Timberlake, Wilson, Miguel shine at BET Awards

Who won video of the year again?

The BET Awards were barely about the actually awards as wild performances stole the night. They also didn't present the top honor Sunday.

Janelle Monae ended the three and a half hour-plus event with a top notch performance of "Q.U.E.E.N." alongside Erykah Badu, who brought a white poodle onstage. It was just one of the night's best performances, which also featured stolen moments from a seductive Ciara, a slick Miguel, a random ? but welcomed ? reggae set and a playful Justin Timberlake with an even more playful Charlie Wilson.

Timberlake took a backseat to the soul singer, joining Wilson onstage for a medley of his solo and Gap Band hits.

Stevie Wonder, Jamie Foxx, Pharrell, Snoop Dogg and India.Arie were also part of the tribute to 60-year-old Wilson, who earned the lifetime achievement award.

"Charlie Wilson is soul music. His impact colors the work of many artists, which is basically my nice way of saying I and a lot of other artists have stolen from him," Timberlake said when presenting Wilson the award.

Wilson's lively stage presence was arguably the night's top moment, though others were on fire.

Ciara echoed Janet Jackson when she danced and sang her R&B hit "Body Party," while Dawn Penn, Chaka Demus & Pliers, Beenie Man and Elephant Man electrified the audience when they gave a colorful performance of reggae classics.

Many artists played double or triple duty onstage at the Nokia Theater L.A. Live. Badu sang with Monae and Kendrick Lamar, who also performed with 2 Chainz. Miguel sang alone, and with Mariah Carey and J. Cole, while Minaj performed with Ciara and Chris Brown. Pharrell helped out Wilson and Robin Thicke, who excitedly performed his current No. 1 hit, "Blurred Lines."

Drake, who didn't attend the awards show, led with 12 nominations, including five for video of the year, winning the top honor with "Started from the Bottom." The rapper-singer also won viewer's choice and best collaboration for his appearance on A$AP Rocky's "(Expletive) Problems" with Lamar and 2 Chainz.

Lamar tied Drake with three wins, taking home best new artist, male hip-hop artist and collaboration.

"Most importantly to my little home boys and my home girls back in the city, you looking at me on TV right now, I came up in that same county building, food stamps, welfare section eight ... this is living proof that you can do anything you put your mind to," said 26-year-old Lamar, who is from Compton.

Minaj and Brown picked up their fourth consecutive wins for best female hip-hop artist and the fandemonium award.

"Don't read the bull in the news, I'm a real dude," Brown told the crowd.

Brown opened the show with a medley of new songs, including one that featured vocals from late R&B singer Aaliyah and another with Minaj, who joined him onstage. BET couldn't bleep some of the rapper's expletives ? much like the awards show last year. Expletives from Badu, Wayne Brady and the singers who performed with R. Kelly slipped, too.

Carey was angelic as she belted ? or lip synched ? her latest hit, "#Beautiful," and an excited R. Kelly sang snippets of a dozen of his hits ? including "Bump N Grind" and "Ignition" ? as the crowd cheered on.

Host Chris Tucker sang and danced too ? in tribute to Michael Jackson.

Miguel won the night's first award, best male R&B pop artist, beating out Brown, Timberlake, Usher and Bruno Mars.

"I got to really give it up to all the other guys in this category," Miguel said.

Don Cheadle presented Miguel with the award, and dedicated the night to the ailing Nelson Mandela.

"We want to take a moment and send our prayers and thoughts to a man who literally changed the world," he said. "This evening we would like to offer prayers and support and hope to the extraordinary Nelson Mandela and his family."

Jamie Foxx, wearing a shirt that featured a picture of Trayvon Martin, won best actor, and danced onstage with Kevin Hart when accepting the honor.

Hart, who hosted the BET Awards in the past, was overly excited onstage, even stealing the shine from Tucker, who was a mediocre host.

Rihanna won best female R&B pop artist and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis won best group.

Olympic gold medalist Gabrielle Douglas won sportswoman of the year and the youngstars award. She thanked BET for "just for embracing me after Olympics."

___

Online:

http://www.bet.com/shows/bet-awards.html

___

Follow Mesfin Fekadu on Twitter: twitter.com/MusicMesfin

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/timberlake-wilson-miguel-shine-bet-awards-050151387.html

Tony Kanaan Hangover 3 earthquake Bbc News UFC 160 criminal minds London attack

Washington Post reveals new PRISM slides, offers greater clarity into the US' surveillance operation

PRISM: The surveillance story that started with four leaked slides from the Washington Post, today gets a bit clearer. The publication has revealed four more annotated slides about the once-secret NSA operation, along with detailing the various levels of scrutiny from the FBI and NSA that happen before, during and after approved wiretaps take place. It seems that many of the measures make sure the warrantless data mining of US citizens occurs to the smallest extent possible and that FISA rules are followed.

Detailing the process further, NSA analysts perform checks with supervisors to be certain intended targets are foreign nationals who aren't on US soil; approval is provided by way of "51-percent confidence" in assessments. During a "tasking process" search terms are entered, dubbed "selectors," which can tap into FBI gear installed within the private properties of participating companies -- so much for those denials. For live communications, this data goes straight to the NSA's PRINTAURA processing system, while both the FBI and NSA scan pre-recorded data independently. Notably, live surveillance is indeed possible for the likes of text, voice and and instant message-based conversations, according to a slide that details how cased are notated.

PRINTAURA is an overall filter for others, with names like NUCLEON for voice communications and MAINWAY for records of phone calls. Beyond that, another two layers, called CONVEYANCE and FALLOUT provide further filtering. Again, all of these checks apparently fine-tune results and help make sure they don't match up with US citizens. Results that return info about those in the US get scrapped, while results on foreigner targets get stored for up to five years -- this includes those that have US citizens' info in them, but restrictions are in place to limit the their exposure. A total number of 117,675 active targets were listed as April 5th, but the paper notes that this does not reflect the number of data that may also have been collected on American citizens in the process. It's likely that even more will be revealed in the coming weeks -- so if you haven't already, now might be a great time to catch up on this whole PRISM fiasco to learn about how it might affect you. You'll find all the new slides at the source link.

Comments

Source: The Washington Post (1), (2)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/29/washington-post-reveals-new-prism-slides-offers-greater-clarity/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

lytro camera lytro camera andrew brietbart branson mo monkees songs rail gun harrisburg

Obama meets privately with Mandela family

JOHANNESBURG (AP) ? President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama are meeting privately with the family of Nelson Mandela.

The meeting is taking place at the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory, which is part of the former South African president's foundation.

The White House didn't say which Mandela family members the Obamas are meeting with.

The president and first lady will not meet with the ailing 94-year-old Mandela, who is hospitalized with a lung infection. The White House says that decision was made in accordance with the Mandela family's wishes.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-meets-privately-mandela-family-124749374.html

Bumbo recall USA Basketball taio cruz taio cruz Winter Olympics 2014 freddie mercury Horshack

NASA Space Shuttle Runway Gets New Life as Commercial Spaceport

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. ? The famous?seaside?space shuttle runway here at NASA's Kennedy Space Center may have a second life soon as a launch and landing spot for a whole new type of space mission: tourist flights.

The 15,000-foot-long (4,600 meters)?Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) has been unused for spaceflights since the 30-year space shuttle program retired in 2011. But now NASA is handing over operation of the facility to Space Florida, the aerospace economic development agency for the state of Florida, to put the runway to new uses.

"Space Florida will take over operation of SLF as a combined airport and spaceport," NASA administrator Charles Bolden said here at a press conference today (June 28). "This will continue to expand Kennedy's viability as a multiuser spaceport. We look forward to working with Space Florida over the coming months." [Photos: NASA's Last Shuttle Landing in History]

Space Florida hopes to recruit commercial space companies to perform launches and landings from the Shuttle Landing Facility. The organization has reached out to suborbital launch company XCOR Aerospace, as well as orbital spaceship builders Sierra Nevada Space Systems, Boeing and Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX), and has high hopes many of these companies will establish operations at Kennedy Space Center.

"It's our job to make it a commercial entity ?we're excited for the challenge," Jim Kuzma, senior vice president and chief operating officer of Space Florida, told SPACE.com.

NASA itself may prove to be a customer of the facility when it starts launching its new heavy-lift rocket, the Space Launch System, and Orion spacecraft, in coming years. Under the new arrangement, NASA is no longer shouldering the everyday cost of running the Shuttle Landing Facility ? Florida is ? so if NASA uses the facility it will have to pay for it like any other customer.

"It's exciting for Florida," Kuzma said. "We think the work force is here, the understanding of the needs of the space industry is here."

Andrew Nelson, chief operating officer of XCOR Aerospace, which hopes to begin launching tourists to the edge of space on its Lynx vehicle soon, agreed.

"The workforce is incredible here," he said. "There's just something in the DNA here."

XCOR said it was attracted to the idea of launching flights out of Kennedy Space Center in part because the Space Coast lures so many tourists ? it's about an hour's drive from the tourist Mecca of Orlando.

"There are 30 million tourist visitors a year here," Nelson told SPACE.com. "A few are going to want to fly to space."

Follow Clara Moskowitz on Twitter?and Google+. Follow us?@Spacedotcom, Facebook?and Google+. Original article on?SPACE.com.

Copyright 2013 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-space-shuttle-runway-gets-life-commercial-spaceport-115756289.html

j crew san francisco 49ers san francisco 49ers stan musial Mega 49ers lance armstrong