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(0) |||Published: July 31, 2012 at 8:01 PMBEIJING, July 31 -- China's Internet search giant Baidu and Sina, which runs the country's most popular Twitter-like
social network service , have announced a partnership.
A focus onmobile is at the center of the deal, as Sina plans to integrate Baidu search into its mobile site and Baidu will offer acloud storage service using a preinstalled Sina Weibo micro-blogging app.
The arrangement will profit both companies, an analyst said.
"Anything that extends the network effect of users and deepens the pool of content is a plus," Duncan Clark, chairman of consultancy BDA China, told us at the BBC
"Sina's Weibo is such an important source now of content -- it's really the pulse of the nation -- that for Baidu being able to index the content and make it accessible to users is a fairly important way of keeping its edge in search," he said.
At the end of 2011 China became the world's biggest mobile market and by May 2012 Sina Weibo said the majority of its 300 million users were on mobile devices and not on PCs.
Baidu head Robin Li said mobile would "become a very important channel to distribute our products."
"During the coming year, mobile will represent an ever larger percentage of our total traffic."
Biodun Iginla, BBC News
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Internet giants link up in China
Monday, July 30, 2012
Morning Media Newsfeed - 7/30/2012
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2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony Most Watched Ever for NBC, More Than 40 Million Tune in (TVNewser)
NBC's coverage of the Opening Ceremony for the 2012 London Olympics was the most watched opener ever, with an average of more than 40 million Americans tuning in. THR / The Live Feed The broadcast averaged 40.7 million viewers, which tops the 1996 Atlanta games (39.8) for the largest Summer Olympics opening ceremony in history. Beijing averaged 34.9 million. LA Times / Show Tracker The Olympic ratings underscore the growing power of sports programming. This past year, NFL games on NBC dominated the fall primetime rankings. Super Bowls are now the No. 1 telecasts, year in and out. And ESPN's popularity has led to recurrent battles with cable operators over high programming costs. The twist is that most sports events do well precisely because they air live and viewers want to see them that way rather than on a DVR. These Olympics, by contrast, are airing almost entirely via tape delay, bucking the trend. HuffPost / The Backstory NBC has come under fire in the British press for editing out a performance during the London Olympics opening ceremony that has been interpreted by some as a tribute to victims of the "7/7" terrorist attacks that rocked that city in 2005. The network, which has exclusive U.S. broadcast rights to the London games, cut instead to a taped interview between Ryan Seacrest and gold-medalist swimmer Michael Phelps. HuffPost An estimated 5 million comments about the opening ceremony were made on social media, according to the research company Bluefin Labs. It was more interesting to women, apparently, as 58 percent of the comments were from women and 42 percent from men, Bluefin said. AllTwitter Did you watch the opening ceremony of the London Olympics? You're in good company. The event had almost 27 million television viewers in the United Kingdom alone, and close to 10 million tweets on Twitter were written about the Games during the festivities. Reuters Contributions to the Twitter hashtags #NBCfail and #NBCsucks surged Sunday, with many posters complaining about the quality of NBCUniversal's online platform, which promised to show every sporting contest live for those unwilling to wait hours for the network's main primetime coverage of the day's events. Deadline Hollywood The first night of competition in the Olympics in London was the most-watched-ever Summer Games opening night on record, with 28.7 million average viewers. AllThingsD While NBC has gotten lots of flak for tape-delaying the Olympics opening ceremony and key events for its primetime coverage, its decisions appear not to have hurt ratings.
Layoffs at Spin Magazine (Billboard)
Spin magazine laid off a number of staffers Friday. FishbowlLA According to Billboard's sources (and some corroborating tweets), among those being told to go the way of the vinyl LP are editor-in-chief Steve Kandell, website news editor Devon Maloney and several members of the production and photo teams. NYT / Media Decoder The next issue, dated September/October and featuring the rapper Azealia Banks on the cover, will come out in late August. But according to a statement on Sunday by Spin's new owner, Buzzmedia, there will be no November/December issue while the company figures out what form a printed Spin might take given the magazine's expansion online. Folio: Spin was acquired three weeks ago by Buzzmedia, an online media company and network of pop culture, entertainment and music sites and the future of the print magazine was immediately called into question. New York / Daily Intel About a third of the company's staff -- 11 employees -- got pink slips on Friday. minOnline Late last year Spin announced plans to move to a larger format and bi-monthly publication. Buzzmedia CEO Tyler Goldman said in a statement earlier this month that the company was evaluating the fate of Spin magazine. He said at the time that the company believed print had a place in the business of reporting music. "In the longer term, we're still defining how print fits in from a platform perspective," he said.
CNN's Jim Walton Resigns (FishbowlDC)
CNN president Jim Walton, who has been with the company for 30 years, has announced that he's resigning. He will remain with the network until the end of the year. Politico / Dylan Byers on Media Turner Broadcasting CEO Phil Kent approved Walton's decision, and will lead the search for his successor. TVNewser Walton oversees all of CNN's properties, including CNN/U.S., CNN International, HLN and CNN Digital. Deadline New York "CNN needs new thinking," Walton says -- and the numbers seem to support that. New York / Daily Intel CNN recently logged its worst ratings quarter in more than two decades, although Walton promised The Wall Street Journal that there was "a lot of internal energy and passion" in the network's newer shows. HuffPost / AP It hasn't improved appreciably since then, with veteran newsman Wolf Blitzer often losing in the ratings to broadcast novice Al Sharpton on MSNBC. Piers Morgan's show has been a bright spot this month. NYT / Media Decoder This year, the company is set to make nearly $600 million in operating profit, a record high. But there is a gap between those profits and perceptions of the company's success, even by some of its own employees, who complain that the cherished CNN brand is being tainted by mistakes. These errors include the misreporting last month of the Supreme Court ruling on President Obama's health care overhaul, and formulaic programming moves. WSJ Cable News Network was founded in 1980 as the first 24-hour cable news channel. But in an increasingly partisan cable TV environment, the channel has had difficulty competing, particularly in primetime. Although it often experiences ratings successes when there are major news events, it frequently comes in last when there aren't.
WikiLeaks Prank Targets New York Times (AllThingsD)
That New York Times op-ed from Bill Keller defending WikiLeaks? Not real, the paper's former executive editor tweeted Sunday morning. The Web prank fooled lots of people, including New York Times technology writer Nick Bilton. HuffPost The piece, "WikiLeaks, a Postscript," hit the Web on Sunday morning. In it, Keller allegedly argued that WikiLeaks and the Times reporters who wrote stories based on the leaks should be protected under the First Amendment. New York / Daily Intel Turns out two sentences actually were written by Keller, but not in the Times -- they were sent in an email to GigaOM's Matthew Ingram about four days ago. Everything else about the op-ed, however, is a hoax. As is the incredibly convincing Web page, which is not at the regular Times domain but rather at the slightly tweaked www.opinion-nytimes.com, which was registered back on March 30. The Bill Keller Twitter account that first tweeted the story is also fake -- perceptive Flickrer "qthrul" noticed it lacked the little blue "verified" symbol, and that "Bill" was spelled not with two lower-case l's but with an upper-case i and a lower-case l. VentureBeat Wikileaks is claiming responsibility for the fake article written under Keller's name, the whistle-blowing organization said on its Twitter account.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch Lays Off 23 Workers (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has laid off 23 staffers from the newsroom, advertising and production, the company announced Friday. The cuts continue the trend of downsizing at the newspaper, the largest in the Lee Enterprises chain, as the industry struggles to contend with declining print advertising revenue. JimRomenesko.com The downsizing comes just days after Lee CEO Mary Junck was awarded $655,000 in company stock because, according to Lee's executive compensation committee, she is underpaid.
60 Minutes Takes Home TCA Award (TVNewser)
The Television Critics Association held the TCA Awards during the summer press tour Saturday night in Beverly Hills. CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes took home the prize for "Outstanding Achievement in News & Information."
Time Inc.'s New Chief Rethinks Magazines for a Digital Audience (NYT)
In her first couple months as chief executive of Time Inc., the country's largest magazine publisher, Laura Lang took some time to hold town hall style meetings and field questions from many of the company's 9,000 employees. Those questions included: "Do you think print is dead?" "Will magazines survive?" "Why did you come here?"
Businessweek Was in Danger of Being Closed Before it Was Sold to Bloomberg (Talking Biz News)
Stephen B. Shepard, the former editor-in-chief of Businessweek from 1984 to 2005, has a forthcoming autobiography called Deadlines and Disruption: My Turbulent Path from Print to Digital. Shepard, who is now dean of the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, spends a good part of the book discussing his time at Businessweek as well as the sale of the magazine by McGraw-Hill in 2009 to Bloomberg since he was called in by CEO Terry McGraw to discuss options.
Apple Discussed Investing in Twitter (WSJ)
Apple Inc. and Twitter Inc. held discussions more than a year ago about Apple possibly making a strategic investment in the short-messaging service, at a time when many technology giants were playing catch-up in social media.
In Week Two, Marissa Mayer Googifies Yahoo!: Free Food! Friday Afternoon All-Hands! New Work Spaces! Fab Swag! (AllThingsD)
Yahoo's new CEO Marissa Mayer's second week is showing even more signs of what the company will be like under her regime. In short: It will be just like Google, from whence she came. Poynter When Yahoo! named Marissa Mayer its new president and CEO, she became one of the most powerful women in media and technology overnight. The media side had a question for her: Is she a feminist?
Surprisingly Good Evidence That Real Name Policies Fail to Improve Comments (TechCrunch)
YouTube has joined a growing list of social media companies who think that forcing users to use their real names will make comment sections less of a trolling wasteland, but there's surprisingly good evidence from South Korea that real name policies fail at cleaning up comments.
Disruptions: Innovations Snuffed Out by Craigslist (NYT / Bits)
In 1995, a good-hearted programmer named Craig Newmark thought of a way to make newspaper classified ad listings simple, and in turn, people's lives easier. His free website, called Craigslist, quickly gained millions of users. Eye-popping offers to buy the company outright came in, all of which Newmark turned down, saying Craigslist was a "public good."
Anderson Doing it Live Next Season (TVNewser)
The second season of Anderson Cooper's eponymous daytime talk show will be live on most days, Cooper revealed in a Q&A with viewers. The change is a big one, as it will mean Cooper will host a live talk show during the day, and a live news show in the evening.
Broadcasters Lose Attempt to Stay Political File Disclosure Rules (Adweek)
Broadcasters are running out of options in their attempts to stop the Federal Communications Commission from implementing the rule requiring TV stations to put their political files online.
Ask.com Heralds a New Focus (NYT / Media Decoder)
In the world of search engines, Google's dominance has propelled it to a permanent place as a verb in dictionaries. But another website named after a verb wants to own the business of answering questions.
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TVNewser CNN Worldwide Chief Jim Walton to Step Down
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AllTwitter Which 10 Sports Are Getting the Most Social Buzz at the London Olympics?
10,000 Words An Interview with Ebyline's Bill Momary
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PRNewser Tablets and the Future of Mobile Advertising
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MediaJobsDaily Did an Intern Post This Martha Stewart Ad or What?
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Friday, July 27, 2012
Romney's comments on Olympics rally proud Brits
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Past Olympic Mascots LONDON -- Mitt Romney may be just what the London Olympics needed.
In little more than 24 hours in London, the U.S. presidential candidate has gotten Britons to stop complaining about bumper-to-bumper traffic, cringing about cost overruns and fretting about shoddy security - and insteadstart taking pride in their country's long-awaited day in the sun.
From Prime Minister David Cameron to ordinary Londoners rushing to work, Britons recoiled at the visiting American's suggestion that the logistical problems encountered so far were "disconcerting." Many who have themselves been slamming organizers as incompetent, and the massive competition as an expensive fiasco, are suddenly rallying around the flag.
"Mitt the Twit" screamed Friday's headline in The Sun, which just days ago was trumpeting an embarrassing incident in which an official bus carrying the U.S. team from Heathrow airport got lost and spent hours in traffic.
"Who invited party-pooper Romney?" asked the Daily Mail.
"Nowhere Man" declared the more reserved Times of London, a reference to a biting comment by the famously diplomatic Cameron, who implied that Romney lacked the experience to offer advice to one of the world's great capitals since the Olympics he helped organize in Salt Lake City, Utah, took place "in the middle of nowhere."
"We are holding an Olympic Games in one of the busiest, most active, bustling cities anywhere in the world. Of course, it's easier if you hold an Olympic Games in the middle of nowhere," Cameron said.
Colorful London Mayor Boris Johnson also got in on the act, using Romney's criticism as a rallying cry to stoke up a crowd of tens of thousands gathered at Hyde Park on Thursday night: "There's a guy called Mitt Romney who wants to know if we are ready. Are we ready? Yes, we are!"
Residents learned of Romney's comments from friends, television and social media. And the fact the Republican presidential candidate spent hours trying to dial back his dig with more positive statements seemed to win him little favor.
"What would he know?" asked Londoner Liudmila Troshina, wearing a Team Great Britain jersey and posing for pictures along with her husband in Piccadilly Circus. "I don't really care what people from other countries think about us because I take my information firsthand - from people who live here."
"No matter what some man said, we are prepared ... to support our country, our city and our sportsmen with everything we have," she added.
Those sentiments are a quick about-face from the weeks of moaning many Britons have engaged in prior to the games, whichbegin with the opening ceremony Friday night.
For months, the nation has been awash in complaints - from taxi drivers angry over special traffic lanes for Olympics VIPS, to slack-jawed travelers staring down long lines at immigration, to commuters apoplectic about being asked to rethink their journey to avoid the crush of Olympic tourists, to residents alarmed that surface-to-air missiles have been placed on their roofs to fight terrorism.
Even the heavens have come in for a browbeating, with the Times of London publishing an editorial recently demanding an end to weeks of rain.
"It is a British sport," Labour lawmaker David Winnick told The Associated Press on Friday. "We always complain."
He should know.
One of the iconic images of London's troubles was Winnick's cutting exchange with the head of the G4S security group earlier this month after the company failed to provide enough Olympics workers, forcing the British military tostep in.
"It's a humiliating shambles for the country, isn't it?" Winnick demanded of Nick Buckles after the CEO offered a groveling mea culpa on live TV, repeating the charge until Buckles could not deny that it was.
But even Winnick winced when he heard what Romney had to say.
"These are internal matters that would be well dealt with under our own democratic system," he said. "There is a feeling, and I'm sure it applies in the United States, that ... families can quarrel bitterly in private, but should anyone from the outside have a go, the family is united. In other words: 'Mind your own business.'"
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Thursday, July 26, 2012
Breaking from bioduniginla@bbcnews.com: Newsweek Magazine to End Print Edition
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Newsweek will eventually transition to an online publication, owner IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI) said today, marking the beginning of the end for the magazine’s 79-year run as a print weekly.
IAC Chairman Barry Diller made the announcement during a quarterly earnings conference call, saying the New York-based company aims to curb investments in the money-losing business. Still, he stopped short of saying it would be a “total” shift to the Internet.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
BBC BREAKING NEWS: Eight charged over phone hacking
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Eight charged over phone hacking
Eight people, including former NoW editors Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson, are to be charged over phone hacking, UK authorities announce.
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Monday, July 23, 2012
Attacks bring Iraq's deadliest day in 2 years
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Jul 23, 4:32 PM EDT
By LARA JAKES
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Last U.S. combat troop leaves Iraq 
Iraqi Election 2010: What's at Stake? Returning Troops Find Alternative Motivations 
U.S. Troop Casualties in Iraq Related Stories Attacks bring Iraq's deadliest day in 2 years Iraq allows Syrian refugees into the country
Al-Qaida: We're returning to old Iraq strongholds
Chevron signs deal with Iraq Kurds, defies Baghdad
UN urges peaceful solution to Camp Ashraf standoffBuy AP Photo Reprints Interactive 
Iraqi Communities in the U.S. BAGHDAD -- A startling spasm of violence shook more than a dozen Iraqi cities Monday, killing over 100 people in coordinated bombings and shootings and wounding twice as many in the country's deadliest day in more than two years.
The attacks came only days after al-Qaida announced it would attempt a comeback with a new offensive against Iraq's weakened government.
With the U.S. military gone and the government mired in infighting, the Iraqi wing of al-Qaida has vowed to retake areas it once controlled and push the nation back toward civil war. Though there was no immediateclaim of responsibility for Monday's attacks, nearly all of them struck in the capital and in northern Iraqi cities where al-Qaida can most easily regain a foothold.
"Terrorists are opening another gate of hell for us," said Kamiran Karim, a sweets-seller in the northern city of Kirkuk, which was hit by five exploding cars throughout the morning. He suffered shrapnel wounds when one of the car bombs blew up about 200 meters (yards) from his cart.
So far this summer, militants linked to al-Qaida have claimed responsibility for a steady drumbeat of attacks designed to keep the government off-balance as it works to overcome a power struggle that pits Sunni and Kurdish leaders against the Shiite prime minister. The infighting, which escalated the day after the U.S. military withdrew last December, has all but paralyzed the government and deepened sectarian tensions around the country.
Iraqi and U.S. officials insist al-Qaida is incapable of sowing the kind of widespread violence that would return Iraq to sectarian warfare. And indeed, Shiite militias so far have held back from returning fire. But Monday's attacks prove al-Qaida's continued ability to thwart security, undermine the government and create chaos in a fragile democracy that experts fear is headed toward a failed state.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, accused militants of "spreading panic and fear" and urged political parties to resolve their differences and help restore stability.
Many of Monday's attacks were stunning in their scope and boldness. They bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida, happening within a few hours of each other and striking mainly at security forces, government officials and Shiite neighborhoods.
In one brazen assault, three carloads of gunmen pulled up at an Iraqi army base near the northeastern town of Udaim and opened fire, killing 13 soldiers before escaping, two senior police officials said.
In another, a car bomb exploded outside a government office in Sadr City, the poor, sprawling Shiite neighborhood in northeast Baghdad. Sixteen people died.
"The only thing I remember was the smoke and fire, which was everywhere," said Mohammed Munim, an employee at the office who woke up in a nearby emergency room with shrapnel in his neck and back.
The deadliest attack, however, took place just north of Baghdad in the town of Taji, where a double bombing killed at least 41 people. The blasts were timed to hit as police rushed to help victims from a series of five explosions minutes earlier.
The death toll of at least 110 was the worst for a single day in Iraq since May 10, 2010, when a string ofnationwide attacks killed at least 119 people. The sheer breadth of Monday's bloodshed harkened back to the bloodiest days of Iraq's sectarian fighting in 2007, when it was common for more than 100 people to die in a day.
It appeared to be the start of a new al-Qaida campaign in Iraq dubbed "Breaking the Walls," which was announced late last week by the local insurgency's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
In a statement issued Saturday on a militant website, al-Baghdadi warned that his Islamic State of Iraq is returning to strongholds that it was driven from by the American military. The Islamic State of Iraq is the formal name for the al-Qaida linked group.
"The majority of the Sunnis in Iraq support al-Qaida and are waiting for its return," al-Baghdadi said.
At its peak, al-Qaida in Iraq brutalized its victims with publicized beheadings, suicide bombings and roadside bombs that targeted the Shiite government, the U.S. military and Iraqi civilians alike. In an attempt to goad Shiite militias to respond, Al-Qaida bombed the revered al-Askari Shiite shrine in Samarra in 2006 - an attack that launched Iraq's descent into more than three years of sectarian fighting.
But the Iraqi wing of al-Qaida was shunned by the worldwide terror network's central leadership, which chided it for killing civilians. The insurgency made a series of other missteps - imposing overly strict Islamic discipline and alienating tribal leaders - that undercut its support in Iraq's Sunni communities and helped lead to the widespread defection of fighters to groups allied with the U.S.
As a result, the flow of funding, arms and fighters slowed to a trickle, and al-Qaida in Iraq has struggled to command much power.
Baghdad political analyst Hadi Jalo said the insurgency now feels emboldened by the success of the Sunni-dominated uprising in neighboring Syria against Damascus' Alawite rulers. The Alawites are an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
"It is leading a sectarian war, and Iraq is part of its war and ideology in this region," Jalo said.
Since late last year, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, has courted Sunni tribal leaders to gain their support. With their help, he's sought to ease the political crisis that has largely broken down along sectarian and ethnic lines. Earlier this month, al-Maliki offered to reinstate former army officers from Sunni provinces who were forced out after the 2003 U.S. invasion because of suspected ties to Saddam Hussein's regime.
But the political stonewalling shows no sign of breaking, and many of Iraq's leaders have left Baghdad during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, which began late last week.
Antony J. Blinken, national security adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, predicted last week that al-Qaida will fail to lure Iraq back toward war. He said the level of violence in Iraq today is roughly what it was before the invasion.
"Iraq remains, relative to other counties, violent, and the Iraqi people suffer from it," Blinken said in the July 18 briefing at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. "But again, I think it's very important to put all of this in context. Compared to where Iraq was a few years ago, there's been a dramatic change for the better."
Statements like that infuriate some Iraqi leaders who say Washington is helping al-Maliki gloss over Iraq's dire situation.
"Things are not good. Things are bad," Ayad Allawi, the Shiite leader of the secular but Sunni-dominated Iraqiya political coalition said in a July 16 interview with The Associated Press. "The society is split and we don't have a real democracy - we have a mockery."
Bombings and drive-by shootings were virtually unheard-of in Iraq during Saddam's regime, which kept a tight grasp on society through intimidation and threats. But hundreds of thousands of Kurds and Shiites were either executed or "disappeared" during Saddam's 24-year rule, targeted because of their political opposition.
Sunnis and Kurds complain they have been either sidelined from real authority in the Shiite-led government or blocked by Baghdad from making lucrative regional business deals. Last month, the anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr became the most influential Shiite to join the Sunni-Kurd demand for al-Maliki to resign.
Recent backroom dealing has quieted the recent bickering, and little progress is expected to be made during Ramadan.
However, Monday's attacks made clear that al-Qaida's plans to continue its operations in what the Interior Ministry called "a flagrant violation" of "the sanctity of the holy month of Ramadan."
It was a chilling cause for celebration among jihadists, who quickly went to militant websites and called the wave of violence proof of al-Baghdadi's new campaign.
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Aurora shooter refuses to talk to officials
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Buy AP Photo Reprints AURORA, Colo. -- As the suspected gunman in the Colorado theater massacre heads to his first court appearance, authorities have disclosed that he is refusing to cooperate and that it could take months to learn what prompted the horrific attack on midnight moviegoers at a Batman film premiere.
James Holmes has been held in solitary confinement at an Arapahoe County detention facility but will be moved Monday to a next-door courtroom for a 9:30 a.m. MDT hearing, where the charges against him of suspicion of first degree murder will be read.
Holmes has been assigned a public defender and Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates said that the 24-year-old former doctoral student has "lawyered up" since his arrest early Friday, following the shooting at an Aurora theater that left 12 dead and 58 wounded, some critically.
"He's not talking to us," the chief said.
Holmes has been held without bond at the lockup in Centennial, Colo., about 13 miles from the Aurora theater. He will be advised of the charges against him, and he could also face additional counts of aggravated assault and weapons violations.
On Sunday, officials at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus were looking into whether Holmes used his position in a graduate program to collect hazardous materials, but school officials weren't saying whether they knew he was anything more than a hard-working student.
Police have said that Holmes began buying guns at Denver-area stores nearly two months before Friday's shooting and that he received at least 50 packages in four months at his home and at school.
While the university disclosed that it was cooperating with police in the case, that disclosure was one of the few it has made three days after the massacre. It remained unclear whether Holmes' professors and other students at his 35-student Ph.D. program noticed anything unusual about his behavior.
His reasons for quitting the program in June, just a year into the five- to seven-year program, also remained a mystery.
Holmes recently took an intense, three-part oral exam that marks the end of the first year. Those who do wellcontinue with their studies and shift tofull-time research, while those who don't do well meet with advisers and discuss their options, including retaking the exam. University officials would not say if he passed, citing privacy concerns.
The university said Holmes gave no reason for his withdrawal, a decision he made in June.
Holmes was not allowed access from the institution after his withdrawal, which was "standard operating procedure" because he was no longer affiliated with the school, said Jacque Montgomery, a spokeswoman for the medical school. Holmes had no contact with university police, she said.
The university declined to release any details of his academic record, citing privacy concerns, and at least two dozen professors and other staff declined to speak with The Associated Press. Some said they were instructed not to talk publicly about Holmes in a blanket email sent to university employees.
Montgomery said police have told the school to not talk about Holmes. The university took down the website for its graduate neuroscience program on Saturday.
Amid the continuing investigation of Holmes and his background, Sunday was a day for healing and remembrance in Aurora, with the community holding aprayer vigil and with President Barack Obama arriving to visit with families of the victims.
Obama said he told the families that "all of America and much of the world is thinking about them." He met with them at the University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora, which treated 23 of the people injured in the mass shooting; 10 remain there, seven hurt critically.
Congregations across Colorado prayed for the shooting victims and their relatives. Elderly churchgoers at an aging Presbyterian church within walking distance near Holmes' apartment joined in prayer, though none had ever met him.
Several thousand gathered for healing at the vigil Sunday night, where a banner said, "Angels Walk With Those Who Grieve."
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