Upside Down News

Four U.S. Soldiers Die in Iraq; War Toll Is at 4,000

2008-03-24T02:45:00.000-07:00

By Aaron Sheldrick

March 24 (Bloomberg) -- Four U.S. soldiers were killed in a bomb attack in Baghdad, taking the American death toll in the Iraq War to at least 4,000, according to the independent icasualties.org group that tallies fatalities in the conflict.

The Multi-National Division - Baghdad soldiers were on patrol in the south of the capital yesterday when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb, the U.S. military said today in an e-mailed statement. More

Source: bloomberg.com

3 US Soldiers Killed Near Baghdad

2008-03-11T04:00:00.000-07:00

By BRADLEY BROOKS

BAGHDAD (AP) — The U.S. military said Tuesday that three soldiers were killed the day before by a roadside bomb north of Baghdad, bringing to eight the number of troops who died that day.
An interpreter was also killed Monday along with the three soldiers when they were hit by the bomb in eastern Diyala province, a military statement said. Another soldier was injured in the attack. No other details were provided.

In another attack Monday in Baghdad, five American soldiers on a foot patrol were killed when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives vest after approaching them, the military said.
The names of the soldiers killed were withheld pending notification of their families, military officials said.

The attack showed the insurgents' ability to strike in the heart of the heavily fortified capital, as well as in restive Diyala province.

The attacks marked the deadliest day for American forces in Iraq since Sept. 10, when eight soldiers died in two road accidents and two Marines were killed fighting insurgents in Anbar province.

In the Baghdad attack, four of the soldiers died at the scene, and the fifth died later from wounds, the military said. Three other American troops and an Iraqi interpreter were wounded in the attack.

Iraqi police said two civilians were also killed in the bombing — the deadliest single attack against the U.S. military since Jan. 28 when five soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb in the northern city of Mosul.

The suicide bomber hit the soldiers after they had left their Humvees and were chatting with shop owners, an Iraqi police officer who witnessed the attack said on condition of anonymity as he wasn't authorized to speak to the media.

As part of the military's counterinsurgency plans, U.S. bases are now inside neighborhoods and more U.S. soldiers are getting out of their armored vehicles to patrol Baghdad on foot.

While the face-to-face contact builds goodwill, it also gives suicide bombers, who often slip past security vehicle checkpoints by walking, better access to striking soldiers.

According to military figures, attacks in Baghdad are down 75 percent since June 2007, largely because of a boost in U.S. troops, a cease-fire by the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia and the role of former Sunni militants and tribal groups who have switched sides to join U.S. forces against al-Qaida in Iraq.

But some fear that violence in Baghdad and elsewhere will accelerate after the withdrawal of thousands of American troops.

The drawdown began last December with the departure of one brigade, numbering about 5,000 troops, dropping the overall U.S. troop level in Iraq to 158,000. More troops are set to leave by July, though it has yet to be decided whether further reductions will be made after that.

Monday's suicide bombing in Baghdad and the roadside bomb in Diyala were two of several deadly attacks across the country.

Earlier in the day, a female suicide bomber killed a U.S.-backed Sunni leader who formed a group to fight against al-Qaida insurgents in central Iraq after his guards ushered her into the home without searching her.

A rare suicide car bomb Monday evening in the northern Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah outside a hotel killed at least two people and wounded more than a dozen, hospital officials said.
In another attack, police on Monday found the bullet-riddled body of Basra's only neurologist — kidnapped earlier by gunmen.

On Tuesday in the northern city of Mosul, four police officers were killed by gunmen at a checkpoint, a provincial police official said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Gunmen also opened fire on a car carrying the deputy head of Mosul University, another police officer said on condition of anonymity. The academic escaped unharmed.

Source: AP Associated Press

24 People Killed, 100 Hurt, in Lahore Suicide Bombs

2008-03-11T03:50:00.000-07:00

By Farhan Sharif and James Rupert

March 11 (Bloomberg) -- At least 24 people were killed and another 100 injured in twin bomb explosions in Pakistan's eastern city of Lahore, the government said.

``These were both suicide attacks by unknown people in cars loaded with explosives,'' Pervez Khusro, the interior secretary for Punjab province, said in a telephone interview from Lahore.
There were two bomb blasts within moments of each other, the government's emergency service said. The first explosion took place in the building of the Federal Investigation Agency, a government office, and the second blast occurred in a house in the residential area of Model Town.

It was the second attack in Lahore this month. At least four people, including two members of the navy, were killed in a twin suicide attack in the city on March 4. The number of people killed in terrorist attacks in Pakistan more than doubled to 2,116 last year, according to the interior ministry.

The Model Town neighborhood is home to former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Pakistan Peoples Party leader Asif Ali Zardari. The house where the explosion took place was owned by Ijaz Batalvi, Sharif's former lawyer. Batalvi's son ran an advertising company from the house.

Death Toll

``The death toll is expected to rise sharply,'' Hafiz Faisal, a spokesman for Edhi Foundation, the nation's biggest ambulance service, said on the telephone from Lahore. ``Some people died on the spot from the impact. We are still trying to recover bodies from the debris.''

The first explosion, which killed 18 people, took place when a car full of explosives hit the gates of the building, the emergency service said. The second bomb, which killed four others, exploded on a motorbike.

``Most of the injured are very badly hurt because of the impact of the bomb blast,'' Fiyaz Ahmed Ranjha, medical superintendent at Mayo Hospital in Lahore, said by telephone. ``The death toll could rise further.''

Cars were set ablaze and windows of nearby buildings were shattered by today's blasts, GEO television reported. The building of the Federal Investigation Agency could collapse at any time after the blast, Dawn News reported, citing police.

The country has been placed on ``high alert'' to guard against further attacks, Interior Ministry Spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema told reporters in Islamabad today.

To contact the reporter on this story: Farhan Sharif, in Karachi, Pakistan at fsharif2@bloomberg.net

Source: Bloomberg.com

Scandal Puts Spitzer's Career in Danger

2008-03-11T03:35:00.000-07:00

By AMY WESTFELDT

NEW YORK (AP) — Gov. Elliot Spitzer's prostitution scandal came just over a year since he stormed into the governor's office, vowing to root out corruption in New York government.
But his first year in office was pockmarked by tumult, and the latest scandal raised questions about whether he can make it through a second year.

The first-term Democrat was caught on a federal wiretap arranging to meet a prostitute from a call-girl business, according to a law enforcement official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the investigation is still going on.

Spitzer allegedly paid for the call girl to take a train from New York to Washington — a move that opened the transaction up to federal prosecution because she crossed state lines.

The governor has not been charged, and prosecutors would not comment on the case Monday. A spokesman for Spitzer said the governor has retained a large Manhattan law firm.

At a Manhattan news conference, a glassy-eyed Spitzer, his shellshocked wife Silda at his side, apologized to his family and the people of New York.

"I have acted in a way that violates my obligations to my family and violates my — or any — sense of right and wrong," he said. "I apologize to the public, whom I promised better."
He did not say what he was apologizing for and ignored reporters' shouted questions about whether he would resign — 14 months after he boldly proclaimed at the start of his term, "Day One, Everything Changes."

Spitzer, the 48-year-old father of three teenage girls, retreated from his Manhattan offices to his Upper East Side home. Republicans immediately called for him to quit.

"He has to step down. No one will stand with him," said Rep. Peter King, a Republican from Long Island. "I never try to take advantage or gloat over a personal tragedy. However, this is different. This is a guy who is so self-righteous, and so unforgiving."

Attention turned to the state's lieutenant governor, David Paterson, who automatically becomes governor if Spitzer quits. There was no immediate comment from Paterson, who would become New York's first black governor.

Spitzer seized the governor's office with a historic margin of victory on Jan. 1, 2007, vowing to stamp out corruption in New York government in the same way that he took on Wall Street executives with a vengeance while state attorney general.

In his previous position, Spitzer uncovered crooked practices and self-dealing in the stock brokerage and insurance industries and in corporate board rooms; he went after former New York Stock Exchange chairman Richard Grasso over his $187.5 million compensation package.
Spitzer become known as the "Sheriff of Wall Street." Time magazine named him "Crusader of the Year," and the tabloids proclaimed him "Eliot Ness." The square-jawed graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law was sometimes mentioned as a potential candidate for president.

But he apparently became embroiled last year in a financial probe by the Internal Revenue Service into a high-end prostitution ring. The investigation into the Emperors Club VIP gathered more than 5,000 telephone calls and text messages, and more than 6,000 e-mails, along with bank records, travel and hotel records and surveillance.

It was unclear whether Spitzer was a target from the start or whether agents came across his name by accident while amassing evidence.

In an affidavit filed in Manhattan federal court last week, Spitzer appeared as "Client 9," according to the law enforcement official. Client 9 personally made several cell phone calls to Emperors Club VIP to arrange a Feb. 13 tryst at a Washington hotel, the official said.

Client 9 wanted a high-priced prostitute named Kristen to come to Washington on a 5:39 p.m. train from Manhattan. The door to the hotel room would be left ajar. Train tickets, cab fare, room service, and the minibar were all on him.

"Yup, same as in the past. No question about it," the caller told Kristen's boss, when asked if he would make his payment to the same business as usual, a federal affidavit said. The client paid $4,300 to Kristen, touted by the escort service as a "petite, pretty brunette," according to court papers.

Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, noted that prostitution customers are often not charged, and said charges against Spitzer might be unlikely.

"Especially if he resigns, he may just be left alone. It may be that the public is satisfied by his resignation as governor," Tobias said.

Spitzer's term as governor has been fraught with problems, including an unpopular plan to grant driver's licenses to illegal immigrants and a plot by his aides to smear his main Republican nemesis.

It would not be the first time that a high-profile politician became ensnared in a prostitution scandal. Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana acknowledged in July that his Washington phone number was among those called several years ago by an escort service.

Scandals also recently derailed neighboring Connecticut Gov. John Rowland and New Jersey's Jim McGreevey. And Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct after being arrested last June in a Minneapolis airport restroom.

Spitzer's cases as attorney general included a few criminal prosecutions of prostitution rings and tourism involving prostitutes. In 2004, he took part in an investigation of an escort service in New York City that resulted in the arrest of 18 people on charges of promoting prostitution and related charges.

Associated Press Writers Larry Neumeister in New York, Michael Gormley in Albany and Devlin Barrett in Washington contributed to this report.

Source: AP Associated news

Gay-marriage foes face tough questions from California high court

2008-03-04T18:02:00.000-08:00

By Mike Swift and Howard MintzMercury News

The California Supreme Court heard three hours of legal arguments today over a constitutional challenge to the state's ban on same-sex marriage. Here's the latest update from the courthouse.

12:45 p.m.: Justices probe opponents' tradition, purpose-of-marriage arguments

A group of lawyers arguing to continue the current system received some tough questioning from the justices, particularly Moreno, George and Kennard.

Christopher E. Krueger, of the state attorney general's office, argued that the state has a rational basis to reserve marriage for heterosexual couples, in part because it has an interest in preserving that traditional definition.

"This is a definition of marriage that has proven durable for the state," Krueger told the justices. "It's not just any line that was drawn here."

Krueger's argument, however, immediately ran into pointed questioning from Justice Joyce Kennard, who wanted to know why earlier "traditional definitions of marriage that prohibited people of different races from marrying, or defined a wife as the property of her husband" shouldn't similarly be allowed to stand, simply because they were traditional.

Krueger countered that California's law prohibiting interracial marriage, struck down by the California Supreme Court in 1946, "was specifically only for the invidious purpose of racial discrimination. Here, yes it is a distinction that same-sex couples aren't allowed to marry under our laws, but that is not the same kind of exclusional statute."

In making that statement, Krueger sparked questions from the justices about whether California's prohibition of gay marriage was a version of the "separate but equal" segregated public schools struck down by U.S. Supreme Court's Brown vs. Board of Education decision.

Referring to the difference between domestic partnership and marriage, Justice Moreno asked Krueger, if he was "saying that separate is equal here?"

"There are parallel institutions," Krueger began.

"But that separate is equal?" Moreno persisted.

"Here there is equality."

"And what distinguishes this," from laws that prohibited interracial marriage "is that there's no animus against gays and lesbians?"

"There's no animus."

"That that didn't motivate the creation of the law?" Moreno asked, doubt in his voice.

"It's not just that there's a lack of animus," Krueger said, arguing that the original conception of marriage couldn't have included hatred of homosexuals because no one could foresee such a thing as gay marriage so far in the past.

"Intimate relations between same-sex couples have been around for centuries, if not for thousands of years, is that correct? Does anybody dispute that?" Moreno said.

"It's pretty plain that when the marriage laws were created, when they were taken into our culture . . . they knew what marriage was," Krueger said.

Glen Lavy, a lawyer representing the Proposition 22 Legal Defense Fund, told the justices that they did not have the authority to define marriage outside of the legislative process.

"At most this Court could say the marriage laws are unconstitutional," Lavy told the justices. "I don't think this court has the constitutional authority to rewrite the laws."

Another lawyer arguing against same-sex marriage, Mathew D. Staver of the Campaign for California Families said the state has a compelling interest in protecting heterosexual marriage - the procreation of children.

Same-sex marriage "would undermine opposite-sex marriage . . . it would lose its meaning. . . . it would create a new system that is no longer recognizable as marriage," Staver said.

But when Staver said that children do best when raised by their biological parents, he drew an immediate rejoinder from Chief Justice George.

"Do you mean adoptive parents are not as adept at raising their children?" a visibly dubious George asked.

10:20 a.m.: Justices begin questioning attorneys right from the start:

Therese Stewart, San Francisco's chief deputy city attorney, was the first lawyer to present her arguments in the case, but the justices jumped in with questions less than a minute after she began speaking.

Stewart argued that domestic partnership and marriage are not exact legal equivalents, and that there is no constitutional justification to exclude lesbians and gay men from exactly sharing those rights.

But almost immediately, Stewart faced pointed questioning from Chief Justice Ronald M. George and all six other justices. The justices conceded the point that society's view of marriage is evolving. But Justice Carol Corrigan, referring to the state's vote in Proposition 22 in 2000, that limited marriage to a man and a woman, questioned why the Supreme Court should overrule the people's decision.

"Who decides where we are as California in this evolution of our understanding - of marriage? Is it for this Court to decide, or is it for the people of California to decide?"

Stewart answered that is the Supreme Court's responsibility to critically judge the Constitutionality of laws - whether they are passed by the Legislature or by initiative.

"The Court doesn't leave decisions like that to the political process," Stewart answered.

"We have raised the issue today," Stewart told the justices, responding to questions from Justices Marvin Baxter and Kathryn Werdegar about why the Court should be compelled to consider the moving forward that evolution of the legal definition of marriage now.

"The state has to look at the standards of equality that exist in contemporary society."

One line of questioning the justices followed was to ask if by enacting domestic partnership, and bestowing virtually all the rights and responsibilities of marriage on same-sex partnerships, had the state opened itself to the possibility that there is no legal reason not to bestow the exact same rights on gay couples.

Stewart argued, and the justices appeared inclined to agree, that marriage was more than "a bundle of rights," but a status and identity bestowed by society.

"Hasn't this boiled down to the use of the 'M word' - marriage?" asked Justice Carlos Moreno.
"Words matter; names matter," Stewart said.

As the Justices continued their questioning of the next lawyer arguing for the plaintiffs, Shannon Minter of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, they grappled with some of the most basic questions about sexuality and marriage:

Is sexual orientation an immutable characteristic, like race or gender? Is sexual orientation a form of gender discrimination, or are these two concepts different? Have gay people always had the abstract right to marry, but were those rights simply not recognized by the institutions of government? And what is marriage, anyway?

8:55 a.m.: Crowd of supporters and opponents gathers
Vocal advocates on both sides of the gay marriage issue had already claimed the curb outside the California Supreme Court building more than an hour before arguments began, with signs like "Re-Criminalize Sodomy" dueling with "Stop Using Jesus to Promote Hatred."

Media attention was strong, with the Supreme Court getting credential requests from more than 30 media outlets, including CNN and U.S. News and World Report.

Victor Choban, who drove from Sacramento to protest against the possibility of legalizing marriage for same-sex couples, noted that Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans just two days before the city was to hold a gay pride parade.

"I believe the Bible, that God condemns homosexuality," Choban said. "This nation is going down morally and God's judgment is very close."

In New Orleans, "God swept the streets clean," Choban said. "We're here to warn the people of San Francisco."

At the entrance to the Supreme Court building, gay marriage protester Luke Otterstad of Placerville debated what Thomas Jefferson's position on same-sex couples with Kerry Coles of San Franciso, who held up a sign saying, "Your religion is not my government."

"I'm out here so there isn't just a one-sided argument," Coles said. "It's not just about being a gay man, it's about equality, and having the same rights as any other citizen in the United States."

6 a.m.: Lawyers, advocates, opponents ready for gay marriage hearing
In a long-awaited showdown, the seven justices of the state's high court will review a divided 2006 state appeals court ruling that upheld California laws restricting marriage to a union between a man and a woman.

During today's hearing in San Francisco, the Supreme Court will hear from civil rights lawyers for gay couples who argue that the same-sex marriage ban violates their equal protection rights because they do not get the same treatment as heterosexual couples. The San Francisco city attorney's office, led by chief deputy city attorney Therese Stewart, will also argue in favor of gay marriage.

Deputy Attorney General Christopher Krueger will lead the state's defense of the current law, arguing that gay couples already essentially enjoy equal treatment because of California's strong domestic partners law.

In addition, conservative organizations opposed to same-sex marriage will argue that traditional marriage would be undermined if California permits gay couples to wed. Lawyers for those groups, led by the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, insist that marriage is meant to foster procreation and therefore must be limited to heterosexual couples.

The justices have 90 days from today's arguments to rule in the case, and they typically take most or all of that time when addressing hot-button issues.

Source: MercuryNews.com

Lies, Damned Lies and Memoirs

2008-03-04T17:55:00.000-08:00

by Patt Morrison

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on … who? The author, and who else? Publishers? Readers?
Margaret Jones, white/native American foster child growing up with black family amid gangbangers in South LA, pens acclaimed memoir. Now she’s outed as a fake – not just any fake, but Margaret Seltzer, a privately schooled white girl from Sherman Oaks, who, as ``Jones,’’ even gave broadcast interviews about her book in tough-girl cadences.
Been there, done that, homegirl. Twenty-five years ago, East LA homeboy Danny Santiago wrote his own story, a novel called ``Famous All Over Town,’’ about his get-down life running with the wild boys. It was a very good book. It won awards; it was part of a song lyric; it was required reading in schools, literature from a real East LA life.
And it too, was fake. Danny Santiago was Daniel James, a once-blacklisted screenwriter who had worked on the Chaplin tour de force, ``The Great Dictator.’’ He had also done social work in the 1950s and ‘60s among Latinos, which is how he knew something of what he wrote. Margaret Seltzer says she did her research by listening to friends’ stories, and tapping out her book sitting among Black Panthers and just regular kids at a Starbucks in South LA.
Both authors were outed – Seltzer, after the glowing reviews for ``Love and Consequences’’ started coming out but before her book tour was to begin this week, but James, not for a long while, not until the novel had won awards and been acclaimed as an authentic new Latino voice.
We expect actors to make us think he is someone or something else. We don’t mind when female novelists write feelingly about male characters, and vice versa. Old writers create touching young characters, and sometimes vice versa. But we know the author’s age, and gender, and that it’s a novel we’re reading.
Only the memoir that sets itself and us up for hopes and disappointment. Would ‘’Love and Consequences’’ have been published and praised if it had been called a novel? Especially one written by a privileged white woman? Does our hunger for ‘’true stories’’ feed this phony memoir machine?
The judges who gave ‘’Famous’’ a literary prize were to have considered only literary merit, but supposedly admitted that if they’d known the author was an old white guy and not a young Latino, they might have had second thoughts.
What’s the difference? And why does it matter to us?
You tell me.

Source: OPINION L.A

Dannielynn Named Anna Nicole's Sole Heir

2008-03-04T17:51:00.000-08:00

By Natalie Finn

Dannielynn Hope Marshall Birkhead has been handed the keys to the castle.

Larry Birkhead's 18-month-old daughter with Anna Nicole Smith was declared the sole beneficiary to the late model's estate Tuesday, after a Los Angeles judge approved Howard K. Stern's petition to clarify his departed paramour's earthly intentions.

"We and Mr. Stern always believed that Anna Nicole never intended to disinherit her daughter," Stern's attorney, Bruce S. Ross, said after court Tuesday. "I'm pleased to say this chapter in the saga is closed."

L.A. Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff's ruling also establishes a trust on Dannielynn's behalf, with her father and Stern serving as cotrustees.
(View the documents.)

The once litigious pair were not present in court, but Ross said that neither had any particular disagreement as far as Dannielynn's financial future was concerned. DNA confirmed that Birkhead is Dannielynn's biological father about two months after Smith's death.

Smith's assets at the time of her passing were estimated at $710,000, but Tuesday's ruling leaves Dannielynn poised to inherit millions if the decade-plus legal battle between Smith (and now Smith's estate) and the family of her late husband, billionaire oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II, turns in her favor.

Marshall, who was 90 and had been married to Smith for 14 months when he died in 1995, left most of his fortune to his widow, a decision his family has been raging against ever since.
Stern filed papers Oct. 18 seeking to having Dannielynn singled out as Smith's heir, presuming the former Playboy Playmate would have certainly provided for her daughter had she drawn up a more recent will.

Smith died Feb. 8, 2007, of an accidental prescription drug overdose in Hollywood, Florida. She was 39.

The will filed in probate court was made out in 2001 and named Smith's son, Daniel, who died several days after Dannielynn's birth in September 2006, as the sole heir. The document also said, however, that the assets in Daniel's trust should be divided equally among any siblings if Smith had other children.

"As a matter of law, Dannielynn is a pretermitted heir," Stern's petition stated, meaning she was an accidental omission, or someone who likely would have been named in the will except for the fact that the person drawing up the will didn't know her at the time.

An ongoing inquest into Daniel's death is scheduled to resume Mar. 17 in the Bahamas. Birkhead and Stern are expected to be called to testify about his close relationship with his mother and the days leading up to the 20-year-old's death, also of an accidental Rx overdose.

Source: E News

Clashes erupt as IDF vehicles enter south Gaza

2008-03-04T17:35:00.000-08:00

By Yuval Azoulay, Mijal Grinberg and Avi Issacharoff

Some 25 Israel Defense Forces armored vehicles advanced into southern Gaza after nightfall yesterday, and troops clashed with militants, Palestinian witnesses said, just a day after the IDF ended its offensive in northern Gaza against Palestinian rocket squads.

The Palestinians said the armored column entered Gaza through the Kissufim crossing. Israeli defense officials said it was a pinpoint operation targeting Gaza militants. Helicopters circled overhead near the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis as IDF soldiers surrounded the home of a militant. The Hamas-allied Islamic Jihad movement said the man was a leader of its armed wing.

IDF tanks reportedly fired shells while the fighter helicopters fired missiles. A one-month-old baby girl was killed by a ricocheting bullet, Gazan medical officials said. Also, six militants and three civilians were wounded, none of then seriously, the officials said.

An IDF spokeswoman confirmed there was a military operation under way in Gaza and that a senior figure in Islamic Jihad, Yusuf Samiri, had been killed.

Earlier yesterday, two Palestinian militants were killed in two separate IAF strikes on the Gaza Strip, shortly after a Qassam rocket scored a direct hit on a house in the western Negev town of Sderot.

The IDF said the strikes, which were carried out north of Jabalya and east of Gaza City, targeted militants who were engaged in firing Qassam rockets at Israel.

One of the militants was identified as Ayman Cahouji, a member of Hamas.

No injuries were reported in the rocket attack on Sderot, but the building, which was empty at the time, sustained severe damage.

Meanwhile, Israel allowed dozens of trucks carrying food and medical supply to enter the Strip yesterday through Kerem Shalom Crossing.

Three truckloads were donated by the Jordanian government, and another two were ordered by the Palestinian health minister from the Teva pharmaceutical conglomerate.

Siren replaces Color Red in Ashkelon

A wailing siren will now be heard in Ashkelon every time a rocket is fired at the southern city from the Gaza Strip, instead of the Color Red alert system previously installed to warn against imminent strikes.

Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai yesterday decided to replace the existing system after receiving several complaints from Ashkelon residents who said they did not hear the Color Red alert prior to rocket strikes on the city.

Also yesterday, censorship was lifted on the fact that a Katyusha rocket fired in recent days from the Gaza Strip struck near the home of Public Security Minister Avi Dichter in Ashkelon.

Source:HAARETZ.com

Cold Remedy Airborne Settles Lawsuit

2008-03-04T17:29:00.000-08:00

Maker of Airborne Will Pay Refunds for Product That Was Marketed as a Cold Preventive

By Kathleen Doheny
WebMD Medical News

Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

March 4, 2008 -- If you bought Airborne, the popular herbal and vitamin formula originally touted as a cold preventive, you're due for a refund.

The makers of Airborne have agreed to refund money to consumers as part of a $23.3 million settlement of a class-action lawsuit for false advertising. It does not admit wrongdoing or illegal conduct.

Products included are the Airborne Effervescent Health Formula, Airborne On-the-Go, Airborne Power Pixies, Airborne Nighttime, Airborne Jr., Airborne Gummi, and Airborne Seasonal (formerly sold as Airborne Seasonal Relief).

Airborne: The Road to the Lawsuit
Initially, Airborne ads touted its line of products as a way to prevent and treat colds; Airborne later toned down those claims and now calls the formulas immune boosters.

In February 2006, a report on national television questioned the validity of a clinical trial touted by Airborne as a study that offered proof that its products work. Soon after, the false advertising lawsuit was filed in 2006 by California law firms representing a consumer who protested that the formula did not work as advertised.

"One of their more outrageous claims is that you take it before entering a germy environment and you're instantly protected," David Schardt, senior nutritionist for the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), tells WebMD.

The CSPI, a nonprofit consumer watchdog group, joined the lawsuit in late 2006 when asked to do so by the California law firms representing the plaintiff. "It's just a mixture of vitamins, herbs, and minerals," Schardt says. "There is nothing particularly special about this mixture." The company is also under scrutiny by about 24 state attorneys general and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), according to The CSPI, although the FTC won't confirm an investigation.
A spokesperson for Airborne, who declined to be quoted by name, says, "Airborne is an immune booster. We are pleased to have reached this settlement." The company refers the media and consumers to the settlement web site, airbornehealthsettlement.com, for more information.
Airborne products were created by Victoria Knight McDowell, a former second-grade teacher whose motivation to find the formula was triggered by her exposure to germy students, according to the company web site.

The product line includes several formulas, but the basic formula includes vitamins A, C, and E and magnesium, zinc, selenium, herbs, and other ingredients. It is called Airborne because it is meant to combat airborne viruses and germs, according to the company web site.

Watchdog Group Investigates
In 2007, the CSPI, which regularly looks at dietary supplements to determine their effects, evaluated Airborne as part of an investigation on cold remedies "and found little or no evidence that the product works," Schardt tells WebMD.

According to Schardt, there is ''no credible evidence" that the Airborne formula can prevent colds or protect people from germy environments.

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Source:WEBMD

Exit Polls: Voters Seek 'Change' in Wisconsin

2008-02-19T17:14:00.000-08:00

ANALYSIS by GARY LANGER

Preliminary exit poll results in the Wisconsin primaries underscore both differences and similarities between the two parties in the state.

Around nine in 10 voters, in both the Democratic and Republican contests, are white. But a substantial majority of Democratic voters are women, more than usual for a Wisconsin Democratic primary, while on the Republican side a substantial majority are men, considerably more than in most GOP primaries this year. (It'll take updated data to see if that comes out as a high for the cycle.)

In the Democratic race, nearly half the voters are liberals -- up from 2004.
Among Republican voters, six in 10 are conservatives. Both are in the mid-range for primaries this year.

The preliminary results also indicate that more seniors than usual are voting in the Democratic race -- up from their 2004 level, and also potentially a high for Democratic voters this cycle, though again it'll take final data later tonight to see that holds.

As in previous contests, the top issue for Democrats and Republicans alike is the economy -- around four in 10 call it the most important issue facing the country. (It's been considerably higher for Democrats in some other states.)

On candidate attributes, again as in the past, someone who can "bring about needed change" is tops by far for Democrats; among Republicans, as in previous primaries, it's someone who "shares my values."

Just over a third of GOP voters in these preliminary results identify themselves as evangelical Christians, about the norm for a non-Southern state this year.

Turnout by independents in the Republican race looks to be down from the last primary for which we have comparable data, in 1996.

In the Democratic contest, about four in 10 voters have college degrees -- another important factor in voting decisions this year. That's a bit under the norm in primaries so far.

In one further similarity, about one in 10 Democratic and Republican voters alike say they made their final decision today. At the other end of the spectrum, a third of Republicans, and nearly half of Democrats, say they decided more than a month ago.

Source: ABC news

Former Teacher Sentenced in Sex Case

2008-02-19T17:00:00.000-08:00

By KATRINA A. GOGGINS

LAURENS, S.C. - A former middle school teacher was sent to prison for six years Tuesday for having sexual encounters with five teenage boys. Authorities said Allenna Ward, 24, met 14- and 15-year-old boys at the school where she taught as well as at a motel, a park and behind a restaurant.

"I apologize from the depths of my heart," Ward said in court.

Police began investigating last year after school officials found a note believed to have been written by Ward to one of the boys. Some of the victims were students at Bell Street Middle School in Clinton, where Ward taught. She was fired about a year ago.

Ward pleaded guilty in September to three counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor and three lewd acts on a minor.

Forensic psychiatrist Donna Schwartz-Watts said Ward is not a pedophile, but rather a childlike victim suffering from personality disorders and a repressed childhood. Schwartz-Watts said the minister's daughter lived a sheltered life but really was a "free spirit" who never got a chance to break away from her family.

Prosecutors painted Ward's crimes in a harsher light and said she violated the trust that parents place in teachers.

Some of the victims' families attended the sentencing but did not speak during the court hearing."I just feel like justice has been served," the sister of one victim said after the hearing.

"We're just glad that it's all over."The Associated Press does not normally identify victims of sexual crimes.

Ward's lawyer Donald Hocker cited the psychiatric testimony in asking for home imprisonment for his client. Hocker said Ward will be vulnerable to physical and emotional abuse at the hands of other prisoners.

"It's an awful case with awful consequences, but Allenna Ward is not an awful woman," Hocker said in court. He declined to speak to a reporter after the hearing.

Ward was sentenced to 15 years in prison for each lewd act count, but the punishments were suspended to six years. She also was sentenced to six years on each second-degree criminal sexual conduct count. The sentences are to run concurrently.

A service of the Associated Press(AP)

Source: Trib.com

Australia PM said most popular for 20 years

2008-02-18T17:55:00.000-08:00

by Michael Perry and Sanjeev Miglani

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is the country's most popular leader in two decades after apologising to Aborigines for past injustices and ratifying the Kyoto climate pact, a poll showed on Tuesday.

Labor's Rudd, who ended 11 years of conservative government rule last November, was preferred leader for 70 percent of voters, said a Newspoll in the Australian newspaper.

The reading was the highest since the survey was first published in 1987 and also showed 69 percent of voters supported Rudd's apology to Aborigines for past injustices, a move which overturned the previous conservative government's opposition to saying sorry to the disadvantaged indigenous population.

Conservative opponents said the result reflected saturation coverage of Wednesday's apology, which was watched by Australians on huge outdoor television screens in cities across the country.

"Newly elected governments go through this sort of honeymoon and with the apology, the prime minister has received enormous publicity," opposition spokesman Nick Minchin told local radio.

Opponents say Rudd has been making "grand gestures" like the apology and December's decision to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, again overturning the previous government policy, to maintain momentum in the wake of his crushing election win.

But the conservatives remain in disarray after the exit from politics of former prime minister John Howard, who lost his seat in the landslide to Rudd after almost 12 years in power.

A television programme screened on Monday had senior members of the former government telling how they secretly pressured Howard to retire from mid-2006 to rejuvenate the party.

The Newspoll showed support for new opposition leader Brendan Nelson was at just 9 percent. Nelson's poor reading will add to divisions over the conservative leadership, with lawmakers split between the former doctor and Australia's richest MP, former investment banker Malcolm Turnbull, who narrowly lost to Nelson.

Source: REUTERS

Musharraf allies headed for defeat

2008-02-18T16:48:00.000-08:00

By Zeeshan Haider

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - The main party that backs Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was headed for defeat on Tuesday after voters rallied to the opposition, raising questions about the future of the U.S. ally who has ruled since 1999.
As president, former army chief Musharraf did not contest Monday's parliamentary elections aimed at completing a transition to civilian rule, but the outcome could seal his fate.
A hostile parliament could try to remove Musharraf, who took power as a general in a 1999 coup and emerged as a crucial U.S. ally in a "war on terror" that most Pakistanis think is Washington's, not theirs.
The election was relatively peaceful after a bloody campaign and opposition fears of rampant rigging by Musharraf's supporters appeared unfounded.
The election was postponed from January 8 after the assassination of former prime minister and opposition leader Benazir Bhutto in a suicide attack on December 27.
The death of Bhutto, the most progressive, Western-friendly politician in a Muslim nation rife with anti-American sentiment, raised concern about the stability of the nuclear-armed country.
Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) has been expected to reap a sympathy vote after her murder but some analysts said the decisive factor in the election was Musharraf.
In a major blow for the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) which backs Musharraf, its president, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, a former prime minister, was defeated in his Punjab province constituency by a rival from Bhutto's party, television networks said, citing unofficial Election Commission tallies. Continued...

Source: REUTERS

Fayed says UK royals wanted to "get rid of" Diana

2008-02-18T16:40:00.000-08:00

By Paul Majendie

LONDON (Reuters) - Luxury storeowner Mohamed al-Fayed said on Monday the death of Princess Diana and his son Dodi in a 1997 Paris car crash was murder and accused the British royal family of wanting to "get rid" of Diana.

In an emotional appearance at the inquest into their deaths, al-Fayed accused Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth's husband and Diana's former father-in-law, of being a "Nazi" and a "racist."
"You want to know his original name -- it ends with Frankenstein," al-Fayed told the court.
He said Diana, divorced from heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles, had "suffered for 20 years from this Dracula family".

After waiting more than a decade for his day in court, al-Fayed came close to tears, shaking his head and taking a tissue out of his pocket as his voice cracked.

But then later the Egyptian-born tycoon, who alleges that the British security services murdered Diana on Prince Philip's orders, turned angrily on one of the lawyers, accusing him of talking "out of your backside".

French and British police investigations have both concluded their deaths were tragic accidents caused by a speeding driver who was found to have been drunk. Both inquiries rejected al-Fayed's conspiracy theories.

Al-Fayed said of Diana's former husband, Prince Charles: "He participated and I'm sure he knew what was going to happen."

Source: REUTERS

Pakistani troops fan out ahead of polls

2008-02-12T03:52:00.000-08:00

By MUNIR AHMAD, Associated Press Writer

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Tens of thousands of troops fanned out across Pakistan on Tuesday to bolster security ahead of next week's parliamentary elections, but senior military officials say they would not try to interfere with the vote.

Underscoring concerns that violence could mar the election, at least nine people were wounded Tuesday in a bomb blast near the office of a candidate in the southwestern province of Baluchistan. It was the latest in a string of attacks that have overshadowed the campaign.

"The bomb was planted in a bicycle parked near the election office where Sardar Aslam Bizenjo was preparing to address a press conference," said Hamid Shakeel, the police chief in Khuzdar, 185 miles south of Quetta.

The candidate was unhurt and there were no immediate claims of responsibility.

There are concerns that militants could launch attacks during the Feb. 18 vote, seen as key to Pakistan's transition to democracy after eight years of military rule under President Pervez Musharraf, a key U.S. ally in the war against terrorism.

But the main fear is a major outbreak of political violence if there are allegations of vote rigging.

Interior Ministry spokesman, Jawed Iqbal Cheema said provincial officials had asked for the troops to help maintain peace and order during the election, but promised that none would be stationed at voting stations — a move which could serve to intimidate voters.

The army had earlier said it would only deploy if it was asked to do so by civilian authorities.

Arif Ahmad Khan, the home secretary in the southern province of Sindh, said around 24,000 troops would be deployed there alone.

Furqan Bahadur, home secretary in Baluchistan, said security forces there would be placed on standby, responding only if violence flared.

"We do not want to reach a point where we have to say the situation is out of our control," Khan said.

Army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani has sought to refocus the military away from politics since he took over the top job last November when Musharraf resigned gave up the post.

Last month, Kayani issued a directive barring officers from unauthorized meetings with politicians and said last week the army would limit its role in the elections to providing security.

Over the weekend, dozens of people were killed in a suicide bombing and an attack Monday wounded a candidate while he was campaigning.

Security forces also were searching for Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan, who was missing and feared kidnapped as he traveled in a volatile Pakistani tribal region.

The security threat has heightened at a time when public support for Musharraf has plunged to an all-time low. Opposition parties loyal to the late Benazir Bhutto and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif appear poised for a landslide victory, recent polls showed.

Musharraf is not a candidate but needs commanding majority in the new parliament to block any moves to impeach him.

He is grappling with rising Islamic extremism in his country, especially in northwest regions bordering Afghanistan.

He also faces political dissent following his move late last year to oust Supreme Court judges seen as a challenge to his rule, raising fresh questions Tuesday about the credibility of the vote.

The deposed chief justice, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, and his family remain under house arrest in Islamabad. Several other senior independent-minded judges are also restricted to their homes.

"Days before Pakistan goes to the polls, its lawful chief justice and his children remain under illegal house arrest, as do many lawyers who would likely challenge election-rigging in the courts," Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement released Tuesday.

"Musharraf's systematic destruction of legal institutions has seriously compromised the upcoming elections."

Source: Yahoo news

Tom Lantos, 80; congressman survived Holocaust

2008-02-12T00:38:00.000-08:00

By Johanna Neuman

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Burlingame), the only Holocaust survivor ever to serve in Congress, died Monday of complications from cancer of the esophagus at Bethesda Naval Medical Center in Maryland, his staff said. He was 80.

A champion of civil liberties, Lantos founded the Congressional Human Rights Caucus and supported human rights struggles against both right-wing and left-wing regimes in China, Russia, Myanmar, Darfur and wherever official pressure could, as he put it, "prevent another Holocaust." He also was passionate about animal rights, working to stop seal hunts, dog killings in foreign countries, and horse slaughter, bear baiting and the operation of puppy mills at home.

He also used his post as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee to highlight human rights violators. He argued that nations with bad records had no place on the U.N. Human Rights Commission, that Beijing should not be awarded the 2008 Olympics because of its human rights record, and that corporations had an obligation to protect individuals and press freedoms. When executives of Yahoo Inc. appeared before the committee last year to defend their role in the jailing of a journalist by Chinese officials, Lantos said, "While technologically and financially you are giants, morally you are Pygmies."

Vigilant against appeasement in foreign policy -- whether the culprit was Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin or Saddam Hussein -- Lantos was a supporter of the Iraq war even though his 12th Congressional District, stretching from southwest San Francisco down the peninsula to take in much of San Mateo County, was overwhelmingly opposed. Although he led the debate for authorization of the campaign to oust Hussein in 2002, he later became disillusioned with faulty prewar intelligence and called for an independent investigation into what went wrong.

"The American people have not sent us here just to be an amen cho- rus for this administration," he said when he finally rose to criticize the war. "There are serious problems and we should be debating serious solutions."

Last year he opposed the surge of extra troops in Iraq, telling Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, who was lobbying Congress for support: "Our efforts in Iraq are a mess, and throwing in more troops will not improve it."

Lantos, a staunch supporter of Israel, led a U.S. walkout from a United Nations conference on racism in Durban, South Africa, in 2001 over its anti-Semitic language. But he also was an advocate of talking to renegade regimes. He was among the first members of Congress to visit Libya in 2004, lauding Moammar Kadafi's renunciation of weapons of mass destruction. And when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) met with Syrian President Bashar Assad last year, Lantos was at her side. "Dialogue," he said, "is not appeasement."

Pelosi, calling his death "a profound loss for the Congress and for the nation and a terrible loss for me personally," said in a statement Monday that Lantos had used his chairmanship "to empower the powerless and give voice to the voiceless throughout the world. Having lived through the worst evil known to mankind, Tom Lantos translated the experience into a lifetime commitment to the fight against anti-Semitism."

Born Feb. 1, 1928, to a middle-class family in Budapest, Hungary, Lantos was 16 when Nazis occupied the city in 1944. Sent to a labor camp in a nearby village, he escaped, was recaptured and beaten. After he escaped a second time, he took refuge with his aunt in one of the safe houses maintained by Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved the lives of thousands of Jews during the Holocaust. With his blue eyes and blond hair, Lantos often served as a courier, delivering food to Jews in hiding and working for the anti-Nazi underground.

After the war he learned that his mother had died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz and that other relatives had died as well. He located his childhood sweetheart, Annette Tilleman, a cousin of the glamorous Gabor sisters. He came to the United States in 1947, earning a degree in economics from the University of Washington and a doctorate from UC Berkeley. Tilleman arrived in 1948 to finish high school in Seattle. They were married in 1950.

Lantos, calling himself "an American by choice," took a quixotic path to Congress. Before his election, his resume was that of an academic who had taught economics at San Francisco State University, served as president of the Millbrae School District board, and been an occasional advisor to Congress on economic and foreign policy. But in 1978, Democrat Leo J. Ryan became the first and only congressman ever slain in the line of duty, killed in Guyana, where he went to investigate whether Americans were being held against their will by cult leader Jim Jones. Ryan was gunned down just before Jones engineered a mass suicide among his followers.

Republican Bill Royer won a special election to serve out Ryan's term. But in 1980, Lantos surprised Royer with an upset victory to take the seat. Despite an attempted return by Royer and later efforts to oust Lantos for his hawkish foreign policy views, he had won reelection with comfortable margins of more than 65% ever since.

His first major bill in Congress was to give honorary American citizenship to Wallenberg, whom Lantos called "the central figure in my life."

Lantos, an avid swimmer who never smoked, announced last month that he had been diagnosed with cancer and would retire at year's end.

"It is only in the United States that a penniless survivor of the Holocaust and a fighter in the anti-Nazi underground could have received an education, raised a family and had the privilege of serving the last three decades of his life as a member of Congress," he said. "I will never be able to express fully my profoundly felt gratitude to this great country."

With his mane of white hair and his Hungarian-accented English, Lantos cut a dashing figure on Capitol Hill. But he could also be a sarcastic, partisan inquisitor. When Samuel Pierce Jr., the former secretary of Housing and Urban Development, said he needed more time to prepare for hearings because he was having trouble finding an attorney, Lantos said, "I can understand not being able to find affordable housing in Washington but not an attorney."

Lantos did not attend the United Nations' annual commemoration of the Holocaust last month. His remarks were delivered by his daughter, Katrina Lantos Swett.

In his speech, Lantos called on the world community, "on this day dedicated to one of the worst episodes in human history," to "re-dedicate ourselves to stopping current tragedies such as the genocide in Darfur -- and there is no other proper word for this atrocity -- and to preventing such inhuman cruelty in the future." Saying that "the veneer of civilization is paper thin," Lantos added, "we are its guardians, and we can never rest."

He is survived by his wife, Annette, their children, Katrina Lantos Swett of New Hampshire and Annette Lantos Dick of Colorado, as well as 17 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Source: Los Angeles Times

NIGHT OF RHYTHM & 'SNOOZE'

2008-02-11T02:51:00.000-08:00

By DAN AQUILANTE

February 11, 2008 -- WHAT do you get an awards ceremony for its 50th birthday? How about a little excitement, because last night's Grammys sure could have used a shot of adrenaline.

Right up front, Alicia Keys was at the baby grand doing a beyond-the-grave duet with Frank Sinatra.

The message was clear: This was going to be a classy affair, even if it was going to render America unconscious.

Andrea Bocelli and Josh Groban did their Sominex best with operatic bellows; Herbie Hancock played "Rhapsody in Blue" (all of it) while the Foo Fighters dulled its edge with a symphonic backing.

Kanye West - the artist who went to the awards with the most nominations, at eight - found the audience's pulse 45 minutes into the show with his robotic rap "Stronger." West, still grieving his mother (who died from complications after plastic surgery last year), then dropped into tear-gear with "Hey Mama."

After Beyoncé's much-anticipated duet with Tina Turner on "Proud Mary" - the night's best performance - it was Amy Winehouse's turn to try to jump-start the awards.

Winehouse had the presence of an 800-pound Grammy-grabbing gorilla.

She's a better writer and singer than live performer, and proved it. Beamed from London, she was jittery and dropped a line from her song "Rehab."

Still it was Amy's party and she didn't get to go. Now that could drive a girl to drink.

dan.aquilante@nypost.com

Source: NewYorkPost

Panthers' Richard Zednik Is Stable After Skate Blade Cuts Neck

2008-02-11T02:47:00.000-08:00

By Erik Matuszewski

Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Richard Zednik of the Florida Panthers is in stable condition in a Buffalo, New York, hospital after having his neck accidentally cut by a teammate's skate blade during a National Hockey League game last night.

Zednik underwent surgery at Buffalo General Hospital to close a laceration in his neck, according to the NHL's Web site. No other information was immediately available.

Midway through the third period of Florida's 5-3 loss in Buffalo last night, Jokinen was upended by Sabres defenseman Brian Campbell. As Jokinen fell, his right skate flew up and caught Zednik in the neck, causing blood to gush onto the ice at HSBC Arena. Zednik immediately skated to the Panthers' bench, where trainers attended to him and rushed him to the hospital.

The game was delayed for more than 15 minutes as Zednik's blood was cleaned from the ice.

``As soon as he got into the dressing room, I think they were able to stabilize him and stop the bleeding, which was probably crucial,'' Panthers coach Jacques Martin said at a post-game news conference.

Martin said Zednik, 32, was conscious when he was taken to the hospital. Zednik has 15 goals and 11 assists in 53 games for the Panthers this season.

Zednik's injury came 19 years after former Sabres goaltender Clint Malarchuk almost died when his jugular vein was cut by a skate blade in a goal-mouth collision between St. Louis winger Steve Tuttle and Buffalo defenseman Uwe Krupp.

To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Matuszewski in New York at matuszewski@bloomberg.net

Source: Bloomberg.com

Gates Warns Europe on Afghan Danger

2008-02-10T02:38:00.000-08:00

By THOM SHANKER and NICHOLAS KULISH

MUNICH — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates issued a stark warning Sunday to the people of Europe, saying that their safety from terrorist attack by Islamic extremists is directly linked to NATO’s success in stabilizing Afghanistan.

After weeks of calling on alliance governments to send more combat troops and trainers to Afghanistan, Mr. Gates made his case directly to populations across the continent in a keynote address to the Munich Conference on Security Policy, an international security conference. Mr. Gates summoned the memory of Sept. 11, 2001, to say that Europe is at risk of becoming victim to attacks of the same enormity.

"I am concerned that many people on this continent may not comprehend the magnitude of the direct threat to European security,” Mr. Gates said. “For the United States, Sept. 11 was a galvanizing event, one that opened the American public’s eyes to dangers from distant lands.”
In a hall filled with government officials, legislators and policy analysts from around the world, Mr. Gates added: “So now I would like to add my voice to those of many allied leaders on the continent and speak directly to the people of Europe. The threat posed by violent Islamic extremism is real and it is not going to go away.”

Mr. Gates cited terrorist attacks in Madrid, London, Istanbul, Amsterdam, Paris and Glasgow, and said that other attacks, some complex, had been disrupted before they could be carried out in Belgium, Germany and Denmark and in airliners over the Atlantic.

“Just in the last few weeks, Spanish authorities arrested 14 Islamic extremists in Barcelona suspected of planning suicide attacks against public transport systems in Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, and Britain,” he said.

“I am not indulging in scare tactics,” Mr. Gates stated. “Nor am I exaggerating either the threat or inflating the consequences of a victory for the extremists. Nor am I saying that the extremists are 10 feet tall.”

He said the task facing Europe, the United States and allies around the world “is to fracture and destroy this movement in its infancy — to permanently reduce its ability to strike globally and catastrophically, while deflating its ideology

The “best opportunity as an alliance to do this,” he stated, “is in Afghanistan.”

Mr. Gates said that some terrorist cells in Europe are funded and receive inspiration from abroad. “Many who have been arrested have had direct connections to Al Qaeda,” he said. “Some have met with top leaders or attended training camps abroad. Some are connected to Al Qaeda in Iraq.”

He said that the Barcelona terrorist cell appeared to have links with a terrorist network commanded by extremists in Pakistan who are thought to be affiliated with the Taliban and Al Qaeda and have been blamed for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

many NATO governments “appreciate the importance of the Afghan mission, European public support for it is weak,” Mr. Gates said. “Many Europeans question the relevance of our actions and doubt whether the mission is worth the lives of their sons and daughters.”
But they “forget at our peril that the ambition of Islamic extremists is limited only by opportunity,” he added.

Mr. Gates said that in Afghanistan, “the really hard question the alliance faces is whether the whole of our effort is adding up to less than the sum of its parts.”

In specific policy initiatives, Mr. Gates called for a common set of training standards for every soldier and civilian deployed to Afghanistan, and for the appointment of a high-level European to serve as civilian administrator to coordinate international assistance.

Echoing U.S. lessons from the exhausting effort to suppress insurgents and terrorists in Iraq after the swift invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, Mr. Gates said NATO must better coordinate military operations and civilian reconstruction and “put aside any theology that attempts clearly to divide civilian and military operations. It is unrealistic.”

During a lively question-and-answer period after the speech, a member of the Russian Parliament, Alexey Ostrovskiy, asked Mr. Gates whether the blame for Al Qaeda did not lie at the feet of the U.S. intelligence community for funding the mujahedeen in Afghanistan who resisted the Soviet occupation during the 1980s. Many of those anti-Soviet fighters went on to become Islamic extremists and members of the Taliban or Al Qaeda.

“After that, when the Soviet troops left, for all intents and purposes, people who were created by you were idle,” said Mr. Ostrovskiy.

“If we bear a particular responsibility for the role of the mujahedeen and Al Qaeda growing up in Afghanistan, it has more to do with our abandonment of the country in 1989 than our assistance of it in 1979,” Mr. Gates answered.

Source: Europe

Macy's regroups, will cut jobs

2008-02-07T03:07:00.000-08:00

BY JOHN ECKBERG JECKBERG@ENQUIRER.COM

Rocked by weak holiday sales and facing a critical spring 2008 fashion season, Macy's Inc. on Wednesday moved to turn around its slumping share price by announcing layoffs of up to 2,300 employees, eliminating three divisions and creating a new district management structure.

"When you have to come out and be at a division that is no longer going to exist, it's never easy," said Terry J. Lundgren, chief executive of the Cincinnati-based retail giant and architect of the new initiative. "I really dislike this part of the job. But it's the reality of the business. If it was just a consolidation, well, I'd say we've done that and been there. This is something quite different."

None of the job losses will hit Cincinnati, Macy's promised, although other areas of the nation won't be so lucky.

Macy's, the downtown Cincinnati-based retailer with 850 Macy's and Bloomingdale's stores and a surging online arm in Macys.com, expects layoffs to save the company $100 million beginning in 2009.

Relocation assistance for executives, severance and outplacement services will cost the company about $150 million in 2008.

The company plans to create a new district structure that could add 250 jobs - an approach that is modeled, in part, upon the packaged goods industry, Lundgren said in an interview Wednesday, one hour after the announcement.

"We are in the fashion business," Lundgren said. "We are not just selling tissues. You can't have the same shirt in 800 stores and assume success. Being in the fashion business, the product changes every few months and you have to anticipate. You need a hands-on organization."
Called "My Macy's," the localization initiative creates 20 districts of about 10 stores each.

Cincinnati will be the base for one district that could bring up to 40 jobs here.

The new approach, based upon customer research and developed over the past year, is an effort to accelerate sales growth with a custom-tailored shopping experience.

More managers will concentrate on bringing a better assortment of apparel to local markets based on shopping habits of customers in that region, Lundgren said.

"If we continue on the exact same course, we won't have dramatically different results," Lundgren said.

"If you want different results, you don't keep trying the same thing over and over again.
"We are actually putting more money and more investment into the local market with this structure," he said.

Lundgren said high gasoline prices and a nationwide housing slump have taken a toll on department store customers, making them more cautious.

Those were the macro issues," Lundgren said. "I suspect they will not be sorted out over the next couple of quarters. That's what the best minds are suggesting in Washington."

The company also said Wednesday that same-store, year-to-year sales, considered the best measure of a retailer's health, fell by 7.1 percent over 2006 results for the final four weeks of fiscal 2007.

company had advised shareholders that same-store sales for that period would be off by 4 percent to 6 percent.

For the 13-week fourth quarter of 2007, Macy's sales were $8.59 billion, down 6.1 percent from $9.16 billion reported for the same period in 2006.

Macy's will take a one-time pre-tax charge of $150 million in 2008 related to the consolidation.
Macy's also said Wednesday it will no longer offer guidance for quarterly sales or earnings. It expects the range of same-store sales for 2008 to be down 1 percent to up 1.5 percent.

, it told investors the company no longer expects to reach a goal of earnings as a percentage of sales before income tax, depreciation and amortization in the range of 14 percent to 15 percent in 2008-2009.

for 2007 were $26.31 billion, down 2.4 percent from sales of $26.97 billion in 53 weeks of the fiscal 2006 calendar.

On a same-store basis, sales were down by 1.3 percent in 2007 compared with 2006.
Macy's expects fourth-quarter earnings per diluted share to be between $1.75 and $1.80, which excludes merger integration costs of about $70 million.

Job losses will occur when Macy's consolidates its Minneapolis-based Macy's North into the New York-based Macy's East, its St. Louis-based Macy's Midwest into Atlanta-based Macy's South and its Seattle-based Macy's Northwest into Macy's West. The Atlantadivision will be renamed Macy's Central.

Al Ferara, national director of retail services for BDO Seidman, an accounting and consulting firm based in New York City, said Macy's, which has headquarters in New York City, had no choice but to slash the payroll because of the tough economic climate. "I expect that sales for the upcoming year are not so glossy," Ferara said. "You have to react to that, and now is the perfect time."

in Macy's closed Wednesday at $23.94, down $1.16 or 4.62 percent.

Source: local business

McCain and conservatives seek common purpose

2008-02-07T02:39:00.000-08:00

By Frank Davies

WASHINGTON - Memo to conservative activists: Do the math. John McCain will be the Republican presidential nominee, so get with the program.

Memo to McCain: Work harder to win over conservative skeptics in the party.
That summarizes much of the advice coming from Republicans and political analysts Wednesday as they weigh how a fractured party can reunite after McCain won a string of victories - and snagged scores of party delegates - from New York to California on Super Tuesday, giving him a formidably large lead for the nomination.

primaries and caucuses in 28 states since early January, the Arizona senator has secured 703 convention delegates, almost 60 percent of the 1,191 needed to become the nominee, according to the Associated Press. Mitt Romney has 260, Mike Huckabee has 190. Ron Paul is running a distant fourth with 14.

On Wednesday, though, Romney and Huckabee weren't taking the bait about the need to unify behind a single candidate. Both told supporters they would continue campaigning and that there was still time to catch and beat McCain, despite his stellar showing Tuesday.

California played a major role in McCain's ascendancy. Boosted by an endorsement from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, McCain won 42 percent of the statewide vote to Romney's 34 percent. More important, McCain took all but three or four of the state's 53 congressional districts, giving him at least 147 delegates.

Rep. Dan Lungren, a Republican from

the Sacramento area who backed the Arizona senator more than a year ago, said he was stunned by McCain's comeback and the scope of his victory in California. The McCain campaign "spent almost no money in California until a little the last week, so I didn't know what to expect. I would not have predicted this when polls closed yesterday."

But exit polls show that the GOP has some deep fissures. Social conservatives and evangelicals around the country are still leery of McCain, and they voted for Huckabee in the South and for Romney in some Western states. In California, evangelicals split almost evenly among the top three candidates, the exit polls said.

Talk radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh and conservative bloggers who channel the more rigid posture of the GOP's right wing have blistered McCain on issues from immigration to global warming.

"There has been a backlash against McCain from conservatives, but they didn't have enough time before Super Tuesday" to stop him, said David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union.

Good of the party

strategists say McCain and conservative activists are going to have to find a way to reconcile for the good of the party and improve their chances in the general election. This year Democrats are energized by large primary turnouts and what they see as voters' weariness of President Bush.
"McCain has always been able to reach out to swing voters, independents and moderates, but he still needs the party's conservative base to win in the fall," said political strategist Dan Schnur, who worked on McCain's 2000 campaign.

Schnur, who is neutral in this race, said McCain's choice of a running mate would send "a strong signal to the base," and his continued emphasis on national security helps "because it's a policy area where he's in complete sync with conservative voters."

And some point out that McCain and conservatives agree on some core principles.
Lungren said that while the candidate's position on immigration reform and willingness to work with Democrats "irritates many conservatives, there is agreement on the war, the threat of Islamo-fascism and the need to hold the line on spending."

"As far as the talk show hosts, what they're saying is not evidently getting through to many voters," Lungren added.

"I think (critics) have made their case against me pretty eloquently," McCain said Wednesday, adding caustically, "if that's the right word." He said that Ronald Reagan tried to reach out to Democrats, as he has done.

"I do hope that at some point we would just calm down a little bit and see if there are areas that we can agree on for the good of the party and for the good of the country," McCain said.
The conservative blogosphere is alive with debate over what to do about McCain. Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, a McCain backer, suggested on Fox News that pressure would build on Romney and Huckabee to withdraw for the good of the party.

so fast, say other conservatives.

"The question is not whether conservatives can find a way to reconcile themselves to vote for McCain," wrote commentator Mark Tapscott. "That's just another way of saying the same old cliche that conservatives have no place to go. They do if they choose to, and how they choose will be determined now by McCain."

McCain has made an effort at reconciliation in recent days, and today he speaks to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, a gathering of activists that he skipped last year.

Tapscott said that when McCain speaks to the conservative group, "he must make it clear that he is the guy who needs them more than they need him."

points

Blogger Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters wrote that McCain "has to start negotiating for support in part on the terms of conservatives. He will likely do so on judicial nominations, pork-barrel spending and budget reductions."

But McCain's big win in California may offer a different model for victory in the fall, by attracting moderates, independents and enough conservatives to form a new majority. Bruce Cain, a University of California-Berkeley political scientist who has studied state politics, said California Republicans are conservatives - but also pragmatists who want to win. And he suspects the same may be true elsewhere.

The "Schwarzenegger model" of reaching out to moderates could work in other states, Cain said. And conservatives would also be highly motivated if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee.
"Nothing unites a group more than someone they regard as such a negative figure," Cain said.

Source: mercury.com

Italy looks likely to hold early election

2008-02-04T19:13:00.000-08:00

By Silvia Aloisi and Robin Pomeroy

ROME, Feb 5 (Reuters) - Italy seems likely to call an election by mid-April after the Senate speaker gave up trying to form a temporary government to end a political standoff triggered by Romano Prodi's resignation as prime minister.

Centre-right opposition leader Silvio Berlusconi wants an early election because he is riding high in opinion polls and hopes to return to the office of prime minister he has held twice before.
Many economists say another government elected under current electoral rules will prove just as unstable as Prodi's, and some worry another free-spending Berlusconi government will undo the centre-left's work on cutting the budget deficit.

Senate speaker Franco Marini, who had been asked by President Giorgio Napolitano to seek cross-party backing for an interim administration to reform the electoral system ahead of an election, said on Monday there was no such support.

"I could not find a significant majority on a precise electoral reform," Marini said as he left Napolitano's office after handing back his mandate on forming a new government.
Napolitano appears to have little choice now but to dissolve parliament and call an election. He could theoretically ask Marini or someone else to try again but that is considered unlikely as the centre-right is sure to reject further advances.

"We hope ... the head of state will call elections immediately because the country quickly needs an efficient government to solve its grave problems," Berlusconi, a 71-year-old media tycoon, told reporters.

Business leaders have pleaded for stability since Italy's 61st post-war government collapsed last month after Prodi lost a confidence vote in parliament following defections from his centre-left coalition. He had been in power for only 20 months.

Source: Reuters

Candidates Blitz States as Big Day Looms

2008-02-04T18:56:00.000-08:00

By MICHAEL COOPER

The presidential candidates from both parties campaigned frenetically on Monday, making their final pushes with a series of rallies and blitzes of television commercials for a last bout of November-style campaigning before more than 20 states vote in Tuesday’s virtual national primary.

Several candidates — including Senators Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain — focused their time on the delegate-rich Northeast. But the tightening race in the biggest prize of all, California, was underscored when Mitt Romney and Mr. McCain both made changes to their schedules to add 11th-hour visits there.

The final day of campaigning before Feb. 5 showed how the dynamic of the race had shifted in the last month. Mrs. Clinton, who was long considered the Democratic favorite, found herself locked in a series of races in several states with Mr. Obama. On the Republican side, which only weeks ago had seemed wide open, Mr. McCain sought to ride his recent victories and rising poll numbers to the nomination, while Mr. Romney sought to win enough delegates to keep his campaign alive.

Mr. Romney spent much of the day trying to cast doubts on Mr. McCain’s conservatism — a theme that echoed loudly among conservative talk-radio commentators suspicious of his past positions on taxes and immigration.

“We’re going to hand the liberals in our party a little surprise,” Mr. Romney boasted in Atlanta, predicting victories in California and other states.

Mr. McCain responded with a national television advertisement showing Mr. Romney, in a previous campaign, saying: “Look, I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush. I’m not trying to return to Reagan-Bush.” The announcer says: “Mitt Romney was against Ronald Reagan before he was for him.”

The candidates embarked on a final frenzy of campaigning. Mr. Romney began a grueling 24-hour tour to try to block Mr. McCain from sewing up the Republican nomination. Mrs. Clinton had an emotional moment during a nostalgic visit to Yale, where she graduated from law school 35 years ago. And, in the psychological warfare department, Mr. McCain swaggered into the heart of Romney country with a rally at Faneuil Hall in Boston, while Mr. Obama held a rally in East Rutherford, N.J., across the Hudson River from Mrs. Clinton’s home state of New York.

“We have a real choice to make,” Mr. Obama said at a rally at the Izod Center in the Meadowlands, where he filled about a third of the seats for a rally where he appeared with Senator Edward M. Kennedy. “It is a choice, not between black and white, not between genders and regions or religions, but a choice between the past and the future. And if I’m running against John McCain, I want to be making the argument for the future, not for the past. I want to be going forwards, not backwards.”

Mr. Obama was accompanied by Robert DeNiro (his tough-guy endorser, in a year in which Mike Huckabee got a boost from Chuck Norris and Mr. McCain from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California).

Mr. Obama also received a free publicity boost by way of a music video created in his honor that spread in viral fashion throughout the Web with an intensity that was high even by the standards of this Internet-focused campaign season. The video was created by the singer will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas, and featured celebrities singing along to Mr. Obama’s New Hampshire concession speech on Jan. 8. Released on Friday, the digital video had already been viewed more than one million times on YouTube alone by Monday evening.

Mrs. Clinton — whose emotional, eye-welling response to a question just before the New Hampshire primary was credited by some analysts with humanizing her and helping her win there — showed emotion during a campaign stop on Monday morning at the Yale Child Study Center, where she had volunteered as a law student.

“I said I would not tear up — already, we’re not on that path,” a moist-eyed Mrs. Clinton said, drawing laughs after Penn Rhodeen, a lawyer who worked with her as a student, recalled the day she showed up on his doorstep in purple bell bottoms.

Later, at a rally in Worcester, Mass., Mrs. Clinton took aim at Mr. Obama. “You know, change is hard,” she said, in a reference to Mr. Obama’s frequent campaign message. “I wish all you had to do was just say it’s going to happen and it’ll materialize. But it’s going to take hard work. It’s going to take every one of us.”

The Obama-Clinton competition over fund-raising has also intensified as both candidates seek fresh support from donors. But it appears that Mr. Obama has been out front recently: His campaign reported raising $32 million in January, while Terry McAuliffe, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman, said on MSNBC on Monday that her team raised about $13.5 million last month.

And other groups are pumping money into this election cycle. A new group, financed in part by the billionaire George Soros and called Fund for America, has raised $6.75 million on behalf of Democratic candidates and the party. The group will be working outside of the official Democratic candidates and campaigns.

Mr. McCain, buoyed by strong national poll numbers, brimmed with confidence at his rally in Boston. Asked by a reporter about his foray into Massachusetts, where Mr. Romney was governor, Mr. McCain, Republican of Arizona, said: “He’s certainly welcome to come to Arizona if he likes. The weather’s very nice.”

Mr. McCain went on to campaign in New Jersey and in Grand Central Terminal in New York, where he collected the endorsement of George E. Pataki, the former governor.

Mr. Romney, stumping in the South, tried to seize on doubts about Mr. McCain’s conservatism. In Nashville, hoarse from the frenzied race to the finish, Mr. Romney led a call-and-response about Mr. McCain’s deviations from Republican orthodoxy that has become a standard part of his stump speech.

“Do you want a nominee who voted against the Bush tax cuts?” Mr. Romney asked.
“Nooo!” the crowd roared back.

Later, in Atlanta, Mr. Romney added another one about Mr. McCain’s vote in the Senate against a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

The questions have resonated on talk radio. Rush Limbaugh, who has been especially vocal in his criticisms of Mr. McCain in recent days, complained that Mr. McCain had “stabbed his own party in the back” on several occasions.

And Mr. Romney, who was himself considered a moderate when he was governor of Massachusetts, was challenged on his own conservative credentials by Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, who campaigned in the South and who called himself a candidate who “hasn’t just decided this year where he stands on the Second Amendment,” an apparent dig at Mr. Romney.

Mr. Romney seemed pleased to have drawn Mr. McCain back to California; after Mr. Romney added a Monday-night stop there, Mr. McCain added a stop on Tuesday. The Romney campaign is focusing its television advertising budget on California and cable television, deciding against running commercials in Missouri and Georgia.

“I understand that we’ve now brought Senator McCain back to California, too,” Mr. Romney said at a news conference in Nashville on Monday morning. “He’s like, ‘Oh wow, Romney’s there. I better go back there and see if I can’t shore up the race there.’ But he’s sliding in California.”

Reporting was contributed by Julie Bosman from New Haven; Jeff Zeleny from East Rutherford, N.J.; Michael Luo from Nashville; Elisabeth Bumiller, Patrick Healy, Leslie Wayne and Jim Rutenberg from New York City; and Ariel Alexovich from Washington.

Source: Politics

Manning Keeps Cool, and Keeps a Drive Alive

2008-02-04T06:46:00.000-08:00

By JOE LAPOINTE

GLENDALE, Ariz. — After winning the Most Valuable Player award in Super Bowl XLII for leading the Giants to a 17-14 victory over the New England Patriots, quarterback Eli Manning seemed as composed as he did on the field when he brought his team from behind twice in the fourth quarter with drives that ended in touchdown passes.

A smile played about his face, which looks younger than his 27 years, and he kept fighting it off the way he dodged tacklers, especially those who almost sacked him late in the game in the moments before he completed that 32-yard pass to David Tyree that kept alive a drive that will live forever in Giants’ lore.

Manning did not want to brag, but sometimes a man just has to tell the truth. “You can’t write a better script,” he said. “You’re going up against a team that’s unbeaten, the best team in the league at the time, and we beat them. We played better than they did.”

Manning is now the second brother in the family to win the Super Bowl and its M.V.P. trophy. His older brother Peyton did it last year with the Indianapolis Colts. Their father, Archie Manning, also was an N.F.L. quarterback, but his teams never won this game.

“I told him I that I was proud of him, I couldn’t be prouder,” Archie Manning said. When asked whether he expected such success for both of his sons, Archie said: “I never thought about them even playing college ball, much less pro football, much less winning Super Bowls or M.V.P.’s. It wasn’t in the plan.”

More than Eli’s 5-yard scoring pass early in the fourth quarter to Tyree, more than his 13-yard scoring pass to Plaxico Burress in the final minute, the play that will be replayed and discussed endlessly came when Manning scrambled on third-and-5 from the Giants’ 44-yard line with about a minute left.

It seemed as if he was about to be sacked, and that would have been devastating. Would-be tacklers grabbed at him, clutching his shirt and tugging it. “You try to get small and see if you can squeak through,” Manning said.

He kept moving to his left, ducked out of a scrum, found open space and launched a soaring pass toward Tyree at the Patriots’ 25-yard line. “The ball hung up there,” Manning said with great understatement.

Tyree leaped in the air and brought it down with his hands, which pressed the ball against his helmet. The Giants had a first down with 59 seconds left. Four plays later they scored to beat a team that was 18-0. “I’m really happy for the kid; No. 10 proved his mettle,” Tyree said. “Everyone tried to put him to shame the past three years. He’s always cool. We love him. He was a shining leader today.”

Tyree was not speaking with hyperbole. Until the end of the regular season, Manning was doubted by some teammates, fans and news media skeptics.

Peyton Manning, referring to his brother’s pivotal play, said: “The scramble will go down as one of the greatest plays of all time. It was fun to say you were here to witness it, and the fact that I’m related to the quarterback who threw it makes it pretty neat as well.”

Was Eli Manning really a first-rate N.F.L. quarterback? Would he ever be as good as his brother? In the playoffs, against Tampa Bay, Dallas and Green Bay, Manning seemed to find his stride and his teammates could sense it, too.

Center Shaun O’Hara called Manning unstoppable and said that before the final drive, Manning stalked the sideline telling his teammates that this is what they play for. Regarding Manning’s escape of the sack on third down, O’Hara said: “I saw Eli break a tackle, which I don’t think he has ever done before. It was very Steve Young- and Joe Montana-like. I don’t know how he had the composure.”

Michael Strahan, the defensive end, said: “He’s not Peyton Manning’s little brother. He’s not Eli who slumps. He’s a champion.” Referring to his third-down scramble and pass, Strahan said: “That play alone took a few years off my life.”

Manning completed 19 of 34 passes for 255 yards and 2 touchdowns. He had one interception, but it was among the three balls that his receivers caught and dropped.

More than his statistics, however, Manning seemed to show poise under pressure, which is often the difference between good players and great ones.

When asked about the final drive, when his team trailed by 4 points and knew that a field goal was of no use, Manning let that smile play again across his face.

“This is where you want to be, honestly,” he said. “You kind of like being down 4. You have to score a touchdown.”

Source: Pro Football

Energetic Mika erupts in colorful glitz

2008-02-04T06:41:00.000-08:00

By Sarah Rodman

If energetic glee, unironic thumping disco beats, and unshakable melodies were valued commodities in the current US musical mainstream then Mika's stock would be as prized as that of someone like John Mayer.

That it isn't mattered not a whit to the 2,800 able-voiced members of the audience that packed the Orpheum Theatre Friday night to champion and nearly drown out the Beirut-born, London-bred pop singer, whose debut album "Life in Cartoon Motion" has become an international hit.
From the liberating opener "Relax (Take it Easy)" to the world's-best-birthday-party meets new-year's-celebration giddiness of closer "Lollipop" Mika proved as tireless a performer as he is a gifted melody-maker. The diverse crowd matched the booty-moving, call-and-response rhapsody of the singer-songwriter and his five-person band from start to finish, gamely responding, even when Mika called in an increasingly cartoonish, yet impressively tuneful falsetto.

The theatrical proceedings - like the zaftig go-go gals hoofing it up during "Big Girl (You are Beautiful)" and later falling snow, manic trash can drum solos, giant puppets, blow-up dolls and headdresses - mixed camp and rock concert glitz but never obscured the songs or Mika's sincerity in delivering them.

A throbbing, revved-up cover of Eurythmics' "Missionary Man" augmented album tracks like the bouncing "Grace Kelly" and new similarly candy-coated tunes.

Whether pounding on his keyboard while banging his curly head of teen heartthrob-worthy locks or shimmying across the stage to piercing shrieks - a shirtless interlude predictably raised the decibels - Mika was clearly enjoying himself. He crowed about the upgrade in venue size since his last visit to the Hub and basked in the adoring response to "Billy Brown," a song concerning a man's questions over his sexual identity that Mika was told by his record label would never fly in the United States.

The night climaxed in an explosion of multicolored confetti, streamers and balloons in arena-size portions with the band dressed up in furry animal costumes dancing onstage with what seemed like half the audience who left with cotton candy-sated smiles like kids departing the circus.

© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.

Source: boston.com