By Pet360 - Pets


By Jessica Remitz | Pet360.com

Though we all like to keep our pups in tow whenever we can find a dog-friendly outdoor space to romp and play, but as the weather heats up, it may be best to leave certain breeds at home. We asked Dr. Louise Murray, vice president of the ASPCA Animal Hospital, to share the top breeds that are at risk for overheating in warm weather in addition to some tips for keeping your pup cool and safe in the summer months.

Although many of the breeds on this list are brachycephalic-or have short noses and wide, flat heads-it's important to take proper precautions for keeping any dog cool in warm weather and never (ever!) leaving them in a hot car for any period of time.

#1 - Pug

Playful, confident and friendly, Pugs are well loved for their charisma and charm. With a wrinkled face, short legs and compact body, the Pug's unique expression and physique is well known among dog fanciers and pet parents alike. Because of its small size, Pugs can happily adapt to both city and country living.

Brachycephalic breeds-or dogs with short noses, compact skulls and compressed upper respiratory systems-like the Pug are inefficient panters, which means that they're unable to cool themselves as effectively as other dog breeds. Because of this, brachycephalic breeds are more prone to overheating and require extra care in warm weather, particularly access to shade and plenty of water.

"Dogs can become dehydrated quickly, so give them plenty of water when it's hot outdoors," Murray said. "If they are panting heavily, bring them to a cooled-off area and give them water."

She also recommends providing pets with a shady place to escape if they're out in the sun or keeping them completely indoors when it's very hot.

#2 - Pekinese

An ancient toy breed that originated in China over 1,000 years ago, the Pekinese is a happy, loveable lapdog. Loyal and devoted to it's family, the Pekinese can also be wary of strangers. With a thick undercoat and long, dense overcoat, Pekinese require regular grooming, in addition to special care in warm weather.

If you anticipate spending a lot of time outdoors with you dog, it's important to check with your veterinarian to make sure they're healthy enough to participate in the plans you make, Murray said. "Every dog is different, so there's no set of guidelines that can apply to every one," she said.

#3 - Bulldog

Originally used for bull baiting, the Bulldog is now one of the most popular companion animals in America and is one of the most popular AKC breeds. A short yet powerful dog with a heavy build, trademark under bite and lots of loose skin, the Bulldog makes an adorable couch companion, albeit one that may be prone to snorting and drooling.

Learn more about Bulldogs.

While the Bulldog may require some prodding to go out for a walk, they might have some trouble breathing as they run or play because they are brachycephalic, Murray said, so take care not to over-exercise them.

"Dogs will not limit their own activity, so pay close attention to how your dog is acting as they play," she said.


#4 - Shih Tzu

Another ancient dog breed that was kept as a companion and lap dog by Chinese royalty, Shih Tzus remain popular family pets and companions. A playful breed that loves learning new things, Shih Tzus are generally good with children and other dogs. With a dense undercoat and long, straight outer coat, the Shih Tzu requires regular grooming and may snort and sneeze (in addition to overheat in warm weather) frequently because of its short muzzle.

You'll want to avoid spending too much time on the pavement with your dog in warm weather, as the ground can heat up quickly and can create blisters or burns on the pads of your dog's paws, Murray said.

#5 - Boston Terrier

One of the first breeds established in the United States, the Boston Terrier is a lively, intelligent breed with a gentle and easy going disposition. A compact breed with large ears and a wide smile, Boston Terriers generally require a minimal amount of exercise and grooming and, aside from their propensity to overheat in warm weather, tend to be easy keepers.

#6 - French Bulldog

This little lap-warmer was bread as a companion for French royalty beginning in the 19th century. With a small, compact body and large, rounded ears, French Bulldogs also have short muzzles and broad, flat faces. Sweet, affectionate and friendly, French Bulldogs get along well with everyone but tend to become attached to one person in particular. In addition to their high risk of over heating in warm weather, French Bulldogs also need to have the spaces between the wrinkles on their face and neck kept clean and dry to prevent skin infections.


#7 - Boxer

Used for fighting and bull baiting in the 18th century, Boxers have become popular family pets, police dogs and military dogs. Large and muscular with a square head, short nose and high-tucked abdomen, Boxers love to play and spend time with their people. Particularly affectionate with children, the Boxers can be protective of their families in the presence of other dogs and require lots of attention.

If dogs are allowed to be active during the hottest parts of the day, they are at risk for heatstroke, which can be fatal if not corrected quickly. If at all possible, Murray recommends limiting extended outdoor time to early afternoon or evening on hot days. If your dog must be out and about during the hottest hours of the day, provide them with plenty of water, access to shade and time to take breaks and catch their breath, she said.

#8 - Cavalier King Charles Spaniel

Considered a fashionable lap dog for women in the 17th century, the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel remains a popular and friendly companion. An easygoing breed that falls in love with everyone it meets, the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel is small bodied with a round head, short nose and fluffy drop eats. A breed that loves attention, its medium-length coat requires regular grooming. Although the breed can fare well in either the city or the country, Cavalier King Charles Spaniels-like the other breeds on this list-will need to have access to air conditioning or plenty of cool places when the temperature heats up.

Explore More from Pet360:

Dog Breeds that Love Hot Weather

9 Best Dog Breeds to Bring on a Road Trip

Top Summer Pet Grooming Products

10 Water-Loving Dog Breeds

Heat Stroke in Dogs

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By Alexei Oreskovic - Reuters


SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc's YouTube said on Tuesday that it plans to launch a paid streaming music service, amid criticism that its existing, free video website might block the music videos of labels that do not agree to its terms.

YouTube has partnered with "hundreds of major and independent" music labels for the new service, the company said in a statement, confirming long-running rumors that the world's most popular online video website will offer a paid music service.

The news comes as some music trade groups have criticized YouTube's plans to potentially block the content of certain labels from appearing on YouTube's free, ad-supported Website unless they sign deals to participate in the new, subscription streaming music service. The deals that YouTube is offering are on "highly unfavorable, and non-negotiable terms," according to a news release issued by the Worldwide Independent Music Industry Network last month.

YouTube declined to comment on the terms of the deals, but said in a statement that the new service would provide new revenue for the music industry.

"We re adding subscription-based features for music on YouTube with this in mind - to bring our music partners new revenue streams in addition to the hundreds of millions of dollars YouTube already generates for them each year," YouTube said in a statement.

YouTube has already signed deals for the paid service with 95 percent of the music labels that it previously had deals with for its existing, ad-supported music video webiste, a person familiar with the matter said. Blocking certain music labels' videos from appearing on YouTube's free website might be necessary in order to provide a consistent user experience for the paid service, the person said.

The YouTube service is expected to launch at the end of the summer and will allow users to listen to music without any ads, according to a person familiar with the situation. Among the other features expected are the ability to listen to music offline and the ability to listen to an artist's entire album instead of just individual songs, as is currently the case on YouTube, the person said.

Streaming music services such as Spotify and Pandora are becoming increasingly popular among consumers, as digital music downloads decline. Apple Inc announced plans to acquire streaming music service and premium headphone maker Beats for $3 billion last month.

Google launched the $9.99-per-month Play All Access subscription music service in 2013. The forthcoming YouTube paid music service could potentially work in coordination with the Play service so that consumers aren't forced to subscribe to two separate services, the person familiar with the situation said.

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

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By Sandy Cohen, The Associated Press - The Canadian Press


LOS ANGELES, Calif. - In a summertime battle of sequels, a pair of kooky cops beat out flying dragons for the top spot at the box office.

The R-rated comedy "22 Jump Street" debuted in first place with $60 million, followed by "How to Train Your Dragon 2" which opened with $50 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday.

"To have two movies that opened to 50-plus, that's really good," said Chris Aronson, head of distribution for Fox, which boasts three films in the top 10. "To have a PG-rated, animated film open against a hard R comedy, you gotta love that."

It's rare for two films to open with such big numbers on the same weekend, said Paul Dergarabedian, senior analyst for box-office tracker Rentrak. Dergarabedian notes it has happened three times before: last year when "Monsters University" opened against "World War Z"; in 2012 when "Madagascar 3" opened against "Prometheus"; and in 2008 when "WALL-E" opened against "Wanted."

The original versions of "Dragon" and "Jump Street" were springtime releases, and their strong performances then led studios to offer sequels during the hot movie-going months of summer.

"When a studio has ultimate confidence in something, they will put it in that gladiator arena that is the summer season," Dergarabedian said. "A sequel in the summer is like graduating."

Sony's "Jump Street" stars Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill as bumbling undercover officers who pose as college students to bust a campus drug dealer. Hill also lends a voice to the animated "Dragon," the Fox feature that follows Hiccup and his winged dragon Toothless on an adventure where they discover hundreds of wild dragons and a mysterious dragon master.

Disney's "Maleficent" claimed third place in its third week of release. Warner Bros.' Tom Cruise action romp "Edge of Tomorrow" took the fourth spot, followed by last week's top film, Fox's teen tear-jerker "The Fault in Our Stars."

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theatres, according to Rentrak. Final domestic figures will be released on Monday.

1. "22 Jump Street," $60 million.

2. "How to Train Your Dragon 2," $50 million.

3. "Maleficent," $19 million.

4. "Edge of Tomorrow," $16.2 million.

5. "The Fault in Our Stars," $15.7 million.

6. "X-Men: Days of Future Past," $9.5 million.

7. "Godzilla," $3.2 million.

8. "A Million Ways to Die in the West," $3.1 million.

9. "Neighbours," $2.5 million.

10. "Chef," $2.3 million.

Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by 21st Century Fox; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

Follow AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen at www.twitter.com/APSandy .

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By Derrik J. Lang, The Associated Press - The Canadian Press

LOS ANGELES, Calif. - Game makers at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo went for the jugular.

That's not just a metaphor about the competitive spirit of the video game industry at its annual trade show this past week. There were also actual depictions of throats being ripped out — as well as spleens, spines, hearts and testicles — in some of the goriest scenes ever shown off at E3.

Developers of such titles as "Bloodborne," "Let It Die," "Mortal Kombat X," "Dead Island 2" and "Dying Light" weren't shy about harnessing the high-powered graphical capabilities of the latest generation of consoles to portray more realistic decapitations, dismemberments and other grisliness.

Why the apparent boost in high-definition gross-outs?

"I think in the early years of a console launch, you have the so-called early adopters and hardcore fan base," said Shawn Layden, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America, which launched the PlayStation 4 last November. "I think they look for the latest gaming experience that takes them to another level from where they've been before, and a lot of our publishing partners are pursuing the new, most impactful experience for gamers."

The parade of carnage kicked off Monday at Microsoft's presentation when the creators of "Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare" demonstrated a level in which a character's arm is ripped off while attempting to sabotage an enemy aircraft in South Korea. Michael Condrey, co-founder of "Advanced Warfare" developer Sledgehammer Games, later maintained the amputation wasn't only intended to shock.

"We know that war is terrifying," said Condrey. "The military advisers that we work with talk about the horrors of war. 'Call of Duty' isn't just about gratuitous violence. The scene that you saw in Seoul at the Microsoft press conference, that's an impactful story moment. The loss of the arm is really part of the narrative. We showed that for a particular storytelling reason."

Other slaughter on display at E3 included a first-person perspective of a decapitation in a demo of the French Revolution-set "Assassin's Creed: Unity" and several bone-crushing new moves in "Mortal Kombat X," like extreme close-ups of characters snapping their opponents' spines and manhandling their genitals.

"It seems, as time goes on, video games continue to become more violent, realistic and graphic," said Brad J. Bushman, a communication and psychology professor at Ohio State University. "This is a disturbing trend. Unfortunately, I see no signs that it will stop. The research evidence clearly indicates that violent video games increase aggression in players, and can make them numb to the pain and suffering of others."

But it wasn't merely blood and guts on display at E3 this year. The virtual horse that players will mount in the open-world action sequel "Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain" has been programmed to spontaneously defecate. And in a creepy abandoned mental institution from the Victorian-era thriller "The Order: 1886," there's not just blood smeared across the walls.

Game makers defend that gore aids the narrative, yet many believe a little goes a long way.

"For us, it's more impactful if it's done tastefully," said "The Order" game director Dana Jan. "If you just throw blood all over the place, it's meaningless. ... We have to look at what we think is disturbing or scary and figure out how to do that masterfully without going too over the top."

E3 wasn't completely consumed with bloodshed. This year's show featured a plethora of non-bloody, artsy games that attracted an unprecedented amount of attention. Still, the biggest games at E3 are usually the most hardcore

While violence has long been part of gaming history, and these gory titles are destined to be restricted to adult buyers by the industry's rating board, such footage received visceral reactions from even the most seasoned gamers this year.

"E3 2014, taken as a whole, doesn't feel as obsessed with violence as past shows," wrote Chris Plante, co-founder at the gaming site Polygon. That was before he cut the show's most graphic violence into a one-minute video. "The supercut is dense with blood, organs and unrecognizable viscera," Plante wrote. "It's strange how these things can wash over you but make an impact when taken together. These conferences can be a bit desensitizing."

AP Entertainment Writer Ryan Pearson contributed to this report.
Follow AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang on Twitter at https://www.twitter.com/derrikjlang.

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There are definitely one or two things he only does because it makes you happy.

By Frank Kobola,
cosmopolitan.com

1. He finds your best friend / sister / mom attractive. If you think she's pretty, he probably does too. He also wants to avoid a fight about it not mattering how *~cHiLL~* you are because it really does mean nothing to him. But yes, she's pretty.

2. He's scared of spiders. He's going to suck it up and kill that giant spider that got into the room even though it freaks him out. What is that thing? A Brown Recluse? Definitely gonna be your fault if he gets paralyzed from the venom.

3. He's scared of the future. Making a five-year plan is scarier than spiders, but only marginally scarier.

4. He has no idea what he's doing. Is the furnace broken? Yeah, he'll go down there and bang around on the pipes with a wrench in one hand while he Googles "how to fix a furnace" on his phone. There! Fixed.

5. If you've gained weight. He will never touch this one. No matter how many ways you phrase, "I think I need to lose weight," he will change the subject. He will start a house fire just to avoid the subject.

6. If he's not that into your hobbies. You two probably have a lot in common, but there are definitely one or two things he does just because it makes you happy. He will sit there and get excited about Scandal with you, and he will take his hatred for it to his grave.

7. He loves some of the things you hate. Sure, he was all about taking a stand and boycotting McDonald's with you for the sake of solidarity after you watched Super Size Me. He also sometimes sneaks a Big Mac at work. It tastes like two all-beef patties, special sauce, cheese, pickles, onions, and tears.

8. How he really feels about your family. If he doesn't like something about your family, you'll never know it. Unless your mom tried to stab him because he wouldn't take off his gang colors in her house or something.

9. How much porn he watches. He watches a lot of porn, OK? Just, a lot. The amount of porn he watches will make you sad. Don't ask this question.

10. He knows exactly how long his penis is. To the second decimal place, off the top of his head.

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By Dan Tynan, Tech Columnist

One day about four years ago, I came home from work and heard utter mayhem coming from my son's room: Russian voices, screeching tires, gunshots. I bolted up the stairs and threw open his door.

I found him parked in front of his Xbox, playing Grand Theft Auto IV. I watched his avatar lead police on a high-speed chase through the absurdly empty streets of Liberty City. He crashed a car into a light pole, hopped out of his car, and began emptying a .45 Magnum at the cops.


This game was most definitely not on the family approved-to-play list. My first instinct was to grab the Xbox and throw it out the window. My wife persuaded me to conserve my moral outrage for those moments when he did something dangerous or stupid in the real world, not in a virtual one.

Still, for a little while I felt like the world's worst parent. Then I sat down and watched him play, and I also watched the story on the Xbox unfold before him. I realized that GTA is a dystopian satire not all that different from movies like A Clockwork Orange, which thoroughly outraged parents when I was his age.

The idea that playing video games makes kids violent and antisocial is often accepted as a sobering fact of modern life. Whether it's true is less clear — some studies say yes, others say nyet. In the real world, watching Clockwork did not make me into a droogie. And playing GTA did not turn my son into a murderous thug. He's a great kid.

But let's assume the fear has some truth, that violent media contributes to violent behavior. If so — if games teach kids to shoot first and to drive as if cars are weapons — can't games also be used to impart positive life skills like empathy or compassion? Can video games boost a child's emotional quotient (EQ)?

Some people think they can. One of them is Trip Hawkins, founder of Electronic Arts, most famous for creating the most popular sports simulation game of all time, John Madden Football. Now he's trying to prove it via a fantasy adventure game called IF… aimed at tweens.

You the dog, man
Just as Madden Football is based on actual NFL playbooks, IF… is based on decades of research in social emotional learning (SEL). The game takes place in a land called Greenberry populated by dogs, cats, and magical Pokemon-like characters known as Vim. Long ago, the dogs and cats were driven apart by conflict, and Greenberry fell into ruin.

Guided by the Yoda-like YouDog, players must learn how to tame the Vim, resolve the conflicts, and bring Greenberry back to harmony. Along the way they're presented with questions and a choice of answers measuring their degree of empathy and other SEL attributes.

You’ve got three choices. Pick the wrong answer, and you’ll get a lesson in sensitivity from YouDog.

Each chapter teaches 20 distinct SEL skills, such as listening, managing emotions, or expressing gratitude. As each chapter is completed, parents get a report detailing how well their child did. The first chapter of the book-like adventure is available for free in the iTunes Store. New chapters will start to become available in June for around $5 apiece.

To be frank, this is not the most exciting game your child will ever play. The first chapter is didactic, slow, and unlikely to lure anyone away from Minecraft, Runescape, or Club Penguin. (I'm told things get livelier in Chapter 2.) But Hawkins says the rewards are more subtle and long lasting.

"This game is not about advancing in levels; it's about teaching compassion," he said. "You're like the Jimmy Stewart character in It's a Wonderful Life. You see how the town ends up in tatters without you, and it's up to you to make it right."

Learning to cope
Though IF… is probably the most ambitious and well-funded attempt to employ gaming techniques to teach kids emotional skills, it's not the only one. The Social Express uses Pixar-like animation to teach kids age 5 and up how to read emotional clues and react to them appropriately.

The Social Express starts by teaching kids how to recognize their own emotions, and then how to apply coping skills.

Rather than embed lessons inside the plot of a role-playing game, The Social Express uses brief webisodes that target specific situations and model appropriate behavior, CEO Marc Zimmerman says.

Kids can apply those lessons to their own lives via a 99 cent Android or iOS app called My Digital Problem Solver. My DPS lets kids choose an image that shows how they feel at the moment (frustrated, scared, mad, or whatever) and then select a coping strategy like taking deep breaths or "positive self talk" to calm down.

In use by more than 100 school districts across the country, The Social Express is also available to families for $5 a month per child. Parents can track their child's progress through the lessons via a free mobile app.

IF….. and The Social Express are two examples of a small but growing genre of digital works that explore emotions besides fear and anger, which tend to dominate most video games, said Tanner Higgin, senior manager for education content at Common Sense Media.

"There's a wide range of feelings like loneliness, trepidation, and guilt that have remained largely untapped," he said. "Over the last few years we've started to see a lot more games that implicitly or explicitly build social skills and expand the emotional spectrum."

The play's the thing
Respecting other people's feelings, sharing, being empathetic — aren't these things kids should be learning from their parents, not from a screen? I asked Janice Toben, founder of the Institute for Social and Emotional Learning, who consulted on the curriculum baked into IF… .

Yes, she replied. But she added that many parents lack the ability to model those traits themselves, especially during emotionally charged encounters with their children. So, for example, instead of calmly explaining that a violent video game is detrimental to a child's emotional development, they are instead tempted to rip the cables from the Xbox and hurl it into the street.

"Parents want to be able to create a common vocabulary around things like calming down, listening to each other, and getting along, but not everyone knows how to do it," she said. "I think a game like IF… can help, if the parents are interested and involved."

Research has shown that playing games can sharpen a child's problem-solving skills (not to mention his aim and his reflexes). If games can boost his IQ, why not his EQ? At the very least it's worth a shot — metaphorically speaking, of course.

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By Dan Tynan, Tech Columnist

We'd just crested the ridge at 6,000 feet when I decided to find a nice soft spot to lie down and die. I thought I might just sleep until the snow arrived and turned me into a Popsicle. But I had my 15-year-old daughter with me, and one of us had to act like the adult.


This was our annual "unplugging" trip to the Great Smoky Mountains, and it wasn't going so well. As usual, my 17-year-old son had charged up the trail and was already at the lodge sipping hot cocoa. We hadn't seen my wife for over an hour; she was hiking to the beat of a different drummer. But dad and daughter were feeling the full weight of the seven-mile, 4,000-foot ascent.

Then the phone inside my backpack bleeped. A text message had managed to find me in the middle of nowhere. It was from my wife: "Where r u guys?"

Every year we make a pilgrimage to LeConte Lodge, a dozen cabins at the top of the Smokies accessible only by foot, with no electricity, no Internet, and — theoretically, at least — no cell coverage. (Technically, if you stand in precisely the right spot near the bathrooms you can send and receive texts. That's where she was when she sent her message.)

The idea was to separate ourselves from technology for at least 24 hours. When we first did this four or five years ago it was relatively easy. Now, not so much. Wireless networks have gotten so powerful that we got 4G coverage more than halfway up the mountain. And we've become so dependent on our phones for music, entertainment, maps, and more that none of us could bear to leave our handsets behind.

We did finally manage to unplug, however … when our batteries ran out.

Plug ugly
We're not the only parents concerned about our collective obsession with technology. You were probably too busy looking at your phone to notice, but last week was "Screen-Free Week." The campaign, which has been running in one form or another since the early 1990s, encourages kids to rediscover fun things to do that don't involve electronics, says Josh Golin, director of the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood that oversees it.

Last month, spoken word artist Gary Turk posted a five-minute video to YouTube titled "Look Up" that urged us to stop tapping on our devices and start talking to one another.


That video is a bit preachy for my tastes, but it has struck a chord: It has been watched more than 32 million times.

An excess of screen time has been blamed for a rogue's gallery of childhood ills, including insomnia, attention disorders, a failure to make real-world social connections, and a childhood obesity epidemic. More than a third of Americans under the age of 19 are seriously overweight, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At least part of that may be caused by too many pixels and not enough physical activity.

Tune out, turn off
What can you do about it? I've talked with dozens of parents about this, and while there's no magic formula, it really boils down to a few simple rules:

1. Create a contract. As I've written elsewhere, it's a good idea to sit down with your kids and collaborate on guidelines for when and how they're allowed to use their devices. Write them down so there's no dispute later over what they agreed to.

(Many parents bristle at the notion of negotiating anything with their children. If the "my way or the highway" approach works for you, fantastic. I think kids are more likely to follow the rules if they have a say in creating them, and are also more likely to become responsible adults. But ask me in 10 years and I'll let you know how this has worked out.)

2. Establish tech-free zones. A popular tactic is to set times or spaces where technology is verboten (that also includes you, by the way). Meals are a typical time to ask everyone to check their phones at the door; many parents forbid technology after a certain hour or in kids' bedrooms; and some plan gadget-free trips and other activities.

You will probably need some kind of monitoring system on your home network to help enforce these rules. You'll also want to get familiar with the devices your kids use most. The iPad, Kindle, and Xbox all have rudimentary parental controls built in, while AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon let you set time restrictions and put other limits on their phones for a small monthly fee.

3. Choose your screens carefully. Measuring screen time alone is missing the point. There's a big difference between spending two hours building cool stuff in Minecraft and spending two hours decimating zombies in Dead Rising. I think my son spends too much time watching YouTube videos, but actually many of them are about science or history. It's not a substitute for playing football, but it's not a total brain-melting waste either.
The biggest offender, by the way, is not the computer, console, or phone. Researchers at Boston Children's Hospital concluded that the worst contributor to childhood obesity is the TV. Why? Kids are bombarded with ads for fast food and sugar-saturated drinks. And, worse, their hands are free to stuff this junk down their gullets.

4. Get active. What does a kid do when there's no screen to turn to? What you used to do when you were a kid: Break out the board games, ride bikes, play hopscotch. There was a period in third grade when my daughter was obsessed with knitting and got all of her friends obsessed, too. That worked fine.

There are also dozens of Xbox, PlayStation, and Wii games that allow kids to exercise more than just their thumbs, using the consoles' cameras and motion detectors. These games are also easier for most adults to play along with. It's still technically screen time, but it's social and physically active screen time.

5. Heal thyself. Want to see someone who probably spends too much time staring into the electronic void? Look at the reflection in your monitor. Or smartphone. Or tablet. If you're not dealing with your addiction to pixels, how can you ask your kids to deal with theirs?

Awareness of this problem has given rise to a new phenomenon: unplugging camps for adults, where overly wired professionals free themselves from the shackles of technology. There are dozens of these; one of the better known is Digital Detox's Camp Grounded in Anderson Valley, California. This June, for a little more than $500, you can spend four days taking workshops in archery, dance, tai chi, and fire making, among other things. You're not allowed to tweet about any of it.

"The rules at camp are taken seriously," says founder and camp director Levi Felix. "No digital technology, no work talk, and no networking. The focus isn't on disconnecting from devices as much as it is about reconnecting to the things that really matter in life."


Modern phone age families
If you are feeling the urge to toss your kids' smartphones into the trash, there are two more things to keep in mind. First, this is not a new problem. My parents' biggest complaint was that TV rotted kids' brains. Their parents probably worried about an excess of talking pictures. Go far back enough; I bet we'd discover Fred and Wilma were concerned that Pebbles was spending too much time in front of cave paintings. Most of us survived just fine.

The second thing to remember is that we have to prepare our kids for the world they will inherit, not the one we grew up in. Barring some kind of technology apocalypse, nearly everything they read, do, or say as adults is going to be delivered digitally.

In other words, they will be spending even more time in front of screens. One of our jobs as parents is to make sure they don't spend all their time in front of them. Another is to make sure that the unavoidable time they do spend with technology is spent well and wisely.

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By Arden Moore | vetstreet.com

It's often easy to spot when cats are being finicky or feisty. But what about when they are showing pure feline affection? What does that look like?

We spoke with Dr. Allen Schoen, a veterinarian, behaviorist and author of the best-selling book Kindred Spirits and Vetstreet's own Dr. Marty Becker, author of Your Cat: The Owner's Manual, to share 10 ways cats deliver love and affection to the people who matter most to them.

"I've been studying animal behavior since 1974 and can say without a doubt that cats can and do bond with their favorite people," declares Dr. Allen Schoen, a veterinarian, behaviorist and author of the best-selling book Kindred Spirits. "I've been fortunate to share my life with some of the sweetest, most loving cats. When they come in contact with us, they are consciously making an inter-species connection."

But the trick is to recognize - and appreciate - what they are trying to tell you. Here are nine ways cats show their affection.

1. Lightly touching her forehead against you

Called head bunting, this feline act of affection is delivered only to the A-listers in a cat's life. Your cat will face you, lower her head and lean forward so that the top of her head touches your forehead, face or other body part. This loving touch can often release feel-good hormones called endorphins in your cat and you.

2. Cheek rubbing you

Think of your cat as a feline graffiti artist. To make her turf really feel like home, she will rub her cheeks against the corners of furniture and, possibly, your legs or hands when you pet her. This act secretes oils from her facial glands. It's her way of claiming you as her own. Just be grateful that she does so by cheek rubbing, not spraying.

3. Twitching the tip of her tail

The feline tail acts like a mood barometer. The tail puffs out when your cat is frightened or agitated. Conversely, your cat expresses love to you when she approaches you with her tail hoisted lazily up in the air and the very tip twitches. In cat speak, she is saying, "You rock my world!"

4. Holding eye contact and sharing a soft blink

Don't expect a cat to maintain a steady eye-to-eye stare with a new houseguest. Cats save eye contact for people they know and trust, like you. The bond is accented when she blinks softly at you. This is the equivalent of a kitty kiss. Respond by softly blinking back.

5. Turning on the purr power

This steady, rhythmic sound emitted when your cat inhales and exhales is often associated with contentment. But cats also purr when they need to self-calm or while nursing a litter; however, your cat saves the special full-bodied rumble as a smile directed to you. It is her way of saying, "I love you."

6. Sitting on you or beside you

Cats crave warm places to nap and sleep, but when they bypass a comfy cat bed or your bedroom pillow to perch on your lap, you should feel honored. Your cat has sized up her options and is conveying that she prefers being with you rather than being by herself in her cat bed.

7. Kneading his paws on your lap

If you need a sign it is time to trim your cat's nails, nothing is clearer than when he perches on your lap, purrs and starts kneading your thighs with her front paws. But this is also a sign of affection. Experts say that this action beckons your adult cat back to a safe, welcoming memory when she was nuzzling his mother for milk as a newborn kitten. He is being affectionate and a bit nostalgic.

8. Licking your hair and earlobes

OK, neither of these actions may rate on your top 10 list of affection preferences, but your cat is regarding you as another cat - albeit a big one - in her inner circle. Only special "cats" are deemed worthy of these special grooming sessions. In a multicat household, mutual grooming is a sign of trust and friendship. Pay attention to which cats, if any, in your home team up for mutual grooming. You may be the only one meriting such a gift!

9. Bringing you dead mice, birds and other so-called gifts

Evolution and domestication have not stripped your cat of her inner hunter. After a successful hunt, she may deposit a mouse head or lizard tail in a place she knows you will visit - like your pillow. Yuck? Yes, but your cat is sharing her prey prize with you, a true sign of trusted friendship.

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By Daniel Bean, Editorial Assistant


In this new society that we've all agreed to be a part of, your Facebook page is an extension of yourself. For this reason, it's not a good idea to post anything there that you wouldn't normally say, for example, to your boss.

The unfortunate folks below didn't get that memo. Here are 11 examples of Facebookers who weren't so careful with what they shared and, as a result, put their employment statuses in jeopardy because of it.

1. Broadcasting to your online friends how much you hate your boss is probably not going to help you stay employed, especially if your boss is one of those online friends. This embarrassing post (below) probably did a number on our poster's relationship with said boss.

Anonymous employee in hot water. (lamebook.com)

2. A Swiss woman in 2009 was playing what would normally have been a simple case of hooky, claiming that she had a migraine and could not work in front of a computer screen. Unfortunately, her employer noticed that she had signed in to Facebook that same day. Saying that this had "destroyed its trust in her," company management decided to let her go. In defense, the woman did claim to have been accessing Facebook from her iPhone, but she was fired (or sacked, as they say abroad), regardless.

We’re betting this old story still gives her a headache. (guardianlv.com)

3. A Georgia teacher was called into the principal's office in 2009 after a student's parent complained of finding pictures of her drinking beer and wine on her Facebook page. School administration said the images "promoted alcohol use", and the teacher was ultimately asked to choose between resignation or accepting a suspension. She chose to resign.

A picture from Georgia teacher Ashley Payne’s Facebook. (dailymail.co.uk)

4. Anyone who once thought that Facebook was a safe place to taunt or insult your comany's customers has probably found out the hard way by now that it is not. Take this Detroit power company employee, for instance. This impressive rant posted to her wall in 2013 (which you can read most of below) got her canned pretty quickly.

Rachel Burnett’s Facebook post. (The Blaze)

5. We can all agree that publicly posting something like this (below) will vastly limit your employability, right? How do you think his Monday morning meeting went?

Dope doing dope on Facebook. (lamebook.com)

6. A county school bus driver in Georgia was fired in 2013 for posting about a hungry student passenger who claimed he didn't have enough money to get lunch at school. "As a tax payer … I would rather feed a child than to give food stamps to a crack head", the driver wrote. School board officials didn't take the critique well, and in fact found no proof that the boy went without lunch. County school board policy stipulated that "disciplinary procedures" apply to employees who post on social networking sites and cause disruption to the instructional environment. The bus driver refused to recant and apologize, so he was fired.

Johnny Cook’s Facebook post. (inquisitr.com)

7. An intern in 2007, still learning the ropes, no doubt, was fired after his boss learned that the "family emergency" he had to miss work for was a fib. How was his lie sniffed out? The intern's co-workers found this Facebook picture of him attending a Halloween party the same day he blew off work. What's worse? The made-up story, or the fairy wand?

Our dear intern has much to learn. (mymodernmet.com)

8. When you've added those who employ you as Facebook friends, it's probably best to keep most thoughts regarding your terrible work habits to yourself, unlike what has seemingly transpired in this post (below).

Slacker employee exposed. (lamebook.com)

9. When a U.S. Marine posted a rant on his Facebook page in 2012 that included "screw Obama", he quickly found out that insulting your boss on social media, whether you're friends with him or not, won't end well when your boss is the POTUS. Needless to say, he was discharged from service.

Gary Stein’s apology. (The Sexy Politico)

10. This Tennessee KFC employee seems to have licked his last pile of mashed potatoes. A Facebook picture showing him doing just that (below) not only got him fired; the company also announced that it had retrained the entire staff of that KFC location. The restaurant said in a statement that the potatoes pictured weren’t served to any customers, but we'll go ahead and pass on eating at any of the Colonel's Tennessee locations anyhow.

Ewww. (NY Daily News)

11. And lastly, of course, don't forget that, yes, despite your better judgment, you did friend your boss on Facebook. Whoops.

Slipped my mind. (lamebook.com)

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It has taken me years to learn specific techniques, and develop my skills as a makeup artist. Overtime there are a few tips I have picked-up that have taught me to be more effective in my application. I have learned that you don't have to be a professional to apply makeup that looks beautiful and natural. These tips and tricks will not only save you time, but will enhance your looks in the process.

1) De-clump Mascara I am a big supporter of replacing your mascara every month; however, sometimes all we have is that clumpy tube we keep meaning to replace. If you find yourself in this situation just put a few drops of Visine into your mascara. This will help break up the clumps, and your mascara will be working like new until you get the chance to replace it.

2) Business Card Eye Stencil I learned this trick in makeup school and I have been using it ever since. I use a business card to create sharper defined lines for my eye shadow when I am looking for something a bit more dramatic. This trick works great for creating a cat eye effect.

3) Tightlining In the everlasting pursuit for longer, thicker, and fuller lashes, there is a very easy makeup trick to help us achieve this. Often referred to as the invisible liner, tightlining is the method of lining your upper waterline instead of above your lashes to give the appearance of thicker lashes. The image to the right shows an eye without tightlining (top) and one with tightlining (bottom). While the difference is subtle the overall look goes a long way.

4) Eye Shadow That Pops Ever buy a vibrant color of eye shadow and when you apply it you notice it looks anything but vibrant? The trick is to apply a cream color base coat all over your lid before applying eye shadow. This base with allow for the truest color of the eye shadow to appear on your lid. I personally love the MAC Paint Pot in the color Painterly.

5) Airbrushing Without an Airbrush The beautyblender is a reusable makeup sponge that allows for even and effortless foundation application. It leaves you with similar effects to that of airbrushing and will never leave streaks in your skin the way a brush can. It is fast, effective, easy to clean, and goes strong for months before it needs replacing.

6) Heat Up That Lash Curler Blast a hairdryer onto your (metal) lash curler for no more than 3-4 seconds before using. Heating up your lash curler ever so slightly will have a similar effect on your lashes that a curling iron would have on your hair.

7) Powder on Lashes A little bit of baby powder on your lashes before you put on your mascara can transform the thickness of your lashes. Just a small dusting of powder before a couple coats of mascara will provide you with a noticeable difference in the thickness of your lashes.

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Consider this a "Spoiler Warning" for The Amazing Spider-Man 2. After the next couple sentences, which I am intentionally padding for the sake of the social network feed, I will be discussing, in detail, a couple major plot turns in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. For those who don’t know and don’t want to know, make haste in 3… 2… 1…


The good news is that no one cheered. I’ve written before of my concern that the inevitable death of Gwen Stacy in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (from the Sony Corporation) would bring cheers from the audience, as hardcore fans would applaud the somewhat iconic story turn. They didn’t cheer. Even with painfully obvious foreshadowing starting with Emma Stone’s "I could die at any moment!" high school graduation speech, it stands to reason that the vast majority of general audience members who saw the film this weekend were actually surprised when Spider-Man tried but failed to save his girlfriend from said death plunge inside a clock tower. But in terms of killing off Peter Parker’s girlfriend to mimic a story that was groundbreaking 41 years ago, Marc Webb, Emma Stone, and company spent so much time being excited that they could that they didn’t stop to wonder whether they should.

I made a point not to discuss said plot turn in my initial review, both because it was a massive spoiler and because it was a plot turn that I disapproved of on principle, and thus it would be unfair to be too hard on a film offering what many fans in fact wanted to see in one form or another. Truth be told, it was a ripping action climax, with Spidey and newly established Green Goblin doing swift and brutal combat as Gwen kept falling in and out of mortal peril. The moment offered the best kind of suspense, which is the horror of knowing how a moment is going to play out even while hoping that things go differently. But the adherence to comics dogma opens up a gigantic can of worms for upcoming Amazing Spider-Man films, harming the would-be appeal of future installments by turning its most popular character into a "woman in refrigerator."

The phrase "woman in refrigerator", coined by future comic book writer Gail Simone 1999, referred to the tendency of comic books to do harm upon the girlfriends, wives, or female siblings of a male hero for the sole purpose of making the hero feel bad and/or seek vengeance. It was named after an incident in a 1994 Green Lantern comic where Kyle Rayner’s girlfriend was murdered and stuffed in a refrigerator. It soon became the de-facto phrase for the pattern in comic books by which the female supporting character in a male-centric title would be raped, murdered, assaulted and/or de-powered so that the male here could "have a sad." And that’s really all the death of Ms. Stacy is for this second Spider-Man film. Emma Stone gave us a rather amusing and engaging female character, the filmmakers did their best to sell the notion that she was her own character with her own agency, then she got chucked down a clock tower so that Peter could feel bad.

Never mind the young woman who was on her way to Oxford, a perfect example of how to realistically write out a major character without having to resort to a now-cliched "shocking death". Never mind the fact that Gwen helped Spidey save the day from Electro’s blackout and then was immediately murdered as de-facto punishment for her heroic pluck. The most important thing about Gwen Stacy will be that she died. Her death only matters in how it affects the male superhero and how he grows or changes as a result. Even as the somewhat fantastically perfect girlfriend, her life was meaningless save how her murder affected Peter and established the Green Goblin as an arch-villain for The Amazing Spider-Man 3. Filmmakers like to talk up the allegedly positive qualities of the hero’s girlfriend as an excuse for not having female superheroes, but in the end Gwen lived only to die violently.

The "Woman In Refrigerator" trope is a constant presence in mainstream entertainment, even in entertainment I would classify as "really good." It’s how 24 chose to end its first and last seasons. The Blacklist recently dispatched of a supporting character’s estranged wife just a few episodes after introducing her. Lost killed off two major female characters in season 2 purely to make their respective island boyfriends feel bad. I love Chris Nolan films as much as the next critic, but Memento, The Prestige, and Inception eventually revolved around the violent death of a female character solely so that the hero could be tormented by said violence. The sheer number of films that start or end with a male hero traumatized over the recent death of his wife and/or kids is too numerous to count (Dante’s Peak, Law-Abiding Citizen, Casino Royale, End of Days, Lethal Weapon, just to name a few). I don’t accuse Marc Webb and company of any ill-intent, and I defend on principle their rights as artists to tell any story they choose, but what was groundbreaking 41 years ago is not just cliched but indicative of a cultural issue, in terms of how females are utilized and valued in pop entertainment.

But even if you’re not bothered on a broader cultural sense about the commonplace treatment of female characters as injured/raped/murdered props in the male-centric narratives of mainstream entertainment, or you think I’m picking on Amazing Spider-Man 2 in a way that I didn’t pick on, for example, The Dark Knight, the implications for this franchise are specific and problematic. Thanks to the violent murder of Gwen Stacy, the third Amazing Spider-Man is left without the very thing that audiences and critics claim to love most about the first two films. Even those who didn’t like either of the films will tell you that they enjoyed the quirky romantic banter between real-life couple Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone. Stone is dead, which means that we won’t get that key component the next time around.

There is a reason why Han Solo didn’t stay frozen in Return of the Jedi,why Jack Sparrow eventually came back in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, or why Optimus Prime didn’t stay dead in Revenge of the Fallen. You don’t make a sequel by taking away the very thing the audience came to see.  And this film was all about setting up future sequels. With Gwen now deceased, the third film will find a new replacement girlfriend for Peter (because nothing takes the mind off your murdered ex like bumping into your hot red head neighbor who calls you "tiger") and/or put even more emphasis on its villains, which is the one thing most everybody agreed was most problematic. Few moviegoers walking out of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 were excited about the prospect of seeing more of the Green Goblin, more of the Rhino, a resurrection for Electro and/or a return of the Lizard.

Sony's obsessive focus on crafting a kind of "universe" around the various Spidey foes is both the core narrative flaw of this sequel (Peter had no real arc) and the likely path for a third film. The choice to write out Emma Stone was (to my knowledge) an artistic one as opposed to a corporate one. But the gaping hole left in her absence allows future installments to further set up what Sony desperately wants to be the end game for this franchise, a big "Sinister Six" smack down. The problem is that no one particularly likes the villains in this specific franchise. They like the hero and they like the hero’s plucky girlfriend. But said girlfriend just bit the dust, which means that the third Amazing Spider-Man movie, which in turn follows two installments that were somewhat liked or tolerated without being loved, will enter theaters in June 2016 with less of what you liked and more of what you disliked.

The fact that Amazing Spider-Man 2 made $369 million in 19 days of worldwide play with no buzz shows how potent the Spider-Man character still is. But Sony and company just played their trump card, offering the iconic "death of Gwen Stacy" scene that many hardcore fans were waiting for ever since the character was announced. And unlike Iron Man 2 or Star Trek Into Darkness, which were also somewhat dispassionately received sequels that made about as much as the original worldwide, there is no would-be Avengers or 50th anniversary to boost interest for the third installment. The Amazing Spider-Man 3 will live or die by the cards it has dealt itself, and, like Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows, it just gave away its trump card. I won’t predict box office doom for Amazing Spider-Man 3, but at some point audiences are going to notice that they aren’t all that crazy about these films.

And on a cultural level, millions of young audience members, male and female alike, just got a profound lesson on the value of female human life in pop-culture entertainment. You can talk all you want creating "strong", "independent", female characters who are "strong role models" for young girls in otherwise male-centric entertainments, but if the plot negates those qualities by turning her into a victim, taking away her agency, and/or punishing her for those very qualities, it doesn’t make a bit of difference. Gwen Stacy may be a great character, mostly only because Emma Stone is a great actress.  But in the end she’s irrelevant save for the fact that she died.

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NEW YORK (AP) Paula Deen dissolved into tears during a "Today" show interview Wednesday about her admission that she used a racial slur in the past, saying anyone in the audience who's never said anything they've regretted should pick up a rock and throw it at her head.

The celebrity chef, who had backed out of a "Today" interview last Friday, said she was not a racist and was heartbroken by the controversy that began with her own deposition in a lawsuit. Deen has been dropped by the Food Network and as a celebrity endorser by Smithfield Foods.

"I've had to hold friends in my arms while they've sobbed because they know what's been said about me is not true and I'm having to comfort them," she said.

Deen told Lauer she could only recall using the "n-word" once. She had earlier said that she remembered using it when retelling a story about when she was held at gunpoint by a robber who was black while working as a bank teller in the 1980s in Georgia. In a deposition for the lawsuit involving an employee in a restaurant owned by Deen and her brother, she had said she may also have used the slur when recalling conversations between black employees at her restaurants.

Looking distressed and her voice breaking, Deen said if there was someone in the audience who had never said something they wished they could take back, "please pick up that stone and throw it as hard at my head so it kills me. I want to meet you. I want to meet you.

"I is what I is and I'm not changing," she said. "There's someone evil out there that saw what I worked for and wanted it."

An uncomfortable Lauer tried to end the interview, but Deen repeated that anyone who hasn't sinned should attack her.

Deen said she appreciated fans who have expressed anger at the Food Network for dropping her, but said she didn't support a boycott of the network.

"These people who have met me and know me and love me, they're as angry as the people who are reading these stories that are lies," she said.

___

Online:

http://www.today.com/

___

Follow Dave Bauder on Twitter at http://twitter.com/dbauder

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HIGHWOOD RIVER, Calgary (AP) As many as 100,000 people could be forced from their homes by heavy flooding in western Canada, Calgary city officials said, while mudslides forced the closure of the Trans-Canada Highway, isolating the mountain resort towns of Banff and Canmore.

Torrential rains and widespread flooding throughout southern Alberta on Thursday washed out roads and bridges, left at least one person missing and caused cars, couches and refrigerators to float away. Communities were hit hard just south of Calgary, a city of more than a million people that hosted the 1988 Winter Olympics.

Many downtown neighborhoods were ordered evacuated as the evening went on. Officials said the evacuation would take place in stages over the next few days. The province reported that 12 communities were under states of emergency.

Water levels were expected to reach their maximum around noon on Friday.

One woman who had been stranded on top of a trailer was missing after it was swept away, STARS air ambulance spokesman Cam Heke said.

Motorists who were trapped overnight Wednesday by water spilling over Canada's main western highway had to be rescued by helicopter, Town of Canmore spokeswoman Sally Caudill said.

"I woke up at about three o'clock in morning to the sound of this kind of rumbling, and it was the creek," said Wade Graham, a resident of Canmore. "At first it was just intense, pretty powerful, amazing thing to watch. As daylight came, it just got bigger and bigger and wider and wider, and it's still getting bigger and bigger and wider and wider."

He added, "I watched a refrigerator go by, I watched a shed go by, I watched couches go by. It's insane."

Bruce Burrell, director of the Calgary Emergency Management Agency, said water levels on the Bow River aren't expected to subside until Saturday afternoon. The Bow River Basin already has been battered with up to 100 mm (3.9 inches) of rain.

"Depending on the extent of flooding we experience overnight, there may be areas of the city where people are not going to be able to get into until the weekend," he told a news conference.

In High River, Mounties asked people with motorboats to help rescue at least a dozen stranded homeowners.

"We have people on their rooftops who were unable to evacuate fast enough," said RCMP Sgt. Patricia Neely.

Environment Canada issued a rainfall warning for the affected areas, estimating as much as 100 millimetres more rain could fall in the next two days.

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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) The Afghan Taliban are ready to free a U.S. soldier held captive since 2009 in exchange for five of their senior operatives imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay as a conciliatory gesture, a senior spokesman for the group said Thursday.

The offer follows this week's official opening of a Taliban political office in Doha, the capital of the Gulf state of Qatar.

The only known American soldier held captive from the Afghan war is U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl of Hailey, Idaho. He disappeared from his base in southeastern Afghanistan on June 30, 2009, and is believed held in Pakistan.

In an exclusive telephone interview with The Associated Press from his Doha office, Taliban spokesman Shaheen Suhail said on Thursday that Bergdahl "is, as far as I know, in good condition."

Suhail did not elaborate on Bergdahl's current whereabouts. Among the five prisoners the Taliban have consistently requested are Khairullah Khairkhwa, a former Taliban governor of Herat, and Mullah Mohammed Fazl, a former top Taliban military commander, both of whom have been held for more than a decade.

Bergdahl's parents earlier this month received a letter from their son who turned 27 on March 28 through the International Committee of the Red Cross. They did not release details of the letter but renewed their plea for his release. The soldier's captivity has been marked by only sporadic releases of videos and information about his whereabouts.

The prisoner exchange is the first item on the Taliban's agenda before even opening peace talks, saidn Suhail, who is a top Taliban figure and served as first secretary at the Afghan Embassy in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad before the Taliban government's ouster in 2001.

"First has to be the release of detainees," Suhail said when asked about Bergdahl. "Yes. It would be an exchange. Then step by step, we want to build bridges of confidence to go forward."

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was expected in Doha ahead of Saturday's conference on the Syrian civil war.

While in Qatar, Kerry is also expected to meet with the Taliban but timing was unclear. On Wednesday in Washington, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the U.S. had "never confirmed" any specific meeting schedule with Taliban representatives in Doha.

Prospective peace talks are also still in question, especially after Afghan President Hamid Karzai became infuriated by the Taliban's move to cast their new office in Doha as a rival embassy.

The Taliban held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday in which they hoisted their flag and a banner with the name they used while in power more than a decade ago: "Political Office of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan." Later, the Taliban replaced the sign to read simply: Political office of the Taliban.

At the ceremony, the Taliban welcomed dialogue with Washington but said their fighters would not stop fighting. Hours later, the group claimed responsibility for a rocket attack on Bagram Air Base outside the Afghan capital, Kabul, that killed four American service members.

Karzai on Wednesday announced his government is out of the peace talks, apparently angered by the way Kabul had been sidelined in the U.S.-Taliban bid for rapprochement.

The Afghan president also suspended negotiations with the United States on a bilateral security agreement that would cover American troops who will remain behind after the final withdrawal of NATO combat troops at the end of 2014.

Suhail said the Taliban are insistent that they want their first interlocutors to be the United States. "First we talk to the Americans about those issues concerning the Americans and us (because) for those issues implementation is only in the hands of the Americans," he said.

"We want foreign troops to be pulled out of Afghanistan," he added. "If there are troops in Afghanistan then there will be a continuation of the war."

Suhail indicated the Taliban could approve of American trainers and advisers for the Afghan troops, saying that "of course, there is cooperation between countries in other things. We need that cooperation."

He said that once the Taliban concluded talks with the United States, they would participate in all-inclusive Afghan talks.

Suhail ruled out exclusive talks with Karzai's High Peace Council, which has been a condition of the Afghan president who previously said he wanted talks in Doha to be restricted to his representatives and the Taliban. Instead, the Taliban would talk to all Afghan groups, Suhail said.

"After we finish the phase of talking to the Americans, then we would start the internal phase ... that would include all Afghans," he said. "Having all groups involved will guarantee peace and stability."

On Thursday, Karzai's government appeared to throw another spanner into the mix, demanding that Pakistan release imprisoned Afghan Taliban leaders.

"It is a good time to release these Taliban leaders jailed in Pakistan, and then the Afghan High Peace Council together with them will begin talks with the Taliban inside Afghanistan or in Qatar," a statement from the foreign ministry in Kabul said.

It wasn't clear, however, whether the Taliban in Pakistani custody would be willing to participate in peace talks as members of Karzai's council. Pakistan last year and earlier this year released dozens of Taliban prisoners, most of whom returned to the ranks of the Taliban.

The Afghan government has repeatedly sought the release of the Taliban's former No. 2, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, picked up by Pakistan in 2010 on a CIA tip.

Pakistan has so far refused, and two senior U.S. officials told the AP that the U.S. has asked Pakistan not to release Baradar or if he is released, to give them advance notice so they could monitor his movements. The two officials, both knowledgeable of the process, spoke earlier this year, on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue.

The reconciliation process with the Taliban has been a long and bumpy one that began nearly two years ago when the U.S. opened secret talks that were later scuttled by Karzai when he learned of them.

It was then that the U.S. and Taliban discussed prisoner exchanges and for a brief time it appeared that the five Guantanamo Bay prisoners would be released and sent to Doha to help further the peace process. But Karzai stepped in again and demanded they be returned to Afghanistan over Taliban objections.

Since then, the U.S. has been trying to jumpstart peace talks and the Taliban have made small gestures including an offer to share power. The Taliban have also attended several international conferences and held meetings with representatives of about 30 countries.

If the Taliban hold talks with Kerry in the next few days, they will be the first U.S.-Taliban talks in nearly 1 years.

____

Associated Press writers Kay Johnson in Kabul and Brian Murphy in Dubai contributed to this report.

____

Kathy Gannon is AP Special Regional Correspondent for Afghanistan and Pakistan and can be reached at www.twitter.com/kathygannon

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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) The Taliban and the U.S. said Tuesday they will hold talks on finding a political solution to ending nearly 12 years of war in Afghanistan, as the international coalition formally handed over control of the country's security to the Afghan army and police.

The Taliban met a key U.S. demand by pledging not to use Afghanistan as a base to threaten other countries, although the Americans said they must also denounce al-Qaida.

But President Barack Obama cautioned that the process won't be quick or easy. He described the opening of a Taliban political office in the Gulf nation of Qatar as an "important first step toward reconciliation" between the Islamic militants and the government of Afghanistan, and predicted there will be bumps along the way.

Obama, who was attending the G-8 summit in Northern Ireland, praised Afghan President Hamid Karzai for taking a courageous step by sending representatives to discuss peace with the Taliban.

"It's good news. We're very pleased with what has taken place," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in Washington. British Prime Minister David Cameron, whose country has the second-largest contingent of troops in Afghanistan after the U.S., called opening the office "the right thing to do."

As the handover occurred, four U.S. troops were killed Tuesday at or near Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, U.S. defense officials said. The officials said the four were killed by indirect fire, likely a mortar or rocket, but they had no other details. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to provide details on the deaths.

Officials with the Obama administration said the office in the Qatari capital of Doha was the first step toward the ultimate U.S.-Afghan goal of a full Taliban renunciation of links with al-Qaida, the reason why America invaded the country on Oct. 7, 2001, shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against the United States.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record, said U.S. representatives will begin formal meetings with the Taliban in Qatar in a few days.

The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, said the only way to end the war was through a political solution.

"My perspective has always been that this war is going to have to end with political reconciliation, and so I frankly would be supportive of any positive movement in terms of reconciliation, particularly an Afghan-led and an Afghan-owned process that would bring reconciliation between the Afghan people and the Taliban in the context of the Afghan constitution," he said.

Dunford added that he was no longer responsible for the security of the country now that Afghan forces had taken the lead.

"Last week I was responsible for security here in Afghanistan," he said, adding that now it was Karzai's job. "It's not just a statement of intent it's a statement of fact."

The transition to Afghan-led security means U.S. and other foreign combat troops will not be directly carrying the fight to the insurgency, but will advise and back up as needed with air support and medical evacuations.

The handover paves the way for the departure of coalition forces currently numbering about 100,000 troops from 48 countries, including 66,000 Americans. By the end of the year, the NATO force will be halved. At the end of 2014, all combat troops will have left and will replaced, if approved by the Afghan government, by a much smaller force that will only train and advise.

Obama has not yet said how many soldiers he will leave in Afghanistan along with NATO forces, but it is thought that it would be about 9,000 U.S. troops and about 6,000 from its allies.

It is uncertain if the Afghan forces are good enough to fight the insurgents. The force numbered less than 40,000 six years ago and has grown to about 352,000 today.

In some of the most restive parts of the country, it may still take a "few months" to hand over security completely to the Afghans, Dunford said.

The transition comes at a time when violence is at levels matching the worst in 12 years, further fueling some Afghans' concerns that their forces aren't ready.

The decision to open the Taliban office was a reversal of months of failed efforts to start peace talks while the militants intensified a campaign targeting urban centers and government installations.

Experts warned that it would be a mistake to expect too much.

"The keys are to keep expectations low, to remember that a compromise is unlikely because no one can say what it would consist of," said Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution. He added that in his opinion, the Taliban wrongly "expect to win the war once NATO is largely gone come 2015."

"All that said, it's a potentially useful step if we don't confuse ourselves or wind up in polarizing debates within the coalition," O'Hanlon said.

In Doha, Ali Bin Fahad Al-Hajri, the assistant to the foreign minister of Qatar, said the Emir of the Gulf state had given the go-ahead for the office to open.

"Negotiations are the only way for peace in Afghanistan," Al-Hajri said.

The Taliban emerged from the Pakistani-trained mujahedeen, or holy warriors, who battled the Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s with secret backing by the CIA. Civil war broke out when the pro-Soviet Afghan government collapsed following the departure of Moscow's troops. The U.S. took an arms-length position of neutrality as rival warlords shelled Kabul into ruins.

By 1994, the Taliban had evolved into a united military and political force and in 1996, the group took control of Afghanistan. Led by Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Afghan Taliban sheltered Osama bin Laden in the years leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, but the group was toppled shortly after the U.S. and allied invasion one month later.

The U.S.-led invasion leveraged the firepower of factions, such as the Northern Alliance, who had held out against the Taliban after it seized power in 1996. CIA and U.S. special operations support for anti-Taliban forces enabled the U.S. to oust the Islamists by December 2001 without committing large numbers of U.S. ground troops, and the group appeared to have been defeated as a military threat.

However, by 2005, the Taliban was beginning to make a comeback, showing signs of improved training and equipment, while using territory inside Pakistan as a sanctuary.

On Monday, Taliban spokesman Mohammad Naim said the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, as the Taliban were known when they ruled the country, was willing to use all legal means to end what they called the occupation of Afghanistan. But he did not say they would immediately stop fighting.

"The jihad continues to end the occupation and establish an Islamic emirate. To achieve this goal, we will follow every legitimate means," he said. "The emirate of the Taliban, with its military effort, has a strategic goal related to the future of Afghanistan. The movement is not intending to harm any other parties and will not allow anybody to use Afghan territory to threaten other countries."

The Obama administration officials said the U.S. and Taliban representatives will hold bilateral meetings. Karzai's High Peace Council is expected to follow up with its own talks with the Taliban a few days later.

But in making their announcement in Doha, the Taliban did not specifically mention talks with Karzai or his representatives.

"We don't recognize the Afghan government and the government of Karzai. The talks will be with the Americans only in Doha under the patronage of Qatar," he said. "We represent the people of Afghanistan. We don't represent the Karzai government."

The administration officials acknowledged the process will be "complex, long and messy" because of the ongoing level of distrust between the parties.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record, vowed to continue to push the Taliban further, saying that the Taliban ultimately must also break ties with al-Qaida, end violence and accept Afghanistan's constitution including protections for women and minorities.

They said the U.S. had long demanded that the Taliban make a statement distancing the group from international terrorism, but had said that they did not expect them to break ties with al-Qaida immediately. That would be one of the outcomes of the negotiating process, they added.

The U.S. will hold its first formal meetings with the Taliban in Doha within a few days, senior officials said, with the expectation that it will be followed up days later by a meeting between representatives of the Taliban and the High Peace Council. The first meeting will focus on an exchange of agendas and consultations on next steps.

Naim did not give a schedule for talks.

The Taliban office is in one of the diplomatic areas in Doha. Its sign reads: "The Political Bureau of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in Doha."

Despite Karzai's stated hope that the process will move almost immediately to Afghanistan, U.S. officials do not expect that to be possible in the near future.

The Taliban have for years refused to speak to the government or the High Peace Council, set up by Karzai three years ago, because they considered them to be U.S. "puppets." Taliban representatives have instead talked to American and other Western officials in Doha and other places, mostly in Europe.

Officials said Obama was personally involved in working with Karzai to enable the opening of the office, and that Kerry had also played a major role. Obama briefed other leaders at the summit meeting, which included the countries of Britain, Russia, Germany, Japan, Canada, France and Italy.

James Dobbins, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, was scheduled to leave Washington on Tuesday to visit Turkey, Qatar, Afghanistan and Pakistan, focusing primarily on "reconciliation efforts," according to State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki.

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Associated Press writers Julie Pace in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, and Robert Burns in Washington contributed to this report. Amir Shah, David Rising, Rahim Faiez and Kay Johnson contributed to this report from Kabul.

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Follow Patrick Quinn on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/PatrickAQuinn

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