National / International News

Birds Eye withdraws three beef ready meals from supermarkets in the UK and Ireland after horse DNA is found in a dish sold in Belgium.

News photos this week: 16-22 February

Another real world activity quickly moving online -- gambling. On Thursday Nevada became the first state to legalize online gambling, narrowly beating out its longtime rival, New Jersey. Delaware and California are also likely to follow.  So now you won't have to leave the comfort of your couch to have the casino experience -- minus the showgirls and cirque de soleil. But what does it take to win online?

To answer that, we turn to the Wizard of Odds, Michael Shackleford, an actuary and a former professor of casino math at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Besides wagering at home in your pajamas, does gambling online have an advantage?  

"Assuming a fair game, the odds are generally better online. I attribute that to lower overhead costs with running an online casino. With slot machines, in Las Vegas they generally return anywhere from 88-92 percent whereas an Internet casino will usually from 93-97 percent. The odds are significantly better online in my opinion," says Shackleford.

 

DATA FROM: Wizard of Odds

 

But what risks come with Internet gambling?

"Basically the casinos are on the honor system to give you a fair game and I and other watchdog websites have busted casinos often for cheating. Often the way it works out is a player will post a log file of his play, or video of his play, and say this is just ridiculous how much I'm losing. As a mathematician by training, I can look at the log files and analyze what is the probability that a player would lose as much money as he did assuming a fair game. Lots of times the results are just off the chart. Like, the probability of luck this bad in a fair game being one in trillions," says Shackleford. "The regulation is very feeble. I think it's up to independents like me to keep an eye on the business."

How easy is it to cash out winnings online?

"With a good Internet casino, you have to click withdrawal, how much do you want to withdraw, and a check will be on its way," says Shackleford. "With a good casino -- not every Internet casino is a good casino. Some of them may not be you at all. Some of them may drag their feet and make you nag them a few times. For the most part, Internet gambling is unregulated."

Shackleford says Internet casinos subscribe to this philosophy: They want a player's deposit to last a long time and for him or her to get a lot of fun and entertainment out of their money (but eventually lose it). If a player has gotten a lot of entertainment out of their money, he or she is likely to be happy and make another deposit.

Shackleford offers these tips to succeed at online gambling:
1. Look for a good bonus that you can play on a low house advantage game.
2. The two best games to play in an online casino are usually Blackjack and Video poker (Craps is not bad either).
3. Remember that it's fun and to keep it in moderation.

The controversy began when a piece of graffiti on a London wall appeared at a Miami auction house. The piece of art is scheduled to fetch up to $700,000. The community in London said its sale would be immoral. Now, after a tug of war, a stenciled rat has appeared nearby.

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Extracts from the BBC Savile review transcripts

Pakistani police detain Malik Ishaq, founder and former head of militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which said it carried out a deadly anti-Shia attack last week.

Sequestration doesn’t just refer to budget cuts. You can sequester juries during trials or carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Catholic cardinals are sequestered to choose a new pope.

“It’s all about being kept separate,” says Mignon Fogarty, better known by her online handle Grammar Girl and the author of Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing. “It comes from a Latin word that means to remove or separate or keep in a safe place.”

Sequester was first used in reference to budget politics in the mid 1980s. Under President Ronald Reagan, the economy was doing well, says Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. “But both parties were worried that domestic spending continued to grow, but taxes had been cut significantly.”

So Congress passed the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985. It set targets for deficit reduction and said that if Congress and the President couldn’t agree on how to meet those goals, the money would be automatically taken away. With that, the sequester was born.

Just like now, Zelizer says politicians might have used the word sequester to talk about budget cuts without actually having to say budget cuts.  

“It’s inside-the-Beltway rhetoric that’s being used intentionally to try to keep some of this inside the Beltway,” he says.

Senator Phil Gramm from Texas (R), now retired, thinks the name is crystal clear.

“To me, sequester conjured up taking something off the table, withholding something,” he counters.

He’s the “Gramm” in the title of the law and the one who put sequestration in the bill.

“It’s always helpful if when you invent a term, if it already conjures up what you’re try to say,” he adds.

Gramm says the term was actually suggested to him by then House Majority Leader Jim Wright (D-TX). They also considered “impoundment,” but it had already been used for something else.

Now, Gramm stands by both the name and the idea behind it: That sequestration should be a last resort, a final backstop on overspending.

“If a sequester is what you got to do to get people’s attention, I would do it,” he says.

While Gramm says he’s more proud of raising two sons, he doesn’t mind being known as the father of sequestration, too.

The idea is that brown tree snakes will eat these snacks from the sky. Then, it's hoped, the snakes will die because the mice will be laced with painkillers. The active ingredient in those drugs should be toxic to the snakes.

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Danica Patrick became the first woman to win a pole in NASCAR's elite division, but that doesn't mean her No. 1 position at the start of Sunday's Daytona 500 will give her an edge. Experts say that a 40-pound weight advantage might not help either.

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A man from Ipswich is found guilty of murdering his 23-year-old girlfriend while on holiday in Gran Canaria.

Green Party leader Natalie Bennett calls on Labour leader Ed Miliband to apologise for the "disastrous" Iraq war.

Today, Olympic medalist and double amputee Oscar Pistorius was granted bail. Pistorius was arrested nine days ago after the shooting death of his girlfriend. You’ve probably heard about this story...in fact, you’ve probably heard a lot about this story. The media frenzy around Pistorius is in full swing -- and some people are even calling this the next O.J. Simpson trial.

Entertainment analyst Robert Galinsky says another O.J. trial might be a stretch, but the Oscar Pistorius story is almost tailor-made for the media.

"Here comes a real-life hero," says Galinsky. "This guy who has overcome being a double amputee, he’s created a success story for himself by being an Olympian, and something major like this happens, it’s a bonanza for the media."

News networks have gotten very skilled at making stories like these -- whether they be natural disasters, celebrity scandals or shootings -- into mega-news events, says Aram Sinnreich, a media professor at Rutgers University.

"These stories all have this kind of car crash quality to them," says Sinnreich. "Like, you don't want to look, but you can't look away." That translates into big ratings and ad dollars. Sinnreich cites the recent story about the stranded Carnival Cruise ship. "CNN actually saw a 74 percent ratings boost during their several day coverage," he says.

Those ratings bumps have now been baked into the business model of 24-hour cable news, says Robert Thompson, a professor of TV and popular culture at Syracuse University. Thompson says networks learned how to make a news event into a media blitz during the murder trial of another famous athlete: O.J. Simpson.

"Many people point to that as the real moment when we reached maturity for this kind of coverage," says Thompson. "These kinds of stories, in effect, become cottage industries."

Thompson points out that O.J.’s trial meant months of gavel-to-gavel coverage -- lawyers and witnesses became mini-celebrities and news stories themselves. Thompson says you just can’t get that kind of mileage out the Greek debt crisis or the dreaded sequester.

Today, Olympic medalist and double amputee Oscar Pistorius was granted bail. Pistorius was arrested nine days ago after the shooting death of his girlfriend. You’ve probably heard about this story...in fact, you’ve probably heard a lot about this story. The media frenzy around Pistorius is in full swing -- and some people are even calling this the next O.J. Simpson trial.

Entertainment analyst Robert Galinsky says another O.J. trial might be a stretch, but the Oscar Pistorius story is almost tailor-made for the media.

"Here comes a real-life hero," says Galinsky. "This guy who has overcome being a double amputee, he’s created a success story for himself by being an Olympian, and something major like this happens, it’s a bonanza for the media."

News networks have gotten very skilled at making stories like these -- whether they be natural disasters, celebrity scandals or shootings -- into mega-news events, says Aram Sinnreich, a media professor at Rutgers University.

"These stories all have this kind of car crash quality to them," says Sinnreich. "Like, you don't want to look, but you can't look away." That translates into big ratings and ad dollars. Sinnreich cites the recent story about the stranded Carnival Cruise ship. "CNN actually saw a 74 percent ratings boost during their several day coverage," he says.

Those ratings bumps have now been baked into the business model of 24-hour cable news, says Robert Thompson, a professor of TV and popular culture at Syracuse University. Thompson says networks learned how to make a news event into a media blitz during the murder trial of another famous athlete: O.J. Simpson.

"Many people point to that as the real moment when we reached maturity for this kind of coverage," says Thompson. "These kinds of stories, in effect, become cottage industries."

Thompson points out that O.J.’s trial meant months of gavel-to-gavel coverage -- lawyers and witnesses became mini-celebrities and news stories themselves. Thompson says you just can’t get that kind of mileage out the Greek debt crisis or the dreaded sequester.

Tell Me More host Michel Martin and editor Ammad Omar crack open the listener inbox. This week, they clear up a Presidents' Day misunderstanding, and see if the idea of Legos for girls really has legs.

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President Obama's plan to jump-start the economy starts with increasing the minimum wage and avoiding sequestration. Host Michel Martin talks about those challenges and others, like rising gas prices and expanding waist lines. She's joined by NPR's senior business editor Marilyn Geewax and Wall Street Journal economics reporter Sudeep Reddy.

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South African Olympian and Paralympian Oscar Pistorius has been granted bail, but the hearing brought to light bizarre details about the murder charges against him. So will the case turn into another O.J. Simpson fiasco? Host Michel Martin asks the barbershop guys for their thoughts.

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The former deputy editor at the News of the World newspaper, Neil Wallis, will not face any charges regarding phone hacking, the CPS announces.

Who is Google’s new product aimed at, asks Rory Cellan-Jones

For one of these night photographs to turn out, the stars have to align — almost literally.

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At least four people die in Bangladesh as police clash with Islamists protesting against bloggers they accuse of blasphemy.