Obama will have the ear of key players on both issues during back-to-back G-8 and NATO summits that will be dominated with discussions of European economic woes and Afghanistan. Talks about Syria and Iran will be aimed directly and indirectly at Russia, a sometime protector of both Iran and Syria and the chief blockade to such U.S. goals as an arms embargo on Syria.

The gatherings come in the shadow of the eurozone debt crisis and plummeting public support for the war in Afghanistan. Political and economic chaos in Greece and Spain underscored just how fragile Europe’s economy remains after an eviscerating austerity regime. Germany’s finance minister predicted Friday that the crisis could last up to another two years.

Most of the leaders are part of overlapping international coalitions formed to address the Iranian nuclear problem and the newer crisis in Syria, where an estimated 9,000 people have died in more than a year of violence that arose from the pro-democracy Arab uprisings.

Faced with implacable Russian opposition to significant new United Nations punishments on the Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad, U.S. officials are trying to get consensus among other allies about ways to promote Assad’s ouster.

A senior U.S. official said one goal of Friday’s closed-door discussion at the secluded presidential retreat in Camp David, Md., was to impress on Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev that other nations that share Russia’s usual role at the forefront of international diplomacy are seeking ways to address the Syria debacle without Russian help.

Obama greeted each leader by name, calling Medvedev “my friend,” before the group went inside for dinner.

The United States wants to avoid escalating a confrontation with Moscow over Syria, the official said, but wants Medvedev to hear the depth of international outrage. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal diplomacy.

A senior Obama administration official said Friday night that the Group of Eight leaders unified behind a dual track effort of sanctions and diplomacy toward Iran and agreed to focus on political transition in Syria.

The eight leaders gathered for a dinner of more than two hours in the secluded woods of Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains.

The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to share details of the private session.

Russia is a partner with the United States and European nations in containing Iran’s nuclear program, although with China it has blocked the most severe penalties the United Nations Security Council might impose. A U.N.-affiliated negotiating group including Russia will meet with Iranian officials next week in Baghdad, Iraq.

On Iran, the U.S. official said each of the leaders, including Medvedev, indicated that Iran has the burden of proving that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

As for Syria, the official said the leaders continued to back the peace plan brokered by special envoy Kofi Annan brokered in April, including its call for political transition. But they did not go beyond that.

U.S. officials say the economic pressure of sanctions is key to drawing Iran back to the bargaining table this spring after a long hiatus.

“Each member of the G-8 is a core member of this sanctions effort,” White House national security adviser Thomas Donilon said Thursday. “Each member has been absolutely essential to really putting in place what has been an extraordinarily effective and, I think most people would say, surprisingly effective sanctions effort.”

Iran says it is enriching only to create nuclear fuel. Its refusal to halt enrichment has provoked U.N. and other sanctions, including U.S. and European Union penalties meant to cripple its oil exports ? its main revenue source ? that are to fully take effect in a few weeks.

“The message will be that the Iranians should seize this opportunity” for talks, Donilon said. “And while this goes on, in parallel, the sanctions and pressure effort will continue, led by the United States and the others who will be at the table on Friday evening.”

Syria is a much harder case, in part because Russia and China oppose U.N. action that could set a precedent for outside interference in internal ethnic or human rights matters, and partly because there is no international appetite for a military confrontation with Assad.

Syrian forces on Friday fired on protesters holding the largest opposition marches yet in Aleppo, a sign of rising anti-regime sentiment in the country’s biggest city, which has largely remained supportive of President Bashar Assad throughout the 15-month uprising.

The head of the U.N. observer mission in Syria warned that neither his team nor armed action could solve the country’s crisis, and called on all sides to discuss a solution. But the regime kept up its assaults on opposition areas and protests, while the head of Syria’s largest exile opposition group dismissed the U.N.’s plan as unrealistic.

The White House abruptly moved the G-8 session to Camp David earlier this spring, after months of planning for a Chicago venue. A desire for seclusion and intimacy was one reason and a gesture to Russia was another.

Russia is opposed to a NATO plan for a missile defense shield in Europe that will be detailed at the NATO summit Sunday in Chicago, causing Russian President Vladimir Putin to let NATO know he did not want to be invited to the alliance meeting.

Separating the two sessions was supposed to make it easier for Putin to attend one and not the other. But Putin made his own abrupt change, telling Obama last week that he would skip the gathering and send Medvedev in his place.

The administration denied speculation that the sessions were moved for security reasons. Past G-8 meetings have seen large and sometimes violent protests by activists opposed to the increasing globalization of world economies. Street violence overshadowed the 2001 summit in Genoa, Italy. Critics have accused the G-8 of representing the interests of an elite group of industrialized nations to the detriment of the needs of the wider world. Since Genoa, the meetings have been held in increasingly isolated locations to shield leaders from protests, playing into criticism of the G-8′s closed-door image.

Obama, an infrequent visitor to Camp David, is putting the presidential hideaway on full display for the G-8, the largest gathering of foreign leaders ever to assemble there. The leaders will stroll leafy paths to rustic meetings halls and bed down in the 11 residential cabins. Four African leaders will join them for lunch Saturday.

The G-8 is made up of the leaders of the United States, Japan, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Canada and Russia. The meetings began in 1975 at a forum instigated by France, where leaders of the six largest economic powers agreed to annual meetings. Canada joined a year later, making it the G-7. Russia was brought into the organization in 1997, six years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The European Union is represented but is not granted the power to act as host of the annual sessions or to serve as the rotating leader.

Obama holds the chairmanship this year.

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In Lingerie charged to victory in the $300,000 race, holding off Disposablepleasure to win by 1? lengths.

“That was a big effort to run 1-2 like that. I’m pleasantly happy,” Pletcher said. “I think (In Lingerie) made a big step forward to be one of the leaders in her division today.”

When In Lingerie returned to the winner’s circle, she was bleeding from a cut on her lower right front leg. The leg was bandaged by a veterinarian, and the filly was walked back to her barn.

Pletcher later said In Lingerie nicked a blood vessel in her Pastern when she stumbled out of the gate, adding, “She’s fine.”

The Grade 2 race is for 3-year-old fillies.

It was the third career win in four tries for In Lingerie, who stumbled early but made up the difference with a deft ride by John Valazquez.

“Johnny had no choice but to put her out pretty wide on the backside,” Pletcher said. “I thought in the top of the stretch she was in pretty good shape, and she made a strong run in the stretch.”

Valazquez said: “I just wanted to get good position into the first turn, and we did. After that, it was pretty easy for us.”

In Lingerie stormed past pace-setter Mamma Kimbo to finish the 1 1-8 miles in 1:52.07. The filly was coming off a win in the March 24 Bourbonette Oaks.

Pletcher previously won the Black-Eyed Susan in 2005 with Spun Sugar and in 2007 with Panty Raid.

The daughter of Empire Maker, In Lingerie came to Pletcher after being purchased by Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners and Gary Barber following her maiden victory at Turfway Park on Jan. 12.

She ran second in an optional claiming allowance at Gulfstream Park on Feb. 25. One month later, she led from start to finish in the Bourbonette Oaks.

Disposablepleasure, meanwhile, enjoyed her best finish in three races this year.

“She finally ran the way we expected all winter,” Pletcher said.

It was the first loss in three career races for Mamma Kimbo, who is trained by Bob Baffert. Mamma Kimbo bolted in front from the gate but faded to fourth behind third-place finisher Wildcat’s Smile.

Mamma Kimbo, whose previous races were six furlongs and 1 1/16 miles, couldn’t adjust to the longer trip.

“It was a little far for her,” Baffert said. “She was trying, but it’s just too far. She can get it with the right conditions. I knew it was a bit beyond her limitations.”

Baffert will look to make amends Saturday with favorite Bodemeister in the Preakness.

In Lingerie paid $9.80, $5 and $4.80. Disposablepleasure returned $7.20 and Wildcat’s Smile, with Rosie Napravik aboard, returned $8.60 to show.

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Intel had already promised that it would avoid using conflict minerals, and now it’s giving itself a more concrete timetable for that to happen. It wants to have at least one processor that’s proven completely conflict-free across four key minerals — gold, tantalum, tin and tungsten — by the end of 2013. Lest you think Intel’s not taking swift enough action, it wants to reach the tantalum goal by the end of this year. The effort’s part of a wider array of goals that should cut back on the energy use, power and water use by 2020. Sooner rather than later, though, you’ll be buying a late-generation Haswell- or Broadwell-based PC knowing that the chip inside was made under nobler conditions.

Continue reading Intel wants to have conflict-free processors by the end of 2013

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Is there a difference between painting your home to change its color and painting it to maintain it is a condition? Yes; painting only to change colors is a desire, and painting to maintain the quality of your home is a necessity. This difference can have an effect on how the value of data in group meant as assessed. Since the two approaches should be evaluated differently, let?s look first at the value of painting out of desire.

Painting by preference

Painting by preference must be considered a personal enjoyment improvement. The job is not being done as needed maintenance, and it will not, under most conditions, increase the value of all. Frame houses are expected to be painted and in good repair. The fact that you replaced gray paint that was a year old with beige paint isn?t likely to influence the appraised value of your home.

How much will it cost to paint your home? The cost to depends on many factors. These factors might include the condition of the siding, the quality of the paint used, the size of your home, the style of your home, and the accessibility to areas requiring paint.

If you decide to paint a house yourself, the cost of materials is not difficult to estimate, assuming the siding is in good condition. The labels on paint containers indicate how much coverage you can expect to get out of a given quantity of paint. For example, a 1 gallon can of exterior paint might be rated to cover 400 ft.? of surface area.

Some simple math will tell you approximately how much pain you will need. Let?s assume you have a ranch-style home with dimensions of 24? x 44?. We will further assume that the exterior walls have a vertical exposure of 9 feet. The figure out your paint needs, let?s start with the front of the house.

The front of the house is 44 feet wide and 9 feet high. That gives you the total square footage of 396 feet. Of course, there are windows and a door that consume a portion of the square footage, but don?t worry about those items right now.

The back wall has the same dimensions as the front wall, so you also have 396 ft.? of surface area on the back wall. Adding the totals of the front and back, you have 792 ft.?.

The end walls are a little more difficult to figure. Assuming the house has a standard gable roof, the gable ends of the house must be accounted for. The ends are 24 feet wide. To start with, we will multiply the 24 feet by the 9 feet of fullwidth vertical wall. When we do this, we come up with a figure of 216 ft.?. If we add the totals of the two ends, we have 432 ft.?, not counting the Gables.

The Gables at their lowest points have a width of 24 feet, but the width is reduced as the wall rises to the peak of the roof. You could measure the dimensions of the triangle formed with the gable and work out the square footage, you can make an estimated guess will keeping your feet on the ground. Paintings by Charley Harper can be useful to spruce up the interior of the home.

If the height of the gable is 12 feet and the width is as described, you could multiply the height by half of the width for reasonable estimate of the square footage. In doing so, you would come up with a number of 120 ft.?. For the purposes of rough estimating, this is close enough. Adding the two gable ends together, you would have 240 ft.?.

The total square footage for all the walls is 1464 ft.?. If we know each gallon of paint is rated to cover 400 ft.?, we can divide 1464 x 400 and see that we will need about 4 gallons of paint per coat.

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Facebook, Inc. is offering 180,000,000 shares of its Class A common stock and the selling stockholders are offering 157,415,352 shares of Class A common stock. We will not receive any proceeds from the sale of shares by the selling stockholders. This is our initial public offering and no public market currently exists for our shares of Class A common stock. We anticipate that the initial public offering price will be between $28.00 and $35.00 per share.

This confirms the earlier pricing that we posted about today. We had a more specific range than The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times, saying the price was at $27-$35. We were off by a dollar, but they said ‘high 20s to mid 30s’ in their original stories.

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We know that heading into tonight's Samsung Galaxy S III launch event, one of the big questions you guys had surrounded any US availability. We got a couple of answers that should tide you over. 

Yes, there is a 4G LTE version of the Galaxy S III, and yes the phone will be coming to the US. As this slide from the keynote shows us, we're expecting the first signs of the new Samsung flagship in the US in June. What we still don't know at this point, is whether or not this will be the launch, or the availability of the device.

For now, we'll just have to wait until the US carriers start to announce the device, but worry-ye-not American Samsung fans. This time around there won't be that long wait that came for the Galaxy S II.

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