Which Tablet to Buy Among Dozens Confuses Shoppers

Holiday shoppers with a tablet computer on their gift list this year might be forgiven for feeling a little panicked.

Look at the tablets available online or at a consumer electronics store and it can be dizzying to choose from among the dozens of slim rectangles with touch screens — each with various sizes, features, prices and applications.

Tablets were supposed to be a simple alternative to the bloated personal computer market. And when “tablet” was synonymous with “iPad,” that was true.

But this is the first holiday season in which the iPad faces competitors that have built up a solid footing in the market. Amazon and Google introduced tablets just in time for the shopping rush. As a result, many consumers and analysts say, the new market of keyboardless computers is quickly becoming as confusing as that of the old-school PC.

“What’s different about this holiday season is that consumers have not just more choice, but really good choices,” said Sarah Rotman Epps, who studies consumer computing trends at Forrester. “There have been many iPad wannabes but no real quality alternatives, and now there are several.”

While choice is a good thing for consumers, she said, it also makes shopping “confusing and complicated.”

For the companies that make tablets, the choice means everything. The stakes are much higher than the sale of individual devices. Each company is trying to snag lifelong customers for their other products — like music, apps, e-books, movies, Web search or word-processing software.

While Apple has dominated the market until now, selling more tablets than any other company, its perch is being threatened by the newcomers.

“Apple left a lot of room for rivals to grow,” said Tero Kuittinen, an independent mobile analyst.

By keeping its tablet prices so high, he said, Apple could lose its place as the biggest tablet seller, just as it did with smartphones when it lost the first-place position to Samsung, which makes less expensive phones using Google’s Android software. The iPad still dominates the market with a 50 percent share, according to third-quarter figures from the research firm IDC, but that is down from 60 percent a year ago. Samsung is in second place with an 18 percent share, Amazon is third with 9 percent, and Asus, which makes Google’s Nexus 7 tablet, is in fourth with 8.6 percent of the market.

But Google, which makes the vast majority of its revenue on Web ads, still lags in the tablet market, even though sales of its Nexus 7 tablet are approaching one million a month, according to Asus. About 98 percent of Web traffic from tablets comes from iPads, according to Onswipe, a digital publishing company. Google would like more of that traffic, as well as more buyers for apps and media from its Google Play store, as would Amazon and Microsoft.

“The first decision you make is what ecosystem am I in, do I want the Android Play store and content or some other?” said Hiroshi Lockheimer, Google’s vice president for engineering for Android. “So the importance of the ecosystem can’t be overstated.”

But the decisions after that are still complex.

Say, for example, that you want a tablet that runs Google’s Android operating system. There is the Nexus 7, a seven-inch tablet made by Asus, and the Nexus 10, a 10-inch tablet made by Samsung. Then there are the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 and the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (not to be confused with the Samsung Galaxy Note 2, a 5.5-inch smartphone). And that’s not to mention the dozens of Android tablets made by Lenovo, Toshiba and others.

This year, Microsoft also has a tablet, called Surface. Amazon has the Kindle Fire and Fire HD, and Barnes & Noble has the Nook HD and HD+. Once shoppers choose one, they have more choices to make, like whether they want to pay $15 more for the privilege of not seeing ads on the Kindle Fire.

Even Apple, which has always prided itself on having simple product lines, now offers the new iPad, the older iPad 2 and the iPad Mini. If you factor in the various amounts of storage and the choice of cellular data or just Wi-Fi, there are essentially 14 iPad models to choose from.

Complicating the decision on hardware, different tablets connect to different online stores for apps, music and video. If you have built your music and app collection on Apple devices, an Android tablet may mean starting from scratch, and vice versa.

The proliferation of products is nothing new for a mature market, as anyone who has stood in front of a wall of televisions at Best Buy or in a parking lot of Priuses at a Toyota dealership knows.

But some consumer electronics companies that have given their customers too many options have run into trouble, said Shaw Wu, an analyst at Sterne Agee. They include Motorola Mobility, which is trying to rescue its cellphone business by paring its lineup of 27 devices, and Research in Motion, which offers a perplexing matrix of BlackBerrys with confusing names, like the BlackBerry Torch 9810, 9850 and 9860.

Google in particular runs this risk, said Michael Gartenberg, a technology analyst at Gartner, because it gives away its Android operating system to any device manufacturer that wants to use it, resulting in an uncontrolled array of Android devices running different versions of the software. Some apps will work only with particular versions, making it difficult to know exactly what you are getting.

Google has tried to address this problem in recent months. It gave its line of Nexus products names corresponding to their screen size and began selling them in its Play store. (Google teams up with manufacturers to build the Nexus devices.) It began running ads for the tablets online, on billboards, in print and on television, which had been rare for the company, and assigned a public relations employee to focus on selling hardware to consumers.

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A young shooting victim wrestles with his fears

After the nightmares started, Davien Graham avoided his bicycle.

In his dreams, he pedaled his silver BMX bike through his neighborhood, heard gunfire and died.

If I stay off my bike, I'll be safe, he thought.

He placed it in a backyard shed, where it sat for months. But Jan. 12, 2008, dawned so spectacular that Davien decided to risk it.

He ate Cap'n Crunch Berries cereal, grabbed the bike and rode a half-mile west to Calvary Grace, a Southern Baptist church that was his haven.

Davien lived with an unemployed aunt and uncle, a former Crip, and five other kids in a cramped four-bedroom house in Monrovia, about 20 miles east of Los Angeles.

Yet as a 16-year-old junior at Monrovia High School, Davien earned A's and B's, played JV football and volunteered with the video club. He cleaned the church on Saturdays for minimum wage.

If I live right, God will protect me.

That afternoon, sweaty from cleaning, Davien reached for his wallet to buy a snack — only to realize he had forgotten it at home.

After returning to his house, he caught his reflection in the front window. He was 6 feet 2 and wiry. His skinny chest was beginning to broaden. He was trying to add weight to his 160-pound frame in time for varsity football tryouts.

He showered, told his aunt he would be right back and again jumped on his bike, size-14 Nike Jordans churning, heading for a convenience store near the church.

At the store, he bought Arizona fruit punch and lime chili Lay's potato chips. He recognized a kindergarten-age Latino boy and bought him Twinkies.

Davien pedaled down the empty sidewalk along Peck Road. He could hear kids playing basketball nearby. As he neared the church, a car passed, going in the opposite direction. He barely noticed.

He heard car tires crunching on asphalt behind him. He glanced back, expecting a friend.

Instead he heard: "Hey, fool."

The gun was gray. It had a slide. Davien recognized that much from watching the Military Channel.

Behind the barrel, he saw forearms braced to fire and the face of a Latino man, a former classmate.

The gunman shouted, "Dirt Rock!," cursing a local black gang, the Duroc Crips.

Davien's mind raced: Don't panic. Watch the barrel. Duck.

Suddenly, he was falling. Then he was on the ground, looking up at the church steeple and the cross.

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Israel's Rocket-Hunting Ace Got His Start Playing <em>Warcraft</em>

War has once again erupted between Hamas and the Israel Defense Forces, with the Gaza-based militant group launching hundreds of rockets and missiles at Israeli towns. But many of these projectiles never made it to their targets, thanks to the new Iron Dome missile defense system that’s arguably become this conflict’s most important technological difference-maker. This article, first published in April, tracks the story of Iron Dome’s most prolific “gunner.” While his record for shooting down missiles and rockets has by now undoubtedly fallen, the tale still gives insight into the battle now gripping Israel and Gaza.

KFAR GVIROL, Israel — While many of the boys in Idan Yahya’s high school class were buffing up and preparing themselves for selection into elite combat units, this gawky teenager was spending “a lot of time” playing Warcraft — the real-time strategy computer game where opposing players command virtual armies in a battle to dominate the fictional world of Azeroth.

Four years later, the high school jocks who sweated it out in pre-military academies so they could make the cut into the Israel Defense Force’s Special Operations units are now crawling through the sand dunes on the outskirts of the Gaza Strip and watching while Idan knocks rockets out of the sky hundreds of meters above their heads. Idan Yahya, 22, an Iron Dome “gunner” in the Active Air Defense Wing 167, currently holds the record for the number of rockets intercepted: eight.

People in the army describe him variously as a geek and an ace. But the geek who grew up playing Warcraft is now a highly prized soldier on the cutting edge of real war craft. He’s the Israeli army’s top rocket interceptor.

The Iron Dome is a mobile anti-rocket interception system that Israel moves around the country to shoot down the rockets fired at its civilian population centers by armed groups in Gaza and southern Lebanon. Its radar picks up launches and fires interceptor missiles at them if they’re calculated to be heading towards populated centers. The system has become increasingly important as Hamas, Hezbollah and other groups amass surface-to-surface missiles to hit the Israeli home front with, thus bypassing the Israel Defense Force’s overwhelming advantage of concentrated firepower and fighter aircraft. Should Israel attack Iran’s nuclear installations, the expected rocket reprisals from the armed groups on its borders will keep Iron Dome very, very busy.

As the war between Israelis and Arabs enters its sixth decade (or its 500th depending on who you ask), it is increasingly becoming a hi-tech rocket war. The IDF’s Director of Military Intelligence Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi in February said there were 200,000 rockets aimed at Israel from the south, north and east. And in this increasingly technological battlefield of rockets, anti-rocket interceptors, radars, control rooms, drones and drone hacking, it is soldiers like Idan Yahya (and whoever his counterparts on the Arab side are) who are making the most impact.

Computer geek, keyboard combatant, soldier, call him what you will, Idan and others like him man the controls of the latest rock star in advanced military technology. “There are a lot of flashing blips, signs, symbols, colors and pictures on the screen. You look at your tactical map; see where the threat is coming from. You have to make sure you’re locked onto the right target. There’s a lot of information and there is very little time. It definitely reminds me of Warcraft and other online strategy games,” Idan says.

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Larry Clark film wins top prize at Rome fest

ROME (AP) — A film by “Kids” director Larry Clark set in a small Texan town and to be released online only has taken the top award at Rome’s film festival.

“Marfa Girl” explores the inner life of a teenage boy and other characters in a town near the Mexican border and bustling with border patrol police.

The festival jury gave it the Golden Marcus Aurelius prize for best film on Saturday night.

Clark, whose other credits include “Bully” and “Ken Park,” says the new film won’t be distributed in theaters but will be available online later this month to get around the Hollywood system.

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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The Neediest Cases: Emerging From a Bleak Life to Become Fabulous Phil

For years, Phillip Johnson was caught in what seemed like an endless trench of bad luck. He was fired from a job, experienced intensifying psychological problems, lost his apartment and spent time in homeless shelters. At one point, he was hospitalized after overdosing on an antipsychotic drug.

“I had a rough road,” he said.

Since his hospital stay two years ago, and despite setbacks, Mr. Johnson, 27, has been getting his life on track. At Brooklyn Community Services, where he goes for daily counseling and therapy, everybody knows him as Fabulous Phil.

“Phillip is a light, the way he evokes happiness in other people,” his former caseworker, Teresa O’Brien, said. “Phillip’s character led directly to his nickname.”

About six months ago, with Ms. O’Brien’s help, Mr. Johnson started an event: Fabulous Phil Friday Dance Party Fridays.

One recent afternoon at the agency, 30 clients and a few counselors were eating cake, drinking soft drinks and juice, and grooving for 45 minutes to Jay-Z and Drake pulsating from a boom box.

Mr. Johnson’s voice rose with excitement when he talked about the party. Clients and counselors, he said, “enjoy themselves.”

“They connect more; they communicate more,” he continued. “Everybody is celebrating and laughing.”

The leadership Mr. Johnson now displays seems to be a far cry from the excruciatingly introverted person he was.

As an only child living with his single mother in public housing in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, he said, he tended to isolate himself. “A lot of kids my age would say, ‘Come outside,’ but I would always stay in my room,” he said. He occupied himself by writing comic books or reading them, his favorites being Batman and Spiderman because, he said, “they were heroes who saved the day.”

After graduating from high school in 2003, he worked odd jobs until 2006, when he took a full-time position at a food court at La Guardia Airport, where he helped to clean up. The steady paycheck allowed him to leave his mother’s apartment and rent a room in Queens.

But the depression and bleak moods that had shadowed him throughout middle and high school asserted themselves.

“My thinking got confused,” he said. “Racing thoughts through my mind. Disorganized thoughts. I had a hard time focusing on one thing.”

In 2008, after two years on the job, Mr. Johnson was fired for loud and inappropriate behavior, and for being “unpredictable,” he said. The boss said he needed counseling. He moved back in with his mother, and in 2009 entered a program at an outpatient addiction treatment service, Bridge Back to Life. It was there, he said, that he received a diagnosis of schizophrenia and help with his depression and marijuana use.

But one evening in May 2010, he had a bout with insomnia.

He realized the antipsychotic medication he had been prescribed, Risperdal, made him feel tired, he said, so he took 12 of the pills, rather than his usual dosage of two pills twice a day. When 12 did not work, he took 6 more.

“The next morning when I woke up, it was hard for me to breathe,” he said.

He called an ambulance, which took to Woodhull Hospital. He was released after about a month.

Not long after, he returned to his mother’s apartment, but by February 2011, they both decided he should leave, and he relocated to a homeless shelter in East New York, where, he said, eight other people were crammed into his cubicle and there were “bedbugs, people lying in your bed, breaking into your locker to steal your stuff.”

In late spring 2011, he found a room for rent in Manhattan, but by Thanksgiving he was hospitalized again. Another stint in a shelter followed in April, when his building was sold.

Finally, in July, Mr. Johnson moved to supported housing on Staten Island, where he lives with a roommate. His monthly $900 Social Security disability check is sent to the residence, which deducts $600 for rent and gives him $175 in spending money; he has breakfast and lunch at the Brooklyn agency. To assist Mr. Johnson with unexpected expenses, a grant of $550 through The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund went to buy him a bed and pay a Medicare prescription plan fee for three months.

“I was so happy I have a bed to sleep on,” he said about the replacement for an air mattress. “When I have a long day, I have a bed to lay in, and I feel good about that.”

Mr. Johnson’s goals include getting his driver’s license — “I already have a learner’s permit,” he said, proudly — finishing his program at the agency, and then entering an apprenticeship program to become a plumber, carpenter or mechanic.

But seeing how his peers have benefited from Fabulous Phil Fridays has made him vow to remain involved with people dealing with mental illnesses or substance abuse.

He was asked at the party: Might he be like the comic-book heroes he loves? A smile spread across his face. He seemed to think so.

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Marcellus Shale County Aims for Long-Term Gain

WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — The flames started slowly, emerging from the top of oil field equipment, and then quickly grew to a roar.

This was not an emergency, though it looked like one. It was a “burn exercise” for safety workers in the oil and gas industry, part of a new course at the Pennsylvania College of Technology.

A gas boom has brought companies and workers into parts of Pennsylvania that lie atop the Marcellus Shale formation, a rich source of both natural gas and controversy. The common economic criticism of the drilling industry is that it booms and then busts, generating few local jobs and leaving little lasting economic benefit.

But Lycoming County, in the north-central part of the state, is trying to change that.

The county and its main city, Williamsport, are working diligently to position themselves not just as a host to the arriving companies, but also as a source of local workers for the industry and a long-term beneficiary of its local and national expansion.

The industry helped give the Williamsport metropolitan area the seventh-fastest-growing economy in the United States in 2010, according to figures released last year by the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis. Four new hotels have been built in town, and restaurants and bars have sprouted, including a barbecue place to meet the carnivorous needs of homesick Texans and Oklahomans.

“We’re wrapping our arms around the industry,” said Williamsport’s mayor, Gabe Campana. “Drill, baby, drill!”

County officials, to help deal with the impact of the boom, examined the early effects on housing, roads, social services, and water and sewage infrastructure.

The college, part of the Pennsylvania State University system, increased efforts to train local workers, educating 7,000 students in short courses since 2009 and expanding two- and four-year degree programs as well. The initiative is part of its work with a consortium of colleges called ShaleNET, financed with a $15 million federal grant.

Thanks to such initiatives, said Kurt Hausammann, the county’s director of planning, “we are seeing more of our own Pennsylvania youth and young professionals getting into the gas industry now.”

Local businesses have also stepped up to work with the industry. The Ralph S. Alberts Company makes custom molded polymers, anything from seats for amusement park rides to medical training mannequins. “We really have been able to adapt and almost continually change our identity to keep up with whatever new technology is coming around,” said Edward Alberts, the company’s president.

When the drillers came to town, the company quickly found a way to apply its expertise to the industry’s needs, opening a business that constructs containment pens for drilling and storage equipment that are lined with heavy-duty spray-on polymer so that any spills do not contaminate the soil. The company is building the enclosures in Pennsylvania and Ohio, and drillers are talking to it about taking on jobs in Texas.

Despite the opportunities, the jobs do not suit everyone, said Westley Smith, who was raised in nearby Mifflinburg and designs critical welding processes for pipelines. Many people in the industry work six days a week, 10 hours a day, he said, and “a lot of people around here don’t typically want to do that.”

Tracy L. Brundage, Penn College’s assistant vice president for work-force and economic development, said training courses often started with an information session attended by 200 people. The instructor begins with the “work ethic components” of these jobs, including the long hours and the requirement that workers be physically fit and drug free. “By break time,” she said, “half of the room is gone.”

Evan DiCiolli, a 24-year-old Californian working on gas wells near town, said that while local residents might object to the inconveniences associated with the drilling boom, “this is calm” compared with the year he spent in North Dakota. Stores there were unable to keep the shelves stocked, he said, and men slept in their cars because hotel rooms and apartments could not be had.

Mr. DiCiolli, who was enjoying a rare night off at Bullfrog Brewery, a restaurant downtown, added of those who disapprove of the drilling going on around them: “Don’t frown on the things people do to get natural resources out of the ground when you’re using the resources.”

Environmentalists contend that state and local governments have grossly overstated the economic benefits while playing down the environmental risks of shale drilling.

Anne and Eric Nordell started their organic farm in Trout Run, 25 miles from Williamsport, in the 1980s. From the highest point on their 90 acres, one can see drilling rigs and platforms on the surrounding hills, as well as deforestation that makes way for the drilling platforms and the roads to get to them. “We’re just praying that our water will be safe,” Ms. Nordell said.

“The first indication that we have any type of contamination, we will shut down,” she added. “I eat the food that I grow, and I will not sell anything that’s unsafe.”

Ralph Kisberg, the president of the Responsible Drilling Alliance, an environmental group, said he was not trying to block the gas boom. “We know it can’t be stopped,” he said. But, he added, the state should benefit more from the removal of its resources.

A new state law, Act 13, includes fees for the industry that generated about $200 million in revenue in its first year, but that amount is expected to drop off quickly. Mr. Kisberg said the state could receive far more money over time through a direct tax on the gas itself.

Mark Price, a labor economist at the liberal-leaning Keystone Research Center in Harrisburg, estimated that the industry had generated 20,000 jobs in Pennsylvania since the first quarter of 2008. While “any job over that time period is one to be lauded,” he said, the total constituted less than half a percentage point of all employment in the state.

(The Marcellus Shale Coalition, an industry group, argues that if all jobs tied to shale gas are counted, the number rises to 234,000.)

Mr. Price said he was skeptical that Pennsylvania could buffer the cycle of boom and bust, one the state had seen before with timber and coal. The area has already had a taste of what a bust might be like; natural gas prices have dropped in the past year, and drilling has slowed.

“You would think that there would be a sensitivity to this issue,” Mr. Price said. “But memories are short.”

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Veteran L.A. County sheriff's deputy charged with murder

After spending much of his life putting people behind bars, a veteran L.A. County sheriff's deputy stood in handcuffs Thursday, charged with gunning down a former neighbor who apparently got into a fight with his son.

Francisco Gamez, 41, is accused of shooting Armando "Cookie" Casillas, a well-known figure in his blue-collar neighborhood in Sylmar.

Gamez was off duty, sitting in his car, when he allegedly fired two shots on the night of June 17, killing Casillas and narrowly missing a second man, prosecutors said.

Gamez, a 17-year veteran who worked as a detective in West Hollywood, was allegedly furious over a fight between his 20-year-old son and Casillas, 38, prosecutors said. The younger Gamez had called his father to the scene, authorities said.

Casillas was later found by relatives lying near his home, and died later at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center.

Gamez was removed from duty in July after witnesses and evidence tied the detective to the slaying, authorities said. He was arrested Wednesday and led handcuffed from his San Fernando home by his former co-workers.

On Thursday he was formally charged with murder, attempted murder and discharging a firearm from an occupied vehicle. Gamez could face 75 years to life in prison if convicted of all charges.

In court, where he stood handcuffed in a plexiglass cage, sheriff's deputies peeked into the room to gawk at their former colleague. Sheriff Lee Baca described the whole thing as "deeply disturbing."

Gamez is being held on $4-million bail.

On Beaver Street in Sylmar, where the shooting occurred, Casillas' photo sat in a frame in the midst of a makeshift memorial, along with a cross and a potted plant with U.S. and Mexican flags and candles.

"He was a sweetheart, and very generous," said Patsy Telles-Cabrera, who lived across the street from Casillas for years. "He would check in on my parents." She left a box of chocolates at the growing shrine.

"It never should have happened," said one neighbor. "This is a family neighborhood."

sam.quinones@latimes.com

richard.winton@latimes.com

Times staff writer Wesley Lowery contributed to this report.

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A Google-a-Day Puzzle for Nov. 16

Our good friends at Google run a daily puzzle challenge and asked us to help get them out to the geeky masses. Each day’s puzzle will task your googling skills a little more, leading you to Google mastery. Each morning at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time you’ll see a new puzzle posted here.

SPOILER WARNING:
We leave the comments on so people can work together to find the answer. As such, if you want to figure it out all by yourself, DON’T READ THE COMMENTS!

Also, with the knowledge that because others may publish their answers before you do, if you want to be able to search for information without accidentally seeing the answer somewhere, you can use the Google-a-Day site’s search tool, which will automatically filter out published answers, to give you a spoiler-free experience.

And now, without further ado, we give you…

TODAY’S PUZZLE:

Note: Ad-blocking software may prevent display of the puzzle widget.

Ken is a husband and father from the San Francisco Bay Area, where he works as a civil engineer. He also wrote the NYT bestselling book "Geek Dad: Awesomely Geeky Projects for Dads and Kids to Share."

Read more by Ken Denmead

Follow @fitzwillie and @wiredgeekdad on Twitter.

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“Gangnam Style” song channels New Yorkers’ power woes

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Move over Psy. The next hot thing – at least on Long Island, New York – is a music video parodying the South Korean rapper and dancer’s blockbuster hit, “Gangnam Style.”

While the locally produced “LIPA Style” may not attract millions of YouTube views, it’s channeling the frustration of thousands of disgruntled New Yorkers, many of whom went weeks without power after Sandy slammed the East Coast last month.

“There’s been this outpouring of thanks,” said John “Online” Mingione, a correspondent for a Long Island radio station, who created the video after going more than week without power.

After watching the video, people “are saying this is the first time they’ve been able to smile in weeks,” said Mingione.

The response to the cleanup by the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) has resulted in lawsuits and investigations. The chief operating officer of the state-owned utility also quit under fire for the company’s slow response in restoring power.

Mingione, 23, did not initially mind going without power at his Long Island home. But after five days, the food and friends were gone, and he started to get lonely and bored. A colleague came up with the idea for the song, which was inspired by thousands of complaints the station – WBLI/106.1 FM – received from listeners.

In less than a week, the video with its lyrics about life without power, pleas for help from LIPA and absurd dance moves performed by Mingione and two co-workers in faux LIPA uniforms with a local 5-year-old has been viewed more than 250,000 times on YouTube.

Mingione’s favorite line: “I’m running out of formula, my baby won’t stop crying” which included footage with a co-worker’s infant son.

“I know they’re working their hardest,” he said. “It’s not the linemen’s fault, but at this point it’s ridiculous that people are still without power.”

(Reporting by Jilian Mincer; Editing by Paul Thomasch and Jackie Frank)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Recipes for Health: Baked Acorn Squash With Wild Rice — Recipes for Health

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

The filling here is a Greco-Italian fusion, with a little American (wild rice) thrown in. I’m usually not a fusion sort of cook, but I wanted something creamy like risotto to fill these squash. Look for small acorn squash so that each person can have one. They’ll be like miniature vegetarian (or vegan) turkeys.

6 small acorn squash

1 bunch kale or 1 10-ounce package stemmed and washed kale, stems picked out and discarded

1 cup cooked wild rice (1/3 cup uncooked)*

1 quart vegetable stock

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1/2 cup minced onion

Salt to taste

2/3 cup arborio rice

1 plump garlic clove, minced

1/2 cup dry white wine, like pinot grigio or sauvignon blanc

1/4 cup chopped fresh dill

1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley Freshly ground pepper to taste

1/4 to 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese (1 to 2 ounces) (optional)

Cayenne or freshly grated nutmeg to taste (optional)

1. Heat the oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with foil and brush the foil with olive oil. Place the squash in the oven and bake 30 minutes. Each squash should be intact but beginning to give on the side it’s resting on, and soft enough to cut through. Remove from the oven and let sit for 15 minutes, until the squash has cooled slightly. Then, resting a squash on the slightly flattened side that it was sitting on in the oven, cut away the top third. You will be putting the top “cap” back on once the squash is filled, so cut it off in one neat slice. Scrape out the seeds and membranes from both pieces and set aside. Repeat for the remaining squash. Turn the oven heat down to 350 degrees. Oil a baking dish or sheet pan that can accommodate all of the squash.

2. Meanwhile, blanch the kale in a large pot of salted boiling water for 2 to 4 minutes, until just tender. Transfer to a bowl of cold water, drain and squeeze out excess water. Chop medium-fine and set aside. Cook the wild rice, following the directions below, and set aside.

3. Put the stock into a saucepan and bring it to a simmer over low heat, with a ladle nearby. Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil over medium heat in a wide, heavy nonstick saucepan or skillet. Add the onion and a generous pinch of salt, and cook gently until it is just tender, 3 to 5 minutes.

4. Add the arborio rice and garlic and stir until the grains separate and begin to crackle. Add the wine and stir until it has been absorbed. Begin adding the simmering stock, a couple of ladlefuls (about 1/2 cup) at a time. The stock should just cover the rice, and should be bubbling, not too slowly but not too quickly. Cook, stirring often, until it is just about absorbed. Add another ladleful or two of the stock and continue to cook in this fashion, adding more stock and stirring when the rice is almost dry. You do not have to stir constantly, but stir often. Continue to add stock and stir until the rice is almost tender, about 20 minutes. The rice should still be a little chewy. Add another ladleful of stock and stir in the kale, wild rice and herbs. Stir together until the stock is just about absorbed, about 5 minutes, and add another ladleful of stock. Remove from the heat. Add pepper, taste and adjust seasonings. Stir in the remaining olive oil and the Parmesan if using.

5. Season the surface of the acorn squash with salt, pepper and nutmeg or cayenne (if desired). Fill the hollowed-out squash with the risotto. Place the tops back on the squash and put them in the baking dish or on the sheet pan.

6. Bake 40 minutes, or until the squash is tender all the way through when pierced with a knife.

* To cook the wild rice, bring 2 cups of the stock or water to boil in a medium saucepan. Add salt to taste and the wild rice. When the water returns to the boil, reduce the heat, cover and simmer 40 to 45 minutes, until the rice is tender and has begun to splay. Drain and transfer the rice to a large bowl.

Yield: 6 to 8 generous servings

Advance preparation: The risotto can be made a day ahead, but you will want to heat it and add a little more stock to get the creaminess that will be lost overnight.

Nutritional information per serving (6 servings): 366 calories; 5 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 3 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 milligrams cholesterol; 75 grams carbohydrates; 9 grams dietary fiber; 53 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 9 grams protein

Nutritional information per serving (8 servings): 274 calories; 4 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 3 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 milligrams cholesterol; 56 grams carbohydrates; 7 grams dietary fiber; 40 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 6 grams protein

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health

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