Ubisoft has revealed that the newest adventure of Sam Fisher, Splinter Cell: Blacklist, will not feature offline co-op, but online co-op will remain intact, oddly enough.
Splinter Cell: Blacklist producer Liu Jun revealed the news in an interview with Nintendo Life, and blamed the amount of time it would have taken to implement.
?In order to ship at the same time as the other consoles, we unfortunately weren?t able to delve into this feature,? Jun said. ?But we think Nintendo gamers will be really excited to get the game at the same time as other consoles.?
Wii U owners will be able to use the touchscreen GamePad?s microphone for online co-op and multiplayer chat, and Jun confirmed there will be ?no difference in treatment? for the Wii U version in terms of DLC. This news comes just shortly after some other bitter news; Batman: Arkham Origins won?t feature its awesome-looking online-multiplayer mode on the Wii U.
What do you mean you still buy music? Donchaknow all the kids are streaming it these days? Here are the best music streaming services currently available in Australia, as well as a look at what?s not going to come here.
Welcome to Gizmodo?s Streaming Week! This week we?re going to show you the best ways to get the entertainment you want onto whatever screen you want, whenever you want. Tune in at 2pm AEDT in each day to find out more.
In no particular order?
Samsung Music Hub
You already know about Google Play and its ability to throw music onto your Android device, but now it has a streaming service that?s live in Australia.
All Access is a service that takes the best parts of other music services and blends it together. You can upload 20,000 songs to a digital locker in the cloud to keep and have and hold forever like iTunes Match, you can stream songs from curated radio stations like on Pandora and you can buy stuff to keep forever just like Google Play, ironically.
iHeartRadio
Thanks to a partnership with Australian Radio Network, iHeartRadio has officially launched in Australia.
Rather than being an all-you-can-eat, on-demand music streaming service, iHeartRadio is like Pandora: an internet radio service for internet and terrestrial radio stations around the world. It?s free, unlimited and gradually opening up to Australians between now and September.
Sony Music Unlimited
Music Unlimited is Sony?s own on-demand streaming service that it loads onto everything from Xperia phones and tablets right through to the Playstation 3 and PS Vita.
Launched in June 2010, it supports both iOS and Android platforms runs on a monthly subscription model. It?s great if you use a few different Sony devices (or even just the one) and want to sync your tunes with your vendor?s-own platform.
Nokia Music
Nokia Music is one of the freshest streaming services on the scene, offering Lumia users an alternative to services like Spotify. It supports both streaming of music from playlists as well as a streaming radio service based on your preferences.
You?ll only get Nokia Music, funnily enough, if you have a Nokia Lumia handset, and it?ll set you back $4.99 a month for the premium tier.
iTunes
While not technically a streaming service, iTunes has Match, a service that identifies the music in your library and matches it to what?s already stored in Apple?s cloud. From there, it lets you stream the music you already own across your authorised devices for $34.99 a year paid upfront.
Spotify
Spotify took the world by storm when it launched, and eventually it blew into Australia as the streaming wars were hotting up and got everyone all excited for new music paradigms or whatever.
Spotify has both an ad-supported (read: free) tier, as well as a premium tier that ditches the ads, ups the audio quality and enables offline synchronisation with your devices. That will set you back $12 per month.
Rdio
Rdio is the next best thing to Spotify ? depending on who you ask, of course ? which now runs both freemium and premium tiers. You get 12 million tracks for your $12.90 per month, but interestingly, you get three months of premium for free with no questions asked if you just sign up for an account.
That free offer is governed by a mysterious fair-play policy that restricts how much you can actually stream per month, but it?s nice just to test out the service to see if you want to fork over your dollars or not.
Pandora
Pandora isn?t so much a music streaming service as it is an internet radio service.
Pandora?s point of difference is music curation by the numbers. It analyses what you give your up votes and down votes to before recommending other tracks based on that information.
Pricing at the moment looks to mirror US pricing: $3.99 for a one-month subscription and $36 for a one-year subscription.
Grooveshark
Grooveshark is a web-based streaming service that runs in a browser and pumps out visual, rather than audio, ads to support itself. People upload music to Grooveshark at will and the service lets you register, build playlists, stream and start artist radio streaming.
The only issue with it is that it?s currently being accused by music industry heavyweights like Universal and Sony that it?s in violation of copyrights. Get it before it?s gone.
MOG
MOG is an international streaming service that Telstra and BigPond decided it needed in Australia to try and remain competitive in the music space.
A 14-day free trial is available of the service and it?s unmetered if you?re a Telstra BigPond customer. A basic subscription costs $6.99 per month and gets you access to music on your computer, but mobile streaming and offline syncing cost extra at $11.99 per month.
Songl
Backed by Southern Cross Austereo (of 2Day Network fame), Sony and Univeral, Songl is an attempt to guide revenue back into radio network coffers. You get both an ad-supported tier for free and a premium tier for $12.99 per month with Songl, as well as access to streaming radio from Triple M and 2DayFM networks.
You can also keep 1000 songs in an offline cache on your tablet or smartphone, if you?re into that sort of thing.
Guevera
Guvera?s most obvious selling point is free (ad-supported) access on mobile devices, which is something of a rarity in the space.
Deezer
Deezer is an interesting little social media-based streaming service that offers you free, unlimited music streaming for 12-months. After that time you?re restricted to two hours of streaming per month, or you can jump onto the $6.99 tier which gets rid of ads and enables radio services, or you can get onto the Premium+ tier which allows streaming over 3G/4G networks and offline syncing.
12-months free is a pretty sweet deal, though.
RaRa
Rara?s big selling points are a nice-looking interface and hand-curated playlists. No free option, but it does have some nice apps.
Xbox Music
Xbox Music is a nice service that streams music between your Microsoft gear. So if you have a Surface, Xbox 360, Windows Phone and Windows 8 laptop, it?s the music streaming service for you, because you can sync your tunes across all of your devices.
Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 8 users will have to pay $11.99 per month for an Xbox Music Pass which gives them access to the service. That includes the millions of songs Windows users will get, as well as the option for unlimited playlists, but on top of that, Xbox 360 users get tens of thousands of music videos, too. You know, for when you want to relive the glory days of Video Hits in your lounge room.
JB Hi-Fi NOW
JB Hi-Fi is still one of the most prolific sellers of CDs and vinyl records in Australia, so naturally it?s going to try and cash in on its dominance in the online space, too.
In terms of charges, Now will cost $25 for a three month subscription, $50 for six months or $80 for a full year.
New Myspace
Myspace has been the butt of many jokes for some time now, but the first massive social network has been revived by new owners with guidance from pop guru Justin Timberlake as a hub for artists to upload their music for the streaming joy of members.
It?s still in its early stages but it doesn?t look like Myspace has any subscription tiers when it comes to streaming music, the only catch is that there are no apps, it?s all web-based streaming.
As you can see, Australia has quite a saturated streaming music market, but there are a few services that aren?t available locally that we still pine for.
Absentees
iTunes Radio
Apple?s own internet radio streaming service was showed off in all its glory at WWDC this year, but it?s still only a US-exclusive service right now. We?ll update you if and when it comes to Australia.
Turntable.fm
Turntable.fm is a fun little music service where friends can gather in a digital room and sling records back and forth to create mixes. It was available internationally for a minute after its launch before its owners got copyright attention and threw up the geoblocks. Sorry, Aussie mixers.
What?s your favourite music streaming service? Did we miss one? Let us know in the comments!
No stranger to high-profile adversaries (see Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang, fellow hedge fund manager Bill Ackman or most recently labor leader Randi Weingarten), the founder of $13.3 billion Third Point picked up a new foe Friday in actor George Clooney. The Oscar-winning actor, director and producer let loose in defense of Sony, the latest target of Loeb's event-driven fund.
"[Loeb] calls himself an activist investor, and I would call him a carpet bagger, and one who is trying to spread a climate of fear that pushes studios to want to make only tent poles," Clooney told trade website Deadline Hollywood. He later added, "It's crazy he has any weight in this conversation at all."
The one-time Batman actor also sharpened his knives for the greater alternatives industry at large, saying "hedge fund guys do not create jobs, and we do."
"How any hedge fund guys can call for responsibility is beyond me, because if you look at these guys, there is no conscience at work. It is a business that is only about creating wealth, where they fail, they get bailed out and where nobody gets fired."
Since May, Loeb has been accumulating stakes in Sony and publicly pushing for a spinoff of its entertainment assets. He made an appearance Thursday on the conglomerate's quarterly earnings call. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Below are some of the more lurid excerpts from Clooney's rant. Full remarks are available at Deadline Hollywood.
I've been reading a lot about Daniel Loeb, a hedge fund guy who describes himself as an activist but who knows nothing about our business, and he is looking to take scalps at Sony because two movies in a row underperformed? Why didn't he include Skyfall, the 007 movie that grossed a billion dollars, or Zero Dark Thirty or Django Unchained?
What [Loeb]'s doing is scaring studios and pushing them to make decisions from a place of fear. Why is he buying stock like crazy if he's down on things? He's trying to manipulate the market?it's crazy he has any weight in this conversation at all.
How any hedge fund guys can call for responsibility is beyond me, because if you look at these guys, there is no conscience at work. It is a business that is only about creating wealth, where they fail, they get bailed out and where nobody gets fired. A guy from a hedge fund is the single least qualified person to be making these kinds of judgments, and he is dangerous to our industry.
BURBANK, Calif. -- James Wan walked away from his first chance to make a sequel, for the "Saw" franchise he helped create. Now he can't seem to escape them.
The director has been splitting his days this summer between pre-production on the seventh "Fast & Furious" film and putting the finishing touches on his indie scare-fest "Insidious 2," due in September.
His other haunted house movie, "The Conjuring," has become the season's biggest low-budget hit. It's heading toward $100 million at the U.S. box office since its release last month, more than the mega-budget "Pacific Rim" and "The Lone Ranger."
No surprise here: The tale of a New England demonic possession leaves a creaky door flung wide open for more movies starring ghost hunters Ed and Lorraine Warren, played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga.
"If there's a need for more stories, then so be it. That's a good thing," Wan said in an interview. "But I always set out to make the best film I can and let the people decide if it has a longer shelf life or not."
Born in Malaysia and raised in Australia, the 36-year-old director found his niche in Hollywood taking "genre" movies and bending them slightly askew. His "Insidious" sequel, for example, includes time travel.
"You don't see that much in mainstream haunted house scary movies," Wan said. "That's the kind of stuff that I've always loved, which is to take things that you think you're familiar with, and give it something a bit different."
After Wan's twisted "Saw" became a huge hit in 2004, the saga of serial killer Jigsaw and his victims became an annual Halloween tradition for many horror fans, with six sequels released in theaters. Wan says he became known, to his dismay, as "the serial killer guy."
"For some reason people felt that the success of the first film was just about the traps and the blood and gore and the torture. I would be the first to argue against that," he said. "It had cool characters, it had a really well thought out storyline, and at the end of the movie, it had a really big, super cool twist. . But at the end of the first movie when I slammed the door to black, that was my way of saying `Tah dah! Finished!' At least for me."
His career's latest twist is landing the sought-after gig with the "Fast & Furious" action franchise, beating out a dozen other directors with an enthusiastic pitch for a more grounded and gritty approach.
"Because the title says `Fast 7,' and the characters that are in the movies like Vin Diesel and Paul Walker and the gang, they felt like outlaws or like samurai in some ways. So I started thinking seven ? `Seven Samurai,'" he said, referring to Akira Kurosawa's 1954 classic. "So that's kind of the spirit that I'm trying to bring to my version."
In person, Wan is visibly excited by the prospect of taking on the car-crazy franchise, his biggest budgeted film yet and second action movie after 2007's "Death Sentence," starring Kevin Bacon in vigilante mode.
"I love the action genre but I've just been so successful in the horror genre that I've never had the opportunity to go into action in a big way," Wan said. He smiles at the prospect of introducing British action star Jason Statham as a villain, teased in a mid-credits sequence in the sixth movie.
"I think everyone in the film is so cool as it is, but there's something kind of mythical about bringing Jason into this ... that adds an extra layer of fun-ness to it," Wan said.
Universal Pictures co-president of production Jeffrey Kirschenbaum said executives at other studios called to congratulate the studio for picking Wan.
And when "The Conjuring," made for $20 million and released by Warner Bros, topped the box office its opening weekend over much more expensive competition, "we weren't surprised," Kirschenbaum said.
"It's something that has happened time and again with James' movies. They've broken through the white noise," he said. "James understands how to craft accessible and identifiable characters. He puts them in extreme situations where he is subverting audience expectations."
"Fast 7" hasn't yet started shooting but is already slated for release next July, with the script being tweaked as Wan and others scout locations and plan the franchise's trademark elaborate set pieces. And there may be even more "Fast" in the future for Wan.
Justin Lin directed the last three "Fast" movies and though Wan has only been confirmed for one, "we talk about these in terms of long-term story arcs. Seven leads to 8 which leads to 9," Kirschenbaum said.
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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Ryan Pearson at http://www.twitter.com/ryanwrd
Nigerian government officials see inspirational Nottingham Trent University student graduate
Betty Alali Odema graduates and received a vice-chancellor's award
A Nigerian Nottingham Trent University student, who provided Christmas dinners for dozens of fellow international students unable to return home for the holidays, has received a prestigious vice-chancellor's award.
Betty Alali Odema received the award - for the quality of her academic work, her contribution to internationalism of the University and her support for fellow overseas students ? during the annual graduation ceremonies, watched by senior government officials who had travelled from Nigeria.
The vice-chancellor's awards are given annually to one person from each of the university's nine schools.
University lecturer Imad El-Anis, who nominated Betty, said: "As well as the excellent work for the course and work to boost internationalism, she mentored and supported fellow overseas students.
"In 2012 she prepared and sold different African foods to raise more than ?1,600 for a student struggling to pay tuition fees.
"And every Christmas since 2010 she has personally funded, cooked and organised Christmas Day dinner for fellow international students unable to travel home to their families for the festive season.
"Betty has been a real inspiration."
The international relations student said: "I was overjoyed when I heard that I had been selected for the vice-chancellor's award ? I called everyone I knew.
"My dissertation was on Niger-Delta Conflict. That's the area I am from and I would like to build a career working for the government or a government agency in the region to really make the most of the skills I have learned during my time at Nottingham Trent University."
She was one of five students from the African nation to have their education sponsored entirely by the Rivers State Sustainability Development Agency, part of the state government.
The visitors from Nigeria who watched the graduation included the agency's executive director Mr Noble Pepple, the Rev Precious Omuku, the Honourable Joseph Poroma, the Honourable Ibiso Nwuche, Mr Godwin Poi, Mr Kingsley Uranta and Mrs Imah Adegoke.
Victoria Crane, former director of Nottingham Trent International College, attended the graduation as Betty's guest. The college prepares overseas students for study at university.
Betty was joined by fellow graduates Auxwell Bank Ozuru (economics), Godstime Ugele (law), Esther Wahu (accounting), and Daniel Nlemogu (law).?
Four more Nigerian scholarship students ? Thankgod Nnadi (business management), Pia Promise (computer engineering), Adibaal Ibo (business management) and Sotonye Davies (law) ? will graduate later this year.
Sponsorship was provided by the Rivers state governor's special overseas scholarship programme, created to provide first-class education for students with disabilities from the south-western region of Nigeria.
Notes to editors:
To find out more about Nottingham Trent University?s BA (Hons) International Relations please visit the website
Press enquiries please contact: Marcus Duffield, senior press officer, on Tel: +44 (0)115 848 8751, or via email; or Therese Easom, Press and Internal Communications Manager, on Tel: +44 (0)115 848 8774, or email.
Lumosity tops the chart in the educational category for the iPhone and now the "brain-enhancing" app has landed on the iPad. Similar to the iPhone app, the iPad version provides you with a personalized training program for your brain.
Lumosity is known for its cognitive activities that give your body's most amazing organ a workout. The app asks you a series of questions that make you think about your answer. In the early parts of the training that I have used, the app doesn't resort to questions with false answers or frustratingly complex scenarios like some brain teasers. It has a nice balance of being challenging, but not impossible to solve.
Lumosity started off as a web-based service and then branched out to mobile, which has been hugely successful for the company. Lumosity has logged 20 million overall downloads, and its updated iPhone version, which launched last month, has been used to play 21.5 million mobile brain games. You can download the Lumosity iPad app and the iPhone app from the iOS App Store. The apps are free, but require a US$79.99 yearly subscription if you want to dive deep into brain training offered by the service.
Closely related to the ?linguistic barrier? is the ?cultural barrier.? Actually, however, they are not the same, and warrant separate treatment in an itemized description of the missionary task. Those without a good understanding of cross-cultural dynamics and the complexity of human relationships and communication often make the mistaken assumption that, as long as an accurate linguistic translation has been made, effective communication has taken place. However, effective communication involves much more than language alone.
As alluded to in the previous reference to Hebrews 1:1?2 in the discussion of the ?linguistic barrier,? God himself, through the incarnation of Jesus, has taken the initiative, and given us the example par excellence to follow. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 9:19?22, gives the classic articulation of this principle for missionary praxis:
Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God?s law but am under Christ?s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.
Normally, those who come from the same cultural context as the intended receptors of the message will be more effective at communicating in a culturally relevant manner than those from another cultural context. There are situations, however, in which there are not yet enough evangelists and disciplers available from the local cultural context to effectively reach everyone. In these situations, the most effective evangelists and disciplers (even though they come from outside of the cultural context) will usually be those who best adapt to the cultural context.
Donald Larson, reflecting on years of field experience in the Philippines, offers the following observations that corroborate this line of thinking:
Noise takes many different forms. For example, when a sender uses a language in an unfamiliar manner, this ?foreign accent? constitutes a kind of noise for the receiver. In certain instances, it is difficult to differentiate noise from reinforcement. For example, when the receiver has a strong case of prejudice against the sender, every message may be obscured in part by a kind of noise emanating from the receiver?s feeling that ?I don?t believe a thing this guy says.? Noise and reinforcement, in the sense used above, account for the discrepancy between the message as the sender sends it and as the receiver understands it. . . . All sorts of complications set in when information is passed from one culture to another. Insiders know the patterns; aliens don?t. When an alien tries to communicate with a group of insiders, his patterns and theirs begin to clash. Differences between them suddenly appear; old habits hang on persistently. . . . Fluency, however, is not the same as an insider?s awareness of communication patterns. An American in the Philippines may have a native-like control of pronunciation and grammar, yet he may not have learned to preface each request with a good bit of small talk. (15)
In general, missionary theorists and practitioners have long seen effective cultural contextualization as one of the most important factors affecting the ultimate success of the missionary enterprise. However, this often requires hard, diligent effort on the part of the missionary. The following are merely a small representation of the many comments that could be presented in support of this thesis:
Cross-culturalism refers to the learned skill of relating to people of other cultures within the contexts of their cultures . . . The above definition implies several characteristics of cross-cultural missionaries. They have gone through a process of culture and language learning to become cross-cultural. Becoming cross-cultural requires many hours of listening, speaking, observing, asking, and experiencing?all within the local cultural context. (16)
Some missionaries seem to have greater sensitivity to cultural differences, a greater patience for learning from others, and a greater willingness to subordinate personal goals to mission and national church objectives?traits essential to establishing and maintaining cross-cultural relationships. At a deeper level, however, credibility relates to the worldviews of the missionaries and the people they serve . . . We often see best after we live deeply in another culture?after we put on other glasses and then look back on our own cultural presuppositions. (17)
A technical grasp of a culture assures no more than a curio hunter?s interest and understanding of a people. Some individuals may never be able to see the larger structure that constitutes the culture. Many can, but they will need to be taught to ?spell? and form ?sentences,? then construct flowing cultural ?paragraphs.? For most students, it will be a long, difficult study involving years among the people. It is not likely to be gained during a few months of short term service. (18)
In any case, in spite of the progress that may be obtained by diligent efforts toward appropriate cultural contextualization on the part of missionary workers, in order to reach a greater effectiveness in the communication of the gospel, it is almost always best to transfer the main responsibility of communicating the gospel to those who come from the same cultural context as the intended receptors as much as possible, and as soon as possible.
In case you haven't noticed, text-based search results simply don't cut it anymore -- users are looking for people, pictures and social context. Naturally, Twitter is keeping up with the times, updating its own search bar with socially aware suggestions, previous search data and more robust results. The general search experience hasn't changed, of course, but the changes do tweak the experience for the better.
Suggested accounts, for instance, are now underlined by users you know that follow them, and simply leaving your cursor in the search field offers a preview of recent and saved searches. Results have more meat too, offering tabs for matching users and photos, as well as displaying them within the standard results stream. A revolution in social search algorithms? Probably not, but it should make it a little easier for you to keep up with the latest celebrity gossip.
CLEVELAND (AP) ? Justin Masterson was quick to pass along credit for Cleveland's eighth straight victory to the guy he provided him all the support he needed in a 6-1 decision over the Chicago White Sox on Thursday.
"The story's about Ryan Raburn doing his thing," Masterson said. "That was pretty cool to see."
Raburn homered twice and drove in four runs as the Indians, who have won 13 of 17, completed a four-game sweep of the reeling White Sox.
Raburn, who has played a major role off manager Terry Francona's bench, hit a two-run homer in the third, had an RBI single in the fifth and belted a leadoff home run in the seventh. He has 13 homers and 37 RBIs in 173 at-bats while playing mostly against left-handed starters.
"I prepare myself the same way every day whether I'm playing or not," Raburn said. "This is one of those years where everything is going right for me. I'm trying to hold on to it and ride it as long as I can."
Francona pushed for Cleveland's front office to sign Raburn, even though he batted .171 with 12 RBIs in 66 games with Detroit last season. He began the season as the Tigers' second baseman but things quickly regressed and he was benched before being sent to the minors.
"He got off to a horrendous start and never really recovered," Francona said. "That happens to a lot of players. We were able to get him because of that. In the role he's in, he does a great job."
The Indians, who have beaten the White Sox eight straight times, moved to within two games of idle Detroit in the American League Central.
"Credit them," Chicago manager Robin Ventura said. "They just outplayed us. Today is probably magnified because of what happened earlier in the series."
Cleveland also swept a four-game series in Chicago from June 28-30.
Chicago has dropped seven in a row and is 26 games under .500 for the first time since 1980. The White Sox have lost 13 of 16 and have the second-worst record in the AL.
The Indians, who are a season-high 12 games over .500, won all seven games of their homestand, which began with a three-game sweep against Texas. Cleveland outscored the opposition 40-20 during the seven-game stretch.
Masterson outpitched Chris Sale (6-11) in a matchup of All-Star hurlers. Masterson (13-7) gave up one run in 6 2-3 innings and has won all four of his starts against Chicago this season, allowing three earned runs in 31 2-3 innings.
Raburn's home run off Sale in the third was towering fly ball to right that was pushed by the wind and curled inside the foul pole. He added an RBI single in the Indians' two-run fifth and hit a leadoff homer off Dylan Axelrod in the seventh that landed in the left field bleachers.
Masterson's bid for his fourth shutout of the season ended on Alejandro De Aza's leadoff homer in the sixth. The right-hander was pulled with the bases loaded and two outs in the seventh but Rich Hill got De Aza to hit into a fielder's choice.
Masterson allowed five hits, struck out seven and walked three. He threw complete game shutouts against the White Sox on April 12 in Cleveland, a five-hitter, and on June 30, a six-hitter at U.S. Cellular Field.
Francona said Masterson was battling a stiff neck but the pitcher didn't think that affected him.
"I felt all right," Masterson said. "I was leaving a few sinkers out there at times. I was pitching and battling and trying to make things work. The overall sense is we played well as a team."
Sale has lost all three of his starts against the Indians this season. The left-hander is 1-9 in his last 11 starts but has a 3.24 ERA in that stretch.
Mark Reynolds' run-scoring single ? his second RBI since June 29 ? gave Cleveland the lead in the second.
Asdrubal Cabrera added a sacrifice fly.
NOTES: Indians OF Michael Brantley struck out in all three at-bats against Sale and is 2 for 16 with eight strikeouts against the left-hander this season. ... RHP Vinnie Pestano, optioned to Triple-A Columbus when the Indians acquired LHP Marc Rzepczynski , pitched a scoreless inning against Buffalo on Wednesday. ... Indians OF Michael Bourn, who was 1 for 10 in the series, was not in the starting lineup. All-Star 2B Jason Kipnis also was given the day off. ... Chicago LHP Hector Santiago (3-6) faces Tigers RHP Doug Fister (9-5) on Friday. The clubs play 12 times over the final two months of the season. ... The Indians make their first trip to Marlins Park for a three-game series. Cleveland RHP Ubaldo Jimenez (8-5) takes on Miami RHP Jose Fernandez (7-5) in the opener Friday.
WASHINGTON ? President Barack Obama has a question for Congress: Why can't House Republicans be more like their mates in the Senate?
In economic speeches across the country, Obama is playing one chamber against the other, praising Senate Republicans for being open to cooperation and criticizing House Republicans for doing the opposite.
It's a theme Obama uses to argue he's the one focused on the economy as he prepares for fiscal clashes this fall with Congress.
In the Senate, some Republicans joined Democrats in supporting an immigration bill Obama sorely wants. And the Senate struck a deal to approve Obama's nominations to key posts after months of logjam.
But Obama and the GOP-controlled House staunchly disagree over proposals to raise the debt ceiling and fund the government to avert a shutdown.
