Trial of U.S. soldier in WikiLeaks case to get under way

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The American soldier accused of providing more than 700,000 secret documents to the WikiLeaks website goes on trial in Maryland on Monday charged with the biggest leak of classified information in U.S. history.

Private First Class Bradley Manning, 25, faces a possible life sentence without parole if convicted for the 2010 leak that outraged the U.S. government.

Manning faces 21 counts, including the most serious one of aiding the enemy, as well as prosecution under the Espionage Act of 1917.

The court-martial at Fort Meade, Maryland, about 30 miles northeast of Washington, is expected to run until at least late August. Prosecutors have said they expect to call more than 100 witnesses.

Manning pleaded guilty in court in February to 10 lesser charges that he was the source of the WikiLeaks release. He said he had released the files to spark a domestic debate on the military and on foreign policy in general.

Prosecutors rejected the pleas and are pursuing their original charges.

The judge, Colonel Denise Lind, said last month she would close parts of the trial to the public to protect classified material.

Manning, an intelligence analyst, was arrested in May 2010 while serving in Iraq. He was charged with downloading intelligence documents, diplomatic cables and combat videos and forwarding them to WikiLeaks, an anti-secrecy website.

WikiLeaks began exposing the secrets the same year, stunning diplomats and U.S. officials who said the leaks endangered lives.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has taken refuge in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London since June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden for alleged sex crimes.

Civil liberties groups have argued that the court is restricting access to the case by withholding court documents and other information about proceedings from the public.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by David Brunnstrom)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/trial-u-soldier-wikileaks-case-under-way-090146443.html

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LG Optimus F3 for Sprint shows up in deep purple, predicts mild summer

We already saw a rendered image of the LG Optimus F3 break cover. Now we can get slightly better look at the entry-level Android offering, in a purple hue that's reportedly heading to Sprint. There's nothing to suggest any advance on the reported 4-inch WVGA display, 2,460mAh battery and Jelly Bean (4.1.2) specifications. Pretty much the only other aspect to become clear is the textured rear. We're not reading too much into the June 24th date on scree, but if it does turn out to be mostly sunny in Chicago that day, we'll for sure pay more attention next time.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, LG

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'Now You See Me' review: A magic-themed heist movie with maybe too much up its sleeve

By Alonso Duralde

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Ticketholders for both magic shows and caper movies are required to engage in a certain suspension of disbelief, so that they might enjoy the wonders unfolding before them without ruining things by asking too many questions.

"Now You See Me," a heist film peppered with onstage legerdemain, will test the limits of your willingness to go with the flow. The explanations behind the bank robberies defy logic, granted - but at least they're explanations.

The plot, on the other hand, takes a corkscrew spin that may or may not fling you out of the theater.

A quartet of magicians - a disgraced hypnotist (played by Woody Harrelson), a smug street illusionist (Jesse Eisenberg), an escape artist (Isla Fisher) and a pickpocket and lock-picker (Dave Franco) - are recruited by an anonymous benefactor to become the Four Horsemen, a glitzy and high-tech magic act that packs the big room at Las Vegas' MGM Grand for one night only.

(I don't include the characters' names because, frankly, the movie doesn't care about them; you won't know any more about them in the last scene than you do in the first.)

Their Vegas show involves teleporting an audience member into a French bank vault, getting away with 30 million Euros, and showering the bills onto their audience. This attracts the attention of an FBI agent (Mark Ruffalo) and a French sidekick (M?lanie Laurent of "Inglourious Basterds") assigned to him by INTERPOL.

But as Eisenberg (reprising his cleverer-than-thou bit from "The Social Network") tells Ruffalo, to accuse them of the crime would be to acknowledge that magic exists.

Also tagging along for two more performances-turned-heists are the magicians' wealthy producer (Michael Caine) as well as a professional magic-debunker (Morgan Freeman) out to expose the Horsemen as phonies.

Director Louis Leterrier ("The Transporter," the "Clash of the Titans" remake), working from a script by Ed Solomon, Boaz Yakin and Edward Ricourt, makes the first half of the movie pop, no mean feat when dealing with the essential paradox of magic on film - thanks to the most basic of special effects, going all the way back to Georges M?li?s, anyone in a movie can do magic, so there's no inherent thrill of seeing illusions, even ones that are exciting on stage, on the big screen.

There's an inclination to forgive these stock characters since all of these actors are capable of lifting them to a higher plane, but "Now You See Me" gets so enraptured in its double-twists and reversals that it doesn't give any of its cast members the time or space required to create something memorable out of the material.

What starts out as an engaging B-movie, one that tricks you and then shows you how it tricked you, sadly degenerates into an overly complicated mess with one or two twists too many. You can feel the energy leak out of this overlong (115 minutes) movie somewhere around the big car chase through Manhattan, and then "Now You See Me" wraps things up with a whammy of a plot twist that's momentarily unexpected but doesn't, upon any kind of reflection, pass the sniff test.

And if you're OK with the film playing you for a sap, you'll laugh and clap and wonder how that bird got into that hat. But if you think there's a difference between being tricked and being cheated, you may feel swindled.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/now-see-review-magic-themed-heist-movie-maybe-005349291.html

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Saudi king leaves for vacation in Morocco

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) ? Saudi Arabia says King Abdullah has left for a vacation in Morocco, challenging recent claims that the 90-year-old monarch was seriously ill.

The official Saudi Press Agency said on Friday that Abdullah left the Red Sea city of Jiddah for what the service called a "private vacation." Abdullah and other members of the Saudi royal family have palaces in Morocco and travel there regularly.

The agency gave no details on Abdullah's health, but carried photos of him being greeted by officials before his departure.

Earlier this week, reports by Iranian media and others claimed Abdullah was critically ill.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/saudi-king-leaves-vacation-morocco-133021216.html

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