Dancing With the Stars' recap: Judgment Day

Three stars! Two dances! One sparkly Mirrorball trophy! We’re in the final stretch, ballroom fans. And in this short hour, each of the remaining finalists performed two dances in a last-ditch effort to drum up any last undecided viewer votes. The first dance was a judges’ choice, where one of our highly esteemed adjudicators came out from behind their podium seats to give pointers to the remaining contestants. The other was the highly anticipated freestyle, known on the streets as the Mirrorball maker or breaker. 

In this corner: TV icon Kirstie Alley. In the other corner: hero of the gridiron Hines Ward. And in the last corner: Disney princess Chelsea Kane. Though this final performance hour didn’t seem like the pressure-cooker show it had been during previous seasons, did it? Last week seemed more stressful, what with the two dances and an instant cha cha to boot. This week had more of a laid-back vibe about it. Brooke Burke looked like she was already halfway to Hawaii, waiting to have mai tais served out on the lanai. Even the spray tanning seemed a bit subdued, and Mark Ballas and Maksim Chmerkovskiy’s bare chests looked a little more pallid than their usual bronze hues.

Maybe it was because we all knew who the final two contestants were going to be before this hour began, and the judges seemed to confirm it with their scores. Which of these stars was not like the other one? Tied for first place were…

Chelsea Kane and Mark Ballas and Hines Ward and Kym Johnson. Chelsea needed to get in touch with her down and dirty sensuality for her judges’ choice samba. Carrie Ann wanted the 22-year-old Disney Channel product to show the world “the woman she’s become.” Can’t really get much more womanly than leather and fringe. Mark was also stripped down, opting for less spray tan than the Chicken McNugget usual. And the resulting routine and the pyrotechnics seemed to announce that we’re not on any Mickey Mouse club anymore. Now we’re in the red light district, and the dance had Len quoting the Police: “Every step you take, every move you make, every rule you break, I’ll be watching you,” the head judge said. “And let me tell you, I like what I’m watching.” Bruno called Chelsea “an ultra sexy bombshell” and the dance “a firecracker of a samba.” “Hot hot hot!” raved Carrie Ann. “You got down, you got dirty, you got sensual, and it worked.”

And Chelsea and Mark pulled out all the stops on their freestyle routine, tapping into sparkles and electrifying “Tron”-like effects to do a Latin hip-hop hybrid that rode in waving a handkerchief on a bike and rode out into the future. I kind of thought the dance was so full out and lift-heavy that it was a bit sloppy at times (and then Chelsea’s battery pack petered out!), but the judges only had glowing praise. “I know people think I’m a fuddy duddy, but this was full-on, it was so much attack, it was fantastic,” said Len. “It’s electrifying!” lauded Bruno. “What’s really, really good is how you interpreted the Latin rhythm with a contemporary twist. Pushing the limit and advancing dance.” Carrie Ann couldn’t find the words, so she thought she’d just dance it in full-on gyrations, causing Mark to fall over in surprise. “I’m just happy we’re getting our batteries’ worth of all the ‘Tron’ merchandising,” Tom said with relief. Chelsea and Mark got a 29 for their judges’ choice samba, and a perfect 30 for their freestyle (after which Chelsea’s battery pack switched back on — it must run on positive emotion). Total: 59 out of 60.

Hines Ward and Kym Johnson had the distinct advantage of having the pimp spot at the end and performing last. And if that didn’t stack the odds in their favor, they also got DANCMSTR himself, Len Goodman, to come by in his limo, show a routine on his AT&T phone, and feed Hines some nuggets of ballroom dancing wisdom. “Gotta get your feet sharper,” Len said. “Let me feel you, come on!” Loved how Len showed off his dance moves and struck a dapper pose. And how he admired Hines’ deltoids. Hines and Kym’s quickstep, set to “Putting on the Ritz," featured Kym at her dressing room, and it looked like she went out on stage in just a petticoat. The routine ended with Hines popping a bottle of confetti’d bubbly at the end, but Len was not so celebratory. “As good as that was, for me, it’s not quite there yet,” he said. The other judges begged to differ. “That was so much fun!” Carrie Ann skedaddled. “It makes me forget that I’m supposed to be judging.” “You’ve got it for me,” said Bruno. “It was like watching a mega production on Broadway. … You just connect with the audience like no one.”

His freestyle embodied the halftime show of Steeler Nation. Hines broke out his Silent Assassin and played the drum major of the band, and Kym dressed up as a most revealing cheerleader in fringe and knee-high boots. Their routine took some of its inspiration from the movie “Drumline.” Now, I love “Drumline,” and wanted to see the routine be more hard-hitting, like the Nick Cannon movie. I liked the drum corps, and the balloon arches were very prom-like, but something about the routine as a whole seemed a little off and muted to me. But what do I know? The judges were beside themselves. “That wasn’t really a halftime show—that was the whole damn Super Bowl!” Carrie Ann exclaimed. “Those lifts were insane.” Len gave them props for giving it their all. “You pulled all the stops and created a crowd-pleasing event!” Bruno crowed. Hines and Kym received a 29 for their first dance, and a perfect 30 for their second. Total: 59.

Trailing in third place were Kirstie Alley and Maksim Chmerkovskiy. The couple got a judges’ choice tutorial in the samba from Bruno, who I’m inclined to believe chose to give a clinic to this couple in order to dance with Maks. But Bruno got Kirstie to get rid of her “dainty little hands” and for Kirstie to take her moment. Loved Kirstie’s form-fitting number, with a mesmerizing skirt of cascading fringe, but thought the routine was a bit small for a finals performance. “Softer, rich, full of lively pleasures, full of womanhood,” said Bruno, though he told Kirstie to “play to the audience: Conquer the arena, my darling!” Carrie Ann said she loved Kirstie’s “movement quality.” Len liked the “lovely change of rhythm throughout” but said the  “couple have been a little bit crisper.”

When Kirstie came out in a brown gunny sack like a Benedictine monk for her freestyle performance, I thought surely this can’t be what she’ll be wearing throughout the performance. And luckily, it wasn’t. The dance, set to an up-tempo version of Pink’s “F**in’ Perfect,” was a lovely tribute to the journey that Kirstie had taken thus far. She may not be perfect, but this is who she is, and it’s time to celebrate, dammit! There weren’t any aerials, like she had touted, but the dance had lots of lifts and great toe point. This kind of felt like Kirstie’s “Dirty Dancing” “Time of My Life” moment, and it was a treat to watch. Loved how she danced in a leotard that showed off every last curve and had her arms up in victory and triumph at the end. “Respect girl. Respect,” said Bruno. Carrie Ann said some of the lifts had a “kind of alley-oop feel to it,” but said Kirstie was the poster child of life as it should be lived at 60. “You took risks, and you’ve got to risk it if you want the biscuit,” said Len. “I commend you. Well done.” Kirstie and Maks earned 27s for both dances. Total: 54.

Which most likely means that Kirstie will be the second runner-up, and will leave the field clear for Chelsea and Hines to duke it out for ultimate ballroom domination. Though there is one more dance on Tuesday night for judges’ scores.

What do you think, ballroom fans? Did the freestyle dances leave you elated? Think the judges were angling for a Chelsea-Hines showdown? Who do you think will win the coveted Mirrorball trophy?

—Allyssa Lee

Storm’s toll shows on the faces of Joplin’s residents

JOPLIN, Mo. | The monster tornado that ripped this city in half Sunday was on the ground about 20 minutes.

The images it left behind will stick with people for the rest of their lives.

Not just the denuded trees, or the buildings twisted or turned to rubble, or the cars blown with such horrendous force that they were literally heaped and fused together like sculpture.

It’s the faces of people, loved ones and strangers.

Like that of the 5-year-old boy found dead and crumpled beneath the tangle of steel and mountain of bricks that was once Joplin High School. The boy’s mother cried in grief when she heard.

“I’m devastated inside,” said Luke McCormick, the shaken 19-year-old volunteer rescue worker who helped lift the boy’s limp body from the debris at 22nd and Iowa streets.

In what was the worst tornado in the U.S. in at least 60 years, the numbers were staggering:

•A death toll that rose Monday to 116. Authorities expected the number of confirmed deaths to rise today.

•An estimated 400 people injured; officials would not say how many were in critical condition.

•And 1,700 calls to authorities about missing people.

But there was some good news: Rescuers on Monday pulled 17 people from the debris alive, Gov. Jay Nixon said.

And rescue teams were going to keep working through the night.

“We’re going to cover every foot of this town to make sure every person here, who was here, is accounted for,” Nixon said. “…There are still lives out there that need to be saved.”

The tornado, estimated by the National Weather Service to be an F4, tore a six-mile-long path through the middle of Joplin late Sunday afternoon. Much of the city’s south side was leveled, with churches, businesses and homes reduced to ruins by winds estimated as high as 190 to 198 mph.

Along with the high school, Franklin Technology Center and Irving Elementary School were destroyed, and East Middle School and Floyd Elementary were damaged.

Up to a quarter of the buildings in the city of 50,150 were damaged, City Manager Mark Rohr said. But he cautioned that no one had an exact accounting.

Some looting was reported.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency declared the tornado-ravaged region a disaster area, making it eligible for federal aid. FEMA added Jasper and Newton counties to the disaster declaration already in place as a result of recent storms in the state.

By Monday afternoon, rescuers had made three sweeps, block by block, in their search for survivors. Authorities had not released names or other details of the victims.

“There are going to be some things out there that are hard to see and hard to stomach,” Nixon said.

Survival and sorrow

Outside McAuley Catholic High School, recast as an impromptu medical triage center, Carolene Coleman, 70, dropped her head. Her voice quavered. Her eyes pooled with tears as she sat scraped and bruised in a wheelchair, her ankle bandaged.

All she and her husband were doing was stopping for a drink at the Elks Lodge, 1802 W. 22nd St. Then the twister roared and ripped. There was no basement; nowhere was safe.

“The roof collapsed on everybody,” she said. She was crushed. Her husband, Clyde, 74, lay on top of her, his body still, for nearly six hours. They were married for 54 years. People were screaming, “Help! Help us!”

She knew the truth.

“He’s dead,” she said.

When the tornado struck, Katie Thrasher, 25, was in the Sportsmans Park bar at 1729 E. Seventh St. She had just gotten off work at the AT&T telephone store where, normally, she closed up on Sunday. But that day, a co-worker closed the store.

The tornado flattened Katie’s home across from Joplin High. Nothing was left Monday but rubble and the concrete skirt to her driveway.

While Thrasher was hiding safely in the bar’s walk-in cooler, the tornado blasted the AT&T store at 1702 Range Line Road into steel and broken wood. Her friend, the one who’d stayed to close the store, died in the storm.

For Deidre Wessman, 49, the only image she wants to remember is that of her son, 12-year-old Chance Hamilton, running out of their house at 2202 Porter Road after the storm, in search of his neighborhood friends. And once he found them, embracing in the middle of the street.

“That’s what I want to remember. That sight,” she said of the boys hugging, smiling as if they hadn’t seen each other in 100 years.

The neighborhood had been all but crushed. An 80-foot-tall sycamore tree, ripped from its roots, lay across the road. Massive branches were tossed and scattered onto roofs and porches and on top of cars as if kicked by the toe of a giant. Cars had been hurled like toys.

Wessman and Chance and his father, Johnny Wessman, 49, escaped the storm in a fallout shelter dug nearly 10 feet into the ground under a heavy steel trapdoor in the floor of their home. Even at that depth, Johnny Wessman could feel and hear the walls of the house expand and contract above them. The air was sucked from their lungs. Their ears popped as the tornado roared overhead.

“I prayed,” Deidre Wessman said.

So did Chance.

“Don’t kill us,” he asked.

Then it was over.

The Wessmans made their way out of their hole. Johnny Wessman walked a few blocks south toward Cunningham Park. He saw the twister’s toll. Cars crushed from spinning like tumbleweeds over the ground. Houses obliterated. Trees stripped bare and ragged. Some would say it’s like a bomb dropped, but it’s more like 1,000 bombs, or an atomic blast.

The first body he found was a woman with a metal rod driven through her head. A man’s body lay nearby.

“I thought we had it bad, until I saw those bodies,” Wessman said of the tornado and destruction to this house. “You can always replace this (stuff), but you can’t replace a human being.”

Across the park, the tall empty hulk of St. John’s Regional Medical Center stood, its windows blown out, its floor dark and empty, like an image from Beirut.

Dorothy Doescher, 79, was in Room 413 of that hospital when the speakers announced “Code gray,” warning for a tornado.

Doescher, who has bone cancer, had been in the hospital for 14 days. Nurses barely had enough time to move the patients into the hallway when the code was changed to black: Danger, tornado bearing down.

Nurses rushed the patients into the hallway and had barely finished shutting the room doors when the winds struck. Glass exploded from the windows. Doors whipped off their hinges into the hallways.

Maritta Tatum, who’d been in Room 605 suffering pneumonia, felt the wind and rain blast through the hallway. She gripped a railing. Her head smashed against the wall, opening a gash. Patients in wheelchairs crashed against each other. Ceiling tiles rained on top of the patients, striking Tatum in her right eye, which would bulge and bruise.

“If I hadn’t held on, I would have been sucked out the window,” she said. “The force was so horrible. All the lights popped. They didn’t have time to move us any further.”

Rod Lyles, an infertility doctor from Overland Park, was traveling through the Joplin area after the tornado and stopped to volunteer.

He went first to St. John’s, but staff was evacuating patients to nearby Freeman Hospital. Lyles went to work there in a conference room filled with gurneys. For several hours, he sewed sutures on patients who had been cut by debris.

Most of the injured had lost their homes. They had no idea where their loved ones were. And they had nowhere to go. “By the dozens and dozens,” he said.

Lyles said he was struck by how, despite all of the suffering and loss, the storm survivors didn’t lash out. “Everybody — and I mean everybody, patients, families, medical personnel — was perfectly calm,” he said.

When he first arrived at St. John’s on Sunday evening, he snapped a photo of the destruction: Cars in a heap, the hospital with its windows all smashed to bits. That photo ran on The Star’s front page on Monday morning.

“My uninjured motorcycle is in the picture,” Lyles said. “All hell is the background.”

In the shelter

In Missouri Southern University’s Robert Young Gymnasium, about five miles from the tornado strike, the American Red Cross set up shelter for Joplin’s displaced people.

And they came, hundreds of them, signing in and claiming a spot in a full court of cots.

They started coming after the tornado hit for food, shelter and clothes. Many will spend the night. Others may make contact with family or friends who had been looking for them since Sunday night’s storm.

Doctors and other medical personnel tended throughout the day to the wounded and the rattled.

One doctor was looking at a couple, Steve and Shana Ostrander, and their three children; Ostrander said he and the family had just a few seconds’ warning and knew they could not get to a shelter. They had been watching weather reports Sunday on the television when Steve told his wife, “It’s coming right at us.”

They put their 3-year-old and 6-year-old boys in a closet. Shana held their 1-year-old between her legs. When the tornado hit, Steve laid on top of his wife and baby.

“The house creaked and it came apart,” Ostrander said. “Things were flying everywhere and I knew the roof and sides were all gone.”

When it was over, the closet where the two little boys had hunkered down was gone. But an ironing board in the closet had fallen on top of them. It did not blow away. It covered those boys.

When the family stepped out of their house at 1231 Montana Place, it was just like every other one on the block: splinter city.

At suppertime in the shelter Monday evening, William Whittenback sat down with a bowl of meat and rice. A large bandage covered his forehead. “Two-by-four,” he said. His wife, Lorna, had an even bigger bandage on her head.

The retired couple lived at 2305 Kentucky. They were just sitting at home and “Hell started popping,” Whittenback said.

Their house is “all gone.”

Like the Whittenbacks and the Ostranders, people wandered around the gym wondering what happened to their friends, neighbors and family members they haven’t heard from. Looks of exhaustion and anguish owned their faces.

John Ness said he shoved his wife under a mattress and then was blown though the wall of their house. “I woke up in my neighbor’s yard. We’re OK. Just a little sore.”

As rain poured down Monday, hampering rescue efforts, Nixon spoke of the lives lost and how Missourians across the state were praying for the people of Joplin.

“The trees will grow back,” he said, “the houses will be built back, but the lives lost here we’ll remember forever.”

Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/05/23/2898285/storms-toll-shows-on-the-citys.html#ixzz1NFnTFiMt

US Stocks Suffer Steep Losses As Investors Flee Risky Assets

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--U.S. stocks suffered steep losses as investors' concerns over the financial health of European governments triggered a flight to safer assets.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 130.78 points, or 1.05%, to 12381.26, with all but one component, McDonald's, in the red. Technology and energy stocks led the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index a slump of 15.91 points, or 1.19%, to 1317.36. The technology-oriented Nasdaq Composite lost 44.42, or 1.58%, to 2758.90.

In the absence of major U.S. earnings reports or economic data, investors focused on negative headlines from Europe, including a Standard & Poor's outlook cut on Italian debt and regional-election losses for Spain's ruling Socialist party.

"The Eurozone nations are walking a fine line," said Malcolm Polley, president and chief investment officer at Stewart Capital Advisors. Too much austerity could choke off spending and weaken the continent's economic recovery, he said, even as markets around the world, including in the U.S., demand that Eurozone countries get their debt burden under control.

Monday's selloff reflected the same investor risk aversion that drove a slump in crude-oil prices below $98 a barrel and a rally in the U.S. dollar versus major foreign currencies. Gold rose above $1,515 a troy ounce.

Slower May manufacturer data from China also spurred traders to dump commodity-heavy shares in tandem with the decline in metals and other commodities Monday.

Both the blue-chip index and the S&P 500 have slid for three straight weeks, marking their longest losing streak since August. Though lengthy, the slide had been relatively shallow heading into Monday. The Dow was down 2.3% in the three-week period that ended Friday.

Rhodes 3.0, Ruby-Based App Builder Adds Support for NFC, Windows Phone

Rhomobile, makers of an open source Ruby-based framework for building mobile applications for major smartphone operating systems, recently launched the latest version of their toolkit, Rhodes 3.0. The updated framework has added support for NFC (near field communications), the backbone for the upcoming mobile wallet systems and more. Rhodes is also the first framework outside of Microsoft's official channels to support Windows Phone 7.

Rhodes Adds Support for NFC

According to Rhomobile founder and CEO, Adam Blum, support for NFC is limited to Android for now, but as other platforms add support for NFC, Rhodes 3.0 will expand to support the additional operating systems. This includes Nokia's upcoming Windows Phone devices, which are expected to be the first Windows Phone devices to support NFC. The addition of Windows Phone to the lineup of NFC-enabled phones is important because that would then leave Apple's iPhone/iOS as the last of the top four major platforms (Android, iPhone, RIM, Nokia/Windows Phone) without support for NFC.(Note: Android's OS supports NFC and some BlackBerry phones will include NFC capabilities at launch later this year).

The company says it's "very excited" about the possibilities provided by Near Field Communication, and sees it as "the single most important innovation in mobility since the creation of the modern smartphone as exemplified by the first iPhone."

To put it mildly!

In Rhodes 3.0, the support for NFC is read/write, meaning that devices can both read information from NFC tags and write information to them. And it will work across the diversity of NFC-enabled platforms and devices through its unified API.

Windows Phone Support & More

The other major update to Rhodes 3.0 is the added support for Windows Phone 7, Microsoft's new mobile operating system. Rhodes is the first third-party framework to support this platform. To do so, it provides a way to write native Windows Phone 7 code using HTML5 for interfaces (Views in the Rhodes Model-View-Controller pattern).

This addition will make it easy for developers to write for Windows Phone, whether they're interested in cross-platform code-sharing or not.

Also new to the Rhodes 3.0 toolkit is an update to the RhoStudio, the Integrated Development Environment for Rhodes, which now allows for the ability to change the code on the fly and have the app changed too, without a full rebuild. And it has introduced RhoSimulator, a tool for device independent emulation without installing the underlying OS SDK.

Interested developers can grab the latest copy of Rhodes and other tools from here.

Justin Bieber, Eminem Dominate Billboard Music Awards

Bieber's awards included trophies for Top New Artist, Top Social Artist, Top Streaming Artist, Top Digital Media Artist, Top Pop Album and Top Streaming Song at his first-ever trip to the show. Meanwhile, veteran Eminem (who was not in Las Vegas for the show) nabbed Top Artist, Top Male Artist, Top Billboard200 Album, Top Rap Artist, Top Rap Song and Top Rap Album for his smash comeback, Recovery.

Six artists were just behind with three wins each, including Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Usher, Mumford & Sons and Cruz. Though Bieber and Gomez have kept their relationship under wraps for months, the "Baby" singer kissed and hugged Gomez before taking the stage to accept an award.

The show featured a number of performances, two of which included surprise appearances from a lip-synching Britney Spears. The pop diva literally popped up out of the floor to join Rihanna for "S&M," writhing on a stripper pole while brandishing a pair of diamond handcuffs. The two finished things off with a pillow fight and a kiss. She also topped off a performance of Minaj's "Super Bass" with a bit of her own "Till the World Ends."

Weezy teamed up with Blige for the remix of "Someone to Love Me (Naked)." Green wore a sparkly outer-space outfit while playing piano and singing a medley of his hits ("Crazy," "Bright Lights Bigger City" and "Forget You"); he levitated over the stage and pounded the keys of his silver piano while hanging upside down at one point.

But perhaps the biggest moment of the night was when Beyoncé was presented with the prestigious Billboard Millennium Award, which was preceded by a video honoring her with testimonials from First Lady Michelle Obama, Bono, Lady Gaga, Bey's parents and sister Solange, Stevie Wonder, The-Dream and Barbra Streisand.

She accepted the award after an eye-popping performance of her new single, "Run the World (Girls)," which was highlighted by a breathtaking digital background featuring a shifting array of effects that produced a legion of virtual backup dancers and CGI-like movie effects.

Out of breath from her performance, Beyoncé thanked her mother and father for teaching her about hard work, as well as former Destiny's Child members Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams, past DC members and, in a break with their usual low-key nature, husband Jay-Z.

"I'd also like to thank my best friend, and I don't want to put you on the spot because I know they're probably putting a camera in your face right now, but I love me some Jay-Z," she said with a smile.

A number of artists also took home two awards apiece, including Katy Perry, Shakira and Train.

Complete List of Winners:

Top Artist: Eminem
Top New Artist: Justin Bieber
Top Male Artist: Eminem
Top Female Artist: Rihanna
Top Duo/Group: The Black Eyed Peas
Top Billboard 200 Artist: Taylor Swift
Top Hot 100 Artist: Katy Perry
Top Digital Songs Artist: Katy Perry
Top Radio Songs Artist: Rihanna
Top Touring Artist: U2
Top Social Artist: Justin Bieber
Top Streaming Artist: Justin Bieber
Top Digital Media Artist: Justin Bieber
Top Pop Artist: Lady Gaga
Top R&B Artist: Usher
Top Rap Artist: Eminem
Top Country Artist: Taylor Swift
Top Rock Artist: Train
Top Alternative Artist: Mumford & Sons
Top Latin Artist: Shakira
Top Dance/Electronic Artist: Lady Gaga
Millennium Award: Beyoncé
Touring Award: U2
Icon Award: Neil Diamond
Top Billboard 200 Album: Eminem, Recovery
Top Pop Album: Justin Bieber, My World 2.0,, Katy Perry, Teenage Dream
Top R&B Album: Usher, Raymond v. Raymond
Top Rap Album: Eminem, Recovery Top Country Album: Taylor Swift,Speak Now
Top Rock Album: Mumford & Sons, Sigh No More
Top Alternative Album: Mumford & Sons, Sigh No More
Top Latin Album: Enrique Iglesias, Euphoria
Top Dance/Electronic Album: Lady Gaga, The Fame
Top Christian Album: Skillet, Awake
Top Hot 100 Song: Taio Cruz, "Dynamite"
Top Digital Song: Taio Cruz, "Dynamite"
Top Radio Song: Bruno Mars, "Just the Way You Are"
Top Streaming Song (Audio): Nelly, "Just a Dream"
Top Streaming Song (Video): Justin Bieber featuring Ludacris, "Baby"
Top Pop Song: Taio Cruz, "Dynamite"
Top R&B Song: Usher featuring will.i.am, "OMG"
Top Rap Song: Eminem featuring Rihanna, "Love the Way You Lie"
Top Country Song: Lady Antebellum, "Need You Now"
Top Rock Song: Train, "Hey, Soul Sister"
Top Alternative Song: Neon Trees, "Animal"
Top Latin Song: Shakira featuring Freshlyground, "Waka Waka (This Time 

NBA Playoffs 2011: 10 Steps for Bulls to Ensure a Game 4 Victory over Heat

Derrick Rose looked frustrated. Carlos Boozer played well, but spoke softly and sadly after the game. Joakim Noah got so upset he’s going to be fined six figures for it.

In other words, Game 3 didn’t go so well for the Chicago Bulls.

All hope is not lost, despite the looming suspicion that the Bulls don’t have the offensive firepower to match the Miami Heat. Yes, O.J. Mayo seems very tempting right about now, but Chicago fans need to remember that a Game 4 win will tie the series and make it a best-of-three.

With that said, Tom Thibodeau can’t expect his team to just do what it did in Game 3, only better. Adjustments must be made. Scoring more points than the Heat is obviously the ultimate goal, but as these past two games have shown, that’s easier said than done againstLeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.

What to do, what to do? Here are 10 things the Bulls should at least consider trying in their must-win showdown with the Heat.

PlayStation Network Hack Will Cost Sony $170M

Sony expects the hack of the PlayStation Network and will cost it ¥14 billion (US$170 million) this financial year, it said Monday.

Unknown hackers hit the network gaming service for PlayStation 3 consoles in April, penetrating the system and stealing personal information from the roughly 77 million accounts on the PlayStation Network and sister Qriocity service. A second attack was directed at the Sony Online Entertainment network used for PC gaming.

Sony responded to the attacks by taking the systems offline. It called in several computer security companies to conduct forensic audits and rebuilt its security system.

Users in many countries are being offered a year-long identity-theft protection program and free games. The cost estimate includes those actions and associated legal costs, said Masaru Kato, Sony's CFO, at a Tokyo news conference.

"To date, we have not confirmed any misuse of personal information or credit cards," said Kato.

The costs will be booked in Sony's current financial year, which will end on March 31.

Sony said it made the announcement because it expects to record a net loss of ¥260 billion for the financial year just ended due to charges associated with U.S. GAAP (generally accepted accounting practices) rules.

The March 11 earthquake and tsunami occurred just three weeks before the end of the financial year and didn't have a large impact on the company's global financial performance for the year, but it did push Sony's Japanese operations into a loss.

Those Japanese operations had lost money the previous two years but Sony, anticipating a profit in the year just ended, had recorded tax credits it intended to carry forward. However, GAAP rules say tax credits cannot be recorded for three years in a row, so Sony is recording a non-cash charge for the credits it had taken.

The earthquake hit Sony's domestic operations and led to a sharp fall in consumer demand in Japan in the last weeks of March, but its effect on the results for Sony's electronics business was limited because it occurred so close to the end of the financial year. Sony estimates that resulted in a ¥22 billion drop in sales and ¥17 billion in quake-related costs.

Overall, the company said sales in the previous year were around ¥7.2 trillion.

The company will report an operating profit of around ¥200 billion, but the GAAP-related charge will help push Sony to a net loss of around ¥260 billion. Operating income more closely tracks the company's performance in its core areas and excludes many one-off charges.

Sony will report actual results for the financial year from April 2010 to March 2011 on Thursday.

Martyn Williams covers Japan and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Martyn on Twitter at @martyn_williams. Martyn's e-mail address is martyn_williams@idg.com

Updated Apple Store iPhone app allows build to order Mac purchases

Apple on Monday updated its "Apple Store" application for the iPhone, offering the ability to order a custom Mac, and also more quickly receive help when at a retail store.

The free application (iTunes link) is currently available on the App Store. Version 1.3 is a 3.2MB download, and is available in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. It requires iOS 4.0 or later.

The release of the software coincides with the debut of Apple's improved retail stores, which were upgraded on Sunday. The company now makes use of interactive iPad displays to provide product information, pricing and features.

According to Apple, new features of Apple Store 1.3 are:

• Enhanced in-store mode lets you get help and support quickly when you're at an Apple Retail Store.
• The ability to custom-configure a new Mac with the options you want.

Using the new application, users can make modifications and upgrades to a Mac order placed from their iPhone. For example, users can add more RAM or upgrade the hard drive of a Mac before they finalize their order -- features that were previously only available on Apple's website.

The software is still only written for the iPhone and iPod touch, prompting some initial negative reviews from users in the App Store. Though the application can be run on an iPad, as all iOS software can, it is not optimized for the screen size and resolution of the touchscreen tablet.

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Pakistan Commandos Remove Taliban Guerrillas From Karachi Naval Air Base

Pakistani commandos ended a Taliban siege of a navy base in the country’s largest city after a 16- hour battle that the militants said was in part to avenge the killing of al-Qaeda leader Osamabin Laden.

Ten members of Pakistan’s security forces were killed along with four guerrillas, Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters in Karachi. The “terrorists were 20-22 years of age and wore Western clothes with suicide jackets beneath them,” Malik said. They were armed with rocket launchers and grenades, he said.

Pakistani Taliban had pledged to attack government and military installations after U.S. forces killed al-Qaeda leader bin Laden in a raid in Abbottabad, 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Islamabad, on May 2. The American raid exacerbated tensions between the two countries, as the U.S. questioned whether Pakistani officials had protected bin Laden and Pakistan protested the violation of its territory.

The insurgents in Karachi damaged surveillance aircraft provided by the U.S. in the biggest strike against a leading Pakistani military installation since guerrillas attacked the army’s Rawalpindi headquarters in October 2009.

“This attack shows that the Taliban have sympathizers and insiders in the security establishment,” said Talat Masood, a retired army lieutenant general and security analyst in Islamabad. “This also shows that they have become more powerful and sophisticated in their planning and attacks.”

Americans, Chinese

Six Americans, involved in training Pakistani forces, and 11 Chinese nationals were inside the base at the time of the attack, Malik said today. He said four militants had launched the raid, a far smaller number than claimed by the Taliban.

“Fifteen of our fighters entered the naval air base and we don’t expect them to return,” Ehsanullah Ehsan, a spokesman for the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, said earlier by telephone from an undisclosed location. “They are there to kill. Our issue with Pakistan is its secular policies and friendship with America.”

Last night’s attack began with several explosions at the Mehran naval base around 11 p.m., followed by gunfire. Malik said that militants had entered from the back of the base by cutting through wires, before carrying out the attack like “movie stars.”

Two P-3C Orions, a maritime surveillance aircraft, were targeted and damaged in the attack, Haq said. The U.S. handed over the aircraft to the Pakistan navy in April 2010 and said it will give a total of eight by 2012, according to the U.S. Central Command website.

Surveillance Role

The Taliban may have hit the navy station for its role in helping conduct surveillance against movements by militant groups along Pakistan’s coast, said Bahukutumbi Raman, an Indian security analyst and retired counter-terrorism chief of India’s main intelligence agency.

Pakistan’s naval air unit, including the U.S.-supplied Orion aircraft, has been providing “air surveillance to prevent any sea-borne intrusions of al-Qaeda and to detect any terrorist plans for attacks on ships bringing supplies for the NATO forces in Afghanistan,” Raman wrote in an e-mailed analysis.

Trucks carrying soldiers entered the base soon after the attack began. Flames and black smoke rose into the air and dozens of ambulances waited outside the base.

Tensions between the U.S. and Pakistan have escalated with American officials saying they were worried that Pakistan’s intelligence agency maintains ties to guerrillas fighting American-led forces in Afghanistan. The U.S. military says its war against the Taliban is hindered by Pakistan’s failure to shut down militant havens.

Drone Attacks

Also straining relations is Pakistan’s opposition to U.S. drone attacks on Taliban targets that have killed civilians and American insistence that the strikes continue.

Pakistan’s leaders have rejected accusations they are not doing enough to defeat insurgents. The army’s offensives against the local Taliban movement and allied guerrillas have triggered retaliatory bombings and gun battles in cities nationwide that the government says have killed thousands of Pakistani citizens and security personnel.

Twin bombings on May 13 at a Pakistani paramilitary police academy killed 80 people in what the Pakistan Taliban said was in part revenge for the killing of bin Laden and a precursor to attacks against the U.S.

The PNS Mehran Base is 10 kilometers from Karachi’s Quaid- e-Azam International Airport. It provides all the logistic and administrative support to the aviation unit of the Pakistan navy, according to the navy’s website.

On Oct. 10, 2009, the Pakistani military freed 39 hostages after soldiers stormed a building in the army’s Rawalpindi headquarters, ending a 22-hour siege by militants.

Yesterday’s attack comes less than a month after militants attacked navy buses in Karachi, killing four people and injuring 56. Two days later, four navy personnel and one civilian were killed in a bomb attack on a navy bus in the financial capital.

To contact the reporters on this story: Khurrum Anis in Karachi News atkkhan14@bloomberg.net; Farhan Sharif in Karachi, Pakistan at Fsharif2@bloomberg.net

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