LSI's Q3 net income jumps 25 percent

MILPITAS, Calif. (AP) — Semiconductor maker LSI Corp. said Wednesday its third-quarter profits rose 25 percent as surging sales of its storage and networking chips boosted revenues.

The company reported earnings at the same time it announced a deal to acquire privately held SandForce Inc., a provider of flash storage processors, for $322 million cash. The agreement also calls for LSI to assume about $48 million of unvested stock options and restricted shares held by SandForce employees.

Both companies are based in Milpitas.

LSI's net income for the three months ended Oct. 2 was $29.3 million, or 5 cents per share, compared with $23.4 million or 4 cents a share, a year …

A look inside US government's deportation flights

Guillermo Campos Ojeda stares blankly at the clouds from the jetliner's window, mentally retracing the 22 years that he lived in the United States as an illegal immigrant.

His odyssey began in 1988 with an illegal border crossing and ended in May when he was pulled over for driving without a license. In between were double shifts at a Chicago factory, a string of run-ins with the law, a marriage and his ultimate joy: the birth of his daughter, now 2, who is a U.S. citizen.

But on this flight arranged by the federal government, his journey takes a new turn: Ojeda is being deported along with 52 other illegal immigrants. Their day starts at a suburban Chicago …

Art of the Attack Ad

How to go after your opponent - without having it blow up in your face

For a comparative or pure attack ad to be effective in a campaign, voters must view it as being fair. What's fair? In the context of partisan politics, with charges hurling back and forth, it's often hard to tell. But there are some rules of the road that campaigns can follow not only to make their ads appear to be fair but to make them, in fact, fair - and defensible - while still making them effective in terms of winning elections. To work, attacks - as with most campaign messages - need to be:

1. Believable.

Even if it's true, it won't be effective if voters don't think it's true. For …

7 Die in Polish Military Plane Crash

A military plane carrying 18 officers and crew crashed Wednesday in northwestern Poland, killing at least seven people, officials said. The officers had been attending a flight safety conference in Warsaw.

The plane was approaching an air base at Miroslawiec shortly after 7 p.m. when it crashed, Maj. Bogdan Ziolkowski, a spokesman for the base told The Associated Press.

Fourteen passengers and four crew were on board, said air force spokesman Col. Wieslaw Grzegorzewski.

Emergency services spokeswoman Monika Bak said seven people died. Grzegorzewski said some people were killed, but did not provide a number.

The aircraft, a CASA C-295M …

Top US court to judge death sentence for neo-Nazi

The U.S. Supreme Court decided Monday to take a new look at whether a neo-Nazi convicted of murdering three men should be sentenced to death.

The justices said they will hear in arguments scheduled for late this year the plea from the state of Ohio to reinstate the death sentence against Frank Spisak.

Spisak, a self-described neo-Nazi, was convicted in the shooting deaths of the three men at the Cleveland State University campus over a seven-month period in 1982.

The federal appeals court in Cincinnati, Ohio, twice has ordered new sentencing hearings for Spisak, saying he received ineffective counsel during the sentencing phase of his trial and a …

League awards could mirror Bulls' success

As the Bulls gear up for the NBA playoffs, Michael Jordan,Scottie Pippen, Stacey King and coach Phil Jackson are making strongbids for league individual honors. Jordan is vying to become NBA scoring champion for the fourthconsecutive year, league steals leader, MVP, All-Defensive Team forthe third year in a row, and Defensive Player of the Year.

Pippen is an All-Defensive Team candidate. King could make the All-Rookie Team. Jackson is contending for Coach of the Year.

Jordan, who will lead the Bulls (48-23) against the IndianaPacers (36-35) tonight at the Stadium, is having another spectacularyear.

He leads the league in scoring, averaging 34 points a …

Vickers Wins Pole for Dickies 500

FORT WORTH, Texas - Brian Vickers, the last of 50 drivers to make a qualifying attempt Friday at Texas Motor Speedway, knocked Elliott Sadler off the pole for NASCAR's Dickies 500 before Sadler even had time to get out of his car.

Moments after Sadler posted a lap of 195.390 mph to bump Kurt Busch off the top spot for Sunday's Nextel Cup race, Vickers - driving a Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet - topped them both with a sizzling 196.235 during a record-setting qualifying session.

The top four drivers all surpassed the previous track record of 194.224, set by Bill Elliott in April 2002, and they attributed the faster speeds to qualifying ending with the sun going down and …