30/30: A Pretty but Shy Taskmaster

Why can't the iPad be a clock? What did it ever do, or not do, to convince Apple not to grant it that privilege? It has a built-in Reminders app, just like the iPhone, and yes, the iPad will tell you what time it is in the digital readout at the top of the home screen. But it has no built-in Clock app, with that familiar set of alarm, stopwatch and timer settings.

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Lawmaker doubts Australia will allow gay marriage

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) ? The chairman of an Australian parliamentary committee that examined gay law reform said Monday that he believes lawmakers will maintain a ban on same-sex marriage when the contentious issue is voted on later this year.

The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs received an unprecedented number of responses on the question ? more than 276,000 ? and 64 percent of them were in favor of allowing gay marriage. But the committee's eight members were divided and made no recommendation in their report published Monday.

Committee chairman Graham Perrett, who has two gay brothers and supports gay marriage, said he does not believe a majority of lawmakers share his views.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard, an opponent of gay marriage, will allow members of her center-left Labor Party to make personal choices on how they vote on the legislation. But opposition leader Tony Abbott, a staunch Roman Catholic, will insist that members of his conservative Liberal Party reject gay marriage.

Perrett, a Labor lawmaker, said he believes lawmakers would reject gay marriage even if Abbott allowed members of his party a free vote.

"My reading of it is that would not be the case" that gay marriage would be allowed, Perrett told reporters.

Perrett noted that the captain of Australia's rugby team, David Pocock, supported gay marriage.

"You know when a rugby player is more progressive than many of the parliamentarians, even within the Labor Party, you know that Australia has changed significantly," Perrett said.

Greens lawmaker Adam Brandt, who has introduced one of the two gay marriage bills, said Monday that he will not allow his bill to be voted on unless Abbott allows his party to vote according to their consciences.

Brandt said he was more optimistic than Perrett that the legislation would pass.

Labor lawmaker Stephen Jones said he expected his own gay marriage bill will be voted on this year.

"We're short of a majority at this point and a lot of that is contingent on whether the Liberals are given a free vote," Jones said. "I can't see that happening in the near term, but these things can change."

Australian law was amended in 2004 with the unanimous support of Labor and the conservatives to make clear that only a union between a man and a woman can be legally recognized as a marriage.

But Labor changed it policy at its annual national conference in December last year.

Associated Press

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Global economy navigating through political storms

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A global economy edging toward recession and confronting huge political challenges adds urgency to the G20 summit in Mexico this week for strong world leadership of the kind last seen at the height of the 2007-09 financial crisis.

"The world is facing some very difficult times, economically and financially, socially and politically," said Charles Dallara, managing director of the Institute of International Finance.

"We need once again a global coordinated approach."

Leaders from the 20 industrialized and developing nations, representing more than 80 percent of world economic output, are expected to deliver pledges to stimulate growth while balancing those efforts against steps to rein in budget deficits at a meeting in Los Cabos, Mexico, on Monday and Tuesday.

But there is a sense of pessimism that politicians, after spending more than $1 trillion to stimulate growth - on top of $6 trillion in central bank money printing the past four years - can offer policies sufficiently convincing to restore business and consumer confidence.

Political differences over the future shape of Europe, a U.S. Congress bitterly divided over fiscal policy and a leadership change in China, not to mention political turmoil in Egypt and violence in Syria, will all cast a troubling shadow over the meeting.

"Significantly weaker fiscal positions and entrenched divergences both among governments and within countries mean that achieving even moderate cooperation, let alone any concrete results, at the Los Cabos summit will be a huge - probably insurmountable - task," said Oxford Analytica in a client note.

If politics disappoint and financial market turbulence escalates next week, it will rest on the shoulders of central bankers to restore some calm.

Emergency cash injections, which central bankers stand ready to deliver in case financial market stress becomes extreme after Sunday's election in Greece, would be a stop-gap measure to steady markets and put a floor under confidence.

"If central bankers care about supporting riskier assets, below 1,250 on (the U.S. Standard and Poor's 500 Index) could be considered their intervention zone," said Dominic Konstams, economist at Deutsche Bank.

The benchmark S&P 500 index <.spx>, which closed at 1,342.84, up 1 percent, on Friday, had flirted with that level earlier in June when Greece's political stalemate heightened fears of a euro zone break-up.

More significant would be for central banks to deliver a round of rate cuts or other monetary stimulus to support growth, similar to those announced by the Bank of England last week.

India's central bank, facing an economy growing at its weakest pace in nine years, is expected to lower its refinancing rate on Monday. [ID:nL3E8HC8IS] It would join China and Brazil in easing mode, a marked turn for emerging economies, which until recently were the bright spots powering through the global economic storms unleashed by the financial crisis.

U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke also has signaled a readiness to support growth if financial strains from Europe's debt crisis threaten an already weakened U.S. outlook.

The Fed is expected to downgrade its growth forecasts at a meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday, possibly clearing the path for a third round of bond-buying known as quantitative easing, though a Reuters poll found most analysts who expect QE3 do not see it being launched at this meeting.

But political disarray at the G20 summit combined with financial market turbulence could tip the U.S. central bank's hand.

"The Fed response would likely be limited, with further easing only if there is significant collateral damage to the U.S. economy," said Ethan Harris, co-head of global economic research at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Economic data this week are expected to underscore the vulnerability of major economies. Markit on Thursday releases its early read on the manufacturing sectors in June for China, the United States and the euro zone. All are likely to show further softening as global demand slows.

U.S. factory output contracted in May for the second time in three months and a regional manufacturing index plunged, auguring ill for Markit's U.S. gauge, which stood at an expansionary 54 in May.

"It's another reminder of the loss of momentum in the U.S. and global economy," Cary Leahy, managing director at Decision Economics in New York said of the latest factory data.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^>

In the euro zone, analysts forecast that contraction in the factory sector deepened this month to 44.9 PMI reading from 45.1 in May. The service sector also is expected to weaken to 46.4 from 46.7. Anything below 50 indicates a decline in activity.

"Economic growth appears to be lost in a fog of uncertainty," said Mark Vitner, senior economist at Wells Fargo.

The magnitude and complexity of the European Union's effort to rebuild its political architecture in the midst of a financial crisis, plus deep concern over how the United States can put its economic house back in order, make it very hard to navigate toward faster growth.

"The recent change in the tone of key U.S. economic reports and the intensifying financial crisis in Europe have clearly sent chills through policymakers and businesses, particularly those doing a significant part of their business overseas," Vitner said.

(Reporting by Stella Dawson; Editing by Dan Grebler)

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Charlie Sheen says "Anger Management" his "swan song"

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Wallenda exuberant after wire walk across Niagara Falls

There was 'wind coming from every which way,' mist so powerful it clouded his vision and an unfamiliar wire beneath him, but daredevil Nik Wallenda didn't let that stop him.

By Carolyn Thompson,?Associated Press / June 16, 2012

Nik Wallenda walks over Niagara Falls on a tightrope in Niagara Falls, Ontario, on Friday, June 15, 2012. The seventh-generation member of the famed Flying Wallendas had long dreamed of pulling off the stunt, never before attempted.

Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press/AP

Enlarge

There was "wind coming from every which way," mist so powerful it clouded his vision and an unfamiliar wire beneath him, but daredevil Nik Wallenda didn't let that stop him from becoming the first person to walk on a tightrope across the Niagara Falls.

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He took steady, measured steps Friday night for 1,800 feet on a wire across the widest part of the gorge of the roaring falls separating the U.S. and Canada, accomplishing what he said was his childhood dream ? albeit wearing a tether.

"I feel like I'm on cloud nine right now," an exuberant Wallenda told reporters after his feat, which he performed before an estimated 112,000 people crowding the shores of both countries and millions more who watched a live television broadcast.

"I hope what I do and what I just did inspires people around the world to reach for the skies," he said.

He described a breathtaking view during the nighttime walk illuminated by spotlights that "compared to nothing."

"There was no way to focus on the movement of the cable," said Wallenda, 33. "If I looked down at the cable there was water moving everywhere. And if I looked up there was heavy mist blowing in front of my face. So it was a very unique, a weird sensation."

He said he accomplished the feat through "a lot of praying, that's for sure. But, you know, it's all about the concentration, the focus, and the training."

The seventh-generation member of the famed Flying Wallendas had long dreamed of pulling off the stunt, never before attempted. Other daredevils have wire-walked over the Niagara River but farther downstream and not since 1896.

"This is what dreams are made of, people," said Wallenda, who wore a microphone for the broadcast, shortly after he stepped off from a platform on the American shore.

Along the way, he calmly prayed aloud.

After passing the halfway mark, Wallenda expressed fatigue. "I'm strained, I'm drained," he said. "This is so physical, not only mental but physical."

Toward the end, as he neared the Canadian shore, Wallenda dropped to one knee and pumped his fist while the spectators cheered. He broke into a playful run about 15 feet from the finish line, where his wife and three children waited.

"I am so blessed," he said later. "How blessed I am to have the life that I have."

ABC televised the walk and insisted Wallenda use a tether to keep him from falling in the river. Wallenda said he agreed because he wasn't willing to lose the chance to perform the walk it took him well over a year to win permission from two countries to do. Such stunts are normally illegal. ABC's sponsorship helped offset some of the $1.3 million cost of the spectacle.

Wallenda said he thought about the tether, which was secured at his waist and dragged behind him, at several points along the 30-minute walk but wasn't hindered by it as he'd feared.

"Awesome! The whole thing is awesome," 8-year-old William Clements of Dresden, Ontario, said after watching the walk with his family from the Canadian side, adding he wouldn't want to walk "even over something not high."

"He was meant to do it. The weather was perfect," said Glenda Rutherford of Ontario. "It was amazing."

For Wallenda, who has grown up on the high wire and holds six Guinness records for various stunts, the Niagara Falls walk was unlike anything he'd ever done. Because it was over water, the 2-inch wire didn't have the usual stabilizer cables to keep it from swinging. Pendulum anchors were designed to keep it from twisting under the elkskin-soled shoes designed by his mother.

The Wallendas trace their roots to 1780 Austria-Hungary, when ancestors traveled as a band of acrobats, aerialists, jugglers, animal trainers and trapeze artists. The clan has been touched by tragedy, notably in 1978 when patriarch Karl Wallenda, Nik's great-grandfather, fell to his death during a stunt in Puerto Rico.

Wallenda said that at one point in the middle of the walk, he thought about his great-grandfather and the walks he had taken: "That's what this is all about, paying tribute to my ancestors, and my hero, Karl Wallenda."

About a dozen other tightrope artists have crossed the Niagara Gorge downstream, dating to Jean Francois Gravelet, aka The Great Blondin, in 1859. But no one had walked directly over the falls, and authorities hadn't allowed any tightrope acts in the area since 1896. It took Wallenda two years to persuade U.S. and Canadian authorities to allow it, and many civic leaders hoped to use the publicity to jumpstart the region's struggling economy, particularly on the U.S. side of the falls.

Associated Press Writer Jennifer Peltz in New York City contributed to this report.

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