Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/169372493?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Monday, December 5, 2011
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Want to track Santa? There's an app for that
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) ? Want to keep track of Santa this Christmas? There's an app for that.
NORAD is the military organization responsible for the aerospace defense of the U.S. and Canada. The North American Aerospace Defense Command tracks Santa on Christmas Eve.
This year, it's counting down to Santa's takeoff with the NORAD Tracks Santa app, which is offering games like Elf Toss until the big moment. It is available on Apple products and Android, and social media sites.
The agency offers information by phone and online about St. Nick's location. Last year, it set a record with more than 7,000 emails and more than 80,000 calls, some of which were answered by U.S. first lady Michelle Obama via a hookup from Hawaii, where her family was vacationing.
___
Online: http://www.noradsanta.org/en/
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Official: Green Zone bombing was targeting Iraq PM
FILE - In this April 2, 2011 file photo, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki speaks during an interview with the Associated Press at his office in the heavily protected Green Zone in Baghdad, Iraq. An explosion earlier this week in the Green Zone, a protected area in the center of the Iraqi capital, was an assassination attempt against the Iraqi prime minister, an Iraqi spokesman said. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim, File)
FILE - In this April 2, 2011 file photo, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki speaks during an interview with the Associated Press at his office in the heavily protected Green Zone in Baghdad, Iraq. An explosion earlier this week in the Green Zone, a protected area in the center of the Iraqi capital, was an assassination attempt against the Iraqi prime minister, an Iraqi spokesman said. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim, File)
BAGHDAD (AP) ? An explosion earlier this week in the Green Zone, a protected area in the center of the Iraqi capital, was an assassination attempt against the Iraqi prime minister, an Iraqi spokesman said.
That assailants were able to get a bomb inside what is supposed to be the most heavily fortified area in the country raises serious doubts about the abilities of Iraq's security forces at a crucial time when American troops are leaving the country.
The Baghdad military spokesman, Qassim al-Moussawi, said an attacker was able to get a vehicle carrying about 44 pounds (20 kilograms) of explosives into the Green Zone on Monday, and then tried to join a convoy of other vehicles going into the parliament grounds.
But at a checkpoint leading into the parliament compound, guards prevented the driver from going any farther because he did not have proper authorization. The driver then drove to the parking lot just opposite the parliament entrance where many lawmakers or their staff park, and the vehicle exploded seconds later.
At the time, officials had said they did not know if the explosion was the result of rocket or mortar fire into the Green Zone, whether a bomber managed to get inside or whether a bomb had been attached to a vehicle that then drove into the Green Zone.
Al-Moussawi said Friday that the new information was based on confessions from members of a terrorist group. They revealed that the bomb was supposed to go off when Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki visited the parliament during an upcoming session, he said. But al-Moussawi declined to give further details.
He added that security officials already had information leading them to believe that al-Maliki might be targeted during his parliament trip. Al-Maliki was expected to address the legislative body soon but no date had been set.
A security official with knowledge of the investigation said police found a charred body near the mangled vehicle and were still trying to determine the identity of the person through DNA tests. The official said no one had come forward to claim the body, and it was not clear whether it was an innocent bystander or a suicide bomber.
Al-Maliki was in his office in another area of the Green Zone when the bomb went off, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to journalists.
No one else was killed in the blast, though two people were wounded.
The vast area in central Baghdad dubbed the Green Zone is the most protected area in Iraq and houses the U.S. Embassy, the Iraqi parliament and the homes of many Iraqi government officials. People going into the area must go through a checkpoint and show identification. Guards check for bombs or use dogs to search for explosives.
Inside the Green Zone there are often more checkpoints to access certain areas, including the parliament.
___
Associated Press writer Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report.
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Saturday, December 3, 2011
Senate defeats competing payroll tax cut bills (Reuters)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? The Senate on Thursday defeated competing payroll tax cut extension plans by Democrats and Republicans, clearing the way for negotiations on compromise legislation that could boost the economy next year.
In late-night votes, the Senate, as expected, defeated a Democratic plan that would have extended and expanded the payroll tax cut that is scheduled to expire on December 31.
Republicans particularly objected to a new tax on the wealthy to cover the $110 billion in projected lost revenues from continuing the temporary tax cut.
Following the votes, President Barack Obama said in a statement, "It makes absolutely no sense to raise taxes on the middle class at a time when so many are still trying to get back on their feet." He urged Congress to come to a deal to extend the payroll tax cuts.
The White House, investment banks and some economists have warned in recent days that U.S. economic growth could suffer in 2012 if the tax cut for workers is allowed to expire.
After the Democratic legislation was defeated, the Senate promptly killed an alternative Republican plan. It too would have extended the tax cut for a year. But it did not embrace the Democrats' proposal to reduce the worker tax even further and to also cut an employer-paid payroll tax.
Republican ambivalence toward any extension of the payroll tax cut was evident in the Senate as a majority of the party's 47 senators voted against the Republican plan.
The tax revenues are used to fund the Social Security retirement program. But Obama and his fellow Democrats have pushed the tax cut as a way of putting more cash into workers' hands amid a sluggish economy.
The drive to extend the temporary payroll tax cut that workers have had since the beginning of this year got a boost on Thursday when the top Republican in Congress agreed that it would help the economy. In so doing, House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner put himself at odds with some members of his party who are skeptical of its benefits.
FEELING THE HEAT?
Minutes after declaring "I'm not an economist. I don't know what kind of impact it's going to have," Boehner said renewal of the tax cut would be economically beneficial.
"I don't think there is any question that the payroll tax relief, in fact, helps the economy, in allowing more Americans ... to keep more of their money," Boehner said when pressed by reporters.
Boehner's comments, quickly welcomed by the White House, were in sharp contrast to what members of his party were saying just days ago.
Many Republican lawmakers are skeptical that extending the tax cut beyond this year will help job creation and say it will have only a temporary effect on the economy.
Until earlier this week, Republican leaders had been lukewarm to extending the payroll tax cut, but they have come under political pressure to do so in advance of the 2012 presidential and congressional elections.
"Republicans have finally felt the heat of doing something about the payroll tax cut," said House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi.
Boehner said his party was sticking to its demand that the tax cut be paid for and not add to the country's $15 trillion debt.
While the Senate Democratic plan defeated on Thursday would have paid for the tax cut, Republicans objected, saying that doing so with a tax on income over $1 million annually would hurt business owners who generate jobs.
The defeated Senate Republican plan covered the cost of extending the tax cut largely by continuing a pay freeze for federal workers through 2015 and gradually reducing the federal workforce by 10 percent.
Without congressional action by December 31, the payroll tax that workers pay would revert to 6.2 percent, up from the current, 4.2 percent tax. On average, it would cost American families about $1,000 a year.
A compromise bill likely would incorporate some Republican ideas for offsetting the revenue losses. For their part, Democrats might seek to include an extension of unemployment benefits that will begin to expire early next year, as well as a temporary patch for an upcoming problem with Medicare doctor payments.
Any compromise that passes the Senate also would have to be approved by the House.
(Additional reporting by Donna Smith, Rachelle Younglai and Caren Bohan; Editing by Eric Walsh)
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Beachcomber scores find from '91 'Perfect Storm'
Gary Higgins / Patriot Ledger via AP
Richard Figueiredo poses with a lobster trap in Pembroke, Mass.
By msnbc.com staff
The 1991 "Perfect Storm," the deadly event off Massachusetts?that led to a best-selling book and Hollywood movie, is still generating news.?A?man who?lost?lobster traps in the storm?was contacted?by a?beachcomber in Ireland who'd found a tag with?his last?name on it.
A quick search on Facebook led to a connection last week?and then a phone call Thursday brought the two sides even closer together, The PatriotLedger.com reported?Friday.
"You can see it's been around," said Richard Figueiredo of?the trap tag after seeing a photo sent?by beachcomber?Rosemary Hill of Waterville, Kerry County.
"A very well-traveled tag indeed" is how Curt Ebbesmeyer, an oceanographer known for studying flotsam, described the find. He estimated it could have drifted 50,000 miles in currents before ending up on the Irish beach.
The tag likely drifted into the Gulf Stream, Ebbesmeyer said,?where it would then float?into the mid-Atlantic and probably get?stuck in a huge gyre that traps flotsam for multiple three-year loops before letting go. The pot itself might have been stuck in the ocean floor for many years before the tag came free and started drifting, he said.
Figueiredo said that Hill offered to mail the tag back, but he wants her to keep it.
"The meaning it has over there is what matters,"?he said. "I am honored that she has put so much enthusiasm into this. What's happening now is a gift to me."
Source: http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/02/9173204-beachcomber-scores-find-from-1991-perfect-storm
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Friday, December 2, 2011
Sarkozy: Paris, Berlin to push for treaty changes (AP)
PARIS ? France and Germany plan to push for fundamental changes to the European treaty governing the euro in order to save the currency, President Nicolas Sarkozy said Thursday.
Sarkozy said in a speech in the southern port city of Toulon that during their meeting in Paris on Monday he and German Chancellor Angela Merkel will unveil proposals to try to lift Europe out of its debt crisis and "guarantee" its future.
"France will push with Germany for a new European treaty refounding and rethinking the organization of Europe," Sarkozy said. "The Maastricht Treaty has revealed itself to be imperfect," Sarkozy said, referring to the pact that led to the creation of the euro currency in 1999.
"There can be no common currency without economic convergence without which the euro will be too strong for some, too weak for others, and the eurozone will break up," the French president said before an audience of several thousand sympathizers of his conservative party.
Changes in the treaty would have to be approved by all 27 EU members, 10 of whom don't use the euro currency.
Sarkozy said the process of reforming the treaty "will be long and difficult" but is necessary to protect Europe's place in the world.
Speculation is mounting that EU leaders will align their spending policies more closely to bring government debt levels under control in the future. This is seen as a necessary measure before the European Central Bank or other institutions can take more aggressive steps to help prevent the debt overload from destroying the euro and wreaking havoc in the global financial system.
Sarkozy, who is widely expected to seek a second mandate during France's April and May presidential election, brushed aside the balloting, saying he must focus on the dire financial situation.
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Monday, November 28, 2011
Syracuse fires assistant basketball coach Fine
Move 'effective immediately' after more allegations of child abuse surface
Getty Images fileBernie Fine had been a Syracuse assistant coach for 36 years.
By JOHN KEKIS
Associated Press Sports
updated 8:00 p.m. ET Nov. 27, 2011
SYRACUSE, N.Y. - Bernie Fine was fired Sunday by Syracuse University after a third man accused the assistant basketball coach of molesting him nine years ago.
"At the direction of Chancellor Cantor, Bernie Fine's employment with Syracuse University has been terminated, effective immediately," Kevin Quinn, the school's senior vice president for public affairs, said in a statement.
The 65-year-old Fine was in his 36th season at his alma mater. He had the longest active streak of consecutive seasons at one school among assistant coaches in Division I.
Zach Tomaselli, 23, of Lewiston, Maine, said Sunday that he told police that Fine molested him in 2002 in a Pittsburgh hotel room. He said Fine touched him "multiple" times in that one incident.
He was the third accuser to come forward in the investigation of child molestation allegations against Fine, who was put on paid administrative leave when accusations first surfaced.
Two former Syracuse ball boys were the first to accuse Fine, who has called the allegations "patently false."
Tomaselli, who faces sexual assault charges in Maine involving a 14-year-old boy, said during a telephone interview with The Associated Press that he signed an affidavit accusing Fine following a meeting with Syracuse police last week in Albany.
Tomaselli's father, meanwhile, maintains his son is lying.
Bobby Davis, now 39, told ESPN that Fine molested him beginning in 1984 and that the sexual contact continued until he was around 27. A ball boy for six years, Davis told ESPN that the abuse occurred at Fine's home, at Syracuse basketball facilities and on team road trips, including the 1987 Final Four.
Davis' stepbrother, Mike Lang, 45, who also was a ball boy, told ESPN that Fine began molesting him while he was in fifth or sixth grade.
No one answered the door at the Fine home Sunday. Earlier in the day, his attorneys released a statement saying Fine would not comment beyond his initial statement.
"Any comment from him would only invite and perpetuate ancient and suspect claims," attorneys Donald Martin and Karl Sleight said. "Mr. Fine remains hopeful of a credible and expeditious review of the relevant issues by law enforcement authorities."
Pete Moore, director of athletic communications at the university, said head coach Jim Boeheim "is not commenting further on the subject at this time."
When a reporter called Boeheim after Fine was fired, he hung up.
Tomaselli said the scandal at Penn State involving former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky prompted him to come forward. Sandusky is accused in a grand jury indictment of sexually abusing eight boys over a 15-year period.
"It was the Sandusky stuff that came out that really made me think about it," Tomaselli said in the phone interview. "A lot of people were slamming ESPN and Bobby for saying anything. I wanted to come out. ... It made me sick to see all that support for Fine at that point. I was positive he was guilty."
Tomaselli told the Post-Standard that he didn't ask Syracuse police or federal authorities for help in getting the criminal charges dismissed against him in Maine.
Tomaselli was arrested in April on 11 warrants charging gross sexual assault, tampering with a victim, two counts of unlawful sexual contact, five counts of visual sexual aggression against a child and unlawful sexual touching and unlawful sexual contact, Lewiston police said Sunday. They did not say what led to the charges. He has pleaded not guilty.
Tomaselli told the Post-Standard he met Fine after he and his father, Fred, attended a Syracuse autograph session on campus in late 2001.
The newspaper reported that Fine later called Tomaselli's parents to arrange for Tomaselli to go to Pittsburgh with the athletic department staff on a chartered bus, spend the night in Fine's hotel room and attend the team's game on Jan. 22, 2002.
Tomaselli told the Post-Standard that he had dinner with the team, then returned to the hotel room where he accused Fine of putting porn on the TV and fondling him in bed.
Tomaselli attended the basketball game the next day, sitting several rows behind the bench, and rode the chartered bus back to Syracuse, the newspaper reported.
"The one time there was multiple incidents in that one night, but there was only one night that he ever sexually abused me," Tomaselli told the AP.
However, during a phone interview with the AP, Fred Tomaselli said: "I'm 100 percent sure that Bernie Fine was never in contact with Zach. He never went to Pittsburgh to a game, never been to that arena."
"I brought him to a couple of games in Syracuse. We always sat in the nosebleed section and left after the game. He never stayed for any overnighters and never even got within shouting distance of Bernie."
During his long career with Syracuse, Fine tutored the likes of Derrick Coleman, LeRon Ellis and John Wallace in his role of working with post players. Coleman was the top pick in the 1990 NBA draft, Ellis was the Clippers' 22nd overall choice in 1991, and Wallace was picked 18th in 1996 by the New York Knicks.
Boeheim and Fine met at Syracuse University in 1963, when Fine was student manager of the basketball team. Fine graduated in 1967 with a degree in personal and industrial relations and went into business for himself.
In 1970, Fine was named basketball and football coach at Lincoln Junior High in Syracuse and went to Henninger High School the next year as the junior varsity basketball coach. He became varsity basketball coach in 1975. When Boeheim was chosen to succeed Roy Danforth at Syracuse in 1976 Boeheim offered Fine a job as an assistant.
Fine was an integral part of the staff that guided Syracuse to the national championship in 2003. During his tenure the Orange also made two other appearances in the NCAA title game, losing in 1987 to Indiana and in 1996 to Kentucky. He also guided the U.S. Maccabiah team to a silver medal at the 1993 World Maccabiah Games in Israel and has served as director of a successful basketball camp in the Northeast.
The Post-Standard also reported that Zach Tomaselli was invited by Fine to a party at his home after the Syracuse-Pitt game on Feb. 1, 2003 - a game where Zach Tomaselli said Fine arranged seats for him and his father several rows behind the bench.
Tomaselli told the newspaper his father, who was unable to attend the party, allowed him to go to Fine's house and stay the night.
While there, Tomaselli told the AP, Fine asked him to get into bed and that Fine's wife, Laurie, was there when it happened.
"I told them (police) that Laurie was standing right there when Bernie asked me to sleep in a bed. Laurie knew all about it," he said during the phone interview.
On Sunday, ESPN played an audiotape, obtained and recorded by Davis, of an October 2002 telephone conversation between him and Laurie Fine.
Davis told ESPN he made the recording, which also has been given to Syracuse police, without her knowledge because he knew he needed proof for the police to believe his accusations. ESPN said it hired a voice recognition expert to verify the voice on the tape and the network said it was determined to be that of Laurie Fine.
Davis also acknowledged in an interview with ESPN that he and Laurie Fine had a sexual relationship when he was 18, and that he eventually told Bernie Fine about it.
"I thought he was going to kill me, but I had to tell him," Davis said. "It didn't faze him one bit."
During the call to the woman, Davis repeatedly asks her what she knew about the alleged molestation.
"Do you think I'm the only one that he's ever done that to?" Davis asked.
"No ... I think there might have been others but it was geared to ... there was something about you," the woman on the tape said.
On the tape, she also says she knew "everything that went on."
"Bernie has issues, maybe that he's not aware of, but he has issues. ... And you trusted somebody you shouldn't have trusted ... "During the call, Davis tells her he asked her husband in the late 1990s for $5,000 to help pay off his student loans.
"When he gave you the money, what does he want for that?" she asked.
He tells her that Fine wanted to engage in sexual activity in several ways.
"... And I'd try to go away, and he'd put his arm on top of my chest. He goes, `If you want this money, you'll stay right here,"' Davis said.
"Right. Right," she said. "He just has a nasty attitude, because he didn't get his money, nor did he get what he wanted."
On Friday, federal authorities carried out a search at his Fine's suburban Syracuse home but declined to comment on what they were looking for.
New York State Police spokesman Jack Keller said troopers were called to assist the U.S. attorney's office at the search. At least six police vehicles were parked on the street during the search, which lasted around nine hours. Officers carted away three file cabinets and a computer for further examination.
? 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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More newsUNC's loss highlights a serious flaw
Beyond the Arc: Tar Heels were far from perfect, but they can hide their poor 3-point shooting and Kendall Marshall's defense. But the bad rebounding and soft frontline's an issue.
Getty Images fileSource: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/45456875/ns/sports-college_basketball/
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