Oakland police use tear gas on Occupy protesters

Stephen Lam / Reuters

Police officers arrest an Occupy Oakland demonstrator during a clash Saturday in Oakland, Calif., where officers fired tear gas at hundreds of protesters who tried to take over a shuttered convention center.

By NBC News, msnbc.com staff and news services

Oakland police used tear gas and "flash" grenades Saturday to break up an estimated 2,000 Occupy protesters after some demonstrators started throwing objects at officers and tearing down fencing.

There were at least 19 arrests in the afternoon, but no reports of serious injuries.

---

After 6 p.m. (9 p.m. ET), police?in riot gear declared a group of protesters gathered near the YMCA under arrest en masse for failing to disperse.

Several protesters appeared to be put hard to the ground as police moved in and at least one protester had blood on his face.

Protesters chanted, "Let us disperse," but instead were taken one by one for police processing.

Earlier, Officer Jeff Thomason said police started making arrests when some in the crowd started throwing objects at them during the afternoon rally. Police declared an unlawful assembly after marchers tore down perimeter fences at the vacant Henry Kaiser Convention Center.

Three officers were injured, police said, but did not elaborate.

After meeting up at Frank Ogawa Plaza around noon, protesters marched toward the convention center in hopes of making it their new meeting place and social center, NBCBayArea.com reported.

Read NBCBayArea.com coverage of the protest

Oakland officials said about 250 people were in the group when the protest started but the crowd grew to about 2,000.

@OaklandPoliceCA tweeted around 3 p.m., "Area of Oakland Museum and Kaiser Center severely impacted. Persons cutting and tearing fences for entry. Bottles and objects thrown at OPD."

Earlier during the rally one of the organizers, Shake Anderson, said, "We are here to protect each other and to be civil disobedient. ... We're doing it to change the world, not just today but every day."

Stephen Lam / Reuters

Occupy Oakland demonstrators shield themselves from an explosion Saturday during a confrontation with the police near the Oakland Museum of California in Oakland, Calif.

The protesters were walking through Laney College around 2:30 p.m. Some people were wearing bandanas over their mouths and others were holding signs saying, "We are the 99%." A marching band dressed in pink and black tutus and neon pick tights also was in the crowd.

Once they reached the center, organizers planned to kick off a two-day "Oakland Rise-up Festival" to celebrate the establishment of the movement's new space.

Occupy Oakland spokesman Leo Ritz-Bar said the group's new headquarters "signals a new direction for the Occupy movement: putting vacant buildings at the service of the community."

He also warned that protesters could retaliate against any repressive police action by blocking the Oakland International Airport, occupying City Hall or shutting down the Port of Oakland.

City officials said that while they are "committed to facilitating peaceful forms of expression and free speech, police would be prepared to arrest those who break the law.

"The city of Oakland will not be bullied by threats of violence or illegal activity," city administrator Deanna Santana said in a statement issued Friday.

This article includes reporting from NBCBayArea.com, The Associated Press and msnbc.com's Miranda Leitsinger.

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News

Source: http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/28/10260959-oakland-police-fire-tear-gas-flash-grenades-on-occupy-protesters

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UN weighs action on Syria

The Security Council began closed-door negotiations Friday on a new Arab-European draft resolution aimed at resolving the crisis in Syria, but Russia's envoy said he could not back the current language as it stands.

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Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters afterward that the text introduced by new Arab Security Council member Morocco has "red lines" for Moscow, but he's willing to "engage" with the resolution's sponsors.

Churkin said those lines include any indication of sanctions, including an arms embargo. "We need to concentrate on establishing political dialogue," he said.

British Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant later insisted that the text based on the Arab League's recent recommendations for Syria contains no mention of an arms embargo or any other sanctions, and that it received broad support from other council members. "A lot of straw men are being put up," he said.

"We want, as do the Arabs, an unanimous resolution," Lyall Grant said. "Frankly, the time has come where we should be supporting the Arab League efforts."

Video: Syrians say: ?We need intervention!? (on this page)

The U.N. says at least 5,400 people have been killed in a monthslong Syrian government crackdown on civilian protests.

At least 384 children have been killed and virtually the same number have been jailed, the United Nations Children's Fund said. UNICEF spokeswoman Marixie Mercado told Reuters the figures were based on reports by human rights organizations which it judged to be credible.

European diplomats have been meeting this week with diplomats from Arab countries, including Morocco and Qatar, on a resolution that would strongly back an Arab League bid to end the crisis.

French Ambassador Gerard Araud told reporters he expected that a "very determined negotiation process" on the text would start at the ambassador level on Wednesday, one day after the Arab League secretary-general and Qatar's prime minister brief the council on the situation in Syria.

"There is now a chance that the Security Council will finally take a clear stand on Syria. That is long overdue," German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said Friday at the General Affairs Council in Brussels. The comments were provided by the German mission to journalists at the U.N.

"We hope now that council members will seize this new window of opportunity and find common ground," German Ambassador Peter Wittig said before the council met behind closed doors.

Story: Outside Syria's capital, suburbs look like war zone

But, as Churkin indicated, eventual approval is far from guaranteed.

Permanent council members Russia and China used their veto powers last fall to block an earlier European resolution on Syria. On Friday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov was quoted by the ITAR-Tass news agency as saying Moscow will oppose the new draft U.N. resolution on Syria because it fails to take Kremlin's concerns into account.

South African Ambassador Baso Sangqu said it was important that supporters of the resolution assure other countries, including his, that the draft was not a plan for regime change.

Russia and some other countries believe NATO misused last year's Security Council's resolutions on Libya as a pretext for regime change in that nation.

Syria's U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari expressed his country's opposition to the new draft resolution saying that "Syria will not be Libya."

Interactive: Young and restless: Demographics fuel Mideast protests (on this page)

Russia has been a strong ally of Syria since Soviet times, when the country was led by the president's father Hafez Assad, and has long supplied Syria with aircraft, missiles, tanks and other modern weapons.

The new Arab-European draft resolution on Syria, obtained by The Associated Press, expresses support of the Arab League's Jan. 22 decision "to facilitate a political transition leading to a democratic, plural political system."

The draft does not explicitly mention sanctions, but calls for the adoption of unspecified "further measures, in consultation with the League of Arab States," if Syria does not comply within 15 days.

The draft also condemns the "continued widespread and gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms by the Syrian authorities" and demands that the Syrian government immediately stop all human rights violations.

The Arab League earlier this month sent observers to Syria, but the mission was widely criticized for failing to stop the violence. Gulf states led by Saudi Arabia pulled out of the mission Tuesday, asking the Security Council to intervene because the Syrian government has not halted its crackdown.

The head of Arab League observers in Syria said in a statement that violence in the country has spiked over the past few days. Sudanese Gen. Mohammed Ahmed al-Dabi said the cities of Homs, Hama and Idlib have all witnessed a "very high escalation" in violence since Tuesday.

Meanwhile, militiamen loyal to Assad killed at least 10 people on Friday in Syria's main commercial and industrial hub of Aleppo after pro-democracy demonstrations erupted in the city and broke months of quiet, activists said.

The killings, the deadliest in the city during the 10-month uprising against 41 years of Assad family rule, occurred in the tribal Marjeh neighborhood after security forces fired at a rally demanding Assad's removal, they said.

Some activists said the 10 killed were all demonstrators while others said most were killed in clashes that followed the shooting on the protest.

There was no comment from the Syrian authorities, which restricts media access in the country.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46160189/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/

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Sony Xperia S jogs past the FCC carrying AT&T 3G radios

The FCC boys were clutching at their multimeters in horror when they saw how much work they'd have to do when Sony's new Xperia S rolled into the bunker. Still, their loss is connectivity's gain, as the Ericsson-branded (for now, at least) phone packs quad-band GSM / EDGE, 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100 UMTS and HSPA, RFID, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, 802.11 WiFi b/g/n and GPS. ANT+ is also included, which is a healthy sign that support for the fitness tracker will carry on through Ericsson's departure.

In related news, thanks to a post on the company's Facebook wall we know that the unit will be clad in an "anti-stain shell," -- hinting at a similar nano-coating to what we've seen on the Droid Razr. We've also heard rumors of a fast-charging mode that'll provide an hour's usage with just ten minutes of cable-time. Either way, it won't be long until we find out what's true, since the unit's sashayed past the FCC then it's most certainly on for that promised Q1 launch.

Sony Xperia S jogs past the FCC carrying AT&T 3G radios originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/27/sony-xperia-s-jogs-past-the-fcc-carrying-plenty-of-atandt-t-mobi/

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Some Wash. wheat farmers back labels for GM foods (AP)

YAKIMA, Wash. ? Some Washington state wheat farmers have thrown their support behind legislation requiring labeling of genetically modified foods, giving food safety advocates fresh hope that lawmakers also will get behind the bill.

They haven't been receptive to the idea in the past, and lawmakers at the national level and in more than a dozen states have rejected similar proposals in the past year.

But in an unusual pairing, a handful of Washington wheat farmers have joined so-called "foodies" to back the latest bill, fearing exports will be hurt if and when genetically modified wheat gains federal approval. The U.S. exports half of its wheat, and in Washington, the only bigger export is Boeing Co.'s airplanes.

Biotechnology giants Monsanto and Syngenta have announced plans to begin testing genetically modified wheat, though the product is likely a decade or more from being offered commercially.

Resistance from the European Union and Japan led Monsanto to abandon similar efforts in 2004. Pacific Rim countries haven't historically been friendly to genetically modified products, and they remain the biggest buyers of Washington wheat.

"If we do nothing, we will be destroyed," said Tom Stahl, a fourth-generation farmer in the small town of Waterville, Wash., about 100 miles east of Seattle. "We will lose our markets and that will be devastating for the eastern Washington economy."

Monsanto and Syngenta representatives didn't immediately return messages left after a Thursday hearing on the bill.

Dozens of people testified at a packed Senate committee hearing in Olympia, Wash., where the committee chairman raised concerns about passing a bill that may conflict with federal law.

About 50 countries require genetically modified foods to be labeled, but the U.S. isn't one of them. Only Alaska has enacted legislation at the state level, requiring the labeling of genetically engineered fish and shellfish products.

Supporters said that bill was needed to protect one of Alaska's most lucrative and important industries, though genetically engineered fish are not yet on the market.

The Washington bill would require genetically engineered foods or foods containing genetically engineered ingredients to be labeled with the ingredients listed effective July 1, 2014. The rule would apply to all foods sold in the state, although those in which GM ingredients make up less than half of 1 percent would be exempt.

The federal government's position is that approved genetically modified foods are not substantially different than conventional products. Critics say requiring GM foods to be labeled will increase packaging costs and state spending on enforcement.

More than 90 percent of corn and soybeans in this country are grown from genetically modified seed, said Karen Batra, spokeswoman for the Washington, D.C.-based Biotechnology Industry Association, a trade group that advocates for biotechnology members, including Monsanto and Syngenta.

"Ultimately, you're not providing any meaningful information to consumers, because you end up labeling the majority of products," she said by telephone. "Consumers already have a choice: If they don't want biotech foods, they can buy organic."

Batra declined to speculate on whether opponents would challenge the bill in court if it passed.

Wheat has lagged behind other crops in terms of innovation, and biotechnology offers tools to deal with problems like drought and increase sustainable production, said Jane DeMarchi, the National Association of Wheat Grower's director of government affairs for research and technology.

DeMarchi said in a telephone interview that her group has been talking to people who buy wheat, including those overseas, to determine what they want from U.S. farmers and educate them about genetically modified wheat.

She said she recognized the farmers' concerns but stressed that each one has a choice of what to grow and how to label it.

"We support voluntary labeling of food products, provided it's consistent with U.S. law and trade agreements and that it's truthful and not misleading," she said.

The problem with voluntary labeling is that it puts the burden on companies whose products aren't a problem, said Trudy Bialic, director of public affairs for PCC Natural Markets, the largest consumer owned and operated grocery retailer in the U.S. It supports the bill as a means of educating consumers, preserving the identity of non-GM foods and protecting export sales.

"In my view, a lot of federal law has started at the state level," Bialic said. "This has to start at a state level, because the federal government won't take it up."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/biotech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120126/ap_on_re_us/us_food_and_farm_gmo_labeling

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Robotic Russian Supply Ship Docks at Space Station (SPACE.com)

A robotic Russian cargo ship pulled up to the International Space Station Friday (Jan. 27), delivering tons of fresh fruit, clothing and other vital supplies for the orbiting lab's six-man crew.

The Progress 46 cargo ship arrived at the space station at about 7:09 p.m. EST (0009 GMT Jan. 28) after a two-day spaceflight that marked Russia's first space mission of the year. The supply ship launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and docked with the space station as the two spacecraft sailed about 240 miles (386 kilometers) above the northeastern coast of Brazil.

The unmanned spacecraft is carrying about 2.9 tons of supplies for the space station's Expedition 30 crew, according to a NASA description. The cargo ship is packed with about 2,050 pounds (930 kilograms) of fuel, 110 pounds (50 kg) of oxygen and air, 926 pounds (420 kg) of water and 2,778 pounds (1,260 kg) of spare parts and experiment gear.

The space station is currently home to three astronauts and three cosmonauts. Three Russians, two Americans and one Dutch astronaut make up the Expedition 30 crew. The Russian cosmonauts stood ready to take remote control of Progress 46 in case the automated spacecraft veered off course, but the cargo ship parked itself flawlessly as planned.

Russia's robotic Progress spacecraft are 24 feet (7.3 meters) long and have a three-module design that resembles the crewed Soyuz space capsules that are used to ferry astronauts and cosmonauts to and from the International Space Station. But instead of the crewed capsule used on Soyuz vehicles, Progress spacecraft have a propellant module filled with fuel for the station's Russian-built thrusters. [Infographic: How Russia's Progress Spaceships Work]

Progress vehicles are disposable and are intentionally commanded to burn up in Earth's atmosphere at the end of their space missions. Russia's Federal Space Agency plans to launch several Progress vehicles this year to keep the station stocked with supplies.

Earlier this week, an older Progress spacecraft ? Progress 45 ?undocked from the space station's Earth-facing Pirs docking port to make room for the new supply ship. Progress 45 deployed a small, 88-pound (40-kg) microsatellite called Chibis-M before ending its mission with a fiery plunge toward Earth. The Chibis-M satellite is designed to study how plasma waves interact with Earth's ionosphere, NASA officials have said.

As the space station crewmembers prepare to unpack the Progress 46 cargo ship, NASA engineers at Mission Control in Houston are tracking a piece of Chinese space junk to determine if the space station will have to fire its thrusters to dodge the orbital trash.

The space junk is a piece of debris from China's Fengyun 1C weather satellite, which was destroyed in 2007 during a Chinese anti-satellite test. There are seven "opportunities for the debris to make a close approach to the station," NASA officials said.

If a dodging maneuver is required, the space station would likely perform the move on Saturday (Jan. 28) at 6:50 p.m. EST (2150 GMT).

Meanwhile, Russian space station officials are discussing a potential launch delay for the next crewed Soyuz capsule bound for the orbiting lab. That Soyuz spacecraft was slated to blast off with three new station crewmembers on March 29, but a recent pressurization test revealed cracks in the vehicle's crew capsule.

Russian spacecraft engineers plan to replace the crew module and work to determine why it failed the pressurization test, which was designed to check whether it was airtight and fit for spaceflight.

You can follow Tariq Malik on Twitter?@tariqjmalik.?Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter?@Spacedotcom?and on?Facebook.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/space/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/space/20120127/sc_space/roboticrussiansupplyshipdocksatspacestation

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Too $hort, Lil' Kim Tried To Make 'Musical Sex' On 'Call Me'

'We tried to, like, have sex on the song,' Too $hort tells 'RapFix Live' of his and Lil' Kim's 1997 collabo.
By Rob Markman, with reporting by Sway Calloway

Too $hort
Photo: Natasha Chandel/ MTV News

Too $hort has built quite the reputation with the ladies in his 30-plus years in rap. Songs like "Freaky Tales" and "I'm a Player" expertly showcase Short Dog's ability to seduce women with his raps, so when his record label requested that he work with Lil' Kim on the 1997 single "Call Me," Kim's then on-and-off boyfriend the Notorious B.I.G. was more than a little concerned.

"I paid for the tickets for Kim and her manager to come to Atlanta and I went to pick them up to take them to the studio and who gets off the plane? No Lil' Kim, it was Biggie," Too $hort recalled with a laugh when he appeared on Wednesday's episode of "RapFix Live."

Though $hort and B.I.G. had built a good rapport before the Brooklyn great was slain in 1997, prior to recording with Kim, they didn't really know each other. Too $hort remembers B.I.G. coming off the plane on a pair of crutches that he was forced to use after he was involved in a car accident. The two sat down to talk, and according to $hort, the Notorious one inquired about the Oakland rapper's intentions with his artist and sometime love interest. "So what's goin' on with you and Kim? What's happenin'?" Too $hort remembered Biggie asking.

After $hort explained to Big that he only was interested in recording with Kim for his single, the "Juicy" rapper approved the collaboration. "He wanted to know what was goin' on with his little thang before he let it happen," $hort said. "So I explained it to him... and sure enough she showed up on the next flight. We got in the lab and we worked it out." Kim, who titled her 1996 debut album Hardcore, had become known for her sexually explicit lyrics, just like Too $hort, but the first version of "Call Me" didn't quite meet expectations, $hort revealed. "Believe it or not, we did the song and everybody said, 'Man, it's not dirty enough,' " $hort laughed.

Eventually they re-recorded the dirty version that fans have come to know. "We tried to, like, have sex on the song," he said. "It wasn't physical sex, but we tried to make musical sex. I think we achieved it."

Did you catch Too $hort on Wednesday's "RapFix Live"?Share your thoughts on the interview in the comments!

Related Videos

• 'RapFix Live' With Bow Wow And Too $hort

Related Artists

• Lil' Kim

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1677951/too-short-lil-kim-call-me.jhtml

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FYI: How Long-Running Is the Longest-Running Lab Experiment?

Link Information - Click to View

FYI: How Long-Running Is the Longest-Running Lab Experiment?
Eighty-five years so far. The pitch-drop experiment?really more of a demonstration?began in 1927 when Thomas Parnell, a physics professor at the University of Queensland in Australia, set out to show his students that tar pitch, a derivative of coal so brittle that it can be smashed to pieces with a hammer, is in fact a highly viscous fluid.

Source: POPSCI
Posted on: Wednesday, Jan 25, 2012, 9:39am
Views: 29

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/117042/FYI__How_Long_Running_Is_the_Longest_Running_Lab_Experiment_

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Fla. delegate dispute could drag on (Politico)

The latest polls show a dead heat race between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich in Florida, but when the presidential primary votes are counted Jan. 31 only one will lay claim to the 50 Florida delegates to the GOP national convention in Tampa.

So what? Well, ultimately the primary season is a contest for who can secure the 1,144 delegates required to win the nomination. If Gingrich and Romney continue the way they're going, the race could be a drawn out fight for every last delegate.

Continue Reading

That in turn could lead to an unlikely but entirely plausible nightmare for the Republican National Committee ? with Florida once again be at the center of a bitter vote counting dispute.

The question boils down to this: Did the RNC properly allow the Republican Party of Florida to decree its primary a winner-take-all contest for Florida delegates? Or should Florida's 50 delegates in fact be divvied up proportionally by each candidate's share of the primary vote.

"The rule is absolutely clear ? it should be proportional,'' said former RNC Chairman Michael Steele, who led the national party when the rules were drawn up.

Yes, it sounds like an arcane debate about the minutiae of party rules. But if you're the candidate who spends million of dollars and finishes a close second in Florida, it matters a lot whether the winner leaves Florida with 50 more delegates than you or five.

Ron Paul has already decided against spending much money in Florida's primary, saying it's not worth the expense of competing in a winner-take-all state.

And if the primary turns out to be a long slog where only 50 delegates separate the two front-runners, the Florida delegates could determine the nominee.

"It could be a mess," said Steele.

Brian Hughes, spokesman for the Florida GOP, said it's a non-issue, that the RNC's legal office has already signed off on Florida's winner-take-all primary plan.

"Michael Steele can say all he wants, but he's not the chairman any more," Hughes said. "The RNC accepted our rule and that's it. We are winner-take all."

That's not guaranteed, however. All it takes is a registered Florida Republican to file a protest with the RNC, and the party's contest committee would have to consider the issue when it meets in August just before the convention.

"August is going to be a very tense month for those of us on the committee on contests. We could be the group that everybody loves or everybody hates," said Fredi Simpson, an RNC member from Washington who sits on that committee and also helped write the rules.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/politico_rss/rss_politico_mostpop/http___www_politico_com_news_stories0112_71989_html/44308896/SIG=11msrj25i/*http%3A//www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/71989.html

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Friend: Defendant tried to sell bloodstained rug

Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, a German man who masqueraded as a member of the famous Rockefeller family, appears in a preliminary hearing in an Alhambra, Calif., court Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. Gerhartsreiter is charged in the cold case murder of John Sohus, 27, who disappeared from San Marino, Calif., in 1985. (AP Photo/Pasadena Star-News, Walt Mancini, Pool )

Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, a German man who masqueraded as a member of the famous Rockefeller family, appears in a preliminary hearing in an Alhambra, Calif., court Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. Gerhartsreiter is charged in the cold case murder of John Sohus, 27, who disappeared from San Marino, Calif., in 1985. (AP Photo/Pasadena Star-News, Walt Mancini, Pool )

Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, a German man who masqueraded as a member of the famous Rockefeller family, appears in a preliminary hearing in an Alhambra, Calif., court Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. Gerhartsreiter is charged in the cold case murder of John Sohus, 27, who disappeared from San Marino, Calif., in 1985. (AP Photo/Pasadena Star-News, Walt Mancini, Pool )

Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, right, a German man who masqueraded as a member of the famous Rockefeller family, appears in Alhambra Court, in California in the fourth day in court as Gerhartsreiter faces a preliminary hearing Monday, Jan. 23, 2012 in the cold case murder of John Sohus, 27, who disappeared from San Marino, Calif. in 1985. (AP Photo/Pasadena Star-News, Walt Mancini, Pool)

ALHAMBRA, California (AP) ? A man who masqueraded as a Rockefeller and is now accused of murder was confronted in court Monday by witnesses who said he tried to sell them an Oriental rug with a blood spot.

Christian Gerhartsreiter, who is charged with murdering a man from whom he had rented a cottage in 1985, smiled slightly at witnesses Robert and Bettie Brown, an elderly couple who once welcomed him into their home for religious study classes and became his close friends.

Gerhartsreiter is charged with killing John Sohus, whose bones were found in 1994 in the backyard of his former home in San Marino, a wealthy suburb of Los Angeles, nearly 10 years after Sohus and his wife vanished.

Gerhartsreiter left town soon after they went missing. He is charged only with killing 27-year-old John Sohus. No sign of Linda Sohus has been found.

Robert Brown testified at a preliminary hearing about a day in 1985 when the man they knew as Chris Chichester showed up at their door with belongings he wanted to sell because he was going on a trip.

Brown said he called his wife to look at a small Oriental rug.

"She looked at it, and said, 'Chris, this has blood on it.' He fairly quickly rolled it back up and left with it," Brown said, adding that his wife suggested a place he could take it to be cleaned.

Brown said Chichester, who was then pretending to be an instructor at the University of Southern California's film school, showed up on another occasion asking how to dispose of photo processing chemicals.

Chichester had told the Browns that he was descended from English peerage and was related to a famed British sailor of the same last name. He had also given them tea, saying it came from his family's Indonesian tea plantation.

About a week after the rug incident, Brown said Chichester disappeared, which was not surprising.

"He was something of a phantom. He was different, unusual. He was believable up to a point. You couldn't pin him down on details. Everything was loose and feathery," Brown said.

Another witness filled in the blanks of Gerhartsreiter's travels after he left San Marino. Gerhartsreiter was arrested in Boston in 2008.

Christopher Bishop, an Episcopal priest from Connecticut, testified that he met the man he knew as Christopher Crowe in 1985 when he appeared at the church where Bishop's father was the priest.

The younger Bishop said he was a film student at Columbia University at the time and his father told him there was a new parishioner who was also involved in film.

Crowe told Bishop that he was the brother of well-known film director Cameron Crowe and had been to film school in California. He said he was in Connecticut to produce the new "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" series, Bishop said.

"Did you believe it?" asked prosecutor Habib Balian.

"Yes," the witness said. "I gave him a screenplay I had written and he had critiqued it. He certainly was conversant in film."

In 1988, Crowe gave Bishop a truck, saying he had used it in a movie and didn't need it anymore. Bishop said he later found out there was a lien on the truck and it had fraudulent license plates. He dumped the truck at a train station, thinking he could get in trouble for it.

"I thought that was going to be the end of the story," Bishop said. "But one day, I was sitting at my parents' house and a Greenwich detective came to the door."

The detective asked about Crowe, saying he was involved in a missing person investigation. Bishop said he later asked Crowe who he really was.

"What was the defendant's response?" Balian asked, to which Bishop replied: "Gotta go, bye."

The truck was later found to be registered to John and Linda Sohus and had disappeared at the time Gerhardsreiter left the house, authorities said.

On the East Coast, Gerhartsreiter had claimed to be Clark Rockefeller, a member of the famous family, and married a woman with whom he had a daughter. She divorced him when she found out he had duped her.

Last year, Gerhartsreiter was convicted of kidnapping his daughter in Boston during a custody dispute. He is serving a four- to five-year prison sentence for that crime.

He would be eligible for parole this year if he was not facing the California charge, which could bring him 26 years to life in prison if he's convicted.

Other witnesses, including Linda Sohus' mother and her best friend, testified about the missing woman's life and the mystery of why she had disappeared. Susan Coffman said she and Sohus were best friends and that she kept a detailed diary of their conversations.

She said Linda Sohus had some unhappy romances before she met and married John Sohus, and that the woman said after the wedding she was happy for the first time.

Coffman testified that in February 1985, Sohus called to say she and her husband had to go to New York briefly for jobs. Both she and Linda Sohus' mother, Susan Mayfield, were told that Linda Sohus planned to be back in two weeks.

But the couple vanished and both women received cryptic postcards from Paris signed by John and Linda saying they had gone there instead of New York. Coffman found it suspicious and said many years later she was sure it was not her friend's handwriting.

She said she contacted the television show "Unsolved Mysteries" and had them investigate, as well as prodding police to do something. But until bones were dug up in the backyard of the Sohus home, she said there was little interest.

After the bones were found, she said, police promised to give the case another look but many years passed before anything happened.

Another neighbor in San Marino, Winslow Reitnouer, said she knew Gerhartsreiter as Chichester. She testified that she saw him visit the neighborhood in 1986.

She said she once got a phone call from him on a crackly line in which "he said he was in Stockholm and just calling to say hello."

The preliminary hearing will determine whether Gerhartsreiter is bound over for trial on the murder charge. The prosecutor estimated the hearing will end Tuesday.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-01-24-Rockefeller%20Mystery/id-77f7fd5428e84db0b16356627228d891

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NJIT professor, electrical engineer, petri net expert named AAAS Fellow

Public release date: 24-Jan-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Sheryl Weinstein
973-596-3436
New Jersey Institute of Technology

NJIT Professor Mengchu Zhou has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) based on his distinguished scientific contributions to a variety of research areas in the field of electrical and computer engineering. According to AAAS, Zhou's most notable research has focused on Petri nets, discrete event systems, and their applications to manufacturing, transportation, workflow, disassembly, web services, and software design.

New Fellows will be presented with an official certificate and special pin on Feb. 18, 2012 at the AAAS Annual Meeting in Vancouver, B.C., Canada. Election as an AAAS Fellow is an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by peers. This year 539 members have been awarded this honor by AAAS because of their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications.

Most recently, Zhou, who teaches in the department of electrical and computer engineering in NJIT's Newark College of Engineering, presented two papers at the 2011 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics. Both papers, "Optimal Siphon-based Deadlock Prevention Policy for a Class of Petri Nets in Automation" and "Interference Impacts on ZigBee-based Wireless Mesh Networks for Building Automation and Control" have been published in IEEE Explore, an online publication. At the same conference, Zhou served as a chair for the session entitled "Discrete Event Systems and Petri Nets." He also judged the Franklin V. Taylor Best Paper Award, an event sponsored by the IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics Society. He received this award in 2010. He also was the judge of the overall best student paper award competition.

This past August, Zhou presented three papers at the 2011 IEEE Conference on Automation Science and Engineering in Trieste, Italy. One of his papers entitled "Modeling and Analysis of Dual-Arm Cluster Tools for Wafer Fabrication with Revisiting" was the finalist of "QSI Best Application Paper Award." At this conference, Zhou was elected chair of the steering committee of this series of conferences that he helped found eight years ago. He is also one of the founders of the series of IEEE International Conferences on Networking, Sensing and Control.

Zhou, an IEEE Fellow, is the founding editor of the recently-launched Wiley-IEEE press series on systems science and engineering. He is also editor of IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering. He has authored more than 400 peer-reviewed research papers, 10 books and 18 book chapters. He has made in his career more than 40 invited presentations before notable scholarly groups.

His many honors include the NJIT Harlan J. Perlis Award for Research (1996); The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation's Humboldt Research Award for US Senior Scientists (2000); and the Chinese Association for Science & Technology in the US Achievement Award (2001). Zhou received his doctorate from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

###

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world's largest general scientific society, and publisher of the journal, Science (http://www.sciencemag.org). Founded in 1848, AAAS includes 262 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. Science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an estimated total readership of 1 million. The non-profit AAAS (http://www.aaas.org) is open to all and fulfills its mission to "advance science and serve society" through initiatives in science policy, international programs, science education, and more. For the latest research news, log onto EurekAlert!, http://www.eurekalert.org, the premier science-news Web site, a service of AAAS.

NJIT, New Jersey's science and technology university, enrolls more than 9,558 students pursuing bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in 120 programs. The university consists of six colleges: Newark College of Engineering, College of Architecture and Design, College of Science and Liberal Arts, School of Management, College of Computing Sciences and Albert Dorman Honors College. U.S. News & World Report's 2011 Annual Guide to America's Best Colleges ranked NJIT in the top tier of national research universities. NJIT is internationally recognized for being at the edge in knowledge in architecture, applied mathematics, wireless communications and networking, solar physics, advanced engineered particulate materials, nanotechnology, neural engineering and e-learning. Many courses and certificate programs, as well as graduate degrees, are available online through the Office of Continuing Professional Education.

---

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 24-Jan-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Sheryl Weinstein
973-596-3436
New Jersey Institute of Technology

NJIT Professor Mengchu Zhou has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) based on his distinguished scientific contributions to a variety of research areas in the field of electrical and computer engineering. According to AAAS, Zhou's most notable research has focused on Petri nets, discrete event systems, and their applications to manufacturing, transportation, workflow, disassembly, web services, and software design.

New Fellows will be presented with an official certificate and special pin on Feb. 18, 2012 at the AAAS Annual Meeting in Vancouver, B.C., Canada. Election as an AAAS Fellow is an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by peers. This year 539 members have been awarded this honor by AAAS because of their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications.

Most recently, Zhou, who teaches in the department of electrical and computer engineering in NJIT's Newark College of Engineering, presented two papers at the 2011 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics. Both papers, "Optimal Siphon-based Deadlock Prevention Policy for a Class of Petri Nets in Automation" and "Interference Impacts on ZigBee-based Wireless Mesh Networks for Building Automation and Control" have been published in IEEE Explore, an online publication. At the same conference, Zhou served as a chair for the session entitled "Discrete Event Systems and Petri Nets." He also judged the Franklin V. Taylor Best Paper Award, an event sponsored by the IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics Society. He received this award in 2010. He also was the judge of the overall best student paper award competition.

This past August, Zhou presented three papers at the 2011 IEEE Conference on Automation Science and Engineering in Trieste, Italy. One of his papers entitled "Modeling and Analysis of Dual-Arm Cluster Tools for Wafer Fabrication with Revisiting" was the finalist of "QSI Best Application Paper Award." At this conference, Zhou was elected chair of the steering committee of this series of conferences that he helped found eight years ago. He is also one of the founders of the series of IEEE International Conferences on Networking, Sensing and Control.

Zhou, an IEEE Fellow, is the founding editor of the recently-launched Wiley-IEEE press series on systems science and engineering. He is also editor of IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering. He has authored more than 400 peer-reviewed research papers, 10 books and 18 book chapters. He has made in his career more than 40 invited presentations before notable scholarly groups.

His many honors include the NJIT Harlan J. Perlis Award for Research (1996); The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation's Humboldt Research Award for US Senior Scientists (2000); and the Chinese Association for Science & Technology in the US Achievement Award (2001). Zhou received his doctorate from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

###

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world's largest general scientific society, and publisher of the journal, Science (http://www.sciencemag.org). Founded in 1848, AAAS includes 262 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. Science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an estimated total readership of 1 million. The non-profit AAAS (http://www.aaas.org) is open to all and fulfills its mission to "advance science and serve society" through initiatives in science policy, international programs, science education, and more. For the latest research news, log onto EurekAlert!, http://www.eurekalert.org, the premier science-news Web site, a service of AAAS.

NJIT, New Jersey's science and technology university, enrolls more than 9,558 students pursuing bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in 120 programs. The university consists of six colleges: Newark College of Engineering, College of Architecture and Design, College of Science and Liberal Arts, School of Management, College of Computing Sciences and Albert Dorman Honors College. U.S. News & World Report's 2011 Annual Guide to America's Best Colleges ranked NJIT in the top tier of national research universities. NJIT is internationally recognized for being at the edge in knowledge in architecture, applied mathematics, wireless communications and networking, solar physics, advanced engineered particulate materials, nanotechnology, neural engineering and e-learning. Many courses and certificate programs, as well as graduate degrees, are available online through the Office of Continuing Professional Education.

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-01/njio-npe012412.php

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Forecast: Seattle weather could stay eventful in next three months

Forecasters looking at temperature and precipitation trends are calling for cooler and wetter conditions than normal in the Pacific Northwest. Seattle weather this week has consisted of snow and ice storms.

If this week's snow and ice storms have left you sleepless in Seattle, break out the waders, if not the snowshoes.

Skip to next paragraph

Federal forecasters looking at temperature and precipitation trends over the next three months are calling for cooler and wetter conditions than normal in the Pacific Northwest.

Indeed, over the next 14 days, the western United States is expected to be the country's ground zero for a range of hazardous conditions ? from heavy snow in the northern Rockies to high winds throughout most of the region to heavy rains for the Pacific Coast, from just north of San Luis Obispo, Calif., to Seattle and beyond.

For the rest of the country, up to two-thirds of the Lower 48, from Arizona to the East Coast, is expected to be warmer than normal. Much of the Upper Midwest and Ohio River Valley is in the wetter-then-normal zone, while drier than normal remains the order of the season for the southern tier ? already experiencing severe, prolonged drought.

Does this have a vaguely familiar ring to it? It's a general pattern the country experienced last winter, as La Ni?a also made its presence felt. La Ni?a is the cool half of a periodic swing in ocean-surface temperatures across the tropical Pacific.

While the effects of La Ni?a, and its warm alter ego El Ni?o, are most acute in the tropics, these changes affect atmospheric circulation patterns at higher latitudes as well.

La Ni?a tends to force the average track that storms take across North America farther north than usual, drying out the southern US while dumping rain and snow across the Pacific Northwest, Midwest, and Northeast.

Currently, forecast models indicate La Ni?a will weaken "as we get into the middle of spring," notes Ed O'Lenic, who heads the operations branch at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center in Camp Springs, Md.

Those forecasts came as NOAA unveiled its initial weather-and-climate year in review for 2011.

Record tornado outbreaks last spring; searing summer temperatures and withering drought in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Louisiana; and torrential downpours from hurricane Irene and tropical storm Lee helped rack up more than $55 billion in damage in 2011.

"2011 was an extraordinary year," said Kathryn Sullivan, assistant secretary of Commerce for environmental prediction, at a briefing Thursday. Moreover, tropical storm Lee and a severe-weather outbreak in July in the Rockies and Upper Plains have only recently been added to the list of events that inflicted more than $1 billion in damage last year.

Officials are looking at last Halloween's snowstorm in the Northeast to see if it also needs to be added, she said.

While NOAA officials are reluctant to attribute the various outbreaks of severe weather in 2011 to global warming, longer-term temperature patterns are emerging that they say are consistent with model projections of a warming climate as carbon-dioxide emissions from human industrial activities and land-use changes increase.

Last year marked the 15th consecutive year with a national average temperature for the year above normal, with much of the warmth coming from increases in nighttime low temperatures.

"That's consistent with the increase in temperatures" globally, said Thomas Karl, who heads NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) in Asheville, N.C.

The data also show that the proportion of the country affected either by extremely dry or extremely wet conditions in a given year has expanded.

Since a 20th-century low of about 3 percent in 1970, the extent of the country affected each year by either of these two conditions has climbed unsteadily to a record 58 percent last year. The average for the 20th century is just over 20 percent.

Globally, 2011 tied 2008 as the second coolest year so far this century, which still boasts nine of the 10 warmest years on record ? including the warmest (2005 and 2010). But measured against the 20th-century records, 2011 would find itself in a tie as the second-warmest year on record. It ties for the 11th warmest since 1880.

Climate researchers have noted that a generally warming climate will still have its natural swings, such as the El Ni?o and La Ni?a cycles. But their effects would be superimposed over the longer-term warming trend.

That pattern emerges in NOAA's data tracking temperatures during El Ni?o and La Ni?a years, as well as during what Deke Arndt, who heads the NCDC's climate monitoring branch, dubs the "La Nada" years, when conditions are neutral.

Since the 1980s, El Ni?o years have undergone their own warming trend, as have La Ni?a years.

As the US heads into midwinter, at least one climate factor has kept last year's deep chill from the Deep South again. The Arctic Oscillation, another kind of natural climate swing, has been in a strong positive phase so far ? generating pole-circling winds strong enough to keep cold arctic air from plunging deep into the continental interior.

For now, forecasters expect the Arctic Oscillation to remain positive, bringing temperatures a bit warmer than normal to the north-central US, says Mr. O'Lenic.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/x68TYIQqgnI/Forecast-Seattle-weather-could-stay-eventful-in-next-three-months

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Verizon Wireless, partners resist Sprint, DirecTV (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) ? Verizon Wireless and its cable partners are willing to give U.S. communication regulators confidential details of their agreement but objected to a request for information from Sprint Nextel (S.N), DirecTV (DTV.O), T-Mobile USA and others.

Verizon Wireless has announced it would spend almost $4 billion to buy wireless spectrum from the cable companies as part of broader agreements that include formation of a joint venture and cable operator resale of wireless services.

Spectrum sales need approval from the Federal Communications Commission because it regulates the transfer of a spectrum license.

Since the Verizon Wireless agreement with cable operators, including Comcast (CMCSA.O) and Time Warner Cable (TWC.N), is much broader than a spectrum sale, its rivals and consumer advocacy groups asked for details of the other elements of the deal.

"Without the ability to review the larger transaction in its entirety, it is impossible to assess whether there will be public interest harms associated with this proposed transfer," they wrote in a Wednesday letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.

They asked Genachowski for help in "acquiring the information necessary to adequately evaluate the proposed transactions and relationships" so they could give the FCC its comments on the deal.

However, in a meeting last week with the FCC, Verizon Wireless and its partners argued that commercial agreements do not need FCC approval and "have no bearing on whether the spectrum sale is in the public interest" so they do not need to be part of the FCC review.

Privately held cable provider Cox Enterprises outlined the details of the meeting in a filing dated Wednesday with the FCC.

The partners also told the FCC that the spectrum license agreement and the commercial agreements "are not contingent upon each other" so either could go ahead even if the other were not approved, according to the filing.

They said they would provide the FCC with details about the commercial agreement on a confidential basis to help with the review process even though they did not believe it was obliged to do so.

Verizon Wireless, a venture of Verizon Communications (VZ.N) and Vodafone Group Plc (VOD.L), also said that the commercial arrangements are a separate transaction unrelated to the spectrum purchase that is being reviewed by the FCC.

The Justice Department is looking into the antitrust implications of the deal, focusing on the marketing arrangements.

(Reporting By Sinead Carew; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personaltech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120119/tc_nm/us_verizon_cable

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Rangers, Darvish agree to deal

With the 30-day negotiating window set to expire this afternoon Yu Darvish and the Rangers have agreed to a six-year contract that will bring the Japanese phenom to Texas, with Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports reporting that the deal is worth $60 million with an additional $10 million in potential incentives.

Last month the Rangers bid $51,703,411 for exclusive negotiating rights to Darvish, who at age 25 has won two Pacific League MVP awards and is 93-38 with a 1.99 ERA in seven seasons.

That posting fee goes to Darvish?s old team, the Nippon-Ham Fighters. Had the two sides not reached an agreement on a contract the Rangers would have been refunded the entire amount and Darvish would have remained in Japan for this season.

With a total investment of nearly $112 million the Rangers are paying about 10 percent more for Darvish than the Red Sox did for Daisuke Matsuzaka in 2006, when they spent $51,111,111 on the posting fee and signed him to a six-year, $52 million contract. Matsuzaka has been a disappointment in Boston with a 4.25 ERA in 105 starts while struggling with injuries and control, but Darvish is generally considered a better, higher-upside pitcher than Matsuzaka was in 2006.

Darvish essentially replaces C.J. Wilson in the Rangers? rotation, although with Neftali Feliz expected to become a starter after two years as Texas? closer one of Alexi Ogando, Matt Harrison, or Derek Holland is bullpen bound. Ogando, who spent his rookie season as a full-time reliever before having success as a starter last year, has already said he?d be willing to move back to the bullpen to make room for Darvish.

Source: http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/01/18/rangers-sign-yu-darvish-to-six-year-60-million-contract/related/

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NBC Nightly News: Economy trumps all in S.C.

NBC News

NBC's Tom Brokaw caught up with voters at Bailey's sports bar in Greenville, S.C. for his second report in the

?

By Tom Brokaw
NBC News
Columbia, S.C.

There are only two days left until South Carolina?s Republican presidential primary and a new NBC News/Marist poll shows former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is gaining ground. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has a 10-point lead over Gingrich, but Gingrich now has the support of 24 percent of likely Republican primary voters in the state ? and the support of the latest candidate to drop-out, Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

I spent two?full days in South Carolina, from Greenville-Spartanburg to Columbia and many stops between, including the old mill towns of Laurens and Newberry.?The Palmetto?State has so many parts?--?the coastal areas, the midlands, the western front -- and they're all distinct in?their geography and culture.?But after speaking?with people throughout the region, I found nearly everyone agreed that this year the economy trumps all in South Carolina, a deeply religious state where social issues such as abortion and gay rights have played larger roles in the past.

NBC News

NBC's Tom Brokaw interviews Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Ernie Segars,?the county administrator in Laurens, S.C., said although religious issues are ?very important? to voters, ?jobs and the economy are the major issues right now.?

?I think when the economy?s better and things are improved, and certainly the social issues are important and will have a role,? Segars said.

Watch Tom Brokaw tonight on ?Nightly News? as he connects with voters in the political battleground of South Carolina, the second in a series of reports called ?Main Street, USA.?? Click HERE to watch the first report, from Iowa.

Gov. Nikki Haley, a Tea Party darling who has struggled with her ratings her first year in office,?echoed that sentiment.

?We?re looking for a president that understands it?s all about jobs,? said Haley, who has endorsed Romney. ??The hardest part about my job has been the Obama administration ? The people of South Carolina saw that we passed by the will of the people legal immigration reform and the Department of Justice stopped it ? The people have experienced the mandates and the stops of the federal government and they?re frustrated with it. And so they?re looking for someone that can go in day one and say, ?Lay off the states, let them do their jobs and let?s get people back to work.??

South Carolina's unemployment rate has hovered close to?10?percent, even with a new BMW plant and the arrival of some support industries.???

I also spoke with?the state?s U.S.?Sen. Lindsey Graham,?a Republican?who is being criticized by?his?own party and a variety of other party activists for his occasional departure from Republican orthodoxy.

?The question for the Republican party, would we put raising revenue on the table to solve our entitlement problem?? he asked.??Will our Democratic friends put on the table working longer and reducing benefits? And every time you put these ideas on the table, people come at you pretty hard.?

After two days spent talking with dozens of people, I encountered the most passionate opinions at?a Ron Paul debate party at Bailey?s sports bar in Greenville: all working class and mostly young, many of whom had not been involved in politics before.

I asked Sandy Monroe what she found so appealing about Ron Paul.

?He challenged my ideas,? she said. ??He sent me back to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and to the Founding Fathers ? He could win if the people understood what he stood for.? If people like me would actually go study what he says, it makes sense.? And it?s our freedom that he?s talking about.?

But for Robert Whitney, ?it?s a trust issue.?

?Everything that Romney says, he?s flip-flopped too much,? Whitney said. ?When there?s big government people saying that Ron Paul has integrity, that he?s a man that stands by his word, then I mean, I think that?s all the proof you need.?

Tune in to ?Nightly News? tonight for more of Tom Brokaw?s reporting from South Carolina and join the conversation on the ?Nightly News? Facebook page.

Source: http://dailynightly.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/19/10191957-economy-trumps-all-in-south-carolina

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Muslim leaders call for Salman Rushdie to be denied entry to India

Salman Rushdie, who plans to attend a literary festival in the country, says he's still coming

Salman Rushdie's plans to attend literary festival in India have prompted protests from members of the Muslim community.

Skip to next paragraph

Rushdie, a writer born in India, went into hiding for a decade after his book ?The Satanic Verses,? first published in 1988, triggered a fatwa ordered against him by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then the religious leader of Iran. The fatwa urged Muslims to kill Rushdie and those who published his books.

The fatwa was lifted in 1998, but many still object to the author because of what some Muslims view as a blasphemous portrayal of the prophet Mohammed in his works. Some Islamic leaders are now demanding that the Indian government deny Rushdie entry to the country for the Jaipur literary festival, which takes place from Jan. 20 to 24.

?For the record, I don?t need a visa,? Rushdie said on Twitter.

Rushdie was still planning on coming to the festival, according to an article by the Guardian.

Abul Qasim Nomani, the vice chancellor of Deoband and an influential Islamic seminary in the country, told The Times of India that he believed Rushdie should be barred from the country.

?If he visits India, it would be adding salt to the injuries of Muslims,? he said. ?He has hurt our religious sentiments.?

Maulana Khalid Rashid Farangi Mahali, a Muslim cleric, agreed.

?India is a country where the sentiments of each community and caste are respected,? he told Reuters. ?And therefore such a man should not be permitted to come to the country.?

Molly Driscoll is a Monitor contributor.

Join the Monitor's book discussion on Facebook and Twitter.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/j8uhQ_-UgVA/Muslim-leaders-call-for-Salman-Rushdie-to-be-denied-entry-to-India

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Sources: Son of Packers coach recovered from Fox River

Sources: Son of Packers coach recovered from Fox River

OSHKOSH ? The body of the 21-year-old son of Green Bay Packers offensive coordinator Joe Philbin was found Monday in the Fox River near Oshkosh.

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Source: http://www.wausaudailyherald.com/article/20120109/WDH0101/120109149&located=rss

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Kourtney & Kim Take New York Rekap: Kim Doesn't Give a Krap About Marriage

Sunday on Kourtney & Kim Take New York, Kim Kardashian finally has hubs Kris Humphries living with her in the city ... but decides she has more fun when he's not.

Foreshadowing, anyone?

Kim, Kourtney and Mason drove on up Connecticut to "escape the paparazzi," leaving Scott Disick and Kris to their own scripted devices. How did that play out?

Find out in our weekly rekap, THG style!

Kim and Kourt checking out Mystic, Conn., aquarium with Mason. Nice place. Plus 20.

Kris has been offered "some quick cash" to head up to Toronto and make a club appearance, so off he goes. Kim would be so proud/jealous. Plus 15.

Scott decides to join, saying, "I may go just to prove a point that I'm not whipped." Dude, the same girl let you knock her up twice with no ring. You're good. Plus 25.

"I may go just to prove a point that I'm not whipped," Scott warns Kris, who's having his photo taken with lots of girls ... on a REALITY SHOW. Minus 50.

"Humphries really doesn't need girls taking pictures with him. So whatever I could do to help out, I will to some extent," says Scott, ever the altruist. Plus 12.

Kim finds out where they are via Twitter, where someone says, "It's crazy up in here, Scott Disick and Kris Humphries just walked in." E! writer, probably. Plus 9.

Even Mason says that's bad. Plus 6.

Scott, after getting his fade on, can't wait to use the men's room and relieves himself in a garbage can. The man is the epitome of class. Plus 14.

Dun-dun-dun! Back in NY: "How would you feel if I went out of the country to work and didn't tell you?" asks Kim. Trick question: He could just read her Twitter! Minus 8.

"Part of me is not used to being married yet." - Kris. Don't get too used to it! Minus 15.

"I went because Kris was going and he asked me to go and I was here alone. You were gone. I was lonely," explains Scott, slightly more convincingly. Plus 5.

Just like that, Kim's off to Dubai for "work." Kris is aware of the trip, but not invited. Her real life partner, Kris Jenner, will be there instead. Minus 10.

Lucky for Kris, Khloe's in town and hoping to connect with him. At least that's what the producers told her when they flew her out. Minus 10 more.

Kourtney's number of sexual partners remains a mystery. What a tease. Minus 5.

"Everything in Dubai is so stunning," says Kimm as she gets escorted into a luxury suite at the Atlantis. "I'm so excited to be here." No one cares. Minus 30.

Kim gets an A-list star welcoming at the Millions of Milkshakes store opening. People are hanging off the rafters just to see her. So, so sad. Minus 70.

"This is just a pretty special moment." - Kim. Anything in which she gets attention and money qualifies. Sadly, marriage does not apply. Minus 100.

"I feel like I'm back to myself and I'm really enjoying this feeling." - Kim Kardashian. You know what they say about that one-month itch ... Minus 150.

Things aren't much better at home. "We really want to get to know Hump, but he's acting like he's miserable," Khloe laments. Wonder why. Minus 40.

"There's something in my relationship that I feel isn't right. I'm learning a lot of things about him that I didn't really know before. And married life isn't what I thought it would be with him." - Kim. Why rush to get married then? Minus 500.

"It's not normal to feel like you don't want to go home to your brand-new husband. Your dad and I were obsessed with each other." - Kris. First honest, heartfelt moment of the entire episode closes out the night with a Plus 250.

EPISODE TOTAL: -632. SEASON TOTAL: -3,801.

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/01/kourtney-and-kim-take-new-york-rekap-kim-doesnt-give-a-krap-abou/

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CNBC personal finance guru Orman unveils debit card ? Talking Biz ...

2012
01.09

Ron Lieber of The New York Times writes Monday about the new debit card being introduced by CNBC personal finance expert Suze Orman.

Lieber writes, ?Ms. Orman seeks to broaden the debit card market by charging low fees and offering new services, including unlimited access to credit reports. She has put more than $1 million of her own money into the venture and is prepared to add more, since the product may not break even right away. But her move also raises so many questions that it is hard to even know where to start.

?How can the Approved card make money charging fees on par with those on Walmart?s cut-rate MoneyCard, while also paying a credit bureau for access to its services? Also, can it really be just fine with CNBC, where Ms. Orman has a weekly show, that her card will compete with products from companies she discusses frequently with viewers? And will her followers care that she is pushing purple pieces of plastic that will help her make money from their everyday spending?

??I couldn?t be more proud of this card if I tried,? she said. ?And it doesn?t really matter what I say. It matters what happens when somebody uses this baby.?

?Their choice to use it may be colored by the opportune moment in which Ms. Orman finds herself. Big banks have offended scores of consumers with new fees and account balance minimums. People seeking alternatives may well find what they are looking for in prepaid cards.?

Read more here.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 9th, 2012 at 7:47 am and is filed under CNBC, Ethics, Personal finance coverage. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Source: http://www.talkingbiznews.com/?p=29948

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