Noel, Len atop an NBA draft full of questions

NEW YORK (AP) ? Nerlens Noel is coming off a major knee injury. Alex Len is in a walking boot.

One of them could be the No. 1 pick Thursday in an NBA draft that appears short on stardom, and neither looks ready to get his career off to a running start.

"This draft is really unpredictable, a lot of guys with injuries and you don't have any, like, LeBron James," Len said Wednesday. "So it's going to be interesting."

Ten years after James climbed on stage to start a draft that goes down as one of the best in recent memory, the No. 1 pick again belongs to Cleveland.

The Cavaliers won't find anyone who can play like James on the court ? if they keep the pick ? and even the climbing the stage part will be a challenge for the big men who opened their college seasons against each other and are competing again now.

Noel tore the ACL in his left knee on Feb. 12, ending his lone season at Kentucky. The 6-foot-11 freshman led the nation in shot blocking and his conference in rebounding, but hasn't been able to show the Cavaliers if his offensive game has grown.

The only basketball work he did during his visit to Cleveland was shooting some free throws. Perhaps the pants he wore with his sports jacket and orange tie were just too tight, but Noel was walking gingerly as he exited a hotel ballroom after meeting with the media Wednesday.

"I wanted to do more. Unfortunately I got hurt, but I mean I definitely felt right before I got injured I was really coming along as a player and just really coming into my own during that part of the season," Noel said. "But like I said, unfortunately I got hurt, so I wasn't able to show as much as I wanted to."

Nor has Len, but that hasn't stopped the 7-1 center from the Ukraine who spent two seasons at Maryland from climbing into the mix at No. 1. His left foot started bothering him around February, and he found out after the season that it was a stress fracture.

He was aware he was projected as a top-10 pick before the draft combine, but may go much higher even though his visits to teams have consisted of nothing more than interviews. He no longer needs crutches but will be in the boot for perhaps two more weeks.

So, with all these injury questions, what about playing it safe and picking a healthy guy?

"I mean, probably a lot of people wish it could be that easy," Kansas guard Ben McLemore said. "But it's a process for the teams, they've got to see what's available and what they really need. And like I said, this draft is up in the air and nobody knows what's going to happen, who's going to get drafted in which order."

Orlando has the No. 2 pick, followed by Washington, Charlotte and Phoenix.

McLemore, Indiana's Victor Oladipo, Georgetown forward Otto Porter and national player of the year Trey Burke of Michigan are among the other players who will hear their names called early at Barclays Center by NBA Commissioner David Stern in his final draft.

It's a class that won't draw any comparisons to the one that James led, which featured future Miami Heat teammates Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, along with NBA scoring champion Carmelo Anthony among the first five picks.

Brooklyn Nets general manager Billy King said a number of teams are trying to trade out of the draft and acquire extra picks for next year, which is expected to be a stronger class. But he doesn't know if there will be enough teams interested in being trade partners to get those deals done.

"There are good players in this draft, but right now, there are not impact players. What I mean by that is that there's no one you look at in this draft that within two years will be an All-Star, say like Kyrie Irving was, players like that," said Minnesota Timberwolves president Flip Saunders, referring to the guard Cleveland took with the No. 1 pick in 2011.

"And so in order for you to move up and dilute your talent pool and your roster, you've got to get an impact-type player, and I just don't believe ... there's good players, probably pretty good players in this league, but are they going to be that impact player who's going to be an All-Star or future Hall of Famer? That's what you don't see. And sometimes that's something you don't see for two or three years in a row."

McLemore has in some ways been hurt by healthy, since by being able to work out he's given teams something to nitpick. Noel and Len have been largely free of criticism while sitting on the sideline.

Instead, Len is hoping his first impression of the season is one that holds up, when he had a career-high 23 points, 12 rebounds and four blocks against Noel in Maryland's loss to Kentucky, right in the building where they will be Thursday.

"I did well against him. So, it's not up to me, it's up to teams," Len said of a team choosing between the two.

Neither player said he knows what the Cavs will do. There has been speculation they are open to dealing the pick, something teams rarely consider in a year with a clear-cut No. 1.

Noel said he had gotten no sense from the Cavs that they had concern about his knee, which could keep him off the court until early in the regular season. And in a draft full of questions, he believes selecting him is the right answer.

"I'm a good teammate, I definitely love to work," Noel said. "I want to get better. I want to be great, I want to reach my potential, be the best player I can be. I definitely do countless hours in the gym and I'm definitely working to get there."

___

AP Basketball Writer Jon Krawczynski in Minneapolis contributed to this report.

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Follow Brian Mahoney on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Briancmahoney

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/noel-len-atop-nba-draft-full-questions-211509916.html

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Paul Feig Talks The Heat

At the recent press day for?The Heat, we landed an exclusive video interview with director?Paul Feig?s (Bridesmaids).? The film stars?Sandra Bullock?as an FBI agent who teams up with a local Boston cop (Melissa McCarthy) in order to bring down a drug lord.? As you can see in the?trailers?and?clips, the film features some excellent chemistry between Bullock and McCarthy, and it?s great to see two women as the leads in a buddy cop comedy.

During the interview, Feig talked about how Hollywood rarely makes a movie with two female leads, how he prefers to keep the theatrical release short but provide an extended/unrated cut on the Blu-ray, who broke the most during filming, how things changed for him after the success of Bridesmaids, whether he will do more TV projects, and how he?s developing a comedy starring a female James Bond.? Hit the jump to watch.? The Heat opens June 28th.

Paul S. Feig:

• We talk about how Hollywood rarely makes a movie with two female leads.? Also how rare it is to have two women as the leads in a buddy cop movie.
• How long was his first cut compared to the theatrical release.? Talks about how he doesn?t like to do long cuts as a release.
• Will he release an extended cut on Blu-ray.? Talks about how when you put out an unrated edition of a movie that?s the cut which ends up playing everywhere
• Says he?s including an unrated cut on the Blu-ray
• Who broke the most during filming
• How did things change for him after the worldwide success of Bridesmaids
• After mentioning how much I loved Freaks and Geeks, I ask if he?s considering getting back into TV.? Talks about the different challenges of telling a story as a movie versus television
• Talks about how he?s developing a comedy starring a female James Bond movie and how he?s exploring casting right now

Sponsored Content

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1927748/news/1927748/

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Hands-on: $99 Android game console OUYA - AfterDawn

Raising over 8 million dollars in funding via Kickstarter, the company called BOXER8 (since renamed to OUYA) has been maufacturing the low-cost ($99) and open home console, and since AfterDawn was a part of the crowd funding, we got the console a bit beforehand. So let's take a look.

OUYA is an Android based gaming console that is packed into a tiny 3-inch cube. Underneath the shiny cover, it is powered by the quad-core 1,7GHz Tegra 3 T33-P-A SoC, and packs 1GB DDR3 SDRAM.

OUYA outputs to a display via HDMI (v1.4), up to full 1080p with stereoscopic 3D support. For connectivity, it sports a USB 2.0 port, and a microUSB port. For network/wireless connectivity, OUYA has a standard Ethernet port, Wi-FI (802.11 b/g/n) and support for Bluetooth 4.0 (which provides controller connectivity).

One controller is bundled with the OUYA, powered by double A batteries. The controller is wireless and uses Bluetooth. You can have four controllers attached to OUYA.

OUYA and controller

Definitely one of the OUYAs strengths is the size of the thing. At three inches it couldn't be much easier to position or even hide if you don't like the look of it.

The connectors are more than enough for most people. The only thing grinding gears might be the lack of an audio output.

The ergonomics of the controller are not the worst in the world but you can definitely see and feel that there hasn't been the kind of an R&D circle the controllers of the big three go through. The triggers in particular may have needed more work. The batteries are placed underneath where you hold the device and opening the controller from the top makes it feel a bit cheap.

There's a touch panel on the top of the controller, which we didn't have much use for -- at least in games. You can use it as a mouse to control the UI though.

The console is not built badly by any means, considering it costs only $99 but the sub-par controller is something that makes one look in the direction of Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. Alternative controllers can be used, but only if the games are compatible with them.

User Interface

As mentioned, OUYA runs on Android. The version is 4.1 Jelly Bean, on top of which runs the OUYA's own UI. Unfortunately OUYA hasn't replaced all the views with their own UI and Android does shine through in few situations, like Settings and a couple of dialogues.

Being based on Android is not necessarily a bad thing as it should have extremely well thought out wireless support for Bluetooth and WiFi. Unfortunately during out test run both of them had some issues. First we didn't seem to get the BT controller to connect after which we had difficulties with WiFi connecting. Although the fault might have been between the seat and the console for all we know. Thankfully the console does remember the connections so no need for reconnecting so far.

The UI is certainly not the speediest and sleekest and the latency of the controller seems a bit slow. There are a lot of places where thinking about the little details would have also improved the experience quite a bit.

It just feels too much like using an Android smartphone with not much oomph with a cheap 3rd party controller.

Games

Now this should be the beef though, right? Games. It's a gaming console that's meant to be played. Not offering much anything else out of the box, OUYA is a true gaming console in that sense.

There are currently 173 games for the console -- that's at least what the OUYA website claims. It might be correct and it's plenty if even one in ten is a really good one, preferably a popular title.'

Unfortunately that is not the case. The game experiences you're used with Xbox and PlayStation are nowhere to be found. The games are like the ones on your smartphone, and not even the good ones for your phone. Most of the games tried were sub-par, even in smartphone terms.

The graphics are one thing. Having the processing power of 2012 smartphone, OUYA can't really deliver something unbelievable. But neither does the likes of PS2 or Wii. You can have really good games without the next-gen graphics and everyone knows that.

I might be wrong and only tried the worst of the bunch. And trying the free trials might leave me out some cool extra features.

Conclusion

As revolutionary it wanted to be and as cool as it did sound on Kickstarter, OUYA does not have a future. Not without some impressive titles coming its way. The hardware is too old already, the UI is laggy and the games just aren't there.

You shouldn't be investing your hard earned cash in to this. Invest the hundred dollars to the next-gen Xbox or PlayStation. Or maybe wait for the OUYA 2 coming out next year?

Then again there's one thing you might be interested in. OUYA is really hackable, so you might just want a nicely boxed solution for Raspberry Pi-type of machine to run some default Android software. But that is not for the generic gamer OUYA is after. And there are tons of other solutions for such machines as well.

Source: http://www.afterdawn.com/news/article.cfm/2013/06/26/hands-on_99_android_game_console_ouya

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Aaron Hernandez Released By Patriots Immediately After Arrest

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/06/aaron-hernandez-released-by-patriots/

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Tan Mom: Arrested, Sent to Rehab, Mentored By Michael Lohan

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/06/tan-mom-arrested-sent-to-rehab-mentored-by-michael-lohan/

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White House urges Moscow to expel Snowden to US

Light shines through a cabin window on seat 17A, the empty seat that an Aeroflot official said was booked in the name of former CIA technician Edward Snowden, shortly before Aeroflot flight SU150 takes off from Moscow to Havana, Cuba, Monday, June 24, 2013. Snowden, who has admitted to leaking National Security Agency secrets, was expected to fly from Russia to Cuba and Venezuela en route to possible asylum in Ecuador, but AP reporters on the flight never saw him get on board. (AP Photo/Max Seddon)

Light shines through a cabin window on seat 17A, the empty seat that an Aeroflot official said was booked in the name of former CIA technician Edward Snowden, shortly before Aeroflot flight SU150 takes off from Moscow to Havana, Cuba, Monday, June 24, 2013. Snowden, who has admitted to leaking National Security Agency secrets, was expected to fly from Russia to Cuba and Venezuela en route to possible asylum in Ecuador, but AP reporters on the flight never saw him get on board. (AP Photo/Max Seddon)

President Barack Obama, right, sit across from Steve Case, right, Chairman and CEO, Revolution LLc, and other CEOs, business owners and entrepreneurs during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, June 24, 2013, to discuss immigration reform. Obama hosted the meeting to discuss the importance of commonsense immigration reform including the Congressional Budget Office analysis that concludes immigration reform would promote economic growth and reduce the deficit. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

White House press secretary Jay Carney gestures during the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington, Monday, June 24, 2013. Carney said the U.S. assumes that Edward Snowden is now in Russia and that the White House now expects Russian authorities to look at all the options available to them to expel Snowden to face charges in the U.S. for releasing secret surveillance information . (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

A TV screen shows a news report of Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee who leaked top-secret documents about sweeping U.S. surveillance programs, at a shopping mall in Hong Kong Sunday, June 23, 2013. The former National Security Agency contractor wanted by the United States for revealing two highly classified surveillance programs has been allowed to leave for a "third country" because a U.S. extradition request did not fully comply with Hong Kong law, the territory's government said Sunday. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)

Graphic shows key locations in the life and career of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden; 3c x 5 inches; 146 mm x 127 mm;

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The U.S. assumes National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden remains in Russia, and officials are working with Moscow in hopes he will be expelled and returned to America to face criminal charges, President Barack Obama's spokesman said Monday. He declared that a decision by Hong Kong not to detain Snowden has "unquestionably" hurt relations between the United States and China.

Snowden left Hong Kong, where he has been in hiding, and flew to Moscow but then apparently did not board a plane bound for Cuba as had been expected. His whereabouts were a mystery. The founder of the WikiLeaks secret-spilling organization, Julian Assange, said he wouldn't go into details about where Snowden was but said he was safe.

Snowden has applied for asylum in Ecuador, Iceland and possibly other countries, Assange said.

Obama, asked if he was confident that Russia would expel Snowden, told reporters: "What we know is that we're following all the appropriate legal channels and working with various other countries to make sure that the rule of law is observed."

Obama's spokesman, Jay Carney, earlier Monday said the U.S. was expecting the Russians "to look at the options available to them to expel Mr. Snowden back to the United States to face justice for the crimes with which he is charged."

"The Chinese have emphasized the importance of building mutual trust," Carney added. "And we think that they have dealt that effort a serious setback. If we cannot count on them to honor their legal extradition obligations, then there is a problem. And that is a point we are making to them very directly."

Snowden has given highly classified documents to The Guardian and The Washington Post newspapers disclosing U.S. surveillance programs that collect vast amounts of phone records and online data in the name of foreign intelligence, often sweeping up information on American citizens. He also told the South China Morning Post that "the NSA does all kinds of things like hack Chinese cellphone companies to steal all of your SMS data."

Snowden still has perhaps more than 200 sensitive documents, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said over the weekend.

He had been in hiding in Hong Kong, a former British colony with a degree of autonomy from mainland China. The United States formally sought Snowden's extradition but was rebuffed by Hong Kong officials who said the U.S. request did not fully comply with their laws. The Justice Department rejected that claim, saying its request met all of the requirements of the extradition treaty between the U.S. and Hong Kong.

Said Carney: "We are just not buying that this was a technical decision by a Hong Kong immigration official. This was a deliberate choice by the government to release a fugitive despite a valid arrest warrant, and that decision unquestionably has a negative impact on the U.S.-China relationship."

The dual lines of diplomacy ? harsh with China, hopeful with the Russians ? came just days after Obama met separately with leaders of both countries in an effort to close gaps on some of the major disputes facing them.

Snowden arrived in Moscow on Sunday, but his whereabouts were thrown into question Monday when a plane took off from Moscow for Cuba with an empty seat booked in his name. The U.S. has revoked his passport.

In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said it would be "deeply troubling" if Russia or Hong Kong had adequate notice about Snowden's plans to flee to a country that would grant him asylum and still allowed him leave.

"We don't know, specifically, where he may head, or what his intended destination may be," Kerry said, responding to a question during a news conference in New Delhi where he was discussing bilateral issues between the U.S. and India.

U.S. officials pointed to improved cooperation with the Russians in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing and to assistance the U.S. has given Russia on law enforcement cases.

"We continue to hope that the Russians will do the right thing," Kerry told NBC News. "We think it's very important in terms of our relationship. We think it's very important in terms of rule of law. These are important standards. We have returned seven criminals that they requested for extradition from the United States over the last two years. So we really hope that the right choice will be made here."

"We don't know, specifically, where he may head, or what his intended destination may be," Kerry said during a news conference in New Delhi.

Carney said the U.S. was in touch through diplomatic and law enforcement channels with countries through which Snowden might travel or where he might end up.

"The U.S. is advising these governments that Mr. Snowden is wanted on felony charges and as such should not be allowed to proceed in any further international travel, other than is necessary to return him here to the United States," Carney said.

An Aeroflot representative who wouldn't give her name told The Associated Press that Snowden wasn't on flight SU150 to Havana, which was filled with journalists trying to track him down.

In Moscow, security around the aircraft was heavy prior to boarding and guards tried to prevent the scrum of photographers and cameramen from taking pictures of the plane, heightening the speculation that Snowden might have been secretly escorted on board.

After spending a night in Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport, Snowden had been expected to fly to Cuba and Venezuela en route to possible asylum in Ecuador.

Some analysts said it was likely that the Russians were questioning Snowden, interested in what he knew about U.S. electronic espionage against Moscow.

"If Russian special services hadn't shown interest in Snowden, they would have been utterly unprofessional," Igor Korotchenko, a former colonel in Russia's top military command turned security analyst, said on state Rossiya 24 television.

The White House's tough response to Hong Kong's decision to let Snowden leave came just two weeks after Obama met with Chinese President Xi Jinping for two days of personal diplomacy in a desert retreat in California.

Carney said that after the U.S. sought Snowden's extradition from Hong Kong, authorities there requested additional information from the U.S.

"The U.S. had been in communication with Hong Kong about these inquiries and we were in the process of responding to the request when we learned that Hong Kong authorities had allowed the fugitive to leave Hong Kong," Carney said.

Ecuador's foreign minister, Ricardo Patino, said his government had received an asylum request, adding Monday that the decision "has to do with freedom of expression and with the security of citizens around the world."

Ecuador has rejected some previous U.S. efforts at cooperation and has been helping Assange avoid prosecution by allowing him to stay at its embassy in London.

But Assange's comments that Snowden had applied in multiple places opened other possibilities of where he might try to go.

WikiLeaks has said it is providing legal help to Snowden at his request and that he was being escorted by diplomats and legal advisers from the group.

Icelandic officials have confirmed receiving an informal request for asylum conveyed by WikiLeaks, which has strong links to the tiny North Atlantic nation. But authorities there have insisted that Snowden must be on Icelandic soil before making a formal request.

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Associated Press White House Correspondent Julie Pace and Associated Press writers Philip Elliott, Matthew Lee and Frederic J. Frommer in Washington, Lynn Berry and Vladimir Isachenkov and Max Seddon in Moscow, Kevin Chan in Hong Kong and Sylvia Hui in London contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-06-24-NSA-Surveillance/id-fce41962552541308a8d5ac1a35b915a

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The Wanted Felt 'Something Missing' Without Nathan Sykes

Fivesome open up about covering for their mate during his vocal surgery.
By Emilee Lindner

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1709503/wanted-nathan-sykes.jhtml

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