Five Things to Know About The Lumineers

By Marisa Laudadio

01/19/2013 at 06:00 PM EST

From left: Wesley Schultz, Neyla Pekarek and Jeremiah Fraites

Alan Poizner/PictureGroup

You already know their hit song "Ho Hey" with its catchy shout-it-out chant that sticks in your head – but what's behind Denver-based band The Lumineers' cool blend of indie rock and Americana?

Here are five things to know about the trio – Wesley Schultz (lead vocals, guitar), 30; Jeremiah Fraites (guitar), 27; and Neyla Pekarek (cello, piano), 26 – who are up for two Grammys (best new artist and best Americana album) and are also performing on Saturday Night Live this week alongside host Jennifer Lawrence.

1. Most people think that 'Ho Hey' – which reached No. 1 on three different charts – is about a romantic relationship, but that's not the whole story.
"The essence of the song was that I was really struggling to make ends meet in the big city when I was living in Brooklyn and working in New York. It was a myth, this idea that you'd go there and get discovered and it would be this great place for music," explains Schultz, who, like Fraites, hails from New Jersey and moved to Denver in recent years, where they met Pekarek.

"It's about a lost love in some ways, but it's also a lost dream. It's funny that a lot of people play it at their weddings because it was written from a different place. But it's kind of a beautiful thing, actually, that people can take something I was feeling really, really down about and turn it into a message of hope."

2. They've only recently been able to quit their day jobs.
"I was working as a busser, a bartender, a barista, a guitar teacher, caterer – a lot of service industry jobs, because it allows you to get away and tour if you need to or take a night off to play," explains Schultz.

"Jer was bussing tables right along beside me. And Neyla was a hostess and a substitute teacher. She'd been offered a full-time teaching position while we were in the midst of touring – and losing a lot of money – and she still stuck with it. Somehow she chose this over that, which is absurd, but we're glad she did!"

3. They named their hit song carefully.
Were they ever concerned people might call it "Hey Ho" in a derogatory way? "Yeah, at some point we laughed about it," says Schultz. "We specifically named it 'Ho Hey' instead of 'Hey Ho' [for that reason]. If people searched for it online, we'd rather it not be something that takes you in that direction."

Do they mind when people get the title wrong? "Oh no, that would be a little pretentious!" says Schultz with a chuckle. "It's kind of a silly name to begin with."

4. That's Schultz's mom on the cover of their debut, self-titled album.
"It's my mom, Judy, as a child, and her mother," he explains. "I'd asked my mom if she had any old photos that I could look through a while back, and I fell in love with it. You know if you set up a child for a picture then can't get out of the frame in time? My mom had a funny take on it: It's our first album, kind of our baby, like this child."

Schultz thanked his mom for all her years of emotional support with some heavy metal when their album went gold. "I had the plaque sent to my mom, because she'd been really supportive of us and believed in us when a lot of people were pretty concerned. And now she's got a platinum one!"

5. Their band name has more than one meaning.
While Schultz and Fraites have been playing music together for more than eight years (previous band names include Free Beer, 6Cheek, and Wesley Jeremiah), they've only been known as The Lumineers for the last four thanks to a mistake.

"We were playing a small club in Jersey City, N.J.," explains Schultz, "and there was a band out there at the time called Lumineers who were slotted for the same time, same day, the next week. The person running the show that night [mistakenly] announced us as The Lumineers."

The name stuck. "It doesn't mean anything literally. It's a made-up word," says Schultz. Another strange coincidence they learned? "It's also the name of a dental veneer company," he adds.

So how are Schultz's teeth? "I have a pretty good smile," he says with a big laugh. "I won 'Best Smile' in high school. It's a pretty big deal."

Read More..

Lilly drug chosen for Alzheimer's prevention study

Researchers have chosen an experimental drug by Eli Lilly & Co. for a large federally funded study testing whether it's possible to prevent Alzheimer's disease in older people at high risk of developing it.

The drug, called solanezumab (sol-ah-NAYZ-uh-mab), is designed to bind to and help clear the sticky deposits that clog patients' brains.

Earlier studies found it did not help people with moderate to severe Alzheimer's but it showed some promise against milder disease. Researchers think it might work better if given before symptoms start.

"The hope is we can catch people before they decline," which can come 10 years or more after plaques first show up in the brain, said Dr. Reisa Sperling, director of the Alzheimer's center at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

She will help lead the new study, which will involve 1,000 people ages 70 to 85 whose brain scans show plaque buildup but who do not yet have any symptoms of dementia. They will get monthly infusions of solanezumab or a dummy drug for three years. The main goal will be slowing the rate of cognitive decline. The study will be done at 50 sites in the U.S. and possibly more in Canada, Australia and Europe, Sperling said.

In October, researchers said combined results from two studies of solanezumab suggested it might modestly slow mental decline, especially in patients with mild disease. Taken separately, the studies missed their main goals of significantly slowing the mind-robbing disease or improving activities of daily living.

Those results were not considered good enough to win the drug approval. So in December, Lilly said it would start another large study of it this year to try to confirm the hopeful results seen patients with mild disease. That is separate from the federal study Sperling will head.

About 35 million people worldwide have dementia, and Alzheimer's is the most common type. In the U.S., about 5 million have Alzheimer's. Current medicines such as Aricept and Namenda just temporarily ease symptoms. There is no known cure.

___

Online:

Alzheimer's info: http://www.alzheimers.gov

Alzheimer's Association: http://www.alz.org

___

Follow Marilynn Marchione's coverage at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

Read More..

Wall Street Week Ahead: Earnings, money flows to push stocks higher

NEW YORK (Reuters) - With earnings momentum on the rise, the S&P 500 seems to have few hurdles ahead as it continues to power higher, its all-time high a not-so-distant goal.

The U.S. equity benchmark closed the week at a fresh five-year high on strong housing and labor market data and a string of earnings that beat lowered expectations.

Sector indexes in transportation <.djt>, banks <.bkx> and housing <.hgx> this week hit historic or multiyear highs as well.

Michael Yoshikami, chief executive at Destination Wealth Management in Walnut Creek, California, said the key earnings to watch for next week will come from cyclical companies. United Technologies reports on Wednesday while Honeywell is due to report Friday.

"Those kind of numbers will tell you the trajectory the economy is taking," Yoshikami said.

Major technology companies also report next week, but the bar for the sector has been lowered even further.

Chipmakers like Advanced Micro Devices , which is due Tuesday, are expected to underperform as PC sales shrink. AMD shares fell more than 10 percent Friday after disappointing results from its larger competitor, Intel . Still, a chipmaker sector index <.sox> posted its highest weekly close since last April.

Following a recent underperformance, an upside surprise from Apple on Wednesday could trigger a return to the stock from many investors who had abandoned ship.

Other major companies reporting next week include Google , IBM , Johnson & Johnson and DuPont on Tuesday, Microsoft and 3M on Thursday and Procter & Gamble on Friday.

CASH POURING IN, HOUSING DATA COULD HELP

Perhaps the strongest support for equities will come from the flow of cash from fixed income funds to stocks.

The recent piling into stock funds -- $11.3 billion in the past two weeks, the most since 2000 -- indicates a riskier approach to investing from retail investors looking for yield.

"From a yield perspective, a lot of stocks still yield a great deal of money and so it is very easy to see why money is pouring into the stock market," said Stephen Massocca, managing director at Wedbush Morgan in San Francisco.

"You are just not going to see people put a lot of money to work in a 10-year Treasury that yields 1.8 percent."

Housing stocks <.hgx>, already at a 5-1/2 year high, could get a further bump next week as investors eye data expected to support the market's perception that housing is the sluggish U.S. economy's bright spot.

Home resales are expected to have risen 0.6 percent in December, data is expected to show on Tuesday. Pending home sales contracts, which lead actual sales by a month or two, hit a 2-1/2 year high in November.

The new home sales report on Friday is expected to show a 2.1 percent increase.

The federal debt ceiling negotiations, a nagging worry for investors, seemed to be stuck on the back burner after House Republicans signaled they might support a short-term extension.

Equity markets, which tumbled in 2011 after the last round of talks pushed the United States close to a default, seem not to care much this time around.

The CBOE volatility index <.vix>, a gauge of market anxiety, closed Friday at its lowest since April 2007.

"I think the market is getting somewhat desensitized from political drama given, this seems to be happening over and over," said Destination Wealth Management's Yoshikami.

"It's something to keep in mind, but I don't think it's what you want to base your investing decisions on."

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos, additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak and Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

Read More..

New Northern Ireland Violence May Be About More Than the British Flag

Peter Muhly/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Police officers in Belfast, Northern Ireland, remained with their armored vehicles as a car burned after violence between unionists and loyalists on Jan. 12.

BELFAST, Northern Ireland — For more than six weeks, it has been a dismal case of back-to-the-future, a crudely sectarian upheaval that has defied all attempts at peacemaking.

Paul Faith/Press Association, via Associated Press

Loyalist protests began in Belfast after the City Council voted to reduce the number of days a year the British flag was flown in public, to 18 from 365.

The scenes recall the sectarian bitterness that infused the 30 years of virtual civil war known as the Troubles: night after night of street protests marshaled by balaclava-wearing militants, who have updated their tactics by using social media to rally mobs; death threats to prominent politicians, some of whom have fled their homes and hidden under police guard; firebombs, flagstones and rocks hurled at churches, police cars and lawmakers’ offices; protesters joined by rock-throwing boys of 8 and 9; neighborhoods sealed off for hours by the police or protesters’ barricades.

Many had hoped that the old hatreds between Northern Ireland’s two main groups — the mainly Protestant, pro-British unionists, and the mainly Roman Catholic republicans, with their commitment to a united Ireland — would recede permanently under the auspices of the Good Friday agreement. That accord was reached 15 years ago as a blueprint for the power-sharing government that now rules the province.

But the fragility of those hopes has been powerfully demonstrated by more than 40 days and nights of violence that were triggered by a decision to cut back on the flying of the Union Jack, Britain’s red, white and blue national flag, over the grandly pillared, neo-Classical pile City Council building in central Belfast.

By the latest count, more than 100 police officers have been injured, along with dozens of protesters and bystanders. At times, the violence has expanded to other cities, including Londonderry. Business has slumped. Police commanders, their forces overwhelmed, have assigned dozens of officers to scan hundreds of hours of closed-circuit video, looking for ringleaders.

The crisis began modestly enough. The Belfast council, its pro-British members outvoted by a coalition of republicans and a small liberal bloc, decided in early December to limit the flag flying to 18 days a year, as specified by London for all of Britain. Through the decades when the council was dominated by Protestant unionists, committed to links with Britain, the flag flew from the pinnacle of the building every day of the year.

Incongruously, perhaps, most of those 18 days do not represent landmarks in Britain’s history — Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar, say, or Germany’s surrender in the Second World War — but the birthdays of Queen Elizabeth II and her family members, including the former Kate Middleton, now the Duchess of Cambridge, on whose 31st birthday, Jan. 9, the Belfast flag fluttered for the first time since it came down in early December. Under Britain’s strict rules about flying the national standard on public and private buildings, not even the Parliament buildings in London fly it on any but government-designated days. But the hauling down of the Belfast flag provoked a furious reaction, the most protracted period of unrest in many years in Northern Ireland.

Among pro-British loyalists, the episode was seen as part of the step-by-step erosion of the British presence, a stripping of what many of them call their identity. Other examples they invoke have also been symbolic, including moves to delete the word Ulster — an ancient designation for the northern Irish provinces commonly used by Protestants but mostly shunned by republicans — from the formal names of the province’s police force and its military reservists, and to remove the British crown emblem from the cap and shoulder badges of prison guards and other public officials.

But many of the province’s political commentators see the flag dispute as a token of something more profound and ultimately more threatening to the hopes for a permanent peace here.

They say the council’s decision on the flag, made possible by the fact that nationalists now hold 24 seats on the council, compared with 21 for the unionists, reflects the rapid growth of the Catholic population in the years since the Good Friday agreement, unsettling the long-held assumption among unionists that Protestants would constitute a permanent majority in the province.

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Marla Sokoloff Blogs: Adventures in Baby Traveling

Shady ladies in Hawaii – Courtesy Marla Sokoloff

Our celebrity blogger Marla Sokoloff is a new mama!

Since audiences first got to know her at age 12 as Gia on Full House, Sokoloff has had many memorable TV roles — Jody on Party of Five, Lucy on The Practice, Claire on Desperate Housewives – as well as turns on the big screen in Whatever It Takes, Dude, Where’s My Car? and Sugar & Spice.

Sokoloff, 32, also sings and plays guitar and released an album, Grateful, in 2005.

She wed her husband, music composer Alec Puro, in November 2009 and the couple — plus pup Coco Puro — make their home in Los Angeles.

You can find Marla, now mom to 11-month-old daughter Elliotte Anne, on Twitter.

Happy 2013! I don’t know about you, but I’m completely amazed at how fast 2012 flew by! I must admit, on New Year’s Day I found myself a little weepy to say goodbye to the year that my little Elliotte came into this world. I realized that as long as I’m on this earth I will always have a soft spot for the year 2012, as it was a complete life and game-changer for me. (Clearly it’s also the year that turned me into a total sap!)

As far as resolutions go, I have a few. They include the usual suspects (exercise more, get more sleep, drink more than four sips of water per day!) but my main focus is going to be on my beloved iPhone and our very dysfunctional relationship.

I really want to work on being in the present and putting that thing down so I can suck up every delicious moment with my family. The social media and pinboards will just have to wait until after my daughter goes to bed. Baby steps!

Last week we hit a huge milestone … Elliotte took her first steps and is now walking (albeit a bit drunk-like) almost on her own! The moment was truly unbelievable and one that left me in tears (shocking … I know) as I was simply overwhelmed with joy. I was just so proud of her.

This is where my resolution isn’t a good thing because — had I not had my trusty iPhone glued to my body — I might have missed the moment. Her grandparents would have killed me! I’m just saying…

Happy New Year! – Courtesy Marla Sokoloff

We spent our Christmas vacation in paradise on the Big Island of Hawaii, but I’m here to tell you that getting there was nothing short of a nightmare. I’m not going to lie or candy-coat this blog at all because this experience was one I never want to relive.

All of my friends warned me about baby airplane travel … basically it could go either way. Kids are wild cards and you never really know what you’re going to get. So in preparation for my little wild card, I boarded our flight armed with earplugs and chocolates for the innocent passengers that could potentially be caught in the line of fire, so to speak. All the while knowing that I will never need to bring out said earplugs … I mean, my child is perfect after all!

This wasn’t Elliotte’s first flight — over the summer we traveled to San Francisco and my little angel slept for the hour flight each way, so I was certain we had this Hawaiian excursion in the bag.

I came equipped with two giant diaper bags. One was filled with diaper bag essentials (diapers, wipes, pacifiers, bottles, change of clothes for both of us) and the other ridiculously large bag was filled with toys and snacks. So many toys and snacks!! If this plane went down, Elliotte could feed the whole cabin with her copious supply of puffs and Cheerios. Basically the plan was, if this kid wasn’t sleeping, I was going to keep her busy and well-fed!

My special edition diaper bag also contained an emergency item. An SOS of sorts. An article that is generally considered a baby no-no in my house, but one that was only to be revealed if absolutely 100 percent necessary. Friends, I’m talking about the iPad. I loaded my secret weapon up with episodes of Sesame Street and adorable farm animal applications that looked like they would keep Elliotte entertained for at least a temper tantrum or two.

Very much like the aforementioned earplugs, I felt pretty confident that our no-no item wouldn’t be making an appearance.

Before takeoff… – Courtesy Marla Sokoloff

As our flight took off, I could see that Elliotte was not the happy camper I know and love. Her face turned beet-red within seconds and she was thrashing in her carseat as if it was a torture device. The tears were flowing fast and her scream was one that could not be silenced.

I looked at my husband, whose eyes said, “Bring out the iPad!!” but I knew it was way too early in our journey to pull such tricks out of sleeves.

As Alec handed out the chocolate and earplugs to our unlucky neighbors, I brought out some of Elliotte’s favorite toys. Every toy that was presented was met with a louder scream. I moved on to my trusted stash of snacks — surely a handful of puffs would soothe this outburst. Fail. I sang. I danced. I peek-a-booed. Nothing.

How can this be? The seat belt sign hasn’t even been turned off yet and I have pretty much emptied out the contents of my special-edition diaper bag!

Once the captain decided to put me out of my misery and turned the seat belt sign off, I ripped Elliotte out of her carseat (the one I brought thinking she would sleep in) and decided a nice walk down the aisle would do us both some good.

That mission was quickly aborted as the scream-fest continued to unaffected rows that were surely enjoying their cocktails and weekly gossip magazines.

My beach baby in Hawaii – Courtesy Marla Sokoloff

I handed her off to my husband and I took a much-needed break, as well as the first deep breath I had taken since leaving Los Angeles International Airport. We were now three-and-a-half hours into our six-hour flight and Elliotte showed no signs of slowing down. It was in this moment that I turned to my family and saw the chaos.

My seat was littered with toys and Cheerios and my poor child looked like a complete mess. Her face was tear-stained and her clothes were covered in squeezable applesauce. (Another failed mission.)

I knew it was time to bring out the big guns. Elmo needed to step in and he better be bringing his A-game.

I placed Elliotte on my lap and out came the iPad. Images of all of my favorite characters appeared on the screen and I instantly felt comforted by my childhood friends. Not only because they are the same characters that were my source of calm as a child, but also I knew they were the lifesavers we so desperately needed.

Well … I guess iPads and big yellow birds aren’t that comforting to teething babies that are 30,000 feet up in the air. The iPad went flying and I sunk into my seat holding my very unhappy girl tight. I was officially out of ideas.

Hawaiian fun in the sun – Courtesy Marla Sokoloff

A kind woman in front of me asked to hold Elliotte. She saw in my eyes that I was breaking down and she was a mom who got it. She understood. She didn’t judge or hate us for disrupting the beginning of her holiday vacation — she was happy to help because she had once been in our shoes with her own child. Elliotte enjoyed the break from her parents and was actually smiling in her arms.

We finally arrived in paradise and upon landing, Alec and I decided that we were moving to Hawaii as we were never going to step foot on a plane ever again.

In all fairness, in between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Elliotte went from having two teeth to eight teeth so I think the plane and cabin pressure exacerbated any existing pain she was already having. Our journey home was slightly better and she even slept for two beautiful hours!

Thank you for letting me share my story — I would absolutely love to hear some of your travel woes! I’m sure it’s even more fun for those of you who have multiple children.

Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter @marlasok or leave your comments below!

Until next time … xo,

– Marla Sokoloff

More from Marla’s PEOPLE.com blog series:

Read More..

Lilly drug chosen for Alzheimer's prevention study

Researchers have chosen an experimental drug by Eli Lilly & Co. for a large federally funded study testing whether it's possible to prevent Alzheimer's disease in older people at high risk of developing it.

The drug, called solanezumab (sol-ah-NAYZ-uh-mab), is designed to bind to and help clear the sticky deposits that clog patients' brains.

Earlier studies found it did not help people with moderate to severe Alzheimer's but it showed some promise against milder disease. Researchers think it might work better if given before symptoms start.

"The hope is we can catch people before they decline," which can come 10 years or more after plaques first show up in the brain, said Dr. Reisa Sperling, director of the Alzheimer's center at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

She will help lead the new study, which will involve 1,000 people ages 70 to 85 whose brain scans show plaque buildup but who do not yet have any symptoms of dementia. They will get monthly infusions of solanezumab or a dummy drug for three years. The main goal will be slowing the rate of cognitive decline. The study will be done at 50 sites in the U.S. and possibly more in Canada, Australia and Europe, Sperling said.

In October, researchers said combined results from two studies of solanezumab suggested it might modestly slow mental decline, especially in patients with mild disease. Taken separately, the studies missed their main goals of significantly slowing the mind-robbing disease or improving activities of daily living.

Those results were not considered good enough to win the drug approval. So in December, Lilly said it would start another large study of it this year to try to confirm the hopeful results seen patients with mild disease. That is separate from the federal study Sperling will head.

About 35 million people worldwide have dementia, and Alzheimer's is the most common type. In the U.S., about 5 million have Alzheimer's. Current medicines such as Aricept and Namenda just temporarily ease symptoms. There is no known cure.

___

Online:

Alzheimer's info: http://www.alzheimers.gov

Alzheimer's Association: http://www.alz.org

___

Follow Marilynn Marchione's coverage at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

Read More..

Wall Street Week Ahead: Earnings, money flows to push stocks higher

NEW YORK (Reuters) - With earnings momentum on the rise, the S&P 500 seems to have few hurdles ahead as it continues to power higher, its all-time high a not-so-distant goal.

The U.S. equity benchmark closed the week at a fresh five-year high on strong housing and labor market data and a string of earnings that beat lowered expectations.

Sector indexes in transportation <.djt>, banks <.bkx> and housing <.hgx> this week hit historic or multiyear highs as well.

Michael Yoshikami, chief executive at Destination Wealth Management in Walnut Creek, California, said the key earnings to watch for next week will come from cyclical companies. United Technologies reports on Wednesday while Honeywell is due to report Friday.

"Those kind of numbers will tell you the trajectory the economy is taking," Yoshikami said.

Major technology companies also report next week, but the bar for the sector has been lowered even further.

Chipmakers like Advanced Micro Devices , which is due Tuesday, are expected to underperform as PC sales shrink. AMD shares fell more than 10 percent Friday after disappointing results from its larger competitor, Intel . Still, a chipmaker sector index <.sox> posted its highest weekly close since last April.

Following a recent underperformance, an upside surprise from Apple on Wednesday could trigger a return to the stock from many investors who had abandoned ship.

Other major companies reporting next week include Google , IBM , Johnson & Johnson and DuPont on Tuesday, Microsoft and 3M on Thursday and Procter & Gamble on Friday.

CASH POURING IN, HOUSING DATA COULD HELP

Perhaps the strongest support for equities will come from the flow of cash from fixed income funds to stocks.

The recent piling into stock funds -- $11.3 billion in the past two weeks, the most since 2000 -- indicates a riskier approach to investing from retail investors looking for yield.

"From a yield perspective, a lot of stocks still yield a great deal of money and so it is very easy to see why money is pouring into the stock market," said Stephen Massocca, managing director at Wedbush Morgan in San Francisco.

"You are just not going to see people put a lot of money to work in a 10-year Treasury that yields 1.8 percent."

Housing stocks <.hgx>, already at a 5-1/2 year high, could get a further bump next week as investors eye data expected to support the market's perception that housing is the sluggish U.S. economy's bright spot.

Home resales are expected to have risen 0.6 percent in December, data is expected to show on Tuesday. Pending home sales contracts, which lead actual sales by a month or two, hit a 2-1/2 year high in November.

The new home sales report on Friday is expected to show a 2.1 percent increase.

The federal debt ceiling negotiations, a nagging worry for investors, seemed to be stuck on the back burner after House Republicans signaled they might support a short-term extension.

Equity markets, which tumbled in 2011 after the last round of talks pushed the United States close to a default, seem not to care much this time around.

The CBOE volatility index <.vix>, a gauge of market anxiety, closed Friday at its lowest since April 2007.

"I think the market is getting somewhat desensitized from political drama given, this seems to be happening over and over," said Destination Wealth Management's Yoshikami.

"It's something to keep in mind, but I don't think it's what you want to base your investing decisions on."

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos, additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak and Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

Read More..

In Regional Elections, a Microcosm of Trouble Ahead for Merkel

BERLIN — With the national parliamentary election scheduled for September, many in Germany are looking to Lower Saxony, which holds regional elections on Sunday, for clues of what could happen in Berlin this autumn.

Political experts insist that regional elections in Germany have traditionally had little direct influence on the outcome of national elections. But several similarities between Lower Saxony and the German government make it appear a microcosm of the larger political scene.

Like Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government, Lower Saxony’s is led by a center-right coalition of her Christian Democrats and the Free Democrats. The Christian Democratic candidate in the state, David McAllister, is personally popular with voters, as is the chancellor, helping him to close in on his Social Democratic rival, Stephan Weil, making for a tight race.

But also like the chancellor, Mr. McAllister will rely heavily on the Free Democrats’ winning enough votes to earn seats in the regional legislature to continue his current government. In recent surveys, the party has hovered around 5 percent, the threshold needed to secure representation at the regional and national levels.

That polling has focused attention on the vote in Lower Saxony as a make-or-break moment for the party and perhaps even for Ms. Merkel’s coalition in Berlin.

The Free Democratic Party ended a string of losses at the regional level by winning slightly more than 8 percent of the vote in two states last year, North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein. But for now that performance has not translated into a stronger position at the national level.

Many blame a lack of leadership. The party chairman, Philipp Rösler, who also serves as economy minister, consistently ranks as among the country’s least-popular politicians. But Karl-Rudolf Korte, a professor of politics at the University of Duisburg-Essen, says the party’s problems reach deeper than who is at its helm.

“It is not a problem of personality — it is a problem of issues,” Mr. Korte said.

Regardless of the outcome Sunday, he predicts that the party would be well advised to go for a two-pronged approach, keeping Mr. Rösler as its leader, but choosing the party’s parliamentary leader, Rainer Brüderle, as its main candidate because of his popularity.

Traditionally the Free Democrats have provided a clear voice for individual citizens’ rights against an overly powerful nanny state. They have served in more governments in postwar Germany than any other political party, although as the junior coalition partner. Two respected presidents, Theodor Heuss and Walter Scheel, hailed from the Free Democrats, as did an influential former foreign minister, Hans-Dietrich Genscher.

Four years ago, the Free Democratic Party, or F.D.P., emerged with its strongest showing ever, earning 14.6 percent of the vote after campaigning on a promise to cut taxes. But with the euro crisis, that promise has been watered down and the party has failed to find other issues that resonate with voters.

At a party congress this month, Mr. Brüderle sought to drum up support by singling out legislation passed by the current coalition that clearly reflected the Free Democrats’ influence.

“The F.D.P. made the union better,” he said of the coalition, citing the scrapping of required military service, a €10 payment at doctors’ offices, policies affecting growth and consumer protection laws. “We need to believe in ourselves then many others will believe in us.”

A poll by the Forsa Institute, published by the weekly Stern on Wednesday showed the Free Democratic Party getting only 3 percent support, which would translate to their ejection from lower house of Parliament, the Bundestag.

Such an outcome would force Ms. Merkel, whose center-right Christian Democrats appear to be stronger than ever, earning 43 percent support in the Forsa survey, to find a new partner in government.

The center-left Social Democrats, however, polled their lowest since 2011, earning only 23 percent, largely because of a plunge in popularity for their candidate in the national election, Peer Steinbrück.

Manfred Güllner, who heads the Forsa Institute, said that even if the Social Democratic candidate in Lower Saxony, Mr. Weil, could pull off a victory, it would be unlikely to translate into increased support for Mr. Steinbrück.

“The latest survey shows that peoples’ image of Mr. Steinbrück has become increasingly negative,” Mr. Güllner said. “People view him as greedy, arrogant and awkward. Very few people associate him with political competence.”

Mr. Steinbrück’s image as a former finance minister who shepherded Germany through the first days of the financial crisis has been battered by a drawn-out debate over his private earnings from a book and, more recently, a comment that Ms. Merkel benefited from a “women’s bonus.”

Even an attempt by Mr. Steinbrück to change that image by inviting undecided voters to his home for a personal talk backfired earlier this week when the media began reporting that the family of a person in Lower Saxony that was selected from 150 candidates included an active member of the party’s local branch.

A victory by the Social Democrats in Lower Saxony, however, could have a greater impact on national politics through the upper house of Parliament, the Bundesrat, which is made up of representatives of the country’s 16 states. Together with their main political allies, the Greens, they could form a majority.

“If a party is clever, such a majority can be used to block, drag out or otherwise delay any legislative procedure,” Mr. Korte said.

That power would effectively hamper the government’s ability to pass legislation, regardless of their popularity.

Read More..

ASUS in talks with Microsoft to develop a Windows Phone 8 smartphone

The PC industry is in shambles and manufacturers have begun to explore new options to increase revenue. According to The Wall Street Journal, ASUS (2357) is in talks with Microsoft (MSFT) on a licensing deal to offer Windows Phone 8 device. This makes sense for ASUS since smartphone shipments increased by nearly 50% in 2012, compared to a mere 3.2% growth in computer shipments, and the company already has experience in the mobile world after developing a variety of Android tablets.

[More from BGR: Cable companies called ‘monopolies that stifle competition and innovation’]

Benson Lin, the company’s corporate vice president of mobile communication products, revealed in a recent interview that ASUS was hoping to bring its PadFone, a smartphone that can dock into a larger tablet, to the Windows 8 ecosystem.

[More from BGR: Clash of the bantams: The bloody smartphone battle that will take shape in 2013]

“With our Padfone concept, the phone plus tablet, I think it makes sense for Windows 8,” Lin said. “There is no target timeline…but we are interested in making Windows phones.”

The executive also said that ASUS has been in talks with a variety of American carriers in the hopes that its smartphones will launch in the United States in 2013.

This article was originally published on BGR.com

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Inspiring Singers Outshine American Idol's Feuding Judges

TV Watch

American Idol

By Steve Helling

01/17/2013 at 11:00 PM EST

From left: Randy Jackson, Mariah Carey, Ryan Seacrest, Nicki Minaj and Keith Urban

George Holz/FOX

The second episode of American Idol delivered more drama, but a handful of singers managed to eclipse the ongoing feud between new judges Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj. And that's no easy task considering one of the battling divas is wearing a blonde and pink wig.

The night's most memorable contestant was Lazaro Arbos. As he entered the audition room, one thing became immediately clear: the 21-year-old from Naples, Fla., had a severe stutter. Arbos, who emigrated from Cuba when he was 10, told viewers that he had few friends growing up due to his speech impediment.

But something magical happened when he began to sing. His stutter vanished and he gave a moving performance of "Bridge Over Troubled Water." As the judges unanimously put him through to Hollywood, Arbos dissolved into tears.

Equally inspiring was Mariah Pulice, a 19-year-old restaurant hostess from Darien, Ind. The last two years have been difficult for Pulice, who told judges she was recovering from anorexia. "If there was no music," she said, "I would not be alive." After singing the Beatles' "Let it Be," the judges were unanimous in their praise. "I really, really, really felt that song coming from you," said Minaj.

Carey agreed: "You touched me," she said. "I know what it's like to have to sing through tears. I'm proud of you."

But it wasn't all drama and emotion. Minaj started a baffling trend of asking handsome singers if they had a girlfriend. (She also managed to charm the shirts off of a couple of them, although you get the feeling they were happy to show their abs on national TV.) "You have a hole in your pants," she told one contestant. "Why are you looking?" he shot back.

And poor Keith Urban. Sitting between Minaj and Carey, he found himself in the crossfire. "I feel like a scratching post," he said at one point, before repeatedly banging his head on the table.

The judges found a lot of talent in Chicago. All told, 46 contestants were put through to Hollywood. The competition will head to Charlotte, N.C., next Wednesday.

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