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Washington Examiner — The top-selling video games in the U.S. in February, by number of copies sold, according to NPD Group:

DailyFinance — At $639 billion, Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy was the biggest in U.S. history. Now a federal judge has released a report saying that rather than working to prevent the collapse, senior Lehman executives, auditor Ernst & Young and other investment banks may actually have hastened it. ~ Continue reading Lehman Brothers ...More Hastened Its Own Bankruptcy: Report ~ Lehman Brothers Hastened Its Own Bankruptcy: Report originally appeared on DailyFinance on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:17:00. ~ Filed Under: Company News , JP Morgan Chase , Citigroup Permalink | Tweet this! | Comments ...Less

Associated Press — NEW YORK (AP) -- Police departments across the country are stepping up efforts to recruit officers who can speak more than one language, in some cases offering raises or even sending cops abroad as part of immersion programs....

Associated Press — WASHINGTON — The House voted unanimously Thursday to impeach a U.S. district judge from Louisiana, who lawmakers said avoided likely criminal charges related to alleged payoffs in part because the statute of limitations expired.

Telegraph — Criticism of Israel and Zionism led to a rise of anti-Jewish sentiment around the world in 2009, the US said on Thursday in a report that denounced "new forms" of anti-Semitism.

Washington Examiner — Mexican drug cartels are infiltrating federal law enforcement agencies along the southwest border and those charged with weeding them out say they don't have the money to catch all the corrupt agents, homeland security officials told a U.S. Senate panel Thursday.

Liveshots — Attempting to end his visit to Israel on a positive note, in his final speech, US Vice President Joe Biden stressed the enduring friendship between Israel and the United States.  But it was impossible to ignore the bad blood which boiled to the surface on this visit. The headlines in the Hebrew press read that He’d ...More been “embarrassed” by Israel, “The Slap heard Round the World”, read once newspaper. It was a reference to Israel’s announcement of new Jewish housing to be built in disputed East Jerusalem. Palestinians want that for the Capitol of their future state. The Government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says East Jerusalem is not negotiable and will be part of Israel after a final peace agreement.  His government seems committed to claiming the land one brick at a time, with no Palestinian input. ~ This, of course, humiliated Vice President Biden who is here representing a President who once demanded Israel halt all construction on disputed land. The only option for the Vice President was to rebuke the Israelis. He said, “That decision, in my view, undermined the trust required for productive negotiations. I, at the request of President Obama, condemned it immediately and unequivocally.” ~ The call for 1600 new apartments in East Jerusalem was bolstered by newspaper reports saying another 50-thousand units are in various stages of planning for East Jerusalem as well. ~ The probable casualty of Israel’s defiance is the only victory the Obama administration can boast in the Middle East.  Envoy George Mitchell was able to secure an agreement for 3 party talks with the US mediating.  It represents a step back from direct negotiations, but the hope was that the talks could steamroll into something more productive. ~ Upon hearing Israel’s plan for new construction, the Secretary General of the Arab league, Amr Moussa, told reporters that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas pulled out of the three way talks. However, a PLO representative later clarified to Fo... ...Less

Gizmodo — John Battelle was on a Wi-Fi-enabled fight with United Airlines last night, and he decided to use videochat to say goodnight to his kids. Unfortunately, a flight attendant told him it was illegal. More »

The Awl — I am horrified by economic estimates suggesting that Canada's currency—nicknamed "the loonie" after the nation's first Prime Minister, Don Cherry—will at some point this fall be worth more than our own American dollar . This is not simply a matter of jingoistic pride; let the peso soar above the greenback ...More and I'll be down in Cozumel quicker than you can say "cheap hotel stay in Cozumel." No, this is about Canada somehow being able to feel a sense of superiority to its bigger, cooler brother just because it has a sensible financial system and socialized medicine and much less gun crime AND a more valuable dollar. This aggression cannot stand. I would rather live in a fascist dictatorship than to endure in a world where a magazine is actually a dollar less north of the border than it is down here. Prorogue this, you ice-farming scumbags. ...Less

EW.com — What is it with time travel movies and music? Michael J Fox introduced the ’50s to rock’n'roll in Back to the Future. Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter Wild Stallyns-ed it up in the Bill and Ted movies. And who can forget the “Dr Zaius Rap” from Planet of the Apes. No, wait, that was actually

Washington Times — The U.S. trade deficit unexpectedly declined in January as both exports and imports fell, while the volume of imported crude oil dropped to its lowest level in more than a decade. U.S. exports dipped for the first time in nine months, but imports fell more steeply, leading to a $2.6 billion drop in the trade deficit, which ...More totaled $37.3 billion in January, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. "One month's decline in trade volumes does not mean that the trade recovery is over," said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist for IHS Global Insight. "But it indicates that future gains will be ...Email ...Less

Laura Rozen's Blog — Publicly, Vice President Joe Biden tried to keep up a positive tone in his good will visit to Israel this week. But privately, the Israeli press reports, he had sharper words for Israeli decisions Biden said jeopardize the peace process and U.S. efforts to maintain an international and regional alliance to pressure Iran. ...More ~ The Israeli press has been extremely critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government's behavior during Biden's visit. See these excerpts from a piece by Shimon Shiffer in Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth today, headline: "Biden: You’re Jeopardizing Regional Peace": ~ Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Israel as a friend. As a matter of fact, he is considered to be the greatest friend of Israel ever to have been a member of the U.S. Senate. Legislation that he promoted over the years ensured the Israelis’ security and welfare. It is that great friend of ours who now feels betrayed. ~ While standing in front of the cameras, the U.S. vice president made an effort to smile at Binyamin Netanyahu even after having learned on Tuesday that the Interior Ministry had approved plans to build 1,600 housing units in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo. But in closed conversations, Joe Biden took an entirely different tone. ... ~ People who heard what Biden said were stunned. “This is starting to get dangerous for us,” Biden castigated his interlocutors. “What you’re doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us and it endangers regional peace.” ~ The vice president told his Israeli hosts that since many people in the Muslim world perceived a connection between Israel’s actions and US policy, any decision about construction that undermines Palestinian rights in East Jerusalem could have an impact on the personal safety of American troops fighting against Islamic terrorism.  ~ Beyond his desire to allay Israel’s fears about the Iranian nuclear threat, Biden asked the Israeli... ...Less

Washington Examiner — On Christmas Day, a passenger on a Northwest Airlines flight bound for Detroit tried to blow up the plane with plastic explosives in his underwear. He failed, yet the very attempt shook the U.S. government, set federal agencies against each other and triggered months of political second-guessing.

Cele|bitchy — Forehead Tittaes w/ Marion Cotillard from Marion CotillardThis faux ad for Funny or Die made me laugh so hard I’m crying. It’s hysterical. I only tested it on one man, my dad (I’m visiting) and my mom, and my dad was unamused but admitted that it’s accurate. My mom thought it was just as funny as ...More I did. So are men unamused by this ad because it hits too close to home, or was it just my dad? Guys please respond to this post and let me know if you think this is funny! Also please test it out on your men and comment. ~ The ad stars Oscar winning French actress Marion Cotillard along with Taraji P. Henson, Lesley Anne Warren and William Fichtner. ~ We don’t hear much gossip about Marion Cotillard, but there’s news that she’s set to star in a new Woody Allen film alongside Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams. The project is not yet titled and will be set in France. ...Less

Oh No They Didn't! — You want to hate him. But then you get to know him, and he gets to know himself, and you wonder if Vampire Boy might just turn into the man who teaches a generation of jaded sex symbols how to be movie stars we love. ~ By separating his surprisingly modest personality from his gratuitously oversexed persona, Pattinson has ...More obliquely demanded that he be taken seriously. ~ A funny, unexpected thing happened to me on a recent Saturday in New York: I literally ran into Robert Pattinson, and he left me... starstruck. He had to earn it, though, as I tend to cow neither to celebrities nor the young male heartthrob kind. I'd met the actor at an event for his new film Remember Me, which comes out Friday, but an accidental encounter with him and his entourage in a hotel corridor — where the stench of sycophancy lingered like stale piss — got things off on the wrong foot. About twenty minutes later, Pattinson and a not-quite-as-rank entourage greeted me and a handful of other journalists. I didn't expect much. His vagina allergies aside, the world's most conspicuous vampire since Dracula is notoriously shy, and Remember Me wasn't especially good. What was left to discuss? ~ A lot, as it turned out, most of which hinged on the basic separation of persona from character, of public from private, of myth from man. Not that Pattinson himself, as one of the world's most in-demand men, would dare reduce his life to such binary terms. Instead, he went on and on about his limitations. "If I could do supporting roles in things, then I'd love to do that," he told me. "But it's difficult to get supporting roles because it would be really weird most of the time. 'Well, there's the guy from Twilight playing the parking warden,' or something." He smiled and laughed beneath that notorious shock of hair, not quite swearing off ambition as much as suggesting the cost of self-importance was simply too steep to pay — even for a twenty-three-year-old who made $18 million last year. He was down to eart... ...Less

Engadget — Mobile manufacturer and platform market share stats for the US are in for the month of January thanks to comScore, and as usual, they tell a fascinating (and somewhat unpredictable) story of what's actually going on at the cash registers. Motorola -- which has long since fallen off its high horse on the global stage -- ...More still maintains a commanding presence in the American market by representing some 22.9 percent of all subscribers, though that's down 1.2 percent from October 2009; that's particularly interesting in light of the Droid's success, and a possible sign that smartphones still aren't on the cusp of dominating the phone market overall. Samsung recently touted the fact that it had held onto the States' overall market share crown, though Sammy was undoubtedly referring to sales, not subscribers -- in other words, there are still a ton of legacy RAZRs out there inflating Moto's stats. ~ Turning our attention to smartphone platforms, BlackBerry OS, iPhone, and Android all saw gains, while Windows Mobile and Palm both saw significant downturns. You might use Palm's loss of 2.1 percent of overall market share in a single quarter as a big nail in webOS' coffin, but we're inclined to believe this includes legacy devices -- and considering the huge installed base of Palm OS -based handsets ( Centros , for instance) that are coming off contract these days, it's neither surprising nor alarming to see that kind of drop. Android's gain, meanwhile, likely comes in large part from WinMo's whopping four percent loss -- it's no secret that WinMo 6.x is well past its expiration date with customers leaving in droves (even before Windows Phone 7 Series announcement), and our informal observations lead us to believe that many of those folks are heading for Android. After all, it's kind of convenient that Android gained 4.3 percent and WinMo lost about the same, isn't it? BlackBerrys still dominate the American smartphone landscape, and the iPhone market looks like it might be ... ...Less

Associated Press — Poll finds many in US oppose Internet and sports betting, but enjoy gambling themselves ~ Gambling - Sport betting - Recreation and Sports - Bookmaker - Oceania

Techdirt — Two years ago, we noted that Brazil had asked the WTO for permission to ignore certain US patents and copyrights as a retaliation against the US's refusal to abide by a WTO ruling. This is, of course, typical of the US. When the WTO sides with the US on certain issues, you see the US and industry lobbyists go nuts about ...More how those countries need to capitulate due to "international obligations." But when the WTO rules against the US, the USTR has a long history of ignoring the ruling or even pretending (falsely) that it "won." Given that most countries can't do much if the US just ignores the WTO, there's been a new push to allow countries to ignore US copyrights and patents up to a certain dollar amount. In Antigua, for example, the WTO said it could ignore up to $21 million worth of US IP. ~ Brazil is now moving forward with a plan to actually ignore US patents and copyrights . It's putting forth a retaliation plan to the WTO that includes various tariffs and other sanctions -- but most interestingly, a plan to ignore $238 million annually in US copyrights and patents -- expected to cover both pharmaceutical patents and entertainment copyrights. As is typical in such situations, the USTR is wagging its finger and warning, "don't do that," but doesn't seem willing to admit that the WTO already ruled against the US. ~ Permalink | Comments | Email This Story ...Less

Agence France Presse — AFP - A vague threat apparently posted by an Australian on two social networking sites led to the lockdown on Wednesday of all schools in the busy midwestern US city of Minneapolis, officials said.

— In September 2000, Lehman Brothers was meeting with its  lawyers and auditors. ~ A new US accounting standard — SFAS 140 — had just come into effect, and the banking...