Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang leaving company (AP)

SAN FRANCISCO ? Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang is leaving the struggling Internet company, as it tries to revive its revenue growth and win over disgruntled shareholders under a new leader.

The surprise departure, announced Tuesday, comes just two weeks after Yahoo Inc. hired former PayPal executive Scott Thompson as its CEO.

Thompson is the fourth CEO in less than five years to try to turn around Yahoo ? a challenge that Yang was unable to pull off during his own tumultuous 18-month reign as the company's CEO in 2007 and 2008.

Yang, 43, endorsed Thompson in his resignation from Yahoo's board of directors. He had been on Yahoo's board since the company's 1995 inception.

"My time at Yahoo, from its founding to the present, has encompassed some of the most exciting and rewarding experiences of my life," Yang wrote in a letter to Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock. "However, the time has come for me to pursue other interests outside of Yahoo."

The letter didn't say what Yang plans to do next. He doesn't need to work, thanks to the fortune he has amassed since he began working on Yahoo in a trailer at Stanford University with fellow graduate student David Filo. Yang is worth about $1.1 billion, according to Forbes magazine's latest estimates.

Yang is also stepping down from the boards of China's Alibaba Group and Yahoo Japan. Yahoo is negotiating to sell its stakes in both of the Asian companies as part of its efforts to placate investors. The deal could be worth as much as $17 billion, but still faces a series of potentially daunting obstacles before it gets done.

Besides surrendering the board seats, Yang is giving up his position as "Chief Yahoo," an honorary title he held as he mingled among workers, while keeping tabs on various company projects.

Thompson could have an easier time overhauling Yahoo without Yang looking over his shoulder and possibly second guessing his decisions, said BGC Financial analyst Colin Gillis.

"This has the fingerprints of frustration on it," Gillis said. "It's one of those situations where it looks like he is losing the battle to control the company's direction and now he is saying, `That's it, I'm out.'"

Although a popular figure among Yahoo employees, Yang had alienated the company's shareholders by turning down a chance to sell Yahoo in its entirety to Microsoft Corp. for $47.5 billion, or $33 per share, in May 2008. Yahoo shares haven't topped $20 for more than three years. The stock gained 47 cents to $15.90 in extended trading after Yang's decision was announced.

The slump in Yahoo's stock has diminished Yang's wealth. He still owns a 3.6 percent stake in the company.

Investor anger over his handling of the Microsoft negotiations led to Yang's resignation as CEO in late 2008 and the hiring of Silicon Valley veteran Carol Bartz to replace him. Bartz and Yang had gotten to know each other as part of Cisco Systems Inc.'s board of directors.

After initially hailing Bartz as the solution to Yahoo's problems, Yang and the rest of Yahoo's board fired her as CEO in September.

Yahoo's revenue has been falling in recent years even as advertisers have poured more money into the Internet. Much of the money, though, has been going to Internet search leader Google Inc. and Facebook's online social network, as Yahoo has fallen further behind in the race to innovate and develop products that attract Web traffic.

Despite its struggles, Yahoo remains profitable and still boasts a worldwide audience of 700 million people.

But visitors aren't sticking around Yahoo's services as much as they once did, depriving the company of more opportunities to sell ads ? the main source of its revenue.

It has been a jarring comedown for Yahoo, which emerged as one of the Internet's first stars after Yang and Filo expanded the service beyond its roots as a hand-picked directory of websites.

Yahoo's early success turned it into a Wall Street darling and landed Yang on the covers of leading business magazines. At the height of the dot-com bubble 12 years ago, Yahoo's stock was trading above a split-adjusted $100 amid talk that the company might eventually try to buy a long-established media franchise such as the Walt Disney Co.

But now investors widely regard Yahoo as a misguided company that can't come up with a cohesive plan to define itself for Web surfers and advertisers.

Yang and Bostock have been the focal point for much of the criticism, partly because of their key roles in the Microsoft talks in 2008. After buying a 5.2 percent stake in Yahoo last autumn, hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb demanded that both Bostock and Yang step down from the company's board. If they refused, Loeb indicated he would finance a shareholder rebellion to oust both men from the board.

Loeb's fund, Third Point LLC, didn't immediately return a phone called Tuesday.

Bostock, Yahoo's chairman for the past four years, has given no indication that he plans to step down.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120118/ap_on_hi_te/us_yahoo_founder_resigns

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Mozambicans urged to leave flood-prone areas (AP)

MAPUTO, Mozambique ? Mozambican authorities are urging people to leave flood-prone southern and central areas as a tropical depression brings heavy rains and high winds.

The main roads of Mozambique's capital were flooded Tuesday after heavy rain fell intermittently Monday. The storm whipped up waves as high as 20 feet (6 meters), keeping Maputo fishermen in port Monday.

State radio reports that much of Xai-Xai, the capital of the southern province of Gaza, was underwater and without electricity. The storm had also brought power lines down. Xai-Xai was worst hit by the 2000 floods that killed at least 700 people.

The National Meteorological Institute on Tuesday predicted more heavy downpour.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/weather/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120117/ap_on_re_af/af_mozambique_rains

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'Bad year for ice': Snowmobile in lake tragedy

By msnbc.com staff and news services

HANOVER, Minn. -- Divers recovered the bodies of two men Sunday whose snowmobile sank after hitting open water on a lake near the Twin Cities, the first thin-ice related deaths reported in Minnesota in a mild winter that has left ice unreliable across the state.

Dozens of people have fallen into frigid waters around Minnesota this winter as unseasonably warm temperatures have weakened ice and in some cases left patches of open water such as those on Lake Charlotte northwest of Minneapolis.

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"It was a single snowmobile and it appears to have just run right into open water," said Captain Greg Howell of the Wright County Sheriff's Office. "It's been a bad year for ice."

Local NBC station KARE 11 reported that the two young men were graduates of the Rockford High School, according to its principal, Ryan Jensen.

Jensen named the victims as 2009 graduate Brad Skafte, 20, and 2010 graduate Adam Patnode, 19, KARE 11 said.

The station reported that divers found their bodies around 8 a.m. (9 a.m. ET) Sunday using sonar equipment.

"It's hard to take in," said Nathan Bigley, a friend of the two young men, according to KARE 11. "It still really hasn't hit me hard. But they were both really good guys. Everyone loved them in the community."

Dan Harberts, whose son was also good friends with the two victims, told the station that "they always seemed to be bored."

"Sitting around was never good enough for them," Harberts said. "They're way too young for something like this to happen."

Tail lights vanished
A 66-year-old man from Buffalo, Minnesota, riding an all-terrain vehicle, had reported seeing a snowmobile drop into the lake on Saturday night. He went to investigate and was rescued by a neighbor when his ATV also sank into the water, Howell said.

"It's fortunate we weren't looking for three instead of two," Howell said.

The man, Gail King, told the Star Tribune that he had heard a cracking noise and then the tail lights of the snowmobile vanish into the water.

He did not hear any shouts for help, the Tribune reported.

Searchers found snowmobile tracks leading straight to an area of open water on the lake and family members reported two men missing who were thought to have been snowmobiling on the lake Saturday night, Howell said.

Divers located the snowmobile but have not yet pulled it from the lake, Howell said.

The ice depth ranges from an inch to 12 inches on lakes in the county with open water in some spots, Howell said.

Across Minnesota people have reported falling through the ice this winter on-foot, in cars, riding ATVs and snowmobiles, and even in an ice boat, which has steel runners and a sail, officials have said.

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

Reuters contributed to this report.

Source: http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/16/10165107-bad-year-for-ice-two-killed-as-snowmobile-plunges-into-lake

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Why Is This Supercarrier's Deck Packed With Cars In the Middle of the Pacific? [Image Cache]

This is the USS Ronald Reagan—the ninth of the Nimitz-class nuclear-powered supercarriers—cruising the Pacific Ocean. But instead of having combat jets all over her deck, it's packed with cars facing a single F-18. Why are they doing there? More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/KTTY76lZNIQ/why-is-this-supercarriers-deck-packed-with-cars-in-the-middle-of-the-pacific

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TV One network focuses on missing blacks (AP)

PASADENA, Calif. ? After 16 years playing a police lieutenant on "Law & Order," actress S. Epatha Merkerson is turning to some real-life crime stories.

Merkerson is the narrator for "Find Our Missing," a series that debuts Jan. 18 on the TV One network. It tells stories about black Americans who are missing, hoping to turn up clues that can solve some of the cases.

The series was born out of a pervasive feeling among many blacks that their missing-person cases don't get as much attention as missing-person cases involving whites, particularly attractive young white women.

"The local and regional press does a good job," Wonya Lucas, president and CEO of the cable network aimed at black viewers, said Saturday. "The national press doesn't really cover these stories to the extent that they should, and that's a void that TV One will now fill."

Each hour focuses on two separate cases. Besides Merkerson's narration, producers fill time by re-enacting some scenes with professional actors.

Two people missing since 2009 are featured in the first episode: Pamela Butler, an employee of the Environmental Protection Agency who disappeared from her Washington, D.C., home; and Hasanni Campbell, a 5-year-old boy with cerebral palsy from Oakland, Calif.

"We are painfully aware that these are not just stories," said Donna Wilson, executive producer of the series. "These are people's lives."

Blacks account for 12 percent of the population yet are involved in about a third of the country's missing-persons cases, said Toni Judkins, programming chief at TV One. The network is available in some 56 million homes, or about half the ones that have TV.

Producers are working with the Black and Missing Foundation in helping to bring the cases to light.

The show will encourage tips to law enforcement, hoping to break down some of the attitude that makes people feel like snitches, foundation president Derrica Wilson said. She and the series producer are not related.

Merkerson said she became involved because she realized many of these cases needed the attention.

"It's important for me to give back to the community that has given so much to me," she said.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120114/ap_en_ot/us_tv_missing_persons

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Iran says it has evidence U.S. behind scientist's killing (Reuters)

TEHRAN (Reuters) ? Iranian state television said on Saturday Tehran had evidence Washington was behind the latest assassination of one of its nuclear scientists.

In the fifth attack of its kind in two years, a magnetic bomb was attached to the door of 32-year-old Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan's car during the Wednesday morning rush-hour in the capital. His driver was also killed.

The United States has denied involvement in the killing and condemned it. Israel has declined to comment.

"We have reliable documents and evidence that this terrorist act was planned, guided and supported by the CIA," the Iranian foreign ministry said in a letter handed to the Swiss ambassador in Tehran, state TV reported.

"The documents clearly show that this terrorist act was carried out with the direct involvement of CIA-linked agents."

The Swiss Embassy has represented U.S. interests in Iran since Tehran and Washington cut diplomatic ties shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

State TV said a "letter of condemnation" had also been sent to the British government, saying the killing of Iranian nuclear scientists had "started exactly after the British official John Sawers declared the beginning of intelligence operations against Iran."

In 2010, chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service Sawers said one of the agency's roles was to investigate efforts by states to build nuclear weapons in violation of their international legal obligations and identify ways to slow down their access to vital materials and technology.

Tehran has urged the U.N. Security Council and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to condemn the latest killing, which Tehran says is aimed at undermining its nuclear work, which the West and Israel say is aimed at building bombs. Tehran says its nuclear program is purely civilian.

Tension has mounted between Iran and the West as the United States and European Union prepare measures aimed at imposing sanctions on the Iran's oil exports, its economic lifeblood.

The United States and Israel have not ruled out military action if diplomacy fails to resolve the nuclear dispute.

(Editing by Andrew Roche)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iran/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120114/wl_nm/us_iran_nuclear_killing

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Catherine Crier: Mommy, where do jobs come from?

Yesterday morning, I listened as Romney surrogate Chris Chocola, Club for Growth, repeated the Republican mantra that government doesn't create a single job. Try shutting down our national security apparatus -- defense, homeland security, intelligence, all the support contractors right down to farmers, uniform suppliers, companies making those million dollar toilet seats... and you'll see just how many jobs the government creates. In fact, if this occurred, there would be a global depression. (I'll save the Adam Smith debate about warfare as the biggest misuse of national resources for another day.)

Given the enormity of this one area of government job creation, we don't have to argue about all those public employees outside the military-industrial complex that seem to be dispensable these days -- the cops, teachers and firefighters, or the scientists and engineers that, thanks to taxpayer R&D, gave us the Internet, GPS and countless life-saving drugs or, gasp, clean air and water. We won't even debate the valuable government subsidies for critical technology, like the microchip that spawned a global economic revolution and produced, literally, millions of jobs.

After the microchip was invented in 1958 by an engineer at Texas Instruments, 'the federal government bought virtually every microchip firms could produce.' NASA bought so many [microchips] that manufacturers were able to achieve huge improvements in the production process -- so much so, in fact, that the price of the Apollo microchip fell from $1,000 per unit to between $20 and $30 per unit in the span of a couple years.

Is America Losing Its Mojo? Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek, 1/14/09.

Every single GOP candidate regurgitates this anti-government talking point while, in the very next breath, asserting that as government officials they've created more jobs than anyone else in the race: Newt claims about 11 million jobs while Speaker of the House in the Clinton years; Perry touts his "one million jobs" Texas record while ignoring both the quality of those private sector jobs (most are minimum wage) and the very large number of public sector (government) jobs included in his figures; and Romney wants credit for his time as Governor (although Mass. was 4th lowest in new jobs in those years). As for his 15 years at Bain Capital, Mitt argues that 100,000 jobs were created through his company's investments and expertise, while ignoring analysis from the WSJ that it was a wash, at best, when Bain-related layoffs, bankruptcies and outsourcing are included.

Each Republican candidate says they will push through lower taxes and cut regulations -- a sure way to unleash the currently oppressed private economy. If this oft-repeated theory of domestic growth is correct, then why were the Bush years, with a Republican Congress cutting taxes and regulations in six of the eight years, such an abysmal time for job creation? According to the leftist rag, the WSJ, "The Bush administration created about three million jobs (net) over its eight years, a fraction of the 23 million jobs created under President Bill Clinton's administration and only slightly better than President George H.W. Bush did in his four years in office." And remember, GWB had two wars going and created the mammoth Dept. of Homeland Security to help with those job numbers.

In my new book, Patriot Acts, I look at the facts about tax cuts and job growth over the last century. As I ask in the book, please ignore current rhetoric and put your thinking cap on for a moment. The GOP argument is that we need tax cuts for 'job creators' to grow the economy. If the wealthy 'investor class' was impoverished, if they didn't have private capital to invest, this position might hold water, but those at the top (individuals and corporations) are sitting on a record pile of cash -- cash that has grown throughout the largest economic downturn since the Great depression; cash that is not being invested here at home.

Since the early '80s, as their rates have gone down, wealthy individuals have not reinvested much of their tax savings in domestic job growth. Instead, they've saved most of that money, spent it on luxury goods or invested it abroad. Even Reagan realized his 'trickle down theory' wasn't working. In 1986, he raised corporate tax rates and eliminated the special break for capital gains, demanding equal taxes on income from wealth and income from work. Today, Republicans bow to their hero but ignore his own realizations about the failings of supply side economics.

This week, the WSJ reported that, contrary to the insane propaganda we're hearing on the campaign trail, about 69 percent of U.S. corporations pass through their earnings and pay NO federal corporate income taxes. When companies do pay taxes, the average rate is 18.3 percent -- and this at a time when the federal debt is exploding and state budget shortfalls are rampant.

As for 'deregulation' creating significant job growth, former Reagan economic adviser Bruce Bartlett put it bluntly. "It's just nonsense. It's just made up." The Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks companies' reasons for large layoffs. It reported that corporations attributed 1,119 layoffs to government regulations in the first half of 2010, while 144,746 were attributed to poor "business demand." Simply put, American consumers didn't have money to buy goods.

Countless nonpartisan economists and rational policy-makers have explained the historic path to growth: investment in infrastructure, improved education, legal immigration for the best and brightest and a balanced approach to spending cuts and revenue growth. Because these recommendations do not respect rigid ideology, they get no traction on Capitol Hill.

I don't care about labels; I care about facts. Whether you're a liberal or conservative, you should demand honest information before making decisions. Supporting policies based on utter nonsense is insane, period. As you listen to the arguments and assertions from our various candidates, as you watch their incendiary attack ads, think about this statement (warning?) from a top Romney campaign adviser made to NYT's Tom Edsall: "We are in the persuasion business, the propaganda business... Ads are agitprop... Ads are about hyperbole, they are about editing... They are manipulative pieces of persuasive art."

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/catherine-crier/mommy-where-do-jobs-come_b_1204180.html

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