Image Source/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — The federal budget sequester may be dampening a rise in economic optimism: Nearly four in 10 Americans now say sequestration has hurt them personally, up substantially since it began in March — and they’re far less sanguine than others about the economy’s prospects overall.

Thirty-seven percent in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll say they’ve been negatively impacted by the budget cuts, up from 25 percent in March. As previously, about half of those affected say the harm has been “major.”

Those who are hurt, holler. Among people who report no personal impact of the sequester, 66 percent say economic recovery is under way, and six in 10 are optimistic about the economy’s prospects in the year ahead. Among those who report major harm from the cuts, by contrast, just 36 percent see recovery, and optimism drops to 40 percent.

As reported earlier this week, optimism about the economy is advancing; 56 percent of Americans now say it’s begun to recover, up by 20 percentage points in the past year and a half to the most since ABC and the Post first asked the question in late 2009. Results on the sequester suggest that could be better still had the cuts not taken effect.

More Americans continue to disapprove than approve of sequestration, now by 56-35 percent — again, a view influenced by experience of the cuts. Eight in 10 of those who report serious harm oppose the cuts, as do about two-thirds of those slightly harmed. But the majority, which has felt no impacts, divides exactly evenly — 46 percent favor the cuts, vs. 46 percent opposed.

Further, this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, finds that 39 percent overall “strongly” disapprove of the cuts — but that soars to 66 percent of those who say they’ve been harmed in a major way. (Just 16 percent overall strongly approve.)

Experience of the cuts even trumps partisanship and ideology: Among Republicans, conservatives and Tea Party supporters who’ve been harmed by the cuts, most oppose them. Support is far higher among those in these groups who haven’t felt an impact of sequestration.

Perhaps surprisingly, given the partisan nature of the debate, views of the cuts don’t divide sharply along party lines. Majorities of Democrats and Republicans alike oppose the cuts — 59 and 54 percent, respectively — as do a similar 58 percent of independents.

One reason: Republicans are 14 points more apt than Democrats to say they’ve been harmed by the sequester. And among Republicans who’ve been hurt by the cuts, 68 percent disapprove of them. Among those unhurt, disapproval drops to 42 percent.

Forty-seven percent of “very” conservative Americans approve of the cuts, as do 42 percent of those who call themselves “somewhat” conservative. It’s 36 percent among moderates and 24 percent among liberals. But again, impacts of the cuts are a bigger factor in views on the issue. Among conservatives hurt by the cuts, 65 percent disapprove of them; among those unhurt, just 34 percent …read more

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Lego/Facebook(NEW YORK) — At nearly 46 thousand pounds, LEGO has landed a record breaking tribute to Star Wars in the middle of New York City.

More than 30 builders from the toy company spent nearly four months building a life-sized version of the X-Wing fighter piloted by Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars trilogy. With the exact specs of what the fighter would be in real life, the model is 43 feet long, 11 feet high, and boasts a wingspan of 46 feet, and features glowing engines and thruster sounds from the films.

While LEGO’s normal-sized X-Wing toy is 560 pieces, it took more than 5.3 million bricks attached to a steel superstructure to create this super-sized version, which was built in the Lego Model Shop in Kladno, Czech Republic. The ship was transported to the Big Apple, where it was reassembled and officially unveiled Thursday, complete with Star Wars costumers adding to the ambiance.

The model will stay in Times Square for a few days, before it’s packed up again and transported to LEGO Land in California.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

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intl. Inst. for Species Exploration at Arizona State Univ.(PHOENIX) — What’s new in animal species? Plenty, according to the sixth annual Top 10 list by the Institute at Arizona State University that includes everything from a glow-in-the-dark cockroach to an “Old World” monkey with a bright blue buttocks.

“Through the top 10, we are really just trying to raise awareness about how many species there are on the planet,” Quentin Wheeler, founding director of the International Institute for Species Exploration (IISE), told ABC News. “On average, 18,000 species a year are discovered. That sounds like a lot, but it really isn’t.”

Wheeler said there are an estimated 10 to 12 million living species, but only about 2 million have been discovered. This year’s top 10 list was whittled down from more than 140 nominees.

While the institute simply compiles a list, “These discoveries are actually made by professionals and amateurs around the world,” he said.

The 2013 release by the IISE showcases, among many impressive things, the discovery of the world’s smallest vertebrate — a tiny, 7 millimeter frog found in Papua, New Guinea. An image released by the institute shows the frog taking up about a third of the space on the face of a U.S. dime. The largest known vertebrate in the world is the blue whale, measuring 85 feet long.

A new type of luminescent (or glow-in-the-dark) cockroach specimen was discovered in Ecuador. Though the species may have already been extinct for some time, Wheeler said it’s believed that the cockroach would mimic the toxic luminescent clicking beetle to ward off predators. This cockroach is one of more than a dozen species of luminescent cockroaches discovered since 1999.

Another fascinating finding was a new species of monkey, the lesula, only the second new species of monkey to be discovered in Africa in the last 28 years. The IISE said the lesula has been known to the people of Congo, where it was discovered by scientists, but the species was never recorded. This species of monkey has eyes that observers say look human, with brown coloring, and males have large, bare patches of skin on the buttocks and testicles that is a brilliant blue.

But the most interesting discovery may be that of the Semachrysa jade — a green lacewing. What is believed to be the first ever photo of the insect was taken by Malaysian photographer Hock Ping Guek, though unbeknownst to him at the time. A California scientist happened upon the image of the lacewing on Guek’s Flickr and asked him to mail the specimen to London’s Natural History Museum where it was eventually identified registered as a new species.

Wheeler explained to ABC News that some scientists are predicting half of the world’s species could be gone by the end of the century (a type of extinction that last happened at the time of the dinosaurs), so furthering these discoveries and spreading interest through the yearly top 10 list is important.

In a statement attached to this year’s list …read more

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Ben Hider/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Don’t mess with Ronald McDonald.

That was the message Thursday from the fast food chain’s chief executive Don Thompson, who defended his company from attacks by the watchdog group, Corporate Accountability International, before a shareholders’ meeting.

Lately, CAI has been demanding that McDonald’s assess whether its attempts to add more nutritious items to its menu is working. Two years ago, the group wanted the company to retire its mascot, Ronald McDonald, claiming it was a blatant marketing scheme targeting kids.

Whether it’s true or not, the clown is still around and Thompson says he’s here to stay, telling shareholders, “We are not the cause of obesity. Ronald is not a bad guy. He’s about fun. He’s a clown. I’d urge you all to let your kids have fun, too.”

While Thompson insists McDonald’s is offering more healthy choices to the menu, the real concern of shareholders is the company’s declining sales.

As a result, Thompson says pricier items, such as the Angus burger, are getting axed, and more selections will be added to the Dollar Menu.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

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Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for The New Yorker(NEW YORK) — At long last, Arrested Development is back. Seven years after the cult comedy was cancelled by Fox, Netflix will launch a fourth season this Sunday.

The 15 new episodes, which will be made available all at once, will catch up with the dysfunctional Bluth family. All of the original cast members will reprise their roles, including Michael Cera, who plays George-Michael Bluth, the reserved son of Jason Bateman’s Michael Bluth who has a crush on his cousin.

The show will pick up in 2013 — not in 2006, when it was cancelled.

“They’re basically living in today, now,” Cera explains. “And we sort of go back and catch up from where they left off. You kind of run through the past six years with all of them, bring everyone up to speed, and then the story kind of begins, goes from there.”

Though the 24-year-old Cera now has a successful movie career, having starred in Juno, Superbad, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and other comedies, he’s been open to an Arrested Development reunion since the show was taken off the air.

Cera tells ABC News Radio, “It was easy to say yes for six years and just keep wondering when it was gonna actually come true. You say yes, and then a year goes by and you figure, oh, that wasn’t real, and people keep asking about it, and then I didn’t believe it was going to happen until we actually were shooting.”

Cera likes the fact that Arrested Development fans can watch the new season in only a couple of sittings. He says, “I watch things that way….There’s such a blizzard of things to watch now, everyone’s kind of just picking and choosing what they see, and the viewing experience has become kind of more individual, I think.”

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

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Sabrina Brady/Google(NEW YORK) — The instructions were plain and simple: Draw your “best day ever.” Sabrina Brady did just that and it’s landed her quite literally front and center in all of Google’s glory.

Brady, 17, was crowned the national champion of the site’s fourth ever Doodle 4 Google contest on Wednesday. Students in grades K-12 from all over the country submit their artwork to the competition, hoping to see their masterpiece intertwined with Google’s iconic homepage logo.

Brady, a senior at Wisconsin’s Sparta High School, scored the top prize for her work titled “Coming Home.” The illustration shows her racing into her dad’s arms upon his return from an 18-month deployment in Iraq.

After reviewing thousands of entries submitted over a two-month period, Google selected finalists from every state in the country and asked users to vote for their favorite.

“Her creative use of the Google letters to illustrate this heartfelt moment clearly resonated with voters across the country and all of us at Google,” Doodle team leader Ryan Germick wrote in a blog post after announcing Brady the winner.

Brady doesn’t just get to showcase her masterpiece on Google’s homepage display; she also won a $30,000 college scholarship, a Chromebook computer and a $50,000 technology grant for her school, according to the tech giant. Google says Brady will attend the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in the fall.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

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Jason Merritt/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Former child star Amanda Bynes was arrested on Thursday evening in New York City, police confirmed to ABC News.

Bynes, 27, was charged with tampering with physical evidence, reckless endangerment and criminal possession of marijuana, NYPD spokesman Det. Brian Sessa told ABC News.

“There was a 911 call at her apartment building that someone was smoking marijuana in the lobby,” Sessa said, adding that once police arrived, a building official took them upstairs to her apartment and Bynes let them inside.

“There was a heavy smell of marijuana,” Sessa said. “[Then] she took the bong and threw it out the window.”

Bynes is still in police custody, according to Sessa.

Bynes, who has previously been charged with DUI, has displayed erratic behavior recently, tweeting provocative photos of herself and dramatically changing her look. However, just last fall, the actress told People magazine that she was “doing amazing,” and planning to launch a fashion line.

Messages for Bynes’ attorney have not been returned.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

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Warner Bros.(NEW YORK) — With The Hangover Part III, director and co-writer Todd Phillips breaks with the format of the previous two films, in that the particular mess in which the Wolfpack finds itself isn’t the result of a bachelor party gone wrong.

Instead, after a hilarious intervention that probably would’ve been even funnier had parts of it not been included in the trailer, Bradley Cooper’s Phil, Ed Helms’s Stu and Justin Bartha’s Doug have decided to drive Alan, again played by Zach Galifianakis, to a mental health facility in Arizona. The intervention is needed after Alan, who’s gone off his meds, has a series of somewhat hilarious missteps over the previous six months. One of those major missteps is a particularly twisted visual (a Phillips specialty) that’s one of the movie’s darkest and funniest moments. But for Alan, the final nail in the coffin, if you will, is when his father, Sid (Jeffrey Tambor) dies.

Even so, it’s not the intervention that sets the wheels in motion here. It’s actually something that transpired in the first Hangover movie. That particular thing is why bad guy Marshall, played by John Goodman, has been following the Wolfpack and decides to run them off the road on their way to Arizona and take Doug hostage. It all comes back to Ken Jeong’s Chow, who stole a lot of gold from Marshall, who in turn threatens to kill Doug unless the Wolfpack delivers Chow.

Chow is problematic this time around. In the first movie, he’s a brilliant character — he shows up out of nowhere and when he’s on screen, he owns the moment. Too much Chow, however, dilutes his effectiveness. That’s not a knock on the brilliant Ken Jeong who, quite literally, puts it all out there in the name of comedy. Sometimes it works and works well but as was also the case with The Hangover Part II, there’s too much of him in this movie. Not to say he doesn’t have his moments, but less Chow actually means more laughs when he shows up.

The Hangover Part III is supposed to be the final movie in the Hangover franchise, so let’s give Todd Phillips credit for trying to accomplish the impossible. He made one of the most successful film comedies of all time and then tried to follow it up not once, but twice. Unfortunately, that’s a losing battle. You buy your ticket, go in with an open mind and hope for the best, but the best certainly didn’t happen in the second movie and it doesn’t happen here. The good news is, The Hangover Part III is better than II and contains what actually might be the funniest moment of all three films — but you’re going to have to wait until the movie is over, literally, to find out what that is.

Three out of five …read more

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Richard Wolowicz/Getty Images(DENVER) — NHL Hall-of-Fame goalie Patrick Roy has agreed in principle to join the Colorado Avalanche as its Head Coach/Vice President of Hockey Operations.

“This is an unbelievable day for me,” said Roy. “It’s a new and exciting challenge that I am really looking forward to. I would like to thank (Owner) Stan and (President) Josh Kroenke for this opportunity as well as (Executive Vice President of Hockey Operations) Joe Sakic for the trust they are putting in me.”

“Almost 10 years to the day that I announced my retirement as a player I am back in Denver and hope the fans are as excited as I am,” he continued.

Roy played seven-and-a-half seasons for the Avalanche, winning two Stanley Cups.

The 47-year-old three time Vezina Trophy winner, has spent the last eight seasons as the head coach and general manager of the Quebec Remparts of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, where he had a 348-196-0 record.

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Chris Graythen/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — The Arizona Cardinals signed their third round draft pick Tyrann Mathieu to a four-year contract Thursday.

“I never doubted it,” Mathieu said on the team’s website when talking about signing an NFL contract. “I knew it was a long shot and it would be a process, but to finally sit down and sign my name on the dotted line means a lot to me.”

League sources told ESPN’s Ed Werder that Mathieu will receive a $662,500 guarenteed signing bonus.

A source of ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter said Mathieu will receive $265,000 upfront with the rest of the money coming through annual roster bonuses.

Mathieu becomes the sixth of the Cardinals nine draft picks to sign.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

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