By NED POTTER (@NedPotterABC) , COLLEEN CURRY and MICHAEL S. JAMES
Oct. 5, 2011
Steve Jobs, the mastermind behind Apple’s iPhone, iPad, iPod, iMac and iTunes, has died, Apple said. Jobs was 56.

Jobs died “peacefully,” surrounded by family members, his family said in a statement.

Neither Jobs’ family nor Apple revealed where he died or from what cause, though in recent years Jobs had fought a form of pancreatic cancer and had a liver transplant.

“We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today,” read a statement by Apple’s board of directors. “Steve’s brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve. His greatest love was for his wife, Laurene, and his family. Ourhearts go out to them and to all who were touched by his extraordinary gifts.”

As Jobs’ death was announced, the homepage of Apple’s website switched to a full-page image of Jobs with the text, “Steve Jobs 1955-2011.”

Clicking on the image revealed additional text that was credited to current Apple CEO Tim Cook in a separate memo to Apple employees.

“Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being,” the text read. “Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.”

Reaction to Jobs’ death came from far and wide — even from the White House.

“Michelle and I are saddened to learn of the passing of Steve Jobs,” President Obama said in a written statement. “Steve was among the greatest of American innovators - brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it.”

Jobs co-founded Apple Computer in 1976 and, with his childhood friend Steve Wozniak, marketed what was considered the world’s first personal computer, the Apple II.

Shortly after learning of Jobs’ death, Wozniak told ABC News, “I’m shocked and disturbed.”

Later, on ABC News’ “Nightline,” he said it was hard to imagine, in some ways, how the world would move forward without Jobs.

“You get shocked when people you know die,” Wozniak said. “And this was closer to when John Lennon died, or JFK or Martin Luther King.”

Industry watchers called Jobs a master innovator — perhaps on a par with Thomas Edison — changing the worlds of computing, recorded music and communications.

Click Here for Pictures: Steve Jobs Through the Years

Jobs’ rivals in the development of personal computers, Microsoft co-founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen, immediately reacted to his death and highlighted his importance to their industry.

Allen called him “a unique tech pioneer and auteur who knew how to make amazingly great products.”

Gates extended his condolences and noted in a written statement that he and Jobs “have been colleagues, competitors and friends over the course of more than half our lives.”

“The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come,” Gates added. “For those of us lucky enough to get to work with him, it’s been an insanely great honor. I will miss Steve immensely.”

A more recent contemporary in the tech world, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, also weighed in with a statement on Jobs.

“Steve, thank you for being a mentor and a friend,” it read. “Thanks for showing that what you build can change the world. I will miss you.”

Source (article): ABCNEWS.COM

Source (pictures): LEADERSHIP-WITH-YOU.COM, EREPAIR, MAYPALO, POKERKNAVE

MIAMI — The rapidly intensifying Irene that’s already cut a destructive path through the Caribbean is the first hurricane to seriously threaten the U.S. in almost three years, a worry for some emergency management officials who hope people haven’t become complacent about the dangers.

Predictions by the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said Irene was likely to become a major Category 3 hurricane later Tuesday.

By Thursday, as it roars toward the U.S. coast over warm open waters, it could become a Category 4, NHC hurricane specialist John Cangialosi said late Monday. Winds in such a storm can blow from 131 to 155 mph. By contrast, Hurricane Katrina was a Category 3 when it hit New Orleans in 2005.

Late Tuesday morning, the first Atlantic hurricane of the season had maximum sustained winds around 100 mph and was near the Turks and Caicos islands in the Caribbean.

Current projections have Irene tracking off Florida’s coast on Friday and then making landfall in the Carolinas on Saturday or Sunday. From there it could move into Chesapeake Bay, the hurricane center said. The last hurricane to make landfall in the U.S. was Ike, which pounded Texas in 2008.

The center did caution, however, that predictions made days in advance can be off by hundreds of miles. For instance, some models show Irene could remain offshore along the East Coast.

With tropical force winds that extend 205 miles and hurricane force winds 50 miles from Irene’s center, Irene could still hit Florida hard even if it doesn’t make landfall there.

Bryan Koon, director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, said after a meeting Monday with Gov. Rick Scott that the two have frequently discussed raising awareness since the Atlantic hurricane season began June 1.

“We want to make sure Floridians are paying attention,” Koon said. “We are at the height of the hurricane season right now. If it’s not Hurricane Irene, it could be the follow-up storm that impacts us.”

‘Take this storm seriously’
After several extremely active years, Florida has not been struck by a hurricane since Wilma raked across the state’s south in 2005. The Hurricane Center said it was responsible for five deaths in the state and came two months after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans.

“For residents in states that may be affected later this week, it’s critical that you take this storm seriously,” said Craig Fugate, administrator at the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Julio Gonzalez in Miami was heeding the warnings and headed to a hardware store to pick up what he needed to protect his home.

“I’m gonna board up,” he said Monday. “It’s best to play it safe.”

Others were stocking up on bottled water and plywood. And Hurricane Irene was trending on Twitter.

The storm slashed directly across Puerto Rico, tearing up trees and knocking out power to more than a million people. It then headed out to sea, north of the Dominican Republic, where the powerful storm’s outer bands were buffeting the north coast with dangerous sea surge and downpours. President Barack Obama declared an emergency for Puerto Rico, making it eligible for federal help.

‘Looks like it could get bad’
Irene was forecast to pass over or near the Turks and Caicos Islands and the southeastern Bahamas by Tuesday night and be near the central Bahamas early Wednesday.

In the overseas U.K. territory of the Turks and Caicos, a steady stream of customers bought plywood and nails at hardware stores, while others readied storm shutters and emergency kits at home.

“I can tell you I don’t want this storm to come. It looks like it could get bad, so I’ve definitely got to get my boats out of the water,” said Dedrick Handfield at the North Caicos hardware store where he works.

Many of the center’s computer models had the storm veering northward away from Florida’s east coast toward Georgia and the Carolinas, but forecasters said much was still unclear.

“In terms of where it’s going to go, there is still a pretty high level of uncertainty,” said Wallace Hogsett, a National Hurricane Center meteorologist. “It’s a very difficult forecast in terms of when it’s going to turn northward.”

One key reason for that, he said, is the difficulty of measuring the effect on Irene of the high terrain of the island of Hispaniola, which is shared by Haiti and the Dominican. Hurricane warnings were up on the northern side of the Dominican Republic, as well as the Turks and Caicos islands just south of the long Bahamas chain. Forecasters say it depends on which way the storm veers after passing the Bahamas Tuesday or into Wednesday and heads into the very warm Atlantic waters.

And several past hurricanes have turned into Category 4 or 5 monsters but hit land with much less force.

The other big factor is exactly when the storm will encounter a higher-level trough along the U.S. East Coast, which will eventually turn it to the north.

“Timing is everything,” Hogsett said.

In South Carolina, state and coastal emergency agencies went on alert for possibly the first hurricane to hit there in seven years.

Hollywood legend Elizabeth Taylor, who went from child star to screen siren, died Wednesday in Los Angeles from congestive heart failure. She was 79. Her children were at her side when she died.

Taylor had been in Cedar-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles for about six weeks.

Taylor first gained stardom as a child and appeared in more than 50 films. She won Oscars for her performances in “Butterfield 8″ and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

She was equally famous for extraordinary beauty and her stormy personal life, including eight marriages and a series of physical ailments.

In later years, she was a spokeswoman for humanitarian causes, notably AIDS research. That work gained her a special Oscar in 1993.

“My Mother was an extraordinary woman who lived life to the fullest, with great passion, humor, and love,” said her son, Michael Wilding, in a statement. “Though her loss is devastating to those of us who held her so close and so dear, we will always be inspired by her enduring contribution to our world. Her remarkable body of work in film, her ongoing success as a businesswoman, and her brave and relentless advocacy in the fight against HIV/AIDS, all make us all incredibly proud of what she accomplished. We know, quite simply, that the world is a better place for Mom having lived in it. Her legacy will never fade, her spirit will always be with us, and her love will live forever in our hearts.”

Source (article): MSNBC

Source (pictures): MYCLASSYLYRICS, NEWSDAILYBRIEF

(CNN) — Investigators were working early Tuesday to figure out what caused a fire in a home in Marion County, Florida, that killed five children.

Firefighters got a call about the blaze at about 10:40 p.m. and arrived eight minutes after the emergency call, said Peveeta Persaud, a spokesperson for Marion County Fire Rescue.

“When they arrived the structure was fully engulfed,” said Persaud. “It was a wooden structure.”

Two girls, ages 6 and 12, were killed in the blaze, along with three boys, ages 8, 13 and 15.

At least three other people in the home were able to escape and were taken to nearby hospitals, the spokeswoman said.

The fire marshal and other officials were working to determine what caused the blaze, Persaud said.

A neighbor told CNN affiliate WKMG that she was able to break a window and help get one woman out of the home but the smoke and fire was so treacherous that she could not help any of the others.

“The whole house was engulfed in flames. And I heard the mom yell, ‘My babies, my babies are inside,’” said the sobbing neighbor, who was not identified. “It is very, very sad because I wanted to get all the babies out. My kids play with their kids.”

Marion County is located about 90 miles northwest of Orlando, Florida.

Source (article): CNN

Source (picture): OBIT-MAG.COM

While some were predicting a political tsunami that would wipe out Democrats across the country, the more apt metaphor of what took place on Election Night was the hurricane — which first ripped through the South and then the Midwest, but only nicked the Northeast and West.

The hurricane was destructive enough to dismantle the Democrats’ majority in the House, resulting in a party’s largest congressional-seat loss since 1948.

In particular, they suffered sizable losses in Midwest states that President Barack Obama carried in 2008 (five congressional seats in Ohio, five in Pennsylvania, three in Illinois and two in Indiana).

Democrats also lost both the Senate and gubernatorial races in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, as well as the Senate contest in Indiana and the gubernatorial race in Michigan.

And the destruction for Democrats was equally bad in the South, with Republicans picking up four House seats in Florida, three in Virginia, three in Tennessee and one in Georgia.

Republicans also gained Senate seats in Arkansas and Florida, and governor’s mansions in Tennessee and Oklahoma.

“The path of the hurricane swished up the middle of the country,” says Jennifer Duffy, who analyzes Senate and gubernatorial contests for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. “The eye was — bang — over the Industrial Midwest.”

But the political hurricane only touched the Democratic strongholds in the Northeast and West.

In the Northeast, Democrats held on to the contested governorships in Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and New York. In the West, they won the governorship and Senate in California, and Democratic Sen. Patty Murray was neck and neck with GOP challenger Dino Rossi with 65 percent of the vote counted in Washington.

The Democrats’ biggest victory was in Nevada, where Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid defeated GOP challenger Sharron Angle. And in the battleground state of Colorado, Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet and Republican Ken Buck were deadlocked.

Still, Election Day was mostly a rebuke to Democrats and the expansion of government.

According to the nationwide exit poll, 73 percent of those who voted disapproved of Congress’ job, and those people voted Republican by a 64-to-33 percent margin.

In addition, 54 percent disapproved of President Obama’s job performance, and those voters broke 85 to 11 percent.

And 56 percent of the electorate said the government is doing too many things, which equaled the percent from 1994, the last time Republicans won back control of the House.

In 2008, however, only 43 percent said the government was doing too much.

NBC News’ Domenico Montanaro contributed to this report.

Source (article): MSNBC

Source (picture): BLOGS.E-ROCKFORD.COM, KENTGH, SEVENSIDEDCUBE