Te'o Denies Involvement in Girlfriend Hoax

Notre Dame star linebacker Manti Te'o told ESPN that he "never, not ever" was involved in creating the hoax that had him touting what turned out to be a fictional girlfriend, "Lennay Kekua."

"When they hear the facts, they'll know," Te'o told ESPN's Jeremy Schaap in his first interview since the story broke. "They'll know that there is no way that I could be a part of this."

"I wasn't faking it," he said during a 2 1/2-hour interview, according to ESPN.com.

Te'o said he only learned for sure this week that he had been duped. On Wednesday, he received a Twitter message, allegedly from a man named Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, apologizing for the hoax, Te'o told Schaap.

The sports website Deadspin, which first revealed the hoax this week, has reported that Tuiasosopo, a 22-year-old of Samoan descent who lives in Antelope Valley, Calif., asked a woman he knew for her photo and that photo became the face of Kekua's Twitter account.

Te'o told Schaap that Tuiasosopo was represented to him as Kekua's cousin.

"I hope he learns," Te'o said of Tuiasosopo, according to coverage of the interview on ESPN.com. "I hope he understands what he's done. I don't wish an ill thing to somebody. I just hope he learns. I think embarrassment is big enough."

Click Here for a Who's Who in the Manti Te'o Case

AP Photo/ESPN Images, Ryan Jones

Manti Te'o Hoax: Was He Duped or Did He Know? Watch Video

Manti Te'o Hoax: Notre Dame Star Allegedly Scammed Watch Video

Tale of Notre Dame Football Star's Girlfriend and Her Death an Alleged Hoax Watch Video

Te'o admitted to a few mistakes in his own conduct, including telling his father he met Kekua in Hawaii even though his attempt to meet her actually failed. Later retellings of that tale led to inconsistencies in media reports, Te'o said, adding that he never actually met Kekua in person.

Te'o added that he feared people would think it was crazy for him to be involved with someone that he never met, so, "I kind of tailored my stories to have people think that, yeah, he met her before she passed away."

The relationship got started on Facebook during his freshman year, Te'o said.

"My relationship with Lennay wasn't a four-year relationship," Te'o said, according to ESPN.com. "There were blocks and times and periods in which we would talk and then it would end."

He showed Schaap Facebook correspondence indicating that other people knew of Kekua -- though Te'o now believes they, too, were tricked.

The relationship became more intense, Te'o said, after he received a call that Kekua was in a coma following a car accident involving a drunk driver on April 28.

Soon, Te'o and Kekua became inseparable over the phone, he said, continuing their phone conversations through her recovery from the accident, and then during her alleged battle against leukemia.

Even so, Te'o never tried to visit Kekua at her hospital in California.

"It never really crossed my mind," he said, according to ESPN.com. "I don't know. I was in school."

But the communication between the two was intense. They even had ritual where they discussed scripture every day, Te'o said. His parents also participated via text message, and Te'o showed Schaap some of the texts.

On Sept. 12, a phone caller claiming to be Kekua's relative told Te'o that Kekua had died of leukemia, Te'o said. However, on Dec. 6, Te'o said he got a call allegedly from Kekua saying she was alive. He said he was utterly confused and did not know what to believe.

ESPN's 2 1/2-hour interview was conducted in Bradenton, Fla., with Te'o's lawyer present but without video cameras. Schaap said Te'o was composed, comfortable and in command, and that he said he didn't want to go on camera to keep the setting intimate and avoid a big production.

According to ABC News interviews and published reports, Te'o received phone calls, text messages and letters before every football game from his "girlfriend." He was in contact with her family, including a twin brother, a second brother, sister and parents. He called often to check in with them, just as he did with his own family. And "Kekua" kept in contact with Te'o's friends and family, and teammates spoke to her on the phone.

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Feedback: Excessive precision at rugby World Cup

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China working age population falls

BEIJING: China's working-age population declined for the first time in recent decades in 2012, the government said on Friday, detailing the extent of a demographic time bomb experts say is one of Beijing's biggest challenges.

China introduced its controversial one-child policy in the late 1970s to control population growth, but its people are now ageing, moving to the cities, and increasingly male, government statistics showed.

The world's biggest national population rose by 6.7 million in 2012 to 1.354 billion people, excluding Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, the National Bureau of Statistics said.

Almost 118 boys were born for every 100 girls.

The working-age population -- defined as those from 15 to 59 -- fell by 3.45 million to 937 million, adding to concerns about how the country will provide for the elderly, with 194 million people now 60 or over.

It was the first absolute drop in the working-age segment in "a considerable period of time", said National Bureau of Statistics director Ma Jiantang, adding that he expected it to "fall steadily at least through 2030".

China's wealth gap and population imbalances are major concerns for the ruling Communist Party, which places huge importance on preserving social stability to avoid any potential challenge to its grip on power.

An estimated 180,000 protests break out across China every year, many of them sparked by a wide range of social issues, including wage disputes and rural workers being denied residents' rights in cities.

But the government faces a "major dilemma" over how it confronts the problem of a rapidly ageing population, said analysts.

"For older generations, life is going to be very painful," Sun Wenguang, a retired academic from Shandong University in Jinan, told AFP.

"The cost of 24-hour care in Beijing is probably 7,000 RMB a month, and how will this be funded? The average manual worker in China earns about 2,000 RMB a month (US$300), of course they don't want to share their money out."

Liang Zhongtang, a researcher at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said the government was reluctant to confront the population imbalance because of the sensitivity of the family planning policy.

"Actually the structural decline of the country's labour resources started long ago," he told AFP.

Most of the labour force was aged between 20 and 45, he said, with the proportion of older workers within that range increasing rapidly. "This means it is very hard for them to change their jobs or find a new employer", decreasing labour flexibility.

The problems of ageing and labour shortages were "severe" in the countryside, he said, but added: "Even though rural areas' social and economic problems are serious, they do not make onto the radar of mainstream (policy makers).

"They just ignore the problems plaguing this social stratum."

As late as 1982, the proportion of the population aged 60 or over in China was just five per cent, but it now stands at 14.3 per cent.

China's urban population rose to 712 million in 2012, up 21 million and adding to the strains on public services, while the rural population fell 14 million to 642 million.

Average per capita income was 26,959 yuan (US$4,296) in the cities, compared to 7,917 yuan in the countryside, the statistics said.

- AFP/xq

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What should Google do about Facebook Graph Search?

Mark Zuckerberg introduces Graph Search on Tuesday. Should Google worry?

(Credit:
James Martin/CNET)

When Facebook introduced its next-generation search product in Menlo Park, Calif., this week, the announcement was no doubt being watched closely in nearby Mountain View.

The data that Google engineers have craved for years -- rich portraits of connections between people, places, and things, all tied to real identities -- was suddenly searchable on Facebook. It's data Google is trying to replicate, using Google+ and other products, but there's no doubt that Facebook's billion-member network has given it the advantage. You can imagine the Google crew listening to Mark Zuckerberg describe the data that underpins Graph Search and wishing they could get their hands on it.

In fact, two of them did. Lars Rasmussen and Tom Stocky, who both worked on search products at Google, defected to Facebook and began working on a new kind of search product. In 2011 they started on what would be introduced Tuesday as Graph Search. From the get-go it was clear that searching your social network was materially different than searching the Web. Like the Web, it could provide answers (who's a good dentist?) and entertainment (show me photos of my friends in Paris). But social networks promise something more, the duo said in an interview this week at CNET headquarters: bringing you closer to friends by helping you share experiences.

Lars Rasmussen, a former Google employee, is leading Facebook's efforts in search.

(Credit:
James Martin/CNET)

It's an approach that differs sharply from that of Google, where the search team is interested in getting users the best possible answers, at lightning speed, regardless of who their friends are. The question is which approach is better -- and, should Facebook's take on search prove popular with users, what Google should do about it.

Even though they built it, Rasmussen and Stocky say they can only guess at what social search will mean for the masses.

"This all remains to be seen," said Rasmussen, who previously started the company that became Google Maps and later created the more divisive Google Wave. "We're also curious about this question. Obviously we think there is something here -- otherwise, we wouldn't have spent so much time on it."

The power of social
One day Rasmussen opened Facebook to see that his friend Zuckerberg was listening to a song, which appeared in his news feed. Rasmussen, curious, clicked the link so he could listen along in real time. That prompted an embarrassed message from Zuckerberg: This song is terrible, Zuckerbeg said. Sorry about that!

"That interaction was much more valuable than just listening to the song," Rasmussen said. "Watching terrible movies with your best friends can be better than watching an awesome movie alone. Watching awesome movies with your best friends is where we're trying to get to."

In other words, social search promises to bring us more than mere answers -- it can also bring us into conversation.

"There's a little bit more to it than just finding the best place to have a meal tonight," Rasmussen said. "Knowing which of your friends recommended it, or which of your friends liked it, will help you have a more social experience."

Google has also introduced ways of making recommendations more social. Apps you purchase in the Google Play store will be displayed, along with your Google+ profile, when a friend searches for them. The same goes for reviews of places on Google Local. And if your Google+ friends +1 Web links, those links will rise higher in search results for you. For most people, though, Facebook better reflects a person's actual friends and family members than Google's social products do. Even if a healthy chunk of your friends and family members are on Google+, they might be lumped in with brands, publications, celebrities, and other people the user follows but doesn't have a personal connection with.

In short, it's easy for an average user to grok why they might search Facebook for "plumbers my friends like." Thanks to the fact that Graph Search is embedded at the top of Facebook, and can interpret natural language queries, it's easy to use, too. Google's social recommendations, scattered across various products, look weak by comparison.

Hey, 1 billion, meet 30 trillion
But what if the value of social search is overstated? Google sees your friends as important to answering search queries -- that was the point of Search Plus Your World, introduced last year -- but they're only one signal.

What are the other signals? Well, for starters, there are the 30 trillion Web sites Google has indexed, across 230 million domains. There's the Knowledge Graph, its database of 570 million people, places, and things, which now has mapped more than 18 billion connections. Google is betting that for most questions, that enormous database will provide better answers than the random sample offered by the average Facebook user's 150 friends.

Google declined to comment for this story. But its philosophy on search is readily apparent. Google wants to answer your question no matter who you are -- and, unlike Facebook, no matter who you know. The fact that you would have to rely on your friends having visited a good Chinese restaurant to get a decent recommendation is a huge bug, in Google's mind. Sure, it will show you suggestions from friends if it has some to share. But Google wants to answer your question well even if it doesn't.

At its announcement, Facebook made much of the difference between Graph Search and "Web search," which returns not answers but links to other Web pages that hopefully do. The thing is, Google has been trying to move beyond "10 blue links" for years now -- the Knowledge Graph is only the latest effort to deliver answers on the search results page itself. Even Facebook isn't above the blue links -- thanks to its partnership with Bing, you can perform Web searches inside the social network.

The battle to come
It's important to note that several major categories of Google search are as yet unaffected by Facebook's entry into the space: video search, product search, flight search, and maps.

But Graph Search is still in beta. Rasmussen and Stocky said they both have "years" of work ahead of them. So far Graph Search is available only in English, to a select few beta testers. It can't search status updates or notes. The recommendation engine for things like plumbers appears to rely heavily on "likes," and how many people have ever liked their plumber on Facebook? 

Still, it's easy to imagine where Graph Search might lead. And even in beta, there's one search Facebook does better than anyone else: photos. Facebook is the world's largest storehouse of pictures, and Graph Search makes them searchable in a way that is not only functional but fun. It handles vanity searches ("photos of me"), creeper searches ("photos of friends of my friends who are single"), and searches designed for pure exploration: photos of Paris, photos of puppies, photos from 1980. It's a rabbit hole every bit as fun to fall down as Wikipedia -- or, more to the point, Google Images.

If Facebook builds the rest of Graph Search as well as it did the photo components, Google may actually have something to worry about. In the meantime Google will continue building its version of the "Star Trek" computer, one that answers questions perfectly no matter your social connections. And while it does, a team led by its former employees will be busy upending our expectations for search.

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Opinion: Lance One of Many Tour de France Cheaters

Editor's note: England-based writer and photographer Roff Smith rides around 10,000 miles a year through the lanes of Sussex and Kent and writes a cycling blog at: www.my-bicycle-and-I.co.uk

And so, the television correspondent said to the former Tour de France champion, a man who had been lionised for years, feted as the greatest cyclist of his day, did you ever use drugs in the course of your career?

"Yes," came the reply. "Whenever it was necessary."

"And how often was that?" came the follow-up question.

"Almost all the time!"

This is not a leak of a transcript from Oprah Winfrey's much anticipated tell-all with disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong, but instead was lifted from a decades-old interview with Fausto Coppi, the great Italian road cycling champion of the 1940s and 1950s.

To this day, though, Coppi is lauded as one of the gods of cycling, an icon of a distant and mythical golden age in the sport.

So is five-time Tour winner Jacques Anquetil (1957, 1961-64) who famously remarked that it was impossible "to ride the Tour on mineral water."

"You would have to be an imbecile or a crook to imagine that a professional cyclist who races for 235 days a year can hold the pace without stimulants," Anquetil said.

And then there's British cycling champion Tommy Simpson, who died of heart failure while trying to race up Mont Ventoux during the 1967 Tour de France, a victim of heat, stress, and a heady cocktail of amphetamines.

All are heroes today. If their performance-enhancing peccadillos are not forgotten, they have at least been glossed over in the popular imagination.

As the latest chapter of the sorry Lance Armstrong saga unfolds, it is worth looking at the history of cheating in the Tour de France to get a sense of perspective. This is not an attempt at rationalisation or justification for what Lance did. Far from it.

But the simple, unpalatable fact is that cheating, drugs, and dirty tricks have been part and parcel of the Tour de France nearly from its inception in 1903.

Cheating was so rife in the 1904 event that Henri Desgrange, the founder and organiser of the Tour, declared he would never run the race again. Not only was the overall winner, Maurice Garin, disqualified for taking the train over significant stretches of the course, but so were next three cyclists who placed, along with the winner of every single stage of the course.

Of the 27 cyclists who actually finished the 1904 race, 12 were disqualified and given bans ranging from one year to life. The race's eventual official winner, 19-year-old Henri Cornet, was not determined until four months after the event.

And so it went. Desgrange relented on his threat to scrub the Tour de France and the great race survived and prospered-as did the antics. Trains were hopped, taxis taken, nails scattered along the roads, partisan supporters enlisted to beat up rivals on late-night lonely stretches of the course, signposts tampered with, bicycles sabotaged, itching powder sprinkled in competitors' jerseys and shorts, food doctored, and inkwells smashed so riders yet to arrive couldn't sign the control documents to prove they'd taken the correct route.

And then of course there were the stimulants-brandy, strychnine, ether, whatever-anything to get a rider through the nightmarishly tough days and nights of racing along stages that were often over 200 miles long. In a way the race was tailor-made to encourage this sort of thing. Desgrange once famously said that his idea of a perfect Tour de France would be one that was so tough that only one rider finished.

Add to this the big prizes at a time when money was hard to come by, a Tour largely comprising young riders from impoverished backgrounds for whom bicycle racing was their one big chance to get ahead, and the passionate following cycling enjoyed, and you had the perfect recipe for a desperate, high stakes, win-at-all-costs mentality, especially given the generally tolerant views on alcohol and drugs in those days.

After World War II came the amphetamines. Devised to keep soldiers awake and aggressive through long hours of battle they were equally handy for bicycle racers competing in the world's longest and toughest race.

So what makes the Lance Armstrong story any different, his road to redemption any rougher? For one thing, none of the aforementioned riders were ever the point man for what the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency has described in a thousand-page report as the most sophisticated, cynical, and far-reaching doping program the world of sport has ever seen-one whose secrecy and efficiency was maintained by ruthlessness, bullying, fear, and intimidation.

Somewhere along the line, the casualness of cheating in the past evolved into an almost Frankenstein sort of science in which cyclists, aided by creepy doctors and trainers, were receiving blood transfusions in hotel rooms and tinkering around with their bodies at the molecular level many months before they ever lined up for a race.

To be sure, Armstrong didn't invent all of this, any more than he invented original sin-nor was he acting alone. But with his success, money, intelligence, influence, and cohort of thousand-dollar-an-hour lawyers-and the way he used all this to prop up the Lance brand and the Lance machine at any cost-he became the poster boy and lightning rod for all that went wrong with cycling, his high profile eclipsing even the heads of the Union Cycliste Internationale, the global cycling union, who richly deserve their share of the blame.

It is not his PED popping that is the hard-to-forgive part of the Lance story. Armstrong cheated better than his peers, that's all.

What I find troubling is the bullying and calculated destruction of anyone who got in his way, raised a question, or cast a doubt. By all accounts Armstrong was absolutely vicious, vindictive as hell. Former U.S. Postal team masseuse Emma O'Reilly found herself being described publicly as a "prostitute" and an "alcoholic," and had her life put through a legal grinder when she spoke out about Armstrong's use of PEDs.

Journalists were sued, intimidated, and blacklisted from events, press conferences, and interviews if they so much as questioned the Lance miracle or well-greased machine that kept winning Le Tour.

Armstrong left a lot of wreckage behind him.

If he is genuinely sorry, if he truly repents for his past "indiscretions," one would think his first act would be to try to find some way of not only seeking forgiveness from those whom he brutally put down, but to do something meaningful to repair the damage he did to their lives and livelihoods.

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Armstrong Admits to Doping, 'One Big Lie'

Lance Armstrong, formerly cycling's most decorated champion and considered one of America's greatest athletes, confessed to cheating for at least a decade, admitting on Thursday that he owed all seven of his Tour de France titles and the millions of dollars in endorsements that followed to his use of illicit performance-enhancing drugs.

After years of denying that he had taken banned drugs and received oxygen-boosting blood transfusions, and attacking his teammates and competitors who attempted to expose him, Armstrong came clean with Oprah Winfrey in an exclusive interview, admitting to using banned substances for years.

"I view this situation as one big lie that I repeated a lot of times," he said. "I know the truth. The truth isn't what was out there. The truth isn't what I said.

"I'm a flawed character, as I well know," Armstrong added. "All the fault and all the blame here falls on me."

In October, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency issued a report in which 11 former Armstrong teammates exposed the system with which they and Armstrong received drugs with the knowledge of their coaches and help of team physicians.

George Burns/Courtesy of Harpo Studios, Inc./AP Photo

Lance Armstrong's Many Denials Caught on Tape Watch Video

Lance Armstrong Admits Using Performance-Enhancing Drugs Watch Video

Lance Armstrong's Oprah Confession: The Consequences Watch Video

The U.S. Postal Service Cycling Team "ran the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen," USADA said in its report.

As a result of USADA's findings, Armstrong was stripped of his Tour de France titles. Soon, longtime sponsors including Nike began to abandon him, too.

READ MORE: Did Doping Cause Armstrong's Cancer?

Armstrong said he was driven to cheat by a "ruthless desire to win."

He told Winfrey that his competition "cocktail" consisted of EPO, blood transfusions and testosterone, and that he had previously used cortisone. He would not, however, give Winfrey the details of when, where and with whom he doped during seven winning Tours de France between 1999 and 2005.

He said he stopped doping following his 2005 Tour de France victory and did not use banned substances when he placed third in 2009 and entered the tour again in 2010.

"It was a mythic perfect story and it wasn't true," Armstrong said of his fairytale story of overcoming testicular cancer to become the most celebrated cyclist in history.

READ MORE: 10 Scandalous Public Confessions

PHOTOS: Olympic Doping Scandals: Past and Present

PHOTOS: Tour de France 2012

Armstrong would not name other members of his team who doped, but admitted that as the team's captain he set an example. He admitted he was "a bully" but said there "there was a never a directive" from him that his teammates had to use banned substances.

"At the time it did not feel wrong?" Winfrey asked.

"No," Armstrong said. "Scary."

"Did you feel bad about it?" she asked again.

"No," he said.

Armstrong said he thought taking the drugs was similar to filling his tires with air and bottle with water. He never thought of his actions as cheating, but "leveling the playing field" in a sport rife with doping.

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Life expectancy lower in US than other rich countries

WEALTHY it may be, but healthy it is not. The US population experiences poorer health at all stages of life than the populations of 16 other rich countries.

Despite leading the world in pioneering anti-smoking laws, cancer screening and controlling high blood pressure, the US trails its richer "peer" countries in almost all other measures of health and longevity, says a US National Research Council report published last week.

At 75 years, men in the US have the lowest life expectancy in the group, while women have a life expectancy of 81 years - higher only than Denmark.

In nine categories of ill health ranging from infant mortality rates to the prevalence of sexually transmitted disease, US citizens consistently came at or near the bottom of the table.

"I was stunned by how pervasive the disadvantages were across so many factors," says Steve Woolf of Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, who chaired the report panel.

Woolf and his colleagues say that the problem is less to do with faults in the US health system, and more to do with behaviours that put US citizens at greater risk. "They consume the most calories per person, have higher rates of drug abuse, are less likely to use seat belts, and are more likely to use firearms in acts of violence," says Woolf.

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Floods swamp Indonesia capital, 19,000 homeless

JAKARTA: Floods which have made more than 19,000 people homeless and killed three brought parts of the Indonesian capital to a standstill Thursday, with even the president forced to roll up his trousers.

The waist-deep muddy waters paralysed much of the centre of Jakarta, home to 20 million people and already notorious for its chaotic traffic.

Drivers were stuck in snaking queues for hours in the morning and cyclists pushed bikes with only the handlebars and seats visible.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was pictured in the grounds of the presidential palace with his trousers rolled up to the knee, brown water lapping his calves and threatening to flood the shrubbery.

"Jakarta is flooded: hopefully there won't be too many victims," he told photographers, ordering military, police and disaster officials to ensure safety.

The monsoon floods had driven more than 19,000 people from their homes, according to Jakarta governor Joko Widodo.

National disaster management agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said the death toll rose to three when a 35-year old man was electrocuted on Thursday. A two-year old boy was swept away and a 46-year-old man was electrocuted earlier this week.

The waters started to recede in the afternoon but floods remained in some areas including the central business district, where luxury hotels and the French, German and British embassies were surrounded.

Motorists trying to avoid the deluge drove along pavements and central reservations, or headed the wrong way down one-way streets. In some areas children punted rafts along roads which looked more like canals.

"Jakarta today is a huge swimming pool. Everyone's playing in the rain, walking in the water and laughing. The downside is, I have no idea how to get home, I might have to walk back three hours," 32-year-old administrative officer Yohanna, who uses a single name, told AFP.

Authorities raised the flood alert to its highest level early Thursday, said disaster agency spokesman Nugroho, describing the city as "besieged".

"The situation could get worse in the coming days as the rain shows little sign of abating," he told AFP.

But as rescuers rushed to evacuate residents, welfare ministry spokesman Tito Setiawan said the situation was under control.

"We have sent out trucks and rafts to move victims whose homes were inundated to temporary shelters. We will also provide food, water and humanitarian aid," he said.

Indonesia is regularly afflicted by deadly floods and landslides during its wet season, which lasts around half the year, and many in the capital live beside rivers which periodically overflow.

- AFP/fa

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AT&T eyes international expansion for growth

Ralph de la Vega, head of AT&T mobility, speaking at the company's investor conference in New York City in November 2012.

(Credit:
Marguerite Reardon/CNET)

AT&T is interested in buying a European carrier for growth, according to the Wall Street Journal.

With the U.S. market about to get more competitive, AT&T is looking at markets in Europe where it can upgrade technology and roll out new services and pricing strategies, the Wall Street Journal said, citing unnamed sources. It reported that AT&T is studying potential acquisitions, and could strike a deal by the end of the year. In particular, AT&T is looking at the U.K., Germany, and the Netherlands.

While the U.S. carriers have largely remained insular, many of the largest carriers overseas, such as Vodafone and Telefonica, have assets in multiple countries. With growth starting to slow in the U.S., it's natural for AT&T to look abroad.

But a deal isn't without risks, and the markets that AT&T is looking at are already highly competitive in their own right. These aren't fast-growing emerging markets, but fairly mature ones with several competitors already in place. Those issues, as well as the weak European markets, have led to falling valuations and potentially attractive prices for many of these companies.

AT&T, of course, isn't a stranger to doing business with a major European player. The company two years ago attempted to acquire T-Mobile USA, a unit of Germany's Deutsche Telekom. That deal, of course, fell apart due to regulatory scrutiny, and the company has been focusing on smaller deals since then.

It's unclear how such a deal would interfere or compliment the company's large network upgrade plans. The company is spending an additional $14 billion to upgrade its wireless and wireline networks as it looks to new sources of growth in the U.S.

But AT&T is also looking at a market that will get more competitive in the coming months. Softbank is poised to come in and inject capital into Sprint, and its leadership has already warned that it would introduce new pricing schemes to shake up the market. Deutsche Telekom has re-committed itself to T-Mobile, which is planning to merge with MetroPCS and likewise promised to introduce new competitive plans.

AT&T does currently have an international presence in the form of a business arm that provides services to multinational corporations, but it doesn't yet serve consumers.

An AT&T representative declined to comment on the report.

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6 Ways Climate Change Will Affect You

Photograph by AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez

The planet keeps getting hotter, new data showed this week. Especially in America, where 2012 was the warmest year ever recorded, by far. Every few years, the U.S. federal government engages hundreds of experts to assess the impacts of climate change, now and in the future.

From agriculture (pictured) to infrastructure to how humans consume energy, the National Climate Assessment Development Advisory Committee spotlights how a warming world may bring widespread disruption.

Farmers will see declines in some crops, while others will reap increased yields.

Won't more atmospheric carbon mean longer growing seasons? Not quite. Over the next several decades, the yield of virtually every crop in California's fertile Central Valley, from corn to wheat to rice and cotton, will drop by up to 30 percent, researchers expect. (Read about "The Carbon Bathtub" in National Geographic magazine.)

Lackluster pollination, driven by declines in bees due partly to the changing climate, is one reason. Government scientists also expect the warmer climate to shorten the length of the frosting season necessary for many crops to grow in the spring.

Aside from yields, climate change will also affect food processing, storage, and transportation—industries that require an increasing amount of expensive water and energy as global demand rises—leading to higher food prices.

—Daniel Stone

Published January 16, 2013

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