The top 25 teams in The Associated Press? college basketball poll, with first-place votes in parentheses, records through Dec. 25, total points based on 25 points for a first-place vote through one
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DES MOINES, Iowa ? An Iowa caucus campaign that has cycled through several Republican presidential front-runners entered its final week Monday, as unpredictable as the day conservatives began competing to emerge as Mitt Romney's chief rival.
Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, released a new television commercial for the state in which he cited a "moral imperative for America to stop spending more money than we take in. It's killing jobs," he said.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry countered with an advertisement that said four of his rivals combined ? none of them Romney ? have served 63 years in Congress, "leaving us with debt, earmarks and bailouts."
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who has invested more time in Iowa than any other contender, countered that "most Americans now believe that a little bit of experience going into a job like president is probably a good thing."
Santorum was the only presidential candidate in the state during the day.
That changes Tuesday, with bus tours planned by Perry, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, all eager to energize their existing supporters and attract new ones.
Texas Rep. Ron Paul arrives Wednesday. Recent polls suggest he is peaking as caucus day approaches, a rise that has him tied with Romney or even ahead, and drawing more scrutiny for his views.
The result figures to be a short but intense stretch of campaigning through small towns and even smaller towns, the sort of one-on-one politicking that has largely vanished in the electronic age.
Failing that, it will pay tribute to the types of cuisine that prosper in early 21st century America.
The Perry bus will belly up to Doughy Joey's in Waterloo and to the Fainting Goat in Waverly, an establishment whose website says "After 10 p.m., we are the type of place your mothers warned you about." Perry also will visit a vineyard and winery in Carroll.
Bachmann will make an early-winter stop at a Dairy Queen, as well as Pizza Ranch establishments in Harlan, Red Oak and Atlantic, three localities with a combined population of 17,282.
It's not all about the food, though.
Perry has a stop arranged at the Glenn Miller Museum in Clarinda, population 5,301, where the great bandleader was born.
The Texas governor also has a distinction that none of his rivals can boast, a town that shares his name. Thus, Perry will visit Perry.
There were signs of strategic shifts as candidates struggled to stand out in advance of the straw poll next week that inaugurates the round of primaries and caucuses that will pick a nominee to oppose President Barack Obama next fall.
Perry's new ad shows images of Gingrich, Paul, Santorum and Bachmann as it criticizes Congress and renews the governor's call for halving lawmakers' pay and time spent in Washington.
Despite the commercial's implication, Gingrich and Santorum were out of Congress when the multibillion-dollar financial bailouts of 2008 occurred. Paul and Bachmann voted against the legislation.
Still, the approach taken suggests the Texas governor is more concerned with outpacing Paul, Bachmann, Santorum and Gingrich on caucus night that he is in defeating Romney.
The former Massachusetts governor, making his second try for the White House, has a well-funded and well-organized campaign nationally and in Iowa, as well as allies who are spending heavily on television advertisements through an independent organization known as a super PAC.
While others have periodically risen to challenge him, Romney has kept his support from seriously eroding in the polls, consistently remaining near the top.
A victory in Iowa does not necessarily translate into the Republican presidential nomination. Yet history suggests that contenders who finish farthest behind next week will quickly drop out, underscoring the significance of the struggle to emerge as Romney's chief rival.
The most recent presidential hopeful to surge and then falter is Gingrich. The former House speaker's campaign imploded last summer and still shows the after-effects: a shortage of funds to counter attack ads in Iowa, and failure to qualify for the primary in Virginia in March.
After insisting he would run a purely positive campaign, Gingrich let it be known he was about to attack Romney on one of his presumed areas of strength, his economic proposals.
R.C. Hammond, a spokesman for Gingrich, said the candidate would make the case that Romney has advanced "very timid ideas that will do little to get people back to work."
Gingrich favors an end to taxes on investment income and dividends, while Romney wants to end them only for individuals with incomes of $200,000 or less.
Gingrich also has proposed an optional 15 percent flat tax on income. Under the plan, taxpayers could stay in the current system, which has a top tax rate of 35 percent on taxable income above $379,150, or switch to the new flat rate, which would apply to income at all levels.
Romney favors retaining the current graduated income tax system, with lower rates than currently exist.
Gingrich is at least the fourth front-runner to falter since the campaign began in earnest in Iowa earlier this year.
Bachmann, who won a straw poll at the Iowa State Fair last summer, was briefly atop polls in the state. So, too Herman Cain, who subsequently suspended his campaign after a woman claimed she and Cain had a long-term extramarital affair.
Perry also soared to the top of the surveys when he entered the race last summer, then fell after a string of subpar debate performances.
Santorum has yet to experience the type of sudden surge that others in the race enjoyed but has doggedly campaigned in all 99 of the state's counties in hopes of rallying social conservatives to his side.
___
Associated Press writer Philip Elliott contributed to this report.
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BEIJING ? A Chinese court sentenced a veteran dissident who organized a pro-democracy activist network to 10 years' imprisonment Monday for inciting subversion, his wife said, the second heavy punishment for a dissident in recent days.
The stiff sentences come near the end of a year in which the Chinese government has used various means to silence dissent, from lengthy imprisonment to months of disappearances, in a crackdown aimed at preventing Arab Spring-style uprisings.
A court in the southern city of Guiyang found Chen Xi guilty of the charge of "incitement to subvert state power" for 36 essays he wrote and posted online, his wife said by phone.
The United Nations Human Rights office said it was alarmed by the sentence handed down to Chen and other similarly harsh sentences given to other Chinese dissidents in recent days.
Chen maintained his innocence but will not appeal the verdict, said his wife, Zhang Qunxuan.
"This is utterly absurd," Zhang said. "Chen Xi told the court it did not take into consideration the things he has written as a whole, and has interpreted his words out of context. But they have power and they don't listen."
"The court said he was a repeat offender and also that this is a very serious crime," she said. Chen was active in the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests and was sentenced to three years in prison, and several years after that, he was jailed for 10 years on charges of counterrevolutionary offenses, Zhang said.
His sentence comes three days after another veteran activist, Chen Wei, a dissident in the southwestern city of Suining, was sentenced to nine years' jail for the same offense.
The lengthy sentences against the two, who are not related, are in line with the Chinese government's long practice of punishing heavily veteran activists who have refused to give up despite decades of harassment.
Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the United Nations Human Rights office, said the U.N. was concerned about the harsh sentences given to both Chen Wei and Chen Xi, as well as the news this month that activist lawyer Gao Zhizheng had been jailed for three years after allegedly violating his parole.
"We are alarmed at what appears to be a very unfortunate trend and a pattern of severe restrictions on the activities of human rights defenders and freedom of expression in China," Shamdasani said in an email.
The government crackdown on democracy activists and critics of the communist leadership appears to have worsened after anonymous online calls urged Chinese to imitate the uprisings of North Africa and the Middle East earlier this year.
"The fear factor ? the government's panic over sparks of the Arab uprising ? is no doubt driving the severe punishment of its critics," said Renee Xia, international director of Chinese Human Rights Defenders. "But suppression of views and expression will not address the root causes of social unrest."
Other recently jailed veteran dissidents include Liu Xianbin, a democracy activist who has previously spent a decade in prison and was given another 10 year sentence in March. On Christmas day in 2009, Liu Xiaobo was sentenced to 11 years in prison for co-authoring Charter 08, which called for an end to single-party rule and advocated democratic political reforms.
In Chen Xi's case, the subversion charge is also likely aimed at punishing and silencing him for his work with the Guizhou Human Rights Forum, a network of activists that organized human rights and pro-democracy activities in the southern Chinese region.
"The arrest and sentencing of dissidents is essentially motivated by a logic of information control, that the government wants to prevent the exposing of the real human rights situation on the ground," said Human Rights Watch Asia researcher Nicholas Bequelin. "Therefore people who report those kinds of news are generally the ones who get arrested."
Several of the members of the network have served prison sentences for related activities, according to the Chinese Human Rights Defenders.
Chen Xi was arrested Nov. 29 and charged in the southern province of Guizhou. Calls to the Guiyang Intermediate People's Court, where the trial was held, rang unanswered Monday.
The Chinese government has held these trials during the Christmas period to limit the criticism it receives for the heavy punishments being handed down, Bequelin said.
"It does work really well because there's no diplomatic activity around Christmas," he said. "By the time the diplomats get back to their desks, the sequence of events has moved on already. Therefore it does ensure the government receives less criticism for this."
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Friday's government data on consumer income and spending came from a monthly report issued by the Commerce Department. That report isn't the only reading on how much Americans are spending. Here are various reports that cover such figures:
_INDUSTRY SURVEYS
Surveys by private groups capture the most up-to-date retail spending patterns. But they don't include as many companies as the government reports do. The International Council of Shopping Centers-Goldman Sachs Weekly Chain Store Sales Index tracks sales at stores open at least a year. The index is a proxy for 24 major national stores, including Target Corp, Costco Wholesale Corp. and Macy's.
_RETAIL SALES REPORT
Commerce issues a monthly report on retail sales that covers sales not just at major national chains but at all retailers. It provides a broader look at retail activity. The report includes such categories as specialty clothing stores, hardware stores, furniture stores, sporting goods and hobby stores and electronics and appliance stores. It also covers auto dealerships, restaurants and bars, grocery stores and gasoline stations. The sales figures are seasonally adjusted. That way, the current month can be compared with the previous month. But the figures aren't adjusted for inflation.
_CONSUMER SPENDING
This report is also released monthly by the Commerce Department. It's the most inclusive look at consumer activity. It covers all spending done at retail establishments ? both for durable goods (items such as autos that are expected to last at least three years) and nondurable goods such as food and clothing. What makes this report comprehensive is that it also covers spending on services. Services include items such as doctor's visits, airline and bus tickets, apartment rentals and utility bills. The service category makes up two-thirds of consumer spending and isn't covered in the retail surveys.
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BBC
Comment by Jim Campbell
In what would seem to be a career making story apparently the US media. Go ahead Google it, not important because it would reflect just how horribly this administration is run and what a total incompetent Obama actually is.
Apparently those that want to control out thoughts don?t want us to know about the insignificance of this mishap or shall we call it a ?Man made overseas disaster???
When you give it serious thought, what?s 69 missing Patriot missiles on the ship and around 160 tons of explosives among friends?
That?s my story and I?m sticking to it, I?m J.C. and I approve this message.
The Thor Liberty is docked in Kotka
The Finnish authorities have impounded an Isle of Man-flagged ship bound for China with undeclared missiles and explosives, officials say.
The MS Thor Liberty left port in Emden, northern Germany, on 13 December and docked two days later in Kotka, southern Finland, to pick up a cargo of anchor chains, said Finnish Customs spokesman Petri Lounatmaa.
Patriot missile systems are supplied to US allies
It was bound for the Chinese port of Shanghai but there was no indication for whom the military cargo was destined.
Routine checks by Finland?s traffic safety authority revealed a load of up to 160 tonnes of improperly packed nitroguanidine, a low-sensitivity explosive with a high detonation speed.
?Actually in our investigation at the moment, we have got the information that we found 69 Patriot missiles on the ship and around 160 tonnes of explosives,? said Detective Superintendent Timo Virtanen from the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation.
Interior Minister Rasanen said she had not heard of a similar case.
?Of course, there are legal transports of weapons or defence material [through Finland] but in this case the cargo was marked as containing fireworks,? she told Finnish media. ?That is quite unusual.?
Mr Lounatmaa said customs officials and police had launched a joint investigation into a possible breach of Finnish export and weapons trading laws.
He said that the crew of about 32 were being questioned.
Patriot missiles, designed by the US company Raytheon, are supplied to ?US and allied forces?, according to the company?s website. South Korea is among states which deploy them.
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ROME?? A courtyard column of a Roman house in Pompeii collapsed on Thursday, renewing concerns about the state of the site which was frozen in time when Mount Vesuvius erupted 2,000 years ago, burying inhabitants alive and preserving their homes.
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Stressed about facing the holiday crowds at the airport this week? Contrary to accepted wisdom, the idea that the holidays represent the busiest days in air travel may be more myth than reality.
Last year the Italian government was accused of neglecting the UNESCO World Heritage site near Naples in southern Italy when part of the "House of the Gladiators" fell down.
That collapse, along with three others in 2010, and the subsequent accusations of neglect and mismanagement, helped trigger a no-confidence vote against former culture minister Sandro Bondi in January.
Slideshow: World Heritage Sites (on this page)Bondi, a member of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right government, survived the vote but quit in March.
Officials said the latest part of the site to crumble was one of several columns that once held up wooden trellises in the house where Loreio Tiburtino, a Roman nobleman, lived.
Built in the second century BC, the house was renovated in 62 AD, 17 years before the cataclysmic eruption.
"This is a torment without end," said Luisa Bossa, a lawmaker from the leftist opposition Democratic Party and former mayor of the Naples-area town of Herculaneum, also a major Roman-era archeological site.
"We have been complaining for three years but the country's most important archeological area continues to fall apart. The truth is that the site has been left alone for years and now, a bit at a time, we are paying the price," she said.
She called on Italy's culture minister, Lorenzo Ornaghi, to "take stock of the gravity of the situation and confront it with determination and speed."
Italy's archaeologists also voiced their concerns.
Slideshow: Italian dreams (on this page)"To overcome the emergency created by these collapses, we need to hire specialized maintenance workers straight away. That is the only possible cure for Pompeii," Tsao Cevoli, head of the National Archaeologists Association, told news agency Ansa.
Pompeii was home to about 13,000 people when it was buried under ash, pumice pebbles and dust in 79 AD as it endured the force of an eruption equivalent to 40 atomic bombs.
Two-thirds of the 66-hectare (165-acre) town has since been uncovered. Pompeii attracts some 2.5 million tourists each year, making it one of Italy's most popular attractions.
Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
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STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) ? Penn State may still be without a replacement for fired coach Joe Paterno by the time the Nittany Lions play in the TicketCity Bowl on Jan. 2
The six-person search committee is taking a "very deliberate and measured approach to the process in order to identify the coach that best fits the requirements of the position," acting athletic director Dave Joyner said Thursday in a written statement.
School president Rodney Erickson and Joyner had both said they hoped to have a new coach before No. 24 Penn State's bowl game.
But Thursday, Joyner said a new coach would be introduced "at the appropriate time," and the statement offered no specific timeline.
Erickson was out of town Thursday for the holidays. Spokesman Bill Mahon said Joyner was providing Erickson with regular updates.
"I think they have both emphasized the most important element here is to get the right coach, not speed up the timing of the search," Mahon said. "There is no update on possible timing."
Longtime defensive coordinator Tom Bradley has been running the program on an interim basis since school trustees fired Paterno on Nov. 9 in the aftermath of child sex abuse charges against retired defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky.
Paterno is not a target of an investigation into the Sandusky case by the state attorney general's office, though he was dismissed amid mounting criticism that school leaders should have done more to prevent alleged abuse. Sandusky, who has maintained his innocence, is awaiting trial.
Making a good hire, and soon, is generally seen as a critical step to secure the future of Penn State's storied football program. A couple of recruits have already revoked their verbal commitments to the school in the wake of the Sandusky scandal.
Erickson said earlier this month one of the top criteria in the coaching search is "how that person would fit into the value system of Penn State, which clearly has to be honesty, integrity and commitment to excellence in academics."
According to Joyner, the school "is continuing to talk with individuals that we're interested in and work through the interview process." He called it a "very important hire for Penn State."
Bradley and defensive line coach Larry Johnson are among those who have been interviewed.
Green Bay quarterbacks coach Tom Clements was scheduled to have a phone interview last week, USA Today has reported. At Packers practice Thursday, Clements declined comment on whether he was interested in the job and would not confirm if he had interviewed for it.
Nebraska's Bo Pelini also emerged this week on the seemingly endless rumored list of potential college-level prospects. Pelini after practice Tuesday called the reports irresponsible and untrue, and said he had not interviewed at Penn State.
As for the Nittany Lions, players have gone home for the holidays. They are scheduled to regroup Monday in Dallas to prepare for the bowl game against No. 20 Houston.
___
Sports Writer Chris Jenkins in Green Bay, Wis., contributed to this report.
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NEW YORK (Reuters) ? A political consultant convicted of stealing nearly $1 million from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg during his 2009 re-election campaign was sentenced to between 1 1/3 and four years in prison Monday in state Supreme Court.
Prosecutors from the Manhattan District Attorney's Office had accused John Haggerty of soliciting $1.1 million in funds from the billionaire mayor to pay for an extensive poll-watching operation that never materialized. Instead, they claimed, Haggerty used the bulk of the money he received to buy his childhood home.
Haggerty was convicted of second-degree larceny and money laundering following a four-week trial in October but acquitted him of a more serious larceny charge.
In a brief statement to the court before his sentencing on Monday, Haggerty said he regretted his actions.
Bloomberg, a political independent, won a third term in 2009 after successfully overturning the two-term limit on city mayors.
Prosecutors recommended a sentence of four to 12 years in prison but Haggerty's lawyers, Raymond Castello and Dennis Vacco, argued that a sentence of probation and community service would be more appropriate for what they described as an isolated incident.
Haggerty, who ended up with $750,000 of the mayor's money, has agreed to sell the home he bought and return the stolen funds, lawyers on both sides said Monday.
Haggerty was a vendor working on behalf of the Independence Party, which supported Bloomberg's candidacy. The party also has agreed to forfeit $150,000 of the funds, Assistant District Attorney Eric Seidel said Monday, although it will not have to return approximately $200,000 it had already spent at the time of Haggerty's indictment.
BLOOMBERG ON STAND
The trial provided a rare sight, as Bloomberg - along with a parade of his most trusted aides, most of whom have held powerful positions in City Hall - testified against Haggerty.
Under aggressive questioning from Haggerty's lawyers, Bloomberg maintained his composure but was forced to discuss the spending on his self-financed $105 million campaign.
Haggerty's lawyers sought to paint their client as a scapegoat for a win-at-all-costs mayor who did not care whether the poll-watching operation took place, as long as he stayed in power.
They also suggested the mayor's decision to funnel the money through the Independence Party, rather than pay Haggerty directly, was an attempt to hide its role in paying for poll watching, which Democrats have criticized in the past as a form of voter suppression.
By voluntarily giving the money to the party, the lawyers argued, the mayor had effectively given up control of it and therefore could not be a victim of theft.
Prosecutors asserted that the mayor and his aides would never have signed off on the expenditure without assurances from Haggerty that it would fund an Election Day operation. They pointed to a budget Haggerty proposed that included 1,355 poll watchers, a document that Seidel labeled "pure fiction" during the trial.
(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Edith Honan and Bill Trott)
WASHINGTON ? Top House Republicans rebelled Sunday against a bipartisan, Senate-approved bill extending payroll tax cuts and jobless benefits for two months, reigniting a politically fueled holiday-season clash that had seemed all but doused.
The House GOP defiance cast uncertainty over how quickly Congress would forestall a tax increase otherwise heading straight at 160 million workers beginning New Year's Day. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said it could be finished within two weeks, which suggested that lawmakers might have to spend much of their usual holiday break battling each other in the Capitol.
A day after rank-and-file House GOP lawmakers used a conference call to spew venom against the Senate-passed bill, Boehner said he opposed the legislation and wanted congressional bargainers to craft a new, year-long version.
"The president said we shouldn't be going anywhere without getting our work done," Boehner said on NBC's "Meet the Press," referring to President Barack Obama's oft-repeated promise to postpone his Christmastime trip to Hawaii if the legislation was not finished. "Let's get our work done, let's do this for a year."
A spokeswoman for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said the House would vote Monday to either request formal bargaining with the Senate or to make the legislation "responsible and in line with the needs of hard-working taxpayers and middle-class families."
Cantor spokeswoman Laena Fallon did not specify what those changes might be, beyond a longer-lasting bill. Boehner, though, expressed support for "reasonable reductions in spending" in a House-approved payroll tax bill and for provisions that blocked Obama administration anti-pollution rules.
Democrats leaped at what they saw as a chance to champion lower- and middle-income Americans by accusing Republicans of threatening a wide tax increase unless their demands are met. If Congress doesn't act, workers would see their take-home checks cut by 2 percentage points beginning Jan. 1, when this year's 4.2 percent payroll tax reverts to its normal 6.2 percent.
"By holding up this bipartisan compromise, tea party House Republicans are walking away once again, showing their extremism and clearly demonstrating that they never intended to give the middle class a tax cut," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Adam Jentleson, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, said the Nevada Democrat would be "happy to continue negotiating a yearlong extension as soon as the House passes the Senate's short-term, bipartisan compromise to make sure middle-class families will not be hit by a thousand-dollar tax hike on January 1."
Keeping this year's 2 percentage point payroll tax cut in effect through 2012 would produce $1,000 in savings for a family earning $50,000 a year. The two-month version would be worth about $170 for the same household.
On Saturday, the Senate voted 89-10 for its legislation, which was negotiated by Senate Republican and Democratic leaders and backed by solid majorities of senators from both parties. It would provide a two-month extension of the payroll tax cuts and jobless benefits and prevent scheduled 27-percent cuts to doctors' Medicare reimbursements during that period, reductions that could convince physicians to stop treating elderly patients covered by the program.
That measure was praised by Obama, and even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., expressed optimism that the measure would become law. Initial bills produced by both sides lasted for a year, but negotiators working on the final product could not agree to savings that would finance such a measure, likely to cost roughly $200 billion.
Reid and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., the No. 3 Senate leader, said Boehner had asked McConnell and Reid to negotiate a compromise, seemingly suggesting that Boehner had walked away from a deal. Republicans said that is untrue and said the House GOP played no role in last week's bargaining between the Senate leaders.
The Senate bill included language cherished by Republicans giving Obama 60 days to approve an oil pipeline stretching from western Canada's tar sands to Texas Gulf Coast refineries, unless he declared the project hurt the national interest. GOP leaders had thought that provision would assure enough votes to pass the overall legislation.
Obama had previously said he was delaying a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline until 2013, allowing him to wait until after next November's elections to choose between unions favoring the project's thousands of jobs and environmentalists opposed to its potential pollution and massive energy use. Obama initially threatened to kill the payroll tax bill if it included the pipeline language but eventually retreated.
Despite the Keystone provision, House Republicans used a Saturday conference call to express anger about the Senate bill and frustration that their leaders seemed willing to agree to the compromise, participants said. Many demanded a return to some of the House bill's spending cuts, including reductions in Obama's health care overhaul law of last year, and several expressed a willingness to work through the holidays to revamp the legislation, Republicans said.
Though GOP leaders support extending the payroll tax and jobless benefits, some House Republicans question doing that, arguing it won't produce jobs and could weaken Social Security. The payroll tax, subtracted from workers' paychecks, is used to finance Social Security.
The White House said little about the House GOP's demands.
"I really think it is very unlikely that the House would disrupt this overwhelming compromise six days before Christmas," Gene Sperling, director of the White House National Economic Council, said on CNN's "State of the Union."
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The payroll-tax impasse has sparked bipartisan fury, with Sen. Richard Burr, (R-NC), and NBC's Luke Russert.
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>> now in this country, to politics on the gop campaign trail and a sharp new attack today by mitt romney on the frontrunner newt gingrich . romney warning that gingrich is too, quote, zany to be president. meanwhile in iowa a gingrich was confronted by shouting protesters during a campaign event at the university of iowa .
Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/45675980/
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VATICAN CITY ? Pope Benedict XVI offered a word of encouragement Wednesday to the Legionaries of Christ order, which has been reeling since revelations that its revered founder was a fraud and pedophile.
The Legion ordained 49 new priests this week in Rome, and many Legionaries and their families attended the pope's general audience inside the Vatican.
In remarks at the end of the audience, Benedict said he was praying that God would support the new Legion priests "so that you can carry out with joy and loyalty your mission."
Benedict named an envoy to take over the Legion last year after the order admitted its late founder, the Rev. Marciel Maciel, had fathered three children and sexually abused his seminarians.
A subsequent Vatican investigation determined that Maciel had created a system of power based on silence and obedience to cater to his double life, and that the Legion itself had no clearly defined "charism," or essential spirit, guiding it.
The envoy, Cardinal Velasio De Paolis, has been working to reform the movement from within, trying to get its superiors to correct what former priests and consecrated members have described as cult-like conditions where spiritual and psychological abuse was common.
Half of the 49 priests ordained Monday in St. John Lateran basilica come from Mexico and the United States, with a few others from Brazil, Colombia, Italy, Spain and one from Hungary.
In his homily, De Paolis noted that it was a difficult time for the Legion as it undergoes the process of reform. But he said: "These vocations open the way to hope and make us look to the future."
Last year, 61 priests were ordained. The Legion has seen priests, seminarians and consecrated members leave amid continued fallout from the revelations of Maciel's deception and concerns over the commitment to true reform among the Legion's superiors.
The revelations of Maciel's double life stained Pope John Paul II's legacy because the late pope had held up Maciel as a model who brought money and priests to the church.
Benedict named De Paolis to be his envoy in hopes of reforming the Legion so that its 900 priests and hundreds of consecrated members could continue serving the church.
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It's always heartening to see an experiment in disintermediated content succeed and it couldn't have happened to a better guy. Louis CK began selling his one-hour comedy special on his own website for $5 a pop last Sunday and, as of today, he's reporting he's made over $500,000 from 110,000 downloads. This is a profit of over $200,000 on a concert that cost him about $170,000 to film and edit (most of that paid with ticket sales) and a website that cost $32,000 to build (which suggests that I'm in the wrong line of work. Carlos Mencia: Call me. I know HTML).Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/XyYq3iz1dP8/
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SRINAGAR, India ? Authorities used batons, tear gas and water canons to break up Muslim religious processions held Sunday in defiance of a strict curfew in the main Indian-controlled city of the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, police said.
At least 70 people were detained after police imposed the curfew in some parts of Srinagar to prevent gatherings marking the Muslim holy month of Muharram from developing into anti-India protests, police chief Ashiq Bukhari said.
Clashes broke out as people resisted police interference with the gatherings and threw stones at officers, who retaliated with tear gas and water canons to break up the groups, he said.
No one was reported injured.
Muharram, lasting a month on the Islamic lunar calendar, is one of the most important holidays for Shiite Muslims, marking the death of Prophet Muhammad's grandson Imam Hussein in the battle of Karbala.
Sunday was the eighth day of Muharram, but Shiites hold religious processions from the start of the month leading up to the 10th day, called Ashura, when Hussein was said to have died.
Large public gatherings have been banned in Indian-administered Kashmir since the outbreak of an armed insurgency in 1989 demanding the region's independence from India or its merger with neighboring Pakistan.
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A new, in-depth report for churches, church daycares, and schools by @RichardHammar regarding new federal crib regs: bit.ly/puHd70 
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Paul also took issue with Trump's last minute cancellation of an appearance at the Republican Party of Iowa's?Lincoln Day Dinner last spring, forcing the cancellation of the entire event.
A Huntsman spokesman said on Friday that "We look forward to watching Mitt and Newt suck-up to The Donald?with a big bowl of popcorn."
GOP front-runner Newt Gingrich accepted an invitation to the debate on Saturday, his spokesman R.C. Hammond tweeted.?POLITICO's Maggie Haberman captured Gingrich's own explanation for participating in the debate:
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"How could you turn down The Donald??I would want to go just for the entertainment value," he added, noting he's meeting with Trump on Monday in Manhattan. But he quickly added, "Trump is a unique American character...it'd be like if Bill Gates called (asking for a debate presence)."
Here's the statement from the Paul campaign rejecting the invitation:
?The Ron Paul 2012 Presidential Campaign Committee rejects the selection of Donald Trump as moderator for the Republican presidential debate to be held on December 27th?in Iowa.?
?We have conferred with our Iowa campaign chairman Drew Ivers and vice-chairmen David Fischer and A.J. Spiker who are all RPI State Central Committee Members, and they concur with this decision.
?The selection of a reality television personality to host a presidential debate that voters nationwide will be watching is beneath the office of the Presidency and flies in the face of that office?s history and dignity.? Mr. Trump?s participation as moderator will distract from questions and answers concerning important issues such as the national economy, crushing federal government debt, the role of the federal government, foreign policy, and the like.? To be sure, Mr. Trump?s participation will contribute to an unwanted circus-like atmosphere.
?Mr. Trump?s selection is also wildly inappropriate because of his record of toying with the serious decision of whether to compete for our nation?s highest office, a decision he appeared to make frivolously.? The short-lived elevation of Mr. Trump?s stature as a candidate put him on the radar of many organizations and we recall that last spring he was invited to keynote the Republican Party of Iowa?s annual Lincoln Day Dinner, yet at the last minute he left RPI holding the bag by canceling.? In turn, RPI canceled its biggest fundraising gala of the year and suffered embarrassment and in addition RPI was required to engage in refunding measures.? Our candidate will not even consider participating in the late-December debate until Mr. Trump publicly apologizes to Iowa party leaders and rectifies in full the situation.
?Therefore our candidate Ron Paul, the champion of the Constitution, has advised he will not attend.?
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Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011. Iraq's prime minister says a bombing in the Green Zone earlier this week was an assassination attempt against him. During an interview with The Associated Press Saturday, Nouri al-Maliki said the parliament building or speaker also could have been targets but preliminary information suggests the bombers were trying to get him. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011. Iraq's prime minister says a bombing in the Green Zone earlier this week was an assassination attempt against him. During an interview with The Associated Press Saturday, Nouri al-Maliki said the parliament building or speaker also could have been targets but preliminary information suggests the bombers were trying to get him. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is seen during an interview with The Associated Press in Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011. Iraq's prime minister says a bombing in the Green Zone earlier this week was an assassination attempt against him. During an interview with The Associated Press Saturday, Nouri al-Maliki said the parliament building or speaker also could have been targets but preliminary information suggests the bombers were trying to get him. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011. Iraq's prime minister says a bombing in the Green Zone earlier this week was an assassination attempt against him. During an interview with The Associated Press Saturday, Nouri al-Maliki said the parliament building or speaker also could have been targets but preliminary information suggests the bombers were trying to get him. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011. Iraq's prime minister says a bombing in the Green Zone earlier this week was an assassination attempt against him. During an interview with The Associated Press Saturday, Nouri al-Maliki said the parliament building or speaker also could have been targets but preliminary information suggests the bombers were trying to get him. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
BAGHDAD (AP) ? Weeks before the U.S. pullout, Iraq's prime minister confidently predicted Saturday that his country will achieve stability and remain independent of its giant neighbor Iran even without an American troop presence.
Nouri al-Maliki also warned of civil war in Iran's ally Syria if Bashar Assad falls ? a view that puts him closer to Tehran's position and at odds with Washington. The foreign policy pronouncement indicates that Iraq is emerging from the shadows of U.S. influence in a way unforeseen when U.S.-led forces invaded eight years ago to topple Saddam Hussein.
"The situation in Syria is dangerous," al-Maliki told The Associated Press during an interview at his office in a former Saddam-era palace in Baghdad's Green Zone. "Things should be dealt with appropriately so that the spring in Syria does not turn into a winter."
The Obama administration has been outspoken in its criticism of Assad's bloody crackdown on protests that the U.N. says has killed more than 4,000 people so far, the bloodiest in a wave of uprisings that have been dubbed the Arab Spring.
Iraq has been much more circumspect and abstained from key Arab League votes suspending Syria's membership and imposing sanctions on the country. That has raised concern that Baghdad is succumbing to Iranian pressure to protect Assad's regime. Tehran is Syria's main backer.
Al-Maliki insisted that Iraq will chart its own policies in the future according to national interests, not the dictates of Iran or any other country.
Some U.S. officials have suggested that Iranian influence in Iraq would inevitably grow once American troops depart.
Both countries have Shiite majorities and are dominated by Shiite political groups. Many Iraqi politicians spent time in exile in Iran under Saddam's repressive regime, and one of al-Maliki's main allies ? anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ? is believed to spend most of his time in Iran.
"Iraq is not a follower of any country," al-Maliki said. He pointed out several areas in which Iraq had acted against Iran's desires, including the signing of the security agreement in 2008 that required all U.S. forces to leave Iraq by the end of this year. Iran had been pushing for all American troops to be out of the country even sooner.
"Through our policies, Iraq was not and will not be a follower of another country's policies," he said.
But he also took pains to emphasize that Iraq did want to maintain good relations with Iran as the two countries share extensive cultural, economical and religious ties.
"Clearly, we are no enemy to Iran and we do not accept that some who have problems with Iran would use us as a battlefield. Some want to fight Iran with Iraqi resources as has happened in the past. We do not allow Iran to use us against others that Iran has problems with, and we do not allow others to use us against Iran," he said.
The prime minister defended his country's stance when it comes to how to address the instability roiling neighboring Syria right now.
The U.N.'s top human rights official said this week that Syria is in a state of civil war and that more than 4,000 people have been killed since March.
Al-Maliki said Iraq believes the Syrian people's rights should be protected and that his government has told the Syrian regime that the age of one party and one sect running the country is over. Syria is ruled by a minority Alawite regime, an offshoot of Shiism, that rules over a Sunni Muslim majority.
The Iraqi prime minister even said that members of the Syrian opposition had recently asked to come to Iraq, and that his government would meet with them. But he distanced himself from calls for Assad's ouster, warning that could plunge the country into civil war.
"The killing or removal of President Bashar in any way will explode into an internal struggle between two groups and this will have an impact on the region," al-Maliki said.
"My opinion ? I also lived in Syria for more than 16 years ? is that it will end with civil war and this civil war will lead to alliances in the region. Because we are a country that suffered from the civil war of a sectarian background, we fear for the future of Syria and the whole region," he said.
Al-Maliki also insisted his forces were ready to take over security during a wide-ranging discussion on where his country stands ahead of the Dec. 31 departure of all American troops.
"Nothing has changed with the withdrawal of the American forces from Iraq on the security level because basically it has been in our hands," he said.
The U.S. withdrawal has occurred in stages, with the American military pulling out of the cities in 2008, leaving the soldiers largely confined to bases as Iraqi security forces took the lead. About 13,000 U.S. troops are still in the country, down from a one-time high of about 170,000.
Al-Maliki said he was grateful to the United States for overthrowing Saddam.
"We appreciate that, no doubt," the prime minister said, adding he was not worried about a resumption of the type of sectarian warfare that pushed his own country to the brink of civil war in the years following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
On the contrary, he said violence would decline because the Americans' departure would remove one of the main reasons for attacks.
"What was taking place during the presence of the American forces will decrease in the period after the withdrawal," he said. "Some people find a pretext in the presence of the American forces to justify their acts, but now what justification will they come up with?"
___
Associated Press writer Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report.
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Carbon dioxide gets all the attention, but there are a host of compounds responsible for global warming
?| December 1, 2011
OVERLOOKED GASES: Methane, like that burning in the flame pictured, is one of several often overlooked greenhouse gases. Curbing their emissions could be both cheaper and easier than cutting carbon dioxide.
Image: ? iStockphoto.com / Chris Pole
When the world talks climate change?as is currently under way in Durban, South Africa?the main issue is carbon dioxide emissions. CO2 is emanating from the negotiators' mouths and the power plants and cars of their home countries?and that simple molecule is responsible for the bulk of global warming to date.
But CO2 isn't the only molecule trapping heat in the atmosphere. The warm conditions of the earth get a big boost from water vapor as well as several other culprits, some of which never existed in the atmosphere prior to human influence. Together, the other greenhouse gases account for roughly a third of the molecules trapping heat in the atmosphere ? and more than a third of the overall warming of average temperatures globally.
What's more, cleaning up emissions of some of these other greenhouse gases may prove quite a lot simpler than cutting back on CO2?forestalling catastrophic climate change. In fact, some of the measures?such as capturing the methane released during oil production?actually save money in addition to the climate. The United Nations Environment Program estimates that cutting back on methane and soot emissions alone could prevent 0.7 degree Celsius of additional warming by 2040?and those cooling benefits could come faster than comparable cuts in CO2.
View a slideshow of the other greenhouse gases
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ScienceDaily (Dec. 1, 2011) ? Scientists and engineers have proven the worth of quantum cryptography in telecommunication networks by demonstrating its long-term effectiveness in a real-time network.
Their international network, created in collaboration with ID Quantique and installed in the Geneva metropolitan area and crossing over to the site of CERN in France, ran for more than one-and-a-half years from the end of March 2009 to the beginning of January 2011.
Published Dec. 2 in the Institute of Physics and German Physical Society's New Journal of Physics, the researchers' study documents the longest ever deployment of a quantum key distribution (QKD) network and demonstrates its robustness and reliability when coupled with a real-time telecommunications network.
Cryptography -- the practice of protecting information from third parties -- has long been achieved by encrypting data with a set of complex mathematical algorithms; however, with the power of computers continuing to increase, it is becoming harder to make these algorithms watertight.
Physics has rather conveniently come up with a solution to this ever-growing problem through a process known as quantum key distribution (QKD). QKD is a process that enables two parties to share a secret key before using that key to protect data they want to send over a network.
The key that the two parties share is built up from a stream of photons -- the basic unit of light. In a theoretical scenario where Alice and Bob want to protect a piece of information with a quantum key, Alice would send a stream of photons to Bob with each one having a specific orientation, called polarisation: photons can 'spin' vertically, horizontally and diagonally.
Bob would then attempt to measure the photons coming in by randomly choosing which direction to measure them in. Sometimes he will choose the correct orientation, other times he won't. Alice and Bob would then share the measurements using classical communication methods, simply stating if Bob was right or wrong, but not mentioning the actual direction the photons were spinning in.
Alice can then discard all of Bob's wrong measurements and use the correct ones to encrypt their secret data. The beauty of QKD is that if a potential eavesdropper wanted to get hold of this key, they would actually destroy the photons when trying to measure them. As a result, they would need to send their own stream of photons on to Bob to cover their tracks, but this would introduce errors and be discarded during key distillation.
QKD is not a new phenomenon and has already been used for a number of applications: notably by ID Quantique to protect the votes in Geneva's elections and in other commercial installations where high security is needed.
For QKD to become more widespread in the commercial world, its reliability needed to be thoroughly tested as these networks run constantly all year round. Furthermore, the robustness of the network needed to be demonstrated as the systems are being taken out of safeguarded laboratories and placed into more demanding environments.
Co-author of the study Dr Damien Stucki said: "This experiment is a big step in the direction of a wider deployment of QKD in telecommunications networks. From a scientific point of view, the deployment of the quantum layer over a duration of 21 months with high reliability is very significant.
"The SwissQuantum network was very reliable, with the only interruptions coming from external problems, such as power cuts and air conditioning problems, not the QKD layer."
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Lenovo doesn't miss a trick, and I'm not just saying that because the Lenovo IdeaPad U300s' ($1,495 list) startup wallpaper shows a picture of the system with its available accessories and part numbers. The 2.9-pound Lenovo U300s is an elegant entry into the new ultrabook category, combining the allure of the Intel-backed specification?a super-slim profile, a fast solid-state drive instead of a hard drive, near-instantaneous sleep and resume functions?with Lenovo's typical world-class engineering. But it's not cheap, largely because it has a 256GB solid-state drive (SSD) versus most of its rivals' 128GB drives, and a couple of nitpicks, such as the lack of a flash-card slot, keep it from claiming our Editors' Choice crown for ultrabooks.
Since we're talking price, we should note that the U300s is $104 cheaper than the comparable 256GB SSD version of the Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (Thunderbolt) ($1,299 direct, 4 stars), though the latter's 1,440 by 900 screen resolution tops the U300s's 1,366 by 768. The 1,600 by 900 display of our ultrabook Editors' Choice, the Asus Zenbook UX31 ($1,099 direct, 4 stars), tops both.
We should also note that Lenovo offers budget buyers a $1,095 version of the U300s with a 128GB solid-state drive and a slightly tamer Intel Core i5 processor instead of our test unit's Core i7. And we should caution you not to confuse the IdeaPad U300s ultrabook with the slightly bulkier IdeaPad U300, a similar slimline with a spinning hard disk.
Design
While others follow the MacBook Air's example and taper to a tenth of an inch at the front edge, Lenovo styled the U300s like an actual book, closer to 0.6 inch thick all the way from front to back. It's a gorgeous alternative to the usual wedge shape, one that feels rock-solid when picked up by a front corner and yields almost no flex when you press a palm to the lid. The 8.5 by 12.8 by 0.6-inch (HWD) case is crafted from a single sheet of aluminum, sandblasted for what Lenovo calls a warmer, more tactile finish.
Speaking of tactile, we've always been fans of Lenovo keyboards. The one on the U300s doesn't disappoint, even if it isn't as stellar as, say, the Lenovo ThinkPad X220 ($1,299 direct, 4 stars) keyboard is?it's merely excellent, with the slightly shallow travel we've noticed in other ultrabooks but a smooth, pliant typing feel. Though it's not backlit like the Toshiba Portege Z835-P330 ($799.99 list, 3.5 stars), the keyboard layout is just about perfect, with Ctrl and Delete keys in their proper lower left and top right corners, respectively; dedicated Home, End, PgUp, and PgDn as well as arrow keys; and F1 through F12 keys that default to their system functions, such as adjusting audio volume and screen brightness or disabling the webcam, with no need to hold down the Fn key.
The buttonless touchpad works smoothly, except the test unit once or twice failed to register a click or tap in mid-pad (as opposed to a tap in the lower left or, for right-click, lower right corner, which always worked fine). Flicking left or right with four fingers activates a couple of bonus pop-up apps, a notepad or sticky-note keeper and a wallpaper changer (there we are at wallpaper again).
The U300s sports a 13.3-inch glossy screen. It's not brighter than bright, but it's perfectly sunny at its top two or three brightness settings and it offers rich colors, crisp blacks and whites, and sharp text. At one end of the audio spectrum, the speakers produced only fair results in a crank-up-Joan-Jett test; at the other, two cooling fans are faintly audible when working in a quiet room. The fans draw air through what Lenovo calls a breathable keyboard and expel it through the rear and left side, without the usual vents on the underside.
Features
On the U300s's left side are a USB 2.0 port and a button for launching the system recovery function if Windows goes kablooey. On the right are a headphone/microphone jack, an HDMI port, and a USB 3.0 port. While 802.11b/g/n WiFi is built in (as is Bluetooth), those who wish to plug into their companies' wired LANs will search in vain for an Ethernet port (Lenovo sells a USB hub with Ethernet as a $40 option). And those comparison-shopping the Toshiba Portege Z835 and Asus Zenbook UX31 will search in vain for an SD or other memory-card slot.
Of course, comparison shoppers will also have to give the U300s credit for its 256GB (instead of 128GB) Micron SSD. Teamed with Intel's Rapid Storage technology, the solid-state drive enables cold-boot and awake-from-sleep times of roughly 22 and 3 seconds respectively in stopwatch tests. Another nifty Intel technology is WiDi, which beams the Lenovo's display to a big-screen HDTV via a $100 optional wireless adapter. Like other ultrabooks, the Lenovo has no optical drive.
The system's software bundle stars Microsoft Security Essentials, a simple-to-use, small-footprint malware fighter, and Office Starter 2010, along with a trial subscription to Absolute Data Security for remotely locking or removing personal data from a missing PC. Bloatware is mercifully absent. Lenovo backs the U300s with a one-year parts-and-labor warranty.
Performance
The U300s teams 4GB of RAM with a Core i7-2677M?a 1.8GHz dual-core, four-threaded member of Intel's "Sandy Bridge" processor family. The combination was good enough for the fastest Adobe Photoshop CS5 time we've recorded in the ultrabook category, 4 minutes 25 seconds, edging the Asus UX31 at 4:37 and Apple MacBook Air at 4:55 (to say nothing of the Core i3-powered Toshiba Z835 at 8:17).
The U300s posted a PCMark 7 score of 3,394, just behind the Asus' 3,531, and its time of 2 minutes and 39 seconds virtually tied the Acer Aspire S3 in our Handbrake video encoding test. Like other ultrabooks, its Intel integrated graphics disqualify it for serious gaming?the U300s strolled to 17.1 and 14.2 frames per second respectively in Crysis and Lost Planet 2 at medium settings.
In our MobileMark 2007 battery rundown test, the U300s barely broke the six-hour barrier (6:03). Its score put it in the middle of the ultrabook pack, trailing the Toshiba Z835 (7:35) and Asus UX31(6:32) but showing more stamina than the MacBook Air (5:46) and Acer S3 (5:20). The four-cell, 54Whr battery is sealed within the system case instead of being swappable with a spare for longer life, which is de rigueur among super-slim systems but still a pet peeve of your reviewer.
There are other peeves, like the lack of a memory-card reader and its lower screen resolution, that keep the Lenovo IdeaPad U300s from unseating the Asus Zenbook UX31 as our ultrabook Editors' Choice. But even so, the U300s occupies the same position in the ultrabook space that Lenovo's high-end ThinkPads do in the general laptop sphere?an enviable option for lucky executives, travelers, and students.
BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS:
COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the Lenovo IdeaPad U300s with several other laptops side by side.
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