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Google has released its list of the top Android apps of 2012. This year s list includes not only apps that were released this year, such as Pinterest s Android app, but also apps that saw significant updates during the past calendar year.

Ranging from an app to help you monitor your finances to an app to help you book your next vacation, the chosen apps all sport a clean and easy-to-use design, representing what Google feels are the best of the best in Google Play.

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Almost all of the apps on the list are also available for phones and tablets, so whether you have a Galaxy S III smartphone, or a Nexus 7 tablet, you can likely take advantage of everything they have to offer.

Check out the full list of apps in the gallery above. Did your favorite Android app make the list? Tell us what Google missed in the comments.

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This story originally published on Mashable here.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks fell at the open on Friday as President Barack Obama and top lawmakers planned to make a last-ditch attempt at a budget deal to prevent the United States from going over the "fiscal cliff."

The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 76.30 points, or 0.58 percent, to 13,020.01. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index dropped 8.93 points, or 0.63 percent, to 1,409.17. The Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 19.94 points, or 0.67 percent, to 2,965.97.

(Reporting By Edward Krudy; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

ST. LOUIS (AP) Fontella Bass, a St. Louis-born soul singer who hit the top of the R&B charts with "Rescue Me" in 1965, has died. She was 72.

Bass died Wednesday night at a St. Louis hospice of complications from a heart attack suffered three weeks ago, her daughter, Neuka Mitchell, said. Bass had also suffered a series of strokes over the past seven years.

"She was an outgoing person," Mitchell said of her mother. "She had a very big personality. Any room she entered she just lit the room up, whether she was on stage or just going out to eat."

Bass was born into a family with deep musical roots. Her mother was gospel singer Martha Bass, one of the Clara Ward Singers. Her younger brother, David Peaston, had a string of R&B hits in the 1980s and 1990s. Peaston died in February at age 54.

Bass began performing at a young age, singing in her church's choir at age 6. She was surrounded by music, often traveling on national tours with her mother and her gospel group.

Her interest turned from gospel to R&B when she was a teenager and she began her professional career at the Showboat Club in north St. Louis at age 17. She eventually auditioned for Chess Records and landed a recording contract, first as a duet artist. Her duet with Bobby McClure, "Don't Mess Up a Good Thing," reached No. 5 on the R&B charts and No. 33 on the Billboard Top 100 in 1965.

She co-wrote and later that year recorded "Rescue Me," reaching No. 1 on the R&B charts and No. 4 on the Billboard pop singles chart. Bass's powerful voice bore a striking resemblance to that of Aretha Franklin, who is often misidentified as the singer of that chart-topping hit.

Bass had a few other modest hits but by her own accounts developed a reputation as a troublemaker because she demanded more artistic control, and more money for her songs. She haggled over royalty rights to "Rescue Me" for years before reaching a settlement in the late 1980s, Mitchell said. She sued American Express over the use of "Rescue Me" in a commercial, settling for an undisclosed amount in 1993.

"Rescue Me" has been covered by many top artists, including Linda Ronstadt, Cher, Melissa Manchester and Pat Benatar. Franklin eventually sang a form of it too as "Deliver Me" in a Pizza Hut TV ad in 1991.

Bass lived briefly in Europe before returning to St. Louis in the early 1970s, where she and husband Lester Bowie raised their family. She recorded occasionally, including a 1995 gospel album, "No Ways Tired," that earned a Grammy nomination.

Bass was inducted into the St. Louis Hall of Fame in 2000.

Funeral arrangements for Bass were incomplete. She is survived by four children. Bowie died in 1999.

NEW YORK (AP) A surveillance video of the woman suspected of pushing a man to his death in front of an oncoming subway train was released Friday by the New York Police Department.

It shows the woman running from the elevated platform in the Queens section of New York City Thursday night.

Witnesses told police she had been following the man closely and mumbling to herself. She got up from a nearby bench and shoved him as the train pulled into the platform.

It did not appear the man noticed her before he was shoved onto the tracks, police said, adding that the condition of the man's body was making it difficult to identify him.

The woman fled, and police were searching for her. She was described as Hispanic, in her 20s, heavyset and about 5-foot-5, wearing a blue, white and gray ski jacket and Nike sneakers with gray on top and red on the bottom.

It was unclear if the man and the woman knew each other or if anyone tried to help the man up before he was struck by the train and killed at the station on Queens Boulevard in the Sunnyside neighborhood.

It was the second time this month someone has been shoved to their death on subway tracks.

On Dec. 3, 58-year-old Ki-Suck Han was pushed in front of a train in Times Square. A photograph of him on the tracks a split second before he was killed was published on the front of the New York Post the next day, causing an uproar and debate over whether the photographer, who had been waiting for a train, should have tried to help him and whether the newspaper should have run the image. Apparently no one else tried to help up Han, either.

A homeless man, 30-year-old Naeem Davis, was charged with murder in Han's death and was ordered held without bail. He has pleaded not guilty and has said that Han was the aggressor and had attacked him first. The two men hadn't met before.

Being pushed onto the train tracks is a silent fear for many of the commuters who ride the city's subway a total of more than 5.2 million times on an average weekday, but deaths are rare. Among the more high-profile cases was the January 1999 death of aspiring screenwriter Kendra Webdale, who was shoved by a former mental patient. After that, the state Legislature passed Kendra's Law, which lets mental health authorities supervise patients who live outside institutions to make sure they are taking their medications and aren't threats to safety.

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It takes about 10 hours for Simon Beck to create his breathtaking snow art. But you won't find him in a snow mobile, or even a sled. Beck wears snowshoes to trek through the icy terrain on foot.

Since his perspective is from the ground, Beck is armed with a handheld compass and uses measuring tape or good ol' fashioned pace counting to determine his distance. He then anchors clothes lines to create the curves.

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When it comes to choosing his design, Beck looks to math -- geometry to be specific.

"Designs are chosen from the world of geometry or 'crop circles.' Some are named eg Mandelbrot set, Koch curve, Sierpinski triangle are three of my favorites," he says on his Facebook page, which has more than 24,000 Likes at time of publishing.

Photos courtesy of Facebook, Simon Beck's Snow Art

This story originally published on Mashable here.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - "You know," "whatever" is a really annoying term -- "like" "you know." We're "just sayin'."

When it comes to the most annoying words or phrases used in conversation, those four top the list in 2012, according to the annual Marist Poll.

"Whatever" headed the list, cited by 32 percent of adults, and next came "like," which 21 percent didn't like.

Runners-up included "Twitterverse" and "gotcha'."

The results mirrored last year's survey when "whatever" topped the annoying words list for a third straight year. But "seriously," named by 7 percent last year, dropped off the list entirely - really.

Marist questioned 1,246 adults in a U.S. nationwide, telephone survey.

Results showed differences by age and regions, with people younger than 45 or in the Northeast especially annoyed by "like," while "you know" offended more of the 45-and-over set.

Men and women gave similar responses overall, but whites were twice as likely as non-whites to find "you know" irritating. And people under 45 were more than twice as likely as those over 45 to be put off by "just sayin.'"

(Reporting by Chris Michaud; editing by Patricia Reaney and Kenneth Barry)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) Prosecutors on Thursday declined to pursue a criminal trespassing charge against a Wisconsin man arrested earlier this month for climbing a fence at a Nashville home linked to country star Taylor Swift.

Jacob Kulke, of Marshfield, Wis., will remain in jail in Nashville as he is fighting extradition to Colorado for probation violation. Kulke did not appear in court during his Thursday hearing. The 24-year-old Kulke was arrested Dec. 14 after climbing a fence and a gate at a home in Belle Meade that has been publicly linked to Swift.

The affidavit said Kulke claimed he was in contact with a person at the home through social media. He said he was dating her and it was her birthday and he wanted to surprise her. Swift was overseas at the time her spokeswoman has previously declined to comment on the case.

Sean McKinney, Kulke's attorney, said Thursday that prosecutors discussed the decision not to prosecute with representatives for Swift. He said that Kulke is not guilty of the trespassing charge and said that his client was tricked by someone into believing that he was communicating with the star. Kulke told police he rode a bus to Nashville from Wisconsin, and then took a taxi to the home.

"It is the defense's position that he was misled by someone else," McKinney said. "Mr. Kulke had reasonable belief that he was invited on to the premises."

McKinney said that prosecutors could still bring the charge back within the statutes of limitations, but no restrictions were placed on him by the prosecutors or Swift.

"He is still a big fan of Taylor Swift," McKinney said.

Assistant District Attorney Tali Rosenblum said that Kulke has already spent 13 days in jail and the trespassing charge is a misdemeanor that carries a maximum 30-day sentence. She said they wanted to resolve the charge in Tennessee so that authorities could extradite him to Colorado.

"Mr. Kulke is looking for his 15 minutes of fame and he got all he deserved," Rosenblum said.

MOSCOW (AP) President Vladimir Putin on Friday signed a bill banning Americans from adopting Russian children, making the legislation official less than 24 hours after his office received it from Parliament.

The bill has angered Americans and Russians who argue it victimizes children to make a political point, cutting off a route out of frequently dismal orphanages for thousands of children. The Russian-language hashtag "PutinEatsKids" was trending on Twitter just minutes after Putin signed it.

UNICEF estimates that there are about 740,000 children not in parental custody in Russia while about 18,000 Russians are on the waiting list to adopt a child.

The law also blocks dozens of Russian children now in the process of being adopted by American families from leaving the country. The U.S. is the biggest destination for adopted Russian children more than 60,000 of them have been taken in by Americans over the past two decades.

The measure is retaliation for an American law that calls for sanctions against Russian officials deemed human rights violators. The U.S. State Department has said it regrets Parliament's decision to pass the bill, arguing it would prevent many children from growing up in families.

Children's rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov says that 46 children who were about to be adopted in the U.S. would remain in Russia if the bill comes into effect.

Putin has said that U.S. authorities routinely let Americans suspected of violence toward Russian adoptees go unpunished.

The passage of the bill followed weeks of a hysterical media campaign on Kremlin-controlled television that lambasts American adoptive parents and adoption agencies that allegedly bribe their way into getting Russian children.

A few lawmakers claimed that some Russian children were adopted by Americans only to be used for organ transplants and become sex toys or cannon fodder for the U.S. Army. A spokesman with Russia's dominant Orthodox Church said that the children adopted by foreigners and raised outside the church will not "enter God's kingdom."

Detectives in New York are searching for a female suspect who fled a subway station after a man was fatally pushed in front of a train on an elevated platform in Queens, N.Y.

At 8:04 p.m. on Thursday an unnamed male passenger was standing on the northbound platform of the 40th Street and Queens Blvd. in Queens, waiting for the 7 train. Witnesses told police that a woman was walking back and forth on the platform and talking to herself before she took a seat on a wooden bench on the platform.

As the 7 train approached the station, witnesses said the woman rose from the bench and pushed the man, who was standing with his back to her.

"They said that [she] pushed somebody to the tracks," Jiovanni Briones, who owns restaurant across the street from the station, told WABC. "Who knows, maybe it was a fight?"

Witnesses told police that the victim did not notice the woman behind him. He was struck by the first of the 11-car train, with his body pinned under the front of the second car as the train came to a stop, according to a statement from Deputy Commissioner Paul Brown.

After pushing the man onto the platform the woman then fled down two separate stair cases to Queens Blvd. She was described as wearing a blue, white and grey ski jacket, and grey and red Nike sneakers.

It is unclear if the two knew each other, or whether anyone on the platform attempted to help the man off the platform before he was struck by the train.

Police said that there was no video of the incident or suspect from the station itself, but detectives are now canvassing locations along Queens Blvd for witnesses and surveillance video.

Thursday's death marks the second incident this month of a man being killed after being pushed onto subway tracks and killed by an oncoming train.

On Dec. 3, 58-year-old Ki-Suck Han was tossed onto the subway track at 49th Street and Seventh Avenue around 12:30 p.m. after an altercation with a man who was later identified as 30-year-old Naeem Davis. Davis has been charged with murder in Han's death and was ordered held without bail.

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CONCORD, N.H. (AP) A muted version of a winter storm that has killed more than a dozen people across the eastern half of the country plodded across the Northeast on Thursday, trapping airliners in snow or mud and frustrating travelers still trying to return home after Christmas.

The storm, which was blamed for at least 16 deaths farther south and west, brought plenty of wind, rain and snow to the Northeast when it blew in Wednesday night. Lights generally remained on and cars mostly stayed on the road, unlike many harder-hit places including Arkansas, where 200,000 homes and businesses lost power.

By afternoon, the precipitation had stopped in parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Massachusetts, though snow continued to fall in upstate New York and northern New England. Parts of snow-savvy New Hampshire expected as much as 18 inches.

The Northeast's heaviest snowfall was in northern Pennsylvania, upstate New York and inland sections of several New England states. The storm was expected to head into Canada on Friday, National Weather Service spokesman David Roth said.

While the East Coast's largest cities New York, Philadelphia and Boston saw mostly high winds and cold rain, other areas experienced a messy mix of rain and snow that slowed commuters and those still heading home from holiday trips. Some inbound flights were delayed in Philadelphia and New York's LaGuardia Airport, but the weather wasn't leading to delays at other major East Coast airports.

Forty-two students traveling to London and Dublin were stuck in the Nashville airport thanks to weather in the Northeast. The frustrated students, from universities in Tennessee and Kentucky, were supposed to leave Wednesday and arrive in London on Thursday.

Joe Woolley, spokesman for the Cooperative Center for Study Abroad, said he hopes he can get them there just one day late.

"It's a two-week program, so it's shortened already," he said.

On New York's Long Island, a Southwest Airlines jet bound for Tampa, Fla., veered off a taxiway and got stuck in mud Thursday morning. Officials said there were no injuries to the 129 passengers and five crew members. Though the area received heavy rain overnight, Southwest spokesman Paul Flanigan said it was unclear whether that played a role.

In Pittsburgh, a flight that landed safely during the storm Wednesday night got stuck in several inches of snow on the tarmac for about two hours. The American Airlines flight arrived between 8 and 9 p.m. but then ran over a snow patch and got stuck.

Earlier, the storm system spawned tornadoes on Christmas along the Gulf Coast, startling people like Bob and Sherry Sims of Mobile, Ala., who had just finished dinner.

"We heard that very distinct sound, like a freight train," said Bob Sims, who lost electricity but was grateful that he fared better than neighbors whose roofs were peeled away and porches smashed by falling trees.

In Georgiana, Ala., an 81-year-old man died Wednesday, a day after a tree fell on his home, emergency officials said.

Deaths from wind-toppled trees also were reported in Texas and Louisiana, but car crashes caused most of the fatalities. Two people were killed in Kentucky crashes, a New York man was killed after his pickup truck skidded on an icy road in northwest Pennsylvania and an Ohio teenager died after losing control of her car and smashing into an oncoming snowplow.

In Arkansas, where two people died in a head-on collision, some of those who lost electricity could be without it for as long as a week because of snapped poles and wires after ice and 10 inches of snow coated power lines, said the state's largest utility, Entergy Arkansas. By Thursday evening, power to thousands of customers had been restored, but more than 135,000 homes and businesses remained in the dark, Entergy said.

Farther east, the storm knocked out power to more than 7,000 homes and businesses in Maryland. In New Jersey, gusts of more than 70 mph were recorded along the coast, and the weather service issued a flood warning for some coastal areas. There were about 800 power outages in Vermont, but only a handful in neighboring New Hampshire.

Schools on break and workers taking holiday vacations meant that many people could avoid messy commutes, but those who had to travel were urged to avoid it.

___

Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Jennifer Peltz in New York; Jim Van Anglen in Mobile, Ala.; Kelly P. Kissel in Little Rock, Ark.; Travis Loller in Nashville; Ben Nuckols in Washington; Dave Porter in Newark, N.J.; Dave Gram in Montpelier, Vt.; and Janet McMillan in Philadelphia.