Black hole devours star, sparking gamma ray flash

A monster black hole devoured a Sun-like star, producing a long-lasting gamma ray flash that probably won’t be seen on earth for another hundred million years, astronomers said Thursday.

NASA’s Swift spacecraft first observed the gamma-ray emission in March through a signal from its Burst Alert Telescope. Universe Today called the flash “the death scream” of the star being consumed by a black hole.

That death scream lasted for months and is still going on now, Reuters reported. Gamma ray bursts usually flare up and end in a matter of seconds or milliseconds.

The star was likely destroyed because it wandered too close to its galaxy’s central black hole, located in the constellation Draco an incredible 4 billion light years away. Astronomers say the incident is particularly unusual because this black hole was was sitting quietly, not eating much, when the star about the size of our Sun came into range.

“Here, you have a black hole sitting quiescently, not gobbling up matter, and all of a sudden something sets it off,”  Joshua Bloom, an associate professor of astronomy at the University of California at Berkeley, said in a statement.

Bloom said this kind of event happens once in 100 million years in any given galaxy.

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New TV soap scrubs image of Mexican federal police

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico's latest drug battle does not unfold in the border badlands or remote mountains where opium poppies grow, but on the small screen, where a TV show strives to save the image of long-notorious "federales" by presenting them as crime-fighting heroes.
The TV series "El Equipo," or "The Team," is modeled after the popular "CSI" series in the U.S. and it was created to convince Mexicans, and now U.S. viewers, that the country has finally gotten its act together with a professional, trustworthy federal police force.
After a run on Mexico's Televisa network, with a middling 14.6 percent of the households as viewers, the show premieres on the U.S. Spanish-language network Univision on Thursday.
The series stars four street-smart investigative agents who are likable, honest and attractive. They rescue hostages and rappel from tall buildings. In every episode they get their man.
"We need to start changing the perception. There is nothing wrong with being a cop," said executive producer Pedro Torres. "Being a cop is a job that demands sacrifice and a lot of preparation."
While Torres says the show is his idea, the federal police have given the series so much cooperation, with access to its command center, equipment and a U.S.-donated Black Hawk helicopter, that critics are calling it government propaganda.
Police cooperation with TV shows isn't unusual in the United States, where scores of crime dramas have aired for years. But it irritates some in Mexico, where police shows are far less common.
One congresswoman filed a formal complaint with the anti-corruption ministry, demanding an accounting of public funds used to produce "The Team."
"It is immoral to try to change the perception of security through a TV show," said federal Rep. Leticia Quezada of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party. "It is bread and circuses."
President Felipe Calderon of the conservative National Action Party has increased the number of federal police agents from 6,000 to more than 35,000 since he took office in 2006 while beefing up background checks and qualifications.
Still, Mexico's cops have had trouble shaking their bad reputation. Despite decades of repeated reforms, federal police officials keep finding their officers, and sometimes even themselves, accused of brutality or corruption.
The National Human Rights Commission said the federal police department was among the most-complained-about agencies last year.
Two federal police agents with top positions in Mexico's Interpol offices were arrested in 2009 and charged with taking payoffs from drug cartels. Even the acting federal police commissioner resigned in 2008 and was later arrested on charges of aiding a drug gang.
Mexico has gone through a string of federal police agencies since the 1970s, promoting each in turn as a cleaned-up alternative to the disgraced agency it replaced.
Torres said he wanted to produce an American-style TV crime series, inspired by the new model under Calderon.
"They know that good triumphs over evil" is the slogan of "The Team."
The show portrays agents Santiago, Mateo, Magda and Fermin freeing kidnapping victims and snagging big-time drug traffickers. Their intelligence work tells them exactly when the capos arrive at airports or throw lavish parties, and they deploy SWAT-like teams of officers accordingly. They work undercover as electricians, waiters and pest workers to get close to their targets.
"No torture with seltzer water and hot peppers up the nose, no electric shocks, no bribes. It's more like the show is about the Swiss police, not the Mexican," quipped Mexican radio commentator Enrique Galvan Ochoa after "The Team" debuted last month.
Through Televisa, which dominates Mexico's television market, Torres got access to the command center, uniforms, large-caliber weapons and shots of helicopters taking off, including one the U.S. delivered to Mexico as part of its Merida Initiative to fight drug trafficking. Federal officers trained the actors and sometimes served as extras.
Torres defends the rosy picture of police work.
"Obviously if police are going to give you support, you have to show their point of view in a way that doesn't insult the institution," he said.
Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna did not want to comment on the TV show, said spokesman Jose Ramon Salinas, citing the anti-corruption complaint.
But Garcia Luna recently told station Radio Formula that the series is an "important way to interface with the community."
Agents in the series often echo the department's public relations messages, including those encouraging crime victims to call police: "With no report, we can't formally respond," the actors say.
Many Mexicans say they don't report crimes to authorities, fearing they may be speaking to the criminals themselves. Active-duty and former police officers are also caught when officials break up kidnapping or drug gangs.
When Calderon recently celebrated Mexico's first Day of the Police, he asked for hard and honest work from the officers and respect for police forces from the public.
"We need to transform our police, but we also need to recognize the honor, responsibility and vocation of our good police," he said.
Torres said his show may lure more young people to join the force because many Mexicans aspire to be like characters in soap operas.
It happened before, Torres said. In the late 1980s, after he filmed a music video showing Mexican crooner Luis Miguel as a cadet, young men wanted to enlist in the military. Army officials could not confirm whether recruitment changed in those years.
But so far, there are no plans for a second season.
In fact, the police series was outperformed by another soap opera, Telemundo's "La Reina del Sur" or "Queen of the South," which chronicles the rise of a Mexican female drug trafficker.
Mexicans may still be more inclined to believe that a beautiful young woman can become a dangerous outlaw than that their country can be protected by a reliable police force.

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Research In Motion Ltd (RIMM) $27.96 -20.86%

Research In Motion (RIMM) is reeling after posting better-than-expected first quarter EPS numbers, but revenues that fell short of Street estimates. The company also slashed its outlook for the second quarter and the full year. It was the subject of multiple broker downgrades this morning. As a result, RIMM is down $6.96 to $28.39 and falling to levels last seen in the fall of 2006. Options are heavily traded in the early going. 99,000 calls and 22,000 puts so far. The top trade is a Jan 30 – 35 put spread sold at $3.05, 29000X and probably rolls a position down in strikes now that the 35s are deep ITM. Implied vols are down 22 percent to 50.

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Former New York Giant Says Gay Marriage Will Lead to Anarchy

News One is reporting former New York Giants Superbowl XXLII hero David Tyree is speaking out against gay marriage. David Tyree, who became a hero after making a game-changing catch in Super Bowl XLII, made a video for the National Organization for Marriage, warning of “anarchy” if gay marriage is legalized. “If they pass this gay marriage bill, what I know will happen is this will be the beginning of our country sliding toward … it’s a strong word, but, anarchy,” Tyree said. “That will be the moment itself where our country loses its grip with what’s right. Marriage is one of those things that is the backbone of society. So if you redefine it, it changes the way we educate our children, it changes the perception of what is good, what is right, what is just.”

Needless to say, Tyree's comments have gone viral and are being re-posted all over the web. It is America, so Tyree has a right to his opinion. Quiet as it is kept, Tyree's feelings are not his alone, but reflect the feelings of many people in the country and in New York, which is currently battling to make gay marriage legal. It's too bad that Tyree doesn't understand that the same argument he's using is the argument used when slaves wanted to legally marry -- it would lead to anarchy. It's too bad that he is too shortsighted to see that the same argument that he's using was used to keep interracial marriage illegal for so long. We're still trying to figure out why straight people think that marriage has something to do with them. Like all marriages including Tyree's, it is really no one else's business about what goes on in it. We're still wondering how people who live in a country where the divorce rate is 50 percent get the nerve to define marriage in such limited terms for other people. Clearly there's very little respect for the institution. If Trump, Tiki Barber, Guiliani and Weiner get to marry, then why not gays?

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Quiznos lands new global location

People’s favorite toasted sandwich chain will soon be moving to Brazil, reports The Denver Business Journal.

Seven Quiznos restaurants will be open by the end of the year, and a total of 200 stores are expected to operate in future years. The Denver-based restaurant has teamed up with fine dining franchisee, Brazil Best Food Inc. (BBF), to make its growth possible. “Quiznos enjoys an excellent reputation worldwide, and this has led to the tremendous success of our international expansion,” said Lee Vala, Quiznos’ chief international development officer, the ImagesFood Bureau reports.

Luiz Antonelli, BBF president, also explained that Brazil is experiencing a demand for quick, warm lunches in addition to its growing economy. With Quiznos’ cuisine, training program and colorful logo, the restaurant serves as an “ideal partner,” he said.

While the new locations will provide food items unique to the Brazilian market, Quiznos also plans to further its expansion into more than 40 countries, including Argentina, Chile Ecuador, India and Kuwait.

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Lady Gaga's Meat Dress Stays Fresh At Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame It's 'definitely one of the stranger pieces' on display, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame curator Jim Henke tells MTV News.

Oh, that meat dress! Nearly a year after Lady Gaga wore it at the MTV Video Music Awards, the costume made of various cuts of meat that designer Franc Fernandez and stylist Nicola Formichetti put together is still making headlines.

On Thursday (June 16), that dress will join the "Women Who Rock: Vision, Passion, Power'' exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, where it will sit on display along with Gaga's childhood piano and Armani Prive orbit gown, which she wore to the 2011 Grammys, until February 2012.

"I was talking to Lady Gaga's managers, and this is probably around November [of last year], and basically talked about different things, and we talked about the meat dress and we thought it would be great to add it to the exhibit just because of all the notoriety it has, so that's basically how it came about," RRHOF chief curator Jim Henke told MTV News. "We thought the meat dress would really be cool."

So, how will the folks at the Rock Hall keep it fresh until it wraps up its stint there? "It's going to be in a case and we are putting some canisters in there to control the humidity, and then we have this other canister that soaks up the glutens," he explained. "But it's in a sealed case and we have the gels to control the environment in there."

However, it took some work to get it to the point where it can hang around the Rock Hall along with a number of other high-profile memorabilia without seeming super-gross. Henke explained, "We went back to Franc Fernandez ... ultimately what we decided to do, we sent it to a taxidermist, they put it into a meat locker and then we started working on it and created this [chemical] solution and treated it with that.

"And then they had a body form, and when it was still wet, they put it on the body form and then it dried on there," he continued. "And then they had to do a little bit of painting to bring it back and give it a little bit more color."

Gaga hasn't been shy about making the dress into jerky or wanting to have her extensive wardrobe in a museum, as she shared on "The Graham Norton Show." "I keep everything and dream of having a museum of all my clothes. I have an archive house for all my clothes," she said. "[The dress has] been jerked. It stank. It was fabulous. I never want to talk to anyone at those big celebrity functions because I feel awkward, and it was great — because it stunk, I didn't have to talk to anyone."

Having the dress in the exhibit is quite an honor and it's an interesting piece, but Henke notes this isn't the most bizarre exhibit at the RRHOF. "Definitely one of the stranger pieces," he laughed about the dress, adding, "There are some other weird things. We actually have [pioneering radio DJ] Alan Freed's ashes."

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Ricky Rubio heads for the NBA and Minnesota Timberwolves

Ricky Rubio is leaving Regal Barcelona and heading to the NBA — specifically the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Rubio was the fifth pick in the 2009 draft by Minnesota, but he decided to play in Spain.

“I have finally decided to go to the NBA. I have a dream that now can become reality,” he said in a news conference. “The NBA will be very emotional, a difficult challenge but a very nice one.”

Rubio didn’t say anything about taking his talents to America, which is probably a good thing.

“It's a bit scary because I have never left Barcelona before but I am very keen to take on the challenge,” Rubio said. “I am not leaving because I think I cannot do any more here but because I believe I am ready and I am looking forward to it.

“I am going there to play against the best and triumph. That is what motivates me.”

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