Pictures We Love: Best of January

Photograph by Dieu Nalio Chery, AP

The magnitude 7 earthquake that struck near Port au Prince, Haiti, in January 2010 so devastated the country that recovery efforts are still ongoing.

Professional dancer Georges Exantus, one of the many casualties of that day, was trapped in his flattened apartment for three days, according to news reports. After friends dug him out, doctors amputated his right leg below the knee. With the help of a prosthetic leg, Exantus is able to dance again. (Read about his comeback.)

Why We Love It

"This is an intimate photo, taken in the subject's most personal space as he lies asleep and vulnerable, perhaps unaware of the photographer. The dancer's prosthetic leg lies in the foreground as an unavoidable reminder of the hardships he faced in the 2010 earthquake. This image makes me want to hear more of Georges' story."—Ben Fitch, associate photo editor

"This image uses aesthetics and the beauty of suggestion to tell a story. We are not given all the details in the image, but it is enough to make us question and wonder."—Janna Dotschkal, associate photo editor

Published February 1, 2013

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Ala. Standoff: Students Say Suspect Threatened to Kill

A brother and sister who escaped the school bus where a 5-year-old autistic boy was taken hostage by a retired Alabama trucker are speaking out about the standoff and the man who threatened the lives of the children on board.

"I look up and he's talking about threatening to kill us all or something," 14-year-old Terrica Singletary told ABC's "Good Morning America." "He's like, 'I'll kill all y'all, I'll kill y'all, I just want two kids.'"

Singletary and her brother, Tristian, 12, said Jimmy Lee Dykes boarded the bus on Tuesday and offered the driver what appeared to be broccoli and a note, before demanding two children.

"The bus driver kept saying, 'Just please get off the bus,' and [Dykes] said, 'Ah alright, I'll get off the bus," said Terrica Singletary, "He just tried to back up and reverse and [Dykes] pulled out the gun and he just shot him, and he just took Ethan."

PHOTOS: Worst Hostage Situations

School bus driver Charles Albert Poland Jr., 66, was fatally shot several times by Dykes.

Alabama Hostage Standoff: Who Is Jimmy Lee Dykes? Watch Video

Alabama Boy Held Hostage in Underground Bunker Watch Video

Alabama Hostage Standoff: Boy, 5, Held Captive in Bunker Watch Video

The siblings and the rest of the students on board were able to get away unharmed, but were shocked by what had transpired just five days ago.

"I never thought I would have to go through a shootout," Singletary said.

They said they had seen Dykes, 65, working on his fence, and described him as a menacing figure.

"He was very protective of his stuff," Tristian Singletary said. "Whenever he stares at you, he looks kinda crazy."

Dykes has been holed up in his underground bunker with his 5-year-old hostage named Ethan near Midland City, Ala. for five days now. Neighbors told ABCNews.com that Dykes has been known to retreat underground for up to eight days.

READ: Alabama Hostage Suspect Jimmy Dykes 'Has No Regard for Human Life'

While Dykes, who was described as having "no regard for human life," has allowed negotiators to send Ethan's medicine, as well as coloring books, into the bunker for the boy through a ventilation pipe that leads into the 6 by 8 foot subterranean hideout 4 feet underground, authorities are staying quiet about their conversations with Dykes.

While negotiations continue and it was reported that Ethan is physically unharmed, an official told the Associated Press that the boy has been crying for his parents.

Meanwhile, his peers are steadfast that he will return home soon.

"Ethan will make it out there, Ethan will make it out there," said Tristian Singletary.

ABC News' Kevin Dolak and Gio Benitez contributed to this report.

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Texas mega-battery aims to green up the grid

IN A remote corner of west Texas, in the shadow of a sprawling wind farm, one of the world's largest batteries was switched on last week. Deep in oil country, the battery is at the vanguard of efforts to help renewable energy sources realise their potential and, ultimately, oust fossil fuels in the US.

Built for energy giant Duke Energy by local start-up Xtreme Power, the array is the biggest and fastest battery in the world. It can store 36 megawatts of wind power and feed it to the grid over a period of just 15 minutes.

The battery's job is to act as a buffer, smoothing out the supply of electricity from the 153 MW Notrees wind farm nearby. The intermittent nature of wind power means fossil fuel powered turbines often have to step in to match energy supply with demand. The battery at Notrees bridges the gap, says Haresh Kamath of the Electric Power Research Institute in Washington DC. "When you ramp power plants up and down they lose efficiency," he says. "It used to be the best way to do it, but if we have storage like Notrees, we make wind plants more efficient."

It also makes the entire grid more resilient to spikes in demand, because battery arrays can respond almost instantly, whereas natural gas power plants take about 15 minutes to boost their output.

The Notrees battery is the first in a wave of new grid-connected storage systems funded in 2009 by power companies and the US Department of Energy (DOE) that are expected to come online this year. Notrees has bus-sized, lead-acid battery modules with high surface area electrodes and multiple terminals, so electricity flows in and out quickly.

Most of the other DOE-funded projects look very different. The California-based Pacific Gas and Electricity Company will soon start filling depleted gas wells near Bakersfield with compressed air that can hold 300 MW of power. In Modesto, a wind farm will be backed up by a 25 MW storage system based on a zinc-chloride flow battery, which is charged by filling with a reusable electrolyte liquid. The battery will replace a planned 50 MW fossil fuel plant.

"There are storage projects all over the country, and 2013 is the year for all of these to come online and start working," says Mike Gravely of the California Energy Commission. "The goal is to give you enough energy to manage variability, or to give you enough time to find alternative resources."

These facilities are far too small to have a direct impact on how energy is generated and stored in the US. Instead, the goal is for them act as test beds for determining how best to maintain a steady supply of renewable electricity to the grid when the wind drops, the sun isn't shining, or demand spikes. In 2010, US energy secretary Steven Chu stressed the importance of such storage if the country is ever to wean itself off fossil fuels.

"Without technological breakthroughs in efficient, large-scale energy storage, it will be difficult to rely on intermittent renewables for much more than 20 to 30 per cent of our electricity," Chu noted.

"The whole goal is to build a grid that is flexible enough to achieve any level of renewables," says Kamath. "Limitations on the grid have made it look like renewables are a problem, but the grid was never designed for them. It needs to be," he adds.

This article appeared in print under the headline "Greening the grid"

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Motor Racing: New car but only one driver for Force India

LONDON: Force India unveiled their new car for the forthcoming Formula One season at Silverstone on Friday, but they are still to confirm the identity of British driver Paul di Resta's teammate.

The vacancy next to Di Resta is one of only three across the grid for the 2013 season, which begins with the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne on March 17.

French driver Jules Bianchi, the team's third driver in 2012, was expected to be announced as Di Resta's teammate.

However, he was present at the launch of Ferrari's new F1 car on Friday as he is a member of the Italian team's academy.

Former driver Adrian Sutil and ex-Sauber man Kamui Kobayashi have also been linked with the role.

Force India team principal Robert Fearnley refused to be drawn on the identity of the new driver at the launch, telling reporters: "We do not want to confuse the two stories."

The VJM06 is the third of four cars unveiled so far for the 2013 season that have jettisoned the stepped nose design that featured widely in last year's world championship.

The Indian team finished seventh in last season's constructor championship, but saw German driver Nico Hulkenburg leave to join rivals Sauber at the end of the year.

- AFP/de

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Why is the BlackBerry Z10 on sale in the U.K. first?

The BlackBerry Z10 with the UK flag Photoshopped onto its screen

Two days ago, the company formerly known as RIM pulled out all the stops at a super-swanky event in New York to launch two new phones that will either kill or cure the company.

But despite the global launch happening in the US, America is the last of the first batch of countries to see the Z10, BlackBerry's first phone to ship with its new OS, BB10. Americans have to wait until March to buy the phone, but it was available to buy in the UK yesterday. That's six days ahead even of BlackBerry's home market in Canada. On the face of it, this seems like a strange decision -- why release the Z10 in a relatively small country first?

The overriding reason, according to Francisco Jeronimo, Research Manager for European Mobile Devices at IDC, is that the UK is the biggest BlackBerry market in the world. Contrast his figures: in the third quarter of 2012, BlackBerry had a 12% market share in the UK, with Apple at 25%. In the US, BlackBerry accounted for just 2% to Apple's 25%.

Speaking at the UK launch to CNET's Luke Westaway, BlackBerry's Andrew Bocking echoed this point: "the UK has been a key market for us for so long. We have over 8 million BlackBerry users today in the UK and we are very excited for them to be on the leading edge getting access to BB10 on the Z10".

Some of the biggest buyers of BlackBerry phones in Britain are teenagers, partly because the phones are very cheap, partly because of the appeal of BBM, the free instant messenger program. So popular has BBM become in Britain that the 2011 riots in London were blamed on the service by some politicians and members of the police, although its role was likely exaggerated.

Jeronimo argues that it's not just teenagers with BlackBerry phones: "Most companies have their corporate emails running on BlackBerry servers. To change the entire mobile infrastructure is not cheap or something that can be done overnight... when we ask if companies want to move to another platform, it is very clear that the majority don't".

Leaving the size of the UK market aside, market watchers have a few other ideas about why Britain is first up with the Z10. Ian Fogg, analyst for IHS made the point to me that a successful launch in the UK could have more global impact than a US launch, as the owners of UK carriers are present in other countries, whereas the US carriers are more self-contained.

Several analysts made the point to me that they have been impressed with the speed BlackBerry has shipped its phones. Jeronimo says: "I don't remember the last time a major vendor launched a flagship device and made it available in stores the day after. BlackBerry probably didn't get the same support in the USA and therefore decided to launch it later."

Now that the Z10 is shipping, what's BlackBerry's game plan from here? Over to Ben Wood, Chief of Research at CCS Insight:

"Its first concern will be the long-time older BlackBerry owners who initially had a BlackBerry for business and have continued to tough it out in recent years. It must also convince former BlackBerry users, [although] many of these guys will be locked into a contract so it could be some time before they can even consider going back to BlackBerry."

"The final group It needs to nail are the teenagers and 20-somethings who are still hooked on a BlackBerry because of BBM and Facebook. This group is unlikely to be able to afford the Z10 or Q10, so the next milestone in the UK market will be getting some cheaper products available."

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Sinkhole Swallows Buildings in China

Photograph from AFP/Getty Images

The sinkhole that formed in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou (pictured) is, unfortunately, not a new occurrence for the country.

Many areas of the world are susceptible to these sudden formations, including the U.S. Florida is especially prone, but Guatemala, Mexico, and the area surrounding the Dead Sea in the Middle East are also known for their impressive sinkholes. (See pictures of a sinkhole in Beijing that swallowed a truck.)

Published January 31, 2013

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'Terrorist Blast' at US Embassy in Turkey

At least one person was killed in what the State Department called a "terrorist blast" outside the U.S. Embassy in Turkey today.

The explosion, which occurred at a checkpoint to the embassy in Ankara in the early afternoon local time, claimed the life of an embassy guard and wounded a Turkish citizen, U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Francis Ricciardione told reporters.

April 18, 1983: U.S. Embassy Bombed in Beirut Watch Video

A Turkish provincial governor said the blast was the work of a suicide bomber, according to a report by the BBC.

Television footage from the scene showed damage to a part of an outer gatehouse, which is adjacent to the main building.

U.S. officials said that Turkish police are investigating the incident.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Drone school: Not a cushy number

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US consumer spending flat in December

WASHINGTON: US consumers held tight to their wallets in December, the key holiday shopping season, despite a rise in incomes, according to Commerce Department data released on Thursday.

Household spending edged up 0.2 percent from November, only half the growth of the prior month and slightly below the consensus estimate of 0.3 percent.

Consumer spending, the main driver of the US economy, slowed in late 2012 amid the government's looming fiscal cliff of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts set for January 1, which was partly avoided in a last-minute political deal.

Meanwhile, personal incomes rose for the eighth straight month in December, rising a much stronger-than-expected 2.6 percent from the prior month.

The income increase was boosted by accelerated payments of bonuses and other forms of "irregular" pay in anticipation of changes in individual income tax rates, as well as lump-sum payments of social security benefits, the department said.

In the partial fiscal cliff deal, political leaders allowed Bush-era payroll tax cuts on social security benefits to expire and lifted taxes in other areas.

With inflation weak in a tepid economy, the December price index for consumer spending was essentially flat, while so-called real disposable income - excluding price changes - rose 2.8 percent.

- AFP/de

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Despite waning demand, Nintendo rules out Wii U price cut

The Wii U's troubles attracting gamers won't be solved by a price cut, Nintendo chief Satoru Iwata argues.

Speaking to reporters in Tokyo yesterday, Iwata acknowledged that
Wii U sales disappointed last year, but he didn't necessarily feel that dropping the price of the $300 Basic Set or the $350 Deluxe Set would do the company much good.

"We are already offering it at a good price," Iwata said, according to the Associated Press, which was at the reporter briefing.

Nintendo yesterday announced its earnings for the nine-month period ended December 31. Although it was able to turn a slight profit, the company's revenue was down 2.4 percent. The
Wii U, which was expected to significantly boost Nintendo revenue during the period, was only able to muster 3 million unit sales. The earnings release didn't directly discuss Wii U demand, but Nintendo indicated that some new games for the console, like a Mario Kart and Legend of Zelda, should "help Nintendo regain momentum for Wii U."

In his discussion with reporters, Iwata said that the Wii U needs more and better games to drive console sales, and so far, that issue "has not been solved."

"I feel a deep sense of responsibility for not being able to produce results for our year-end business," Iwata said.

The Wii U's performance was more than a little disconcerting. Although Wii sales during the same point in its lifecycle were only 3.2 million units, they would have been much higher if not for Nintendo's inability to meet its massive demand. For years after the Wii's launch, the device was hard to find on store shelves, and consumers would line up each week in the hopes of scoring one of the few units available at their local retailer.

The Wii U's situation is much different. Nintendo's console is easy to find on store shelves. The trouble is, demand for the console -- especially in the U.S. -- is weak.

Nintendo dealt with a similar issue when it launched its 3DS in 2011. However, the company was able to boost demand and increase sales with a price cut. It appears that, for now, Nintendo won't follow that plan with the Wii U.

Still, Nintendo's console isn't cheap, compared to other hardware it has launched. The Wii, for example, launched for $249.99 -- $50 less than the cheaper Wii U option. Another popular Nintendo launch, the Nintendo 64, was made available for $199.99.

Iwata's argument was bolstered by famed developer and Mario creator, Shigeru Miyamoto. Speaking to reporters, Miyamoto said that Wii U demand will be jumpstarted once people try it out and "see it is fun."

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