Israeli government offers concessions to settlers (AP)

JERUSALEM ? Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government has made two overtures to West Bank settlers in the run-up to his party's leadership race on Tuesday: It's offering financial incentives to encourage people to move to settlements and opening the door to legalizing rogue settler outposts.

The gestures appear to be aimed at appeasing hardline elements in the ruling Likud Party who are sympathetic to settlers. While Netanyahu is expected to win the leadership race, a relatively strong showing by his ultranationalist rival would suggest many Likud voters consider the prime minister too soft on peacemaking with the Palestinians.

The moves threatened to derail tentative new peace efforts with the Palestinians. A round of low-level peace negotiations ground to a halt last week, in large part because of Palestinian objections to Israeli settlement construction. U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon is expected in the region Wednesday in an effort to restart the talks.

The Palestinians rejected Netanyahu's latest moves.

"They are adding obstacles at a time when everyone is intensifying efforts to try to resume peace talks," said Palestinian government spokesman Ghassan Khatib. "I think with every additional settlement activity, the feasibility of having two states is diminished."

Years ago, the Israeli government halted generous financial enticements designed to encourage Israelis to settle in the West Bank, the occupied territory the Palestinians see as the core of their future state.

But in this week's government decision, 70 settlements appeared on a new list of 557 communities inside Israel and the West Bank that qualify for housing subsidies. The incentives, according to a statement from the prime minister's office, are "meant to encourage positive migration to these communities."

After suspending benefits unique to the settlements, the government is now encouraging settlers to move to the West Bank under a different program, said Hagit Ofran of the anti-settlement group Peace Now.

"They put in 70 settlements, in effect encouraging them to live there," Ofran said.

The list of qualifying settlements include major enclaves that would likely remain in Israeli hands under a peace deal. But most are located deep inside the West Bank and likely would have to be dismantled.

In a separate move, the government on Monday appointed a committee to examine land ownership issues in the West Bank.

The panel will review a 2005 government report that found several dozen outposts were built not only without state approval, but on privately held Palestinian land. Officials said the report needs to be reviewed because its author, state prosecutor Talia Sasson, later entered politics with a dovish political party, raising questions about her objectivity.

A court-ordered evacuation of Migron, the largest unauthorized outpost, set for next month would not be affected by the formation of the new committee, officials said.

But the panel's makeup aroused suspicions it would legalize at least some of the more than 100 outposts built without government authorization, including dozens Sasson says were erected on privately held Palestinian land.

The committee's head, former Supreme Court chief justice Edmond Levy, spoke out against Israel's withdrawal of settlers from the Gaza Strip in 2005. A second panel member, Alan Baker, has represented settlers hoping to legalize unauthorized outposts.

The international community opposes all Jewish settlement activity in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war. But Israel distinguishes between the 121 settlements established in accordance with official procedures and the more than 100 unauthorized "outposts" that skirted the process with the help of sympathetic authorities and are considered illegal.

Peace talks with the Palestinians stalled more than three years ago, largely over continued Israeli settlement construction. With Palestinians demanding a settlement freeze, a recent round of meetings between Israeli and Palestinian envoys in Jordan has yielded no breakthroughs.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is under intense international pressure to stay at the negotiating table. A final decision is expected after Abbas consults with Arab League officials over the weekend.

The Palestine Liberation Organization ? the umbrella organization for Palestinian groups, dominated by Abbas' Fatah movement ? discussed the issue on Monday but stopped short of urging Abbas to halt the contacts.

Israel has said it wants to keep talking.

Also Tuesday, Israeli authorities said they have received permission to force feed a Palestinian prisoner who has been on a hunger strike for more than six weeks.

Prisons spokeswoman Sivan Weizman said 33-year-old Khader Adnan would not be force fed until "medical conditions" warranted it, but provided no further details.

Adnan, a leading member of the Islamic Jihad militant group, says he was kicked, punched and painfully shackled by his interrogators, according to his lawyers. His lawyers say he also wants to be put on trial and not held for months in administrative detention without charges.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mideast/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120131/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_palestinians

occupy san francisco top chef just desserts jamarcus russell sister wives st louis weather jack the cat frank lucas

(Nearly) Open Thread, January 30 2012 (slacktivist)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/193410120?client_source=feed&format=rss

dan henderson oregon ducks oregon ducks oregon football lana turner donald glover julio cesar chavez jr

Officer Mike Russow takes UFC on Fox 2 decision

CHICAGO -- Mike Russow did his city proud with a decision victory at UFC on Fox 2. The judges scored it 29-28, 29-28, 30-27 for Russow, causing loud cheers from the crowd at the United Center.

Russow started with a quick takedown. When they returned to their feet, Russow was aggressive, landing a combination before clinching up with Einemo. He moved inside with strikes, and then got another takedown. From there Russow controlled Einemo until the last five seconds, when Einemo briefly reversed position before the round ended.

The second round started much like the first, with Russow getting a quick takedown. Russow briefly stood up and towered over Einemo, but returned to controlling him on the ground. They were stood up with 22 seconds left in the round, but Russow returned to the takedown that served him well for the first two rounds.

Einemo was more aggressive in the third round, and nailed Russow with a knee and a punch. Russow got the takedown again, but had more trouble with it. When on the ground, Einemo came close to take Russow's back, but Russow slipped out of it. Russow controlled Einemo for most of the round, but the two were stood up with just over a minute left. Einemo hit Russow with a knee, then Russow used the next knee for another takedown.

Russow is a full-time member of the Chicago Police Department and took a month off from the department to prepare for this bout. He's now 4-0 in the UFC and 15-1 overall. Einemo, a member of the famed Golden Glory camp, has lost both of his UFC bouts.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/officer-mike-russow-takes-ufc-fox-2-decision-002431342.html

game of thrones season 2 trailer earned income credit the grey rick santorum daughter sag awards 2012 screen actors guild gainesville

Libyan commander says will retake Bani Walid (Reuters)

SADADA, Libya (Reuters) ? A militia commander whose troops were driven out of the Libyan tribal stronghold of Bani Walid this week said on Friday that his forces were massing to recapture the town but were holding back at the government's request.

"It is our right to reenter Bani Walid and nobody can prevent us," Imbarak al-Futmani said in an interview with Reuters at his desert camp near Sadada, 30 miles east of Bani Walid.

Futmani's troops were pushed out by angry townsmen who he accuses of being the remnants of loyalists of Muammar Gaddafi, the former dictator who was overthrown then captured and killed in October.

Eight hundred of his men were now massed along the eastern flank of the town awaiting his orders to enter by force, said the elderly warrior, who was dressed in an ornate black and gold waistcoast, a skullcap and a white blanket over his shoulder.

Bani Walid, 90 miles south of Tripoli, was one of the last towns to surrender to the anti-Gaddafi rebellion last year.

Hundreds of fighters loyal to the interim government have surrounded the isolated town after hearing word that a pro-Gaddafi uprising had broken out.

Futmani said he faced a couple of hundred "criminals" nostalgic for Gaddafi's time in power, rather than large battalions of organized loyalists.

"We have all the revolutionary fighters with us and we can take Bani Walid in a matter of hours."

"If they don't hand themselves in, they will face what they cannot imagine," he added, his eyes hidden by thick-rimmed, amber Ray-Ban sunglasses.

GADDAFI SUPPORT ALLEGATIONS

On Monday, armed residents surrounded Futmani's brigade, who named themselves the "28th of May," after the date last year when Gaddafi loyalists executed a number of pro-democracy protesters in Bani Walid.

After a battle in which Futmani lost six fighters, his men fled the barracks in the dark of the night.

"Once the Gaddafis broke through the gate and entered the barracks, all they cared about was stealing our tanks. We just walked right out," said one of Futmani's men.

Echoing complaints by residents that the 28th of May Brigade had been harassing people and abusing prisoners, the town elders said they were dismissing the government-backed local council on which Futmani sits and appointing their own local government.

They said they were not Gaddafi supporters but just tired of the militia pushing its weight around their town.

Futmani says the elders profited from Gaddafi and were trying to reclaim their town from its rightful rulers, the western-backed National Transitional Council (NTC) government.

WAITING ON THE PRIME MINISTER

With hundreds of fighters waiting at the gates of Bani Walid, drinking tea and oiling their weapons in the cold desert, why have they have not pushed forward?

Sitting in his base, a former Gaddafi holiday mansion on the top of a rocky hill, Futmani said the prime minister had asked him to hold off to allow civilians to leave the town and, hopefully, for the assailants to surrender.

"The prime minister called me and asked me not to move and I accepted," he said.

"(Prime minister Abdel Rahim) El Keib promised that the government would use force to maintain security, if necessary."

Troops from the nascent National Army, composed of revolutionary fighters who have signed up to the government force, had joined the militias around Bani Walid.

The NTC has been unable to fully establish control over armed revolutionary groups in Libya and has only incorporated a few brigades into a national security force. All of the militias claim loyalty to the government but most are still unwilling to disarm. Instead, they adopt a wait-and-see approach to who comes to power, and if they like them.

Futmani's men cruise around the base in dirty pick-up trucks with machineguns mounted on the back.

He is skeptical of any peaceful solution and saw more violence ahead.

"These pro-Gaddafis, they see us a rats, like Gaddafi did," he said. "They are murderers and criminals, they will never integrate into the new Libya because they know they will face justice now."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120127/wl_nm/us_libya_commander

time magazine person of the year la clippers verizon galaxy nexus verizon galaxy nexus lawrence lessig lawrence lessig time magazine person of the year 2011

Wrecked cruise ship passengers offered $14,460

By msnbc.com news services

ROME -- Passengers who were on the Costa Concordia are being offered $14,460 apiece to compensate them for their lost baggage and psychological trauma after the cruise ship ran aground and capsized off Tuscany when the captain deviated from his route.

Costa Crociere, a unit of the world's biggest cruise operator Carnival Corp., will also reimburse passengers the full costs of their cruise, travel expenses and any medical expenses sustained after the grounding off the coast of Italy.

---

The agreement was announced Friday after a day of negotiations between Costa representatives and Italian consumer groups representing 3,206 people from 61 countries who suffered no physical harm when the Costa Concordia hit a reef on Jan. 13.

Passengers and crew are free to pursue legal action if they aren't satisfied with the deal.

Survivors of the Costa Concordia are realizing the limits of their legal claims, as they signed away their rights when they bought their tickets. NBC's Kerry Sanders reports on what travelers should know.

The offer was revealed after the first of what may be multiple U.S. lawsuits seeking class-action status over the disaster was filed.

Lawyers for Gary Lobaton, who was a crew member on board the Costa Concordia, said in a court filing that he was not aware of the "dangerous conditions" of the cruise ship until it was too late to abandon the ship.

The lawsuit sought to determine whether Carnival deviated from international safety standards when operating the cruise ship.

"Costa Concordia's Captain, Francesco Schettino, delayed the order to abandon ship and deploy the lifeboats," Lobaton's lawyers said in the filing.

Authorities have now identified the bodies of three German passengers recovered from the Costa Cruises ship that capsized off the coast of Italy earlier this month. Meanwhile, the children of a American couple still missing after the disaster have released a new statement. NBC's Michelle Kosinski reports.

Lobaton, who sued Carnival individually and on behalf of all others similarly affected by the cruise disaster, had sought damages from the company, according to the court filing.

Lobaton had also requested the court to assign class-action status to the lawsuit.

DigitalGlobe

The Costa Concordia, carrying more than 4,200 passengers, ran aground Jan. 13 off the coast of Italy. At least 15 people died in the accident, and rescuers continue to search for others missing.

The 114,500-ton ship capsized off the Tuscan coast, which left 11 people dead and 22 missing.

According to a Jan. 24 BBC report, the number of dead has risen to 16.

Carnival could not immediately be reached for comment by Reuters outside regular U.S. business hours.

The case is Gary Lobaton vs Carnival Corp, Case No. 1:12-cv-00598, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

Related stories:

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Source: http://overheadbin.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/27/10248750-wrecked-cruise-ship-passengers-offered-14460-plus-travel-medical-costs

saul alinsky chuck elisabeth hasselbeck kennedy fran drescher scarlett o hara joe paterno memorial service

Tight-fisted mortgage lenders pressure home sales

By John W. Schoen, Senior Producer

Home prices have fallen by a third since 2006, creating tremendous bargains for home buyers. Mortgage rates are at rock-bottom lows, making houses more affordable than they have been in decades. Yet home sales last year fell to the lowest levels since the government began keeping records in 1963.

One big reason: mortgage bankers have gotten a lot choosier about approving loans, according to a report by Goldman Sachs economists Hui Shan and Jari Stehn. By some measures, they're pickier than they were before the housing boom took off.?

With anecdotal evidence showing that home mortgages are harder to get, the economists crunched Federal Reserve data to show just how much tighter lending standards have become. Using the results of the Fed's survey of loan officers, the report found that lending standards rose sharply after the mortgage market collapsed and the financial system imploded in 2008. Since the recession ended in 2009, lenders haven?t eased their tight grip on mortgage money.

Part of the reason is that there?s less money available to lend. During the housing boom, as brokers produced a flood of new mortgages, Wall Street bankers churned out a torrent of mortgage-backed bonds for investors waiting to snap them up. That market has all but vanished; 90 percent of new mortgages written today are backed by the government. ??

The new mortgage pipeline also has slowed because it is clogged with paperwork. These days, you?ll have to fill out many more forms and produce a lot more documentation, on average, just to get your loan considered.

The percent of loans that required ?full documentation? declined steadily from 2000 through 2006, hitting a low of less than 60 percent. Those ?no-doc? loans were a big part of the reason mortgage bankers made the bad underwriting decisions that created the mortgage mess. Today, nearly 90 percent of mortgage applications require full documentation. That?s much higher than the pre-bubble level.

You?ll also have to show a much higher credit score than you did in the go-go days of the housing boom. In a separate report, Mortgage Marvel, an online mortgage-shopping website, analyzed data from more than 700,000 mortgage applications filed last year and found that the average FICO score was 730. That?s a significant jump from the days when borrowers with scores in the high 500s were routinely steered to high-cost subprime loans.

Applications with highest credit scores concentrated in California, Oregon, Wisconsin, District of Columbia and Hawaii, the company said. The states with the lowest credit scores were Mississippi, Arkansas, West Virginia, Louisiana? and Oklahoma.

{"contentId":"10252614","totalVotes":"8002"}

Have you had trouble getting a mortgage approved?

Join the discussion on Facebook

Source: http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/27/10252614-tight-fisted-mortgage-lenders-pressure-home-sales

st. croix st. croix threadworm nick swisher pirates of silicon valley htc flyer tablet htc flyer tablet

Strong quake jolts eastern Japan, no tsunami warning (Reuters)

TOKYO (Reuters) ? A strong earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.5 jolted eastern Japan on Saturday morning, but there were no immediate reports of injury or damage and no tsunami warning was issued.

The focus of the tremor was 20 km (12 miles) below the surface of the earth, in Yamanashi prefecture, west of Tokyo, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

The quake, at 7:43 a.m., was also felt in the capital.

Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the world's most seismically active areas. The country accounts for about 20 percent of the world's earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater.

On March 11, 2011, the northeast coast was struck by a magnitude 9 earthquake, the strongest quake in Japan on record, and a massive tsunami, which triggered the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years since Chernobyl. The disaster left up to 23,000 dead or missing.

(Reporting by Chris Gallagher, editing by Matthew Lewis)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/japan/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120127/wl_nm/us_japan_quake

homeland packers giants game golden globe winners 2012 ricky gervais golden globes epidermolysis bullosa law abiding citizen miss wisconsin

Weekly Rewind: Facebook makes Timeline mandatory, Foxconn employee leaks iPhone 5 details, and the Megaupload saga continues (Digital Trends)

Didn?t have time to keep up with every ripple in the technology pond this week? We?ve got you covered. Here are some of the most noteworthy stories from the last week.

The mandatory Facebook Timeline rollout is here

?While the rollout has been a slow process, Facebook is finally ready to push Timeline on all of its users, whether they like it or not. Users have had months to make the switch, but within the next few weeks it will no longer be a choice. Once you (willingly or not) get a Timeline, you will have one full week to dig through your online life history and pull out any potentially disastrous findings before any of your friends actually see them. This week we also gave you the low-down on how to fill in the gaps on your Timeline.?

Apple reports record quarter, Foxconn employee points to summer iPhone 5 launch

There is hardly a dead week for Apple news and this week is no exception. Earlier in the week we learned that despite the loss of Steve Jobs, Apple reported its largest quarterly revenue in the company?s history at $46.3 billion. With that news, it?s not surprising to find out that the company?s iPhone was more popular than all Android smartphones combined during Q4. The biggest Apple news of all, however, came from a chatty Foxconn employee, who pointed to a summer launch of the rumored and highly-anticipated iPhone 5.?

The Megaupload saga continues

With the Megaupload saga unfurling over the weekend, we came to you this week with a timeline of just what happened leading up to the arrest of founder Kim ?Dotcom? Schmitz. In a message to users who kept files on the site for long periods of time, the DoJ warned that users should have known better and read the now-dead site?s terms of service. In other related news, we found out that Schmitz was ranked the #1 player in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and that he has been denied bail due to flight risk.?

Netflix may face competition from Amazon

Even though Netflix did better this quarter than was anticipated, the company?s strange policies are still causing many members to flee, and the downfall might get worse if Amazon joins the race. Word has it that the e-commerce giant is planning to release a competing service at a cheaper price. Whether Amazon can gain the content to beat out Netflix is another question, but at this point the company may be too wounded to put up a good fight.?

?

?

This article was originally posted on Digital Trends

More from Digital Trends

Weekly Rewind: Steve Jobs? secrets revealed, Nokia?s last stand, HP PCs live on

Hulu expects to hit 1 million subscribers in 2011

Weekly Rewind: SOPA blackout raises awareness, Facebook launches Open Graph, Apple takes on textbooks with iBooks 2

New details on the iPhone 5 surface

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/applecomputer/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/digitaltrends/20120127/tc_digitaltrends/weeklyrewindfacebookmakestimelinemandatoryfoxconnemployeeleaksiphone5detailsandthemegauploadsagacontinues

rightnow bf3 craigslist nc chronicle baked alaska baked alaska battlefield 3 release

Massive eruption on sun to shower Earth with radiation

A barrage of charged particles triggered by this morning's solar flare is expected to hit Earth tomorrow at around 9 a.m. EST.

A powerful solar eruption is expected to blast a stream of charged particles toward Earth tomorrow (Jan. 24), as the strongest radiation storm since 2005 rages on the sun.

Skip to next paragraph

Early this morning (0359 GMT Jan. 23, which corresponds to late Sunday, Jan. 22 at 10:59 p.m. EST), NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory caught an extreme ultraviolet flash from a huge eruption on the sun, according to the skywatching website Spaceweather.com.

The solar flare spewed from sunspot 1402, a region of the?sun that has become increasingly active?lately. Several NASA satellites, including the Solar Dynamics Observatory, the Solar Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), and the Stereo spacecraft observed the massive sun storm.

A barrage of charged particles triggered by this morning's solar flare is expected to hit Earth tomorrow at around 9 a.m. EST (1400 GMT), according to experts at the Space Weather Prediction Center, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. [Video & photos of the huge solar flare]

According to NOAA, this is the strongest solar radiation storm since May 2005, and as a precaution, polar flights on Earth are expected to be re-routed within the next few hours, Kathy Sullivan, deputy administrator of NOAA, said today at the 92nd annual American Meteorological Society meeting in New Orleans, La.

Scientists call these electromagnetic bursts "coronal mass ejections" (CMEs), and they are closely studied because they can produce potentially harmful geomagnetic storms when the charged particles rain down Earth's magnetic field lines.

In addition to generating stronger than normal displays of Earth's auroras (also known as the northern and southern lights), geomagnetic storms aimed directly at our planet can also disrupt satellites in orbit, cause widespread communications interference and damage other electronic infrastructures.

"There is little doubt that the cloud is heading in the general direction of Earth,"?Spaceweather.com announced?in an alert. "A preliminary inspection of SOHO/STEREO imagery suggests that the CME will deliver a strong glancing blow to Earth's magnetic field on Jan. 24-25 as it sails mostly north of our planet."

Sunday's solar flare was rated an M9-class eruption, which placed it just on the verge of being an X-class flare, the most powerful type of solar storm.?M-class sun storms?are powerful but mid-range, while C-class flares are weaker.

Last week, a separate sunspot group unleashed several M-class flares, and SDO scientists said these types of flares are occurring almost daily as the sun's rotation slowly turns the region toward Earth.

The sun's activity waxes and wanes on an 11-year cycle. Currently, our planet's nearest star is in the midst of Solar Cycle 24, and activity is expected to ramp up toward solar maximum in 2013.

Editor's note: If you snap an amazing northern lights photo, or other skywatching image, and would like to share it for a possible story or gallery, please contact managing editor Tariq Malik at?tmalik@space.com.

OurAmazingPlanet Staff Writer Brett Israel contributed to this report from New Orleans, La.?Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter?@Spacedotcom?and on?Facebook.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/LO5E58PijYM/Massive-eruption-on-sun-to-shower-Earth-with-radiation

sean taylor usc football cybermonday coach outlet apostasy canon powershot elph 300 hs christmas lights

Baby No. 2 on the Way for Jay DeMarcus

"This was definitely a huge surprise, but we're so thankful and excited that Maddie is going to have a brother or sister," DeMarcus, 40, tells PEOPLE.

Source: http://feeds.celebritybabies.com/~r/celebrity-babies/~3/gkcBqVSHkdk/

tyson chandler tyson chandler best ipad apps chris paul chicago bulls carmelo anthony david lee

Oscar's Best Song Category: Why Only Two Nominees?

Complicated voting rules shut out songs by Elton John, Lady Gaga, Mary J. Blige and Pink.
By John Mitchell

Blu and Linda in "Rio"
Photo: 20th Century Fox

<P>Tuesday morning's (January 24) announcement of the 2012 <a href="http://www.mtv.com/movies/oscars">Oscar</a> nominations delivered plenty of surprises. <a href="/news/articles/1677792/oscar-nominations-suprirses-snubs.jhtml">Michael Fassbender ("Shame"), Albert Brooks ("Drive")</a> and Charlize Theron ("Young Adult") were overlooked in the acting categories, while Melissa McCarthy ("Bridesmaids"), Rooney Mara ("The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo") and Max von Sydow ("Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close") scored surprise nominations. But perhaps no category was more head-scratching than Best Original Song. </p><div class="player-placeholder right" id="vid:666363" width="240" height="211"></div><p> Despite the fact that a <a href="/news/articles/1676284/oscar-2012-best-song-list.jhtml">short list of 39 tracks</a> were eligible for <a href="/news/articles/1677781/academy-award-nominations-2012.jhtml">nomination</a>, only two were named &#8212; "<a href="/news/articles/1677837/osar-nomination-man-or-muppet-bret-mckenzie.jhtml">Man or Muppet</a>" from "The Muppets" and "Real in Rio" from "Rio" &#8212; leaving tunes from Elton John and Lady Gaga, Pink, will.i.am, Zooey Deschanel, Elvis Costello and Mary J. Blige shut out of the competition. Many Oscar-watchers were left wondering why the Academy would opt away from the traditional five contenders in favor of just two little-heard songs. Well, a closer look at the Oscar rule book shows it's probably less a case of choosing to nominate only two songs than it is simply a case of a single song scoring enough points to secure a nod, and then bringing its closest competition along for the ride. Oscar nominations are arrived at using a <i>very</i> complicated weighted system in which members of the Academy, voting exclusively for members of their own branch (i.e. actors chose the acting nominees, directors vote for directors, etc.), rank contenders in order of preference. From there, a "magic number" is determined that relies on the number of ballots cast for a category, along with a specific mathematical equation. Ballots are tallied and contenders are eliminated through several rounds in a process that tabulates factors like first-place mentions and so on. Once a contender reaches the magic number, they are an Oscar nominee. (The folks over at <i>EW</i>'s <a href="http://popwatch.ew.com/2008/01/09/academy-awards" target="_blank">PopWatch</a> break down the selection steps in great detail.) </p><div class="player-placeholder right" id="vid:620119" width="240" height="211"></div><p> So this is how the nominees are determined &#8212; with one exception: Best Original Song. In 2009, when the Academy opted to up the number of Best Picture nominees to 10 (the voting body has since altered that number), it also changed the rules for Best Original Song. As <a href="http://www.billboard.com/news/oscar-analysis-what-happened-to-best-original-1005966952.story#/news/oscar-analysis-what-happened-to-best-original-1005966952.story" target="_blank"><i>Billboard</i></a> points out, members of the Academy's music branch now "assign each song a numerical score between 1 and 10, and if no song receives an average of more than 8.25, there are no nominees. If only one song tops the threshold, as clearly happened here, the next highest vote getter secures a nomination as well." This year's Best Original Song category boils down to this: either Bret McKenzie's "Man or Muppet" or "Real in Rio" by songwriting trio Sergio Mendes, Carlinhos Brown and Siedah Garrett's secured a score of 8.25 or better, earning a nomination and pulling the #2 vote-getter into the fray. Simply put, members of the music branch didn't award any song, including John and Gaga's duet "Hello Hello" or Blige's "The Help" track "Living Proof," scores high enough scores to secure a nomination. But lest you think that this means the category is all but locked, think again. While selecting the Oscar nominees is an intensely mathematical process, picking the winners is much easier. Once the nominations are decided, every member of the Academy can vote in each category and the nominee that receives the most votes wins. Easy enough. And since actors are the largest voting block of the Academy&#8212; and would have had nothing to do with the tracks selected to contend for Best Original Song &#8212; it's anyone's game. <b>See the complete list of <a href="/news/articles/1677781/academy-award-nominations-2012.jhtml">Academy Awards Nominations</a>.</b></p>

Related Artists

• Mary J. Blige
• Lady Gaga
• Elton John
• Madonna

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1677841/oscars-2012-best-song-nominees-snubs.jhtml

jacoby brissett danielle staub last of the mohicans last of the mohicans ryan howard meteor shower 2011 meteor shower 2011

Researchers develop 'wireless optical brain router' to manipulate brain cells

Optogenetics might be a relatively unknown area of neuroscience, but it's one that, thanks to some new research, could soon find itself (and its rodental subjects) in the spotlight. For the uninitiated, it's the practice of manipulating animal cells using light (with a little help from gene therapy). Until now, optogenetic equipment has been large and unwieldy, making testing on subjects (read: rats) painstaking. Startup, Kendall Research, has changed all this, creating wireless prototypes that weigh just three grams (0.11 ounces). By eschewing bulky Lasers for LEDs and Laser diodes, the equipment is small enough that it can be attached to the rodents. At that point, their brain function can be manipulated with the touch of a button, and different parts can be stimulated without breeding mutant variants -- a controversial practice that doesn't even yield results in real time. The "router" is powered wirelessly by super capacitors below test area, and researchers can conduct experiments remotely, even automatically. Human applications for this are still some way off, but we're sure our future overlords will make good use of it.

Researchers develop 'wireless optical brain router' to manipulate brain cells originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink ExtremeTech  |  Technology Review  | Email this | Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/24/researchers-develop-wireless-optical-brain-router-to-manipulat/

new york philharmonic critics choice awards marines urinating on taliban super pac dre kirkpatrick mls superdraft bald barbie

Chipmaker AMD expects lower revenue in weak PC market (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD.N) forecast lower quarterly revenue as a shortage of hard drives and a shaky economy hurt PC makers, sending its shares lower in after-hours trading.

The PC chipmaker's fourth-quarter adjusted earnings beat expectations but revenue for the quarter just ended and revenue projections for the current quarter came in a bit below many analysts' expectations.

Like larger rival Intel Corp (INTC.O), AMD has been wrestling with slow demand for chips as consumers increasingly buy Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) iPad instead of laptops.

Also hurting sales of processors, PC manufacturers have been struggling to obtain enough hard drives to meet production targets after flooding last year ruined factories and sensitive machinery in Thailand, the world's No. 2 exporter of the components.

Intel beat scaled-back quarterly earnings expectations last week after warning that the hard drive shortage was hurting PC production. It also warned of lower revenue in the current quarter.

AMD depends more on sales of PC processors for its revenue than does Intel, which sells proportionally more chips for servers. The fact that it expects a similar drop in revenue as Intel suggests AMD might have taken some market share.

"AMD's guidance being equivalent to Intel's suggests to us that AMD has picked up roughly 100 to 110 (basis) points of market share in the PC space." said JoAnne Feeney, an analyst at Longbow Research. "That guidance could also mean AMD is picking up more server market share."

Also on Tuesday, programmable chipmaker Altera (ALTR.O) posted quarterly results above analysts' estimates but its weak first-quarter outlook sent shares down 3 percent after the bell.

With PC sales suffering, AMD and Intel have failed to find a foothold in smartphones and tablets, where processors based on ARM Holdings' (ARM.L) power-efficient chip designs are widely used.

Apple became the largest buyer of semiconductors last year, overtaking Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) and Hewlett-Packard Co (HPQ.N) as sales of iPads and iPhones outpaced PCs and other consumer gadgets, according to market research firm Gartner.

Dogged by concerns the PC chipmaker is being left behind in the fast-growing mobile market, shares of AMD have fallen about 13 percent over the past year.

AMD said revenue in the fourth quarter rose 2 percent from the year-ago period, to $1.69 billion.

But it said revenue in the quarter ending in March would fall 8 percent from the previous quarter, plus or minus 3 percentage points, to around $1.504 billion to $1.606 billion.

Analysts on average expected fourth-quarter revenue of $1.716 billion and March-quarter revenue of $1.595 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Non-GAAP earnings in the quarter were $138 million, compared with $106 million in the year-ago period. Non-GAAP earnings per share were 19 cents, compared with 14 cents in the year-ago quarter. Analysts on average expected earnings per share of 16 cents.

Shares of AMD were down 2.6 percent at $6.36 in extended trade after closing up 0.15 percent at $6.53.

(Reporting by Noel Randewich in San Francisco; Editing by Steve Orlofsky and Matthew Lewis)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120124/bs_nm/us_amd

alfa romeo giulietta xbox update xbox update nba schedule nhl realignment nhl realignment kristin chenoweth

Don McNay: Why Entrepreneurs Aren't Like the Rest of You

I set fire to the rain.

-Adele

An aspiring life coach has been working to help me improve in several areas. She found some of my old notes (I think they came from listening to the Strategic Coach, Dan Sullivan) about the four habits shared by most entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurs usually have four characteristics:

1. They perform best in times of chaos.

2. They wait until the very last minute to finish projects.

3. They need to have an adrenal rush, like a big opportunity or their backs against the wall, before their creativity kicks into place.

4. They are motivated by goals that seem unreachable.

In his book, Built to Last, Jim Collins calls that last trait, "Big Hairy Audacious Goals."

The people who started Amazon wanted to have "Every book, ever printed, in any language, available in less than 60 seconds." The people who run Google want to "Organize the world's information and make it universally accessible."

Amazon and Google aren't quite there yet, but they are working on it.

Anyone who has ever worked with, or hired me, knows that those four traits define my personality.

I am often the one calm person in times of chaos.

One of the reasons I like participating in meditations or settlement conferences is that I can step back from emotion and keep focused on the overall goal.

I'm the first call when someone dies, gets injured or has a financial crisis. I'm at the top of my game then.

But this inner calm doesn't happen for me in my daily life. Then, I'm capable of bouncing off the walls on the most trivial of matters.

Give me a 10 foot putt to win the hole and I normally make it. Take the pressure off and I knock the ball into the weeds.

A lot of my friends are trial lawyers. The good ones seem to have that "calm in chaos" mindset.

My body has some kind of inner clock that tells me when to start a project so that I can finish two minutes ahead of deadline.

I never miss a deadline and the work is first rate, but if you're expecting it two weeks early from me, it will never happen. I've operated like that my entire life.

Along the way, I've been involved financial management, structured settlements, running political campaigns and journalism. Those professions cherish deadline performers. Which is good, since the rest of the world wants to kill us.

Some people hate the media because they think journalists have too much power and bias. Others hate us because we never pick up our socks off the floor.

Entrepreneurs are motivated by passion, enthusiasm and the rush of new ideas.

Otherwise, we don't do much of anything. We tend not to be motivated by daily routines or repetitive work.

Dreaming the Impossible Dream is a concept that many starting businesses don't get.

If their goal is to get rich quick or plod from day to day, they aren't entrepreneurs -- they just have a job they can't get fired from.

I have all kinds of impossible goals.

I wish for world peace, but I'm not in a position to do much about it.

I long to live the rest of my life never hearing another word about any member of the Kardashian family. But I have not been to make that happen, either.

I've had a longtime goal of assuring that my clients hang onto all their money.

Since most of people I deal with have suddenly and unexpectedly gotten money after an injury settlement or lottery jackpot, it's not as easy as you would think.

An estimated 90 percent of people blow through a lump sum in five years or less. I'm going against long odds.

Like the people at Amazon and Google, I'm still working on it.

Another goal is to see that no American is ripped off again by Wall Street or by predatory financial products like payday loans.

Some people think that is truly impossible. But, like the song says, I dream of a day when we "set fire to the rain," and change the financial system to come up with a model that is fair to everyone.

Like my fellow entrepreneurs, I like to dream big dreams and make things happen.

From looking at the entrepreneurial personality traits, like it or not, it is a role I was born to play.

Don McNay, CLU, ChFC, MSFS, CSSC is the bestselling author of the book Wealth Without Wall Street: McNay, who lives in Richmond Kentucky, an award-winning financial columnist and Huffington Post Contributor. You can learn more about him at www.donmcnay.com

He is the Chairman of the Board for the McNay Settlement Group (www.mcnay.com) which provides structured settlement consulting for injury victims, lottery winners, and the families of special needs children.

McNay founded Kentucky Guardianship Administrators LLC, which assists attorneys in as conservators and setting up guardianship's. It is nationally recognized as an administrator of Qualified Settlement (468b) funds.

?

?

?

Follow Don McNay on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Donmcnay

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/don-mcnay/entrepreneurs_b_1222241.html

posterior michelle obama adam lambert arrested shroud of turin barkley beltran space ball

Rockies get Scutaro from Red Sox for Mortensen (AP)

DENVER ? The Colorado Rockies acquired infielder Marco Scutaro from the Red Sox for right-hander Clayton Mortensen on Saturday in a surprising trade that could pave the way for top Boston prospect Jose Iglesias to take over at shortstop sooner than expected.

The 36-year-old Scutaro hit a career-high .299 for the Red Sox last season, when he had seven homers, 26 doubles, 54 RBIs and a .358 on-base percentage. Boston picked up his $6 million option in October, a month after the team missed the playoffs following a record collapse down the stretch.

Scutaro was expected to remain Boston's starting shortstop this season but he will play second base and bat second in Colorado, where the Rockies also have added Michael Cuddyer and Ramon Martinez in an offseason makeover following last year's disappointing slide.

Mortensen, 26, went 2-4 with a 3.86 ERA in 16 games between the Rockies' rotation and their bullpen last season. He provides depth for a Boston rotation that will be without injured starters John Lackey and Daisuke Matsuzaka next season.

The Rockies targeted Scutaro for months and taking on his $6 million contract gives the Red Sox financial flexibility to make a run at free-agent pitcher Roy Oswalt.

Shortstop has been a trouble spot in Boston since Nomar Garciaparra was traded during the World Series championship season of 2004. Orlando Cabrera filled the position the rest of that year, but he was followed by Edgar Renteria, Alex Gonzalez, Julio Lugo and Gonzalez again; Jed Lowrie, Nick Green and Alex Cora were also in the mix.

Scutaro provided two years of stability after signing with Boston as a free agent following the 2009 season. Now he's gone, too.

The 22-year-old Iglesias appeared in 10 games for the Red Sox last year, getting two hits in six at-bats. A slick fielder who has struggled at the plate as a pro, he batted .235 with a homer and 31 RBIs in 101 games for Triple-A Pawtucket last year. In two minor league seasons since he defected from Cuba, Iglesias has a paltry .308 on-base percentage and .316 slugging percentage.

Still, his defense is considered outstanding and the Red Sox have been grooming him as their shortstop of the future.

Other options for Boston include versatile veterans Mike Aviles and Nick Punto. Both have plenty of big league experience at shortstop, but they were expected to fill utility roles off the bench this season.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/sports/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120122/ap_on_sp_ba_ne/bbo_red_sox_rockies_trade

lady gaga marry the night video pac 12 championship game pac 12 championship game bobby valentine bobby valentine al franken al franken

Republican Presidential Debate Defined By Crowd's Silence

TAMPA, FLA. -- The most important moment of Monday night's presidential debate -- the first in the crucial state of Florida -- may have come before any candidate actually took the stage.

Prior to the camera rolling, NBC, the debate's host, told audience members to hold their applause. It was not an agreed-to rule among the candidates themselves. In fact, none of the campaigns said they had even requested it. But it created a type of no-thrills vibe that clearly benefited one over the other.

Mitt Romney, by most estimates, emerged better off Monday night. He peppered his answers with attacks on Newt Gingrich that his own top advisers freely called "aggressive." Most of the action came within the debate's first half-hour, when the focus was on the former speaker's role as a consultant/lobbyist for Freddie Mac, his propensity for bombast and his serial unreliability.

'I don't think we can possibly retake the White House if our nominee was a lobbyist for Freddie Mac," Romney declared at one point.

"The truth is that the members of his own team, his own congressional team, voted to displace him," he offered at another.

In past forums, the attacks would have elicited howls, cheers, or even boos -- disrupting the flow and giving Gingrich the type of energy and break in discussion to jump in. On Monday, Gingrich was left flailing.

"Now, wait a second. I mean, he just went on and on and on, making a whole series of allegations," Gingrich said about the barrage on his Freddie Mac history. "You just jumped a long way over here, friend," he added later.

After the fact, the campaigns spun the debate in typical fashion. But each adviser kept coming back to the same keystone: the prohibition on applause.

"Audiences, I think are there to watch," said Stuart Stevens, Romney's top adviser. "They are not there to be, sort of, an 11th man on the team. And look, we have done fantastically in these debates. The audiences have been very good for Mitt Romney. I just think, personally, that the audiences should not be, it is not the LSU-Alabama game."

"We are picking the president of the United States here," Stevens added. "It is not a game show."

If that didn't give off the indication that the Romney campaign felt it benefited from a dryer, quieter format, the reaction from the Gingrich camp certainly did.

"I also think the prohibition for no clapping was kind of un-American. What if you went to a baseball game and they were like, 'No cheering after a big play,'" asked Gingrich's top spokesman R.C. Hammond.

"I'm going to [file a complaint] right now," Hammond added, tongue in cheek. "R.C. is lodging a complaint."

For the campaigns to put such tremendous stock in the debate rules may seem like an effort in finding a superficial explanation for a candidate's performance. But the rest of Monday night's hour and 45-minute forum was, truly, a dull affair. The candidates found themselves agreeing on several substantive matters: whether it be a limited version of the Dream Act (a path to citizenship for military service) or English as an official language. Former Sen. Rick Santorum and Rep. Ron Paul, the other two candidates, weren't called on until 10-plus minutes in. And, far more often than in the past, they were used as strategic allies by the two frontrunners

"I actually agree with Rick Santorum," Gingrich declared at one point. "I believe that the next president is going to face enormously difficult problems, some of which have been diagnosed by Dr. Paul. And the fact is we have tremendous institutional biases against doing the right thing and against getting things done."

There was no correction offered from the rest of the field that Gingrich, himself, could be described as a product of those demonized Washington, D.C., interest groups. It was another lost opportunity -- although this time to Gingrich's benefit -- and it underscored just how out-of-place Monday night's affair was, compared with previous forums.

There were bursts of polite applause, in response to sharp denunciations of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

But it was nothing like the earlier forums. For weeks, political observers have been marveling over the impact that these debates and their raucous audiences have had on the course of the Republican primary race.

"The debates have allowed every candidate regardless of their station ... to compete," said former RNC Chairman Michael Steele. "It has allowed them to get on the national stage and for at least 18 two-hour moments, to have a conversation that they otherwise would have been blocked out of." Taking the audience out of the equation, he added, gave Romney a big boost. "It is just the nature of how he approaches thing this debate was much more suited to his style of debate then it was to the other three.

But while Gingrich may, indeed, have been hampered by the rules of engagement, he didn't exactly help his own cause. The former speaker, who had been so sharp in going after the media in South Carolina's two debates, left tons of material unused when it came to responding to Romney.

When the former Massachusetts governor claimed that his private equity firm Bain didn't work with the government, left unmentioned was that one Bain company ended up needing a $44 million federal injection to help out an underfunded pension plan. When Romney attacked Gingrich for his Freddie ties, the former speaker didn't note that Romney himself had profited investments made in the mortgage giants (investments that spokesman Eric Ferhnstrom stressed were made blindly). When Romney talked about a three-step process to address the housing crisis -- pursue fraud, force banks to be more flexible, and improve the overall economy -- Gingrich failed to recall that his opponent once said the foreclosure crisis should run its course.

Those miscues couldn't be attributed to a quiet audience.

"; var coords = [-5, -72]; // display fb-bubble FloatingPrompt.embed(this, html, undefined, 'top', {fp_intersects:1, timeout_remove:2000,ignore_arrow: true, width:236, add_xy:coords, class_name: 'clear-overlay'}); });

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/24/republican-presidential-debate-audience-silence_n_1225953.html

brandon mcinerney brandon mcinerney black friday 2011 deals nfl power rankings week 12 nfl power rankings week 12 brine turkey brine turkey

Clijsters overcomes injury to beat Li in 3 sets

Belgium's Kim Clijsters falls over during her fourth round match against China's Li Na at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012. (AP Photo/John Donegan)

Belgium's Kim Clijsters falls over during her fourth round match against China's Li Na at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012. (AP Photo/John Donegan)

Belgium's Kim Clijsters receives treatment from a trainer during her fourth round match against China's Li Na at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012. (AP Photo/John Donegan)

China's Li Na makes a forehand return to Belgium's Kim Clijsters during their fourth round match at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012. (AP Photo/John Donegan)

Belgium's Kim Clijsters makes a forehand return to China's Li Na during their fourth round match at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012. (AP Photo/John Donegan)

China's Li Na takes a ice towel during a break in her fourth round match against Belgium's Kim Clijsters at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012. (AP Photo/Andrew Brownbill)

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) ? Down four match points and hobbling on her injured left ankle, defending champion Kim Clijsters somehow rallied for a dramatic 4-6, 7-6 (6), 6-4 win over Li Na at the Australian Open on Sunday.

Clijsters was in pain from the ankle she twisted in the seventh game. Li was just a bundle of nerves. The French Open champion failed to serve out the fourth-round match at 5-4 in the second set, but then led 6-2 in the tiebreaker. Again Clijsters refused to yield.

"I said in my mind, keep fighting," Clijsters said. "You never know what happens on the other side of the court."

Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer stayed on course for a semifinal meeting in matches either side of Clijsters's win at Rod Laver Arena. Federer ended the run of Australian teenager Bernard Tomic 6-4, 6-2, 6-2, while Nadal won in straight sets too, beating fellow Spaniard Feliciano Lopez 6-4, 6-4, 6-2.

Top-seeded Caroline Wozniacki and Jelena Jankovic were playing later Sunday, with the winner to face Clijsters.

Li's best chance to win the match ? and gain revenge for her three-set loss to Clijsters in last year's final ? came on her fourth match point.

Clijsters played a poor drop shot, giving her opponent the chance to put the ball into the open court. Instead, Li tentatively hit the ball almost straight back to Clijsters, who sent up a perfect lob that dropped just inside the baseline.

"Of course I was nervous," Li said. "If you're nervous, you could not think too much, right?"

Clijsters won six straight points to take the tiebreaker and the first four games of the deciding set.

"I'm not saying that that forehand drop shot was a good choice, but you make decisions. Luckily, that one turned out OK," Clijsters said. "I think she was a little bit lost or maybe a little bit confused at that time."

Clijsters then overcame a wobble of her own, losing her serve at 5-2 in the third set, before finally closing out the fourth-round match on her second match point.

Li broke down in tears at the end of her post-match news conference.

"Maybe 6-2 up in the tiebreak I was a little bit shocking," she said.

Clijsters was hurt in the first set while serving at 3-all and 30-all. As she hit a forehand, her left foot got stuck on the surface and the ankle twisted awkwardly.

She got up to finish the point but then immediately called for the trainer and had the injury strapped.

Clijsters' movement was clearly slowed when she resumed but, playing in her last Australian Open before quitting tennis at the end of the season, she said she didn't want to bow out in Melbourne with a retirement.

"I knew if I could just try to let the medication sink in or if I could get through the first 20 minutes, half hour, I think the pain would go away a little bit and then maybe with the adrenaline I could just fly through it."

The injury seemed to affect Li just as much. The 29-year-old, who won last year's French Open to become the first player from China to win a Grand Slam singles title, looked increasingly stressed as the match progressed.

After 2 hours, 23 minutes, she netted a backhand to put Clijsters through to the quarterfinals. The Belgian said she was hopeful her ankle would hold up after ice treatment.

Federer hasn't lost to a teenager since 2006 and that run continued Sunday as he disappointed the home crowd with a comprehensive win over the 19-year-old Tomic.

Tomic had beaten seeded players Fernando Verdasco and Alexandr Dolgopolov in earlier rounds, but Federer was a step-up in class. The 16-time Grand Slam champion broke six times as he set up a quarterfinal against 11th-seeded Argentine Juan Martin del Potro.

"I thought I played a really good match," said Federer, through to his 31st straight Grand Slam quarterfinal. "I knew I had to. Anything else wouldn't have done the job tonight."

Nadal was almost as convincing in his win over Lopez. The 2009 champion had his right knee heavily strapped and had his left ankle taped after three games of the first set but afterward said he was "fine."

Nadal plays Tomas Berdych next, hoping to avoid a third straight quarterfinal loss in Melbourne. Defending the title in 2010, the Spaniard retired with a knee injury against Andy Murray. A year ago, he was hampered by a hamstring problem in a straight-sets loss to David Ferrer.

"Hopefully not happen this time," Nadal said. "I had a bad experience last two years here. It's tough have to go out of a tournament like Australia in quarterfinals."

Berdych beat Nicolas Almagro of Spain 4-6, 7-6 (5), 7-6 (3), 7-6 (2). Former U.S. Open champion Del Potro easily defeated Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany 6-4, 6-2, 6-1.

Victoria Azarenka was the first player to reach the quarterfinals when she beat Iveta Benesova 6-2, 6-2. The third-seeded Belarusian is yet to drop a set at the tournament and will next meet eighth-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska.

With the win, 22-year-old Azarenka stayed in the hunt for the No. 1 ranking. Petra Kvitova and Maria Sharapova can also claim the top spot from Wozniacki.

"I would be a liar if I said I didn't care about it," Azarenka said.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-01-22-TEN-Australian-Open/id-f18e333db92a424fa8d6c86c953cb04f

jeff probst jeff probst king jong il dead south korea baron davis duggar family dingo

Haiti judge to make a decision on 'Baby Doc' case (AP)

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti ? Haitian authorities will rule before month's end on whether the prosecution of former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier moves to trial or gets dropped, the investigating judge told The Associated Press Friday.

The announcement by Judge Carves Jean followed a closed hearing during which he admonished the former dictator known as "Baby Doc" for violating the terms of his conditional release by leaving the capital at least twice in recent weeks. Jean said he told Duvalier that "he'll be going straight to the national penitentiary" if he leaves again without authorization.

Since he made an unexpected return a year ago, Duvalier has traveled the country and been spotted dining with friends at high-end restaurants in the capital. He delivered a commencement speech to law school graduates in the coastal city of Gonaives last month and attended a memorial for quake victims outside the capital last week.

The defense argues that Duvalier is free to go where he pleases because no law exists to restrict his movements.

"The judge was under pressure from human rights group, international and local," defense lawyer Reynold Georges told reporters in front of the downtown courthouse. "This is why he called in President Duvalier."

The defendant said nothing Friday morning as he shuffled out of the building, his neck stiff and eyes darting, and waved to a scrum of supporters before climbing into a white Toyota Land Cruiser Prado that he drove himself.

Jean said Duvalier apologized for not seeking permission and said he couldn't reach the judge on the telephone or didn't have time to send a letter to ask permission to leave the capital.

Duvalier is under a judicial investigation for crimes including corruption and human rights violation during his brutal, 15-year rule. Despite pressure from rights groups, the prosecution has made little headway since it began days after Duvalier's return following 25 years in exile in France.

International rights groups such as Amnesty International say there is sufficient evidence to bring Duvalier to trial, and that it would be an important step forward for a judiciary associated with corruption and inefficiency.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/latam/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120120/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_haiti_duvalier

columbus day columbus day bank holidays bank holidays john galt john galt post office hours

Microsoft 2Q beats Street despite soft PC market (AP)

LOS ANGELES ? Microsoft Corp. battled through a weak PC market to post flat earnings in the final quarter of 2011, boosting sales of servers, Xbox games and its Office productivity software while trimming losses at its Bing search engine.

The quarter wasn't as bad as some industry analysts feared, given that flooding in Thailand constricted the supply of hard disk drives used in personal computers. Microsoft also witnessed a wave of consumers buying Apple Inc.'s popular iPad, which cut into sales of miniature laptop PCs known as netbooks.

Still, Microsoft's earnings modestly topped expectations. That was largely thanks to strong business demand for software and services, and an upbeat holiday season for the Xbox game console and the accompanying Kinect motion controller.

Its shares rose 70 cents, or 2.5 percent, to $28.82 in after-hours trading Thursday.

Net income in the company's second quarter through December came to $6.62 billion, down slightly from the $6.63 billion a year ago. Earnings per share came to 78 cents, up a penny from a year ago, as the outstanding share count fell.

Revenue rose 5 percent to $20.89 billion.

Analysts polled by FactSet were expecting slightly weaker earnings of 76 cents per share. Sales were below the $20.92 billion expected.

"People were afraid it was going to be much, much worse," said Colin Gillis, an analyst with BGC.

Gillis said cost controls and a second-consecutive quarter of reduced losses at Bing helped results. Continuing growth in its Office software division was also encouraging, he said.

The company said PC sales were down an estimated 2 percent to 4 percent from a year earlier. Netbook sales made up just 2 percent of the overall PC market, down from 8 percent a year ago as the iPad decimated the lightweight portable computer category.

Microsoft, based in Redmond, Wash., is now looking ahead to the release of Windows 8, an operating system that should work similarly over PCs and tablet computers.

It is also pinning hopes on a new category of PCs called Ultrabooks, which mimic Apple's MacBook Air in form, but which may also utilize a touch screen that would work on the upcoming Windows. A beta version of Windows 8 is due out late next month.

"We're on track, we feel really good about where we are on the product, and the next super important milestone is the beta release," said Bill Koefoed, Microsoft's general manager of investor relations.

Although analysts expect another weak quarter for PCs, sales are seen strengthening as the year goes on.

The big question is whether Microsoft can deliver results on a whole range of new products from its Windows Phone smartphone operating system to Windows 8 and its Office 365 suite of cloud-based productivity applications.

"It's a year of the product cycle" for Microsoft, said Josh Olson, a technology analyst for Edward Jones. "How well they bring those product offerings to market will say a lot about the Microsoft story this year."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/earnings/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120120/ap_on_hi_te/us_earns_microsoft

hank williams jr hank williams jr peter king tough love tough love patriots jets patriots jets

Beyonce, Chris Brown, Emma Stone Nab NAACP Nods

NAACP Image Awards nominations also recognize 'Modern Family' and Bruno Mars.
By Jocelyn Vena

Beyoncé,
Photo: Getty

Beyoncé, Chris Brown and "The Help" star Emma Stone are among the A-listers who have nabbed NAACP Image Awards nods this year.

New mama Beyoncé — nominated for Best Music Video ("I Was Here"), Outstanding Song ("Best Thing I Never Had") and Outstanding Album (4) — is also up for Outstanding Female Artist with her "Dreamgirls" co-star Jennifer Hudson, Jill Scott, Ledisi and Mary J. Blige.

Chris Brown, Common, Cee Lo Green, Bruno Mars and Anthony Hamilton will compete for Outstanding Male Artist. Diggy Simmons and Mindless Behavior are two of the newcomers in the Outstanding New Artist category, alongside Landau Eugene Murphy Jr., Wynter Gordon and Committed.

"The Help" is up for Outstanding Motion Picture against "Tower Heist," "Jumping the Broom," "Pariah" and "The First Grader." Eddie Murphy ("Tower Heist"), Laurence Fishburne ("Contagion"), Laz Alonso ("Jumping the Broom"), Oliver Litondo ("The First Grader") and Vin Diesel ("Fast Five") will face off for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture.

Meanwhile, in the Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture category, Emma Stone ("The Help") is alongside her co-star and Critics' Choice Movie Awards winner Viola Davis as well as Adepero Oduye ("Pariah"), Paula Patton ("Jumping the Broom") and Zoe Saldana ("Colombiana").

Golden Globe winner and GLAAD Awards nominee "Modern Family" will compete for Outstanding Comedy Series with "Reed Between the Lines," "The Game," "Tyler Perry's House of Payne," and "Love That Girl!" On the other end of the spectrum, Outstanding Drama Series, nominees include "Boardwalk Empire," "Grey's Anatomy," "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," "The Good Wife" and "Treme."

The show aims to "celebrate the accomplishments of people of color in the fields of television, music, literature and film, and also honors individuals or groups who promote social justice through creative endeavors." A full list of nominees can be found on the NAACP Image Awards website. The winners will be announced live February 17 on NBC.

Who will you be rooting for? Share your picks below!

Related Videos

• All About Beyonce And Jay-Z's New Arrival

Related Artists

• Beyoncé
• Bruno Mars
• Chris Brown

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1677595/beyonce-chris-brown-naacp-nods.jhtml

eastman kodak richard cordray shannon de lima joe torre west virginia university michele bachmann jessica biel

SC voters take in topsy-turvy week before primary (AP)

CAYCE, S.C. ? For weeks, Renee Boling was sure she was going to vote for Mitt Romney in South Carolina's Republican presidential primary. But a series of events this week changed her mind, and seemingly the minds of many others across the state.

Romney repeatedly refused to release his income tax return and was on the defensive in two debates, while Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum made forceful arguments that led Boling to rethink whether the former Massachusetts governor was really the best candidate the GOP could offer. The 37-year-old administrative assistant said Friday she was leaning toward Santorum, but could change her mind in the hours before she votes.

"He just didn't back down," Boling said of Santorum's performance at Thursday night's debate. "He stood his ground."

The dynamics of South Carolina's campaign have shifted dramatically in the last week after a series of events threw the race into turmoil and left countless voters undecided about who to support. Romney was positioned to win here after his commanding victory in New Hampshire. But polls now show he has slipped from the front of the pack to what he described Friday as a neck-and-neck contest with Gingrich. Santorum and Texas Rep. Ron Paul trail in surveys.

The chaos of the South Carolina campaign was clear on Thursday alone.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry dropped out of the race and endorsed Gingrich, who had to fend off his ex-wife's accusations that he had asked her for an "open marriage." Romney, meanwhile, spent the day repeatedly resisting calls to release his tax returns immediately. A cantankerous debate ? the second of two this week ? capped off the surreal day.

Perhaps illustrating the new reality of the race here, the raucous debate audience booed Romney as he answered a question about his refusal to release the tax returns. The crowd gave two standing ovations to Gingrich as he defended himself against his ex-wife's allegations.

All this in a state where the Republican establishment constantly reminds the rest of the nation that "we pick presidents," given that whoever wins South Carolina has gone on to win the party's nomination since the primary was established in 1980.

"I've never seen anything like it. It is funny, I suppose," marveled Colette Kent, a 78-year-old from Fort Mill, who turned out Friday to meet Santorum. She said values were the reason she was backing him, calling the former Pennsylvania senator "a good and decent man" and "a Christian man."

At first glance, the allegations by Gingrich's ex-wife would appear to be deadly in a state smack in the middle of the Bible Belt. But more than a million people have poured into South Carolina over the past 20 years, increasing the population by nearly 33 percent and watering down some of its evangelical fervor.

Stephanie Irick, 55, was among those still sticking by Gingrich. She thinks Romney is a flip-flopper and the allegations by Gingrich's ex-wife didn't shake her support.

"Do I believe it? I don't have a clue," Irick said while at a Gingrich rally in Walterboro on Friday. "What goes on in people's bedroom is their own business."

Others said the timing smelled bad.

"This comes out now, after he's been running how long? It doesn't seem like a coincidence," said Mike Smith, 52. The Fort Mill resident who backed President Barack Obama over Sen. John McCain four years ago planned to vote for Santorum. Smith shrugged at the rollicking nature of the race, saying the real issues were about paying the mortgage and feeding families.

"Everything else is a distraction," he said. "We need jobs, not gossip."

That's what Gingrich seemed to argue at Thursday's debate in Charleston when he tore into CNN moderator John King for making the opening question about Gingrich's former wife.

A few days earlier at a debate in Myrtle Beach, Gingrich also earned the biggest cheers of the night by tangling with Fox News Channel contributor Juan Williams, who asked Gingrich to defend his comments that Obama was "the greatest food stamp president." Williams also asked Gingrich to defend as not racist his suggestion that poor children could earn money by doing janitorial work at their schools.

"He hit that out of the park. It has nothing to do with race," said 62-year-old Ed Cheek, a hospital chaplain who was at a Santorum rally Friday in Lexington but planned to vote for Gingrich.

Santorum, for his part, has been presenting himself as a good alternative to voters bothered by Gingrich's three marriages and affairs and who think Romney is too moderate.

Deborah Braun was at Santorum's rally because she thinks he can beat Obama and has the kind of values she wants in a president. The 62-year-old mother of five and grandmother of 10 said Gingrich "has too much baggage. He's not trustworthy."

All the discussion of tax returns and cheating spouses have drowned out Paul's supporters.

"He is ready to do the hard things that we need to do to turn things around," said David Oberly, a 40-year-old geologist who was eating lunch in a West Columbia restaurant. "I don't care what a person does in their private life. It's issues that matter."

There was one final wrinkle that has turned the South Carolina race into even more of a circus.

Comedian Stephen Colbert attracted thousands to a rally Friday in his hometown of Charleston. Write-ins aren't accepted on the ballot, so Colbert is asking his supporters to vote for Herman Cain, who dropped out of the race last month.

Caroline Simmel attended Colbert's rally. The 18-year-old College of Charleston student voting in her first election said the events of the past few days had left her more confused.

"I don't know that I like any of the candidates out there right now," Simmel said. "I think I would rather have Stephen Colbert running the country."

___

Associated Press writers Charles Babington in Lexington, Philip Elliott in Fort Mill, Shannon McCaffrey in Walterboro and Bruce Smith in Charleston contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120120/ap_on_el_pr/us_sc_the_voters__take

blue ivy devil inside ted nugent dash diet how to make moonshine gabrielle giffords joel osteen