Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.
Source: http://www.calendarwiz.com/calendars/popup.php?op=view&id=43940118&crd=ljevents
chelsea clinton kat von d tiki barber minnesota vikings packers vs vikings packers vs vikings randall cobb
Anna Staab gets her ticket at Walmart for a $199 Xbox with Kinect and a $50 gift certificate.
By Eve Tahmincioglu, Career and labor reporter
Extended Black Friday hours may have angered those store employees who had to work before their turkey dinners were digested, but many shoppers were happy with this year's earlier store opening times because they found fewer raucous crowds and shorter lines as a result.
?This was the absolute calmest Black Friday I have ever experienced,? said Nathan Luna, 24, who began his shopping trek at 12:08 a.m. this morning and headed to Best Buy in Wheaton, Md.
While things may have been more relaxed, projections for the number of consumers heading out on the biggest shopping day of the year are up.
According to?data compiled for the National Retail Federation by BIGresearch, up to 152 million people plan to shop over the Black Friday weekend (Friday, Saturday and Sunday), that's higher than the 138 million people who planned to do so last year. According to the survey, 74 million people say they will definitely hit the stores and another 77 million are waiting to see if the bargains are worth braving the cold and the crowds.
Overall, electronics and clothing were among the biggest scores for many consumers, especially video game players and high-end fashions. And many shoppers said they found the sales items they wanted, unlike past Black Fridays that offered slim pickings; and lots of sales people to help them navigate the stores.
Here are some first-hand accounts of the day and deals from Black Friday aficionados:
?The crowds were very well-behaved,? said Brad Williams, 39, an analyst for Duke University who headed out at 9:15 p.m. last night with his wife Wendy. ?The line at Target, as I said, was enormous, but my wife said that the people there were jovial and pretty Zen about the wait. No pushing or shoving whatsoever.?
The couple has two young kids, but grandparents take the kids after Thanksgiving dinner to their house so Brad and his wife can shop unfettered.
"The crowds seemed to be bigger this year at Target and Kohl's, but smaller elsewhere," Williams added. "I think that has to do with when we arrived. We were in the teeth of the initial rush at those two places, but by the time we got to Crabtree, about 3 a.m., that had subsided and the second rush, when non-crazy people are getting up, hadn't yet begun."
?
Brad Williams
Orderly crowds at the Tanger Outlets in Mebane, N.C.
The deals overall were good, he said, but his ?best bargains? were ?a pair of Lucky Brand jeans for my wife, which were $18 (original outlet price was $69.50, they were on clearance for $30, and 40 percent off that), and a Brooks Brothers sports shirt, which was $29.90.?
Wendy Novicenskie
Brad Williams shows off his Black Friday loot.
Anna Staab, 51, Metamora, Il., hit the stores around 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving and found lots of merchandise available at Walmart and Menards, a regional department store chain. ?After seeing plenty of merchandise left at Walmart at this hour we wondered if it had something to do with the economy or if people were just avoiding it due to the earlier hours,? she surmised.
Staab, a retired Post Master who has seven kids living with her, some foster, some adopted and some biological, said she needed to be out early to get the big bargains and ended up with quite a few.
Her biggest complaint was where Walmart placed the sales items.
?Big box items, i.e. trampoline, ping pong table, power ride on toys, were all at the back of the store. Customers had to fight the crowds with the huge boxes,? she explained. ?They need a better system for those.?
And?Staab didn't like that many retailers staggered sales throughout the night.
"Certain things went on sale at 10 p.m. Thursday, then midnight, then 8 a.m.," she noted.
Besides a few annoyances, she was able to get the one thing she really wanted. She's most proud of the Xbox with Kinect she got at Walmart for $199 and a $50 Walmart card included, about half the price it was last year.
The iPad 2 was the only thing Nathan Luna was looking for.
He arrived at the Best Buy in Wheaton, Md., at 12:20 a.m. and found the parking log jammed and a line of more than 700 people.
?Less-experienced Black Friday shoppers would have probably turned around in horror, but I pressed on,? said Luna, a TV photographer for Canadian Television who has been Black Friday shopping since he was a kid when he shopped with his mom and grandmother.
Nathan Luna
Lines formed at the Best Buy in Wheaton, Md., and police were on hand to keep things moving smoothly.
Despite the crowds, he said, a group of police officers helped shuffle shoppers into the store and the line within 20 minutes after the store opened.
Nathan Luna
There were big crowds at the Best Buy in Wheaton, Md., but lines moved quickly, according to one shopper.
?I was greeted by a wall of Dynex 32-inch TVs and thousands of people jamming up the aisles,? he described. ?I asked the greeter where the iPads were, and he directed me to the back of the store. I had to bump a few elbows to get back there, but when I did, I noticed something new.?
Instead of a line snaking around the entire store, he said, there were check-out lines scattered throughout the store near key items.
?When I got in the iPad line, I literally had eleven people in front of me,? he said, adding that it took about a half hour to check out, compared to the hours it has taken during past Black Fridays.
He eventually got his iPad for $454.
Related stories:
Black Friday turns ugly:?Two shot, 15 pepper-sprayed
Why Black Friday shopping is crucial for retailers
college basketball gunsmoke papelbon papelbon anita hill penn state football schedule carrier classic
ROME (Reuters) ? A punishing sale of Italian debt on Friday was not just bad news for the country's finances and the euro zone as a whole but increased political problems for the new technocrat government of Mario Monti.
The sale, in which Italy was forced to pay a record 6.5 percent for six month paper, comes on top of early sniping by politicians who were dragooned into accepting Monti a week ago only because of Italy's soaring borrowing costs.
Monti's predecessor, flamboyant media magnate Silvio Berlusconi, was finally forced to resign on November 12 because of untenable yields on Italian debt which have put the euro zone's third largest economy at the epicenter of its widening crisis.
But so far, despite warm praise from European leaders who have greeted Monti with open arms -- in contrast to their barely concealed disdain for Berlusconi -- Italian debt yields are still going the wrong way.
The Italian auction capped a terrible week for the euro zone after a disastrous German bond auction and a continuing failure of European leaders to agree measures to combat the crisis. Moreover, Spain has been forced to pay record interest on its debt despite the landslide election of a conservative government.
Italy's auction on Friday, described by one analyst as "awful," spooked investors further and pushed two-year yields on the secondary market to an eye-watering euro lifetime high of more than 8 percent.
Longer term debt is above a "red line" of 7 percent which forced Portugal, Greece and Ireland into bailouts that Europe could not afford for the much bigger Italian economy.
Many analysts say the euro zone crisis is now systemic, but Berlusconi, whose sexual and legal scandals combined with his inability to pass key reforms led to his demise, quickly pointed out the lack of any substantial premium from Monti's arrival.
"Everyone has been able to see that the (bond) spread has remained high even after I resigned: evidently our government was not at fault at all," he said in a newspaper interview.
"LOUSY GOVERNMENT"
Umberto Bossi, head of the devolutionist Northern League and Berlusconi's principal partner in the ousted center-right government, has refused to support Monti and was scathing about the new government.
"It's lousy. It seems an improvised government to me," he told reporters on Friday. He said Monti was like a "lead climber who has only seen the mountains in a postcard."
Monti's problem is that although most of Italy's parties have promised broad support in parliament to face the crisis, he was unable to persuade them to include ministers in his government, robbing him of political cover.
This problem has already become apparent in his difficulty in appointing about 30 deputy ministers and under-secretaries, apparently because of disagreement among the parties.
His warm welcome in Brussels this week has been interpreted negatively by some politicians and commentators, who accused him of giving details of his reforms to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy before they were revealed to the parties or markets.
"On his knees in front of Merkel," said a banner headline in il Giornale, owned by Berlusconi's brother Paolo.
A commentary by the paper's editor, Alessandro Sallusti, said Monti "told the Chancellor what he is silent about to his fellow citizens and, what is worse, to his parliament."
Underlining the deep political tensions in Italy, Monti had to meet senior party leaders in secret on Thursday night to discuss the under-secretary problem, apparently because they did not want to be photographed together.
"When you have been spitting on each other for three and a half years, how can you suddenly meet publicly to decide who should be the undersecretaries?" the source said, referring to bitter political infighting since the last election in 2008.
Political sources told Reuters the summit took place, despite official denials, and it was widely reported in Italian newspapers. Appointment of the junior government officials would be delayed until next week, the sources said.
Parties on both left and right will face opposition from their supporters in backing unpopular legislation from Monti to cut Italy's debt and reverse a decade of stagnant growth.
Many political insiders believe the politicians will sabotage Monti as soon as they can, and that he won't make it to the next scheduled election in 2013.
"These are not very encouraging developments. Monti has a honeymoon of about three months in which he can try to push for some major reforms," said Franco Pavoncello, political science professor at Rome's John Cabot university.
"I'd be surprised if there is not a general election by June of next year," he added.
(Additional reporting by Steve Scherer)
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111125/wl_nm/us_italy
steve mcnair brooklyn bridge lady antebellum marques colston dez bryant listeria listeria
This morning, AT&T issued a formal statement on the withdrawal of its application from the FCC regarding its merger with T-Mobile. The company had previously agreed to pay a $4 billion pre-tax charge in the case that its $39 billion takeover of T-Mobile failed to go through, $3 billion of which would go to Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile and another $1 billion going to the book value of spectrum access. Yesterday, on Thanksgiving Day here in the U.S., AT&T released a statement announcing its intention to withdraw its request from the FCC. Today's statement is meant to clear up misconceptions around its withdrawal request, namely that the FCC must approve it.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/SvYrNX1tgWs/
news 9 tuscaloosa tuscaloosa earthquake california earthquake california crimson tide crimson tide
LISBON (Reuters) ? Fitch downgraded Portugal's credit rating to junk status on Thursday, citing large fiscal imbalances, high debts and the risks to its EU-mandated austerity program from a worsening economic outlook.
The ratings agency cut Portugal to BB+ from BBB-, which is still one notch higher than Moody's rating of Ba2. S&P still rates Portugal investment grade.
Fitch said a deepening recession makes it "much more challenging" for the government to cut the budget deficit but it still expects fiscal goals to be met both this year and next.
"However, the risk of slippage - either from worse macroeconomic outturns or insufficient expenditure controls - is large," Fitch said.
The challenging economic environment was clear in a Reuters poll on Thursday, where economists forecast Portugal's economy will contract by 2.9 percent next year, the deepest recession since the 1970s, and 1.6 percent this year, in line with the government's estimates.
Portugal's 10-year bond prices plunged, sending yields surging more than 100 basis points to 13.85 percent -- the second highest level in the euro zone after Greece. The spread to German Bunds also rose more than 100 basis points to 1,168.
The downgrade of Portugal came after the dramatic deterioration of the euro zone crisis in recent weeks as it spread to bigger countries like Italy and Spain.
"The worsening regional outlook helped inform the downgrade (of Portugal)," Rabobank said in an analyst note. "This, in turn, underlines the mounting risk of systemic downgrades."
Portugal sought a 78-billion-euro bailout from the European Union and IMF earlier this year and has adopted sweeping austerity measures to bring public accounts under controls.
Under the loan program Portugal must cut the budget deficit to 5.9 percent of gross domestic product this year from around 10 percent in 2010. Next year it must cut the deficit further to 4.5 percent.
STATE COMPANIES A RISK
Fitch said the state-owned "enterprise sector is another key source of fiscal risk" and has caused a number of upward revisions to the country's debt and budget deficit figures this year. The government has said there was an unexpected fiscal shortfall of about 3 billion euros this year.
"Given these downside risks, Fitch sees a significant likelihood that further consolidation measures will be needed through the course of 2012," Fitch said.
It sees Portugal total debt peaking at 116 percent of GDP in 2013 from 93.3 percent at the end of last year.
Filipe Garcia, an economist at Informacao de Mercados Financeiros, said that while the downgrade does not change the government's financing conditions as it is under a bailout, it could worsen the situation for companies.
"Where (the downgrade) has an impact is on companies, such as banks and other issuers like EDP or Brisa, whose ratings are greatly influenced by the sovereign rating, leaving them in a more difficult situation," said Garcia.
The agency said Portugal's debt crisis poses big risks for the country's banks. "Recapitalisation and increased emergency liquidity provision from the ECB to Portugal's banks will, in Fitch's view, be needed and provided," it said.
Under Portugal's bailout, 12 billion euros has been set aside for funding banks if necessary.
Fitch said a worsening fiscal or economic situation could lead to further downgrades. "Furthermore, although Portugal is funded to end-2013, sovereign liquidity risk may increase materially toward the end of the program if adverse market conditions persist," Fitch said.
The government hopes to return raising debt in financial markets at the end of 2013.
(Additional reporting by Patricia Rua; Editing by Toby Chopra/Anna Willard)
who won dancing with the stars 2011 five iron frenzy wild horses lyrics megyn kelly green bean casserole sweet potato recipes green bean casserole recipe
TALLADEGA, Ala. ? He's a mathematician, a minister, a former radio talk show host and pizza magnate. But most of all, Herman Cain is a salesman.
And how he sells.
"The sleeping giant called `we the people' has awakened," Cain thunders, pacing the stage in his trademark dark suit, brown fedora and "lucky" gold tie, delivering a rollicking, 45-minute performance that evokes an old-fashioned church revival, complete with cries of "Amen" from his audience.
Whether it's selling his book or his presidential aspirations, this is Cain at his best, grinning and joking and wooing a crowd, soaking in the adulation as he vows to lead the cheering masses to a promised land of "less regulation, less legislation and less taxation."
That's simplistic, of course. But so is Cain's message, and he makes no apologies for it.
"They want to confuse you with comp-lex-city," booms the self-styled "Hermanator," accentuating every syllable. "I want to lead you with sim-pli-city."
In the end, he takes no questions, sweeping off to his next stop to the tune of "Rock You Like a Hurricane." His smile disarms everyone whose hand he shakes along the way.
"Is he for real?" asks 75-year-old Jean Waggoner, a longtime Republican activist from Montgomery.
It is a question that has confounded political observers and pollsters alike: Just what to make of this unlikely candidate with an inspirational personal story, a magnetic personality and a campaign like nothing they have ever seen.
Allegations of sexual harassment may have tarnished the image of the 65-year-old Baptist minister. They have certainly rattled his style. His messy denials and memory lapses seem far more like the familiar evasiveness of the "inside-the-beltway" politicians he derides.
But Cain is still doing well in a series of polls, still raising money and still vowing that he's in the race to win.
So the question remains: Is he for real?
Cain himself doesn't offer much of an answer.
His speeches are mesmerizing, delivered with humor and aplomb. But they offer little insight into the man himself and his extraordinary journey from the projects of segregated Atlanta to the boardrooms of corporate America.
"I grew up po', which is even worse than being poor," Cain writes in the introduction to his book, "This is Herman Cain! My Journey to the White House."
The book is partly dedicated to his father Luther, a janitor, barber and chauffeur and his mother Lenora, a domestic.
Writing of his youth, Cain avoids any detailed examination of those tumultuous times. He glances over the indignities of having to sit at the back of the bus or drink from the "coloreds" water fountain.
While fellow students at the historically black Morehouse College were joining Martin Luther King Jr. in marches and staging sit-ins, Cain joined the glee club. (He is a gifted singer whose mellifluous baritone is often heard during the campaign.)
Cain gets visibly annoyed at suggestions that as a beneficiary of the civil rights movement, perhaps he should have participated more. He took his cues from his father, he says, who taught him never to expect a government handout, never to feel like a victim and to "stay out of trouble."
"Not all blacks in the `60s were activists," says Cain, who labels himself an "ABC ? American, black, conservative ? and proud of it."
Graduating with a degree in math, he married college sweetheart Gloria Etchison and went to work as a civilian mathematician for the Department of the Navy.
Dreaming of success in corporate America (he wanted to be president of "something ... somewhere," he writes) he left to work as an executive, first for Coca-Cola and then Pillsbury, eventually moving to its Burger King subsidiary in 1982.
Impressed by his performance, Pillsbury chose Cain in 1986 to revive the foundering Godfather's Pizza chain, based in Omaha, Neb.
"As a boss, he was demanding but fair. And he worked harder than anyone else," says longtime friend Spencer Wiggins, whom Cain first recruited as director of human resources for Burger King and then cajoled into joining him at Godfather's.
"But Herman, it's in Omaha, man!" Wiggins protested.
Cain's response: "Sometimes you have to leave your comfort zone if you want to make a difference."
Former employees says Cain blew into Godfather's like the hurricane depicted in his campaign song, shutting about 200 underperforming stores and eliminating hundreds of jobs. At Burger King, he had launched the "beamer" program, encouraging employees to smile at customers. At Godfathers, he started SIN ? Solve It Now, a rapid response program to deal with customers complaints.
"He was genuine, warm, demanding and funny; he was the best leader I ever met in my life," says Paul Baird, his regional manager in Seattle. "And he sounded like a preacher! Everyone was like, who IS this guy?"
At Godfather's, Cain regaled employees with motivational speeches, often ending with the same folksy anecdotes he tells in the campaign.
When he was a boy, his grandfather hooked mules to a wagon to bring a load of potatoes to town. Grandkids were scampering all over the place, until they heard the old man roar.
"Them that's going, get on the wagon! Them that ain't, get out of the way!"
The chant was to become a campaign mantra.
In 1988 when Pillsbury decided to sell Godfather's, Cain put together a group that bought the chain in a leveraged buyout. He remained its chief until 1996 when he moved to Washington to become CEO of the National Restaurant Association, a lobbying organization.
It was during his three years with the NRA that two employees reportedly received financial settlements after accusing Cain of sexual harassment.
Cain boasts that Godfather's "had one foot in the grave and one on a banana peel" when he took over, comparing it to the state of the U.S. economy today. In reality, though his stewardship made it profitable, it was never truly competitive with the larger pizza chains.
His years in Omaha were important in other ways. They won Cain recognition as a leader, a visionary, a man on the move. He became a member of the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas city in 1992, and would later serve one year as chairman.
He also served on other corporate boards, including Aquila, Inc., Nabisco, Reader's Digest and Whirlpool. Ambitious and driven, a brilliant orator, he was one of the most popular speakers on the local business circuit.
"When Herman Cain was speaking at lunch, you knew people would leave in a great mood, not just because he was funny, which he was," says Loretta Carroll, a local news anchor who often hosted such events. "There was always the feeling that he empowered people a bit. They came away thinking that one person can do things and make a difference in the world."
In 1994 Cain was catapulted into the national spotlight in a memorable exchange with President Bill Clinton during a televised town hall meeting in Kansas City. Speaking via satellite, Cain politely but firmly pressed the president on his proposed health care overhaul.
"If I'm forced to do this, what will I tell those people whose jobs I'm forced to eliminate?" Cain asked, referring to the employer mandate. When Clinton began to explain, Cain persisted. "Quite honestly, your calculation is inaccurate."
Says Carroll: "The Clinton people were not very happy."
But others were enthralled. Jack Kemp, a former congressman, flew to Omaha to meet Cain and later asked him to join the Economic Growth and Tax Reform Commission, a congressional study group.
Kemp, who became Cain's political mentor and friend, is quoted as saying that Cain had "the "voice of Othello, the looks of a football player, the English of Oxfordian quality and the courage of a lion."
Ken Blackwell, a former Ohio secretary of state and fellow African-American Republican who served on the commission, says he was impressed by Cain's ability to look at things analytically and state his case succinctly. Blackwell says there seemed no doubt that Cain would someday run for office.
Cain's first foray into politics was as an adviser to the Bob Dole-Kemp Republican presidential ticket in 1996. Cain flirted with running for president in 2000 but instead backed Steve Forbes.
In 2004, after moving back to Atlanta, Cain ran an unsuccessful bid for U.S. Senate.
Partly to stoke his political ambitions, Cain started a career as a talk-radio host, where he honed many of the ideas that later formed his platform and developed a loyal following of fiercely anti-Obama listeners, some of whom would later work for his campaign.
He also worked as a motivational speaker, most notably for Americans for Prosperity, the conservative anti-tax and regulation group founded with the support of billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch.
Cain makes no apologies for his ties to big money. In a recent speech he joked, "I'm the Koch brothers' brother from another mother."
And then, in 2006, as Cain tells it, "God rocked my world."
Diagnosed with colon cancer that had spread to his liver, he says doctors gave him a 30 percent chance of survival. Many supporters thought it was the end ? something Cain refused to believe.
Sustained by his faith, Cain says, he took solace in signs like the fact the surgeon's incision resembled a "J" ? as in Jesus. After a year of treatment, Cain says, he was declared cancer free and remains so today. God, he says, had another plan.
So with Gloria at his side, Cain announced his candidacy to cheering throngs in Atlanta on May 21.
Initially, the political establishment paid little attention, deeming him a fringe candidate more interested in promoting his book. It wasn't until Cain began leading in the polls that he came under serious scrutiny.
With that scrutiny came problems.
Cain provoked outrage with some early comments, such as that blacks had been "brainwashed" into voting for Democrats and that he would electrify a fence along the U.S. border with Mexico. Later he said he was joking.
He seemed muddled on abortion, saying while he opposed it under all circumstances, "the government shouldn't be trying to tell people what to do."
He incensed the Occupy Wall Street protesters and their supporters by saying, "If you don't have a job and you are not rich, blame yourself."
His shaky grasp of foreign policy has astounded seasoned commentators. In one interview he didn't understand a question about the "right of return" for Palestinians. In another he seemed unaware that China has nuclear weapons. In a third, he drew a blank when asked about the Obama administration's actions in Libya.
His catchy "9-9-9" tax plan ? a 9 percent income tax, 9 percent corporate tax and 9 percent national sales tax ? has been picked apart by experts as one that will shift more of the tax burden to the middle and lower classes and drastically reduce revenue.
"It's not just he hasn't thought it out ... he's winging it," conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer said on Fox News. "And that's a real problem."
Cain's initial response to critics was a breezy "I does not care", mimicking a favorite phrase of his grandfather. He'll surround himself with good people, he says, and figure out the answers when he's presented with all the facts.
In a rare moment of introspection Cain recently acknowledged that he thought the biggest misconception about him was that he was not serious. For an instant he seemed reflective. Then he turned on the salesman's charm.
"I'm Herman Cain," he said, grinning. "And I'm not running for second."
But even friends say some of the gaffes have been excruciating. "In terms of substance, he has mountains to climb," says Blackwell, a fellow cancer survivor. "I think he's smart enough to do it, but there are issues."
The issues include the fallout from sexual harassment charges and allegations of financial improprieties on the part of his campaign manager. Cain has flatly denied wrongdoing, calling the accusations a smear campaign.
At first, they didn't seem to dent his popularity. His campaign said it had raised $9 million in October and November.
Even before the charges surfaced, supporters were demanding more from Cain.
At a lavish fundraising dinner in Huntsville during his fall visit to Alabama, Danielle Sanford said that while she was captivated by the candidate's message ? "he seemed to hit every source of frustration the average conservative is concerned about" ? she chafed at the fact that he didn't take questions or get into specifics.
Having studied Cain's tax plan in depth, the 39-year-old restaurant owner had concluded that it would force her and her husband, Republican state Sen. Paul Sanford, to pay more taxes. "I'd like more clarity," she said.
James Reagan, who runs a small trucking business, agreed that "9-9-9" was too simplistic.
"It's a starting point," he said, after posing for a photograph with Cain and asking him to "help save my business I'm being taxed to death."
"That's my plan," Cain responded.
But his speech didn't offer any new details, just more soaring oratory and thundering delivery. Claiming the mantle of President Ronald Reagan, who "became president because he touched the hearts of the American people," Cain lamented the fact that Reagan's "shining city on the hill has slid to the side of the hill."
"If you give me the opportunity to be your next president," Cain continued, his voice rising to a crescendo, "together we will move it back to the top of the hill where it belongs."
The crowd was sold. It rose to its feet in deafening applause.
"Yes we Cain," they chanted. "Yes we Cain."
___
AP researcher Barbara Sambriski contributed to this report.
'; 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/2011/11/26/herman-cain-2012-gop-candidacy_n_1114141.html
tim tebow kelly ripa reno wildfire reno wildfire osu osu reno news
AMMAN, Jordan?? Syrian tanks bombarded hideouts of army defectors near the central town of Rastan on Thursday, a resident and activists said, two months after the authorities said they had regained control of the important region.
Only on msnbc.com
Activists said around 50 tanks and armored vehicles fired anti-aircraft guns and machine guns into farmland on the edge of Rastan, 12 miles north of the restive city of Homs.
The town was the scene at the end of October of the first major fighting between troops loyal to President Bashar Assad and army defectors in the eight-month uprising against his rule.
"The shelling is concentrating on Rastan's western farms," said a resident of the town, who gave his name as Abu Salah. "I have called several people who live there and loyalist officers answered their mobile phones instead. They were either killed or arrested."
Thousands of soldiers have bolted from the regular army since it started cracking down on an the eight-month popular protest movement to remove Assad. They have formed armed units loosely linked to the umbrella "Free Syrian Army", led by officers now hiding in neighboring Turkey.
Story: 5 children among 23 civilians killed in Syria, rights group saysMeanwhile, France has called for a "secured zone to protect civilians" in Syria, the first time a major Western power has suggested international intervention on the ground during the uprising.
'Legitimate partner'
Foreign Minister Alain Juppe also described Syria's exiled opposition National Council as "the legitimate partner with which we want to work", the biggest international endorsement yet for the nascent opposition body.
A spokesman for European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said the EU was ready to engage with the Syrian National Council (SNC) and other opposition groups, but stressed the need for them to maintain a peaceful, non-sectarian approach.
Asked at a news conference on Wednesday after meeting the SNC president if a humanitarian corridor was an option for Syria, Juppe ruled out military intervention to create a "buffer zone" in northern Syria but suggested a "secured zone" may be feasible to protect civilians and ferry in humanitarian aid.
"If it is possible to have a humanitarian dimension for a secured zone to protect civilians, that then is a question which has to be studied by the European Union on the one side and the Arab League on the other side," Juppe said.
Story: Army defectors threaten to transform Syrian uprising into civil warFurther details of the proposal were not immediately available. Until now, Western countries have imposed economic sanctions on Syria but have shown no appetite for intervention on the ground in the country, which sits on the fault lines of the ethnic and sectarian conflicts across the Middle East.
The U.S. Embassy in Damascus has urged its citizens in Syria to depart "immediately."
Nearly 4,000 people have been reported killed in the military crackdown on the popular uprising since March.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to his report.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45426952/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/
beanie wells beanie wells dina manzo dina manzo once upon a time once upon a time sharia law
MONTPELIER, Vt. ? Tom Wicker, the former New York Times political reporter and columnist whose career soared following his acclaimed coverage of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, died Friday at his home in Rochester, Vt. He was 85.
Wicker died after an apparent heart attack Friday morning, his wife Pamela said.
"He'd been ill with things that come from being 85," she said. "He died in his bedroom looking out at the countryside that he loved."
Wicker grew up in poverty in Hamlet, N.C., and wanted to be a novelist, but pursued journalism when his early books didn't catch fire. He worked at weekly and daily newspapers in North Carolina before winning a spot as a political correspondent in the Times' Washington bureau in 1960.
Three years later, he was the only Times reporter to be traveling with Kennedy when the president was shot in Dallas.
Gay Talese, author of the major history of The New York Times, wrote of Wicker's coverage: "It was a remarkable achievement in reporting and writing, in collecting facts out of confusion, in reconstructing the most deranged day in his life, the despair and bitterness and disbelief, and then getting on a telephone to New York and dictating the story in a voice that only rarely cracked with emotion."
One year later, Wicker was named Washington bureau chief of the Times, succeeding newspaper legend James Reston, who had hired Wicker and called him "one of the most able political reporters of his generation."
In 1966, Wicker began his "In the Nation" column, becoming, along with colleague Anthony Lewis, a longtime liberal voice on the Op-Ed page. Two years later he was named associate editor of the Times, a post he held until 1985.
He ended his column and retired to Vermont in 1991 but continued to write. He published 20 books, ranging from novels about gritty, hard-scrabble life in the South to reflections on the presidents he knew.
Among his books was "A Time to Die," winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award in 1976, which recounted Wicker's 1971 experience as an observer and mediator of a prison rebellion at New York's Attica prison.
Wicker, the son of a railroad man, started in journalism in 1949 at the weekly Sandhill Citizen in Aberdeen, N.C., where he was paid $37.50 a week to report on such local news stories as the discovery of "the first beaver dam in anyone's memory on a local creek."
He moved on to a local daily and then to the larger Winston-Salem Journal, where he worked for most of the 50s, with time out in 1957-58 to serve as a Nieman fellow at Harvard University. He went to work for the Nashville Tennessean in 1959 but then a year later was hired by Reston.
In mid-1961, when Times veteran Bill Lawrence abruptly quit his post as White House correspondent in a dispute with management, Wicker got the assignment. He said it was a dream assignment ? "sooner or later most of the government's newsworthy business passes through the White House" ? and especially covering the excitement of the Kennedy era.
On Nov. 22, 1963, Wicker was in the first press bus following the Kennedy motorcade when the president was assassinated. He would later write in a memoir that the day was a turning point for the country: "The shots ringing out in Dealey Plaza marked the beginning of the end of innocence."
At that moment, however, all he knew was that he was covering one of the biggest stories in history. "At first no one knew what happened, or how, or where, much less why," he later wrote. "Gradually, bits and pieces began to fall together."
Wicker dictated his story from phones grabbed here and there, with most of his writing done at a desk in the upper level of the Dallas airport. "I would write two pages, run down the stairs, across the waiting room, grab a phone and dictate," Wicker later wrote. "Dictating each take, I would throw in items I hadn't written, sometimes whole paragraphs."
Although Wicker didn't even have a reporter's notebook that day and scribbled all of his notes on the backs of printed itineraries of the presidential visit, his story captured the detail and color of the tragic events.
Describing the president's widow as she left the hospital in Dallas, Wicker wrote: "Her face was sorrowful. She looked steadily at the floor. She still wore the raspberry-colored suit in which she greeted welcoming crowds in Fort Worth and Dallas. But she had taken off the matching pillbox hat she had worn earlier in the day, and her dark hair was windblown and tangled. Her hand rested lightly on her husband's coffin as it was taken to a waiting hearse."
In 1966, Wicker was named a national columnist, replacing retiring Times' icon Arthur Krock, who had covered 10 presidents. Wicker's first column reported on a political rally in Montana. He would later say that it was a huge step to move from detached observer to opinion holder ? and especially in the times he was writing.
"My own transition from reporter to columnist coincided roughly with the immense American political re-evaluation that sprang in the sixties from the Vietnam War and the movement against it, from the ghetto riots in the major cities, and from the brief flowering of the counterculture," Wicker wrote in his 1978 book, "On Press."
Wicker was not lacking in opinions, though, and over the years took strong and sometimes unpredictable stands, emphasizing such issues as the nation's racial divide.
On race, he said in a 1991 interview in the Times: "I think the attitudes between the races, the fear and the animosity that exist today, are greater than, let us say, at the time of the Brown case, the famous school desegregation decision in 1954."
Although Wicker was attacked by President Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew for his negative coverage during the Nixon administration, he argued in a 1991 book, "One of Us: Richard Nixon and the American Dream," that Nixon accomplished much in his presidency and deserves a high ranking in history.
In his final column, published Dec. 29, 1991, Wicker commented on the fall of the Soviet Union and urged President George H.W. Bush to "exercise in a new world a more visionary leadership" on non-military issues like the environment.
"As the U.S. did not hesitate to spend its resources to prevail in the cold war, it needs now to go forward as boldly to lead a longer, more desperate struggle to save the planet, and rescue the human race from itself," he wrote.
gmail app phentermine port of oakland grand theft auto 5 grand theft auto 5 kris jenner kris jenner
Miley Cyrus turns 19 years old today, marking the occasion in the same way she's spent the past few months: By remaining relatively quiet.
The singer/actress has not been in the news much lately, with the exception of a recent Tweet that called out her body image critics. But Miley's boyfriend, Liam Hemsworth, is making far more headlines than his gal pal these days, thanks to his upcoming role in The Hunger Games (watch the awesome trailer NOW).
Cyrus seems content to stay away from social networks, let Liam have the spotlight and just focus on her movie career. It's very mature of her. It's also rather boring from a celebrity gossip site's point of view.
Kelly Osbourne, however, says she's got "all sorts of madness and craziness" planned for her friend's 19th birthday. So maybe we'll soon have some scandalous action to write about after all! In the meantime, send in your best wishes to the birthday girl now and enjoy the following montage in her honor...
Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2011/11/happy-19th-birthday-miley-cyrus/
amy winehouse cause of death white witch white witch occupy san francisco occupy san francisco jack the cat frank lucas
keyboard shortcuts: ? previous photo ? next photo L view in light box F favorite < scroll film strip left > scroll film strip right ? show all shortcuts
Grab the HTML/BBCode
Photo license: 
All Rights Reserved
Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/leatherprince/6393275693/
alaska weather alaska weather election results gop debate live gop debate live nome alaska nome alaska
WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? The Republican presidential hopefuls meet on Tuesday for their second foreign policy debate in 10 days, with Newt Gingrich looking to extend a campaign surge that has propelled him to a lead over Mitt Romney in polls for the 2012 race.
The debate will shine a spotlight on Republican differences over Iran, Pakistan, the use of waterboarding, and foreign aid in a race that so far has focused largely on economic issues and featured few policy clashes among the top contenders.
Gingrich, Romney and six other Republicans take part in the 8 p.m. debate at Washington's DAR Constitution Hall, which airs live on CNN.
Gingrich could have the most to lose in Tuesday's showdown. He is the latest in a series of conservatives to challenge the more moderate Romney for the top spot in the Republican race for the right to face Democratic President Barack Obama in 2012.
A CNN/Opinion Research poll on Monday showed Gingrich, a former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, with a 4-point national edge over Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who has hovered near the top of polls all year.
Conservatives have failed to coalesce around a clear alternative to Romney, but Gingrich's campaign has soared in recent weeks as rivals like businessman Herman Cain and Texas Governor Rick Perry faltered in the spotlight.
The debate, the 11th of the year for the Republican candidates, comes barely more than a month before Iowa kicks off the state-by-state nominating fight. But the focus on foreign policy, which has taken a backseat to the economy, could limit its long-term impact.
"There are differences in views among the Republican presidential candidates on foreign policy, but that isn't where the interest has been for voters or the media," Republican strategist Matt Mackowiak said.
FOREIGN POLICY DIFFERENCES
Those differences were in full view at the last debate in South Carolina on November 12, when candidates spelled out differing views on using military force to halt Iran's nuclear ambitions, a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and the use of waterboarding in interrogations.
Romney forcefully supported a military option if needed to stop Iran's nuclear development, and Gingrich said he would back "whatever steps are necessary" and proposed a covert campaign against Iran's scientists. Cain and U.S. Representative Ron Paul opposed military action.
On Pakistan, Perry said he would look at whether to eliminate U.S. aid to Pakistan, a move Gingrich supported. But Rick Santorum, a former U.S. senator, said Pakistan's nuclear weapons made it imperative that it remain a U.S. friend.
Romney, Cain and Representative Michele Bachmann backed the renewed use of waterboarding for terrorism suspects, while Paul and former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman opposed it. Waterboarding is a simulated drowning technique that critics call torture.
Huntsman, the former U.S. ambassador to China, is the only one of the Republican contenders with any foreign policy experience. Democrats have criticized the Republican field for a lack of substance in the subject.
Cain, whose campaign has faded after a series of sexual harassment allegations that he denied, is also likely to face new questions at the debate about his foreign policy expertise after a much-publicized gaffe on Libya last week.
The former pizza executive was stumped when asked by a Wisconsin newspaper editorial board about Obama's policy in Libya.
"OK, Libya," Cain said, stalling for time and staring at the ceiling as he searched for an answer. "I gotta go back, see, got all this stuff twirling around in my head," he said.
The debate, co-sponsored by the Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute, is the first presidential debate in Washington since a 1960 face-off between Democrat John Kennedy and Republican Richard Nixon that helped launch Kennedy's run to the White House.
(Editing by Peter Cooney)
marco rubio no shave november kevin durant miranda lambert kim kardashian divorce generators generators
Astro, Astro, Astro!
That's all anyone who watches "The X Factor" seems to be talking about since the young rapper had a meltdown of sorts during last week's results show, almost quitting the competition in the process. But something else they're talking about? Paula Abdul's chances for survival, considering she only has one group, Lakoda Rayne, left in the running.
So what did Abdul think of Astro's mini-meltdown last week? And what will happen to her if Lakoda is booted from the competition?
MORE from E!: Live at 'X Factor': Stacy Francis 'Confused' by Astro's Behavior
Blame the bickering. Blame the reality TV stars. Blame the judges (and then some). The truth is this isn?t the first time ...
It was the meltdown that caused an entire viewership's jaws to drop, including Abdul's, when the 15-year-old hip-hop artist almost decided not to perform after being voted into the bottom two and then gave the judging panel major attitude. Abdul talked to E! News about the moments leading up to Astro's "save me" song that almost didn't happen.
"It was one of those things that immediately for me, I thought, something's going on in a commercial break backstage," she explains. "Right before we were coming back from commercial break, Simon [Cowell] said, 'He's not going to do a 'save me' song.' I said, 'Are you kidding me?' and I looked over to L.A. [Reid] and he was perplexed."
?X Factor?s? Astro says he?s sorry for outburstWhile Abdul admits, "He made a character mistake on television," she points out that Astro just turned 15. "That's not an excuse, but he is still a young gentleman," she says.
Aside from the Astro of it all, the other big thing to happen on Thursday's results show was Lakoda Rayne, the last remaining group, not being voted into the bottom two, a first for Abdul in the competition.
Get the latest TV and reality TV news by following?our blog?on Facebook and Twitter!
"I am most proud of Lakoda Rayne," Paula says proudly. "These girls, besides being beautiful singers and beautiful aesthetically, they are gorgeous dynamic women. I can't even imagine them not being a group...They have a bright future regardless of what happens on The X Factor. If I were a betting woman, I would bet on Lakoda Rayne."
Still, if the group is voted out, leaving her with no contestants in the competition, Abdul says she'll still have plenty to do. "Then I have plenty of time to irritate the hell of out Simon!"
"The X Factor" airs Tuesday at 8 p.m. on Fox.
PHOTOS from E!: Spoiler Stills: TV
Does Lakoda Rayne have a shot? Is it time to move on from Astro's mini-meltdown? Share your thoughts on the Facebook page for our TV blog, The Clicker.
? 2011 E! Entertainment Television, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45408214/ns/today-entertainment/
dexter season 6 homeland homeland andy rooney 60 minutes andre johnson andre johnson arrested development
Continue reading ExoPC's 40-inch multitouch EXOdesk is coming in 2012 for $1,299 (video)
ExoPC's 40-inch multitouch EXOdesk is coming in 2012 for $1,299 (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Nov 2011 14:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | Comments
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/FGlkRCUMS68/
san diego chargers vincent jackson veterans day rick perry paterno oakland raiders carson palmer
First lady Michelle Obama, along with Vice President Biden's wife Jill Biden, was presented as grand marshals of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Finale in Miami. Obama was booed by some members of the crowd.
While stipulating the NASCAR crowd is hardly part of President Barack Obama's base of support, the unpopularity of an American president rarely translates to his wife. Mrs. Obama enjoyed a 63 percent positive rating in a recent CNN poll, while her husband languishes in the mid-40s.
It would not be too difficult to overanalyze this incident. Sports fans tend to be raucous, especially after they have been well lubricated. It is possible the NASCAR crowd would have booed the Second Coming if it came before the big race.
On the other hand, Mrs. Obama has delved into controversy in her pet cause of getting people to eat healthy. Recently she opined that her favorite meal was steak and arugula. It seemed to be a somewhat Marie Antoinette type of statement. A lot of families in these difficult times are hard pressed to afford hamburger, not to mention steak.
Arugula, a leafy vegetable renowned for its peppery taste, is used in salad and tends to be more expensive than the romaine or iceberg lettuce that is usually in dinner salads. Her statement sounded to some ears like boasting about how well she eats compared to the hoi polloi.
Her campaign against childhood obesity, while well intentioned, is being greeted by many people as an attack on their parenting. A lot of two-income households do not have the time or the energy to cook a traditional family dinner where nutrition can be controlled to a certain extent. In too many homes, home delivered fast food or something that can be nuked quickly in the microwave have become the featured dinner. Harried parents are not likely to take very well someone lecturing them about feeding their children properly, especially if they are eschewing playing at the park for lying about with their game boys.
If one takes the view that the booing was personal, Mrs. Obama as a food Nazi is a good an explanation as ever.
michael lohan fiddler on the roof rally squirrel rally squirrel scumbag steve scumbag steve day of the dead
home affordable refinance program harp harp world series game 5 moammar gadhafi harry connick jr
Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/165373221?client_source=feed&format=rss
velasquez vs dos santos velasquez vs dos santos manny pacquiao vs. juan manuel marquez manny pacquiao vs. juan manuel marquez cain velasquez vs dos santos cain velasquez vs dos santos oregon stanford
(Reuters) ? New York's highest court allowed the state on Tuesday to proceed with a lawsuit that had accused First American Corp and its eAppraiseIT unit of colluding with the former Washington Mutual Inc to fraudulently inflate home values.
The Court of Appeals rejected the defendants' argument that federal law precluded New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman from pursuing claims alleging fraud and violations of real estate appraisal independence rules. It upheld a June 2010 ruling by an intermediate state appeals court.
The eAppraiseIT unit is now part of CoreLogic Inc, which was created when First American split last year into that company and First American Financial Corp.
Andrew Cuomo, Schneiderman's predecessor and now New York's governor, had accused First American and eAppraiseIT in a November 2007 lawsuit of caving to pressure from Washington Mutual to use appraisers who provided inflated appraisals, to win more business.
Lenders that use inflated appraisals can sometimes make larger loans, including to borrowers who cannot afford them, and as a result collect higher fees.
Writing for a 6-1 Court of Appeals majority, Judge Carmen Ciparick said the attorney general's authority to pursue state law claims would at most only "incidentally affect" the lending operations of a federal savings association. Thus, she said federal law should not pre-empt the state law claims.
A lawyer for the defendants had no immediate comment on the decision. A spokesman for Schneiderman did not immediately respond to a request for a comment.
Washington Mutual failed in September 2008 in large part because it kept tens of billions of dollars of risky home loans that it had made on its balance sheet. JPMorgan Chase & Co bought the thrift's main banking operations.
In morning trading, CoreLogic shares were down 19 cents at $12.11, and First American Financial shares rose 17 cents to $11.33.
The case is Cuomo v. First American Corp et al, New York State Court of Appeals, No. 184.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York, editing by Gerald E. McCormick and Maureen Bavdek)
lsat bluegrass festival texas a m cochlear implant navy football navy football 50/50
