SAN JOSE, California (Reuters) - Apple Inc told jurors on Tuesday that Samsung's internal documents show it made a decision to copy the iPhone because the South Korean company could not compete in the smartphone market on its own.

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As is the case with any inexplicable tragedy, a million pundits and armchair psychoanalysts have emerged to "explain" what would turn a person into someone who would enter a darkened theater and methodically open fire on a crowd. Tim Geigner ran down a few of these earlier, and so far the blame lies at the combined feet of opponents of bullying, opponents of Judeo-Christian lifestyles, Star Trek, video games, Occupy Wall Street, and the easy availability of weapons and ammo. Two editorials

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said on Tuesday it was starting to get ready for potentially painful year-end spending cuts, and was committed to shielding U.S. military pay from any government budget crunch.

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NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Home prices rose for the fourth month in a row in May, suggesting the recovery in the housing market continued to gain traction, even as the broader economy wobbles.

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Kai Ryssdal: All right, so I was kidding about tape delaying the show. But a lot of people -- like my whole Twitter feed and beyond -- have been stewing over what NBC's doing to the Olympics. Strategic tape delays to get the good stuff on the air in primetime. Prime audience and prime advertiser time. It's crazy-making because it's almost impossible to not know who won and who lost before good old-fashioned broadcast television tells us. And the kicker is that NBC's audience numbers for the Games are better than ever. Jeff Jarvis writes and talks about this stuff all the time. His most recent book on the topic is called "Public Parts." Jeff, good to have you with us. Jeff Jarvis: Thank you. Ryssdal: Why are people so upset about this? I mean, it started on Friday night with the opening ceremonies, and has not relented. Jarvis: The head of NBC Sports just said to a reporter that people don't have an inalienable right to get everything they want. Well, maybe on the Internet, we do think we can get everything we want, and we expect to have the very best there. And we're in a world now where we know information immediately. And for someone to still try to control that and keep it from us, it doesn't work anymore. Ryssdal: It's a trust thing, right? We are trusting NBC to do us right? Jarvis: What a channel does is curate -- in a word we like to use online. It picks the best stuff, it adds value to that. And so, the audience is still asking NBC to do its job on its old-fashioned channels. Ryssdal: So it seems to me that NBC is stuck a little bit, between the disgruntled masses who want what they want when they want it, and the billions of dollars that it has invested in this whole thing in the Olympics. Jarvis: NBC is really stuck between old business models and new Internet reality. The good news for them ought to be that the audience is mad that they're not putting some of the important live events on the old-fashioned broadcast channel. Twitter is a gigantic spoiler machine -- and Facebook and the blogs. So I believe if they showed these hot contests during the day, there'd be even more chatter on Twitter, there'd be even a bigger audience. Instead what there is is a huge new hashtag called #NBCfail, which is at least as entertaining as ping pong. Ryssdal: That's right, although the ping pong was pretty good. The other thing that needs to be talked about though, Jeff, is the economic relationship between Twitter and NBC, right? Jarvis: Yes. Twitter and NBC now has a relationship, which means Twitter has a business model. But it also led to some problems. Twitter suspended the account of Guy Adams, who's a journalist for The Independent in London, who complained about the Olympics coverage and also put out the email address of an NBC executive. Well this worried a lot of us -- you and I in the media worry about the wall between church and state. Trust is our business, trust is our asset, and if we found ourselves giving favor to our advertisers, we'd lose that trust. Ryssdal: How much do you think Twitter's using this NBC relationship as a testbed, really, to see what they can get going? Jarvis: Twitter has been a huge success and platform in search of a business model. So if it can find ways to work with media properties -- it's working with NASCAR and now with the Olympics -- I think that's the beginning of a sustainable future for Twitter. But the fear is that it could change the very essence of Twitter. If Twitter starts to favor its advertisers over its users, if it becomes less of a platform and more of closed media entity, that would be a great disappointment. Ryssdal: Yeah, well it's a question of what it becomes, right? Does it stay a tech company or does it become a media company? Jarvis: We're changing the definition of both. And necessarily, a tech company will become a media company, and a media company darn well better become a tech company -- or they won't survive. Ryssdal: Jeff Jarvis, his book about all this stuff is called "Public Parts." You can get him on Twitter at @jeffjarvis. Jeff, thanks a lot. Jarvis: Thank you, Kai.

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… Providence Investment Management, a hedge fund management firm, which focuses on Mortgage-backed arbitrage Strategy (MBS), believes that the market from which it bases its hedging strategy can offer better returns. In 2011, Providence was one of the best performing hedge

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“Davidson” submits: Bill Gross of PIMCO released his equivalent of the famous Businessweek headline, “Death of Equities…” on Aug 13, 1979 this morning. Meanwhile, we have had very positive earnings surprises from Carlisle Companies, Inc. (NYSE:CSL), Caterpillar Inc.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top housing regulator rebuffed the offer of taxpayer funds to reduce mortgages held by struggling homeowners on Tuesday, a blow to the Obama administration which is keen to show voters it can help fix the housing market.

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Judging by today’s report of TOTAL S.A. (EPA:FP) (NYSE:TOT) buying a stake in Kurdistan oil blocks, the steady trickle of companies signing up with the Kurds may soon become a flood. According to Bloomberg…, TOTAL S.A. (EPA:FP) (NYSE:TOT) has

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He made environmental improvements on his land -- his farm -- by taking steps to clean up the water supply and better preserve the soil, but the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers fined him for his efforts.

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In the never-ending stream of gloomy news surrounding beleaguered Swedish phone maker, Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK), here’s one that could give solace to the company’s shareholders. It has been reported… that Nokia’s Chief Executive, Stephen Elop, and other members of the

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There are a bunch of moving pieces in the various Megaupload legal proceedings, but if you recall, in the ruling in late June from New Zealand's High Court, it was made clear that the New Zealand government and the US FBI broke the law in sending data from Megaupload's hard drives overseas, and ordered them returned. Megaupload's lawyer, Ira Rothken is out reminding the world that the US has failed to comply with the order to return the data that was illegally taken, and has shown no signs of

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Rona Inc (TSE:RON), a home improvement retailer in Canada snubbed… Lowe’s Companies, Inc. (NYSE:LOW) $1.76 billion takeover proposal. Lowe’s offered to purchase Rona’s stock for $14.50 per share. The offer was 22 percent higher compared with its $11.87 closing stock

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Kai Ryssdal: I blinked, so I might've missed it, but I think NBC squeezed about 25 seconds worth of dressage into its broadcast last night. The first round of equine events went off today. No spoilers here. Not gonna tell you who won. But you've surely heard the name of the most famous dressage athlete in this year's games. Rafalca, the horse owned by Ann Romney. Thanks to her -- the horse, not Mrs. Romney -- dressage has had more publicity than perhaps ever before. So we asked Dan Gorenstein from New Hampshire Public Radio what it takes to get involved with and excel in that rarefied, blue-blooded world. Dan Gorenstein: First, there's the horse. "Mr. Ed" clip: A horse is a horse, of course, of course... Uh, no. This isn't about running the fastest or jumping the highest -- dressage horses are ballet dancers. Pamela Goodrich: We do movements that are very, very difficult. These horses, it's like dancers. Pamela Goodrich has a long barn full of dressage horses. Goodrich: It's feeding time at the zoo. Goodrich explains to me how precise and technical the moves are. Horses must canter in perfect tight circles; shift gaits every stride, so they look like they're skipping. The art is to coax a 1,200 pound beast to go against its instincts and love it. Not easy for a novice like me. Goodrich: My recommendation for you would be to get a professor, to teach you. Goodrich introduces me to a horse named Lamborghini. Goodrich: And he is a Lamborghini, very spicy to ride. Pretty hot price tag, too, if he were for sale. Goodrich: $60,000 to $100,000. The professor can't do all the teaching. I need a trainer. Katherine Dow: Yu should probably be on your horse six days a week, the seventh day at lesat doing something with it. Someone like Katherine Dow. She also says I need to hit the gym -- hard. Dow: You are going to need to spend time at the gym because you're going to have to work on your core strength. Dow tells me top riders get their horses to make all these intricate moves subtly -- to win, it must look effortless. Dow: You want to look like it's a partnership and the harmony between you and your horse. Speaking of looks, elegance in dressage is essential. Janet Nittmann: Welcome to Dover Saddlery. Janet Nittmann of the tack store Dover Saddlery shows me to a changing room, where my finery awaits. In dressage the clothes capture both the fussiness and the grandeur -- some would say opulence -- of the sport. White britches, top hat, silk tie, white gloves and an antiquated cut of a coat the shadbelly. Nittmann: Short waist at the front and then the long tails at the back. So sophisticated. A judge can't help but be influenced by a beautifully turned out rider. I slip on the coat. Gorenstein: Wow. Nittmann: You look good, dressed for the part. Nittmann itemizes what I'm wearing. Shadbelly. Nittmann: $879. Top hat. Nittmann: $400. Britches. Nittmann: $379. Gloves. Nittmann: $62. Silk tie. Nittmann: $100. And custom boots start at... Nittmann: $1,000. That doesn't include anything for the horse, like a saddle. Nittmann says there's a range, but if I work my way to the top, it's going to cost me. Nittmann: We are talking over $12,000. Now, there's just one last thing to do -- go see a loan officer. I'm Dan Gorenstein for Marketplace.

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So far it's been nothing but hot air and no action from ECB president Mario Draghi after he pledged to do whatever it takes to save the euro. One of the highly-touted ideas as of late has been a ESM banking license. However, the idea is not really new, and has been shot down repeatedly already. Nonetheless eurocrats like Jean-Claude Juncker, chairman of the eurogroup, keep bringing the idea up as if the answer will change.  It won't. Bloomberg reports Merkel Allies Harden Opposition to

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A recent shift in the purchasing practices of meat producers in the U.S. illustrates the power of the weather, and the extent of its impact on the cost of what we eat. According to an article in the WSJ…,

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… U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner met yesterday with two important players in the European debt situation – German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi. After the meetings, the three made public statements seeming to

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One of the things central planners look at very closely is Consumer Confidence. This is one of the important pieces of the puzzle, all over the world, when it comes to setting monetary policy. Today top Citi analyst Tom Fitzpatrick put together another ‘Chartapalooza,’ this time covering the sagging Consumer Confidence. Below is his piece and today’s KWN Consumer Confidence ‘Chartapalooza’:

Read more: http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2012/7/31_KWN_-_Special_Tuesday_Consumer_Confidence_Chart_Mania.html