Rare Bay Bridge lightning strike captured on camera

The San Francisco Bay Area has been buffeted by bad weather lately, and as a rare thunder storm rumbled through, photographer Phil McGrew thought to set up his camera and snapped rare sight: Eight bolts of lightning hitting the Bay Bridge.

The San Francisco currency trader, who took up photography two years ago, set up his camera from his office in San Francisco, and set the lens to a long exposure. He wrote on Flickr, "This shot has been on my list since moving to San Francisco. Unfortunately, I've only seen lightning 3 times in the 2 years I've lived here. Tonight, I got lightning in 3 seperate 20 second exposures. This is a single exposure."

The photo shows each of the four towers of the bridge that connects the East Bay with San Francisco lit up with lightning against the murky sky and rain-spattered window.

McGrew told the Daily Mail: "You can count the strikes, the Bay Bridge has four distinct towers and you can see the lightning hitting each tower."

You sure can.  The shot, which was trending on Twitter, received over a hundred comments on Flickr. Fans called it   "eerily beautiful," and "stunning."

Sony to ax 10,000 jobs in turnaround bid: Nikkei

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Sony Corp <6758.T> is cutting 10,000 jobs, about 6 percent of its global workforce, the Nikkei newspaper reported on Monday, as new CEO Kazuo Hirai looks to steer the electronics and entertainment giant back to profit after four years in the red.

The job cuts would be the latest downsizing in Japan Inc where companies from cellphone maker NEC Corp <6701.T> to electronics firm Panasonic Corp <6752.T> are trimming costs in the face of a strong yen and competition from rivals like Apple and Samsung Electronics <005930.KS>.

TV makers in particular have been hit hard by the tough business climate as well as sharp price falls, with Sony, Panasonic and Sharp <6753.T> expecting to have lost a combined $17 billion in the fiscal year just ended.

Investors will closely monitor a briefing on Thursday by Hirai, who formally took over this month as chief executive from Howard Stringer, for further clues on how Sony plans to revamp its business.

"Under a new CEO, it's easier to cut jobs or go in a new direction," said Yuuki Sakurai, head of fund manager Fukoku Capital, which had around $7 billion worth of assets under management as of end-March 2011.

"One of the things I'd like to see is that they shift their resources to other areas outside TVs ... If they stick to TVs, they may have to fight a war they may not be able to win."

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Sony earnings graphic: http://r.reuters.com/wah46s

Sony staff details: http://r.reuters.com/kam57s

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The Nikkei said half of the latest round of job cuts would come from consolidating the firm's chemicals and small and midsize LCD operations.

Sony said last month it was selling a chemical products division, accounting for some 3,000 people, while on April 1 it merged its Sony Mobile display unit, which had about 2,000 workers, with the small LCD panel businesses of Toshiba Corp <6502.T> and Hitachi Ltd <6501.T> into a new firm called Japan Display.

The Nikkei said it was not clear how many of the cuts would take place in Japan or overseas.

As of end-March 2011, Sony had 168,200 employees on a consolidated basis, according to the company's website.

Sony may also ask its seven executive directors who served through the fiscal year to end-March, including Stringer, who is now chairman, to return their bonuses, the Nikkei said.

Sony declined to comment on the report.

Sony announced 16,000 job cuts in December 2008 after the global financial crisis battered demand for its products, but it has not managed to make a profit since then.

The company has forecast a 220 billion yen ($2.7 billion) net loss for the fiscal year just ended, hurt in large part by its ailing TV business.

Sony said last month that Hirai would keep direct charge of the TV business as part of a structural reorganization.

Sony shares closed up 0.6 percent, while the benchmark Nikkei average <.N225> ended 1.5 percent lower. The stock has dropped more than 10 percent in the past 3 weeks since hitting a 7-month high.

(Reporting by Chris Gallagher; Additional reporting by Shinichi Saoshiro; Editing by Edmund Klamann and Ian Geoghegan)

Kinkade: Artist drew many fans, few critical raves

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — To fans and the countless collectors who helped build painter Thomas Kinkade's commercial art empire, his idealized vision of the world usually served as a simple, soothing addition to the living room wall: a soft depiction of a churning seascape or a colorful garden or a cottage brimming with warm light.

Kinkade's vision, and the artworks he prolifically created from it, paid off handsomely for the self-described "painter of light," whose business grew into franchised galleries, reproduced artwork and spin-off products said to fetch at their peak some $100 million annually and adorn roughly 10 million homes.

Kinkade, who died Friday of what appeared to be natural causes in Los Gatos, Calif., embraced his popularity even as he drew less than appreciative attention from those within the art establishment who derided him, at least in part, for appealing so brazenly to the widest possible audience.

"In their minds, he represented the lowest type of art," said Jeffrey Vallance, an artist who hosted a show of Kinkade's artwork in Santa Ana, Calif. in 2004. "He was different from other artists. You kind of felt like he was giving people what they wanted."

Kinkade's art empire included reproductions of his numerous paintings in hand-signed lithographs, canvas prints, books and posters, calendars, magazine covers, cards, collector plates and figurines. As his art drew wider and wider attention, Kinkade didn't shy away.

"It is clear that everyday people need an art they can enjoy, believe in and understand," he wrote in a catalog to the 2004 show.

For Kinkade, such art meant light-infused renderings of tranquil landscape scenes, homes and churches that evoked an idealized past, some of which included religious iconography.

As word of Kinkade's untimely death at age 54 spread Saturday, fans flocked to some galleries to buy his work.

"It's crazy beautiful. We're struggling with our own emotions, yet the public is coming in and just buying art off the wall," said Ester Wells, gallery director at the Thomas Kinkade Signature Gallery in Pismo Beach, Calif. "Right now, people are just coming in and buying everything in our inventory."

Many customers bought art as a tribute while others said it was a smart investment: They feel his work will now be worth more down the road, Wells said. Others stopped by just to say how sorry they were to hear of his death.

"We're going to lose a great artist to the world but we'll never forget him," Wells said, adding that she thinks Kinkade will be remembered as another Norman Rockwell

Kinkade regarded Rockwell as his earliest hero. His mom had a big collection of copies of Saturday Evening Post magazines, he said in a biography on his website.

"The scenes were nostalgic and brought back very happy memories for people," said Marty Brown, who owns four galleries in Southern California that sell Kinkade paintings. Brown's galleries had already had a record sales day by noon on Saturday, he said.

The customers ranged from curious people who'd seen news of Kinkade's death to longtime collectors purchasing a few more pieces.

"Some people are coming and buying a couple or buying their first piece, or just buying something. But they all feel pretty bad, to tell you the truth," he said.

Kinkade had a fan base that was unprecedented, and he made collectors out of the many people who brought his art into their homes.

"That's market penetration that we've never seen in art, for sure," Brown said.

Yet some of the qualities that made Kinkade's art popular and accessible to everyday consumers also led to its criticism from art experts.

"I think the reason you probably aren't going to find his work in many museums, if any, is that there really wasn't anything very innovative about what he was doing...," said Michael Darling, chief curator of Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art. "I really think that he didn't bring anything new to art."

Kinkade was also criticized for selling reproductions of his works, not the originals.

"That was something that drove the art world crazy," Vallance said. "You were never really buying the real thing, you were buying something made by a machine."

In the 2004 catalog to his California show, Kinkade offered an answer to his critics, saying he didn't look down upon any type of art.

"As to the myriads of products that have been developed from my paintings, I can only state that I have always had the attitude that art in whatever format it is accessible to people is good..." he wrote. "All forms of art reproduction have meaning to some body of people."

But Alexis Boylan, who edited a 2011 book of essays, "Thomas Kinkade: The Artist in the Mall," said Kinkade presented his art as value-driven and contrasted it with rap music and other forms of art that he was less fond of.

"He saw his art as antagonistic towards other forms of artistic expression," she said. "He was very antagonistic towards modern and contemporary art."

Amid the success, though, Kinkade had run into personal difficulties in recent years.

In June 2010, he was arrested outside Carmel, Calif. on suspicion of driving under the influence. That same year, one of his companies also filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The bankruptcy filing came as the company had started making payments on an almost $3 million court award against it in a lawsuit filed by a Virginia couple, Karen Hazlewood and Jeff Spinello.

The Virginia gallery owners sued Kinkade and his company in 2003, arguing that he'd fraudulently persuaded them to invest in a licensed Kinkade gallery, according to the Los Angeles Times. The couple alleged that they were being undercut by discount sellers whose prices they were barred from matching, and they had merchandise they couldn't sell.

The court eventually sided with the couple. Kinkade faced similar lawsuits from other owners as a number of Kinkade galleries failed from 1997 to 2005.

Brown said he hopes people remember Kinkade not only as a commercially successful artist, but one that raised millions for charity by auctioning his works.

"We've got a lot of people out there today that are a little sadder today because Thomas Kinkade passed away," he said, adding: "I just hope that he's in a better place."

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Associated Press writers John S. Marshall in San Francisco, Michelle Price in Phoenix and Jason Keyser in Chicago contributed to this report.

Massive manhunt for Oklahoma gunman who killed 3

Local and federal investigators are searching for a lone white male in a pickup truck who went on a shooting spree in Tulsa, Okla., early Friday morning, killing three pedestrians.

Five black males were shot, three fatally, in four separate incidents during a span of less than two hours on the same side of town and not far from one another, police said.  Two males were critically wounded in the shooting spree. All of the victims were targeted while they were out walking.

The suspect is reported to be white, but the crimes have yet to been deemed racially motivated. The task force's job will be to determine whether federal hate crime laws were violated, Tulsa Worldreported.

The FBI and the U.S. Marshals are assisting in the investigation.

Police Chief Chuck Jordan said "logic would lead you to believe that" these are hate crimes, but the police haven't yet assessed all of the evidence to make that determination.

Sgt. Dave Walker of the Tulsa Police Department says the victims apparently did not know each other.

"We have not been able to find any commonality between the victims other than they were walking on the street," said Walker.

But Dr. Warren Blakney, who heads the local chapter of the NAACP, believes the shooter did group his prey together.

"We feel like he's targeting African Americans in this part of town.  And I think some parts of law enforcement feel the same way," said Blakney.

Jordan, who described the suspect as a "Lone Wolf," said police are actively pursuing tips in the case and asking residents to contact police if they've seen anything.

"This is one where we have to stand together with our community. We need their help, we want their help and we hope we will get some good calls to give us some leads," Jordan said.

"We are doing what we can do, someone needs to step up and somebody needs to come forward and say you know we know who did this," Walker told ABC affiliate KTUL.

Police are looking for a white male driving a white pick-up truck, the station reported.

"As long as that person is loose, then we're in danger, all of us are in danger, and I don't want any vigilante stuff to start happening. I don't want no race riot, I just want this person caught," said City Councilor Jack Henderson.

Tulsa Mayor Dewey Bartlett says the shootings are hard to stomach.

"It pains me to talk about such a violent event that we in this community have not seen certainly in modern history," said Bartlett.  "We as a community need to be very involved with helping the police bring this person to justice.  This is not a game."

Troy McMullen and ABC News Radio contributed to this report.

'Hunger Games' earns $61.1M to top 'Titans' sequel

LOS ANGELES (AP) — "The Hunger Games" is still the first item on the menu for movie fans, taking in $61.1 million to remain the No. 1 film in its second weekend.

Studio estimates Sunday put Lionsgate's "The Hunger Games" well ahead of Sam Worthington's action sequel "Wrath of the Titans," which opened in second-place with $34.2 million.

That's far below the $61.2 million opening of its predecessor, "Clash of the Titans," two years ago. But distributor Warner Bros.opened "Clash" on Easter weekend, when young fans already were off school and in holiday mode. With Easter coming next weekend, the studio expects "Wrath" to catch up to "Clash" in the next few weeks.

Julia Roberts' comic "Snow White" reinvention "Mirror Mirror" debuted at No. 3 with $19 million. Released by Relativity Media, the film casts Roberts as the wicked queen opposite Lily Collins as Snow White.

Starring Jennifer Lawrence as a teen forced to compete in a televised death match, "The Hunger Games" lifted its domestic total to $251 million after just 10 days.

"We're obviously ecstatic at that quarter of a billion — I like the sound of that, by the way," said David Spitz, head of distribution for Lionsgate. "We're going into a period now with Easter weekend and spring break where literally 30 percent of kids are out of school starting tomorrow. ... We have a great opportunity to continue to play and play and play."

"The Hunger Games" shot past "Dr. Seuss' the Lorax" ($189.6 million domestically) to become the top-grossing film this year.

"Wrath of the Titans" had a smaller domestic opening than 2010's "Clash," but the sequel was the top draw overseas with a debut of $78 million in 60 markets. That gave it a worldwide total of $112.2 million.

Dan Fellman, head of domestic distribution for Warner Bros., said he expects "Wrath" to follow a pattern similar to the studio's "Sherlock Holmes" sequel last December.

"Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" opened earlier in the month and to much smaller crowds than the first movie, which premiered over the busy Christmas weekend. Yet "Game of Shadows" held on longer in subsequent weekends, its worldwide haul slightly exceeding the original movie.

Likewise, "Wrath of the Titans" should hold up better than "Clash" over Easter and the following weeks, Fellman said.

"We're going to get there. It's just going to be in a different pattern," Fellman said.

The sequel stars Worthington as ancient Greek hero Perseus in a battle of gods and men, including Liam Neeson as Zeus and Ralph Fiennes as Hades.

"The Hunger Games" added $34.8 million overseas to raise its international total to $113.9 million and its worldwide haul to about $365 million.

While lagging behind the overseas business of such teen-based literary adaptations as the "Harry Potter" and "Twilight" movies, "The Hunger Games" is on a pace to surpass the domestic revenues of nearly all of those films.

"The Hunger Games" is headed well above $300 million domestically, a level reached by just three of the eight "Harry Potter" films and only once by any of the "Twilight" flicks.

In limited release, the Weinstein Co. documentary "Bully" opened strongly with $115,000 in five theaters, a healthy result for a non-fiction film.

An examination of school bullying, the film benefited from publicity over a campaign asking the Motion Picture Association of America to lower it from an R rating so that youths under 17 could see it without an adult.

Unable to secure a lower rating, Weinstein decided to release "Bully" unrated. The film earned the R rating for language, and filmmaker Lee Hirsch said he declined to edit out the offending words because it would have diminished the documentary's impact.

Hollywood's bull market continued, with audiences continuing their run on theaters. Overall domestic revenues totaled $154 million, up 23.5 percent from the same weekend last year, when "Hop" led with $37.5 million.

For the year, domestic receipts are at $2.6 billion, 20 percent ahead of 2011's, according to box-office tracker Hollywood.com.

By far the biggest movie to open outside the busy summer and late-year holiday periods and the biggest non-sequel debut ever, "The Hunger Games" alone has given the industry a huge prelude to the blockbuster season that hits its stride in early May.

"If this were a summer movie, these would still be impressive numbers," said Hollywood.com analyst Paul Dergarabedian. "Usually, you'll see sequels in a big franchise like this getting bigger and bigger, but this movie right out of the gate has already become one of the biggest blockbusters of all time."

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

1. "The Hunger Games," $61.1 million.

2. "Wrath of the Titans," $34.2 million.

3. "Mirror Mirror," $19 million.

4. "21 Jump Street," $15 million.

5. "Dr. Seuss' the Lorax," $8 million.

6. "John Carter," $2 million.

7. "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen," $1.3 million.

8. "Act of Valor," $1 million.

9. "A Thousand Words," $915,000.

10. "Journey 2: The Mysterious Island," $835,000.

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Online:

http://www.hollywood.com

http://www.rentrak.com

Facebook takes on 'clickjacking' spammers in court

Facebook and the state of Washington sued a company on Thursday they accused of a practice called "clickjacking" that fools users of the world's top social network into visiting advertising sites, divulging personal information and spreading the scam to friends.

The scheme, also known as "likejacking" because victims are tricked into using Facebook's "Like" button to perpetuate it, has grossed $1.2 million a month for the Delaware-based firm, Adscend Media, according to the state attorney general's office.

Adscend profits from the scam by collecting money from its advertising clients for every Facebook user unwittingly misdirected to a target ad or subscription service, the plaintiffs said.

Two separate but similar claims filed in federal court by the state and Facebook accuse Adscend of violating federal and state statutes outlawing misleading or deceptive commercial electronic communications and unfair business practices.

The legal action is believed to mark the first time any state government has gone to court in a crackdown against spam spread by Facebook, the world's most widely used social media network, said Paula Selis, senior counsel for the attorney general.

She said schemes such as clickjacking have grown steadily more pervasive, and that millions of Facebook users have probably been exposed to Adscend's spam.

"Security is an arms race," Ted Ullyot, Facebook's general counsel, told a news conference at the California-based company's Seattle office to announce the lawsuits. "It's important to stay a step ahead against spammers and scammers."

Attorney General Rob McKenna, a Republican running for governor, said Washington state was taking action because "we've brought other cases like this and, more than any other state, we've developed technological and legal expertise" in the field of cyber fraud.

Representatives of Adscend or two co-owners also named as defendants could not immediately be reached for comment.

PAGES DESIGNED AS BAIT

As described in the lawsuits, the scam works as follows:

Facebook pages designed as "bait" are disseminated to social network users as posts that seemingly originate from friends, offering visitors an opportunity to view salacious or provocative content.

However, that viewing is contingent on completing a series of steps that will supposedly unlock the content but are actually designed to lure Facebook users onto other sites, where they are tricked into giving away personal information or signing up for expensive mobile subscription services.

First the victims are encouraged to click the "Like" button on the Facebook "bait" page, which then alerts their friends to the page's existence, thus helping propagate it. Then they are told they cannot reach the content without filling out a form for an online survey or advertising offer.

In one example cited, the "Like" button is overlayed with a link labeled: "This man took a picture of his face every day for 8 years!" The promised content often does not exist, and the user instead is directed through a series of prompts taking them off Facebook and to a string of ads and subscription offers.

In some cases, a hidden code embedded in an enticing link on the "bait" page activates the "Like" button without the user even clicking it, sending it to friends' news feeds.

Selis said it may seem unlikely that anyone would click on such links, "but unfortunately they do."

While the number of Facebook users actually scammed by clickjacking is not known, Selis said investigators have determined that some 280,000 users visited the locked content pages of Adscend during February 2011 alone.

"So we know there are probably millions of Facebook users" exposed to the deception, she said.

Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes said the Adscend action was the latest in "our pursuit and support for civil and criminal consequences for spammers or others who attempt to harm Facebook or the people who use our service."

He cited three federal court judgments worth several hundred million dollars each obtained by Facebook against spammers since 2008

Investors in Murdoch's News Corp forgive hacking

After six months of scandal and crisis management in the wake of the phone-hacking affair at its UK tabloid papers, shares of News Corp have touched new heights as investors say the so-called 'Murdoch discount' has shrunk but cautioned that it won't completely go away.
In the year's first week of trading, News Corp shares rose to a 52-week record, surpassing the highs it hit just before the July 4 story broke of its News of the World tabloid hacking a murdered British schoolgirl's voice mail. That story seemingly turned the world against founder Rupert
Murdoch and his family. The media conglomerate lost nearly a quarter of its market capitalization, some $11 billion, in just four weeks.
The fact that all of News Corp's papers account for less than 3 percent of its operating profits did little to allay investors fears at the time.
That attitude has changed now said analysts as News Corp shares are up nearly 30 percent since the lows of last summer.
"The market is reacting to strong fundamentals in this business, they reported pretty strong numbers in their September quarter, and the Murdoch discount is declining," said Collins Stewart analyst Thomas Eagan.
Richard Greenfield, an analyst at BTIG, agrees saying no one owns News Corp for its newspapers, which most on Wall Street see as more trouble than they're worth.
"Investor reaction has been overwhelmed by the how well their core cable networks and TV business are doing."
Indeed the hacking affair, and the manner in which Murdoch initially handled it by sticking by loyal lieutenants who had ultimate responsibility for the issue, appeared to support the idea of a 'Murdoch discount'. The idea is that Murdoch is seen by some to treat the public company which he controls according to his own shareholder-unfriendly whims. Last summer, that growing scepticism led to the widening of the discount, which has always seen News Corp trade at a valuation below peers like Time Warner Inc and Viacom Inc.
"If you can divorce the emotionalism over the hacking thing, this is one hell of a cheap stock," said Lawrence Haverty, fund manager of Gabelli Multimedia Funds, which holds News Corp shares.
News Corp currently trades at around 6.8 times calendar 2012 earnings before interest tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), while its media peers trade between 7.3 to 8.1 times, according to analysts at Collins Stewart. Without the Murdoch discount, News Corp should be trading around 8 times earnings given that it has faster cash flow growth prospects than its peers, said Thomas Eagan at Collins Stewart.
"People are in the process of forgive and forget and saying oh my, here's a wonderful business that's significantly undervalued," said Haverty.
Perhaps one of biggest immediate concerns for News Corp investors at the peak of the hacking scandal last summer was whether the Murdochs would lose control of the company, particularly as Murdoch's younger son James is the top executive at the troubled UK unit.
Ironically, one of the outcomes in the fallout of the scandal is a perception that Murdoch might be voluntarily loosening his grip slightly to allow the rise of his well-respected number two, Chase Carey, something Wall Street and investors have also favored.
The other key concern was whether the scandal would spread to News Corp's U.S. businesses. So far nothing concerning its U.S. companies has come to light.
"It seems the hacking scandal should be compartmentalized, although the Feds were looking into potential infractions on U.S. soil and the possibility that this could fall under the Foreign Corrupt Practices act," said Miller Tabak analyst David Joyce. "I haven't heard anything new on those fronts for months."
However, the key turning point in the wake of the scandal has been News Corp's decision to stand down from its $12 billion bid to buy the 61 percent of the UK satellite TV operator BSkyB which it didn't already own.
That politically expedient decision, in the face of growing UK government opposition, freed up billions of dollars of cash which have now been plowed back into an aggressive $5 billion share buyback program. Since August it has bought back around $2.5 billion of its stock, according to analysts at Miller Tabak.
Investors are already expecting that program to be expanded in fiscal 2013 giving further support to the comeback stock.
Shares closed at $18.30 Friday on the Nasdaq.
(Reporting By Yinka Adegoke; Editing by Bernard Orr)