'American Idol' ousts Naima Adedapo and Thia Megia, determines Top 9

Adedapo, a 26-year-old from Milwaukee, WI, and Megia, a 16-year-old Mountain House, CA resident, became the third and fourth finalists sent home from American Idol's tenth season after they received the fewest home viewer votes following Wednesday night's performance show, which featured the Top 11 finalists performing Elton John songs.


"I originally planned on auditioning next year, but when I heard about the age reduction, I flew straight to Wisconsin. Throughout this whole experience, I've grown so much as a singer and as a person as well... The dream is never going to end. One way or another, singing is going to be my main thing for the rest of my life," Megia said during a video montage that followed her ouster.


"I auditioned because I basically felt like it would change my life. I feel like I was born a bright star. All I need is the ability to shine... American Idol has changed my life because it's given me the opportunity to show my children that they can live their dreams," Adedapo said during the video montage.


This week's American Idol results show featured a double elimination due to last week's utilization of "The Judges' Save," the one-time voting twist of the season that allowed the show's three judges -- Jennifer Lopez, Steven Tyler and Randy Jackson -- to unanimously decide to save Casey Abrams, a 20-year-old Wilmette, IL native who currently resides in Idyllwild, CA, from elimination at the conclusion of last week's results show.

Prostate screening has no benefit

Prostate cancer screening does not save lives, according to a 20-year study, published in the British Medical Journal.

One in four newly diagnosed cancers in UK men is prostate cancer.

Last year, the body which regulates screening in the UK advised against routine screening.

The UK National Screening Committee said this study provided further evidence that the harms outweigh the benefits.

Prostate cancer kills 10,000 people in the UK every year.

While there is no screening programme, men over 50 may still request a test.

Screening

This latest study was carried out in Norrkoping in Sweden. It followed 9,026 men who were in their 50s or 60s in 1987.

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Nearly 1,500 men were randomly chosen to be screened every three years between 1987 and 1996. The first two tests were performed by digital rectal examination and then by prostate specific antigen testing.

The report concludes: "After 20 years of follow-up, the rate of death from prostate cancer did not differ significantly between men in the screening group and those in the control group."

The favoured method of screening is the prostate specific antigen (PSA) test.

Android Trojan Highlights Risks of Open Markets

Android enthusiasts have long championed Google’s “open” philosophy towards the smartphone platform. The recent appearance of a new Trojan horse in unofficial Android app venues, however, may cause users to think twice about how open they want the platform to be.


The app in question, Android.Walkinwat, appears to be a free, pirated version of another app, “Walk and Text.” The real version is available for purchase in Google’s official Android Market for a low price ($1.54).


If you download the fake app (from unofficial markets for Android apps) and install it, it redirects you to the actual app on the Android marketplace — but in the background, it sends the following embarrassing message to your entire phonebook via SMS:

Hey,just downlaoded [sic] a pirated app off the internet, Walk and Text for Android. Im stupid and cheap, it costed only 1 buck.Dont steal like I did!

Egregious spelling and grammatical errors aside, the text message serves as a reminder of the risks to those willing to go outside of the official Market for apps.


“Someone downloaded the app, inserted their malware, and uploaded it onto other non-official marketplaces,” Symantec mobile team product manager John Engels told Wired.com in an interview.


In other words, if you go outside the official Market, things may not be what they seem, and there’s no guarantee that what you download is what you actually want.

Lamar Odom helps Lakers break open game against Mavericks

A national television audience got a chance to see Lamar Odom at his best Thursday night, to see the 6-10 Lakers forward change the momentum of the game, to see why he has emerged as one of the top candidates for the NBA's sixth man of the year award.


Odom had nine of his 16 points in the fourth quarter. He had four of his 11 rebounds and one of his three assists in the final quarter.


His play went a long way in helping the Lakers roll past the Dallas Mavericks, 110-82, in an ejection-filled, feisty, playoff-intensity game at Staples Center.


Before the game started, Odom needed 14 points to reach 12,000 for his career.



By doing so, Odom became just the 23rd player in NBA history to exceed 12,000 points, 7,000 rebounds and 3,000 assists.


"That's cool," Odom said. "Hopefully I can finish the season out and get that sixth man award."


You could almost detect a sense of pride from Lakers Coach Phil Jackson after the game.


"It was definitely a showcase for his sixth-man award," Jackson said.


Odom said it's an award he'd like to get so he can share it with the supportive Lakers fans, with his teammates, his family and all those who have been around through his "journey."

Dollar pulls back after surge from jobs report

The dollar rose in New York after a closely followed report on U.S. jobs suggested the troubled labor market is recovering, but gave up much of its gains after comments from a central bank official tempered expectations for an interest-rate increase.


The Labor Department said the U.S. unemployment rate fell to a two-year low of 8.8 percent in March and 216,000 new jobs were added, more than economists had expected. The good news on jobs helped support expectations that the Federal Reserve might focus more on the threat of inflation, leading the central bank to raise interest rates sooner than had been thought. Higher rates tend to increase demand for the currency linked to that country or region.


But the dollar came off its highs of the day after William Dudley, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said in a speech in Puerto Rico that the recent improvement in the economy was not a reason for the Fed to "reverse course" from its efforts to support the economy and that a "substantial pick-up" in job growth was "sorely needed."


In midday trading Friday, the euro traded at $1.4186 from $1.4201 late Thursday - it had fallen as low as $1.4060 earlier. The dollar retreated from 84.73 Japanese yen, the highest point since September 2010, to 84.25 yen, still up from 83.07 yen late Thursday. The British pound turned around, rising to $1.6074 from $1.6065.