Yahoo News

by Claudine Zap

This week the movie "Red Tails" flies into first place with Yahoo! users. Searches on the George Lucas-produced film about the African-American Tuskegee fighter pilots of World War II rose 148% in the last week. A third of the lookups are ages 30-44, and expect to see more men than women at this action flick starring Terrence Howard and Ne-Yo.

Kate Beckinsale can sure pull in a crowd. The beautiful actress again takes on the role of the vampire fighter Selene in "Underworld Awakening," opening this week. The sci-fi adventure in 3-D buzzed up the search box 23% in the last 7 days, drawing in men in their 20s to this horror tale. In this fourth installment, Selene escapes imprisonment to find that humans are waging all-out war on the immortal Vampire and Lycan clans.

Finally, the thriller "Haywire" is packing a punch with Yahoo! users, with about a 15% bump in searches from mostly men, ages 30-35. Gina Carano, the former mixed martial arts fighter, stars as a covert agent who is double-crossed. The action-packed movie directed by Steven Soderbergh also features acting heavy-weight actors Ewan McGregor, Channing Tatum, and Michael Fassbender.

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by Claudine Zap

The cruise was a 60th-birthday gift from her children. But Nicole Servel ended up receiving the gift of life from her husband, Francis, who died that night. After the cruise ship Costa Concordia crashed on the rocks, he gave their only life jacket to his wife, who couldn't swim.

According to Emirates247.com, the widow of the sacrificing Frenchman told RTL radio, "I owe my life to my husband."

Just hours into the Mediterranean cruise, the Italian luxury liner hit rocks. Passengers were told to abandon ship, but the survivor said that the mentality was every man for himself. CNN reported that the scene was chaotic, with "a frantic rush by passengers to get on lifeboats, while the crew appeared helpless and overwhelmed to cope."

Servel's husband didn't make it. He told his wife to "jump, jump!" and added, "Don't worry, I'll be all right." She didn't see him again. The Toulouse native floated on her back in the frigid, 8-degree water until she washed up on rocks and was rescued by local villagers.

With 4,200 passengers having been aboard the doomed ship, many harrowing stories of survival are emerging. A South Korean couple narrowly escaped death when rescuers heard voices from a cabin two decks down on the half-submerged ship late on Saturday. The newlyweds were on their honeymoon. The BBC reports that the couple, both 29, are in good health.

Shortly after the honeymooners were helped, an Italian crew member, Manrico Giampedroni, was found in the ship's wreckage with a serious leg injury. Following his cries for help, rescuers located the 57-year-old near a submerged part of the ship; he had been trapped there for 36 hours.

According to Italian news reports, the cabin-service director had stayed behind to assist with the lifeboats, but when the ship began to lean, he fell and broke his leg. The senior crew member said he "never lost hope of being saved."

A massive search of every cabin is ongoing, with teams of divers deployed to check the underwater rooms. Police are investigating the nature of the accident, given the calm conditions. Evacuating the ship in life boats was made "almost impossible" because the ship listed to one side so quickly, the president of Costa Cruises noted.

See a clip of the Italian crew member being airlifted by helicopter.

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by Mike Krumboltz

The two-hour premiere of Fox's "Alcatraz" drew an impressive 10 million viewers. The series, produced by J.J. Abrams, also inspired a slew of searches on Yahoo!. One related search caught our eye -- "Alcatraz real escape." So, did anybody ever escape the fortress? Or is "Alcatraz" (the TV show) just a science fiction fantasy?

While it's unlikely that scores of prisoners ever vanished at once (as they do in the show), the prison wasn't immune to a great escape. Back in 1962, three prisoners successfully escaped from their cells, out of the building, and down to the rocky coast, where they launched a makeshift raft made from raincoats. Their hope was to make it to San Francisco, roughly 1.5 miles away.

Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin were all long-term prisoners on the Rock. Morris had a history of escapes and was believed to have superior intelligence. The men's escape plan was incredibly complex. The three dug tunnels using crude tools and constructed "dummy heads" out of toilet paper and hair from the prison barbershop to fool the guards during night watch.

It worked. The next morning, the prison went on high alert, attempting to track down the three prisoners. The men were on the FBI's "Most Wanted" list. Some believe they made it. But most experts contend that the men must have died in the rough waters of San Francisco Bay.

According to the Bureau of Prisons, several weeks after the escape, "a man's body dressed in blue clothing similar to the prison uniform was found a short distance up the coast from San Francisco, but the body was too badly deteriorated to be identified."

The story was made into an acclaimed 1979 film starring Clint Eastwood as Morris. Coincidentally, that was the same year the FBI closed its file on the escapees. The prison was closed in 1963. The realization that Alcatraz wasn't as formidable as authorities believed played a large part in the decision.

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3.5.0 DataTable update

A lot of progress has been made for 3.5.0 DataTable, and we want to show and tell the latest status of the code and API. There’s plenty left to do, but we’re excited for the new state of the art and want to make sure what’s coming will meet your needs and expectations.

With a couple weeks left before 3.5.0 PR2 (scheduled for Jan 30th), there’s still time to add features and polish, and the whole of PR3 to stress test and optimize, so things are looking good.

We’ll cover what’s there today, what will be there for PR2 and PR3, and what the feature roadmap is for upcoming versions. We’ll dive into the code, talk about changes to the API, module structure, and table markup.