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Another Flight Attendant Fight Grounds Plane A flight headed to Chicago from Raleigh-Durham International Airport was forced to return to RDU when an argument broke our between two flight attendants. Image credit: Nick Laham/Getty Images United flight 1214 departed RDU on Wednesday at 6 a.m., an airport spokeswoman told the Associated Press. She says a call from the pilot to the tower at 6:40 a.m. suggested there had been an assault on board, but it turned out to be a tiff between flight attendants. Local police determined that no blows were exchanged and no one was arrested. A United airlines spokeswoman also told the AP that the fight was not physical. She said the two employees were removed and the flight re-staffed. It is unclear how long the flight was delayed while the re-staffing took place. This is the second incident involving flight attendants in one week. 20, an American Airlines flight departing from New York's John F. Kennedy Airport was forced to return to the gate when two flight attendants reportedly got into a fight over a cell phone. The argument resulted in a four-hour delay for the passengers on board while the airline found a new crew. A request for comment from United Airlines was not immediately returned.

Sport that survived the Khmer Rouge Group four of the Asia/Oceania Zone is as low as you can get in the Davis Cup, the team event contested by countries from every corner of the planet. But Cambodia's first appearance in the competition, which starts in Qatar tomorrow, will be the realisation of a 17-year dream. When Tep returned to the land of his birth in 1995, his family having fled to France and then Canada shortly before Pol Pot came to power 20 years earlier, he was anxious to find out what had happened to the men he used to watch playing tennis with his father, Tep Khunnah, who was one of the country's best players in the 1960s. He discovered that all but three of Cambodia's top 40 players had perished. Courts were used for executions, swimming pools as mass graves. An estimated 1.7 million people died. Since Tep's return, which was prompted by his father's death, he has taken tennis into Cambodia's schools and orphanages, built a training centre for the country's best players, recruited coaches and scoured the world for expatriates who might be good enough to compete at international level. It has been a long road, but he has drawn inspiration from men such as 66-year-old Yi Sarun, who used to play tennis with his father. Yi, who is one of the three who survived, still plays. The Khmer Rouge forced millions of Cambodians to leave the cities and work in rural labour camps. Money and private property were abolished and people who were suspected of being educated or middle class were tortured or executed. Those who played tennis, which was a preserve of the elite, did not have a chance. Yi survived by claiming he was a peasant. "He destroyed his ID card and hid his trophies and press clippings," Tep said. He is dark skinned, which helped. The Khmer Rouge were looking for people who wore glasses, which meant that you were educated, and for people with lighter skin, which was a sign that you hadn't been working in a rice field. Other tennis players were not so fortunate. You Samoeun was the first player Tep asked about when he returned. You was taller and more athletic than most. He spoke fluent French, having travelled, and had been taken under the wing of Tep's father. Soon after the fall of Phnom Penh, Yi saw You being escorted out of the capital with a group of men. They were heading towards Choeung Ek, which was to become the most notorious of the killing fields. He was never seen again. "He was walking in one direction and Yi Sarun was going the other way," Tep said. They pretended not to know each other because they didn't want to give each other away. Tep, who was 10 when his family fled, used to watch his father play at Le Cercle Sportif, a club in Phnom Penh used by the wealthy. The Khmer Rouge found another use for it. Political executions were carried out there and its Olympic-sized pool became a mass grave. Cham Prasidh, Cambodia's Minister of Trade and Commerce, another survivor of the killing fields, used to go to school next to the club. He would watch Tep Khunnah's matches through a fence. "When I returned to Cambodia and Cham heard that I was back, he tried to find me," Tep said. He had just restarted the tennis federation. He said, 'Why don't you come in and help me do this? You know tennis here. He knew that I could put in the money. We've worked together since then. While the government and the International Tennis Federation have given financial support, the tennis programme would not have been possible without Tep, who is the Cambodian federation's secretary general. "I fund it mostly with my money," Tep said. I am fortunate. I have an investment company and a consultancy company here. Six of Cambodia's tennis squad live at the new national training centre. Lessons in English are given three times a week. A Cuban coach, Braen Aneiros, works with the top players, while 12 coaches provide free tennis lessons for 3,000 children at schools and orphanages. Standards are improving rapidly, but Tep knew he would have to look elsewhere for players capable of representing the country internationally. He discovered Bun Kenny, who has a Cambodian father and French mother, while on holiday in France. Bun came to Phnom Penh for a trial three years ago, lived with Tep's family for eight months, and has stayed. He is the only Cambodian with a current world ranking: he is number 1,192. After his team won a bronze medal at last year's South-east Asian Games, Tep received a letter of congratulations from an expatriate Cambodian living in the US, who mentioned that he had three sons who played college tennis in Oregon. Two of them, Mam Pannhara and Mam Vetu, travelled to Cambodia last month and Tep has put them into his Davis Cup squad. While Cambodia remains one of the poorest countries in the region, living standards are rising and the political situation is stable. The Cambodia to which the Mam brothers are being introduced is very different from the country in which Yi Sarun spent his prime years. Yi's presence, however, is a reminder of the country's past. "He's half deaf and he has no more teeth, but he can still go three sets," Tep said. He still enters tournaments. He usually goes out in the first or second round, but I always make sure that he's around on the final day and he gets a gift. We don't want people to forget him. He's the reason that a lot of us are here.

Southwest finds room for more seats DALLAS, Jan. 19 (UPI) -- U.S. discount airline Southwest is adding lighter seats to its planes that will save money and, in hindsight, provide new revenue, an executive said. The airline said an interior overhaul including seats 6 pounds lighter than the old seats for 372 Boeing 737-300 planes in its fleet and to AirTran's 737-700s and 717s will save $10 million a year in fuel costs, USA Today reported Thursday. After choosing the new interiors for the $60 million project, Southwest then realized it could add six new seats to most of its planes, affording the airline "a lot of revenue opportunities," Chief Commercial Officer Bob Jordan said. The seats, which are also thinner than Southwest's current seats, will not "sacrifice comfort," Jordan said. In essence, however, he said, the additional 2,232 new seats will be "like getting 16 new planes for free," Jordan said. "To pick up that many seats, we would have to purchase 16 new aircraft, which is about $600 million," he said. Jordan said, "To be clear, it was never our objective to add a row of seats, and the extra row isn't the main reason for this redesign. "Once we examined how much space would be saved, it was determined we could accommodate the increase, without sacrificing comfort," he said.

Bear spotted in urban Florida area ORLANDO, Fla., June 9 (UPI) -- A young black bear caused a quite a scene when it wandered into the outskirts of an Orlando, Fla., neighborhood, officials said. The bear was first spotted by Jamal Lutfi Friday afternoon resting in a tree across the street from an entrance ramp to the East-West Expressway, the Orlando (Fla.) Lutfi alerted police, as well as warned people on the street. "I just wanted to make sure he didn't hurt anybody," said Lutfi. A lot of children are playing in the neighborhood. As news of the bear sighting spread, about 50 people gathered in a gas station parking lot to take pictures of the animal. A Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officer arrived, prepared a net and padding and then shot the bear with a tranquilizer dart and waited for it to drop out of the tree. As officials examined the bear, onlookers posed for photos with it. "This is the best possible way we can educate people," said Joy Hill, a commission spokeswoman, comparing the experience to manatee viewing. Next time they see one, hopefully they will not be terrified. They'll know what to do. Hill said as urban areas grow, bears' natural habitat decreases and there are more bear sightings in cities.

The Obama administration has been accused of telling Catholic military chaplains what they can and cannot say from their pulpits after the Army ordered Catholic chaplains not to read a letter to parishioners from their archbishop. The Secretary of the Army feared the letter could be viewed as a call for civil disobedience. The letter called on Catholics to resist the policy the Obama Administration's policy that would force institutions affiliated with religious groups to provide coverage for birth control, sterilization and "abortifacients." The Catholic Church believes the mandate represents an unconstitutional violation of freedom of religion. Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum told Fox News Sunday the Army violated its chaplains" constitutional rights by barring them from reading the letter - calling for resistance to the contraceptive coverage mandate. "The Army and the Obama administration said they couldn't even issue the letter to complain about the Obama administration's plan on this policy," Santorum said, calling it a violation of freedom of religion and freedom of speech. "This is the problem when government tells you they can give you things," said Santorum, a Catholic. They can take it away but even worse they can tell you how they are going to exercise this new right consistent with their values instead of the values guaranteed in the Constitution. On Jan. 26, Archbishop Timothy Broglio emailed a letter to Catholic military chaplains with instructions that it be read from the pulpit. A portion of the letter was obtained by Business Insider. It reads: In so ruling, the Obama Administration has cast aside the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, denying to Catholics our Nation's first and most fundamental freedom, that of religious liberty. And as a result, unless the rule is overturned, we Catholics will be compelled to either violate our consciences, or to drop health coverage for our employees (and suffer the penalties for doing so). The Obama Administration's sole concession was to give our institutions one year to comply. The following day, senior chaplains received an email from the Army's Office of the Chief of Chaplains advising them that the archbishop's letter was not coordinated with their office - and instructed chaplains not to read it from the pulpit. The Chief's office ordered that the letter was to be mentioned in the Mass announcements and distributed in printed form in the back of the chapel. "Archbishop Broglio and the Archdiocese stand firm in the belief, based on legal precedent, that such a directive from the Army constituted a violation of his Constitutionally-protected right of free speech and the free exercise of religion, as well as those same rights of all military chaplains and their congregants," read a statement provided to Fox News from the Archdiocese of the Military Services. According to the AMS, Archbishop Broglio had a telephone conversation with Secretary of the Army John McHugh. "It was agreed that it was a mistake to stop the reading of the Archbishop's letter," the statement read. "Additionally, the line: "We cannot-we will not-comply with this unjust law" was removed by Archbishop Broglio at the suggestion of Secretary McHugh over the concern that it could potentially be misunderstood as a call to civil disobedience. The issue raises a question among critics: did administration official tell the Catholic Church what it could and could not say in the pulpit? The Army confirmed that they asked Catholic chaplains not to read the letter, according to a statement released to National Review Online. "The Army greatly appreciates the Archbishops consideration of the military's perspective and is satisfied with the resolution upon which they agreed," the statement concluded. A source with knowledge of the incident told Fox News that no other branches of the military objected to the letter and to their knowledge was delivered "as-is" by chaplains in the other branches of the military. Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com

Women and the New York Firefighter Exam Re "Fire Dept. Doubles Minority and Female Applicants" (nytimes.com, May 9): The headline does not tell the full story. The firefighter exam is given only every few years. Women were less than 5 percent of the more than 42,000 who took the most recent test. This is not acceptable. Substantially less than 1 percent of the firefighters in the New York Fire Department are women. New York City's numbers are shockingly low. Where programs are in place to encourage and recruit female applicants, the numbers of female firefighters are far higher: 17 percent in Minneapolis, 15 percent in San Francisco, 14 percent in Boulder, Colo., and 24 percent in Tuscaloosa, Ala. While it is commendable that almost half of those who took the most recent New York City test were nonwhite, much more needs to be done to recruit women to the N.Y.F.D. The writer is president of Legal Momentum, a women's rights advocacy group.

Fulham 1 Swansea City 2: match report If the first 45 minutes showed what happens when you cram too many fixtures into the festive period, the second half demonstrated why we love these games. In driving rain and swirling wind, the two sides seemed intent on turning the drama up a notch with every passing minute. Bryan Ruiz started the half with a free-kick that curled inches wide of the near post before Swansea increased their lead, in the 52nd minute. Stockdale had a routine clearance to make from an Aaron Hughes back-pass, but his low drive hit Brede Hangeland and fell for Pablo Hernandez to lay into the path of Jonathan de Guzman, who swept his shot into the far corner of goal. That finally stung Fulham into life, and they went into all-out attack mode. Ruiz had a volley brilliantly saved by Gerhard Tremmel, but the Costa Rican was not to be denied for much longer. It was a controversial goal that gave Fulham hope. Ruiz fired in his shot on the turn after Berbatov's header rebounded off the bar in the 56th minute, but Swansea argued that Fulham defender Sascha Riether was in an offside position when the ball hit him on the goal-line. Referee Andre Marriner ignored their protests and Fulham went looking for an equaliser. Tremmel had to make a great double save to deny Ruiz and then Kerim Frei. When another save, from a Giorgos Karagounis shot, fell for Berbatov to tap home, the Bulgarian was correctly ruled offside. Swansea had chances to increase their lead, with Stockdale using his legs to save a long shot from Graham after earlier dropping a similar effort from the striker. But they held on for their first win in five games and their fans celebrated long and loud after the final whistle Fulham (4-4-1-1): Stockdale; Riether, Hughes, Hangeland, Briggs; Dejegah (Rodallega 75), Sidwell, Karagounis, Frei (Senderos 84); Ruiz; Berbatov Subs not used: Etheridge, Kelly, Riise, Baird, Richardson Swansea (4-5-1): Tremmel; Rangel, Williams, Monk, Tiendalli; Dyer, Routledge (Sung-Yueng), Agustien (Britton 82), De Guzman, Hernandez (Davies 66); Graham Subs not used: Vorm, Bartley, Schecter, Moore Ref: A Marriner

Craft Turns Heads at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair Clockwise from left: the May chair in teak by Miles & May; a credenza with aluminum-nail ornamentation by Peter Sandback; and Rope Lights by Tanya Aguiñiga. ANDREW MAU had a man bun - or rather, two of them. "A bun and a thing," Mr. Mau said, referring to the stylish knot of hair perched high on his scalp and the smaller tuft gathered near his collar. If it's not the coiffure you associate with the ancient vocation of woodworking, you clearly did not spend time at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair, which on Tuesday ended its annual four-day run at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. Mr. Mau, 25, a founder of Studio Dunn, a two-year-old furniture company in Providence, R.I., was part of an army of youthful exhibitors who were rocking on the heels of their pointy-toed leather shoes or fuzzy polka-dot sneakers as they introduced updated versions of such hoary designs as Shaker chairs and gentlemen's valets. Studio Dunn's Corliss chair, for instance, was a supple handmade fusion of cast-aluminum back and maple seat and legs that paid tribute to George Henry Corliss, the inventor who improved the steam engine. "All of our new pieces are named after game-changers in industrial design and transportation design," Mr. Mau said. At Richard Watson's booth, one looked in vain for the wrinkly codger who produced an 18th-century-style highboy and accompanying stool. But it turned out that Richard Watson wasn't elderly. In fact, Richard Watson isn't a person at all, but a New England furniture brand that bears the surnames of its female founders, Brooke Richard, 34, and Laura Watson, 33. "My initial inspiration was preciousness," Ms. Richard said, indicating the $18,000 highboy's white bronze pulls, hammered by a jeweler, and the contrasting walnut fronts and maple sides intended to give each drawer, when removed, the appearance of a keepsake box. For as long as factories have efficiently spat out objects, craft has been an antidote to the chilly uniformity of mass production. Fragrant knotty furniture of one variety or another has always appeared at this fair, along with the occasional woven tapestry and thrown pot. This year, however, craft, with its quirks and nicks, threatened to overshadow the sleek machined goods that are a calling card of the 23-year-old event. Wafting through the convention center and satellite design exhibitions around town was nostalgia for preindustrial and early industrial technology. Members of the British group Designers in Residence, which presented the exhibition "Tools for Everyday Life," were typical in their adoration of gleaming brass rivets, which they embedded into lamps, and the gauges and shims used at machine shops, which they turned into building blocks. Where were the cheeky midcentury motifs of recent years? The bathroom hardware company Lefroy Brooks's Belle Aire tub faucet, with fins like a 1950s automobile, looked as out of place as a poodle skirt on Louisa May Alcott. Vintage charm is one thing, but craft really seized attention this year by turning itself into theater. At Wanted Design, an exhibition in Chelsea that ran concurrently with the fair, the furniture company Bernhardt Design sponsored a blue-jean-making demonstration. Employees of Raleigh Denim stitched on antique sewing machines that had been transported to New York from their workshop in North Carolina. The buttonhole machine, which dated to 1940, had leather belts and produced the sound of a machine gun, appropriate for a tool made during World War II, pointed out one of the company's founders, Victor Lytvinenko. At the Standard hotel at Cooper Square, one of several sites that made up the pop-up NoHo Design District, James Carroll, a woodworker with the Dublin company Makers & Brothers, sat in front of a plate-glass window, hewing chunks of Catskills ash to make three-legged stools. And back at the convention center, Hellman-Chang dramatized the struggle between human and hand tool by setting up a workbench, where the furniture company's publicist was spotted trying to sculpture a table leg with an implement intended for shaping wheel spokes. "It's pretty safe," Eric Chang, a founder of Hellman-Chang, assured an onlooker. I'm more worried about the wood. With a workshop in Brooklyn, Hellman-Chang exemplifies the growing self-assurance (and visibility) of that borough's design community. The fair featured a record 51 exhibitors from Brooklyn this year, about 9 percent of an international crowd that included Denmark, Spain and Japan (not to mention Manhattan).

2 Dead in Crane Collapse on UT-Dallas Campus Officials say two construction workers are dead after a crane collapsed on the University of Texas at Dallas campus. A message posted on the school's website said the accident happened Saturday afternoon while the crane was being dismantled. University spokeswoman Katherine Morales said she had no further details. There were no immediate reports of other injuries. The school encouraged students and the community to stay away from the side of campus where the crane was being used during construction on an arts and technology building.

Turkey pro-Kurd party urges talks to end Kurdish conflict ISTANBUL (Reuters) - The head of Turkey's main Kurdish party has called for talks between the government and Kurdish militants to prevent a further escalation of violence which she said could undermine efforts to draw up a new, more liberal constitution. More than 700 people have been killed since elections in June 2011, according to the International Crisis Group, the highest toll in a 15-month period since Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) chief Abdullah Ocalan was captured and jailed in 1999. Last week, fighters from the PKK - labeled a terrorist group by Turkey, Washington and the European Union - ambushed a military convoy, killing 10 soldiers and wounding about 60. "Violence dominates now, from the Kurdish side and is also defining state policy," said Gultan Kisanak, co-chair of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP). If fighting intensifies further, there's a high risk it will spill over into ethnic clashes as social tensions rise. "Let's return to the path of dialogue and negotiations and lessen the war," she told Reuters at the weekend. The upsurge in violence coincides with efforts by Turkey's parliament to draft a more liberal constitution to replace a hardline charter drawn up after a 1980 military coup, and the government says it will include greater political freedoms for minorities. Parliament reconvenes after summer recess on October 1. Recognizing Kurdish identity and rights are fundamental to Turkey's effort to join the European Union. It became a candidate for membership in 1999, but its drive has stalled over slow progress on human rights and arguments about Cyprus. "The Kurdish problem is about rights and freedom, it's a legal issue, and a solution requires a constitutional foundation," Kisanak said. We need to focus on policies for peace and establish a climate of peace. Otherwise it's insincere to work on a constitution while people are dying and blood is being spilled. Some political analysts link the violence with the failure of secret peace talks, thought to have been held in 2010, in Oslo between intelligence officials and PKK negotiators. The PKK took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984 in a campaign to carve out an ethnic homeland in mainly Kurdish southeastern Turkey. More than 40,000 people, most of them Kurds, have died in the ensuing violence. The rebels have scaled back their demands for more political autonomy for Turkey's estimated 15 million ethnic Kurds. In the latest fighting, one soldier and three PKK fighters were killed late on Saturday after the rebels attacked two military outposts near the town of Tunceli. More than a dozen people were hurt when an angry crowd stormed the BDP's local offices in the town of Bingol on Friday. The BDP denies any outright connection with the guerrillas and has criticized some PKK attacks, but opponents say it has not distanced itself enough from the group. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has said Turkey will halt its operations against the militants once they lay down arms. An outspoken critic of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Erdogan has accused Syria of arming the PKK in recent months. Kisanak disagreed and said fighting with the PKK had flared before relations with erstwhile ally Syria soured. "There is a tendency in Turkey to continually look for excuses to blame domestic problems on the outside," she said. Erdogan has signaled that some BDP lawmakers, including Kisanak, could lose their immunity to prosecution, granted to all members of parliament, after they were photographed last month embracing PKK fighters who had stopped their convoy on a road in the southeast. Courts have banned most of the BDP's predecessors for links with the PKK, and pro-Kurdish parties were out of parliament between 1994 and 2007. "There is now a serious risk that parliament will debate our immunity, pushing Kurds outside of the political process," Kisanak said. We need to keep the BDP, the Kurds, within politics to end the war and turn to dialogue and negotiations.

Pope welcomes new Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Williams" tenure included Benedict XVI's historic visit to the UK and last month he was invited by the Pope to address leading Catholic clergy from around the world in Rome. But Dr Williams recently acknowledged that the impending vote to ordain women as bishops effectively ruled out anything resembling a merger. Writing on behalf of he Pope, the Cardinal said: "Relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion are a hugely important part of the ecumenical call for all Christians to seek greater fidelity to the Lord's will, so clearly expressed in his prayer to the Father at the Last Supper 'that all may be one'. For almost 50 years, as you are well aware, there has been a formal theological dialogue which continues to seek a deeper understanding of the great heritage shared by Anglicans and Catholics, as well as the points of divergence which still impede fully restored ecclesial communion. During that same time, relations between succeeding Popes and Archbishops of Canterbury have been marked by numerous meetings which have expressed intense spiritual and human friendship, and a shared concern for our gospel witness and service to the human family. I am certain that under your leadership those excellent relations will continue to bear fruit, and I look forward to meeting you personally, and to future opportunities to share our common commitment to the cause of Christian Unity, 'so that the world may believe'.

'Lost Boy' refugees break cooking taboo Ayen's Cooking School for African Men Health worker found African men going hungry in Australia because they didn't know how to cook She started a cookery school for young African refugee men in Adelaide Her story is told in a film shown at Film Africa festival in London (CNN) -- Ayen Kuol is a woman with a mission: to get men into the kitchen. Kuol, a Sudanese woman, was working as a health worker in Australia, visiting newly-arrived refugees, when she came across single men going hungry because they had no idea how to prepare simple meals. In response, she set up a cookery school for young Sudanese refugee men in Adelaide, Australia. She is the subject of a documentary, "Ayen's Cooking School for African Men," which was shown in London on Sunday as part of the Film Africa festival. In the film, Kuol talked about a health assessment she did with newly arrived refugees. There was plenty of food, but they didn't know what to do with it. Ayen Kuol, health worker "One day I came across these four boys," she said. They were just lying on mattresses and I said 'guys, what's wrong?' They said, 'we're hungry.' I opened the fridge and there was meat, vegetables, apples, grapes. I said 'there's plenty of food, why are you hungry?' Ingredients 1kg of smoked bream 3 medium tomatoes 2 medium onions 5-6 tbs of oil 3 cloves of garlic Pinch of salt ¼ tsp of cumin ¼ tsp of black pepper 2-3 bunches of spinach 3-4 tbs peanut paste Method Separate bream into pieces. Roughly chop tomatoes, onion and garlic. Heat oil in large saucepan. Add tomatoes, onions, salt, garlic, cumin and pepper to the pan and simmer. Add bream to tomato mixture and continue to simmer. Separately steam chopped spinach. Add peanut paste to steamed spinach. Combine spinach and fish mixtures. Sudanese refugees began arriving in Australia around 2001, and more than 20,000 came in 10 years, according to the Australian government. Around 2,000 of those settled in Adelaide, South Australia. "Adelaide was quite a monoculture and then suddenly there was a rush of Sudanese refugees," said Sieh Mchawala, who directed the film about Kuol. Mchawala who grew up in Tanzania with a Tanzanian father and an Australian mother. Many of the new arrivals were young single men who had lost their parents in Sudan's civil war and had grown up in refugee camps, such as Kakuma Camp in northern Kenya. These boys are called the 'Lost Boys of Sudan,' said Kuol in the film. They don't know where their parents are, they grew up in refugee camps. They were lost boys in refugee camps, but they could be lost men here in terms of not knowing what to eat or how to cook or anything. Read more: Sudan's 'Lost Boys' reunited with the past Deeply entrenched labor divisions in the Dinka culture of South Sudan made Kuol's task a tough one. Not only were the men reluctant to try what they considered to be women's work, but the women refused to let men in their kitchens and made fun of any who tried. Kuol's own mother Koko Agot believed it was taboo for men to cook. "She has been telling me what I'm doing is against the law and if we were in Sudan I would be charged for it," Kuol said in the film. Kuol initially struggled to persuade men to take part in her cookery classes. No one turned up to her first class, and only two to her second. Alier Ateny, a youth worker who spent 14 years in refugee camps in East Africa, said before joining the class: "I'm quite confused about whether to go or not to go. If you go to a cooking class, you may end up not getting a woman to marry you in the community. If you cook you are a woman, you are weak. Ateny did end up going to the classes, along with around 10 others, aged between 13 and 30. Mchawala heard about Kuol's project after deciding he wanted to make a documentary about Sudanese refugees in Adelaide. If you go to a cooking class, you may end up not getting a woman to marry you. Alier Ateny, young Sudanese refugee I liked the idea of making a film that wasn't a sob story about hardship. It was a great opportunity to make something that was more uplifting," said Mchawala, 33. He said he had come across men's reluctance to cook in his own upbringing, but was surprised by how deeply held the views in the Dinka community were. "After hearing Ayen's story about finding a lot of men who were struggling to feed themselves, I thought there would be a lot of enthusiasm for the cooking school," he said. After around three months of classes, Kuol persuaded the men to hold a feast for the women in the community to prove their worth in the kitchen. Mchawala said: "By the end, they weren't going to be on Masterchef, but they gained a bit more confidence and were a bit more open to trying." "Ayen's Cooking School for African Men," released last year, was Mchawala's first film and throughout the making he continued working in two jobs, as a laborer and a barman. He has since made a film called "Barefoot in Ethiopia," about an Australian brother and sister traveling to Ethiopia. He also takes part in the "Big Stories, Small Towns" project, in which film-makers work residencies in small towns. The project won a community interactive award at South by South West 2012.

This is what happens when Scientologists come after you... Poor Suri - a 6-year-old girl whose mum and dad are now at war. I feel desperately sorry for her, and her mother. Her father believes he is defending his religion, which he thinks is a force for good. That has not been, to put it mildly, my experience of the church that L. Ron Hubbard created. When I went to the wars for a living, I was gassed, shot at, shelled, bombed and had two sticks of dynamite shoved up my nose. But never did I feel such fear for my grip on reality as I did investigating the Church of Scientology for the BBC's Panorama. Five years ago I spent weeks at the centre of the church's attention. Private investigators whom I believe were working for the church chased me around the streets of LA, invaded my hotel at midnight and put me under surveillance at breakfast. Strangers spied on my wedding and knocked on the doors of my neighbours. In the end, I lost it, doing an impression of an exploding tomato. I was wrong to lose my temper and I have apologised. John Travolta reportedly phoned up the BBC director general to complain about me. So I can only wonder at what Katie Holmes is going through now she has decided to divorce the church's number one apostle, Tom Cruise. In the 21st century, everyone has a right to believe in anything or nothing. But not everything that claims to be a religion is a religion. It could be, for example, a brain washing cult. For a start, a religion must be honest about what it believes in. Scientologists believe in a space alien Satan called Xenu, but if you ask them, their spokesmen deny it. The church, to be fair, says on one of its websites that I am "genuinely evil." Thank you very much. The very worst thing for Katie - according to former members of Sea Org, the church's holy order, that I've been in touch with in the past few days - will be the terror that her own secret thoughts about sex and love and despair may come out into the open. Scientology's version of confession is "auditing" using the E-meter, a kind of 1950s lie detector. What the Church often does is record E-meter sessions "for technical purposes." If you turn against the Church, your secrets can come out. A former Sea Org member, Amy Scobee, after she left in 2005, was denounced as "The Adulteress" by the church's magazine Freedom, which accused her of "wanton sexual behaviour." She told me: "It was difficult as a woman to deal with the backlash from the church. They hired private investigators stalking me, magazines were published to slander me. Her most intimate confidences were leaked. The details of how I had sex with my husband before I got married is not something that should go to a newsp aper reporter. They made it the world's business, by issuing it on the internet and in a magazine that went to 100,000 or more people. The church denies breaching Amy's privacy or the sanctity of the confessional. After Cruise married Holmes, they went on honeymoon with the leader of the church, David Miscavige. Cruise and Miscavige are great friends. They are both short men, like motorbikes and are deeply into Scientology. Ex-Scientologists claim that Miscavige is obsessed with sex and especially other people's sex lives. He is the potty-mouthed pope of a very peculiar religion, they say, sending cryptic text messages to his underlings such as "YSCOHB" - translation: "You Suck C**k on Hollywood Boulevard." This is the word of the Church of Scientology. The church denies that Miscavige abuses staff with obscene language, saying the allegation is beneath contempt. Amy Scobee's book Scientology: Abuse At the Top says that at the church's headquarters in the California desert: "The confessional booths are set up with video cameras positioned to be able to see the E-meter and the person confessing simultaneously on a split-screen monitor." She claims she confessed to a sexual act which Miscavige then knew about. I couldn't believe that Miscavige made this incident a joke around the base. This was not only embarrassing but a serious invasion of privacy and a violation of the priest-penitent relationship the church is meant to honour. The church denies any breach of the priest-penitent relationship. The church is accused of spying on Katie, of stalking her, of putting a big white SUV outside her safe house in Manhattan. It denies it, saying it has nothing to do with the church. They spied on me. I know that for a fact because the man who led the spying team - Mike Rinder, the head of the church's secret police, the Office of Special Affairs - defected to us in 2010 and told me so on Panorama. They spied on me in Britain. I've heard from a solid source that the church hired a team of private eyes here. I know the name of the company and have asked the House of Commons select committee on private investigators to look into it, with no success. The church denies spying on me. They spied on me in the US. Rinder and Tommy Davis - the chap I exploded at - tracked us down to our hotel in Florida, and then Mike tailed us across the US to San Francisco and then to LA. He knew where we were, what we were doing, who we were talking to. And at every stage he reported back to David Miscavige. The text messages between the three men are beyond surreal. Davis boasting: "We've worked out exactly what we are going to do to handle Sweeney terminatedly. Ml, Tommy. "Ml" stands for "much love." After Anne Archer, a leading Scientologist and the actress whose bunny got boiled in Fatal Attraction, and I clashed when she asked me: "Do I look brainwashed to you?" and I lifted my eyes to the heavens, this message was sent by Miscavige's office: "Were these ass rippings on camera? What did he think when Anne went after him for saying her son is brainwashed. Any other details you Generality infested CSMF? This was later translated for me as: "C**k Sucking Mother F****r." Frustrated that the church's agents could not stop me from doing my job, Miscavige's office sent another message saying: "YS! (You Suck) You just can't work or do can you? YS (You Suck) YS (You Suck) YS (You Suck) YS (You Suck) YS (You Suck)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! David Miscavige says the suggestion that he or anyone in his office monitored any such operation, communicating with Rinder and Davis, is absolute nonsense. Rinder told me this week: "David Miscavige seeks to control everything around him, including the life of Tom Cruise and by extension Katie and Suri. He helped arrange hiring Scientologists to work for Tom and of course deployed Sea Org members to do all sorts of things for Tom, from building theatres and sound systems and interior decorating in his house to designing custom SUVs, buses and motorcycles. The story about this being a 'marriage' of three people, with Miscavige as Tom's 'man-wife', is close to the mark. Anyone would find it intolerable to be in a marriage like that and it's surprising it has lasted this long. Rinder concluded: "Hopefully Tom will wake up and realise the insanity he has been part of. It's probably too late to save his marriage, but he may be able to resurrect some of his own dignity by stepping out of the shadow and freeing himself from the manipulation of Miscavige. Do not doubt the power of the Church of Scientology. It is worth billions of dollars and has friends in high and low places, as well as those who seem prepared to give it the benefit of the doubt or to work for it: Hollywood A-listers, the law firm Carter-Ruck, senior British police officers, a former Murdoch newspaper editor, TV stars like Jonathan Ross who wrote in his biography: "I don't think Scientologists get a fair deal. Scientology doesn't seem much sillier or more harmful than any of the bona fide longer-running religious games in town. Then there is the energy minister, Charles Hendry. The Conservative MP, whose Sussex seat borders Scientology's UK base in East Grinstead, told the Commons in July 2005: "Although Scientology may be very controversial, undoubtedly, as human beings they do a great deal of good... It isn't a cult." Mr Hendry said yesterday: "I am absolutely not a friend of Scientology. I have no connections with them except for the fact that 500 to 1,000 of them live in my constituency or just outside the border. I was speaking on their behalf as a constituency MP. My words were very selectively quoted by John Sweeney in the Panorama programme. By her actions, Katie Holmes appears to disagree. She must be very afraid, but I can't help feeling that what she is doing is right and brave and good. John Sweeney is a reporter for the BBC's Panorama

Ivory Coast - Newspapers Stopped - NYTimes.com Ivory Coast's press council has suspended all six newspapers allied with former President Laurent Gbagbo for up to two weeks for publishing content deemed "contrary to national reconciliation." The United States Embassy in Abidjan and Reporters Without Borders expressed concern over the suspensions, with the embassy saying the country "is best served when a diversity of opinions are freely expressed through the media." Raphael Lakpe, chairman of the National Press Council, said the newspapers were suspended for publishing photos of officials whom Mr. Gbagbo tried to name to his cabinet after he lost the November 2010 election to the current president, Alassane Ouattara. During Mr. Gbagbo's 10-year rule, newspapers that were allied with Mr. Ouattara, then the opposition leader, were frequently harassed. Many had hoped that when Mr. Ouattara came to power the intimidation of the news media would stop.

Afghan govt agrees to Taliban-US talks The government of Afghanistan Wednesday gave its blessing to peace talks between Taliban insurgents and the United States and to the opening of an office for the Islamists in Qatar. "Afghanistan, to save the country from war, conspiracies, the killing of innocent people and to reach peace, agrees with the negotiations between US and Taliban that will end up in creating an office for Taliban in Qatar," the government said in a statement. The statement said the government "considers negotiations the only way to reach peace and end the war and violence that have been imposed on our people."

"GMA" is #1 for the Week: Outperforming NBC's "Today" -#1 for 10 Consecutive Weeks in Total Viewers and 8 Consecutive Weeks in Adults 25-54 "GMA" Turns in Its Longest Stretch at the Top in Total Viewers in 19 Years "GMA" Continues to Grow Year-to-Year & Season-to-Date Among Adults 25-54 and Total Viewers While "Today" Declines Double-Digits ABC News" "Good Morning America" ranked as the morning's No. 1 news program in both Total Viewers (4.842 million) and Adults 25-54 (2.012 million) for the week of October 15, 2012, taking the top spot in all 4 weeks of the season to date, according to Nielsen Media Research. Growing week to week in Adults 25-54 (+5% - 1.909 million on w/o 10/8/12) to hit a season high, "GMA" turned in its top news demo performance in 5 months - w/o 5/14/12. "GMA" outdelivered NBC's "Today" (4.452 million and 1.795 million, respectively) by +390,000 Total Viewers and by +217,000 Adults 25-54, stretching its run as the No. 1 morning newscast to 10 weeks in Total Viewers and to 8 weeks in Adults 25-54. Further, "GMA" scored its longest Total Viewer streak in almost 19 years - since a 15-week run from w/o 10/11/93 - w/o 1/17/94. For the 4th time this season and in the past 8 weeks overall, "GMA" posted increases year to year in Total Viewers and Adults 25-54 (4.820 million and 1.932 million, respectively, on w/o 10/17/11). The ABC newscast stood as the only morning program to improve on the year-ago week in both measures as "CBS This Morning" was mixed (+3%/-7%), while the "Today Show" fell by double digits (-15%/-25%). For the 4th consecutive week of the season, "GMA" outperformed "Today" in all 5 head-to-head telecasts in both Total Viewers (Mon: +233,000, Tues: +367,000, Wed: +260,000, Thurs: +678,000 and Fri: +408,000) and Adults 25-54 (Mon: +154,000, Tues: +270,000, Wed: +276,000, Thurs: +268,000 and Fri: +121,000), holding the Top 5 telecasts of the week in both measures. Notably, "GMA" aired the No. 1 Adults 25-54 telecast of the season to date on Thursday (2.052 million - 10/18/12) Season to date, "GMA" stands as the No. In fact, "GMA" is leading "Today" by its largest season margin in overall viewers (+605,000) in more than 21 years and in the key adult news demo (+200,000) in 21 years - since at least the 1991-92 season and the 1991-92 season, respectively; Nielsen's electronic database started on September of 1991. Season to date "GMA" is the only morning program to grow in both Total Viewers (+3%) and Adults 25-54 (+4%) versus its year-ago averages (NBC's "Today" is down -17%/-26%, respectively; CBS" "This Morning" is mixed +2%/-1%, respectively). "GMA" nearly doubled the performance of "CBS This Morning" in Total Viewers (+93%), while more than doubling in Adults 25-54 (+108%).

Afghan Women's Affairs Official Assassinated by Gunmen KABUL, Afghanistan - The acting head of women's affairs in Laghman Province in eastern Afghanistan was shot to death in daylight on Monday as she was traveling to work. It was the second time in less than six months that the person holding that post has been assassinated. In the latest attack, two assailants on a motorcycle gunned down Najia Sediqi, the acting head, as she was getting into a rickshaw in Mehtar Lam, the provincial capital, according to Ahmad Gul Baidar, the head of administrative affairs for the women's department. In July, Ms. Sediqi's predecessor, Hanifa Safi, was killed when an improvised bomb exploded under her car - an attack attributed to the Taliban but never fully investigated. Before that attack, Ms. Safi had been threatened because she had protected a young girl who married someone she loved rather than an older man to whom she had been promised. Provincial women's affairs departments are the local divisions of the Afghan Ministry of Women's Affairs in Kabul. Those who head the local departments are very visible in their communities. Many families, especially in the traditional Pashtun heartland in the south and east of the country, are distrustful of empowering women, and the department heads face community censure, threats and, as in the case of Ms. Sediqi and Ms. Safi, even assassination. Zufenon Safi, who represents Laghman in Parliament, believes that both killings were carried out by the Taliban, who have gathered strength in the province. Elders and other local people say security has deteriorated in the area, whose control was turned over to the Afghan government by coalition forces last summer. "Targeting important government officials is part of the Taliban strategy to undermine the government's and the foreign forces" efforts in the country," Ms. Safi said, referring to the international coalition. She said the Taliban singles out women in government posts because they know that killing them will garner more publicity. "There is only one reason behind killing women: to prevent women from working in the government," Ms. Safi added. We should expect more similar assassinations in the upcoming weeks and months because they have threatened every female civil servant, including members of the provincial council and teachers. Another official was killed on Monday. The official, Hajji Musa Rasoli, the provincial police chief in Nimroz, in southwestern Afghanistan, was driving back to his office from a visit with his family in Herat Province when his vehicle hit a roadside bomb. He died en route to a hospital. An employee of The New York Times contributed reporting from Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

Wildlife charity to fund police unit tackling animal trafficking Animal trafficking has become a huge source of revenue for criminal gangs, says the WSPA. Photograph: Ted Aljibe/AFP/Getty Images A specialist police unit that fights wildlife crime is joining forces with an animal charity. The Metropolitan police's wildlife crime unit is teaming up with the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), which warned animal trafficking is a "major source of revenue" for criminals. It is the first time a charity has directly funded a Met police unit and it is hoped it will lead to more staff being recruited and trained in how to tackle wildlife crime. WSPA's UK head of external affairs, Simon Pope, said: "Without the specialist skills and knowledge of the WCU, wildlife crime in London could flourish. This is not some niche, illicit trade carried out by petty part-time villains. It is a major source of revenue for a global network of hardened criminals, gangs and drug lords, all growing rich from the trafficking of wildlife and none about to have a crisis of conscience and stop what they are doing. Sergeant Ian Knox, head of the WCU, added: "I am delighted that the World Society for the Protection of Animals has decided to contribute a significant amount of money to the wildlife crime unit. The extra funding will pay for more staff so we can be more proactive in targeting criminals who seek to exploit animals for financial gain. We will also be able to provide additional support and training to wildlife crime officers across London which will ensure that the Met has the capability to tackle crimes against animals in the future.

US Urges South Korea to Cut Oil Imports From Iran A senior U.S. official is urging South Korea to reduce its crude oil imports from Iran to put pressure on Tehran over its nuclear program. U.S. State Department official Robert Einhorn on Tuesday also urged Seoul to "unwind" its financial dealings with Tehran's central bank. South Korea restricts financial dealings with more than 200 groups and individuals with suspected links to Iran's nuclear program. But Seoul hasn't yet announced plans to cut oil purchases from Iran. Einhorn told reporters that Washington is sensitive to its allies' economic interests with Iran. But he says the world should pressure Iran into negotiating seriously over its nuclear program. Iran says that program is for peaceful purposes.

Ron Paul calls for 'love,' 'free market economics' in final address Libertarian icon and three-time presidential hopeful Ron Paul delivered his final address on the House floor Wednesday, admitting that while he sees little progress in favor of his defined cause of freedom, he sees a chance the tide can turn as he steps away from Congress. Paul, a Republican who leans heavily toward libertarianism and has served Texas" 22nd District intermittently since 1976, admitted that "according to conventional wisdom," his tenure on Capitol Hill has "accomplished very little." No named legislation, no named federal buildings or highways - thank goodness. In spite of my efforts, the government has grown exponentially, taxes remain excessive and the prolific increase of incomprehensible regulations continues," Paul said. Wars are constant and pursued without congressional declaration, deficits rise to the sky, poverty is rampant and dependency on the federal government is now worse than any time in our history. Paul painted a portrait of a country with "no loot left to divvy up," approaching a fiscal cliff "much bigger" than the one looming Jan. 1 and impending authoritarianism. Doom accompanied gloom in spades, with Paul's frustration with his inability to stem what he sees as the constriction of freedom evident as he spoke. It's rare to find a member of Congress speaking from the floor and condemning the nation's trajectory over the last century, accusing the populace of becoming beguiled by "endless" wealth, but there Paul was. "As long as most people believed the material abundance would last forever, worrying about protecting a competitive productive economy and individual liberty seemed unnecessary," he said. The only solution Paul sees, as he makes a transition from lawmaker to figurehead, is "an intellectual awakening," one that hearkens back to the founders" views on civil liberties and eschews what Paul sees as the collusion between Democrats and Republicans. Everyone claims support for freedom. But too often it's for one's own freedom and not for others. Too many believe that there must be limits to freedom," Paul said. They argue that freedom must be directed and managed to achieve fairness and equality, thus making it acceptable to curtail, through force, certain liberties. "The best chance for achieving peace and prosperity, for the maximum number of people worldwide, is to pursue the cause of liberty," he concluded. Paul's speech was met with some applause, but was ultimately overshadowed by President Obama's post-election news conference, which was already halfway over, and relegated to C-SPAN's online streams. Which, ultimately, seems appropriate for a man whose underdog status has drawn increasingly large numbers to his cause, and whose supporters frequently clash with the Republican Party establishment. In the end, perhaps nothing better summarizes Paul than a plea he made toward the end of his speech, in which he asked the nation to forego envy, greed and intolerance and supplant them with "love, compassion, tolerance and free-market economics." Follow Politics Now on Twitter and Facebook morgan.little@latimes.com

Spain's anti-piracy law may already be obsolete Mon Mar 26, 2012 8:58am EDT MADRID (Reuters) - Last year Spanish politicians were full of hope for legislation that promised to clamp down on digital piracy, encourage the creation of local online entertainment outlets and boost a sector which is among the bright spots in a deeply troubled economy. It may not work out that way. Since a new law came into force at the start of this month, internet traffic has anyway been switching away from websites providing links to copyrighted material, which were targeted by the law, towards peer-to-peer or content-sharing services instead. That trend has been set by the closure of Megaupload, the global file-sharing website shut down by the U.S. government in January, which was one of the main links to the Spanish websites the country's new law aimed to bust. Without Megaupload, many of the pirates have simply re-directed their activity towards peer-to-peer platforms to access copyrighted material. Such platforms are not covered by the new legislation and have been protected in Spanish courts. "It's going to be very difficult to close or try to close those sites when lawsuits have been dismissed," said Victor Domingo, head of web-surfers association Asociacion de Internautas that aims to fight internet censorship. Spain is one of the few countries where courts have declared that peer-to-peer sites can operate legally. This has left companies like U.S.-based Netflix still for the time being shunning the Spanish market, one of the world's largest copyright violators. Local companies say that hesitation leaves Spanish content demand unanswered. Internet has to be part of the distribution chain. There are more and more people who are willing to pay," Juan Carlos Tous, chairman of a Spanish version of Netflix called Filmin, said at a recent sector conference in Madrid. About half of Spanish adults admit to having downloaded audiovisual content from the Internet for free, according to a poll by the state-run CIS public opinion surveyor. The Sinde-Wert law, named after the Socialist and centre-right People's Party ministers who brought it to life, went into effect on March 1 but has faced sharp criticism from people on both sides of the piracy debate. Copyright owners say it is too weak and does not provide ways of reaping the potential benefit of the Internet, while internet companies claim it is too strict. But both sides agree consumers should have legal access to quality online content, raising the need for a fresh look at copyright law. "We have to try to find an attractive business model that combines copyright protection but also offers access to culture under reasonable and legal conditions," Susana de la Sierra, head of film and audiovisual association INCAA said. Intellectual property-related businesses and services account for about 4 percent of gross domestic product in Spain, which is facing its second recession in three years. Illegal downloading of film and music was worth 5.3 billion euros ($7 billion) in the first half of 2011, according to a report by research group IDC commissioned by a Spanish copyright lobby. Spain's Sinde-Wert law has attracted international interest as lawmakers across the globe succumb to industry pressure to find a sustainable model for online content over the long term. The closure of Megaupload came hot on the heels of two online bills in the United States - the House of Representative's Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Senate's Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act - which failed to pass amid fierce opposition within the technology community. "Spain is the only country in the world to implement such decisive action against internet piracy," U.S. ambassador to Spain Alan D. Solomont said a recent conference in Madrid. For both U.S. and Spain the road to recovery is innovation ... and innovation needs strong regimes to protect intellectual property. Yet in Spain at least, digital entertainment providers still want deeper legislation before entering the market. The issue of economic recovery is sensitive in Spain, where the jobless rates is nearly one in four. The technology sector is one of the few that posted jobs growth in Spain in 2011. The rise of advertising, which has suffered during Spain's economic hardships, on the Internet is an added push to find a definitive solution. Online advertising in Spain was worth more than 860 million euros in 2011, just behind newspaper ads at 1 billion and TV at 2.2 billion, according to data by consultancy Infoadex. Writing by Tracy Rucinski; Editing by Fiona Ortiz and David Holmes

Aurora 'Dark Knight' Shooting Suspect Identified The young man who is in custody after allegedly gunning down 12 people in a mass shooting spree overnight in Aurora, Colorado has been identified as local resident James Holmes, according to federal authorities. Law enforcement officials and witnesses told ABC News Holmes, 24, wore what appeared to be a bullet-proof vest and riot-type mask as he opened fire in a movie theater with three weapons at a midnight showing of "The Dark Knight Rises." In addition to the 12 deaths, at least 50 people were injured, according to police. A San Diego woman who identified herself as James Holmes' mother told ABC News she had awoken unaware of the shooting and had not yet been contacted by authorities. She immediately expressed concern that her son may have been involved. "You have the right person," she said, apparently speaking on gut instinct. I need to call the police... I need to fly out to Colorado. Local news reports showed aerial video of police cautiously searching Holmes' apartment, some five miles from the Century Aurora 16 theater, as the suspect reportedly told police he had explosives inside. Witnesses said that the man appeared at the front of the theater about 20 minutes into the movie with a rifle, handgun and gas mask. He then threw a canister that released some kind of gas, after which a hissing sound ensued, and he then opened fire on the crowd packed into the early-morning screening of the film. "We were maybe 20 or 30 minutes into the movie and all you hear, first you smell smoke, everybody thought it was fireworks or something like that, and then you just see people dropping and the gunshots are constant," witness Christ Jones told ABC's Denver affiliate KMGH. I heard at least 20 to 30 rounds within that minute or two. A man who talked to a couple who was inside the theater told ABC News, "They got up and they started to run through the emergency exit, and that when she turned around, she said all she saw was the guy slowly making his way up the stairs and just firing at people, just picking random people." "The gunshot continued to go on and on and then after we didn't hear anything," the couple told the man. We finally got up and there was people bleeding, there was people obviously may have been actually dead or anything, and we just ran up out of there, there was chaos everywhere. The FBI said approximately 100 of its agents are on the scene assisting with the ongoing investigation. ABC News' Clayton Sandell and Kevin Dolack contributed to this report.

At Israel School, Anyone Can Learn to Be a Prophet Instead of long beards and robes, they wear track suits and T-shirts. Their tablets are electronic, not hewn of stone, and they hold smartphones, not staffs. They may not look the part, but this ragtag group of Israelis is training to become the next generation of prophets. For just 200 shekels, about $53, and in only 40 short classes, the Cain and Abel School for Prophets says it will certify anyone as a modern-day Jewish soothsayer. The school, which launched classes this month, has baffled critics, many of whom have dismissed it as a blasphemy or a fraud. On a religious level, Jewish tradition recognizes a few dozen prophets from the biblical era - from the monumental figures of Abraham, Moses and Elijah to lesser known foretellers of doom and tormented questioners like Micah the Morashtite and Habakkuk. Tradition says no one can be a prophet ever since the Romans destroyed the second temple in Jerusalem in the year 70 and the era of prophecy can only be revived with the arrival of the Messiah and the temple's rebuilding. As one Talmudic phrase puts it, the only prophets now are children and fools. But also, on a philosophical level, how do you learn divine inspiration in school? And can anyone learn? "There is no way to teach prophecy," said Rachel Elior, a professor of Jewish thought at Jerusalem's Hebrew University. It's like opening a school for becoming Einstein or Mozart. Ariel Schalit/AP Photo That hasn't deterred the school's founder and sole teacher Shmuel Hapartzy, a follower of Chabad, a worldwide Orthodox Jewish outreach and worship movement that has come under fire because part of its membership crowned its late leader the Messiah. The Chabad movement in Israel has distanced itself from the school. Anyone looking in the curriculum for "Parting the Sea 101" or "How to Predict the Future" or even "Principles of Proclaiming A Jeremiad" will be disappointed. Instead, students learn about the meaning of dreams, the classification of angels, the mysteries of the holy spirit. They learn how to discern a person's inner feelings from his or her external behavior and appearance. Hapartzy can't guarantee his course will give his students a direct line to God. But, he says, the syllabus provides the essential tools to bring out the prophet in anyone. In the past there were prophets but even now, in our time, divinity is being revealed to everyone. We just need to open our eyes to it," said Hapartzy at his introductory course, which is held at a religious center in grungy south Tel Aviv, known more for its licentious street parties than piety. And graduates do get a diploma. There's little "profit" motive to the venture. Hapartzy said the token fee is to prove students' dedication and is donated to the religious center hosting the school. There's no application process - anyone who wants to become a prophet can do so by just showing up for the course. The school's inaugural class this month welcomed a mixed bag of 12 students ranging in age from 18 to 50. One man had scruffy stubble and wore a blue track suit. Another walked in with a guitar slung over his back. Others fiddled with their phones during the lecture or stepped out to smoke. Two had long beards and wore Jewish skullcaps. Darya Popdinitz, who drove in from Jerusalem for the course, wore a pink hat with dangling pompons. She said her knowledge of biblical prophets was limited, but she was "curious" about the course. "It's a real diverse mix of people," said Hapartzy.

Benghazi embassy attack was "deliberate and organised" WASHINGTON, Sept 28 - The top US intelligence authority now believes the September 11 attack on US diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya, was a "deliberate and organised terrorist attack." The statement by the office of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper acknowledged that it represented a change in the US intelligence assessment of how and why the attack happened. During the attack on two US government compounds in the eastern Libyan city, four US personnel, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, were killed. Shawn Turner, spokesman for Clapper's office, said that in the immediate aftermath of the attack, US agencies came to the view that the Benghazi attack had begun spontaneously after protests at the US Embassy in Cairo against a short film made in California lampooning the Prophet Mohammed. Turner said that as US intelligence subsequently learnt more about the attack, "we revised our initial assessment to reflect new information indicating that it was a deliberate and organised terrorist attack carried out by extremists." He said it remained "unclear" if any individual or specific group commanded the attack. US agencies nonetheless believe that some of the militants involved in the attack were "linked to groups affiliated with, or sympathetic to al-Qaeda." In an apparent reference to a series of contradictory statements by some top Obama administration officials, Turner said intelligence agencies" "initial assessment" had been passed on "to Executive Branch officials and members of Congress, who used that information to discuss the attack publicly and provide updates as they became available." One US official familiar with the background to the shifting intelligence assessments said the process of figuring out from scraps of intelligence who perpetrated an event like the Benghazi attack was "imprecise" and "evolving." Debate over whether militant groups planned the assault or whether the violence resulted from protests against the film insulting Islam has become US election-year fodder. Republican lawmakers have demanded answers about the incident from the Obama administration. Within hours of the attacks ending, some government sources in Washington were acknowledging they might well have been planned and organised in advance, and that members of two militant factions, Ansar al sharia and al-Qaeda's north Africa-based affiliate, known as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, may have been involved. But top administration officials later made public statements that contradicted that assessment. On September 14, three days after the attacks, President Barack Obama's press secretary, Jay Carney, said the United States had no evidence the Benghazi attack was planned. Two days later, Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, said preliminary information suggested the attacks were not premeditated and were protests against the anti-Muslim film that provoked demonstrations in Egypt. On September 19, Carney echoed Rice, saying, "Our belief based on the information we had was that it was the video that caused the unrest in Cairo and the video that - and the unrest in Cairo that helped - that precipitated some of the unrest in Benghazi and elsewhere." A day later, on September 19, Carney was still insisting, "Based on the information that we had at the time and have to this day, we do not have evidence that it was premeditated." But that same day, one key administration official moved back toward the assessment that the Benghazi assaults had been organised and intentional. At a congressional hearing, Matthew Olsen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, part of the National Intelligence Director's office, labelled the assaults a "terrorist attack on our embassy" and said the United States was examining information that people involved in the attack had connections to al-Qaeda or its North African affiliate. By the next day, Carney was asserting it was "self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack." In his statement on Friday, Turner said that while US intelligence agencies now believed the Benghazi attacks were well organised and deliberate, with some involvement of people connected to militant factions, it was not clear if "any group or person exercised overall command and control of the attack, and if extremist group leaders directed their members to participate."

Whitney Houston tribute comes to Congress Whitney Houston had a congressional fan.Tributes to the late Whitney Houston aren't just for the Grammys. They've come to Congress. Rep. Laura Richardson (D-Calif.) riffed on some of the pop singer's greatest hits in this ode to Houston, inserted yesterday into the Congressional Record, after the singer was found dead in a hotel bathtub: Mr. Speaker, where do broken hearts go? Millions of hearts broke at the news that with her passing, we lost one of the greatest gifts of all; the pure joy we felt whenever Whitney sang one of those songs that made us get up and want to dance with somebody. Yes, we almost had it all. We count four song titles there! "Whitney Houston left us too soon, but her remarkable voice will live in our hearts as one moment in time we will never forget," Richardson concluded. In other important Congress-loves-music news, yesterday's record also included a statement from Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) honoring Country Music Hall of Famer George Jones and another statement from Richardson paying tribute to the late "Soul Train" host and creator Don Cornelius.

Hadleigh oil depot fire treated as suspicious

First-responders recount initial chaos of school massacre First-responders recall chaos of Friday's Connecticut school massacre The worst memory is of the parents' faces waiting for their children The first-responders say nothing could have prepared them Newtown, Connecticut (CNN) -- Amid the chaos that first-responder Ray Corbo witnessed on Friday, there is one image that he will never forget. It isn't the woman who was taken to the hospital after being shot in the foot at Sandy Hook Elementary. It isn't the police officer he saw leaving the school's interior covered in someone's blood. What will haunt Corbo forever is the memory of parents lined up outside the firehouse just a few hundred feet away from the school, waiting to pick up their children. "As the children were coming down the street, little by little, classroom by classroom all holding hands, parents were claiming their children," says Corbo, the first assistant fire chief at Newtown Hook and Ladder No. After a little while, once they claimed their kid and signed them out ... they left. There were some sticking around and that's when we realized that they're probably not going to be leaving. They're gonna get the confirmation soon enough that they're not gonna be grabbing their child and hugging them and taking them home. Corbo's voice is steady, but his eyes glisten. Their life is changed forever. Corbo, along with Rob Manna, the department's chief engineer, were among the first responders to Friday's school massacre of 20 children and six adults. Manna was working less than half a mile from the school in the center of Sandy Hook when he got the call. "I was there very soon," he says. At the time, he says, he had no idea what he was walking into. Corbo and Manna were assigned outside the school, to an emergency triage area that didn't end up being used. Despite their combined nearly half-century of experience, the two men say nothing could have ever prepared them for what they have now personally experienced. "You get the initial dispatch, and you really don't know what you're coming in to, but for the most part, you're ready for it," Corbo says. But this time, it was not the case ... if you think you're ready for this, you're not. Very early on, it was determined that this was bad -- really, really bad. Police and paramedics, some clad in body armor and bulletproof vests, entered the school cautiously. "They had to find out if anyone survived ... if there was anyone to take care of," Manna says. Outside, it was mass confusion. Phone calls and text messages spread nearly faster than reports on police radios. It was chaos down there. Parents were coming from all directions. You could see the panic in everybody's face, because they have no idea what they're coming into," Corbo says. They were panic-stricken and trying to get to their children, but they were stopped. At the nearby firehouse, he says, he saw parents waiting in line for hours to pick up their children. "And there's no more kids around to take home," Corbo says. And you know, it's bad. They're gonna get some bad news. I'm sure they knew at that point, but there's that shred of hope there's somebody hiding in closet or they missed, but ultimately that wasn't the case. Corbo is a father to a first-grader and, had they not moved two years ago, his 7-year-old son Joey would have attended Sandy Hook Elementary. When he returned home Friday, the former Marine did what many of the parents outside the school could not. "'I love you' was the first thing I said," Corbo recalls. And we hugged a lot. Of course, he's 7 years old, so a hug in the morning is fine, and before you go to bed, but getting hugged all day long, he's wondering what the heck's going on. He'll understand someday. Manna says his grieving will come later. For now, (I've) gotta be strong. Today, Newtown is awash with emblems of tragedy: an enormous American flag, starkly silhouetted against the sky, flies at half-staff in the middle of Main Street. Just east, on the road that leads towards Sandy Hook Elementary, a host of 27 wooden angel statues sing a silent chorus on the roadside, a tribute to those who died Friday. Police say Adam Lanza shot and killed his mother at the home they shared, before carrying out the rampage at the school where he left 26 dead and also shot and killed himself. A small bright note is the overwhelming support Newtown has been receiving from around the country and the world -- including truckloads of teddy bears that firefighters are distributing to children's groups, schools and churches.. "The community will go on," Corbo says. We have to. There are still a lot of children in this town waiting for Christmas to come. You have to move on. For their sake, it's gotta be back to normal as soon as we can get it.

British woman facing death penalty after arrest on suspicion of trafficking cocaine in Bali Customs officials detained the woman, identified as Lindsay June Sandiford, 55, on May 19 with almost five kg (11lbs) of cocaine after arriving at the airport in Denpasar on a Thai Airways flight from Bangkok. We arrested the suspect after we found 4,791 grams of cocaine in her suitcase. She hid it in the lining of her suitcase," said Denpasar airport customs chief I Made Wijaya told reporters. "We conducted an X-ray scan on the luggage, found a suspicious substance in it and then examined it," he said. The cocaine has a street value of more than £1.6 million and Sandiford, who told officials she is a housewife, faces the death penalty for drug trafficking, Mr Wijaya said. Indonesia enforces stiff penalties including life imprisonment and death for drug trafficking. Two members of an Australian drug smuggling gang known as the "Bali Nine" who were arrested in 2005 are on death row, while seven others face lengthy jail terms. Another Australian, Schapelle Corby, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for smuggling 4.1 kg of marijuana in 2005, recently had her term slashed by five years after a clemency appeal to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The 34-year-old is due to be released in September 2017.

Middle East Challenges Obama's "Light Footprint" Marco Longari/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images A survivor of a September attack by Syrian government forces in Aleppo. The civil war is straining President Obama's strategy. The eruptions in the Middle East have posed perhaps the severest, most direct test yet of the limits of President Obama's signature foreign policy innovation during his first term, what the White House hails as the "light footprint" strategy. Sensitive to public sentiment that a decade of war had debilitated America, and eager to focus on economic problems at home, President Obama quickly embraced a mix of remote-control technology and at-a-distance diplomacy to contain the most explosive problems in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa. Strikes by unmanned drone aircraft increased sixfold, secret cyberweapons were aimed at Iran, and special forces famously killed the world's most-wanted terrorist and made night raids the currency of American force. For a while it worked. As Mr. Obama's newly fallen director of central intelligence, David H. Petraeus, asked so succinctly a year ago, "Who wouldn't want a light-footprint strategy?" But implicit in Mr. Petraeus's arch question was the recognition that the strategy has limited utility. And now Mr. Obama is under more pressure than ever to become engaged in the Middle East in a way that he avoided during the presidential campaign. In his own party, there are rumblings that he should intervene more directly to halt the slaughter in Syria - by placing Patriot missiles around the region to take down President Bashar al-Assad's air power - and to renew efforts in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process as soon as the current missile barrages can be contained. Overarching all those problems is the question of Iran, which has fueled the Syrian conflict in part to show that it will not sit idly while sanctions eat away at its oil revenue. Mr. Obama has already declared that he wants to start direct negotiations with Iran - but it is a last-ditch effort, his own aides acknowledge, to avert a military confrontation that they fear could come by the middle of 2013. Mr. Obama had hoped not to be preoccupied with these crises in the last weeks of his first term. The hope four years ago was that by now he would be reaping the peace dividends of extracting America from Iraq and withdrawing from Afghanistan, even if the mission was far from complete, so he could turn to what during the campaign he frequently characterized as "some nation-building at home." Since 2009, Mr. Obama has tried to avoid getting sucked into the vortex of Middle Eastern conflict and dysfunction that drained so many of his predecessors. It was a deliberate choice from the start, his aides say. Fresh to the presidency, he asked his national security staff to reassess where America was overinvested and underinvested around the world. The answer, his national security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, recalled last week, came back quickly: "We were overweighted in some regions, such as our military commitments in the Middle East," and underweighted in regions where America's future prosperity lay, notably elsewhere in Asia. That helps explain why Mr. Obama is moving ahead this weekend with a trip to Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia rather than burying himself in the Situation Room in a running conference call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt, whom Mr. Obama is leaning on to contain the militant Palestinian party Hamas and stop the predictable escalation of missile attacks. "We never considered scrapping the trip," one of Mr. Obama's top aides said on Friday. It's the difference between keeping focused on what's important in the long term and the urgent crisis de jour, which will always be there. To Mr. Obama's critics, the root of the seeming absence of American leverage in the Middle East today is a light footprint that was simply too light. "I think the way to understand Obama's approach - I wouldn't call it a strategy - is that he has a uniform preference to keep most problems at a distance," said Eliot A. Cohen, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies who worked for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign and helped develop Mr. Romney's critique of Mr. Obama's approach. That is what the light footprint has been all about. And it's run out of gas. Libya has become Exhibit 1 in that argument. Mr. Obama reluctantly committed air power to the ouster of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi over the objections of his secretary of defense at the time, Robert M. Gates, who warned that there was no direct American interest in the outcome. Instead, the president urged the Arab League and NATO to "put skin in the game."

New sex scandals hit Australia's military forces

Genetic advantages are rampant among Olympians We like to think of the Olympics as a level playing field - that's why doping is banned. But scientific research complicates this view: There are numerous genetic factors known to confer advantages in athletic contests, from mutations that increase the oxygen carrying capacity of blood to gene variants that confer an incredible increase in endurance, and these mutations appear to be especially common in Olympic athletes. In other words, we may want an egalitarian Olympic games, but it probably isn't in the cards. In the latest issue of the journal Nature, Juan Enriquez and Steve Gullans, a duo of forward-thinking biotech leaders at the firm Excel Venture Management in Boston, propose an alternative: Push the limits even further. They understand this may be unpalatable to the average fan, but they argue that the games are already full of biological competitive advantages. They write that "almost every male Olympic sprinter and power athlete ever tested carries the 577R allele" - a version of a gene that enhances performance. There are endurance-related genetic variants in some athletes that have been shown to be far more likely to occur in those who successfully summit high mountains, and less likely to occur in those who fail to. These genes, they argue, are quite common, and "athletes probably need a subset of them to achieve elite status." There are also spectacular examples of extreme abilities that are conferred from genetic mutations. In the 1960s, the Finnish skier Eero Mäntyranta won seven Olympic medals in cross-country skiing. Tests later revealed that he had a mutation in his EPOR gene, which improved his blood's oxygen-carrying capacity by somewhere between 25% and 50%. This almost certainly contributed to his remarkable streak of medals; taking supplements that mimic his mutation is strictly banned as doping. In the face of all these variants, Enriquez and Gullans write that we are already watching a cohort of the genetically elite when we tune in to the Olympics: "a showcase of athletes born with genetic advantages," they write. But, of course, some athletes' genetics confer more advantage than others. In the future, they argue, there are only two ways the playing field could ever truly be level. One would be to handicap individual athletes based on their genetics, a la Kurt Vonnegut's story "Harrison Bergeron." But the approach that is favored by the authors would be to allow for what is called "gene doping" - "to allow athletes who did not win the genetic lottery to "upgrade" through gene therapy." In gene therapy, genes are generally ferreted into cells by way of viruses, which allows them to integrate into a person's own DNA and begin producing new proteins. In the case of endurance athletes, one might introduce the coveted variant of the EPOR gene to improve oxygen-carrying capacity. Given the clear genetic advantages of many athletes, they argue, removing relative genetic "disabilities" just may be the only way to finally make the Olympics fair while still keeping them fun to watch. "After all," they write, "we watch the Games today to marvel at athletes who are "faster, higher, stronger" - whether man or woman, amateur or professional, "disabled" or not."

RBA faces currency flows quandary A significant increase in the pace of foreign currency accumulation at the Reserve Bank of Australia over the past three months has attracted plenty of comment and analysis, even though it amounts to a mere blip in the country's foreign exchange flows. It has been called everything from passive intervention to targeted money printing by local analysts, who attribute the A$1.3bn pile-up in foreign currency holdings at the RBA since August to purchases of Australian dollars by an "old-fashioned" central bank that prefers dealing directly with counterparts rather than via a broker. Glenn Stevens, RBA governor, indicated that theory is probably correct in his answer to an audience question after a speech on Tuesday in Melbourne: "Let's say that was customer business that we decided to keep on the balance sheet because the prices seemed attractive to do that at this time." By choosing not to offset the inflows via purchases of Aussie dollars in the spot market, the RBA has highlighted not only an important shift in global reserve allocations but also the difficulty central banks face in dealing with these powerful currency flows. Australia's standing as one of only seven countries rated triple-A with a stable outlook by all three major international rating agencies has made it an increasingly popular choice for central banks and sovereign wealth funds looking to diversify their holdings away from the US dollar and the euro. A relatively high official cash rate of 3.25 per cent is a further attraction. The Aussie's popularity with foreign central banks is set to solidify with its inclusion from next year in statistics handed to the International Monetary Fund by reserve-holding nations. David Marsh of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum says this seemingly "innocuous" move marks a new era in world money: the shift to multi-currency reserves. "The technical-sounding measure, reflecting the growing diversification of the world's US$10.5tn of reserves, is likely to exert wide-ranging impact on world bond and equity markets," he says. The IMF estimates the US dollar and euro make up 61.9 per cent and 25.1 per cent respectively of global central bank currency reserves. The effects, of course, have already been felt in Australia. Offshore investors currently hold more than three quarters of outstanding Australian government securities and the Aussie has remained above parity against its US counterpart in spite of falling commodity prices, slowing global growth and the RBA lowering the cash rate by 150 basis points since last October. Indeed, the RBA governor this week expressed surprise that the Aussie had not "declined much" given that Australia's terms of trade - the ratio of export prices to import prices - peaked more than a year ago. The Aussie has averaged US$1.030 since moving to trade above parity with its US counterpart for the first time over two years ago. The strong Aussie is creating problems for large swaths of the Australian economy, including the all-important resources sector, where large mining and gas projects are facing spiralling costs. Chevron, the US oil company, is expected to confirm in the next couple of weeks that costs at its Gorgon liquefied natural gas project, Australia's biggest-ever resources development, have ballooned by more than A$20bn to A$60bn in part because of the high Australian dollar. Analysts say a second wave of LNG projects worth an estimated A$150bn are under threat if costs cannot be controlled. Analysts say that by choosing not to offset the recent foreign exchange inflows and letting them pile up on its balance sheet, the RBA is signalling its unease with the strength of the currency and reminding investors that it does have the ability to act, albeit in a limited way. The RBA is not actively attempting to influence the level of exchange rate. But by electing to reduce additional demand for the currency in the market, it is "leaning against" the [Australian] dollar's appreciation," says Andrew Salter, FX strategist at ANZ in Sydney. To bring the exchange rate down in any material way would require overt intervention, says Mr Salter. He thinks that is unlikely because the RBA is aware of its balance sheet limitations and the credit risk of investing in US dollars or euros compared with the Aussie. In any case it is not clear that the Aussie is so overvalued that direct intervention, for example, could be justified given that Australia's terms of trade remain at a historically high level. At a recent appearance before the House of Representatives in Canberra, Mr Stevens said the Aussie was probably overvalued but not dramatically so: "We're not talking 20 cents" worth."

Madrid museum finds 'copy of Mona Lisa by da Vinci pupil' The discovery, hailed as one of the most remarkable in recent times, was made during conservation work and is believed to reveal how the famous sitter would have looked at the time. "This sensational find will transform our understanding of the world's most famous picture," said Art Newspaper which published the findings. The Prado painting was long thought to be one of dozens surviving replicas of the masterpiece made after Leonardo's death but it is now believed to have been painted by one of his key pupils working alongside the master. The Louvre original, displayed behind glass, is obscured by cracked darkened varnish, making the woman appear much older than her true age. Because of its fragility, cleaning and restoration is thought to be too risky. But art historians believe the Prado's Mona Lisa which is in the process of being painstakingly stripped of a dark over-paint reveals her as she would have looked at the time. "It gives a much more vivid impression of her enticing eyes and enigmatic smile," reported Art Newspaper. The discovery of a contemporary copy of the Mona Lisa painted in the same studio of the master and developing alongside the original has been accepted by experts at both the Louvre and the Prado. The sitter is generally believed to represent Lisa Gherardini, the wife of the Florentine cloth merchant Francesco del Giocondo and is thought to have been painted between 1503 and 1506. Ana Gonzalez Mozo, a technical specialist at the Prado, presented the findings at a conference on Leonardo da Vinci at London's National Gallery last month. She said that what was most exciting about the Prado replica is what it reveals about Leonardo's original. In the Madrid copy there are areas that are better preserved than in the Louvre painting.

Interface Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2011 Results (Nasdaq: IFSIA), a worldwide floorcoverings company and global leader in sustainability, today announced results for the fourth quarter and full fiscal year ended January 1, 2012. Sales for the fourth quarter of 2011 were $270.9 million, compared with sales of $265.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2010, an increase of 2.1%. As previously announced, during the 2011 fourth quarter, the Company incurred a restructuring charge of $6.2 million, or $0.06 per diluted share after-tax, related to initiatives to drive manufacturing efficiencies and better align the Company's expenses with the current market environment. Interface expects these actions to result in annual pre-tax cost savings of approximately $11.0 million beginning in 2012. Excluding this charge, operating income for the 2011 fourth quarter was $20.4 million, or 7.5% of sales. Including the restructuring charge, operating income in the fourth quarter of 2011 was $14.3 million, or 5.3% of sales, compared with last year's fourth quarter operating income of $29.5 million, or 11.1% of sales. Excluding the aforementioned restructuring charge, adjusted income from continuing operations in the 2011 fourth quarter was $8.8 million, or $0.13 per diluted share. This compares with adjusted income from continuing operations in the 2010 fourth quarter of $14.3 million, or $0.22 per diluted share, which excludes pre-tax bond retirement expenses of $43.3 million in the prior year period. Including all items, income from continuing operations in the 2011 fourth quarter was $4.6 million, or $0.07 per diluted share, compared with a loss from continuing operations in the 2010 fourth quarter of $12.4 million, or $0.20 per share. Net income attributable to Interface, Inc. was $3.9 million, or $0.06 per share, in the fourth quarter of 2011, compared with a net loss attributable to Interface, Inc. of $13.3 million, or $0.21 per share, in the fourth quarter of 2010. "We are pleased to report increased sales for the year, though sales growth moderated in the fourth quarter, reflecting the continuation of challenging market conditions and a pause in demand as customers digested uncertain macroeconomic trends at the end of the year," said Daniel T. Hendrix, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. In the face of difficult market conditions, we reduced SG&A expenses during the quarter, cutting $3.6 million sequentially from the third quarter level. We also progressed with our strategic investment initiatives and continued to see success from our FLOR consumer offerings, as demonstrated by its 34% increase in fourth quarter sales and the successful openings of stores in Houston and Brooklyn during the quarter. Patrick C. Lynch, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, commented, "The impact of lower production volumes, combined with raw material pricing that remained higher throughout the quarter, resulted in gross margin pressure during the period. While we raised our sales prices in response to increased costs, these price increases only gained traction later in the period and did not fully offset the increased costs we faced. We took further restructuring actions to reduce our cost structure, and we expect to see the full benefits in 2012. We are evaluating other potential actions, including significant restructuring in our Europe modular business, to expand gross margin and enhance profitability. While market conditions remained difficult, we exited the year well-positioned financially with a solid platform from which to invest in our future. For the full year 2011, sales were $1.1 billion, compared with $961.8 million in 2010, an increase of 9.9%. Excluding the restructuring charge in the fourth quarter, full year 2011 operating income was $93.4 million, or 8.8% of sales. This compares with full year 2010 operating income of $95.9 million, or 10.0% of sales, excluding pre-tax restructuring charges of $3.1 million incurred in the 2010 first quarter. Including the respective restructuring charges, operating income for the full year 2011 was $87.3 million, compared with operating income of $92.7 million in 2010. Excluding the restructuring charge in the fourth quarter, full year 2011 net income attributable to Interface, Inc. was $43.0 million, or $0.66 per diluted share. This compares with full year 2010 net income attributable to Interface, Inc. of $37.9 million, or $0.59 per diluted share, excluding restructuring charges and bond retirement expenses. Including all items, net income attributable to Interface, Inc. was $38.7 million, or $0.59 per diluted share, in 2011, compared with net income attributable to Interface, Inc. of $8.3 million, or $0.13 per diluted share, in 2010. Mr. Hendrix concluded, "Looking ahead, 2012 represents a combination of opportunities and challenges. We'll face some tough comparisons in the first half of the year, and we anticipate mature corporate office markets to remain choppy as customers are cautious about investing in the current macroeconomic environment. Helping to offset these challenges will be the benefits of our restructuring activities as well as our strategic investment efforts, as we continue to grow in emerging markets and gain traction in the hospitality market, and further expand our successful FLOR retail footprint. We plan to continue opening new FLOR stores and focusing on other consumer direct sales channels such as catalogs and the internet. Building on our actions in the fourth quarter, we will look for additional ways to raise our selling prices, reduce manufacturing costs and SG&A expenses, enhance the efficiency of our operations to protect margins, and ensure we are well-positioned both in the current environment and to take advantage of any sustained recovery in demand. The Company will host a conference call tomorrow morning, February 23, 2012, at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time, to discuss its fourth quarter and full year 2011 results. The conference call will be simultaneously broadcast live over the Internet. Listeners may access the conference call live over the Internet at: http://edge.media-server.com/m/p/nvb4t37v/lan/en or through the Company's website at: http://www.interfaceglobal.com/Investor-Relations.aspx. The archived version of the webcast will be available at these sites for one year beginning approximately one hour after the call ends. Interface, Inc. is the world's largest manufacturer of modular carpet, which it markets under the InterfaceFLOR, FLOR, Heuga and Bentley Prince Street brands, and, through its Bentley Prince Street brand, enjoys a leading position in the designer quality segment of the broadloom carpet market. Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: Except for historical information contained herein, the other matters set forth in this news release are forwardlooking statements. The forward-looking statements set forth above involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from any such statement, including risks and uncertainties associated with economic conditions in the commercial interiors industry as well as the risks and uncertainties discussed under the heading "Risk Factors" included in Item 1A of the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended January 2, 2011, which discussion is incorporated herein by this reference, including, but not limited to, the discussion of specific risks and uncertainties under the headings "The ongoing worldwide financial and credit crisis could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations," "Sales of our principal products have been and may continue to be affected by adverse economic cycles in the renovation and construction of commercial and institutional buildings," "We compete with a large number of manufacturers in the highly competitive commercial floorcovering products market, and some of these competitors have greater financial resources than we do," "Our success depends significantly upon the efforts, abilities and continued service of our senior management executives and our principal design consultant, and our loss of any of them could affect us adversely," "Our substantial international operations are subject to various political, economic and other uncertainties that could adversely affect our business results, including by restrictive taxation or other government regulation and by foreign currency fluctuations," "Large increases in the cost of petroleum-based raw materials could adversely affect us if we are unable to pass these cost increases through to our customers," "Unanticipated termination or interruption of any of our arrangements with our primary third party suppliers of synthetic fiber could have a material adverse effect on us," "We have a significant amount of indebtedness, which could have important negative consequences to us," "The market price of our common stock has been volatile and the value of your investment may decline," "Our earnings in a future period could be adversely affected by non-cash adjustments to goodwill, if a future test of goodwill assets indicates a material impairment of those assets," "The estate of our former Chairman Ray Anderson, together with other insiders, currently has sufficient voting power to elect a majority of our Board of Directors," and "Our Rights Agreement could discourage tender offers or other transactions for our stock that could result in shareholders receiving a premium over the market price for our stock." The Company assumes no responsibility to update or revise forward-looking statements made in this press release and cautions readers not to place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements. Consolidated Condensed Statements of Operations Selling, General & Administrative Expenses Restructuring and Asset Impairment Charges Bond Retirement Expenses Other Expense (Income), Net Income Tax Expense (Benefit) Income (Loss) from Continuing Operations Discontinued Operations, Net of Tax Net Income Attributable to Non-Controlling Interest in Subsidiary Net Income (Loss) Attributable to Interface, Inc. Earnings (Loss) Per Share Attributable to Interface, Inc. - Basic Continuing Operations Earnings (Loss) Per Share Attributable to Interface, Inc. - Diluted Common Shares Outstanding - Basic Common Shares Outstanding - Diluted Orders from Continuing Operations Backlog (as of 01/01/12 and 01/02/11, respectively) Accounts Receivable Assets of Businesses Held for Sale Property, Plant & Equipment Accrued Liabilities Senior and Senior Subordinated Notes Consolidated Condensed Statements of Cash Flows Adjustments for Discontinued Operations Net Income from Continuing Operations Deferred Income Taxes and Other Items Change in Working Capital Prepaids Accounts Payable and Accrued Expenses Cash Provided from Operating Activities Cash Used in Investing Activities Cash Used in Financing Activities Effect of Exchange Rate Changes on Cash Net Decrease in Cash Consolidated Condensed Segment Reporting Modular Carpet Bentley Prince Street Corporate Income, Expenses and Eliminations not meaningful Reconciliation of Non-GAAP Performance Measures to GAAP Performance Measures In millions, except per share amounts Operating Income, Excluding Restructuring Charge Restructuring Charges Operating Income, As Reported Net Income Attributable to Interface Inc., Excluding Restructuring Charges and Bond Retirement Expenses Restructuring Charges (net of tax of $1.9 million in 2011 and $0.9 million in 2010) Bond Retirement Expenses (net of tax of $17.0 million in 2010) Net Income Attributable to Interface Inc., As Reported Diluted Earnings Per Share Attributable to Interface, Inc., Excluding Restructuring Charges, and Bond Retirement Expenses Restructuring Charges, After Tax Bond Retirement Expenses, After Tax Diluted Earnings Per Share Attributable to Interface, Inc., As Reported Income from Continuing Operations, Excluding Restructuring Charge and Bond Retirement Expenses Restructuring Charge (net of tax of $1.9 million) Bond Retirement Expenses (net of tax of $16.6 million) Income (Loss) from Continuing Operations, As Reported Diluted Earnings Per Share from Continuing Operations, Excluding Restructuring Charge and Bond Retirement Expenses* Restructuring Charge, After Tax Earnings (Loss) Per Share from Continuing Operations, As Reported Restructuring Charge Adjusted Diluted Earnings Per Share for the fourth quarter of 2010 has been calculated using a share count of 64,831,000, which is the amount that would have been used had the Company been in an earnings from continuing operations position for the fourth quarter of 2010. The Company believes that the above non-GAAP performance measures, which management uses in managing and evaluating the Company's business, may provide users of the Company's financial information with additional meaningful bases for comparing the Company's current results and results in a prior period, as these measures reflect factors that are unique to one period relative to the comparable period. However, these nonGAAP performance measures should be viewed in addition to, and not as an alternative for, the Company's reported results under accounting principles generally accepted in the United States. Tax effects identified above (when applicable) are calculated using the statutory tax rate for the jurisdictions in which the charge or income occurred.

Study finds Detroit food choices poor DETROIT, Jan. 20 (UPI) -- Nine out of 10 food stores in Detroit are liquor stores and the convenience shops known locally as party stores, a report says. Metropolitan Organizing Strategy Enabling Strength released its findings Thursday to local officials and community leaders, The Detroit News reported. The group surveyed food options in the city from September 2010 through May 2011. "City residents are stuck between a rock and a hard place," Minsu Longiaru, who headed the effort, said. On one hand, people are being told to make healthy choices. But if you look at the food environment, those options are not available and not equally available to all. The group found 92 percent of stores that sell food are either liquor or party stores. They also found 38 percent sold products past their expiration date, 22 percent sold expired meat, 22 percent decaying fruit and 18 percent poor-quality vegetables. The survey also found many stores in the city are unsanitary. The city has had no supermarkets operated by major chains since two Farmer Jack stores closed in 2008. A few independent supermarkets remain open. Quincy Jones, head of the Osborn Neighborhood Association, said one problem is Detroiters do not know which stores are clean and provide healthy fresh food. He said residents tend to go to gas station convenience stores because they are easy to get to.

Which party will reap the boom? We've talked a lot about "the fiscal cliff." But the Congressional Budget Office's report on the subject estimates what you might call "the fiscal plain" scenario: The world in which we extend all the tax cuts, put off all the spending cuts, etc. The economy, they say, would grow by 4.4 percent next year. That sounds fairly optimistic to me. But let's assume, for a minute, it isn't, and that it actually happens. Then either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney, without introducing any major new policies of their own, would be presiding over 4+ percent growth. Politically, that would be huge for them and their party. The midterms would likely be a cakewalk -- you don't want to change horses mid-gallup, do you? And it would likely have the effect of legitimizing whatever their platform was. If it happens under Romney, Republicans will use it as evidence that policy uncertainty from health-care reform, and Dodd-Frank, and future deficits, was really behind the slow recovery. And if Obama is in office, it will be used to show that he -- and Keynesian fiscal policy -- guided us out of a difficult recession, and once Republicans stopped threatening to shrink the economy, we roared back to growth. barring an intervention from the Supreme Court, the health-care law will be implemented, and so too will Dodd-Frank, and Obama's legacy will be assured. This is very much the scenario I'm talking about when I say that the 2012 election is unusually important. Whoever wins it is likely to preside, as an accident of timing, over quite a bit of the recovery, and their program is likely to look pretty good because of it. This is what happened to FDR during the Great Depression, what happened to Ronald Reagan after Paul Volcker broke inflation and then unleashed a boom, and it's probably going to happen to one of the two parties in the coming few years. Policy matters, but so does being around when policy leads to a recovery. Of course, if we do hit the full fiscal crisis scenario, and we add a debt-ceiling crisis on top of it, things will get much worse before they get any better.

Inquest to probe claims of collusion in 1990 murder

Mayoral Candidates Oppose Fingerprinting Program The expected Democratic candidates for mayor may have their differences, but they are unified in their opposition to New York City's participation in Secure Communities, a controversial fingerprinting program meant to identify illegal immigrants. Last week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials announced that they planned to extend the program across New York and Massachusetts on Tuesday, despite opposition from the governors of both states. The program requires the fingerprints of anyone arrested by the local or state police to be checked against databases of the Department of Homeland Security, which include immigration violations. If someone is found to be in the country illegally, immigration officials may ask the police to hold the person to be picked up by federal agents. On Sunday, William C. Thompson, Jr., the former comptroller and 2009 Democratic candidate for mayor, sent a letter to President Obama urging him to reverse his administration's position. Saying that New York City drew strength from its immigrants, he said that the program would cause them hardship, while doing little to make neighborhoods more secure. "Studies show that this program does little to protect our neighborhoods," Mr. Thompson wrote in the letter. Instead, it drives many hard-working immigrants into the shadows of our society, thus actually compromising public safety. Last June, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said that New York was suspending participation in the program, because of evidence that it was having detrimental effects on law enforcement and crime reporting. This week, the governor's office said that he remained opposed to the program. Another expected mayoral candidate, the public advocate, Bill de Blasio, sent a letter on Sunday to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., asking him to stop the expansion of the program. "Local law enforcement requires the active and sustained cooperation of immigrant communities to effectively fight crime," Mr. de Blasio wrote. The implementation of this program intimidates immigrants, reducing the likelihood that they will report crimes or come forward as witnesses for fear of risking deportation. A third likely mayoral candidate, Christine C. Quinn, plans to hold a news conference at City Hall tomorrow along with other council members, immigration advocates, and clergy, where she will call on the administration to halt the activation of the program in New York City until it is significantly reformed. A fourth, Scott M. Stringer, said in a statement on Sunday, "I strongly urge President Obama and Department of Homeland Security officials to hear the calls of so many around the country and make this program optional for the dozens of jurisdictions that wish to withdraw. A state's participation in a program that targets its own residents should be left up to local officials, and not dictated from on high by Washington. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has not commented on the program since its extension was announced last week. However, a spokesman said that his administration would prefer that the Secure Communities program track New York's own criteria in dealing with requests from federal immigration officials to turn over prisoners at Rikers Island. New York City only turns over a prisoner if he or she has previously been convicted of a misdemeanor or felony; is a defendant in a pending criminal case; has an outstanding criminal warrant; is or has previously been subject to a final deportation order of removal; is a known gang member; or is identified as a possible match in the terrorist screening database.

Cities In U.S. And Europe Increase Security At Synagogues Following France School Shooting Police departments across the nation and around the world have beefed up security at synagogues following shootings at Jewish sites in France. Washington, D.C.; San Francisco and New York dispatched extra patrols to locations where Jews may gather, though law enforcement officials stressed there were no specific threats. New York had security details at more than 50 locations following the killings of four people at a school in Toulouse, France. Those shootings were done by a gunman on a motor scooter, and came after a similar assailant killed three French soldiers in the region. We have to be concerned about what happens overseas. We have a significant Jewish population in this city, and we have to take that into account," NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly said on Monday. "We know that we're the top of the terrorist target list, so we're concerned about the so-called copycat syndrome, where someone might see the events unfolding in Toulouse and take it upon themselves to act out," he added. The NYPD has primarily sent out an increased uniform presence to houses of worship and other locations such as the Jewish Museum and the 92nd Street Y, both in Manhattan. Security was ramped up in the nation's capital, though officials declined to give details. "As always, we maintain a heightened sense of alert," a spokeswoman for the DC Metropolitan Police Department told FoxNews.com. We have directed that additional attention be provided to schools and religious institutions. We cannot disclose operational tactics. The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement released yesterday that it is monitoring potential threats to the American Jewish community on an ongoing basis. "Currently we are aware of no specific threat to locations within the United States," a spokesman said. Other cities in Europe have taken precautions as well. In London, officials have sent out "security reminders" to Jewish communities within the city. The notice urges people to "ensure that staff and visitors DO NOT congregate outside your building, especially upon arrival and departure" and advises that "external security patrols (outer circles of security) should be implemented and/or increased especially at arrival and departure times." The notice also points out that threat levels in the UK remain unchanged.

Israeli Man Sets Himself on Fire in Tel Aviv Protest An Israeli protester is in serious condition after he poured gasoline on himself and lit himself on fire during a social demonstration today in Tel Aviv. The 52-year-old left a letter at the scene that states, "The state of Israel stole from me and robbed me. It left me helpless. Two Housing and Construction Ministry committees rejected me, even though I had a stroke. In the letter, he blames "the state of Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, for the humiliation that the weakened citizens go through every day, taking from the poor and giving to the rich. I can't afford medication or rent. I paid millions in tax, I served in the army and in the reserves until I was 46. I won't be homeless and that is why I am protesting against all the wrongs the state imposes on people like me," he wrote. Thousands demonstrated in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa and several other Israeli cities today to mark the one-year anniversary of the social protests. Ofer Barkan, an activist from Haifa, told Haaretz that the man was an activist in last year's protests and he had threatened to set himself on fire several times. We met him last summer. He was a completely normative person who lived in Tel Aviv, but then his business went under," Barkan said. He became a cab driver and suffered a stroke which left him unemployed. He moved from Tel Aviv to Haifa because he could not afford life in the city. According to Haaretz, protesters will hold a rally for the man Sunday in Haifa.

Motherlode Book Club: Ask Anne Lamott, Author of "Some Assembly Required" April 18, 2012, 3:02 pm Anne Lamott's "Operating Instructions" led a generation through becoming parents. Now, at 19, her son has a son of his own. What, exactly, do you ask a woman who's already written that "I thought such awful thoughts that I cannot even say them out loud because they would make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish," who has called her own mind "barely inhabitable" and added that "when people have seen you at your worst, you don't have to put on the mask as much?" It seems as if she's already put it all out there, including her story (in "Operating Instructions") of how, unexpectedly pregnant, single and scrapping by day to day, she had and raised her own son, Sam; and how, some 19 years later, Sam told her that he was going to become a father himself - not exactly the footsteps Ms. Lamott might have wished he'd follow in. The story of that baby's arrival and his first year, of Sam growing into fatherhood as Ms. Lamott struggled to let him grow, is the story of "Some Assembly Required." I interviewed Ms. Lamott and her son, Sam Lamott, a few weeks ago (watch the video here) and if you have any more questions - and I hope you do - now is the time to ask them. Ms. Lamott, mid-book tour, has set aside some time to answer. So, any questions for Ms. Lamott, as a reader, as a writer, or as a parent? Post them in the comments, tweet them, offer them on Facebook, and tomorrow, come back for (at least some) answers.

1st Session for New Islamist-Led Egypt Parliament CAIRO (AP) - With Islamists comprising the overwhelming majority of its lawmakers, the parliament elected in Egypt's first legislative vote after Hosni Mubarak's ouster nearly a year ago held its inaugural session on Monday. The convening of the new parliament is a significant benchmark in the timetable provided by the generals who took over from Mubarak for the handover of power to a civilian administration. It is also a step forward for Islamist groups on the road to becoming the strongest political force in the nations that experienced Arab Spring revolts. Islamists dominated elections first in Tunisia and then in Egypt, and Libya's Islamists are also expected to do well in parliamentary voting later this year. The Egyptian chamber's top priority is to elect a 100-member panel to draft a new constitution, which will have to be put to a vote in a referendum. The next major step in the transition will be presidential elections, scheduled to be held before the end of June, when the generals are due to step down. "The era of political exclusion is over," said Saad el-Katatni, an Islamist lawmaker from the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest and best organized political group. El-Katatni, secretary general of the Brotherhood's political arm - the Freedom and Justice party - was elected as speaker by a vast majority of the 508-seat chamber. The Brotherhood was banned for most of its 84-year history, legalized only after the 18-day popular uprising in early 2011 that ousted Mubarak. The elections, which started on Nov. 28 and ran into January, were the freest in Egypt in decades. The outcome of the elections reflect the strength of the Islamists in Egypt, a mainly Muslim nation of some 85 million people that has grown steadily more religiously conservative over the past 40 years. The Brotherhood spearheaded the Islamist victory in Egypt, winning just under half of all the seats. In second place to the Brotherhood came another Islamist group, the ultraconservative Salafis, with nearly a quarter of the seats. The liberal and left-leaning groups that organized the anti-Mubarak uprising garnered less than 10 percent of the seats. Several of these lawmakers wore yellow scarves saying, "No to military trials for civilians," a reference to the hauling of at least 12,000 civilians before military tribunals since the generals took over power in February last year. The Islamists' dominance was obvious in Monday's session, where many lawmakers sported long beards, clerical turbans or flowing robes. "We are here because the People's Assembly (parliament) is all Islamists," said Mina Samir, a protester in his early 20s who was among several thousand demonstrators near the parliament building calling for an end to military rule. Now we have a military power supporting a conservative power. That's why I am here. Some of the protesters wore masks made out of photographs of those killed or wounded by security forces during the anti-Mubarak uprising, or in subsequent protests against the generals. "Down, down with military rule!" they chanted, and, "No military and no Brotherhood." What was supposed to be a quiet procedural session turned briefly chaotic when some lawmakers improvised additions to the text of the oath they were taking in turn, provoking angry protests from the interim speaker, Mahmoud El-Saqqah of the liberal Wafd party. The oath ends with a pledge to respect the constitution and the law, but several Islamist lawmaker added "God's law" or "as long as there are no contradictions with God's law." Pro-reform lawmakers also improvised, with two of them pledging to "continue the revolution" and "be loyal to its martyrs." The convening of parliament is a moment of triumph for the Brotherhood, whose members endured decades of arrests and intimidation by Mubarak's feared security agencies. They won 20 percent of parliament's seats in 2005, but could not win a single seat in elections held in November and December 2010, thought to be the most fraudulent since army officers seized power in a 1952 coup that toppled the monarchy. I want to celebrate and make sure that no one ruins this atmosphere. Monday's session was chaired by el-Saqqah, because he was the oldest lawmaker. He began the proceedings by ordering lawmakers to stand in silence for a minute in memory of the hundreds of protesters killed during the protests.

Munich police step up their investigation into brawl between British boxers David Haye and Dereck Chisora The Londoners clashed at a post-fight press conference following Chisora's February 18 defeat by WBC champion Vitali Klitschko. Chisora was arrested, questioned and released by detectives at the time, while Haye left the country before officers had chance to speak to him. The Munich police department prosecutor has requested the assistance of British police in order to interview Haye for two months but the Munich police are now attempting to question those present at the press conference and are collecting witness accounts. The Klitschko Management Group passed contact details to the Munich police who have asked the media in attendance by e-mail to answer 12 questions. The questionnaire asks who instigated the brawl and what was said by each party. Chisora has since been handed an indefinite ban by the British Boxing Board of Control while Haye - who is officially retired - is not accountable until he applies for a new license.

Nine groups in line to snap up Parlophone Warner Music and a joint venture led by industry impresario Simon Fuller are among nine groups to have registered interest in buying Parlophone from Vivendi's Universal Music Group as bidding starts for the venerable British label that is home to Kylie Minogue and Eliza Doolittle. Industry sources said Universal had received nine "preliminary non-binding proposals" for the label, which it is being forced to sell to satisfy regulators" concerns about its €1.2bn takeover of the recorded music business of EMI. As well as the interest from Warner and Blackwell Fuller, a venture backed by Lord Jacob Rothschild's RIT Capital Partners and including Chris Blackwell, founder of Island Records, Parlophone has also received a proposal from Ronald Perelman's investment company MacAndrews & Forbes, they said. BMG, a joint venture between Bertelsmann and KKR, and Sony Music are also expected to take part in the bidding process. They have signed non-disclosure agreements but have not yet submitted non-binding proposals, these people said. People involved in the talks said Warner, Blackwell Fuller and Mr Perelman were also interested in the other Universal assets on the block, including the Sanctuary and Mute labels and the Now compilations. Vivendi will hope that the high level of early interest will let it recoup as much as £400m-£500m from the disposals, although some would-be bidders queried this valuation. A person involved in the talks said early indications were that the sale proceeds could achieve similar multiples to that paid by Universal for EMI. Universal has so far received 12 approaches for the non-Parlophone assets, including some from former EMI executives such as Jason Flom, ex-boss of Capitol Records. It is not clear whether it will seek to sell all the EMI assets in one parcel or entertain offers for separate labels. Of the assets for sale, Parlophone is by far the biggest, accounting for £260m of a combined £300m of sales in 2011. Universal made information about the assets available to potential buyers this week. Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs are advising on the sale. Mr Blackwell, founder of Island Records, and Mr Fuller, founder of the American Idol television series, are said to be keen to develop the "franchise rights" of the artists. Mr Blackwell developed Bob Marley into a global superstar and now owns hotels and a rum brand, while Mr Fuller managed the Spice Girls in the 1990s. Warner is exploring a deal because it wants to build a stronger position in Europe, while Mr Perelman is said to be interested in building up the "artist and repertoire" new music side of the business. Binding offers are due at the end of January. Additional reporting by Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson in New York

U.N. Panel Seeks Vote on Carnage in Sri Lanka Ishara S.Kodikara/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images Hundreds of Buddhist monks demonstrated on Monday in Colombo against a United Nations resolution calling on Sri Lanka to probe wartime human rights abuses. GENEVA - An American-led initiative calling on Sri Lanka to account for the carnage that ended its civil war three years ago has become the focus of a diplomatic dispute in Geneva and anger in Sri Lanka. The arena for the dispute is a session here of the United Nations Human Rights Council, where the United States has put forward a resolution calling on the Sri Lankan government "to address serious allegations of violations of international law by initiating credible and independent investigations and prosecutions of those responsible for such violations." Debate on the resolution is set to begin on Thursday. A United Nations panel said last year that the Sri Lankan Army, in the course of what the government called a "humanitarian rescue operation," caused the deaths of as many as 40,000 civilians in the final stages of the war against the Tamil Tigers insurgency. The panel's report found credible evidence that both sides in the conflict had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. Eileen Donahoe, the American ambassador to the rights council, said the proposed resolution was "exceedingly cooperative and collaborative in spirit" and avoided specific reference to those charges. It calls on Sri Lanka to put in place "constructive recommendations" made by a commission that the country set up in 2010 to examine the civil war, and on the United Nations human rights commissioner to report back in a year on progress. Ms. Donahoe said in an interview that the resolution was part of a "very genuine attempt to encourage the Sri Lankan government in the right direction," and that it followed months of bilateral contacts. Yet Sri Lanka is mobilizing to fight it off. President Mahinda Rajapaksa has contacted leaders of governments in Asia, Africa and Latin America to rally opposition to the resolution, diplomats say. The foreign minister, Gamini Peiris, condemned it as "strikingly divisive and polarizing" and "an initiative against Sri Lanka." And the country sent a delegation of more than 70 people to Geneva to mount a vigorous lobbying campaign at the council session. Sri Lanka already has an action plan for promoting human rights, Mahinda Samarasinghe, a government minister and special envoy on human rights, told the council at the end of February. What the country needs, Mr. Samarasinghe said, is time to make progress in rehabilitating the war zone, not pressure from abroad or a "redundant resolution" at the council. Human rights groups said that protests had been staged in Sri Lanka attacking the resolution as Western meddling, and the pro-government news media have denounced activists who favor the resolution as supporters of the defeated rebels. Sri Lankan nongovernmental organizations represented in Geneva have complained of intimidation by government delegates, saying they have repeatedly photographed the groups" members, even inside the chambers of the rights council. The complaints prompted an extraordinary rebuke by the council's president, Laura Dupuy Lasserre of Uruguay. The outcome of the debate is being seen as a test of the council as well as of Sri Lanka. In 2009, soon after the civil war ended, the Sri Lankan government surprised its critics by persuading the council to pass a resolution largely commending its approach to reconciliation, with backing from Sri Lanka's Asian neighbors and other developing countries. Diplomats and council observers say it would be harder to do the same now. Human rights groups have seized the opportunity to air allegations of continuing human rights abuses in Sri Lanka, affecting not just the Tamil minority but any critics of the government. Amnesty International released a report last week listing 32 abductions or disappearances in the country since October, and criticized what it called a sense of impunity for security forces. And diplomats say Sri Lanka cannot count on regional solidarity as much as before. Pakistan and Thailand have voiced their opposition to the resolution, but domestic political pressures appear to have pushed India, Sri Lanka's neighbor and ally, the other way. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told Parliament on Monday that India was inclined to support the resolution.

Tokyo Skytree stands tall - Telegraph The Skytree is now the city's broadcasting tower, a function filled since 1958 by the Tokyo Tower, a red-and-white structure inspired by the Eiffel Tower that symbolised the country's post-war development but now looks decidedly toy-like. The new tower has two public observatories offering 360-degree views until 10pm. The 200,000 visitors who turned up on the opening day testified to the fact that it has been taken to the nation's heart - the tower already has its own brand of perfume and an anime (cartoon) mascot, Sorakara-chan, a little girl with a star head. As my queue slowly snaked towards the building, the intricate latticework of the ice blue-tinged white structure, inspired by Japanese pagoda architecture, came into view. Not visible, but very reassuring, is its sophisticated anti-disaster technology, including lifts encased in hollow concrete tubing to halve the impact of earthquake vibrations. Among those there on opening day was Anai Mitsuko, a sprightly 64-year-old clutching a wide-eyed grandson by the hand. "I live nearby and have watched it growing taller every day for years," she said. Now it's finished, it's a relief. It marks a big change for Tokyo. Then it was time to see the top: staff in cartoon-chic uniforms of yellow and blue ushered visitors into one of four elevators that sped to the two observatories, at 1,148ft and 1,476ft. Views of dense white clouds failed to diminish the enthusiasm of camera-snapping visitors gazing through curved walls of glass. "The weather was not ideal," admitted Hirotake Takanashi, a PR manager for the tower. But on a clear day, you can see everything: Mount Fuji, entire neighbourhoods, even a stretch of coastline in the distance. The timing of the Skytree's opening is fortunate. In addition to revitalising the Asakusa area (containing, among other attractions, the Sensoji temple), the tower's completion a year after the earthquake and tsunami disaster has been seen as a sign of the nation's recovery. Mrs Mitsuko certainly saw it as a much-needed morale booster. "This area is going to change," she said, "and it will be good to see lots of young people visiting." Tickets for entry to the Tokyo Skytree up until July 10 have already been allocated via an online lottery system. From July 11, they can be bought on the day. It costs from Y2,000 (£16) to visit the first deck, and an additional Y1,000 (£8) to go to the second. For more information, see tokyo-skytree.jp/en/

US Republican makes abortion gaff The Republican candidate for the US senate in Indiana caused outrage by saying that if a woman is raped it is part of God's will. Richard Mourdock, who is a favourite of the conservative Tea Party movement, made the comments during a debate on abortion. He had been locked in a close battle with Democratic candidate Joe Donnelly but these remarks could amount to political suicide: "I believe that life begins at conception," Mourdock said. The only exception I have, to have an abortion is in that case of the life of the mother. I struggled with it, myself, for a long time, but I came to realise life is a gift from God, and I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape that it is something that God intended to happen. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who on Monday launched state-wide ads endorsing Mourdock, immediately distanced himself from the comments. The Republicans need a net gain of four seats in the elections on November 6 to take control of the US senate. More about: Abortion rights, Electoral campaign, Republicans, USA

Cubbies on Cusp of First 100-Loss Season Since '66 Even for a team with a record of futility unmatched in professional baseball, this season has been one of the most dismal in Chicago Cubs history. About the only good thing that could be said about a team poised to lose 100 games for the first time in 46 years - one of which came after the shortstop trotted off the field thinking there were three outs instead of two - is that the ugly baseball, at home anyway, is being played in front of fewer fans than in any year in the last decade. "I've never seen the kinds of holes (empty seats) that I've seen this year," said Kate Dahl, a bartender at Murphy's Bleachers, across the street from Wrigley Field, where attendance will not reach the 3 million mark for the first time since 2003. People can't give tickets away and the ushers aren't even stopping people from moving down into the box seats. While the 1966 team finished with 103 losses, this year's club has managed something no other Cubs team has done before: Upset everyone from fans to the mayor. Fans can't believe what they're seeing, not to mention the major league ticket prices the Cubs are charging for what looks to them suspiciously like a minor league team. News that the patriarch of the family that owns the team - which wants the city to help out with Wrigley's facelift - was thinking about bankrolling an ad campaign against President Barack Obama angered Mayor Rahm Emanuel so much that he refused to talk to the man's son, who happens to be the team's chairman. "I don't see anything out there that is encouraging," said Scott Turow, the novelist and lifelong Cubs fan. I'm embittered, to be honest. What makes it hurt even more is that it wasn't that long ago that Cubs fans, among the most optimistic on the planet, had only good feelings about their team. When the Ricketts family bought the team a few years back, fans rejoiced at the idea that finally the Cubs would be in the hands of true fans - a feeling that was only enhanced by the story about how Tom Ricketts met his wife in the bleachers. And Theo Epstein? He was the savior who would turn around another cursed baseball team, just as he'd done with the Red Sox when he helped end Boston's run of 86 years without a championship in 2004 and oversaw the team that won it all again three years later. Now, though, some fans see Epstein, who has unloaded some of the team's best players such as pitcher Ryan Dempster, as a big reason why the Cubs have lost as many games as they have. Winning the World Series for the first time since 1908 seems as far away as it's ever been. "Some people are angry at him because he's clearly tanked everything," said Al Yellon, who has a Cubs-themed website, bleedcubbieblue.com. Many fans were willing to accept a team with a losing record during what everyone knew would be a rebuilding process. But accepting a "horrible team" would be OK if the players took the field with some hustle and played solid fundamental baseball, said Steve Rhodes, a longtime fan whose Chicago-oriented website once posted a song about the Cubs called "Please Stop Believin.'" "But we haven't seen that at all," he said. This team has been so bad, it's mind boggling. Three years after the Cubs lost 103 games back in 1966, the team was fighting for a pennant - albeit a pennant that slipped away thanks to one of the biggest collapses in major league history.

25 top-rated Facebook games from 2012 Games can be both a welcome and an annoying diversion on Facebook, the world's most popular online social network. This year, Facebook crossed a big milestone - reaching 1 billion active users. Game companies such as "FarmVille" creator Zynga Inc. and Rovio Entertainment Ltd. of "Angry Birds" fame seek to tap into that vast base of users to gain more players for their games. This week, Facebook Inc. issued a list of the 25 top-rated games that launched on Facebook in 2012. The company says the rankings are based on user ratings and engagement with the games. It's the same methodology that Facebook uses to rank apps in its App Center. Some of the games are played on Facebook's website, while others are only on Apple Inc.'s iOS or Google Inc.'s Android devices using Facebook's app. Here's the list: "SongPop" (by FreshPlanet, on Facebook.com, iOS and Android) "Dragon City" (by Social Point, on Facebook.com) "Bike Race" (by Top Free Games, on iOS) "Subway Surfers" (by Kiloo, on iOS and Android) Angry Birds Friends (by Rovio, on Facebook.com) "FarmVille 2" (by Zynga, on Facebook.com) "Scramble with Friends" (by Zynga, on iOS) "Clash of Clans" (by Supercell, on iOS) "Marvel: Avengers Alliance" (by Playdom, on Facebook.com) "Draw Something" (by Zynga, on iOS and Android) "Hay Day" (by Supercell, on iOS) "Baseball Heroes" (by Syntasia, on Facebook.com) "ChefVille" (by Zynga, on Facebook.com) "CSR Racing" (by NaturalMotion Games, on iOS) "Candy Crush Saga" (by King.com, on Facebook.com and iOS) "Matching With Friends" (by Zynga, on Facebook.com) "Legend Online" (by Oasis Games, on Facebook.com) "Jurassic Park Builder" (by Ludia, on Facebook.com) "Dungeon Rampage" (by Rebel Entertainment, on Facebook.com) "Pockie Ninja II Social" (by NGames Ltd., on Facebook.com) "Jetpack Joyride" (by Halfbrick, on Facebook.com) "Social Empires" (by Social Point, on Facebook.com and iOS) "Bil ve Fethet" (by Peak Games, on Facebook.com) "Ruby Blast Adventures" (by Zynga, on Facebook.com and iOS) "Pyramid Solitaire Saga" (by King.com, on Facebook.com)

Cargo traffic jumps at Los Angeles, Long Beach ports A surge in cargo traffic at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach has officials hoping that the U.S. economic recovery is gaining strength despite worrisome signs overseas. Combined, the neighboring ports handled more than 1.1 million cargo containers last month, an increase of 9.8% compared with March 2011. Much of the strength came from strong growth in imports, which were up a combined 12.8% for both ports compared with the same month last year. "Hopefully, it means that importers are starting to replenish their inventories" because they think that U.S. consumers will be in a buying mood, said Art Wong, spokesman for the Port of Long Beach. Overall, though, people here are still generally pretty cautious about the months ahead. Los Angeles and Long Beach are the nation's two busiest container ports. About 640,000 people work in trade-related jobs in Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Imperial counties, according to Inland Empire economist John Husing. That's up from a low of fewer than 600,000 during the recession but still far short of the 709,000 in 2007. Some of the employment strength has come from a surprising source: manufacturing. Exports at the two ports were up a modest 2.58% in March compared with a year earlier, but the numbers have been so consistently strong over the last two years that they have helped reverse California's long decline in manufacturing, according to a report from Beacon Economics. Jordan Levine, Beacon Economics' director of economic research, said that California overall has added 9,900 manufacturing jobs since February 2010, when the statewide total had fallen to 1.2 million jobs. That was modest growth, but it followed a decade in which California manufacturing positions had plummeted 32.6% since 2000, when there were 1.8 million such jobs. Still, there have been concerns about the strength of the economic recovery worldwide. The International Monetary Fund said Thursday that it feared a slowdown in global trade because of continuing debt woes in Europe, a slowing in growth of the Chinese economy, high energy prices and persistent fears about the outbreak of more fighting in the Middle East. But several other recent trade reports and surveys of international trade players were more positive. A survey of 271 buyers and suppliers in global trade conducted by Panjiva and the Global Sourcing Council found that about 50% were somewhat or very optimistic about the global economy and saw signs of strong global demand. It found that 21% were somewhat or very pessimistic about global trade through the rest of the year. Locally, both ports had strong showings in March, with Long Beach imports up 18.3%, to 226,141 containers, and Los Angeles imports up 9.3%, to 324,758 containers. Long Beach exports grew 9.9% to 144,838 containers while exports fell 2.4% at Los Angeles to 188,156 containers. The March numbers were strong enough to kick both ports into positive territory for the first quarter of the year. In the first three months of 2012, the two ports combined moved 3.18 million containers, up 0.6% compared with the same period last year.

How the IMF reasserted its power in Greece's debt crisis On a crisp day last October, the prime minister of Greece, George Papandreou, strode along a red carpet into an emergency summit of European leaders in Brussels and boasted to reporters of his government's "superhuman" response to its debt crisis. But in the private reports flowing from Athens, the International Monetary Fund's point person for Greece, Poul Thomsen, could see a different reality unfolding. Greece was stiffing government contractors as a way to make its books look better, one set of data revealed. Other figures showed the government was financing its daily operations with debt, like a family paying for food with a home-equity loan. And Greece was making only halting progress in fulfilling its pledge to reduce public payrolls, shutdown money-losing state-owned companies and enforce tax laws. Greece had made a long list of promises in return for emergency help from the IMF and other European countries, but agency officials increasingly felt they were being taken for a ride. Having extended the country record amounts of money, the agency was in so deep that it could not just walk away. Nor could it continue pouring good money after bad. Over the decades since its creation after World War II, the IMF has taken on responsibility for ensuring the health of the global economy. The agency has repeatedly rescued teetering governments and restored confidence to panicked markets by coupling its unrivaled expertise with money provided by member countries, most prominently the United States. But the debt crisis roiling Europe - and threatening to snuff out the U.S. economic recovery - has challenged the IMF like no previous upheaval. By last fall, with the Greek debt disease spreading to larger European countries, there was a real risk that the world economy no longer had an effective backstop. The worsening situation in Greece recalled the IMF's traumatic experience a decade earlier with a major assistance program for the government of Argentina. After that effort collapsed, the agency's internal auditors found that the program had continued well after it became clear that Argentine authorities were not living up to the agency's conditions and had taken "multiple policy initiatives that the IMF viewed as misguided but felt compelled to endorse." Argentina had continued to receive loan installments based on political considerations, not economic ones, the auditors concluded. The prime lesson was that in future rescue programs, the IMF should have a clear strategy for exiting if local officials refused to deliver on promised reforms. This story, based on interviews with more than 20 principal officials from inside and outside the IMF, is an account of how the agency once again became entangled in a failing rescue effort. It is also the story of how the agency, under the stewardship of its new chief, Christine Lagarde, eventually reasserted control with a tougher line towards Greece and increasingly hard-nosed diplomacy with other European governments.

Best Video Games of 2012 A look back at some of the best video games and game consoles of 2012.

Netflix discussing deal with ex-HBO Films chief Colin Callender Netflix is discussing a partnership with former HBO Films president Colin Callender to produce original content, including mini-series and movies, for the online video service, according to three people with knowledge of the talks who are not authorized to speak about them publicly. Should a deal be reached, it would accelerate Netflix's growing resemblance to pay cable network HBO, where Callender worked for two decades and played a pivotal role in its award-winning programming success. He left amid a management shake-up at the Time Warner Inc.-owned cable network in 2008. After amassing more than 20 million subscribers with a large selection of older movies and television reruns, Netflix has recently moved into original programming. The company launched its first series, "Lilyhammer," this month, and has at least five other shows in the works, including a political drama starring Kevin Spacey and a revival of Fox's sitcom "Arrested Development." If he strikes an arrangement with Netflix, Callender would produce the first original mini-series and/or movies for its popular online streaming service. Netflix is using original programming to help draw and retain subscribers as it faces increasing competition among on-demand online providers of films and TV reruns. Similarly, HBO started off airing movies following their theatrical runs and then moved into original programs, building its brand with popular series such as "The Larry Sanders Show," "Sex and the City" and "The Sopranos." The pay cable channel also regularly airs original movies and mini-series such as last year's "Mildred Pierce," for which star Kate Winslet won Emmy, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards. During his tenure at HBO Films, Callender oversaw such acclaimed mini-series and original movies as "John Adams," "The Pacific," "Empire Falls" starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, and "Recount" with Spacey. Under his oversight, HBO Films not only produced TV movies and mini-series, but theatrical releases that included "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," "Maria Full of Grace" and "American Splendor." In 2010, Callender formed his own Beverly Hills-based film, television and theater production company Playground Entertainment Netflix has been aggressively pursuing new content deals as some of its most prominent arrangements for exclusive rights to movies are coming to an end. A deal with pay cable channel Starz that gave Netflix access to films from Sony Pictures and Walt Disney Pictures expires at the end of this month, and one with Epix that gives Netflix users movies from Lionsgate and Paramount Pictures will become non-exclusive in September. Original movies or mini-series produced by Callender could help to fill that hole. Reached by email, Callender declined to comment, as did a spokesman for Netflix. Netflix stock surges 22% after strong earnings Netflix deal with Warner Bros. includes delay on queues Photo: Colin Callender. Credit: HBO

It really was fun while it lasted for the Clippers I'm sitting here watching a game the Clippers have no chance of winning and it's still a hoot. Who gets up for a game when already down three games to none to the Spurs and losing the last one after being up by 24? The Clippers should be deflated, but they are winning, 75-74, after three quarters. Their playoff run is over, and yet they don't seem to know it. Inspired effort is what fans have been getting from the Clippers all season long, and right now there are 19,000 fans on their feet. They had to come here knowing this was doomsday. Yet everyone in Lob City is wearing red again, the place alive with noise and so this is what it's like to have fun at a basketball game. You forget that when you're a Lakers fan. Winning is the only thing that is fun. Winning championships, as we're repeatedly reminded, is the only thing that counts. But who had a better time this season, Clippers or Lakers fans? How does anyone root for the Lakers? I understand history, tradition and all those trophies, but right now how does anyone invest everything they have in these players? What is it like to expend so much energy loving the Lakers and getting Andrew Bynum in return? Do you think that for one second of his life he gives a rip about any of you? The Clippers are not the Lakers, and probably never will be as long as most of us live. But name the last time fun and Lakers were mentioned in the same sentence? Anything but winning seems to result in anger, fans wanting Coach Mike Brown fired and the players now pointing fingers at each other. Chris Paul is every bit as competitive as Kobe Bryant. But I can't imagine Paul throwing blame Blake Griffin's way as Bryant has done with Pau Gasol. If Griffin turned the ball over, somehow got it back and missed the shot, or stepped out of bounds or forgot to shoot and the clock ran out, Paul would say it was all his fault. But when Gasol made an errant pass, according to Plaschke's online column, Bryant told reporters: "It was a bad read. A kid does that in high school and he gets reprimanded by his coach, his parents and his teammates for singling out a teammate. Yet Bryant goes on. Pau has to be more assertive; he's got to be more aggressive. All that's true, and add in the frustration that comes with cheering for Gasol while he whines about every foul called and plays so soft at times. But after a stinging defeat, to get stung again by a teammate -- and a teammate of Bryant's caliber -- is too much.

Germany to cut solar power subsidies An protester wearing a mask of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and looking through a torn solar panel demonstrates in Berlin against plans to cut subsidies for solar energy. Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images You can have too much of a good thing, it turns out. The German government has said it has been forced to cut subsidies for solar panels, because demand was so high it could no longer afford to support the green technology. Friday's announcement has left Germans rushing to install solar panels on buildings ahead of the planned cut in subsidies of up to 30%. The government has explained its decision as a way of slowing the rapid growth in the sector, saying it was one of Germany's success stories, but had been allowed to grow too fast and had been too heavily subsidised. "We've already seen a huge reduction in the incentives in the past few years but the incentives were still too high," the environment minister, Norbert Röttgen, said. Solar is a success story made in Germany. We want it to be an acceptable technology not only in the future but right now but the cost factor has to be at acceptable levels. Environmentalists, renewable energy experts and industry representatives have expressed incredulity at the 30% cut from 9 March, following earlier cuts of up to 50% over the past three years. They said it was a huge blow for the fledgling industry and a contradiction in terms for a country planning to phase out nuclear power. "This plan amounts to nothing less than a solar phase-out law," said David Wedepohl, spokesman for the German Solar Industry Association, which represents 800 solar companies. Under these circumstances there's no way that the transition of the energy industry can be successful. It's also putting tens of thousands of jobs at risk, and it's tough both on investors and on citizens who want to be part of the energy transformation. Germany is the world's top installer of photovoltaic power, with a capacity of around 25,000 megawatts, almost as much as the rest of the world put together. It added a record 7,500 megawatts in 2011. The sun provides from 3.2% to - on sunny days at midday- up to 25% of Germany's energy. Wedepohl admitted: "You could say we are the victims of our own success. The costs of solar energy have come down immensely due to technological development and scaleability so we're scratching our heads and wondering: why stop supporting this now? Germany has seen a huge increase in use of solar panels over the last two years, thanks to a subsidy system that utility companies are obliged to pay to people who generate their own solar power, which is then pumped into the grid. Power companies pass on the costs to their customers in their electricity bill. At a time of rising prices the government argues that it has to lessen the financial impact on consumers by decreasing the subsidies. The solar sector boom has seen everyone from farms to kindergartens making the most of the opportunities to erect solar panels on their roofs. There has even been a trend to form co-operatives and rent space on the roof of public buildings that have installed panels, such as swimming pools or schools. There are now 1.1m such systems in Germany. The proposed cuts would see the feed in tariff subsidy falling to 19.5 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) for small plants, and to 13.5 cents for plants of up to 10 megawatts. German retail electricity prices are between 21 and 24 cents per kWh. The decision must still pass through the cabinet and parliament but political observers believe it is likely to be approved. On Monday thousands of demonstrators are planning to gather at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate to protest under the banner "Stop the Solar Phase Out." At a time when solar power is on the verge of costing the same as conventional power, due in large part to the fall in the costs of solar panels and their installation, renewable energy sector representatives have expressed their suspicions that the cuts are an attempt to appease the major energy companies who are losing out greatly to renewables, particularly since the decision last year to phase out nuclear power following the Fukishima disaster in Japan. "We're taking a part of the market away for large electricity suppliers," said Wedepohl. But as a country we made a decision after Fukishima to phase out nuclear energy, so we need a lot of power.

Sweden 1912: For Marathoners, a Breath of Fresh Air One hundred years ago the Summer Olympics were held in Stockholm. A letter reprinted from The London Times from a prominent British zoologist named Edwin Ray Lankester proposes the idea that runners in the marathon should be allowed to carry bags of oxygen as they race to help them breathe better. The letter writer equates this action with nourishment like "water or soup." Oh science - so very cute back then.

Photo Package: Cubans Honor Saint Barbara Cubans paid tribute to Saint Barbara and the Santeria deity Chango on Wednesday with offerings of flowers, fruit, burning candles, drumming and animal sacrifices. Chango is the orisha - spirit or deity in the Afro-Cuban religion of Santeria - of lightning, fire and war, and is associated with Saint Barbara. Believers hold ceremonies for "protection" from evil on Saint Barbara's feast day, which is held every Dec. 4 in Cuba. Experts say as many as 80 percent of Cubans observe some kind of Santeria.

Alex Salmond in formal complaint over BBC Calcutta Cup "snub" By ANDREW WHITAKER Published on Friday 10 February 2012 00:00 ALEX Salmond is to make a formal complaint to the governing body of the BBC over his controversial exclusion from a rugby broadcast. The First Minister's move follows a meeting with the chairman of the governing body, Lord Patten, who told him it would be "legitimate" for him to take the step. Lord Patten said it was not in "anyone's interest" to have incidents such as the row that saw Mr Salmond use the term "Gauleiter" - the name for a regional Nazi party leader - to describe BBC political adviser Ric Bailey, after the SNP leader was blocked from appearing on a sports show ahead of the Six Nations clash between Scotland and England. Mr Salmond said submitting a complaint would be a "very helpful way to progress," and the SNP administration would now send a dossier to the BBC highlighting concerns about the "way the independence debate had been portrayed" in broadcasts, with what he said was "extraordinary language," such as "separatism" and talk about "breakaways" from the UK. Lord Patten's intervention followed talks with Mr Salmond at Holyrood yesterday, where the BBC Trust chairman also promised to discuss new "ground rules" for coverage of the independence referendum, amid SNP concerns about the corporation's coverage of the run-up to the vote. Former Conservative Party chairman Lord Patten said he would "adjudicate" over the complaint on the dispute that saw Mr Salmond excluded from the broadcast, after a judgment was made by BBC officials that the Scotland-England match was not an appropriate setting in which to give one single political leader "that level of prominence." A spokesman for the First Minister said the "implication is that politicians can't be on sports-related outputs" - a move that would mean Mr Salmond would be unable to appear on TV and radio coverage of the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and the Ryder Cup at Gleneagles during the same year. The spokesman said that Mr Salmond now wanted "absolute clarity" about the appearance of political leaders on broadcasts to discuss sport, after Prime Minister David Cameron was yesterday "quoted extensively" on the BBC during coverage about the resignation of the England football manager, Fabio Capello. Lord Patten, who served as the governor of Hong Kong and is a former Tory Cabinet minister, said the formal complaint route was a way of tidying up the row. He said: "The First Minister has a specific complaint about the Calcutta Cup and the way his non-interview was handled. I've suggested that he should make a proper, formal complaint, or rather the government perhaps should on his behalf. It will eventually come to us at the trust to adjudicate on. I think that is the way in which we can deal with that. It's not in anyone's interests that we get incidents like the Calcutta Cup one every week. The First Minister has a complaint to make, and it's legitimate that he put that to us. The talks were held on the same day as Mr Salmond faced fresh calls at First Minister's Questions to apologise for the Nazi jibe, with Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson claiming that the SNP leader was embroiled in a "petty sideshow" over the row. Mr Salmond said: "On the specific issue of Murrayfield and what Lord Patten described as the non-interview, it was suggested that we take that to a specific complaint. That's a very helpful way to progress. Lord Patten had also promised to hold talks with the BBC director-general, the Scottish Government and the opposition parties at Holyrood surrounding the "rules of engagement" on how the referendum would be covered by the broadcaster. He said: "We agreed it was important for us to agree with the First Minister's party and others the terms of engagement in dealing with issues in the run-up, not only to the local elections, but to the referendum in a couple of years" time. I'll be discussing how we can best do that with the director-general of the BBC. The First Minister put some serious concerns he had about the balance of our reporting of the referendum issue and other issues associated with it, which we will look at with the executive of the BBC.

Mississippi high court upholds Barbour pardons From Rich Phillips, CNN March 8, 2012 -- Updated 2141 GMT (0541 HKT) NEW: Mississippi's attorney general has said a state Supreme Court ruling would be the final word Mississippi's high court upholds the Barbour pardons in a 6-3 ruling "He wanted everyone to know he was the big man, and he proved it," a victim's sister says A dissenting justice called the outcome a win for "lawless convicted felons" (CNN) -- Mississippi's Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the controversial pardons of more than 200 convicts that former Gov. Haley Barbour granted on his way out of office, rejecting a challenge by the state's attorney general. In a 77-page, 6-3 ruling Thursday afternoon, the court found the pardons "may not be set aside or voided by the judicial branch." Attorney General Jim Hood had argued that no proper notice had been posted in newspapers, but the court found the final decision rested "solely with the governor." "We are mindful that the victims and their families are entitled to be interested in the subject matter of this case, and they are undoubtedly -- and understandably -- concerned with its outcome," Justice Jess Dickinson wrote for the majority. But in the cases before them, "It fell to the governor alone to decide whether the Constitution's publication requirement was met." In a dissenting opinion, Justice Michael Randolph called the decision "a stunning victory for some lawless convicted felons, and an immeasurable loss for the law-abiding citizens of our state." Hood argued that the state Constitution required that for a pardon to be valid, notices be filed, each day, for 30 days in newspapers where their crimes were committed. But during a February Supreme Court hearing, Barbour's lawyers argued that previous state court rulings had found the 30-day notice rule was "an unconstitutional encroachment" on the governor's power. Hood was reviewing the opinion and had no immediate comment on the decision Thursday, his office said. He had told reporters earlier that he believed a state Supreme Court ruling would end the case. Among the 214 inmates Barbour pardoned before he left office in January were four convicted murderers who had worked as "trusties" at the governor's mansion. Critics argued that the governor failed to consider the families of their victims before freeing them. All four have remained free while the issue worked their way through the courts, with their whereabouts monitored daily since January. They are now free under Thursday's decision, and five other inmates who had remained behind bars awaiting a ruling will be released soon. One of the pardoned trusties was David Gatlin, who had been serving a life sentence for killing his estranged wife Tammy while she held their 6-week-old baby. The victim's sister, Tiffany Brewer, called the ruling "so unfair." "Obviously all the laws in the Constitution don't have to be followed," she told CNN, as she fought through her tears. I feel like my sister was let down. I think Barbour just wanted to show he had the power to do this. He didn't care about my family or any of the other families. He wanted everyone to know he was the big man, and he proved it," Brewer said. Barbour has defended his pardons and said the former inmates had been rehabilitated.

Thousands protest in Mexico City against president-elect, alleging vote fraud Wearng a Guy Fawkes mask, a protester holds a banner that reads in Spanish, "No to another fraud," during a march in Mexico City on Saturday. MEXICO CITY -- Thousands of protesters marched through the Mexican capital on Saturday against President-elect Enrique Pena Nieto, accusing him of buying votes and paying off TV networks for support. The demonstrators, including students, leftists, anarchists and union members, shouted slogans criticizing Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, and the electoral authority. Pena Nieto won Sunday's election by almost 7 percentage points, according to the official count, returning the PRI to presidential power after 12 years in the wilderness. The PRI previously ruled Mexico for seven decades, during which time it was accused of rigging elections and repressing protesters. "The PRI threatens many people and buys others with a couple of tacos," said Manuel Ocegueda, a 43-year-old shop worker participating in the march. Pena Nieto is due to take power in December, replacing Felipe Calderon of the conservative National Action Party, or PAN. The constitution barred Calderon from running for a second term. The PAN candidate, Josefina Vazquez Mota, finished third, with many voters dissatisfied over relentless drug violence and sluggish growth. Mexico's president-elect shrugs off claims of vote-buying, coercion Leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador finished in second place, but has refused to concede, accusing Pena Nieto of stealing the presidency. Pena Nieto denies any wrongdoing and PRI officials say they could sue Lopez Obrador over the accusations. Lopez Obrador was runner-up as well in the 2006 presidential race, but by a much closer margin, after which he also said there had been fraud and led major protests. He has so far stayed away from protests this year, but said he was collecting evidence of fraud to give to officials. On Saturday, Lopez Obrador called on the PAN to join forces with him to file a legal challenge to the election. Mexico's electoral tribunal has until September to evaluate any complaints and officially name Pena Nieto as the next Mexican president. Pena Nieto, 45, a former state governor, promises to reform Mexico's oil industry and labor laws to kick-start growth and boost security spending to reduce the country's high murder rate. Calderon has congratulated Pena Nieto on his electoral victory, along with dozens of world leaders.

Government to publish future train contracts to support UK manufacturers The Department for Transport (DfT) said the rolling stock plan will offer an "enhanced visibility of future investments" and provide UK suppliers with "the confidence to invest in their capability and be well placed to compete effectively for future orders." The comments came in response to a highly critical report by the Transport Select Committee on the award last summer of a contract to build new trains for the Thameslink network to German company Siemens. Bombardier, the last British-based trainmaker, announced 1,400 job cuts at its Derby plant after losing the contract. The pipeline of work is likely to include contracts for Crossrail and High Speed 2, as well as the modernisation of trains on Britain's existing rail networks as the Government introduces new 15-year franchises. The pipeline will be drawn up alongside the Association of Train Operating Companies and bidders will be asked to provide details on how they will support local jobs and suppliers. Louise Ellman, chairman of the cross-part transport committee, said: "Our train manufacturing industry needs a steady flow of work opportunities, to support employment in the sector, not occasional major orders. Following our recommendations, the Government is taking steps in this direction, but it remains to be seen how this will affect firms like Bombardier and the long-term security of UK supply chains. Ms Ellman also reiterated her call for the Government to provide more information on why it chose the Siemens' Thameslink bid, claiming: "This is essential to restore public confidence in the DfT's procurement process and we urge the Secretary of State to act." The DfT said it would give "further consideration" to the matter, but that it must "give due regard to the commercial sensitivities of all bidders."

Search for missing oil platform worker stopped NEW ORLEANS The search for a worker who has been missing since an oil rig exploded off the Louisiana coast has been stopped, according to Black Elk Energy. The worker has been missing since Friday's explosion and fire aboard an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico. Oil rig explosion off Louisiana coast The missing crewman, Jerome Malagapo of the Philippines, was employed by Grand Isle Shipyard Inc., which had a contract with Black Elk to refurbish the platform. The body of a second missing worker, 42-year-old Elroy Corporal, was found Saturday and turned over to the Jefferson Parish coroner, added the company, which said it is cooperating with investigators. This particular platform was located in 56 feet of water about 20 miles southeast of Grand Isle, La. The company said in a statement released Tuesday night that they would focus on the victims and their families, including those injured in the incident. Twenty four people were on the production platform at the time of the explosion, and four workers who suffered burns during the platform fire are being treated at the Baton Rouge Medical Center. The cause of the explosion and fire aboard the platform is under investigation.

Clashes, autonomy bids, threaten Libya TRIPOLI, Libya, April 4 (UPI) -- Ethnic leaders in southern Libyan said they were working to create an autonomous state amid reports of renewed fighting in the region. The European Union last week called on Tripoli to ensure parties to the conflict in the Sebha region of southern Libya lay down their weapons. Three days of clashes between rival tribal factions in late March left more than 70 people dead. Abdel Majid Mansur, a leader from the southern Tibu ethnic group, said there were growing calls for autonomy. "If necessary, we will demand international intervention and work toward the creation of a state," he was quoted by Bloomberg News as saying. The interim government in Tripoli said this week it was concerned by fighting in the western coastal city of Zuwara. Ayoob Sufyan, a spokesman for the city government, told CNN the situation there was the worst violence since the height of the civil war last year. "The situation is terrible," he said. It is a real war now. At least 26 people were reportedly killed in the western city Wednesday, al-Arabiya reports. NATO forces last year enforced a no-fly zone over Libya to protect civilians from attacks by forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

Health boss stripped of leading role after waiting list scandal A SENIOR health chief has been stripped of her leading role as part of a management restructure in the wake of the waiting list scandal. Jackie Sansbury has lost her position as chief operating officer and will concentrate on her other job overseeing the new Sick Kids. The change has been made as part of NHS Lothian's integration of corporate management and acute services management, which means the chief operating officer post no longer exists. But sources within the health board said Mrs Sansbury was "carrying the can" for the waiting times fiasco. The creation of the integrated team, which comes into force today, is aimed at bridging a gap between clinical staff and senior bosses at NHS Lothian. It is one part of a raft of "radical" new measures being introduced following the publication of reports that told of a "bullying culture" within the health board and revealed that staff had been deliberately falsifying waiting list figures in a bid to hit targets. A senior source in NHS Lothian told the Evening News: "Jackie Sansbury is a very senior person within the health board. NHS Lothian are going to try to spin this out as a management restructure, saying they want to provide for the new Sick Kids - but this is a demotion. It is a reflection of the fact that Jackie Sansbury, through her leadership, has failed in the waiting times scandal. It's a way of taking responsibility while saving face in some way. She is carrying the can for the waiting times fiasco because she was in charge of the Lothian hospital division. Mrs Sansbury, a nurse who moved into management in 1994, was appointed chief operating officer in June 2010, having previously held the title of director of strategic planning and modernisation. As "project sponsor" she will work alongside contractors who will eventually be appointed to build the new Sick Kids" hospital, to ensure the project meets clinical requirements. A full review of management structure within NHS Lothian is to begin once a permanent chief executive is appointed. Interviews are to be held this month, with the new chief executive to be announced in August. As well as a management restructure, a new code of practice and set of values are to be agreed with staff, managers within acute services are to be reviewed to assess competence and a new confidential whistleblowing line is to be set up. Tom Waterson, Lothian branch chairman for Unison, said: "I welcome the move to have a look at the management structure within NHS Lothian, particularly in the acute division. Without doubt, they are making huge strides forward to address the problems of the past. Tim Davison, NHS Lothian's interim chief executive, said: "We have taken the decision to merge corporate management and those who manage our acute hospitals to create one integrated team. As a result, the post of chief operating officer is not currently required. A full review of the management structure within NHS Lothian, including the implications of the integration of health and social care, will take place once a permanent appointment has been made to the post of chief executive. Jackie Sansbury will continue as project sponsor for the new Department of Clinical Neurosciences and Children and Young People's Hospital [Sick Kids]. This is an extremely important capital project and Mrs Sansbury will have a key role in driving this project forward and supporting our plans to create a centre of excellence and major trauma centre at Little France.

The US China Accounting War Will the Treasury name China a currency manipulator? Will we allow military technology to be sold to the Chinese? Those are the standard "US v. China" stories that perc up every six months or so, and nothing much ever comes of them. But Patrick Chovanec says that we're missing a real showdown, one which looks likely to erupt into an ugly dispute: the SEC versus Chinese companies. After Enron, the US slapped a lot of onerous requirements on companies and their auditors, including the requirement that companies which list in the US have to be audited by US monitored firms. After a wave of scandals involving companies with accounting practices that ranged from "a wee bit dodgy" to "scams," the SEC has demanded that the auditors open up their files to US inspectors. Here's what happened next: In response, the SEC has launched fraud investigations into several U.S.-listed Chinese companies and their executives, ordering their China-based auditors to hand over confidential documents to examine for potential evidence of wrongdoing. In the most visible case, the SEC in May 2011 handed lawyers for Deloitte China a federal court subpoena to turn over its audit work papers for Longtop Financial Technologies, a Hong Kong-based maker of financial software that short-seller Citron Research had accused of fraudulent accounting (prompting Deloitte to resign the account, citing "recently identified falsity" in Longtop's financial statements). Deloitte China fired its lawyer for accepting the subpoena, and refused to comply. In a court filing explaining why, Deloitte claimed that Chinese regulators had issued an extraordinary threat, telling auditors that handing over audit work papers would violate China's (vague and draconian) State Secrets law, allowing China to "dissolve the firm entirely and to seek prison sentences up to life in prison for any [Deloitte] partners and employees who participated in the violation." The refusals come at a time when Chinese local authorities, embarrassed by the allegations, have been cracking down on short-sellers" researchers, shutting off access to company disclosure filings and sometimes harassing and even jailing research teams conducting due diligence within China. The SEC, for its part, asked the judge in the Deloitte case for a stay until this coming January, to see if it could work out some kind of solution with its counterparts at the CSRC. Last week's decision to file charges against all five top global audit firms in China appears to signal an end to the SEC's patience. In its court filing, the SEC expressed frustration, noting that since 2009, the CSRC had refused to provide any meaningful assistance on 21 information requests arising from 16 securities investigations into U.S.-listed Chinese firms. The Chinese, it has concluded, are simply stonewalling. While the details may seem arcane, the ramifications can hardly be overstated. Chinese auditors could face financial penalties, but they could also be disqualified from conducting SEC audits. If Chinese auditors get de-registered, U.S.-listed Chinese companies won't be able to find anyone to sign off on their audits, leading all of these firms to have their shares forcibly delisted, en masse, from U.S. markets. Shareholders would still own their shares, but those shares would be much harder to buy and sell, making them worth considerably less. It's hard to see how the SEC can agree to let this one slide. But will the Chinese back down? I've been on exactly one 10-day junket to China, so I'm hardly qualified to answer that question. But my brief experience was that even quite senior Chinese officials who had traveled abroad simply didn't get the domestic political constraints that make it impossible for the President to tell the SEC to cool it. I don't even mean that they didn't believe us when we'd suggest that the President really and truly could not simply order the train tracks in the northeastern corridor straightened out so that they'd run faster; I mean that they seemed to find it hard to imagine how such a system would work. I found it very difficult to explain, for example, the relationship between the Fed and the rest of the government. I don't mean to suggest that they were some sort of unsophisticated rubes; the Chinese government has its own domestic institutional constraints which are just as complex and delicate as the ones in the US. But they seem to be different; I'm sure I asked questions which seemed somewhere between bewildering and hopelessly naive precisely because I don't understand how their system works. And indeed, when people tried to explain things like the banking system to me, I floundered. China does not have anything like a banking system, as I understand it. The system does work, at least after a fashion, but I find it hard to imagine how; my imagination is constrained by what I'm used to. It's possible that both countries are demanding something that it is internally impossible for the other side to deliver. Fireworks to follow.

Mobile World Congress: Better 3D to the Padfone Some 70,000 people were in Barcelona this year for the Mobile World Congress; a chance to preview some of the latest innovations in mobile phone and tablet technology. More about: Information society technology, Show

First finalist is booted from 'American Idol' The TV Column: First finalist is booted from 'American Idol' By Lisa de Moraes Friday, March 11, 2011; 6:22 AM It's "American Idol" results night, in which 13 finalists will be turned into 12. In honor of the occasion, judge Steven Tyler is wearing a duster coat with fur print lining, and judge Jennifer Lopez is dressed as a jonquil. Judge Randy Jackson just got pulled out of the gym. On tonight's show, P Puff Diddy Daddy Dirty Money is going to sell some tickets to his upcoming concert tour, and Adam Lambert is going to sing. The Jennifer Hudson Memorial Judges Save is back, show host Ryan Seacrest announces. That's the gag that allows the judges to save themselves the embarrassment of letting America vote to boot someone really talented from this competition - like we did to Jennifer Hudson lo these many years ago. The Judges Save allows them to bring one person back into the competition, but it can only be used once per season, it has to be unanimous among the judges, and it has to be used before we get down to the Final Five. Seabiscuit orders someone to open up the screen to "reveal your beloved 13." Idolette Casey Abrams is back in the hospital. He was in the hospital a couple weeks ago too. Seabiscuit tells us all to wave to Casey. Feel better - shout out to the nurses! Seabiscuit says to Casey, who he assumes is watching on TV. In pre-Casey-in-hospital times, the Idolettes taped their arrival at Chateau d'Idol, a house so ridiculously gigantic it has to be in foreclosure. The entryway alone is large enough to be an RV dealership. The Idolettes tear through the place like they've been released for recess. But there's a nasty surprise waiting for them upstairs - where it's orphanage living. Yes, each Idolette gets one narrow bed in a wide open guy or chick dormitory. We think we saw a pail and scrub brush by each bed. On the show, they insist Chateau d'Idol in Beverly Hills - on the other hand, they also said Pasadena is in Hollywood. But, enough about West L.A. real estate -- time to Group Lip Synch! It's a Michael Jackson medley because he's not here to defend himself. Scotty McCreery is the only Idolette who does not get a solo bit during the number, though Paul McDonald barely gets one. "There's a lot going on tonight," Seabiscuit says about 10 minutes in, with absolutely nothing having happened with regard to actual competition. But, before Seabiscuit breaks the bad to one unlucky Idolette, the Ford Music Video makes its comeback. We love the Ford Music Video, in which the Idolettes learn the hard life lesson about singing for one's supper. This week's Ford Music Video features the Idolettes pulling up in some abandoned urban landscape, hopping out, and defacing a brick wall via some kind of special effects. We think the car model was called The Tagger, but we can't be sure. In return for the sweat of their brows, the Idolettes get to plug a movie and it looks as though the best "Idol" could do was "Red Riding Hood" because, we hear, "Jane Eyre" turned them down flat. Flick star Amanda Seyfried is in the audience and Seabiscuit sits his self down next to her while she looks at him like he's the Big Bad Wolf. Did you enjoy it? Seabiscuit wants her to tell him. It was the best experience of my life? Amanda guesses. This next part is a little painful, but we'll tell it anyway. The Idolettes are taken to stand on the red carpet for the premiere of "RRH," where they ooh and aah over the stars and prose for pictures with Shiloh Fernandez (Owen Camos in the 2009 season of "Gossip Girl"). And then, they were obviously NOT LET IN to the premiere, because we see them reacting to the movie while seated in what's obviously a small screening room. And, probably at midnight they all had to go back to the Chateau d'Idol to scrub the floors. "The movie looks frightening but nothing is scarier than sitting up here, sweating it out," Seabiscuit says after the movie plug has wrapped. Jacob Lusk, Karen Rodriguez, and Stefano Langone are brought down on stage and Seabiscuit sets the atmosphere of a show trial where everybody has to apologize for things they may or may not have done. Jacob, with the big voice, jumps out with "I definitely messed up," though his performance was okay, not bad. Karen who really wasn't very good, attributes it to "a couple technical difficulties" and promises to "totally make it so much better next time." And Stefano says something along the lines of "humble, humble, humble, blessed." Seabiscuit makes it seem like all three are safe then swings around and sends Karen to the Parrot Perch of Purgatory. She looks crushed. "Idol" for these singers must be like living in the court of the Red Queen, where one minute they're sitting down to tea and the next minute it's off with their heads. Adam Lambert, our all time favorite "Idol" contestant is back. Okay, we need to qualify that: he's our all-time favorite "Idol" contestant singing other people's music, because now he's performing a number he wrote. It's formless and shapeless and a bit of a tease for the audience, who keeps expecting him to break into one of his powerful high notes but he doesn't and then he does but it's not really the end of the song which drags on for a few more bars. The number has a nice message of acceptance among humans, and Adam tells Seabiscuit after he's finished singing that money raised from sales of the tune go to the "It Gets Better" project. This project provides hope for lesbian, gay, bi, trans, and other bullied teens by letting them know that "It Gets Better." Our attention must have wandered because, next thing we know, Seabiscuit, Adam and, JenLo are in a fervent conversation about a dance called The Dougie, even though Adam had performed the entire song sitting down. Well, you snooze you lose on "Idol." Next, Lauren Alaina, Ashthon Jones, and Haley Reinhart are called to the Court of the Red Queen. Lauren, who was a whole lot better Wednesday night than the judges let on, hesitates before bursting out with "it was bad and I'm sorry." Then she starts to cry, so Seabiscuit lets up with "unfortunately, darling you are going to have to endure more stress on this show," and sends her to the Sofas of Safety. Ashthon, who turned in Wednesday night's worst performance, has concluded "the thing that I should have done was pick a song everyone knows" when, in fact, you and I know the correct answer to Seabiscuit's "What do you think went wrong?" question was: a) should have stayed in tune. Then Seabiscuit and the judges go all Red Queen on Haley, who turned in a good performance Wednesday night and should not be in the Bottom Three. Randy trots out the old "Idol" chestnut "Who are you -- where are you really?" and advises her to "find your lane," which is not to be confused with that other, opposite, Idol chestnut of "You've got to be true to yourself." Haley snaps back, "I like to switch it up a lot" which makes us like her even more. But Seabiscuit nonetheless sends Haley to join Ashthon and Karen on the Parrot Perches of Purgatory. The rest of the Idolettes sitting on the sofas are told they are safe, because the show is quickly running out of time and they've still got one P Puff Diddy Daddy Dirty Money to go. P Puff Diddy Daddy Dirty Money is a true media mogul, Seabiscuit tells us. Puffy Money is also strangely animated tonight. After his number, Seabiscuit drags Puffy Money over to the Sofas of Safety to give the surviving Idolettes what is known as The Talk about the facts of life as a pop singer. "You get out of life when you put into it," Puffy Money says. Also: Keep on practicing, keep on rehearsing. That and keep god in your life, he adds. What did JLo ever see in this guy? Oh wait - that's right, he's a media mogul! Time to send two of the Bottom Three back to the Sofas of Safety. "The Person who may be headed home is - Ashthon," Seabiscuit announces. Now Ashthon, by the cruel tradition of "Idol," is supposed to sing, one last time, for The Judges Save, though you'd think they'd have some kind of second choice, like Howie Mandel would come out and tell her that the man in the booth had authorized her to go home with $5,000 and a Ford Tagger if she wants to leave now. But, no such luck, and Ashthon elects to sing Diana Ross again so it's diva or die for Ashthon. This time, nerves make her actually worse than Wednesday night - a thing we did not think could be done. We see a cut-away to the judges table where Randy is going "Psst! Psst! Psst!" in Jen's ear, like they're seriously considering whether to save Ashthon -- or maybe they're comparing contract terms. Anyway, it falls to JLo to tell Ashthon it's over. She turns the knife, telling Ashthon it was unanimous, and they roll the Obituary Tape.

Warren Spector on making magic with Mickey in Disney's kingdom Spector's agent was the remarkable Seamus Blackley, a former development colleague who'd designed physics systems for Ultima Underworld, System Shock and Flight Unlimited before joining Microsoft and co-creating the Xbox. Now he was with the powerful Creative Artists Agency trying to bridge the gap between Hollywood and videogames, and he suggested Spector take his pitch to Disney. "Seamus," Spector recalls protesting, "I love Disney but they're not going to be interested in this stuff." Still, he relented and took the meeting, where he remembers "trying not to vibrate my way through the floor in excitement at being at Disney," and not being surprised when the company passed on his adult-themed games. But then came the question that changed everything: "They asked me if I was interested in doing any licensed games." Spector's initial response was yes. "Give me the Carl Barks duck universe and I'm the happiest guy in the world," he answered, like only an animation geek could. Disney shot back, "What do you think about Mickey Mouse?" This time Spector said no - he didn't want to make a game for kids. But what Disney had in mind wasn't for kids. One of Disney's Think Tanks - creative programs through which promising young animators and developers work for six months at the company - had outlined an idea for something a little different. The outline was shown to Spector. "It had three elements - there were three things which resonated with me and I went, "Holy cow, this is genius." One was Mickey Mouse, the most popular and recognizable icon in the world, trapped in a world of rejected and forgotten Disney creative history where he doesn't belong. [Second was] the return of Oswald The Lucky Rabbit, Walt's first cartoon star, and [third] the Phantom Blot as one of the villains. "After the lights came up in this presentation all these Disney execs said "Hey, you don't have to do any of this, we think this is cool but if you don't we just want you to do your Mickey Mouse game." I just looked at them and said, "Why wouldn't I do that?" No-one's going to make that game but me. You know - get out of the way. So Spector went to work with Disney ("It's about time," his mother remarked) and it's hard to think of a Disney project that would have suited him better than this one. For an aficionado like Spector, the return of Oswald The Lucky Rabbit - lost to Universal in 1928 and traded back like a showbiz trump card for sports commentator Al Michaels in 2006 - was big news, and the concept of Mickey Mouse exploring a realm of discarded cartoons called the Wasteland meant an opportunity to trawl the Disney archives and work with many of the bygone characters he had spent a lifetime researching. Epic Mickey must have appealed to Spector's "geekily academic" side too. In offering a fictional account of the disappearance of Oswald and many others, the game creates a cartoon history for decisions that were often taken for colder, more pragmatic reasons. As a company Disney has for decades been characterized by a tight and shrewd control of its intellectual properties. The philosophy broadcast through its bright, altruistic programming is not the philosophy it abides by - one does not build a billion-dollar entertainment conglomerate by making business calls like Winnie The Pooh. Epic Mickey is a comment on this duality, an exploration of how a company that trades in memories and nostalgia deals creatively with its own past. The potential problem for Spector was whether Disney's controlling side would restrict his ability to make the game he wanted. "I came at this with a pretty solid understanding of how Disney operates," he says. It's a mixed blessing, what you just described. On the one hand it shows how much Disney cares about the integrity of its properties, of its characters and creative efforts. But on the other hand as a creative person working with those creative properties I was really worried it was going to be non-stop agony and argument. Lots of "No you can't do that, no you can't do that, no you can't do that." And it wasn't like that at all. Instead Spector found a company willing to open the doors to its vast archives and let him wander around inside. I ask how my visualisation of this research process - Spector rummaging through the Disney vaults to find old toons and shouting "We've gotta have this one!" - measures up to reality. "It was pretty much like that, actually," he laughs, describing how the team made use of the eight different facilities covering animation, consumer products and Imagineering that are collectively known as the Disney archives to find information on everything from Oswald's original sketches to the look of the lampposts in 1930s Mickey Mouse cartoons. We were digging through photographs, contracts, blueprints, colour studies, model sheets, background paintings, animation sketches, stencil sets, chocolate bar wrappers, plush toys, and gas masks in the shape of Mickey Mouse. The archivists, who Spector describes reverently as "the keepers of the flame," came to know the team so well they'd earmark materials that might come in useful. "Once they figured out that we were really serious - like, we're Disney historians as much as we are game creators, we take that responsibility seriously - when they found something new they'd call us up and say "Oh, you're going to love this!"" As an animation expert Spector had entered production with certain characters in mind he knew he wanted to use. The Gremlins, characters from an aborted Walt Disney collaboration with Roald Dahl, made the finished game, and so did Spector's idea for Mickey's nemesis, Pete ("I got it in my head that around every corner our Mickey would run into another version of Pete that's been rejected and is bitter about it"). He also planned to do something with Alice In Wonderland, before passing when it became clear he'd be competing with Tim Burton's live-action blockbuster, and got excited about "a display of rejected Tinkerbells" he'd stumbled across at Disney World before deciding he didn't want to cause any confusion with Disney's recent fairy animations. Crucially these were his decisions, not imposed by Disney. In fact, Spector says that there weren't many rules, just a guiding expectation that he and his team would use common sense. This is a terrible way to describe it, but I can't think of a better one: if you think it's appropriate to put a gun in Mickey Mouse's hand, don't make a Mickey Mouse game. Go and make some other game. This is a funny line, but also close to certain truths. Spector points out the small team of a dozen or so working at Junction Point when the Disney deal was made had signed up based on his reputation, essentially to make the next Deus Ex. "And I had to come back and say "OK, guys! We're making the next Mickey Mouse game!"" To avoid fallout from this creative culture clash Spector ran "Come to Mickey" meetings to sell everyone on the studio's new direction. While Disney was more open than Spector expected, a few specific regulations were laid down. "The company is very sensitive to Mickey's brow," he says as an example. If the black part of his face comes down too far towards his snout he starts looking too angry. And if that's understandable, there's a pleasing corporate idiosyncrasy to Spector being told that he could not, under any circumstances, show Mickey's teeth. "They're shown constantly," he says, exasperated. Don't even get me started. I have no idea why that was a constraint imposed on this game, but it was. But if that's the worst someone tells you - sure, I won't show Mickey's teeth. One wider rule governed not so much the characters Spector could use, but the way he could use them. "Characters from different Disney universes do not co-exist in a single world," he explains. So you can't put Simba and Belle in the same world. You can't put Alice in the same world as Ariel. The only exceptions to this rule are Mickey and his friends - Donald, Daisy, Pluto, Goofy - who are like a universal key to the many doors in the Disney archive. Spector acknowledges the debt Epic Mickey owes to Square Enix's Kingdom Hearts, an earlier crossover between Disney characters and the Japanese role-playing series Final Fantasy, which firmly established this rule when it came to videogames. "They blazed a trail for us and I'm sure made our lives a lot easier," he says, pointing out that the story in Kingdom Hearts also acts as a mirror of reality and fiction, with the player's mission to make sure the barriers between various independent Disney worlds aren't broken down by the game's villains. Otherwise, Epic Mickey went through the usual Disney processes when it came to making sure the properties used in the game were consistent with their established identities. "There's something called "on model" and if you're "off model" you either have to get approval for it or you have to change it," Spector explains. What becomes clear as we talk, though, is that there were certain things he was far more concerned about getting right than any of the gatekeepers at Disney itself. A peculiar thing happens in Epic Mickey when you turn Mickey around in the 3D world. His famour ears slide impossibly, almost imperceptibly across his head so that no matter which direction he's facing they always form the instantly recognisable Mickey silhouette. "I told my team, "We are getting the ears right,"" Spector says. No-one - this is true - no-one had ever gotten the ears right on a 3D CGI Mickey. If you look at the Mickey Mouse on TV now, they just model the character's ears on his head, and they're 3D ears. That is just... wrong. There have been three cartoons in Mickey's history - Nifty Nineties, Little Whirlwind, and Mickey's Twice Upon A Christmas, that I know of, where the animators modelled Mickey's ears realistically. And it doesn't look right. Go back and watch every Mickey cartoon except those three and Mickey's ears are forward-facing. And I told my team "We are not getting this wrong, sorry." They said "It can't be done" And at that point I knew it could." This is the unlikely core of the Spector-Disney relationship that I find enchanting - the corporation with an army of lawyers and a reputation for control giving a sophisticated creative figure like Spector more freedom than he imagined, only for Spector to bring his own checks and sensitivities to the process. In other words, the unlikely pairing flourished into a caring, two-way marriage, with Spector paying particular attention to the representation of his precious lead characters. Epic Mickey was Oswald The Rabbit's big comeback vehicle. "We're still the only story-based thing that Oswald has appeared in," says Spector. Which I love, by the way. Getting him right was a crucial, and Spector felt a weight of responsibility towards both Disney and to hardcore fans like himself. The answer was to take as much as possible from the original cartoons, which provided a lot of information about Oswald's physicality. He had a distinctive way of walking which we tried to capture. Often his head and body would just jump right off his legs, and we took advantage of that. He was constantly removing his tail and his legs, and using them in interesting ways, which we were able to turn directly into game abilities. Spector and I talk for over and hour, and at no time does he sound as happy or as proud as when he's talking about Mickey Mouse, specifically about creating the right version of Mickey for the game. There are things that have been true of Mickey from Steamboat Willie to today, and we wanted to play up those characteristics: smart, funny, loyal, enthusiastic, sometimes to a fault, never gives us, mischievous. If you look at all of those cartoons, and you look at all the films he's been in, he's kind of a guy who lives in youthful enthusiasm, and the belief that he's invulnerable, and any trouble he gets into he can get out of. So he inadvertently gets into trouble, and has to get out of it. And that sounds like a great videogame character to me. Mickey ends up with a classic look in the game, but Spector says this wasn't a deliberate attempt to match the time-locked Oswald. In fact we looked at doing some fairly radical redesigns on both characters, before I just decided 'Oh my gosh, I can't do this to Mickey.' My favourite Mickey personally is what they call the Rubber Hose Mickey - very thin limbs. For about a year or two in the early thirties he had what we call Pie Eyes, little white triangular cut-outs for his eyes, you know, no eyelids, all that stuff. That's the Mickey I loved, wearing the red shorts with the buttons on them and the yellow shoes and white gloves. That's my Mickey. So we started there and then we made lots and lots of changes. He's our Mickey. He's not an old-school Mickey, he's a Mickey that's never existed before. And I love him - I think our Mickey is fantastic. This rush of memory and pride is touching, even if Spector undercuts it with a quip ("I'm prejudiced, of course"). Clearly he takes great pride in his work with Disney, even if it's not necessarily what fans of his existing games had come to expect. He sees a through line from his earlier work to this, then? There's more than a through line. He's defensive about this - he apologises for it. He gets it a lot. This is a well-rehearsed line. I say this to everybody I work with, I use the same words every time, I do it on purpose," he explains, setting up what's become a defensive post-Disney mantra. I make the games I want to make, the way I want to make them. If you don't want that let's part company now so we can stay friends. He continues, mock-weary as he bats away imagined accusations. I have never been assigned a game, I have never made a game I didn't want to make. I've never done anything just to make somebody some money. And then he finds energy again as he hits on what are clearly closely held ideals. I have never made a game that wasn't explicitly about empowering players to tell their own story. There is no difference in that philosophy from Ultima VI to Deus Ex to Disney Epic Mickey. No difference at all. In my own mind I have never deviated from that core belief - the only thing that makes games interesting and worthwhile and, frankly, art, is that we allow the player to become a creator, an author of their own experience. If we were dealing with Disney endings, then there's no doubt the game made by this warm, enthusiastic and articulate games designer and his clearly committed and hard-working team would live up to these ideals and be a triumph of player empowerment and interaction. But suddenly we're back in the real-world Disney of boardrooms, corporate strategy and occasional disappointments, because sadly this isn't the case. This is where we came in, with me struggling to reconcile a killer angle on mismatched creativity with a final product that doesn't quite nail it. But there's something just as interesting in the process of loss and imperfection, in the fact that all this effort, passion and intelligence can be put into the production of a videogame but, through whatever inefficiencies of energy transfer the production entails, it's possible that it won't emerge in the correct ratio of wonder, satisfaction and enjoyment at the other end. I don't admire Spector's knowledge and drive any less, or find the internal workings of Disney any less fascintating. Fine work is not only done on good games, but bad ones and, as is the case with Epic Mickey, games which fall somewhere in the middle. And if that's not the Hollywood closure we were all hoping for, it should be at least more enough to keep Spector's hero from falling into the Wasteland.

Barnier hits out at lobbying "rearguard" Europe's most senior financial regulator has hit back at "rearguard lobbying" by the hedge fund and private equity industries, saying he "will not be intimidated" by an attempt to undermine a deal to regulate the industry for the first time. The fightback from Michel Barnier, the European Union commissioner for the single market, comes after the industry publicly raised the alarm over technical standards proposed to implement the alternative investment fund managers directive (AIFMD). IN Markets Regulation While the European Commission's 110-page draft of "supplementing rules" relates to highly specialist issues, the proposed legal text has revived the industry's worst fears that the rules will damage business and exclude US and Asian fund managers. Mr Barnier's angry response flatly rejects the claim that the Commission are trying to roll-back the political compromises that underpinned the AIFMD deal in 2011. Instead he puts the complaints down to the industry "trying to reopen old issues." I am not surprised by this rearguard lobbying. Many would like to see the financial markets left unregulated," said Mr Barnier. Some would like to pretend that there are no lessons to learn from the crisis and advocate a return to self-regulation. "I will not be intimidated," he added. Despite the pressure from those trying to reopen old issues, we won't abandon our efforts to ensure that all financial actors, be they banks or hedge funds or other financial institutions are appropriately regulated. European officials are in particular furious over accusations that they are abandoning advice from the European Securities and Markets Authority in order to pursue an agenda of tighter regulation. Most Esma advice was accepted but on a few key areas some suggestions were dropped or the language adjusted. EU officials say this is to remove legal uncertainty through ensuring the provisions workable and precise. The industry argue the Commission text diverges from Esma in three issues that were particularly hard-fought during the political process: the rules for custodian banks; curbs on fund borrowing; and the standards for allowing third-country fund managers to access EU investors. The detailed rules allegedly hold banks to a much stricter standard than the Esma guidance, which would probably force some institutions out of the custody business and prompt others to charge higher fees. The commission also dropped Esma's methods for calculating leverage as unworkable, which brings more managers under the tighter rules for high-leverage funds. Mr Barnier said the rules were a "work in progress" and that consultations aimed to ensure "a balance between flexibility and harmonisation." The industry responded guardedly. Andrew Baker, the chief executive of the Alternative Investment Management Association said: "If the Commission is confirming that it is going to follow Esma's advice then we would fully support that." One senior London-based bank executive echoed the hope that the Esma advice would prevail. For the Commission to come out with rules that trump Esma undermines the whole process. It subverts what we thought was a done deal," he said.

Great getaways: Festive Dublin, Reykjavik, US bargain breaks and Swiss Alps Take in the cosy pubs, cobbled streets and quirky shops of Dublin on a festive break before Christmas. Cresta is offering three nights in the Irish capital departing on 18 December for £215 per person staying at the Harding Hotel with breakfast and Aer Lingus flights from Gatwick (crestaholidays.co.uk). Lights and sights Fly to Reykjavik on 29 or 30 December for excellent prospects of seeing orca whales - which have been sighted earlier than expected this winter - and the Aurora Borealis. A four-night trip, excluding air fares, costs £605 per person including vehicle rental and accommodation - two nights' B&B and two nights half-board (discover-the-world.co.uk). Atlantic drift January can be a great time to bag a bargain break to the States. Virgin Holidays has a couple of options, both departing on 21 January, with flights from Heathrow and three nights' room-only accommodation. Choose Boston for £499 per person, staying at the Midtown hotel, or New York City for £555 per person, staying at the Milford Plaza in the heart of the Theater District (virginholidays.co.uk). Snow patrol The Alps were draped with a fresh blanket of snowfall this week, signalling the onset of the 2012/13 ski season. Inghams is offering a week in the Swiss resort of Verbier in the New Year for £530 per person, staying at the Chaperon Rouge, with all meals and drinks included and flights from Gatwick to Geneva with transfers on 5 January (inghams.co.uk).

Clinton Warns Syria Against Using Chemical Weapons PRAGUE - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday warned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad not to use chemical weapons and said that the United States was prepared to act if he ignored the warning. "This is a red line for the United States," Mrs. Clinton said. I am not going to telegraph in any specifics what we would do in the event of credible evidence that the Assad regime has resorted to using chemical weapons against their own people. But suffice it to say we are certainly planning to take action if that eventuality were to occur. There have been signs in recent days of heightened activity at some of Syria's chemical weapons sites, according to American and Israeli officials familiar with intelligence reports. Mrs. Clinton did not confirm the intelligence reports or say what sort of activity was occurring. But Mrs. Clinton, who made her comments after meeting with Karel Schwarzenberg, the foreign minister of the Czech Republic, indicated that the two sides had discussed the situation in Syria, including the potential chemical weapons threat. Mr. Schwarzenberg described the situation in Syria as "rather chaotic" and "highly dangerous." He said that Czech troops who specialize in the detection of chemical weapons and decontamination if they are used are in Jordan training with Jordanian forces. An American task force has been deployed to Jordan and has been helping the Jordanians deal with the escalating humanitarian crisis, including an exodus of more than 200,000 refugees from Syria to Jordan. The force is also planning on how to respond, if necessary, to a chemical weapons threat. Mrs. Clinton's reference to a "red line" echoed a similar warning issued by President Obama in August. Still, it was the most explicit warning from a ranking American official since reports of renewed chemical weapons activity began to surface in recent days. Mrs. Clinton stopped in Prague on her way to Brussels for a meeting of NATO foreign ministers. A major topic of the NATO meeting is a Turkish request that the alliance deploy Patriot antimissile batteries in Turkey. The Turkish government is concerned about Syria's ballistic missiles, which would carry chemical weapons, and wants NATO to guard as many as 10 sites inside Turkey. What exactly is happening at Syria's chemical sites is unclear. One American official said Sunday that "the activity we are seeing suggests some potential chemical weapon preparation," which goes beyond the mere movement of stockpiles among Syria's several dozen known sites. But the official declined to offer more specifics. Over the weekend, the activity in Syria prompted a series of urgent consultations among the Western nations, which have long been developing contingency plans to neutralize the chemical weapons, a task that the Pentagon estimates would require more than 75,000 troops. But there were no signs that any American action was imminent. So far, President Obama has been very cautious about intervening in Syria, declining to arm the opposition groups directly.

Clippers' Chris Paul won't let hurt elbow keep him out of Dallas game DALLAS - Chris Paul, aware of the significance of the Clippers' game against the Mavericks in Dallas on Monday night, said he won't let his bruised right elbow keep him from playing. The Clippers are currently the fourth-seeded team in the Western Conference, 1 1/2 games ahead of the fifth-seeded Mavericks. It is the third and final meeting between the two teams, which have split the first two games. If the Clippers and Mavericks finish the regular season with identical records, the winner of this game will have the first tiebreaker. That could be the difference between hosting a first-round playoff series or starting on the road. "These are big games as far as the seedings go," said Paul, who injured his elbow in the third quarter of Saturday night's game against the Utah Jazz. You never know what's going to happen if you finish with the same record. As you can see, the Western Conference, as usual, is bunched up right there.... . So, right now every win is valuable and we have more road games than at home. Paul said he injures his elbow"all the time." "But probably not a stinger this bad," Paul said after the Jazz game. "It went quick, it hurt," the guard said. I didn't know what was going to happen. I'm happy I'm OK, though. Though the Clippers didn't practice Sunday before they left for Dallas, Paul and other players received treatment at the team's practice facility. It was also an opportunity for the Clippers to discuss the importance of playing Dallas. "Yeah, it's big," forward Blake Griffin said. Really, to be honest, every game right now for us is big, because it could be the difference between being in the fourth seed or the fifth seed. But that [a win] would be huge, especially against a team like Dallas, who is so crafty and has a lot of veterans. April will challenge Clippers The Clippers got through the month of March, in which they played 20 games in 31 days. But the month of April - the final month of the regular season - will not be much easier for the Clippers, something Paul acknowledged. "We did all right," Paul said about the Clippers' going 11-9 last month. We struggled on the road. The Clippers have 14 regular-season games left, and nine are away from Staples Center. Of those nine road games, six of the teams are seeking to secure some type of playoff positioning. twitter.com/BA_Turner

Mets" Choo Choo Coleman, 50 Years Later Choo Choo Coleman wants to set the record straight. Correct, that Choo Choo Coleman. Over the decades, legend has grown that Coleman did not know how he got his nickname. Clarence Coleman was terse in those days, and is terse today, but also sweet and decent as ever as he rejoins the New York baseball scene for the first time since 1966. Coleman, 74, attended the first two collector shows in his life over the weekend, and he was introduced at the baseball writers" dinner Saturday, drawing delighted gasps of recognition. On Tuesday, he will be a prime, surprise attraction at the 50th anniversary celebration of the Mets during the annual dinner of the Baseball Assistance Team, which helps former players in need. A lithe little catcher in the lost age when the Mets were cute and cuddly, Coleman came up through the Washington Senators and Los Angeles Dodgers farm systems, (also touring with the Indianapolis Clowns, a breakaway from the Negro leagues.) He reached the majors in 1961 with the dreadful Phillies. The next year, Coleman was acquired by the Mets, the expansion team in New York, who would lose 120 of 160 games in 1962. Called up in midseason, Coleman was often praised by Manager Casey Stengel for his ability to stop low pitches. He was 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighed only 155 pounds. On Sunday, he said his ability came from moving quickly, using both hands. He also was charged with five passed balls in 44 games that season, and Stengel said he had never seen a catcher move so quickly to retrieve passed balls. The question about the 1962 Mets is: Did the hapless players create the Mets image, or did the hip fans create the legend? Some of Coleman's epic moments came in proximity to the first baseman, Marvelous Marv Throneberry. The classic moment came on Aug. 25, 1962, which happened to be Coleman's 25th birthday. With Frank Howard lumbering a step or two off first base, Coleman signaled for a pickoff. But let Choo Choo tell it: "Marv missed the signal and the ball went right past his head," Choo Choo said Sunday. The official scorer must have reasoned that anybody who tried a pickoff with Marvelous Marv deserved an error, just for bad judgment. The error was the only one charged to Coleman that season. Craig Anderson, who has a 19-game losing streak still working since 1964, and Bill Wakefield, who was a Mets closer in 1964, both remember Coleman as an agile, willing catcher who had the disconcerting habit of glancing at his own fingers as he flashed the signals. They speak warmly of him, as soldiers and miners and ballplayers will do about companions during the hard times. "I remember sitting in a golf cart with Choo Choo in 1964 in the bullpen in Toledo," Anderson said last week, recalling their separate banishments to the Buffalo farm team. "Coldest I ever was in my life," Anderson added. In that foxhole moment, Anderson and Coleman blocked the icy wind for each other. Then they went their separate ways - Anderson as athletic director at Lehigh University, and Coleman to - well, where, exactly was he? After finishing up his baseball career in Mexico City and the American minor leagues, Coleman went home in Orlando, Fla., where he had grown up in more segregated times. His first wife, Odessa, a hairdresser, died. His second wife, Lucille, had a daughter who married into a Chinese family in Newport News, Va. For nearly two decades, Choo Choo Coleman, legendary Met, was helping to run a Chinese restaurant in Virginia, cooking "fried rice, pepper steak," he said with pride. In recent years, he has been living in Bamberg, S.C., essentially invisible. Lou Cafiero, a collector in New York, began tracing the Clarence Colemans of America, and last year he made contact. With the 50th anniversary in mind, Cafiero began reaching out to memorabilia shows. Last week, Coleman flew into New York - his first plane ride in 35 years. "They used to shake more," he said, recalling the DC-6B propeller planes the Mets used to charter. When he checked into a hotel, he had never seen a magnetic room card. As gentle and decent as ever, Coleman seemed bemused as Mets fans greeted him as an icon returned to life. "You play for a team, you always root for them," he said. On Saturday, Frank Thomas, an original Met, greeted Coleman with a characteristic roar. On Sunday, Tommy Davis, a great player with the Dodgers in 1962, gave him a whopping hug, shouting, "Hey, Bub" - Coleman's name for everybody. His hair is thick and partly gray, and Coleman has the same slender physique that lashed nine homers in 167 games for the Mets. His overall average in the majors was .197. He compared notes with George Foster, 63, who is proud of staying trim through stretching and diet. "I work in the garden," Coleman told Foster. Got 100 yards in the front, 100 yards in the back. Mow it myself. As he signed the photos and scorecards, the fans in line were thrilled at the encounter. "This is the holy grail," said David Seideman, a writer and collector. Perhaps Coleman heard fans in line reciting famous Choo Choo anecdotes. This one really happened: Charlie Neal, who roomed with Coleman in 1962, was ragging him in spring training of 1963, saying, "I bet you don't know my name." To which Coleman replied, "You No. Then there is the Ralph Kiner story about interviewing Coleman in 1962, and asking, "What's your wife's name, and what's she like?" Coleman replied, "Her name is Mrs. Coleman - and she likes me, bub." On Sunday, Coleman shook his head politely and said it never happened that way. Kiner, on the phone from Florida, softly said it did. Another part of the legend is that Kiner asked Coleman how he got his nickname and that Coleman said he did not know. "When I was 8 or 9, I ran around a lot," Coleman said Sunday. My friends called me Choo Choo because I was fast. "He could have told me that," Kiner said, fondly. Choo Choo Coleman was saving his good material for himself, for his return to New York and baseball, now touchingly under way.

A Second Look At: Nashville Eight episodes into its run, ABC's Nashville is settling into a zone of narrative and musical style somewhere between Treme and Glee. Maybe the highest compliment I can pay the show right now is that I watch it, and Smash is not the first comparison that comes to mind. Like the former, less-watched HBO show, it wants to capture a broad sweep of the cultural life of an American city. Like the latter, more-watched Fox show, it wants to have a sleek pop sensibility (and the iTunes sales to go with it) and a little bit of good old-fashioned sexiness and intrigue to hook in viewers. Nashville isn't totally there yet. But it began the fall as my most-anticipated new network show, and as it takes a break for the holidays, it's the one new show (with Last Resort already canceled) I'm most likely to stick with. My favorite thing about Nashville, and something I'm impressed that it's maintained, is its focus on the work and craft of making, especially writing music: how difficult it is for an artist to stay true to her sense of herself (even when successful like Rayna) and how intimate the songwriting process is (whether that intimacy is consummated, like with Juliette and Deacon, or teased at, as with Scarlett and Gunnar). Maybe this is easier in a show about Nashville's music scene, which has a tradition of being songwriter-centric. But it also shows that Callie Khouri has goals for the music in this show beyond selling downloads: for each of the characters, the music is them, and that's expressed not just in big performance numbers but in the work of putting notes and lyrics on paper. The show may never want to be Treme, exactly, in its naturalistic depiction of music and culture, but the show gets grounding and depth from this emphasis on the characters as artists and not just performers. At the same time, Nashville has heightened the drama with business and romantic conflicts without (too often) falling into clichés. I'm interested in the idea of Rayna and Juliette going off to tour together, because the idea of the two of them having something to gain from each other has more potential than the catfight that the original pilot could have been setting up. I don't much care about the romance between Juliette and Tebow - I will never call him anything but Tebow - but I am interested how her barely-on-the-rails life is affected by an impulsive marriage. Hayden Panettiere is never going to be my favorite cast member in this show, but she's become more convincing in the role than I expected. And I've been surprised how much I've liked the Scarlett-Gunnar storyline, detached as it often is from everything else, especially for the idea of how a basically introverted character like Scarlett can make it in an extrovert's business. My biggest disappointment so far: the mayoral-race storyline, because it hasn't managed to add anything more to the series beyond some complications regarding political dirty tricks. The fraught history between Rayna and Lamar was interesting early on but feels like it's been lost in the shuffle. (All of which is a waste, so far, of the generally awesome Powers Boothe, not to mention Robert Wisdom. Nashville has some taste when it comes to casting.) The election hasn't really done much to draw in the larger city as a character - I don't need debates on infrastructure policies, but we could use a sense of what's at stake in the city that gives the show its name. And even the latest turn - the it's-not-an-affair-it's-embezzlement entanglement of Teddy - doesn't really challenge their relationship in any interesting way that the existing pressures of her music career don't already. But I like enough of Nashville at this point that I'll look at its disappointments as areas where it can potentially grow. The first episodes of a serial like this, after all, are kind of like demo tracks; they're about roughing out the voice, the tone, the lyrics. We'll see what the finished first album is like come spring.

Justin Bieber and Masters champ Bubba Watson: A love story? Justin Bieber and Masters golf champ Bubba Watson, BFFs? Who knew? "Justin Bieber is the only person I talked to on the phone that night after I won," Watson told E! News over the weekend. "He called me and I talked to him on the phone and he and Selena [Gomez] were congratulating me, and it was a big honor that they would both call me and talk to me," he said. Watson, who won the legendary green jacket a week ago Sunday, was part of the red carpet frenzy at the Tim Tebow Foundation Charity Celebrity Golf Classic in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., where on Friday he gave his No. 15-emblazoned Masters players badge to the man the event was named after. "I knew I'd see Tim in a week," Watson told the Florida Times-Union. I told my caddie, I'm going to keep it unopened, and I'm going to hand it to him. I just felt like I should give it to him. It's his football number, and I thought he might want it more now that I won. Aww! The new dad even earned a red-carpet man-hug from the quarterback. But enough of the Tebowing - let's get back to the Bieber-Bubba bromance. How in the world would Justin even have Bubba's nmber? Well, as loyal fans will recall, the goofballs hit the links together in September, with Watson tweeting a photo as proof. Regarding Bieber's abilities on the links, Watson said, "Man, he can sing and dance." So given his buddy-buddy relationship with the Biebs - "That's what I call him, the Biebs," Watson said on the red carpet - what's up for Watson now that the Masters is conquered? We hope you didn't say a boy band, because that's exactly what he and three other pro golfers have done already, for charity, as the Golf Boys. After watching the video below - Bubba's the one in the overalls - all we can say is, man, he can play golf. Madonna wants to play Tim Tebow's New York tour guide Justin Bieber meets Mrs. Bieber; happy couple plays Candyland For Justin Bieber, loyal Beliebers just might be the best birth control Follow Christie D'Zurilla on Twitter and Google+.

How Often Do You Interact With People of Another Race or Ethnicity? The Census Bureau announced on Thursday that whites now account for under half of the births in the United States. Despite this milestone, there is no guarantee that children from different backgrounds will encounter one another in their neighborhoods, schools or social life. How many people do you regularly see or talk to from different racial or ethnic backgrounds? Where in your daily life is that most likely to happen? Do you think getting to know people from a different background than your own is important? In the article "Whites Account for Under Half of Births in the U.S.," Sabrina Tavernise writes: In another recent article, "Why Don't We Have Any White Kids?," N. R. Kleinfield examines a New York City school that is far from integrated: ... Decades of academic studies point to the corroding effects of segregation on students, especially minorities, both in diminished academic performance and in the failure to equip them for the interracial world that awaits them. Students: Do you think interacting with different people from different cultural backgrounds is part of a well-rounded education? How integrated is your school? Your community? Your social or family life? What might be better about a segregated community and school? What might be worse? What could students from a segregated community do to meet people outside their neighborhood? What role, if any, should the government play in seeking to integrate aspects of daily life?

Question Marks on Europe's Nuclear Safety LONDON - How safe is nuclear power? The question has again been highlighted by a leaked official report that indicates nearly all of the nuclear power plants in Europe have safety failings that will cost billions of euros to put right. The report by the European Commission, the executive body of the 27-nation European Union, is based on "stress tests" carried out after the meltdowns at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in March 2011, which resulted from damage caused by an earthquake and tsunami. According to leaks in the German and French press, the tests showed that practically all the 134 active reactors in the 14 European countries that produce nuclear power needed to undergo safety improvements to ensure their ability to cope with earthquakes, floods and power blackouts. In the light of the Fukushima disaster, the European Commission wants to ensure that all nuclear plants have adequate seismic sensors and the capacity to restore safety measures within one hour of any loss of power. France, the Continent's largest nuclear energy producer, came off worst in the safety assessment, with failings revealed at all its 58 reactors, according to Le Figaro. Reacting to leaks of the report, which is to be presented to European leaders at their summit meeting in mid-October, Günther Oettinger, Europe's energy commissioner, said: "Generally, the situation is satisfactory, but there is no room for complacency." In a statement, he said: "We must work together to ensure that the highest safety standards are in force in every single nuclear power plant." No European reactors are expected to be shut down as a result of the stress tests. But, post-Fukushima, the report was certain to focus concerns about the safety of the Continent's aging nuclear plants. One German anti-nuclear group said that the report did not go far enough. Jochen Stay, spokesman for the Ausgestrahlt organization, told Deutsche Welle he was skeptical about the report because the plant operators themselves provided the underlying data. "They were sent a questionnaire they were expected to fill in concerning safety issues," he said. Those concerns did not include the consequences of an airplane crash, against which none of Germany's power plants are protected. Mr. Stay told Deutsche Welle that the money required to make plants safe in the event of an air crash would make them unprofitable and would mean the end of nuclear energy in Europe. Germany itself is already heading in the direction of abandoning nuclear power. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, reversed policy after Fukushima and announced this year that Germany would phase out nuclear power by 2022. She said Germany could reap economic benefits by emerging as a trailblazer in the renewable energy sector. Elsewhere in Europe, however, the economic choices could prove tougher. François Hollande, the French president, said last month that his government would scale back France's reliance on nuclear energy in the relatively short term. But a spokesman for France's nuclear energy sector noted over the weekend that the sale of nuclear equipment and nuclear services alone earns the country an average €7 billion, or $9 billion, a year. Francis Sorin of the French Nuclear Energy Society pointed out in the newspaper Libération that the nuclear industry directly employed 125,000 people in France, and that it would cost €20 billion a year to replace nuclear energy with natural gas-powered alternatives. As for the safety concerns highlighted by the leaked report, the required improvements will not come cheaply. Germany's Die Welt quoted the findings as saying the cost of improved safety measures could be as much as €25 billion. Is it worth the increasing costs - and potential risks - to keep nuclear energy going? Or should Europe cuts its losses and spend the money on development of alternative energy resources? And, as we consider energy issues, please take time to follow the debate at the IHT's Global Clean Energy Forum (@IHTenergy) in Barcelona on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Alex Salmond denies wrongdoing over Rupert Murdoch dealings Published on Wednesday 25 April 2012 15:46 First Minister Alex Salmond today denied any wrongdoing in his dealings with Rupert Murdoch. Calls have been made by opposition leaders for Mr Salmond to make a statement to the Scottish Parliament to clarify his dealings with Murdoch. Labour, Tories, and Lib Dems say Salmond must answer questions over News International. Calls come after claims Salmond aimed to lobby UK culture secretary over proposed BkyB takeover. SNP leader says he would be "delighted" to appear before the Leveson inquiry. Opposition leaders at Holyrood had called for Mr Salmond to make a statement to the Scottish Parliament on his dealings with the mogul's media empire. The calls came after an email from a senior figure at News Corporation suggesting Mr Salmond would call UK Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt "whenever we need him to." At the Leveson Inquiry yesterday, it emerged that News Corp's director of public affairs Frederic Michel emailed James Murdoch and said: "I met with Alex Salmond's adviser today. A spokesman for the First Minister had already said that Mr Salmond "has never spoken to or corresponded with Jeremy Hunt on this issue." Mr Hunt has defended his conduct during News Corporation's takeover bid for BSkyB in a statement to the House of Commons. Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont, along with Conservative leader Ruth Davidson and Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie, said the First Minister "must make a statement on his relationship with Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch and News International." In a joint statement, the three said: "Alex Salmond must tell us whether or not he offered to lobby the UK Government on behalf of the Murdoch family and News International with regard to their proposed takeover of BskyB. It is an affront to Scottish democracy that while the Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt MP, is making a statement on the matter, the First Minister refuses to make a statement to the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood. They insisted that "in the interests of Scottish democracy and in the interests of the Scottish people," Mr Salmond shold make a statement to MSPs today. After Mr Hunt's special adviser resigned, Labour also said Mr Salmond's adviser must answer questions. Adam Smith, who had been an adviser to the Culture Secretary, stood down, admitting: "I appreciate that my activities at times went too far." A letter from Mr Salmond to James Murdoch from January last year recalled that the two men had discussed "business opportunities for BSkyB in Scotland" over lunch in London. The letter states: "I look forward to continuing our conversation on BSkyB's presence in Scotland. I would also enjoy the opportunity to reciprocate your hospitality here in Scotland. Therefore, I very much hope that you would be able to join me for dinner at Bute House at some point in the next two months. Mr Salmond has accepted an invitation to give evidence to the Leveson Inquiry and his spokesman said: "He looks forward to attending and to reiterating these key points to the inquiry."

MacBook Pro With Retina Display: First Impressions and Photos of Apple's New Laptop Apple's MacBook Pro with Retina Display. Joanna Stern/ABC News SAN FRANCISCO - Moments after we saw the new iPad I wrote, "Now that's a beautiful screen" in my hands-on post. Well, that was my exact reaction to the seeing the new MacBook Pro with a Retina Display. So much for originality on my part. The new MacBook Pro has its halo feature in its name - Retina Display. And it is for good reason. The 2280 x 1800-resolution 15.4-inch display is the crispest and brightest display I've ever seen on a laptop (and I've seen a lot of laptops). In fact, as I write these words on the laptop's screen it's hard not to be distracted by the brightness and crispness of the icons on the Mac OS X dock. It looks as if the screen was painted on. Watching a 1080p YouTube clip on the screen is actually hard to describe - it really looks like an HDTV, except its even higher resolution and you sit closer to it. It's the same experience when you're looking at images in iPhoto or on a website. Everything just looks bright and colorful and clear. But there's more to appreciate than the beautiful display. The laptop is 0.71 inches thick, only slightly thicker than the MacBook Air, making it one of the thinnest 15-inch laptops on the market. And it's light too. At 4.46 pounds, it's lighter than the 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro, though not as light as the MacBook Air or Samsung's 15-inch Series 9 ultrabook (3.5 pounds). Still, Apple has managed to cram in a number of ports, including two USB 3.0 ports, two Thunderbolt ports, and an HDMI port (the first time ever on a Mac laptop). Even better, those USB ports are located on separate edges so you don't run into a crowding problem when you try and plug in an external hard drive and mouse at the same time. The MacBook Pro with Retina Display has a comfortable backlit keyboard. It has a big, wide glass touch pad that continues to provide a better experience than any other touch pads on Windows 7 laptops on the market. Of course, the Pro is also insanely fast. The unit Apple provided me has a new 2.3GHz quad-core Core i7 processor, 8GB of DDR3 RAM, and 256GB of flash storage, which helps the laptop boot and resume from sleep very quickly. Of course, all that isn't cheap. That configuration costs $2,199; going up to a 2.6GHz Core i7 processor and a 512GB drive costs $2,799. I'll be writing a full review of the MacBook Pro in the coming days, but for now I'd say this is the laptop you'd want if you need the best performance parts around coupled with an eye-massaging display. Oh, and if you have two grand to spend on one.

U.N. monitors visit Syria opposition stronghold (AP) BEIRUT - Five unarmed U.N. truce monitors toured the battered city at the heart of the Syrian uprising on foot Saturday, encountering unusually calm streets after weeks of shelling as a throng of residents clamored for foreign military help to oust President Bashar Assad. Their foray into a chaotic crowd in the city of Homs highlighted the risks faced by the observers, protected only by bright blue helmets and bulletproof vests. It came as the U.N. Security Council voted Saturday to expand the mission to 300 members in hopes of salvaging an international peace plan marred by continued fighting between the military and opposition rebels. The observers, members of an eight-member advance team that has been on the ground a week, were seen on amateur video Saturday walking through rubble-strewn deserted streets lined by gutted apartment buildings. Activists reported only sporadic gunfire, but no shelling, and said troops had pulled armored vehicles off the streets. Two observers stayed behind in Homs to keep monitoring the city, after the rest of the team left Saturday evening. The mission approved Saturday, initially for 90 days, is meant to shore up a cease-fire that officially took effect 10 days ago, but has failed to halt violence. U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon has accused Assad of violating the truce, and said Saturday that "the gross violations of the fundamental rights of the Syrian people must stop at once." Rebel fighters have also kept up attacks. It's the first time the Security Council authorized unarmed U.N. military observers to go into a conflict area. Saturday's resolution gave Ban the final say on when to deploy them, based on his assessment of the situation. A previous observer team, dispatched by the Arab League at the start of the year, withdrew after a month, unable to halt the fighting. Western diplomats put the onus on Syria to make the mission work. The U.S. ambassador, Susan Rice, warned that the U.S. would pursue sanctions if Assad doesn't comply. Britain's envoy,Mark Lyall Grant, said that "the mission will fail in its task if the regime continues to violate its commitments and obstructs the work of the mission." The truce and the observer mission are part of special envoy Kofi Annan's plan for ending 13 months of violence and launching talks between Assad and those trying to oust him. Syria's opposition and its Western supporters suspect Assad is largely paying lip service to the cease-fire since full compliance could quickly sweep him from power. So far, the regime has ignored such provisions and instead continued attacking opposition strongholds, though on a smaller scale than before the truce deadline. Syria's U.N. ambassador, Bashar Ja'afari, told the Security Council that Syria informed Annan on Saturday that it has withdrawn troops and heavy weapons from urban centers, but he did not make clear when it occurred. Opposition activists said that in some areas, such as Homs, armored vehicles were moved off the streets Saturday, but remained near populated areas. Rice, in the toughest speech on Syria yet, warned that if Assad doesn't make good on all commitments or obstructs the monitors' work, the United States would pursue other "measures," which in diplomatic language usually means sanctions. Let there be no doubt. We, our allies and others in this body are planning and preparing for those actions that will be required of all of us if the Assad regime persists in the slaughter of the Syrian people," she said, adding the U.S. will not wait 90 days to take these measures if Syria keeps flouting its obligations. Despite the violations, the international community sees Annan's plan as the only way forward. Russia and China have shielded their ally Syria against Security Council condemnation, Western powers oppose military intervention and Gulf country have failed to keep promises of funding rebels. On Saturday, five observers toured rebel-held areas in Homs, a center of the uprising that has been battered by tank and mortar shells for weeks. Previously, the Syrian regime, citing security issues, had turned down a request by the observers to visit the city. "We did not hear any shelling today," said a Homs activist, who only identified himself as Abul-Joud, for fear of repercussions. At one point, gunfire went off in the distance while the observers were in the Bayada neighborhood, accompanied by residents. The group ran into a house to take cover, according to Abul-Joud, who said he was walking with the observers. He said it did not appear the shots were aimed in the direction of the monitors. In the Jouret el-Shayah neighborhood of Homs, observers were quickly thronged by residents who chanted, "The people want military intervention," according to video broadcast on the Al-Jazeera satellite TV station. The observers walked silently through the streets in amateur video from the same neighborhood, posted online Saturday. A man in military uniform, apparently a rebel, pointed to the destruction, telling the team that "it's all destroyed buildings." Dozens of residents chanted, "The people want to execute the president," and "Freedom forever, against your will, Assad." A spokesman for the observers, Neeraj Singh, said two observers stayed on after Saturday's tour "and have now been deployed in Homs as of this evening." Their presence could discourage a resumption of regime shelling. The advance team is to increase to 30 monitors next week, before the larger contingent arrives. Under a preliminary agreement between the U.N. and the Syrian government, the enlarged mission will be able to walk and drive freely through the country. However, Syria has so far not agreed to a U.N. demand that observers use their own planes and helicopters, seen as a key to the mission's success because it could reduce friction on the ground. The challenges facing monitors became apparent this week when the advance team visited several hotspots. Large crowds of regime opponents surrounded the monitors, and government troops opened fire to disperse the protesters, in one instance while the observers were still present. Reflecting concern about inadvertently setting off violence, the team decided not to go out on Friday, the main day for anti-government protests. The team leader, Col. Ahmed Himiche, said he and his men did not want to be "tools for escalation." Hilal Khashan, an analyst at the American University of Beirut, said he believes the regime will try to sabotage the larger mission because it could pose a threat. The presence of observers "attracts large crowds and anti-regime demonstrations," said Khashan. If the observers spread throughout Syria, the extent of the protests will increase dramatically. Syria denies it is facing a popular uprising, claiming it is being targeted by a foreign-led conspiracy of criminals and terrorists. Ja'afari, the Syrian U.N. envoy, reiterated Saturday that the regime reserves the right to respond to "armed terrorist groups." Even Russia's envoy appeared to be skeptical about the regime's latest claims that it has pulled troops and tanks from Syria's cities. "If indeed this is the case, this is a very important step in implementation of the Kofi Annan plan," said Russia's U.N. ambassador, Vitaly Churkin.

Thai prime minister insists she's not her exiled brother's puppet Since her election in August 2011, Yingluck, 45, has survived a legal challenge to her government, an economic downturn and Thailand's worst flooding in half a century. The army has stayed in its barracks despite fears of yet another coup, and the revered king, 84, has fought off illness, postponing what could become a constitutional crisis over royal succession. More than one year has passed. We understand how we need to improve each policy and how we would like to move Thailand forward," she said in an interview in the ornate reception room of Government House in Bangkok. Yingluck, who will meet Prime Minister David Cameron in Britain next week, recently named a new cabinet that bears more of her own imprint. Critics point to the elevation of some Thaksin loyalists after the recent expiry of a five-year court ban on their political activities. But her promotion and retention of favored ministers outside the Thaksin camp, including finance minister Kittirat Na-ranong, showed growing assertiveness, according to Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a professor at Chulalongkorn University. "Yingluck has increasingly come into her own," he said. She listens to Thaksin, but he controls [the ruling] Pheu Thai party more than she does. It's like he is chairman of the board and she is CEO. Thitinan said Yingluck could become a "bridge builder" between pro-Thaksin "red shirt" supporters and "yellow-shirted" monarchists. So far, the opposing camps have avoided a repeat of their bloody clashes in 2010 but tensions remain. The opposition Democrat party has criticized what it describes as Yingluck's populist policies, including a minimum wage and a generous rice subsidy scheme. The most recent national Abac poll shows that 53 percent of voters would reelect Yingluck's party against 36 percent for the Democrats. Yingluck said her new cabinet - dubbed Yingluck 3 because she has already reshuffled ministers once - would be forward-looking and would disprove notions that she is just a front for her brother, who was ousted in a 2006 coup. "Be fair to me and let me prove I can run the country," Yingluck said. Thaksin, who speaks frequently of his desire to return to Thailand, continues to undermine his sister's authority by suggesting he runs the government from his self-imposed exile. He hopes to overturn a two-year jail sentence on corruption-related charges that he claims were politically motivated. This week, Thaksin abruptly canceled a planned gathering of his "red shirt" supporters in a Burmese town on the Thai border, citing security concerns. Thitinan said the former prime minister had "done Thailand a favor" by staying away. Many fear his return could plunge the country back into the political violence that for years pitted his "red shirt" supporters against "yellow shirt" royalists. "So far he has been willing to stay in exile and run Thailand virtually by remote control," he said. Yingluck for now appears to have abandoned attempts to secure her brother a pardon, which would clear the path for his return. While she praised her brother's "many good policies," she stressed that she was running the country. "We have new policies . . . he hasn't the chance [now] to run the country," she said. She said she had gone some way toward closing the red-yellow divide. She made light of a no-confidence motion later this month, saying it was a positive sign that political battles were now being fought in parliament rather than on the streets. Yingluck's premiership has been shaken by last year's floods, which killed more than 500 people and badly damaged Thailand's manufacturing base, especially car and computer production. Her government, though criticized for its handling of the floods, took extraordinary measures to help companies, particularly the Japanese manufacturers that dominate Thai industry. Far from leaving Thailand, as the government had feared, Japanese companies appear to be increasing investments, due to the strong yen and, in some cases, to relocate production from China amid a growing anti-Japan backlash over a maritime dispute. This month, Nissan became the latest to expand its Thai production base, announcing a new $380 million car plant near Bangkok. Yingluck's much-criticized handling of the flood-related crisis was among her only regrets, she said. We lost about three months solving the problem of flooding. I wish I could gain this time back, because we have many things to do.

'This Means War' review: Bromance conquers all It's a hit-and-miss affair as CIA agents/BFFs Chris Pine and Tom Hardy launch highly targeted competing covert love-ops in "This Means War," both aiming for the heart of a consumer products tester played by Reese Witherspoon. Smart, blond, beautiful but unable to get a guy, Witherspoon's Lauren Scott is as perky and perfect as she seems, but this lovely is not what gives the movie its kick. So if you are in the mood for action, there is a whole lot of it here. If you're in the mood for love, of the swooning, weak-in-the knees sort, there's not so much. But this is war after all, a bromance, not a romance, muscle, not mush. The relationship that truly sizzles - from the sentiment to the satire - is the one between FDR (Pine) and Tuck (Hardy), with Pine and Hardy pulling off one of the better bromances in recent memory. It's not as if director McG, who was behind the lethally dark drizzle of 2009's "Terminator Salvation," has gone soft. He has just injected a razzle-dazzle romance into a high-octane, high-tech action flick in which guns and hearts are pretty much blazing 24/7. This is McG's slickest film yet with slight echoes of the kind of male bonding he explored more seriously in the drama of "We Are Marshall" in 2006. It is also his fastest moving, averaging about 120 mph, the better to bypass the potholes in the plot, with veteran director of photography Russell Carpenter ("Titanic" and "True Lies" among others) knowing when to go in for the romantic close-ups and when to pull back for the action shocks. The sparks begin when Lauren's best friend Trish, a potty-mouthed mom played by Chelsea Handler, basically doing her Chelsea Handler-brand of female raunch, decides to take Lauren's love life into her own hands, posting a racy page on a dating site. A few continents away, Tuck and FDR are on assignment - a James Bond-styled operation that lands them in a lux penthouse party looking for a bad guy named Heinrich (Til Schweiger) and involves a great deal of roof-top hanging out and hair-raising derring-do. Back home in L.A., and grounded for all the ways the Heinrich affair went wrong, single-dad Tuck decides to try finding a soul mate online. Lauren's profile is discovered and a date is set with FDR stationed nearby in case an emergency extraction is necessary. A chance encounter changes the plan, and the competition for Lauren that will drive the rest of the film is set in motion. The cameras, the wiretaps, the tracking devices and the two competing CIA crews that Tuck and FDR enlist to help them chart every move Lauren makes become the chief framing device McG and screenwriters Timothy Dowling ("Role Models") and Simon Kinberg ("Sherlock Holmes") employ. If you can get past the gross invasion of privacy issues that would exist if this were real life and not just a frothy confection, what you have is some bittersweet fun peppered by bursts of sharp patter, the best between the boys. Hardy ("Inception") and Pine ("Star Trek") are the heart of the film - proving to be excellent opposing sides of the same coin. Both balance their characters' cynicism with a certain sweetness, their chemistry fairly crackling, electrifying the screen almost any time they're sharing it, whether taking down a bad guy or squabbling about who is more lovable (it's a tossup). With Lauren, on the other hand, they are basically gentlemen, so not electrifying. Though the role doesn't quite get Witherspoon back where she belongs, Lauren has more of the kind of sweet sass that first made the actress into such a cinematic sweetheart. Since her Oscar win for portraying country star June Carter Cash in 2005's "Walk the Line," she has struggled from the middling disappointment of last year's "Water for Elephants" to the downright deplorable comedy of "Four Christmases" with Vince Vaughn in 2008. As Lauren, she's mostly rock 'n' roll eye candy - a maniac behind the wheel and not so demur in bed either - but there are occasional flashes of some of the better past lives she's had.

Adele Tops Charts for 15th Time January 11, 2012, 1:04 pm Adele's "21" (XL/Columbia) is officially the fastest-selling record in seven years, so it's not a surprise that this week the album tops Billboard's chart for the 15th time. What is notable - and a relief for the music industry - is that it continues to rack up significant sales at a time of year that has been embarrassingly slow in recent years. Adele's album sold 124,000 copies last week, according to Nielsen SoundScan. That is a healthy number in any week. But it's miraculous given the abysmal sales last January and February, when the industry's record for the lowest sales for a No. 1 album was broken again and again buy a string of releases, culminating with just over 40,000 sales for Amos Lee's "Mission Bell." Once again, Adele's success is giving the music business something to celebrate. The rest of the chart this week, however, looks a lot more like the industry's typical post-holiday doldrums. Drake's "Take Care" (Young Money/Cash Money/Universal Republic) reached No. 2 with 42,000 sales, just a few hundred more than the Black Keys" "El Camino" (Nonesuch), which rises four spots this week to No. SoundScan's publicly reported numbers are rounded. Young Jeezy's "TM: 103 Hustlerz Ambition" (CTE/Def Jam) is No. 4 with 36,000 sales, and Coldplay's "Mylo Xyloto" (Capitol) is No. On Billboard's digital songs chart, a new title is at No. 1 after months of the top spot being held almost every week by either LMFAO, Adele, Rihanna or Maroon 5. This week Jason Mraz's "I Won't Give Up" opened at No. 1 with 229,000 downloads. Right behind that song were the usual suspects: LMFAO's "Sexy and I Know It" fell one spot to No. 2 with 212,000 downloads; Adele is No. 3 with her latest single, "Set Fire to the Rain," which had 203,000 downloads; and Rihanna's "We Found Love" is in fourth place with 185,000.

Photos: Sneak peek at modern art gallery Visitors get a preview of a sale of impressionist, modern and contemporary pieces at Sotheby's auction house in central London on Thursday, June 14. This piece by Indian-born British sculptor Anish Kapoor is valued between $622,000 and $932,000. The sale will take place Tuesday, June 19.

US satellite photographs show Syrian artillery The US state department has released satellite images showing which it claims show Syrian government artillery positions around residential areas. The images were posted on Facebook by US ambassador Robert Ford, who has now left Syria citing security concerns.

HSBC compliance boss quits in hearing By Shahien Nasiripour, FT.com July 18, 2012 -- Updated 0106 GMT (0906 HKT) HSBC's chief compliance officer resigned from his post during a US Senate hearing Follows publication of a damning report alleging that Britain's biggest bank (Financial Times) -- HSBC's chief compliance officer resigned from his post during a US Senate hearing following publication of a damning report alleging that Britain's biggest bank may have inadvertently allowed the laundering of Mexican drug money. David Bagley told senators on Tuesday that HSBC was transforming its compliance function. "I recommended to the group that now is the appropriate time -- for me and for the bank -- for someone new to serve as the head of group compliance," he said. Mr Bagley will, however, remain with the bank. The report by the Senate permanent subcommittee on investigations alleged that HSBC ignored warnings that its compliance system may have inadvertently allowed drug proceeds from Mexico to be laundered through the bank and allowed terrorist financiers in the Middle East to obtain US dollars. Mr Bagley is at least the second senior executive linked to activities described in the Senate report to have lost his position. Sandy Flockhart, who led HSBC's Mexican unit from acquisition until 2006, announced last week that he would retire from the bank at the end of the month. There is no suggestion of wrongdoing by Mr Flockhart, who is battling cancer. The Senate report follows a multiyear investigation that mirrors investigations currently under way by the US justice and Treasury departments and the Manhattan district attorney. One analyst predicted HSBC's fines could be as high as $1bn in a settlement with those three US authorities. The bank has not been formally accused of wrongdoing in connection with the most recent investigations. However, HSBC twice in the past 10 years has been cited by US bank regulators for deficient anti-money laundering policies and ordered to take corrective action. Mr Bagley, who has led the bank's compliance department since 2002, is mentioned throughout the Senate report for compliance lapses and ignored warnings. In 2008, the head of anti-money laundering at the bank's Mexico unit told Mr Bagley that there were allegations that as much as 70 per cent of laundered proceeds in Mexico went through the bank, according to Mr Bagley's own notes. The official told Mr Bagley that "it was only a matter of time before the bank faced criminal sanctions." In 2010, the chief anti-money laundering officer at HSBC's US affiliate told Mr Bagley that he lacked the proper authority necessary to do his job. On Tuesday Mr Bagley described a position that had limited power. Even though he was the banking group's chief compliance officer, he did not manage or control the various compliance departments at HSBC affiliates throughout the world. Instead, his job was to set policy and to escalate issues that were reported to him, Mr Bagley said. Senate investigators found that HSBC supplied $1bn in cash to a Saudi Arabian bank with suspected links to terrorism, including the al-Qaeda organisation, despite internal concerns and a one-time directive that all affiliates sever ties to the Middle Eastern lender. HSBC's US arm later resumed ties with the bank, investigators allege. In a sign of the significance of the US inquiry into HSBC, a top attorney at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency -- HSBC's regulator -- noted to a colleague in a July 2009 email that "this has the makings of potentially being a major criminal case." Stuart Levey, HSBC's chief legal officer, could not assure lawmakers that HSBC's numerous affiliates were presently compliant with US rules. "I don't have knowledge of such a thing," Mr Levey said in response to questions. The bank has been criticised for promising reforms in the past only for allegedly improper activities to continue.

Obama Campaign: Ruling on Pennsylvania Voter ID Law "Great News" The Obama campaign today welcomed as "great news" a Pennsylvania judge's decision to block the state's new voter identification law, ordering that it not be enforced until after the presidential election. "This decision makes one thing clear for the people there: if you're eligible to vote, you'll be able to vote on Election Day," Obama campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters today. We believe that the right to vote is an American value. Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson ruled that voters in Pennsylvania will not have to produce a photo ID to vote in the upcoming presidential election, on the basis that he expected more IDs to be issued to voters who need them in time for the next election. Voter IDs have become a hotly contested issue this election cycle, especially in the key state of Pennsylvania, one of 10 states that have passed ID laws in the past two years. Republicans passed the law without Democratic support, arguing it would protect the integrity of the electoral process. Opponents claim it would disproportionately prevent racial minorities and seniors from voting. "I am not still convinced," Judge Simpson wrote in his opinion, "that there will be no voter disenfranchisement arising out of the Commonwealth's implementation of a voter identification requirement for purposes of the upcoming election." Simpson said election officials could still ask voters for ID cards, but could not turn away those who do not have them. "We're encouraged by it," Psaki said. "As we've done in many other states, we'll be focused on making sure people in Pennsylvania are educated on how they can vote, when they can vote and how to participate in the process."

Friendly fire killed Border Patrol agent, sources tell NBC News Gary M. Williams / AP Christy Ivie, center, wife of Nicholas Ivie, holds back tears as she is surrounded by her father, Tracy Morris, and mother, DeAnn Morris, left, and her sister, Jan Cloward, and brother, Travis Morris, right, during a news conference on Tuesday. By Pete Williams, NBC News Investigators are preparing to announce that the death of Border Patrol Agent Nicholas Ivie in Arizona earlier this week was the result of friendly fire -- accidental gunfire from another agent who responded to the same scene, state and federal officials told NBC News on Friday. The conclusion is based on an analysis of the ballistics, the lack of evidence of other criminals in the area at the time, and other factors, the sources said. A formal statement about the findings could come later Friday. The incident involving Ivie and two other agents occurred Tuesday in a rugged area about five miles north of the US-Mexico border near Bisbee, Ariz. The agents had responded to an alarm from a sensor that tracks illegal movement along the border. Ivie was killed. A second agent was wounded and was released from the hospital after undergoing surgery. The third agent was unharmed. State and federal officials said immediately after the incident that the shootings were committed by armed criminals. And since then, Mexican authorities have said they arrested two men in Agua Prieta, northern Sonora state, a few miles from where the shooting occurred. Pete Williams is NBC News' chief justice correspondent. Investigators have told NBC News that they cannot rule out the possibility that border agent Nicolas Ivie, who was shot and killed Tuesday morning, may have been a casualty of "friendly fire."

Obama to unveil veterans jobs proposal with hefty price tag By Alex Mooney, CNN White House Producer February 3, 2012 -- Updated 0632 GMT (1432 HKT) The president's jobs proposal for veterans will likely meet stiff resistance in Congress. Initiative would involve Veterans Administration, Interior Department Grant money would be awarded to towns, fire departments that train and hire veterans Proposal's $5 billion price tag makes it a tough sell in Congress Washington (CNN) -- President Barack Obama is unveiling a new jobs initiative geared toward veterans Friday that the administration says will put thousands of former men and women in uniform back to work. The new so-called Veterans Jobs Corps initiative, first mentioned in the president's State of the Union address last week, involves partnerships with the Veterans Administration and the Interior Department, as well as state and local law enforcement agencies. The president is scheduled to announce the new proposals during a speech at an Arlington, Virginia, firehouse. But with a price tag of at least $5 billion, it's likely the new initiative will be met with stiff opposition in Congress. Specifically, the administration will award $166 million in grant money to communities that show a preference of hiring post-9/11 veterans for new law enforcement positions. Meanwhile, $320 million in grant money will be awarded to various fire departments who pledge to hire and train new veterans. The money for those grants has already been appropriated by Congress. But the president will seek an additional $4 billion in his upcoming budget to expand both programs. Congress rejected a similar proposal last fall that was part of the president's broader jobs initiative. The president also will announce that his upcoming budget will include a $1 billion proposal to create as many as 20,000 new jobs for veterans relating to conservation efforts of America's federal and state public lands. That initiative, to be overseen by the Department of Interior, would put veterans to work in visitor and tourism-related jobs as well as positions that will assist in general upkeep and maintenance roles throughout the country's public parks and nature preserves. "These are common-sense initiatives to serve our 9/11 veterans who are coming home," Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar told reporters on a conference call with reporters. We hope Congress does its job (in approving the funding). Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki also announced the president will propose expanding training programs for entrepreneurially focused veterans seeking to start their own businesses. This program would include online training seminars conducted by the Small Business Administration lasting as long as eight weeks and could service as many as 10,000 veterans annually, according to administration estimates. "Our country owes them a debt of gratitude and we must ensure that veterans who come home from Afghanistan and Iraq get the opportunities they deserve," Shinseki said. The unemployment rate for post-9/11 veterans is 11.1%, more than 2 percentage points higher than the country's overall unemployment rate. Among the president's few jobs proposals to clear Congress last year were new tax credits for businesses that hire recent veterans.

Scotland - SNP 500 - FT.com It is time to crack open the scotch and dust off the Braveheart DVD. The Scottish National Party and the British government have finally agreed on how to phrase the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence. Cue fevered debate on Scotland's economic prospects and the destination of oil taxes. Investors can be more sanguine. Via the likes of BP and Total (North Sea oil), Diageo (whisky) and Iberdrola (Scottish Power) they can already own some of Scotland's more attractive assets. But the debate over independence opens up the possibility of a Scottish index. If its composition were anything like London's Scottish contingent, such an index would be deeply cyclical and dominated by Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group (both of which have big Scottish operations). Even without them, financial services would dominate thanks to names such as Aberdeen Asset Management and Standard Life. There is a large contingent of investment trusts that would exaggerate market movements. Elsewhere the oil and gas sector would be big, although not as big as one might expect. The fields are mostly owned by overseas majors or UK minnows, the only Scotland-based exception being Cairn. There would be a presence in related sectors via the likes of Wood Group and Weir. The big defensive bulwark would be Scottish and Southern Energy which, with a market capitalisation of £14bn, would be the third-largest company. The Scots could help to round out their index by floating some family-owned food and drinks businesses. On the drinks side, the likes of William Grant and Edrington (owner of Famous Grouse and Macallan) would be sizeable additions, although the latter is controlled by a charitable trust. The food companies are smaller, though Walker's and Baxter's would bring some brand recognition. Overall though, a Scottish index - heavy on financials and natural resources but light on technology - would bear a passing resemblance to what is already available in London.

Florida woman arrested for riding an endangered manatee Sun Nov 25, 2012 12:59am EST (Reuters) - A Florida woman photographed two months ago riding an endangered manatee in violation of state law was arrested on Saturday on misdemeanor charges, authorities said. The Pinellas County Sheriff's office said deputies arrested Ana Gloria Garcia Gutierrez, 53, without incident at her job at a Sears store in St. Petersburg on a warrant for violating the Florida Manatee Sanctuary Act. The state makes it illegal to "annoy, molest, harass or disturb" the endangered aquatic mammals, whose survival is imperiled by manmade threats, including boating collisions. Violations are considered a second-degree misdemeanor. The arrest stemmed from reports on September 30 that an unidentified woman had been seen touching and riding a manatee - which can grow up to 12 feet in length and weigh up to 1,800 pounds (818 kilograms) - at Fort Desoto Park, a few miles from downtown St. Petersburg. Following media coverage of her cavorting with the mammal, Garcia Gutierrez called the sheriff's office two days later to turn herself in. She admitted the offense claiming "she is new to the area and did not realize it was against the law to touch or harass manatees," the office said in a news release. It was not immediately clear what penalties Garcia Gutierrez would face if convicted. Reporting by Tim Gaynor; Editing by Paul Simao

Spanish duke subpoenaed in fraud case MADRID, Feb. 24 (UPI) -- The husband of Spain's Princess Cristina will be the first royal in the country's modern history to appear in court as part of a fraud investigation. Inaki Urdangarin, 44, a commoner who became duke of Palma after a 1997 marriage, was subpoenaed by a judge investigating whether he and his business partners channeled millions of dollars in public funds into private companies, The New York Times reported Friday. He will appear in court Saturday. Carmen Enriquez, national television's royal correspondent for nearly two decades, said the investigation has hurt the image of the monarchy. "This is an unprecedented case," she said. Whatever the judge ultimately decides, the impact on the royal family is significant, especially since there are already elements in society, politics and the media in this country who don't want to maintain the monarchy. Urdangarin had been asked to no longer represent the crown in public duties in December because of the scandal.

Pope starts Lebanon tour with unity call Pope Benedict spent the first of a three day trip to Lebanon urging Christians in the middle east not to leave, but to continue dialogue with their Muslim compatriots. He had gone to St Paul's Basilica in Harissa to the north of the capital Beirut as part of the trip, which is focusing on the promotion of harmony between the two religious groups. Leaders of all denominations were there to greet him. It was a rare display of unity in a region gripped by violent anti-US protests and a civil war in Syria over the border just 50 kilometres away. Earlier the pontiff had told journalists that importing weapons into Syria, which he said was a "grave sin," had to stop. He also said the Arab Spring was a positive thing that had brought a desire for more democracy, freedom and cooperation. But he warned there must also be religious tolerance. In Beirut, they were preparing for Sunday's mass by the sea which will bring the pope's visit to a close. Seventy-five thousand seats are being set out, but organisers are expecting thousands more celebrants standing. More about: Benedict XVI, Catholicism, Christianity, Lebanon, Pope, Religion

Video beating judge seeks return to bench BROWNSVILLE, Texas, Oct. 3 (UPI) -- A Texas judge suspended after an online video showed him whipping his daughter has agreed not to appeal a warning on his conduct as he seeks reinstatement. Aransas County Court-at Law Judge William Adams was suspended with pay in November 2011 after a video posted online showed him beating his daughter, then 16, in 2004, apparently because she disobeyed his orders on downloading file-sharing content to her computer. The video shows Adams hitting his daughter at least 19 times with a belt, forcing her to bend over on her bed, threatening at one point to smack her in the face and saying he will "beat you into submission." The State Commission on Judicial Conduct suspended Adams and issued a warning on his conduct. In a motion filed Wednesday seeking reinstatement, Adams agreed not to contest the warning, the San Antonio Express-News reported. The misconduct warning was issued after the commission interviewed witnesses at a hearing on Adams' fitness to serve as a family court judge. The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services has said it would request its cases be sent to another judge besides Adams, the newspaper said. Adams, who was elected to the judgeship, had been seen as a respected figure in the community before his daughter, Hillary Adams, now 24, posted the video of him beating her. His wife, Hallie Adams, is seen on the video striking her daughter once, after telling her to "take it like a grown woman." The statute of limitations for filing criminal child abuse charges has passed, the newspaper noted.

East Coast Weather Satellite Fails, Spare Used The U.S. weather satellite that tracks the East Coast and Atlantic hurricanes is broken. Meteorologists are scrambling to fill in lost data for forecasters with a spare satellite and help from a European satellite. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration spokesman Scott Smullen said engineers shut down the East Coast satellite on Sunday because of vibrations. They're still trying to diagnose the problem. Smullen said there may be a slight decrease in the accuracy of weather forecasts. NOAA is checking to see if it will affect hurricane forecasting. The $500 million satellite was launched in 2006, but it wasn't used regularly to monitor weather until 2010. NOAA: http://www.goes.noaa.gov

Proposal for 'English only' city council meetings sparks debate in Walnut, Calif. By Caroline Tan, NBCLosAngeles.com WALNUT, Calif. -- For Walnut residents who do not speak English, participating in City Council meetings and addressing local officials may soon become more difficult. Council members voted 5-0 this week to postpone a decision on a proposal that would ask non-English speakers to provide their own interpreters for all Council proceedings, which would be conducted only in English. But the prospect of English-only public meetings remains a distinct possiblity. A vote may happen later this month, when the council is scheduled to meet again on July 25. Though a formal decision has yet to be made, the proposed English-only policy has already raised concerns among some local residents, who fear the move would violate civil rights and unfairly disadvantage a portion of the population. Nearly two-thirds of Walnut's residents and three of the five council members are Asian. The proposal comes at the helm of decades of similar policies targeting the growing immigrant population in nearby cities in the San Gabriel Valley, which has transitioned from a predominantly Caucasian collection of suburbs into a center of Asian culture in Southern California. The English-only proposal was brought to the council by local resident Wendy Barend Toy, who said she could not understand several commenters who spoke Chinese when addressing the council. On Wednesday, the council voted to seek federal review from the U.S. Department of Justice before making a decision on the proposal. Daisy Duan, 27, a graduate student at the University of Southern California who speaks limited English, said in Chinese that the proposal would "definitely" affect her ability to participate in local politics. "I feel like English is still very difficult," Duan said. I know many first-generation immigrants who, when they came to America, could not speak even a single word ... It's not fair. Duan added that she thinks the proposal is particularly problematic in California, which has a higher proportion of immigrants than any other state. Read original story on NBCLosAngeles.com According to the 2010 U.S. census, Asians represented about 64 percent of Walnut's population. Caucasians accounted for 24 percent, Hispanics for 19 percent and Africans for 3 percent. The remaining 6 percent were of other races or ethnicities. Walnut Councilman Tom King said Friday that the city simply can not afford to hire an interpreter for every meeting. He supports the idea of English-only meetings but has reservations about specifics in the proposal. King said it is uncommon for residents to address the council in a language other than English, so the demand for an interpreter does not justify the costs. "It would be a financial restriction and waste of money," King said. He added that the last time a resident spoke to the council in a language other than English was when a Mandarin-speaking resident came to the podium in April. Still, King said the council hopes to represent all voices and has considered alternative solutions. "Nobody wants to disenfranchise anybody," King said. It's just that our meetings are held in English, and we have someone record the meetings in English, and if they speak [a different language], their remarks are not understood. King said he has suggested that the Council create a "standby volunteer interpreter list" to provide language support. But Sissy Trinh, an active member of local advocacy group Southeast Asian Community Alliance, said she has noticed that similar initiatives in other cities ended up as "abysmal" failures. Translation is a mentally exhausting activity and volunteer help can be unreliable, she added. "You have to assume that people can take that time off and that they're willing to," Trinh said. You don't know what the quality [of translation] is, and I've heard of cases where people are brought in to translate and end up speaking the wrong dialect. Trinh added that she considered the proposal a "civil rights violation" that "definitely doesn't build trust with government officials." But King said he was not worried about volunteer recruitment. There are many bilingual students in the region who are eager to give back to their community, he said. Austin Yuan, 25, a first generation immigrant who is fluent in English, said he could understand the motives behind the proposal. "As a citizen, you have to understand that perhaps it's not just the responsibility of the government to just serve you," Yuan said. They have to look at everyone. Still, Yuan said he sympathized with citizens who do not speak English and feel they are being "cheated out of their tax money." The legal debate will likely come down to an "access issue" for those who do not speak English, according to Los Angeles-based civil rights attorney Lisa Maki. She said it's a complicated issue, but added that developing a volunteer interpreter datase will likely help the city of Walnut avoid legal problems. The Council is expected to vote on the matter later this month, pending input from the U.S. Department of Justice on any civil rights or legal issues associated with the proposal.

FDA halts operations at peanut butter plant The Food and Drug Administration halted operations of the country's largest organic peanut butter processor Monday, cracking down on salmonella poisoning for the first time with the new enforcement authority the agency gained in a 2011 food safety law. FDA officials found salmonella all over Sunland Inc."s New Mexico processing plant after 41 people in 20 states, most of them children, were sickened by peanut butter manufactured at the Sunland plant and sold at Trader Joe's grocery chain. The FDA suspended Sunland's registration Monday, preventing the company from producing or distributing any food. The food safety law gave the FDA authority to suspend a company's registration when food manufactured or held there has a "reasonable probability" of causing serious health problems or death. Before the food safety law was enacted early last year, the FDA would have had to go to court to suspend a company's registration. Sunland had planned to reopen its peanut processing facility on Tuesday and a spokeswoman said before the FDA's announcement Monday that the company hoped to be selling peanut butter again by the end of the year. The spokeswoman didn't have immediate comment on the suspension. The company now has the right to a hearing and must prove to the agency that its facilities are clean enough to reopen. Michael Taylor, the FDA's deputy commissioner for foods, said the FDA's ability to suspend a registration like this one is a major step forward for the agency. "Consumers can be assured that products will not leave this facility until we determine they have implemented preventive measures that are effective to produce safe products," Taylor said. Sunland Inc. is the nation's largest organic peanut butter processor, though it also produces many non-organic products. The company recalled hundreds of organic and non-organic nuts and nut butters manufactured since 2010 after Trader Joe's Valencia Creamy Peanut Butter was linked to the salmonella illnesses in September. In addition to Trader Joe's, Sunland sold hundreds of different peanut products to many of the nation's other large grocery chains, including Whole Foods, Safeway, Target and others. In a monthlong investigation in September and October, after the outbreak linked to processor Sunland and to Trader Joe's, FDA inspectors found samples of salmonella in 28 different locations in the plant, in 13 nut butter samples and in one sample of raw peanuts. The agency also found improper handling of the products, unclean equipment and uncovered trailers of peanuts outside the facility that were exposed to rain and birds. The FDA said that over the past three years, the company shipped products even though portions of their lots, or daily production runs, tested positive for salmonella in internal tests. The agency also found that the internal tests failed to find salmonella when it was present. FDA inspectors found many of the same problems - including employees putting their bare fingers in to empty jars before they were filled, open bags of ingredients, unclean equipment, and many other violations - in a 2007 inspection. Similar problems were recorded by inspectors in 2009, 2010 and 2011, though government officials didn't take any action or release the results of those inspections until after the illnesses were discovered this year. In a statement earlier this month, Sunland officials denied that they knowingly shipped tainted products. "At no time in its 24-year history has Sunland, Inc. released for distribution any products that it knew to be potentially contaminated with harmful microorganisms," Sunland president and CEO Jimmie Shearer said in a statement on the company's website. In every instance where test results indicated the presence of a contaminant, the implicated product was destroyed and not released for distribution. A separate peanut butter outbreak in 2009 not related to Sunland was linked to hundreds of illnesses and nine deaths.

Arrests after man found stabbed in Easingwold van crash

Participate in ABC's "Day of Giving" to Help Hurricane Sandy Victims Disney and ABC will launch a "Day of Giving" Monday, Nov. 15 to raise money for hurricane relief efforts. Starting on "Good Morning America" and ending with "Jimmy Kimmel Live," ABC shows will encourage viewers to help those impacted by the storm by making a contribution to the American Red Cross. Here's how you can participate in ABC's "Day of Giving:" TEXT: Text ABC to 90999 to give a $10 donation to the Red Cross. This number will bypass all the other menu options and direct your call to Hurricane Sandy relief. Hurricane Sandy has affected millions along the East Coast, causing massive devastation and destruction and in its wake. Recovery efforts are underway as emergency crews scramble to get supplies to the hardest-hit communities, but many estimate that the relief effort may be the most expensive in U.S. history. The Walt Disney Company kicked off the effort Thursday, announcing a $2 million donation for Sandy relief and rebuilding efforts, including $1 million to the American Red Cross and $1 million to organizations working on rebuilding efforts. SHOWS: Good Morning America Nightline World News

Chevron to using fracking process in Argentina BUENOS AIRES, Dec. 20 (UPI) -- Chevron's shale natural gas operations in Argentina should start "as soon as possible" despite lawsuits in U.S. federal courts, the company said. Spanish energy company Repsol in December filed a lawsuit in a federal court in New York accusing Chevron of securing the rights to develop Argentina's shale reserves illegally. Ali Moshiri, director of Chevron's operations in Latin America, was quoted by Bloomberg News as saying the lawsuit was "irrelevant" to similar efforts with Argentina's YPF. "Our goal is to start as soon as possible and the only thing we need is to push our teams to put a definitive agreement together as soon as possible," he said. The U.S. Energy Department's Energy Information Administration states that Argentina has the third-largest deposits of natural gas in the world. Chevron, under the terms of an agreement reached this week with YPF, gets exclusive rights to negotiate terms for two natural gas fields in southwestern Argentina. "Chevron is committed to make the expenditures in accordance with a development program, for an estimated 100 wells, in these areas during a 12-month period," YPF was quoted as saying. The agreement with Chevron would be the first since the government nationalized YPF by seizing 51 percent of the shares from Repsol in April.