David Taub, Introducer of Pinot Grigio Wine, Dies at 72

When David Taub co-founded his wine importing company in 1977, most Americans knew about two kinds of Italian wine, and those mainly by their packaging: Chianti, for its straw-covered flask, and Soave Bolla, which came in a tall, elegant, rocket-shaped bottle.

Palm Bay International.¤

David S. Taub, a wine importer who helped introduce Pinot Grigio to the United States.

Mr. Taub expanded Americans’ palate for Italian wine (if not their choice in bottles) by introducing a simple white wine called Pinot Grigio. It became the top-selling Italian wine in the United States, part of an international surge in popularity that helped Italy surpass France in the 1980s as Europe’s largest wine exporter.

Mr. Taub, whose firm, Palm Bay International, is among the largest wine importers in the United States, died on Nov. 8 at 72. His son Marc said the cause was complications of kidney disease.

Soave Bolla was the most popular Italian white wine in America when Mr. Taub and his father, Martin, who were wine and liquor distributors, began to import a selection of varietals from the Trentino province of Italy, near the Italian Alps. The Taubs believed that one of those wines, Pinot Grigio, was the most likely to compete successfully with Soave.

It was crisper and more fruity than Soave, Mr. Taub said in a 2010 interview with Wine Spectator magazine: “more in the American style — easy to drink, customer-friendly.”

“The problem,” he added, “was, how do you take a wine that no one has heard of and introduce it into the marketplace?”

The Taubs first persuaded the vineyard that produced the wine to Anglicize its name. Cantina Viticoltori del Trentino, known as Ca’Vit (pronounced ca-VEET), became Cavit. The importers told their American distributors to pronounce it “like the talk-show host.”

Then, through someone who knew someone, the younger Taub contacted Dick Cavett himself, who agreed to lend his cosmopolitan aura to an ad campaign. “I’m the Cavett from Nebraska,” Mr. Cavett was quoted as saying, dressed in crisp talk-show attire and hoisting a glass in full-page ads that appeared in magazines and newspapers nationally. “But you should get to know the Cavit from the Italian Alps. The classic Cavit Pinot Grigio is assertively dry...” The tag line was “Ask for Cavit, as in Cavett.” Starting virtually from zero, within two years the Taubs were importing 500,000 cases of Cavit wines, most of it Pinot Grigio. By 2010, Mr. Taub told Wine Spectator, the number was three million. In an interview on Wednesday, Lucio Caputo, president of the Italian Wine and Food Institute, a New York-based trade association that works closely with the Italian government, called Mr. Taub “a pioneer in the expansion of the world” of Italian wine.

The portfolio of Palm Bay International, which is now led by Marc Taub, includes a vast variety of wines, in a wide price range, from Cavit as well as from other wineries in Italy, Spain, France, Chile, Argentina and Peru.

David Taub was born in Great Neck, N.Y., on Dec. 30, 1939, one of two children of Martin and Frances Taub. After graduating from Boston University in 1961 and serving in the military, he joined the family business, Gallo Wines Distributors of New York, where he worked until branching off to establish Palm Bay.

In addition to his son Marc, Mr. Taub, who still lived on Long Island, in Glen Head, is survived by his wife, Linda; two other sons, Andrew and Joshua; six grandchildren; and his brother, Richard, a professor of social science at the University of Chicago.

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Egypt Leader and Obama Forge Link in Gaza Deal

Lefteris Pitarakis/Associated Press

Israelis in the town of Sderot watched a Palestinian missile on Wednesday, before a cease-fire.

WASHINGTON — President Obama skipped dessert at a long summit meeting dinner in Cambodia on Monday to rush back to his hotel suite. It was after 11:30 p.m., and his mind was on rockets in Gaza rather than Asian diplomacy. He picked up the telephone to call the Egyptian leader who is the new wild card in his Middle East calculations.

Over the course of the next 25 minutes, he and President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt hashed through ways to end the latest eruption of violence, a conversation that would lead Mr. Obama to send Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to the region. As he and Mr. Morsi talked, Mr. Obama felt they were making a connection. Three hours later, at 2:30 in the morning, they talked again.

The cease-fire brokered between Israel and Hamas on Wednesday was the official unveiling of this unlikely new geopolitical partnership, one with bracing potential if not a fair measure of risk for both men. After a rocky start to their relationship, Mr. Obama has decided to invest heavily in the leader whose election caused concern because of his ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, seeing in him an intermediary who might help make progress in the Middle East beyond the current crisis in Gaza.

The White House phone log tells part of the tale. Mr. Obama talked with Mr. Morsi three times within 24 hours and six times over the course of several days, an unusual amount of one-on-one time for a president. Mr. Obama told aides he was impressed with the Egyptian leader’s pragmatic confidence. He sensed an engineer’s precision with surprisingly little ideology. Most important, Mr. Obama told aides that he considered Mr. Morsi a straight shooter who delivered on what he promised and did not promise what he could not deliver.

“The thing that appealed to the president was how practical the conversations were — here’s the state of play, here are the issues we’re concerned about,” said a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. “This was somebody focused on solving problems.”

The Egyptian side was also positive about the collaboration. Essam el-Haddad, the foreign policy adviser to the Egyptian president, described a singular partnership developing between Mr. Morsi, who is the most important international ally for Hamas, and Mr. Obama, who plays essentially the same role for Israel.

“Yes, they were carrying the point of view of the Israeli side but they were understanding also the other side, the Palestinian side,” Mr. Haddad said in Cairo as the cease-fire was being finalized on Wednesday. “We felt there was a high level of sincerity in trying to find a solution. The sincerity and understanding was very helpful.”

The fledgling partnership forged in the fires of the past week may be ephemeral, a unique moment of cooperation born out of necessity and driven by national interests that happened to coincide rather than any deeper meeting of the minds. Some longtime students of the Middle East cautioned against overestimating its meaning, recalling that Mr. Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood constitutes a philosophical brother of Hamas even if it has renounced violence itself and become the governing party in Cairo.

“I would caution the president from believing that President Morsi has in any way distanced himself from his ideological roots,” said Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “But if the president takes away the lesson that we can affect Egypt’s behavior through the artful use of leverage, that’s a good lesson. You can shape his behavior. You can’t change his ideology.”

Other veterans of Middle East policy agreed with the skepticism yet saw the seeds of what might eventually lead to broader agreement.

“It really is something with the potential to establish a new basis for diplomacy in the region,” said Tamara Cofman Wittes, who was Mr. Obama’s deputy assistant secretary of state for the Middle East until earlier this year and now runs the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. “It’s just potential, but it’s particularly impressive potential.”

The relationship between the two leaders has come a long way in just 10 weeks. Mr. Morsi’s election in June as the first Islamist president of Egypt set nerves in Washington on edge and raised questions about the future of Egypt’s three-decade-old peace treaty with Israel. Matters worsened in September when Egyptian radicals protesting an anti-Islam video stormed the United States Embassy in Cairo.

Peter Baker reported from Washington, and David D. Kirkpatrick from Cairo.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 21, 2012

An earlier version of this article misstated the given name of the director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. She is Tamara Cofman Wittes, not Teresa.

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Facebook to share data with Instagram, loosen email rules

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Facebook Inc is proposing to combine user data with that of recently acquired photo-sharing service Instagram, and will loosen restrictions on emails between members of the social network.

Facebook also said on Wednesday it is proposing to scrap a 4-year old process that can allow the social network’s roughly 1 billion users to vote on changes to its policies and terms of services.

Facebook said it may share information between its own service and other businesses or affiliates that Facebook owns to “help provide, understand, and improve our services and their own services.”

One of Facebook’s most significant affiliate businesses is Instagram, a photo-sharing service for smartphone users that Facebook acquired in October for roughly $ 715 million.

The change could open the door for Facebook to build unified profiles of its users that include people’s personal data from its social network and from Instagram, similar to recent moves by Google Inc. In January, Google said it would combine users’ personal information from its various Web services – such as search, email and the Google+ social network – to provide a more customized experience.

Google’s unified data policy raised concerns among some privacy advocates and regulators, who said it was an invasion of people’s privacy. A group of 36 U.S. state attorney generals also warned in a letter to Google that consolidating so much personal information in one place could put people at greater risk from hackers and identity thieves.

Facebook also wants to loosen the restrictions on how members of the social network can contact other members using the Facebook email system.

Facebook said it wanted to eliminate a setting for users to control who can contact them. The company said it planned to replace the “Who can send you Facebook messages” setting with new filters for managing incoming messages.

Asked whether such a change could leave Facebook users exposed to a flood of unwanted, spam-like messages, Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes said that the company carefully monitors user interaction and feedback to find ways to enhance the user experience.

“We are working on updates to Facebook Messages and have made this change in our Data Use Policy in order to allow for improvements to the product,” Noyes said.

Facebook’s changes come as the world’s largest social networking company with roughly 1 billion users has experienced a sharp slowdown in revenue growth. The company generates the bulk of its revenue from advertising on its website.

The changes are open to public comment for the next seven days. If the proposed changes generate more than 7,000 public comments, Facebook’s current terms of service automatically trigger a vote by users to approve the changes. But the vote is only binding if at least 30 percent of users take part, and two prior votes never reached that threshold.

Facebook has said in that past that it was rethinking the voting system and on Wednesday Facebook moved to eliminate the vote entirely, noting that it hasn’t functioned as intended and is no longer suited to its current situation as a large publicly traded company subject to oversight by various regulatory agencies.

“We found that the voting mechanism, which is triggered by a specific number of comments, actually resulted in a system that incentivized the quantity of comments over their quality,” Elliot Schrage, Facebook’s vice president of communications, public policy and marketing, said in a blog post on Wednesday.

Instead of the vote, Facebook will look for other forms of user feedback on changes, such as an “Ask the Chief Privacy Officer” question-and-answer forum on its website as well as live webcasts about privacy, safety and security.

Facebook, Google and other online companies have faced increasing scrutiny and enforcement from privacy regulators as consumers entrust ever-increasing amounts of information about their personal lives to Web services.

In April, Facebook settled privacy charges with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission that it had deceived consumers and forced them to share more personal information than they intended. Under the settlement, Facebook is required to get user consent for certain changes to its privacy settings and is subject to 20 years of independent audits.

(Reporting By Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Thunder edge Clippers 117-111 in overtime

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Kendrick Perkins challenged his Oklahoma City Thunder teammates before a showdown of division leaders with the Los Angeles Clippers on Wednesday night.

The Thunder had lost their first two games this season against other top teams in the Western Conference, and Perkins wanted that trend to stop immediately.

It wasn't easy, but Oklahoma City got the job done.

Kevin Durant scored 35 points, Russell Westbrook added 23 and Oklahoma City's All-Star tandem scored all of the Thunder's points in overtime in a 117-111 victory over the Clippers.

"It felt good to finally get one of those wins, and we can move on now," Durant said.

Westbrook connected on a 3-pointer from the left wing to open the scoring in overtime, and Durant rattled one in from about the same spot two possessions later for a 108-104 advantage.

Westbrook then answered DeAndre Jordan's three-point play with a baseline jumper, and Oklahoma City was able to close it out from the foul line.

"This is a good win for us, especially against a team like that, that had some success lately," said Thabo Sefolosha, who hounded Clippers All-Star Chris Paul much of the game.

Blake Griffin led Los Angeles with 23 points and Jamal Crawford scored 20 for the Clippers, who had a six-game winning streak snapped after entering the game tied for the best record in the West.

After trailing for the previous 44 minutes, the Clippers finally pulled even at 102 when Matt Barnes drove for a layup with 36 seconds left in regulation. Griffin denied Durant the ball on the Thunder's ensuing possession, and Westbrook came up empty on a drive to the basket.

Paul then dribbled out the rest of the clock before missing a turnaround jumper from the left elbow as the horn sounded.

"I think the frustrating part is we had an opportunity to win and, regardless of what anybody says, it's going to be hard for us to win a game when I play that bad," said Paul, who missed 12 of 14 shots and ended up with nine points and nine assists.

"It's tough because you work so hard but there's going to be nights like that."

Los Angeles had been tied with Memphis for the West's best record at the start of the day but dropped behind Oklahoma City and San Antonio with the loss. The Clippers were trying to win at least seven games in a row for only the sixth time in franchise history, and the first time since 1991.

"We fought the whole game and Chris got a great look. We're going to live and die on that shot," Jordan said. "We fought but we definitely made some mistakes tonight. They made more plays than we did down the stretch."

Matt Barnes scored 19 points while replacing starting forward Caron Butler in the Clippers' lineup. Butler missed the game with a strained right shoulder sustained Monday night in a win at San Antonio.

Kevin Martin scored 20 points and Serge Ibaka chipped in 15 points and 12 rebounds for Oklahoma City before fouling out in overtime. Hasheem Thabeet also matched his career high with 10 points off the bench.

The Clippers won three out of four against Oklahoma City in a sometimes testy series last season that included Griffin's memorable throwdown over Perkins in a Clippers win and Perkins' retaliation with a hard foul to Griffin's face as Oklahoma City won the rematch.

Barnes had a couple scuffles with Ibaka and Perkins but nothing quite as noteworthy.

The Clippers ended up with a 54-38 edge scoring in the paint and a 28-10 advantage in second-chance points. Oklahoma City made up for it by making 34 of 39 free throws, while L.A. was 24 for 33.

Durant was 19 for 21 at the line, with coach Vinny Del Negro telling official Kevin Fehr after one call: "He doesn't need any help scoring."

"Those guys are physical and (I was) just trying to fight through it. Just trying to get there, man," Durant said. "I think early on, me driving and me getting into the paint, I was a little hesitant in the second half because I was turning the ball over.

"But I just tried to keep going. My teammates told me to just keep being aggressive, and that's what I tried to do."

The Thunder pushed ahead with a string of eight straight made baskets in the first quarter, and the lead stretched to 26-16 after Westbrook's extra effort turned a potential turnover into a three-point play for Thabeet.

The Clippers finally got back within striking distance early in the fourth, with Thunder coach Scott Brooks yelling to Durant to get off the bench with Los Angeles back within 78-75.

With Durant back in, Oklahoma City responded with the next six points to stabilize momentarily before the Clippers' final charge.

Notes: Los Angeles has held eight straight opponents below 46 percent shooting. The Thunder were just shy at 45.6 percent. ... Crawford made all four of his free throws, stretching his streak of consecutive makes to 29. He made 37 in a row in April. ... Jordan, one of the NBA's worst foul shooters at 42 percent, got Oklahoma City to stop hacking him intentionally in the fourth quarter by making three of four.

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Documents Show F.D.A.’s Failures in Meningitis Outbreak

Newly released documents add vivid detail to the emerging portrait of the Food and Drug Administration’s ineffective and halting efforts to regulate a Massachusetts company implicated in a national meningitis outbreak that has sickened nearly 500 people and killed 34.

In the documents, released on Tuesday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, the agency would threaten to bring the full force of its authority down on the company, only to back away, citing lack of jurisdiction.

The company, the New England Compounding Center, at times cooperated with F.D.A. inspectors and promised to improve its procedures, and at other times challenged the agency’s legal authority to regulate it, refused to provide records and continued to ship a drug in defiance of the agency’s concerns.

Some of the documents were summarized last week by Congressional committees that held hearings on the meningitis outbreak. Republicans and Democrats criticized the F.D.A. for failing to act on information about unsafe practices at the company as far back as March 2002.

By law, compounding pharmacies are regulated primarily by the states, but the pharmacies have grown over the years into major suppliers of some of the country’s biggest hospitals. The F.D.A. is asking Congress for stronger, clearer authority to police them, but Republicans have said the agency already has enough power.

Records show that the agency was sometimes slow in pursuing its own inspection findings. In one case involving the labeling and marketing of drugs, the agency issued a warning letter to New England Compounding 684 days after an inspection, a delay that the company’s chief pharmacist complained was so long that some of the letter’s assertions no longer applied to its operations.

The agency said in a statement Wednesday that it “was not the timeline we strive for,” but that much of the delay was because of “our limited, unclear and contested authority in this area.” Because of litigation, it said, there was “significant internal discussion about how to regulate compounders.”

The agency first inspected the company in April 2002 after reports that two patients had become dizzy and short of breath after being injected with a steroid made by the company.

 On the first day of the inspection, Barry Cadden, the chief pharmacist, was cooperative, but the next day, the agency inspectors wrote, Mr. Cadden “had a complete change in attitude & basically would not provide any additional information either by responding to questions or providing records,” adding that he challenged their legal authority to be at his pharmacy at all.

The F.D.A. was back at New England Compounding in October 2002 because of possible contamination of another of its products, methylprednisolone acetate, the same drug involved in the current meningitis outbreak.

 While the F.D.A. had the right to seize an adulterated steroid, officials at the time said that action alone would not resolve the company’s poor compounding practices. In a meeting with Massachusetts regulators, F.D.A. officials left authority in the hands of the state, which “would be in a better position to gain compliance or take regulatory action,” according to a memo by an F.D.A. official summarizing the meeting.

 David Elder, compliance branch director for the F.D.A.’s New England District, warned at the meeting that there was the “potential for serious public health consequences if N.E.C.C.’s compounding practices, in particular those relating to sterile products, are not improved.”

 The company fought back hard, repeatedly questioning the F.D.A.’s jurisdiction. In a September 2004 inspection over concerns that the company was dispensing trypan blue, a dye used for some eye surgeries that had not been approved by the F.D.A., Mr. Cadden told the agency inspector that he had none in stock.

But in the clean room, the inspector noticed a drawer labeled “Trypan Blue,” which contained 189 vials of the medicine.

A few days later, Mr. Cadden was defiant. He told the agency that he was continuing to dispense trypan blue and that there was nothing in the law saying a compounder could not dispense unapproved products.

 The conversation turned testy. “Don’t answer any more questions!” Mr. Cadden told another pharmacy executive, according to the F.D.A.’s report.

Mr. Cadden rejected many of the assertions in the warning letter that finally came in December 2006. The next correspondence from the agency did not come until almost two years later, in October 2008, saying that the agency still had “serious concerns” about the company’s practices, and that failing to correct them could result in seizure of products and an injunction against the company and its principals.

It is not known whether any corrective actions were taken. The agency did not conduct another inspection until the recent meningitis outbreak.

Denise Grady contributed reporting.

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Tool Kit: Online Shopping Tips for the Holidays

Some people may be looking forward to leaving Thanksgiving dinner before the pie is served to join the Black Friday rush, which will begin during dinnertime Thursday, earlier than ever, at stores like Sears, Walmart and Lord & Taylor.

But for those who prefer to stay for the pie course, avoid the lines and freezing temperatures and shop from the comfort of their homes, there are just as many deals to be found online this year, especially for smart shoppers.

Last year, online shoppers spent $816 million on Black Friday, an increase of 26 percent from the year before, and an additional $2.3 billion over Thanksgiving weekend and Cyber Monday, according to comScore. It expects online spending to rise this year.

Online, there is no commute, no parking and no crowds — and shopping can be done in bed or at the Thanksgiving dinner table. Still, you cannot try clothes on, you have to wait for your purchase to arrive and there is always the nagging feeling that a better price is just one more click away.

To find your way around those problems, here are some tips from online shopping pros, retailers and shopping bloggers.

BARGAINS START EARLY “Cyber Monday is passé,” said Fiona Dias, chief strategy officer for ShopRunner.com, a network of e-commerce sites. “With online sales beginning as early as the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving, consumers who hold out for the best deal may find that what they are looking for has already sold out.”

Amazon.com, for example, started its Black Friday deals on Monday, but they end Saturday. SHOP ON TUESDAYS One of the secrets of online shopping is that prices change by the second. To maximize your chances of getting the best price year-round, shop on Tuesday, a variety of e-commerce experts say. For whatever reason, Tuesday is when most e-commerce sites, including Shopbop, Etsy and RetailMeNot, post discounts and new items.

No matter the day, online retailers often start sales in the wee hours, so shop early.

As for the time of year, women’s clothes, shoes and accessories are discounted most in January, February, August and September, according to Shop It To Me, an online shopping search site. For consumer electronics like laptops, shop in midsummer and late September, before and after the back-to-school rush, according to Decide.com, a price comparison site.

NEVER PAY FULL PRICE Online holiday shoppers should use 40 percent off as a benchmark for a good deal, said Marjorie Cader, a Shop It To Me spokeswoman, based on discount data the site has collected. Expect discounts that are about 5 percent better from online-only retailers than from those that also operate brick and mortar stores, she said.

Comparison shopping sites like TheFind or ShopStyle can locate the best prices; Google or coupon sites like RetailMeNot can also help find a discount.

Google, Amazon and even flash sale sites like Gilt.com do not always have the lowest prices. You might check small shopping blogs dedicated to your favorite brands, like Grechen’s Closet for contemporary women’s clothes or J. Crew Aficionada.

“Spend 20 minutes and ensure you are getting the best deal out there,” said John Faith, senior vice president of mobile at WhaleShark Media, which operates coupon sites, including RetailMeNot.

BE A HAGGLER This is the year haggling at the cash register could become acceptable, as offline retailers try to keep shoppers offline. If you find a better price online — by using an application like RedLaser or searching Amazon — ask whether the cashier will match it. Big retailers like Target have already said they will.

WAIT TILL THE LAST MINUTE Procrastinators might benefit during the holidays. Electronics sold online are least expensive in the week before Christmas, according to Decide, especially TVs, laptops and cameras.

And while Dec. 17 is the last day that most online retailers will offer free shipping in time for Christmas, Walmart, the luxury clothing seller Net-a-Porter and others will deliver the same day. In San Francisco and New York, eBay now offers same-day delivery from hundreds of stores, including Macy’s, Target and Toys “R” Us.

NEVER PAY FOR SHIPPING... Nine of ten retailers will offer free shipping on certain purchases this holiday season, and a third will offer free shipping on all purchases, according to the National Retail Federation.

Some, though, require that you enter a promotional code, so it’s wise to take a minute to look around the Web site or search a coupon site to find it.

Stores including Walmart, Toys “R” Us and Nordstrom allow you to shop online and pick up your order locally.

...OR FOR RETURNS Sites like Zappos.com and Piperlime send prepaid shipping labels, but beware.

“When it comes to returns, read the fine print,” said Brian Hoyt, a spokesman for WhaleShark Media. Some merchants include a prepaid return label but subtract the price from your refund, and others charge a restocking fee as high as 30 percent for consumer electronics.

Many companies, including Gap and J. Crew, also let you return an online purchase to a local store. And until Dec. 31, PayPal will cover the return shipping cost if the merchant does not, as long as you pay with PayPal and make the return within 30 days.

SEARCH WISELY Try searching synonyms, like “coat” instead of “jacket.” On sites like eBay, try leaving out words — if you are looking for an Yves Saint Laurent handbag on eBay, search for “Saint Laurent” or “Laurent bag.”

“If you search for ‘Yves Saint Laurent,’ you’ll be fighting over pieces with a bigger group of people,” said Sophia Amoruso, founder and chief executive of the e-commerce retailer Nasty Gal, who suggested purposefully misspelling brand names as well. “Think of what an uninformed person might list a really great designer piece as, and you can get an amazing gem for an incredible price.”

EBay Fashion also lets shoppers search by taking a cellphone picture of a fabric to find similar designs.

GET INSPIRED Search for “black sequin dress,” and you’ll get 128 results on Zappos.com, 2,618 on Amazon.com and a truly overwhelming 18 million on Google.

One solution: Trust online curators to suggest items. Etsy creates lists of recommended items. On Pinterest, you can peruse items culled by others. Other sites to search for inspiration: Polvyore, Fancy, Svpply, Lookbook.nu and We Heart It.

TRY IT ON, VIRTUALLY You can visit sites that show real people wearing the clothes you’re interested in buying, like Go Try It On, Fashism and Rent the Runway and sites that show video, including Asos, MyHabit and Joyus. Or, as long as a site offers free shipping and returns, order two sizes and return one.

SHOP INTERNATIONALLY “Don’t let international shopping scare you off,” said Caroline Nolan, the writer of Pregnant Fashionista, a maternity shopping blog.

Many international e-commerce sites, like Asos, ship free to the United States. And because the seasons are different, winter clothes in Australia, for instance, go on sale just as Americans are starting to shop for winter, she said. FarFetch has items from small boutiques worldwide and 1stDibs is good at finding rare items like an antique from Paris. On eBay, you might have luck finding items made by a European designer by switching to eBay’s site for a particular country.

MAKE SITES WORK FOR YOU On Shop It To Me, you can enter your favorite designers and sizes and the site will send you personalized e-mails with promotions and sales. Many sites allow shoppers to place a symbol like a heart on best-liked items or save them to a wish list. On a site like Pinterest, shoppers can build a list.

“You always think you’ll remember where you saw something or what brand it was, but really you never do,” said Noria Morales, style director at SugarInc, a network of fashion and lifestyle blogs.

Even better, sites like Shopbop and Polyvore send alerts when items you have saved go on sale or are running low. EBay sends alerts when new items are listed for a search you have saved.

BE DILIGENT No one has time to read 50 e-mails a day from retailers. But for your favorite e-commerce sites, it is worth signing up for e-mails, as well as tracking them on Facebook and Twitter, where they often post exclusive deals. Many online shoppers have more luck hunting for items than trusting services to send alerts, said Grechen Reiter, owner of Grechen Media, a network of shopping blogs.

“It is the thrill of the hunt that gets us going, after all,” she said.

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Gunman in Mumbai Attacks Is Hanged

India executed the only surviving gunman from the 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai early Wednesday, the country’s Home Ministry said. The gunman, Muhammad Ajmal Kasab, a Pakistani citizen, was one of 10 attackers who rampaged through the streets of India’s financial capital for three days in November 2008 and killed 163 people. Mr. Kasab was hanged in secrecy at 7:30 a.m. at a jail in Pune, a city near Mumbai, after India’s president, Pranab Mukherjee, rejected his plea for mercy. Mr. Kasab and the other gunmen entered Mumbai by boat on Nov. 26, 2008. Armed with grenades and automatic weapons, the gunmen fanned out across Mumbai, targeting luxury hotels, a Jewish center and the city’s main train station. A photograph of Mr. Kasab striding through the station, an assault rifle in hand, quickly became an indelible image of the assault. India blames Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant Pakistani organization, for orchestrating the attacks. (AP)

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BlackBerry maker wins vote of confidence ahead of BB10

TORONTO (Reuters) – Research In Motion Ltd, for months enveloped by a wave of negative sentiment, got a boost on Tuesday when one of its most influential critics raised his rating on the stock ahead of the launch of RIM’s make-or-break new line of BlackBerry 10 devices.

The upgrade by Jefferies & Co analyst Peter Misek pushed RIM’s share price into double digits for the first time in five months, with the stock up more than 3 percent at $ 10.04 in early trading on the Nasdaq.

Misek based his more optimistic view of the BB10 launch, set for January 30, on a favorable reaction by telecom carriers to the devices and the new operating system that powers them.

“Preliminary results from our quarterly handset survey indicate developed market carriers have a much more positive view of BB10 than we expected,” Misek said in a note to clients.

Shares of Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM, a one-time leader in the smartphone industry, have plummeted in recent years as its aging line-up of devices lost ground to faster and snazzier devices from rivals. The company has bet its future on the new BB10.

RIM hopes BB10 smartphones will help claw back market share it has lost in recent years to Apple Inc’s iPhone and devices that run on Google Inc’s Android operating system.

Misek, who doubled his price target on shares of RIM to $ 10 from $ 5, also raised his rating on the stock to “hold” from “underperform”.

“With greater carrier shelf space and marketing support, we now believe BB10 has a 20 percent to 30 percent probability of success,” said Misek, who has long been skeptical of RIM’s odds of engineering a turnaround.

Misek cautioned that there is still downside if RIM’s gamble on BB10 fails, but he noted that the stock could be worth as much as $ 43 within the next 12 months if RIM’s bet pays off and its new operating system gets licensed by other handset makers.

RIM says its new devices will be faster and smoother and have a large catalog of applications, which are now critical to the success of any new line of smartphones. While feedback from both developers and carriers on the new devices has been largely upbeat, financial analysts have been much more circumspect about the company’s prospects.

Misek’s view is not shared by at least one of his counterparts.

In a note to clients on Monday, Pacific Crest analyst James Faucette reiterated his “underperform” rating on RIM’s shares. He said regardless of its quality, there is almost no chance that BB10 will meaningfully change RIM’s trajectory.

RIM shares were up 3.7 percent at $ 9.95 at midmorning on the Nasdaq, while its Toronto-listed shares rose 3.1 percent to C$ 9.89.

(Reporting by Euan Rocha; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe; and Peter Galloway)

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Jack Taylor scores 138 points for Grinnell

After a poor shooting weekend, Grinnell guard Jack Taylor was given the green light to shoot his way out of a slump.

It only took 108 shots for Taylor to make a mockery of the college basketball record books.

Taylor scored 138 points to shatter the NCAA scoring record in Division III Grinnell's 179-104 victory over Faith Baptist Bible on Tuesday night in Grinnell, Iowa.

Taylor, a 5-foot-10, 170-pound sophomore from Black River Falls, Wis., made 27 of 71 3-point attempts, was 52 of 108 overall from the field and added seven free throws on 10 attempts in 36 minutes.

"It felt like anything I tossed up was going in," Taylor told The Associated Press.

Rio Grande's Bevo Francis held the NCAA scoring record with 113 points against Hillsdale in 1954. In 1953, Francis had 116 against Ashland Junior College. Frank Selvy is the only other player to reach triple figures, scoring 100 points for Division I Furman against Newberry in 1954. The previous Grinnell record was 89 by Griffin Lentsch last Nov. 19 against Principia.

Under coach David Arseneault, the Pioneers press and shoot 3s like nobody else in the country in any level. They've led the nation in scoring for 17 of the past 19 seasons while ranking first nationally in 3-point shooting for the 15 of those past 19 years. But none of them have had a night quite like Taylor — who never saw this coming.

Taylor recently transferred to Grinnell, located about 50 miles east of Des Moines, after playing one season for Wisconsin-La Crosse. He struggled in his debut at the nearby Wartburg Tournament over the weekend by hitting only 11 of 41 shots — including only 6 of 34 3-point attempts Still, he averaged 23.5 points a game.

But Taylor started Tuesday's night game off slow — at least according to his standards. His coaches figured the best way to get him on track was for him to keep chucking, so that's what Taylor did.

"Maybe my cold shooting from the weekend was affecting me," Taylor said. "But then they started to drop."

Taylor had 58 points at halftime.

Then he got hot.

Taylor was 32 of 58 shooting — including 18 3s — in the final 20 minutes and averaged an astounding four points a minute in the second half.

"I don't think reality has set in yet," Taylor said.

Faith Baptist's David Larson also had a big game, scoring 70 points on 34-of-44 shooting.

Carmelo Anthony and the New York Knicks were amazed by Taylor's feat when they heard about it after their victory in New Orleans.

"I never heard of nothing like that. That's like a video game," Anthony said, an incredulous look on his face. "How can you shoot 100 times, though?"

He joked that from now on when someone asks if he's taking too many shots, he'll mention "that someone shot it 108 times."

Raymond Felton also was astounded by the 108 shots.

"His elbow has got to be sore," Felton said.

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AP Sports Writer Brett Martel in New Orleans contributed to this report.

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Follow Luke Meredith on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/LukeMeredithAP

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Recipes for Health: Pear Cranberry Galette — Recipes for Health

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

I used Bartlett pears for this juicy galette, but pretty much any variety will work, as long as they’re not overly ripe.

1 dessert galette pastry (1/2 recipe)

2/3 cup dried cranberries

2 pounds pears, ripe but not too soft, peeled, cored and sliced (about 8 to 12 wedges per pear, depending on the size; if the pears are very large, cut the slices into 2 pieces at the middle)

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

2 tablespoons mild honey, like clover

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup (25 grams) almond powder

1 egg beaten with 1 teaspoon milk, for egg wash

1 tablespoon raw brown sugar

1. Remove the pastry from the freezer and place it on a baking sheet lined with parchment. Leave to thaw while you prepare the fruit, but don’t keep it out of the freezer for too long. It’s easiest to handle if it’s cold and will thaw quickly. You just want it soft enough so that you can manipulate it.

2. Soak the cranberries for 5 minutes in hot water. Drain and dry on paper towels. Toss the sliced pears with the lemon juice in a large bowl, then add the dried cranberries, honey, cinnamon and vanilla and gently toss together.

3. Sprinkle the almond powder over the pastry, leaving a 2- to 3-inch border all around. Place the fruit on top. Fold the edges of the dough in over the fruit, pleating the edges as you work your way around the fruit to form a free-form tart that is roughly 9 inches in diameter. Place in the freezer on the baking sheet for 45 minutes to an hour. This helps the galette maintain its shape.

4. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Remove the galette from the freezer. Brush the exposed edge of the pastry with the egg wash. Sprinkle the sugar over the fruit and the crust. Place in the oven and bake 50 to 60 minutes, until the fruit is bubbly and the juice is running out and caramelizing on the parchment. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for at least 15 minutes. Serve hot, warm or at room temperature.

Yield: 1 9-inch galette, serving 8

Advance preparation: You can assemble this through Step 3 and freeze it for up to a month. Once it is frozen, double-wrap it in plastic. You can also freeze the galette after baking. Thaw and warm in a 350-degree oven for 10 to 15 minutes to recrisp the crust.

Nutritional information per serving: 246 calories; 6 grams fat; 2 grams saturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 2 grams monounsaturated fat; 43 milligrams cholesterol; 46 grams carbohydrates; 5 grams dietary fiber; 90 milligrams sodium; 5 grams protein

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

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