Jake Flannigan filmed every in-state basketball game played by Chicago's Simeon Career Academy during the 2011--12 season. He saw Simeon's star forward, Jabari Parker, score 40 points one day and block 12 shots another. But his lasting impression of Jabari was formed when the camera was off. After a home game in which Jabari barely missed a triple double, Flannigan, a producer at Comcast SportsNet Chicago, waited outside the locker room for an interview. Jabari never appeared. He had used another exit to return to the court for the jayvee game and was behind the bench passing out water. "The other varsity players were out in the hallway, talking to girls by the snack stand," says Flannigan. "The best player in the city was being ... Continue reading →

By Alastair Sharp and Cameron French TORONTO | Tue May 15, 2012 11:07am EDT TORONTO May 15 (Reuters) - Mobile payments in Canada moved a step closer to reality on Tuesday as a major bank and the country's largest wireless carrier teamed up to launch a "mobile wallet" that puts credit card credentials onto smartphones. Rogers Communications and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce said at a joint news conference the mobile wallets will be available later this year and will be the first in Canada."It will no doubt change the way Canadians pay for purchases," said David Williamson, CIBC's head of retail banking.Rogers had 9.3 million wireless customers at the end of March, and CIBC is Canada's fifth-largest bank. Rogers is paying the bank a ... Continue reading →

By Dave Warner Tue May 15, 2012 1:59am EDT (Reuters) - Professional body piercer Dave Hurban is a man attached to his iPod. Literally. Hurban, 21, who works in a tattoo parlor in Newfield, New Jersey, implanted four metal studs in the skin of his wrist and secured his iPod to them magnetically."I just invented the strapless watch," he said on Monday of his Apple Inc device, set to display a clock.Hurban cheerfully recounted how he mapped out the four corners of the iPod on his arm and then inserted four titanium studs into his skin. Once the incisions healed, he popped on his iPod, which is held in place magnetically."It's way simpler than you think it is," said Hurban, who posted his "How To" ... Continue reading →

By Svea Herbst-Bayliss and Sinead Carew Mon May 14, 2012 4:20pm EDT (Reuters) - Hedge fund manager Philip Falcone's dream of bringing another wireless network to the United States appeared to collapse on Monday when LightSquared Inc, the ailing telecommunications company he bankrolled, filed for bankruptcy protection. LightSquared and many affiliates filed for protection from creditors with the U.S. bankruptcy court in Manhattan in a move that had been widely expected for weeks as Falcone, one of the hedge fund industry's most powerful players, and LightSquared's creditors failed to reach an agreement.One of the issues both sides haggled over was what role Falcone, whose Harbinger Capital Partners owned 96 percent of LightSquared, would have going forward, people familiar with the matter said.Creditors no longer wanted ... Continue reading →

By Dina Zayed and Alistair Lyon CAIRO/LONDON | Sun May 13, 2012 4:28am EDT CAIRO/LONDON (Reuters) - Military police idly guard the gates of Egypt's presidential palace in Heliopolis, built as a 400-room luxury hotel in 1910 and vacant since a popular uprising deposed Hosni Mubarak 15 months ago. Egyptians, who never stormed in to gawk and plunder their fallen leader's home as Tunisians and Libyans did last year, vote on May 23 and 24 for a new president, the latest stage of an uncertain transition guided bumpily by the military.People who live in the wealthy Cairo district around the palace are delighted to be spared the road closures that snarled traffic for hours every time Mubarak went anywhere.But some, such as 24-year-old Sara Hussein, ... Continue reading →

By Sarah McBride SAN FRANCISCO | Sun May 13, 2012 8:18am EDT SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - For the handful of venture capitalists who backed Facebook in its early days, a huge financial payoff is not the only thing they may be celebrating when the company goes public later this week. In a business in which the best investment opportunities flow to a small number of firms with big reputations, the prestige boost that Accel Partners, Greylock Partners and Meritech Capital have gained from their Facebook investments dating back to 2005 and 2006 could pay dividends for years to come."The person, often the firm too, gets that patina," said Lisa Edgar, who tracks a range of venture investors in her work evaluating venture-capital firms for fund-of-funds ... Continue reading →

By Michael Shields and Alex Lawler VIENNA | Sun May 13, 2012 6:35am EDT VIENNA (Reuters) - Spat at in public by a fellow Libyan who called him a thief, watching his back on long walks through Vienna, eating poorly; Muammar Gaddafi's fugitive oil supremo was a troubled man in the months before he was found drowned in the Danube two weeks ago. Just whom, or what, Shokri Ghanem feared may hold a key to his mysterious sudden death, just as he was under mounting pressure to reveal what he knew of suspect deals with foreign oil buyers that made billionaires of the late dictator's family.Ghanem, a former prime minister who ran Libya's oil industry until he fled during last year's civil war, was in ... Continue reading →

By Margot Roosevelt COLUMBIA, South Carolina | Sun May 13, 2012 3:01am EDT COLUMBIA, South Carolina (Reuters) - Mack McDowell likes to spend time at the local knife and gun show "drooling over firearms," as he puts it. Retired after 30 years in the U.S. Army, he has lined his study with books on war, framed battalion patches from his tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, a John Wayne poster, and an 1861 Springfield rifle from an ancestor who fought in the Civil War. But when it comes to the 2012 presidential election, Master Sergeant McDowell is no hawk.In South Carolina's January primary, the one-time Reagan supporter voted for Ron Paul "because of his unchanging stand against overseas involvement." In November, McDowell plans to vote for ... Continue reading →

By Catherine Bremer and Paul Taylor PARIS | Sun May 6, 2012 8:23pm EDT PARIS (Reuters) - Socialist Francois Hollande swept to victory in France's presidential election on Sunday in a swing to the left at the heart of Europe and promised to start a pushback against German-led austerity policies. Hollande led conservative incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy by 51.3 percent to 48.7 percent with 83 percent of votes counted, the Interior Ministry said, bringing the center-left back to government in Paris after a decade in opposition."Europe is watching us," the president-elect said in a victory speech in his constituency of Tulle in central France. "I'm sure that in many European countries there is relief and hope at the idea that austerity does not have to be ... Continue reading →