process just takes a few seconds, only a bit longer than normal sleep.

These are just the first of a number of changes Apple plans in order to make its computers behave more like the iPad and iPhone, without losing their greater power and more traditional keyboards, touchpads and mice, and ability to run conventional programs.

For instance, Apple has said it will soon introduce an "app store" for the Mac, which would make it simpler to find and download programs for the computers, and notify users of updates. And it will also roll out, in its next Mac operating system, called Lion—due next summer—a system of apps icon screens, like those on iPhones and iPads, that you can flick through with the company's multitouch touchpad gestures.

In my harsh battery tests, I found the two new Air models almost matched Apple's battery claims, even with all power-saving features turned off, Wi-Fi kept on, the screen on maximum brightness and a continuous loop of music playing. The 11-inch model lasted four hours and 43 minutes, versus Apple's claim of up to five hours. The 13-inch model lasted six hours and 13 minutes, versus Apple's claim of up to seven hours.

This means that, in normal use, with power-saving features turned on, you'd be almost certain to meet, or possibly exceed, Apple's claimed battery life. For comparison, I did the same battery test on a new Dell 11.6-inch model, the M101Z, which costs about $450, but is much thicker and heavier than the smaller Air, and uses a conventional hard disk. It got only two hours and 41 minutes of battery life, which means that in normal use you'd probably get three to four hours.

Reuters The MacBook Air 11-inch (left) and 13-inch models have long battery life, but storage capacity is limited.

The new models are designed to hardly ever require a traditional bootup or reboot. The idea is that you'd only reboot if you had a problem, or installed software that required a reboot, or if the machine had been idle and unplugged more than a month. But even booting is very fast.

In my tests, a cold boot took 17 seconds and a reboot, with several programs running, took 20 seconds. By contrast, the Dell I tested took more than three minutes to fully boot up and be fully ready for use.

Unlike on many netbooks, these two new Apples also have high screen resolutions so you can fit more material into their relatively small sizes. The 13-inch model has the same resolution as Apple's 15-inch MacBook Pro and the 11-inch Air has greater resolution than the 13-inch MacBook Pro. Also, unlike on many netbooks, they feature full-size keyboards, though the 11-inch model has reduced-size function keys.

The new Airs aren't meant to be the most robust machines. They use last-generation Intel processors and have only two gigabytes of memory in their base configurations, and their storage is well below typical hard-disk capacities.

Apple The 11-inch Air starts at $999.

For example, the 11-inch, $999 model has a paltry 64 gigabytes of storage; the 13-inch model starts at a still-weak 128 gigabytes of storage, and even the high-end version of the larger model, which costs $1,599, has just 256 gigabytes of storage. And neither the storage nor the memory can be expanded once you choose your initial specs.

I'd recommend buyers of the 11-inch model spend $200 more to double the storage to 128 gigabytes. And people doing a lot of video editing might want to double the memory on either model to four gigabytes, for an extra $100.

Also, as with the earlier Air models, these two lack a DVD drive and an Ethernet port. Apple sells an external drive for $79 and an Ethernet adapter for $29. If you add in all these extras, prices can climb quickly.

They also lack ports called HDMI ports, becoming common on Windows PCs, for easy connection to televisions, and their keyboards aren't backlit. The two new models do, however, have two USB ports instead of the single USB port in the older Air.

I was surprised to find that even the base $999 model was powerful enough to easily run seven or eight programs at once, including Microsoft Office, iTunes and the Safari browser with more than 20 Web sites open. It also played high-definition video with no skipping or stuttering.

So, if you're a light-duty user, you might be able to adopt one of the new Airs as your main laptop. If you're a heavy-duty user, who needs lots of power and file storage, they're likely to be secondary machines.

Overall, Apple has done a nice job in making these new MacBook Airs feel more like iPads and iPhones without sacrificing their ability to work like regular computers. But, as always with Apple, you'll pay more than you will with Windows PCs.

—Find all of Walt Mossberg's columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email mossberg@wsj.com.

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