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RENO, Nev. – Luke Babbitt scored 17 points to lead Nevada past Wagner 74-61 on Saturday.
Armon Johnson added 12 points and Brandon Fields and Joey Shaw added 11 each for the Wolf Pack (6-4).
Chris Martin had 21 points and Michael Orock 15 for the Seahawks (1-9).
Nevada led 34-32 with 19 minutes to play before Babbitt sparked a 20-8 run over the next eight minutes. His 3-pointer gave the Wolf Pack a 54-40 lead with 10:43 left.
The Wolf Pack's largest lead was 18 points, 63-45, with 6:56 left.
Wagner rallied against Nevada's reserves in the final three minutes, but could get no closer than eight points at 69-61 on a steal and layup by Martin with 1:52 left.

WASHINGTON – Sen. John McCain says he understands why Sarah Palin blacked out his name on a McCain campaign visor so she could avoid recognition while on vacation in Hawaii.
The Arizona Republican made the comments about his 2008 running mate on "Fox News Sunday."
Palin blacked out McCain's name with a felt marker recently, saying she is fond of McCain but wanted to travel "incognito."
McCain said Sunday he has no problems with the blacked-out name and he and his wife Cindy remain close to Sarah Palin and her husband after the presidential campaign.
"She is going to be a force in the Republican Party for a long time," he said. "And the hysterical attacks on her from the left continue to validate that."
But he jokingly questioned discussing Palin's visor when there are much bigger issues like climate change and health care to talk about.

For the MSX several sound upgrades, such as the Konami SCC, the Yamaha YM2413 (MSX-MUSIC) and Yamaha Y8950 (MSX-AUDIO, predecessor of the OPL3) and the OPL4-based Moonsound were released as well, each having its own characteristic chiptune sound.

The Game Boy and Nintendo Entertainment System do not have a separate sound chip but both instead use digital logic integrated on the main CPU.

Musical Greeting Cards

THURSDAY, Dec. 17 (HealthDay News) -- Among teenage girls living
in U.S. cities, about half acquire at least one of three common sexually
transmitted infections -- chlamydia, gonorrhea or trichomoniasis -- within
two years of becoming sexually active, a new study has found.

The study of 381 girls, aged 14 to 17, also found that it was common
for these patients to have repeated infections.

"Depending on the organism, within four to six months after treatment
of the previous infection, a quarter of the women were re-infected with
the same organism," Wanzhu Tu, associate professor of medicine at the
Indiana University School of Medicine and an investigator at the
Regenstrief Institute, said in a university news release.

Subsequent sexually transmitted infections (not necessarily the same
type) were diagnosed within two years after an initial sexually
transmitted infection in about 75 percent of the girls, and within four
years in 92 percent of the girls, according to the report in the December
issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

Tu and colleagues also found that screening for sexually transmitted
infections may not begin until several years after a girl begins sexual
activity, especially among those who become sexually active at a young
age.

"This is important because many clinicians are reluctant to address
sexual activity with younger teens, and may miss important prevention
opportunities," study senior author Dr. J. Dennis Fortenberry, a professor
of pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine, said in the
news release.

Screening of sexually active teen girls should begin within a year
after first intercourse and retesting of infected girls should be done
every three to four months, the researchers said.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has more
about
sexually transmitted infections.

NEW YORK – Dan and Dean Caten are loving this moment in the limelight.
The twin-brother team behind the fashion label Dsquared2 are on TV and the radio, they created concert costumes for Madonna and Britney Spears, and they'll be outfitting the headlining performers at the opening and closing ceremonies at the 2010 Winter Olympics. Earlier this year, they received a star on Canada's Walk of Fame — the only fashion designers to be honored alongside the likes of Michael J. Fox and Wayne Gretzky.
They have a collection of branded MAC cosmetics as well as eyewear and fragrance deals. But any time it seems success might go to their heads, they remember their modest Canadian roots and have a good chuckle.
Actually, they do more than chuckle, they crack each other up, communicating in shorthand that takes other people in the room a little while to understand.
"We are twins in every sense of the word," says Dan, who describes himself as the more approachable of the two — although he's also the one who'll crack the whip at work.
Dean claims he's "taller and thinner," sucking in his cheeks and striking a model-worthy pose.
Hysterics ensue.
They've been this close since the day they were born in 1964 in Willowdale, Ontario, and have wanted to work in fashion almost as long, Dean says. Family life was as ordinary as it could be in a household with nine kids, yet he and Dan always had an eye on a bigger picture that his family couldn't see — one that would take them to New York, Milan, Italy, and now London.
"It was normal people, growing up, just not us," Dean says. "We didn't quite fit in, but it was still fun."
Dan jumps in: "With five sisters, though, we did a lot of shopping, dressed them for a lot of proms and parties — and we dressed them! We could do it on a budget, which allowed us to be more creative, and they trusted us because they knew we knew better than them."
The way they tell it, they couldn't wait to start their careers. The first stop was a summer program at Parsons School of Design straight out of high school, but before they knew it they were back in Canada, coaxed by the owner of Ports International (now known as Ports 1961).
It was there that the Catens cut their technical teeth, learning how to cut a pattern, tailor a jacket and critique their own work. On a local scale of success, they were a hit — but the brothers weren't satisfied. It was going to be the European runway or bust.
"People say, `Why risk everything?' But I say, `Why not risk everything?'" Dan says.
"We chose Europe instead of New York," Dean adds, "because it was not so easy to come back home."
Still, they're proud of their Canadian roots: Maple leaves are incorporated into several designs each season.
They started in menswear in 1994 and added womenswear in 2003. Their runway shows are among the most elaborate and flashy on the Milan schedule with themes ranging from "Charlie's Angels" to "Mad Max."
Personally, they only wear clothes with the Dsquared2 label. "We're our own customer. We know what we want and need, so it's all from our heart and it works," Dean says.
(Dean has been known to act as the fitting model — even for the womenswear — because, he explains, no one else is available in the middle of the night when he does his best work. He says he has mastered high heels.)

The new spring collection has a campfire vibe, presented on the catwalk with "Delta Dawn" by Helen Reddy blaring through the speakers. "Deep down inside, we're a little `hick,'" Dan says with a smile.

Music is a key source of inspiration, the Catens say, and they put together the playlist for their runway shows as they're sketching styles. Their famous soundtracks led to XM Radio's "Dean and Dan On Air: Style in Stereo" and now they host Bravo's new "Launch My Line," which gives artistic professionals a chance to break into the fashion biz.

The Catens' personalities largely serve as the glue for the TV show.

"Not only are they super-credible, hot and talented designers, the idea of having identical twin brother designers as fashion hosts is as unique as they are," says Andy Cohen, senior vice president of original programming and development at Bravo. "Plus they're fun, fun, fun!"

When they have time for leisure remains a bit of a mystery, but, at least on this day, it seems they enjoy everything they do.

Between their day jobs as designers and moonlighting gigs as entertainers, they designed much of the interior and furniture of the home they moved into in London. They craft their own ad campaigns, and they joke — but not really — that they are toying with an album.

Still, they can't do it all.

"Don't ask me to tap dance, and Dean can't play hockey," Dan says. "But we can figure skate."

In a library, a general type of non-fiction book which provides information as opposed to telling a story, essay, commentary, or otherwise supporting a point of view, is often referred to as a reference book. A very general reference book, usually one-volume, with lists of data and information on many topics is called an almanac. An encyclopedia is a book or set of books designed to have more in-depth articles on many topics. A book listing words, their etymology, meanings, etc. is called a dictionary. A book which is a collection of maps is an atlas. A more specific reference book with tables or lists of data and information about a certain topic, often intended for professional use, is often called a handbook. Books which try to list references and abstracts in a certain broad area may be called an index, such as Engineering Index, or abstracts such as Chemical Abstracts, Biological Abstracts, etc.

Papyrus, a thick paper-like material made by weaving the stems of the papyrus plant, then pounding the woven sheet with a hammer-like tool, was used for writing in Ancient Egypt, perhaps as early as the First Dynasty, although the first evidence is from the account books of King Neferirkare Kakai of the Fifth Dynasty (about 2400 BC). Papyrus sheets were glued together to form a scroll. Tree bark such as lime (Latin liber, from there also library) and other materials were also used.

Photo Books

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – A Missouri teenager charged with killing a 9-year-old neighbor cannot get a fair trial in her home county because residents are biased against her, the teen's attorney said.
Alyssa Bustamante, 15, is to be tried in Cole County on charges of first-degree murder and armed criminal action in the Oct. 21 slaying of Elizabeth Olten. But her attorney wants the trial to be moved.
"The inhabitants of this county are so prejudiced against the defendant that a fair trial cannot be had in this county," public defender Jan King wrote in a change of venue motion dated Tuesday.
The Cole County prosecutor's office did not immediately return a phone call Wednesday. But Prosecutor Mark Richardson said last month that he would like Bustamante to be tried in the county seat of Jefferson City, which also is the state capital.
Bustamante has pleaded not guilty to Elizabeth's killing. But authorities say Bustamante confessed in a police interview to slaying Elizabeth because she wanted to know what it felt like to kill someone. They contend Bustamante strangled Elizabeth without provocation, stabbed her and cut her throat.
Hundreds of volunteers participated in a two-day search after Elizabeth disappeared before authorities say Bustamante led them to the fourth-grader's body in a wooded area near St. Martins, where both girls lived. The small town is just west of Jefferson City.
King cited the publicity generated both at the time of the crime and at Bustamante's indictment last month while asking Cole County Circuit Judge Patricia Joyce to transfer the case. He attached copies of online public comments made in response to news stories posted by the Jefferson City News Tribune and the New York Daily News.
Some of those comments refer to Bustamante as a "monster" and "inherently evil" and suggest she should be locked up for life. But it is not clear whether the people posting those comments live in Cole County, from where the jury pool normally would be drawn.
Besides allowing a case to be transferred to another county, Missouri law also allows a case to be tried in the county where the crime occurred with jurors who are brought in from other counties.
"Our belief is that the judge will make a decision that hopefully takes into account the demands upon the witnesses and victim's family," Richardson said last month.

Commercial LED Lighting

Lighting is the deliberate application of light to achieve some aesthetic or practical effect. Lighting includes use of both artificial light sources such as lamps and natural illumination of interiors from daylight. Daylighting (through windows, skylights, etc.) is often used as the main source of light during daytime in buildings given its low cost. Artificial lighting represents a major component of energy consumption, accounting for a significant part of all energy consumed worldwide.

Artificial lighting is most commonly provided today by electric lights, but gas lighting, candles, or oil lamps were used in the past, and still are used in certain situations. Proper lighting can enhance task performance or aesthetics, while there can be energy wastage and adverse health effects of lighting. Indoor lighting is a form of fixture or furnishing, and a key part of interior design. Lighting can also be an intrinsic component of landscaping.

DENVER – Federal officials have agreed to review air pollution standards for oil and gas operations to decide if they need to be updated.
The proposed settlement of a complaint by two environmental groups calls for the Environmental Protection Agency to start the review in January 2011. The settlement needs court approval.
WildEarth Guardians and the San Juan Citizens Alliance filed a complaint in January saying the EPA hasn't updated air quality standards for oil and gas development despite increased activity. The groups also want the EPA to set standards for pollutants not currently regulated, including greenhouse gases.
The Denver-based Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States, a trade group, says the industry has worked hard to reduce its emissions.

BILLINGS, Mont. – Henry Armstrong's family has farmed the same patch of central Montana land for 100 years, hanging on through the Depression, low wheat prices and the ever-present risk that the next generation would move on.
Armstrong, 82, lives in the same house near Geraldine that his grandfather built and lived in as a homesteader. It's a little bigger now, but lonelier since his wife, Norma, died about six years ago.
"As long as I live, I've got rights to live here," he said. "The one thing about this that I've been especially proud of is we were able to make it these 100 years on relatively small acreage."
Historians say tales like Armstrong's are becoming increasingly rare.
As employment pressures and the lure of faraway opportunities split apart agricultural families, many farms and ranches have been consolidated, sliced into subdivisions or converted into oversized estates for the wealthy.
But in a bid to capture and preserve a slice of the state's past, the Montana Historical Society has started a drive to identify families that have farmed or ranched the same land for a century or more.
The Centennial Farm and Ranch Program was created under a bill passed by the 2009 Legislature. The intent is to honor Montana's heritage while compiling family histories to be archived and eventually compiled for the society's Web site.
Ellen Baumler, an interpretive historian who is helping lead the effort, said it's unknown how many of the state's farms and ranches fit the bill.
The number of agriculture operations in the state peaked in 1920, at about 57,000. It's now fallen to about half that number and industry representatives say the chances of a rebound are slim.
Despite the nationwide decline in property values, prices in Montana remain relatively high due to wealthy outsiders willing to pay a premium on acreage for their vacation or retirement homes.
Throw in the huge capital costs of starting a farm from scratch — a new grain combine can cost $200,000 or more — and "it's almost impossible to get started in agriculture these days," said Scott Kulbeck, director of membership development for the Montana Farm Bureau.
Agriculture was booming in Montana when Henry Armstrong's ancestors arrived from Iowa in October 1909. His father and grandparents were intent on eking out a living on government land that would become theirs if they were willing to stay for at least five years.
Since their arrival, Montana's average farm has increased from about 500 acres to more than 2,000, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Armstrong's family farm has also grown, from the combined 640 acres acquired by his grandfather and father through the Homestead Act, to roughly 1,400 acres today.
Still, Armstrong said he never felt the need to turn it into an industrial-sized operation, even if that meant taking on work as a crop insurance adjuster to make ends meet.
His ancestors and offspring have done the same. His grandfather was a county commissioner and his son's wife worked for 30 years as a schoolteacher.
Armstrong kept working the farm until last year, when he finally sold it to his son, Stuart, now 61 years old. Whether the next generation will maintain the family farm is unclear. Henry Armstrong's two daughters both moved to Oregon and have no inclination to return. Stuart Armstrong's daughter lives in Seattle.
The best chance at carrying on the family legacy is Henry Armstrong's 20-year-old grandson, Alan.

At a recent Montana Farmer's Union convention, the Armstrong family was honored for its many years farming in the state. Armstrong brought Alan and later said the event had piqued his grandson's interest.

"But right now he's searching around. He's started school," he said.

Armstrong recalled his own urge to strike out and build a different life, when he was still a teenager. It came after World War II when he had served stateside as a Marine in San Diego and North Carolina.

"When I came home the farming didn't look all that great to me. I really wasn't a farmer to start with," he said. "But I decided, my dad's getting older and it looked like the thing to do. I finally learned to like it."

___

On the Net:

Montana Historical Society: http://www.his.state.mt.us

Montana Farm Bureau: http://www.mfbf.org

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran's announcement of plans to build 10 more uranium enrichment facilities is largely bluster after a strong rebuke from the U.N.'s nuclear agency, analysts said Monday. Nonetheless, the defiance is fueling calls among Western allies for new punitive sanctions to freeze Iran's nuclear program.
U.S. and European officials were swift to condemn the plans, warning that Iran risked sinking ever deeper into isolation. Iran responded that it felt forced to move forward with the plans after the International Atomic Energy Agency passed a resolution Friday demanding that it halt all enrichment activities.
Iran's bold announcement Sunday appears to be largely impossible to achieve as long as sanctions continue to throw up roadblocks and force Iran to turn to black markets and smuggling for nuclear equipment, said nuclear expert David Albright.
"They can't build those plants. There's no way," he said. "They have sanctions to overcome, they have technical problems. They have to buy things overseas ... and increasingly it's all illegal."
A more worrisome escalation in the standoff would be if Iran reduced its cooperation with the IAEA, as some Iranian officials have threatened to do if the West continues its pressure. The U.N. inspectors and monitoring are the world's only eyes on Tehran's program. The head of Iran's nuclear agency on Monday ruled out an even more drastic move, saying Tehran does not intend to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Enrichment is at the center of the standoff between Iran and the West because it can be used both to produce material needed for atomic weapons as well as fuel for nuclear power plants. Iran insists it only wants the latter.
New enrichment plants, on the scale of the one Iran already operates in the town of Natanz, would be extremely expensive, take years to build and would be difficult to stock with centrifuges and other necessary equipment while sanctions are in place, Albright said.
Further dimming the credibility of the plan, 10 new facilities on the scale of Natanz would put Iran in league with the production levels of any of Europe's major commercial enrichment suppliers, said Albright, president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security.
"And also they don't have enough uranium. They would need a massive amount of uranium," he said.
A diplomat from one of the six world powers attempting to engage Iran on its nuclear program described the Iranian announcement as a "political move" with little immediate significance beyond demonstrating Tehran's defiance.
The diplomat, who follows the nuclear dossier the IAEA has gathered on Iran, noted that Tehran appears to have significant problems with its present enrichment program, to the point that it cannot even keep the centrifuges it has set up at Natanz running without breakdowns.
The diplomat demanded anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on the issue.
Still, the announcement is of major concern because it could signal an intention to put up numerous decoy sites to deceive the outside world, while building perhaps a few secret military enrichment sites on a small scale that could be put to use in weapons production if Tehran decides to do go down that path, Albright said.
Such concerns were heightened with the recent discovery that Iran had a second, previously unknown enrichment facility burrowed partway into a mountain near the holy city of Qom.
"I tend to think that this Qom site was probably meant to be a clandestine facility for breakout that they wanted built for nuclear weapons," said Albright. "And now that it's been exposed they may want to replace it."
Iran's announcement triggered calls for new penalties that Albright said could evolve into a "mini-cold war strategy" to further isolate and contain Iran while holding out a hand for negotiations.
The United States' ambassador to the U.N., Susan Rice, said Iran's plans would be "completely inappropriate" and would further isolate it from the world.
In Paris, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner called Iran's decision "a bit childish."

"Iran is playing an extremely dangerous game," Kouchner said on France's RTL radio Monday. "There's no coherence in all this, other than a gut reaction."

The French defense minister, Herve Morin, said the international community should "probably commit toward new economic sanctions against Iran."

Iran and the top powers at the U.N. are deadlocked over a U.N.-drafted proposal for Iran to send much of its enriched uranium abroad, which the West seeks because it would at least temporary leave Tehran unable to develop a nuclear bomb. So far Iran has balked at the offer. The unusually strong IAEA censure of Iran over enrichment was a sign of the West's growing impatience with its defiance.

Iranian Vice President Ali Akbar Salehi, who heads the nuclear program, told state radio that the decision to build the new uranium enrichment facilities was necessary to respond to the resolution.

"We had no intention of building many facilities like the Natanz site, but apparently the West doesn't want to understand Iran's peaceful message," Salehi said.

Salehi said Iran would not go so far as to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, under which Iran is subject to oversight by the U.N. nuclear agency.

"If we wanted to obtain nuclear weapons, we would have pulled out of NPT ... Iran doesn't want to withdraw from the treaty," the official IRNA news agency quoted him as saying Monday.

Iran's parliament speaker Ali Larijani insisted "a diplomatic opportunity" was still possible "under which Iran will continue its (nuclear) work under international surveillance."

But a day earlier, Larijani warned that Iran could reduce its cooperation with the IAEA if the West continues its pressure and doesn't compromise.

___

Keyser reported from Cairo. Associated Press Writers George Jahn in Vienna and Ingrid Rousseau in Paris contributed to this report.

KANO, Nigeria (AFP) –
Despite huge natural resources and vast tracts of arable land, Nigeria, sub-Saharan Africa?s second largest economy and the continent's most populous nation, largely relies on imports.

The once agro-driven and food self-reliant economy, Nigeria has in recent decades relied more and more on oil, becoming a net importer of even the most basic goods.

"We import almost everything, from the important items such as food and medicines to the frivolous ones such as toothpick and razor blade," said Ibrahim Ayagi, economic adviser to former president Olusegun Obasanjo.

"We have become a classical importer nation," lamented Ayagi, ex-chairman of a government think tank, the National Economic Intelligence Committee (NEIC).

In 2007, Nigeria spent about 39 billion dollars (26 billion euros) on imports according to the World Bank, while the CIA factbook puts the value of imports for 2008 at 46 billion dollars.

Agriculture Minister Abba Sayyadi Ruma recently said a billion dollars is spent on fruit juice imports yearly. In a bid to encourage local production, the government in October banned the consumption of foreign alcohol at official events as it launched an ambitious 'Made-in-Nigeria' campaign.

Manufacturers see imports as more profitable than producing in a country desperately starved of electricity.

The discovery 50 years ago, of oil, which provides the country with 95 percent of its foreign exchange earnings and some 80 percent of budgetary income, is seen as largely responsible for some of Nigeria's woes.

About 70 percent of Nigeria?s 150 million people engage in subsistence farming and before the oil boom in the 1970s, the country grew enough to feed itself and export surplus.

Agriculture then accounted for nearly 60 percent of GDP, but this has tumbled to just over 30 percent.

"A country?s economy is gauged by its GDP. Its volume of production determines its economic growth and the fact that we don?t produce much explains our economic woes," Abdullahi Adamu, head of National Agricultural Foundation of Nigeria said.

He said only half of arable land is under cultivation, suggesting 90 million Nigerians are food insecure.

Nigeria used to rely on cash crops for its foreign exchange earnings with cocoa, rubber, cotton and groundnuts as its major export earners but with the discovery of oil in the 1950s, crude export took over as the major export earner.

Easy oil money lured the government to abandon industrial development and concentrate on oil export, leading to the "national culture of oil export for commodities import," Ayagi said.

The country now ranks as the world?s eighth largest oil producer with an estimated daily output of around two million barrels per day. But it even imports most of the refined oil as its refineries are ailing.

"The problem started with the discovery of oil and worsened over time to this moment where we virtually import everything," said Ayagi, also an economics professor.

The non-oil sector accounts for 3.9 percent of GDP, according to the country's statistical office. The World Bank put that figure at 2.6 percent in 2007.

Nigeria grapples with woeful power shortages due to dilapidated equipment and corruption. It needs a minimum of 20,000 megawatts but currently generates some 3,000 megawatts, according to National Electricity Regulatory Commission.

"Many factory owners have abandoned their factories for imports, particularly from Asia," said Ali Madugu of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria in Kano.

Umar Sani Marshall is one of such manufacturer-turned importer. He abandoned his pasta and biscuits factory in Kano and turned to automobile and electronics imports from Asia.

"To operate my factory I needed to spend 10,000 dollars every week to power my machines, which translated into 40,000 dollars a month. You can?t make any profit with such ridiculous overhead cost," Marshall said as he gave an AFP reporter a tour of his dusty and desolate factory.

"I can make a fortune from 40,000 dollars worth of imported goods," Marshall said with a wink.

NEW YORK – Sarah Palin said in an interview broadcast Tuesday that a 2012 presidential bid is "not on my radar," but wouldn't rule out playing some role in the next presidential election.
"My ambition, if you will, my desire is to help our country in whatever role that may be, and I cannot predict what that will be, what doors will be open in the year 2012," she told Barbara Walters.
When asked whether she'd play a major role, the former Republican vice presidential candidate replied that "if people will have me, I will."
Palin is making the rounds to promote her new book, "Going Rogue," which came out Tuesday. On Monday, she appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show."
Palin said she's gotten plenty of offers during the past few months, including to open up her family for a reality show, that she has rejected. She also said she wasn't sure whether a talk show would be best for her family.
"I'd probably rather write than talk," she told Walters.
The former Alaska governor said she'd rate President Barack Obama's performance a 4 out of 10. She criticized the president for his handling of the economy and for "dithering" on national security questions.
"There are a lot of decisions being made that I — and probably the majority of Americans — are not impressed with right now," she said on ABC. She said Obama's Nobel Peace Prize was "premature."
Palin also discussed David Letterman, whom she criticized for a sexually suggestive jokes made at the expense of her teenage daughter in June. Letterman eventually apologized to Palin.
Palin told Walters she has ruled out an appearance on Letterman's late night TV show. "I don't think that I'd want to boost his ratings," she said. "I do want him to sell my book, though I hope he keeps it up."
The title of Palin's book refers to a phrase John McCain's campaign used to describe his vice presidential running mate going off message. In the book, she criticizes the people who ran McCain's campaign and says she wished she had been allowed to speak more freely. But she told Walters the outcome probably would not have been different if she had.
"The economy tanked," she said. "(The) electorate was ready, sincerely, for change."
On the controversy about the $150,000 spent on her wardrobe by the campaign, Palin said there was a double standard: No one ever questions male candidates where their shoes or suits came from, she said. In the end, she added: "The clothes all went back. They were never my clothes."
Despite the internal squabbling and ultimate loss, Palin said she would go through the experience again. "(I) would do it again in a heartbeat," she told Walters.
And though she backed the first federal bailout, Palin says she would not support a second. "That did not put our economy back on the right track. So we learn from our mistakes."
During her interview with Winfrey, which was taped last week, Palin said that it's heartbreaking to see the road that Levi Johnston, the father of her grandson, has taken and that the soon-to-be Playgirl model hasn't seen his baby in a while.
The new memoir doesn't mention Johnston, who has sparred repeatedly with his former mother-in-law-to-be. When Winfrey asked about Johnston, Palin said she didn't think "a national television show is the place to discuss some of the things he's doing and saying."
But Palin went on to say she finds it "a bit heartbreaking to see the road that he is on right now" and that "it's not a healthy place to be."

Palin also said Johnston remains a member of the family and that they can work out any troubles. She said she prays for him and that he has an "open invitation" to Thanksgiving dinner.

Winfrey began the interview by asking Palin if she felt snubbed at not getting an invitation to "The Oprah Winfrey Show" last year. Winfrey said she didn't have any candidates on her Chicago-based show during the campaign because of her support for President Barack Obama.

Palin said she didn't feel snubbed and told Winfrey, "No offense to you, but it wasn't the center of my universe."

___

AP Writer Caryn Rousseau in Chicago contributed to this report.

___

On the Net:

http://www.abcnews.com

http://www.oprah.com

WASHINGTON (AFP) –
A drug that failed to fight the blues could be the female answer to the little blue pill Viagra, the lead North American investigator analysing tests of the drug said Tuesday.

Women who took the drug flibanserin when it was being tested as an anti-depressant said it didn't help them beat the glums, but did give them "an increase in libido that they liked," John Thorp, one of the investigators analyzing data from three clinical trials of the drug, told AFP.

Lack of desire is the most common sexual problem in women aged 30 to 60, just as erectile dysfunction, for which Viagra is one of a choice of treatments, is the most common sexual disorder among men in the same age bracket, Thorp said.

"Men remain interested but can't act or perform properly and women lose interest," said Thorp.

"So where Viagra and other erectile dysfunction medications work in the blood supply, flibanserin works in the brain," he said.

In the light of the women's reactions to flibanserin, the German drug company that had first tested the drug as a treatment for depression, Boehringer Ingelheim, several years ago began exploring the possibilities of it being the active ingredient in the female answer to Viagra.

Clinical trials were held in Canada, Europe and the United States to test the drug's efficacy in raising the level of sexual desire in women.

Nearly 2,000 pre-menopausal women were given flibanserin or a placebo for 24 weeks and asked to report back to researchers or make diary entries on six variables, including the number of satisfactory sexual encounters they had and their level of sexual desire.

The studies found that 100 milligrams a day of flibanserin resulted in "significant improvements" in the two variables.

Flibanserin is currently an investigational drug and is only available to women taking part in clinical trials.

KUWAIT CITY (AFP) –
Kuwait's Oil Minister Sheikh Ahmad Abdullah al-Sabah said on Tuesday OPEC will leave its production unchanged at its meeting next month, adding that current oil price was "comfortable."

"Nothing. (Quota will remain) as is," the minister told reporters when asked if the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) could alter its production quota at its December 22 meeting in Angola.

"Seventy-five to 80 dollars a barrel is a good and comfortable price," the minister said.

His comments match those of OPEC president Jose Maria Botelho de Vasconcelos, who told reporters on the sidelines of a conference on Gulf energy security in Abu Dhabi that oil at 75 to 80 dollars a barrel "is a good price... for the recovery of the world economy."

But the Kuwaiti minister said that if the oil price rose to around 100 dollars a barrel "at that time we should have another discussion."

Sheikh Ahmad said demand for the crude "is picking up everywhere."

"There is ample supply," on the markets, he added.

Asked about the indications of the oil price for 2010, the minister said that it was early to judge.

"This will depend on the (global) economic recovery. Maybe this (price rise) is the effect of stimulus packages. Let's give it more time," he said.

Oil fell slightly in Asian trade on Tuesday after overnight gains spurred by a weak dollar and hopes of improved energy demand amid a global recovery.

New York's main contract, light sweet crude for December delivery eased 20 cents to 78.70 dollars a barrel.

Brent North Sea crude for January delivery fell 32 cents to 78.44 dollars a barrel.

Kuwait the fourth-largest producer of OPEC, a 13-member cartel of oil-rich nations, and is pumping just over 2.2 million barrels per day.

Charlie Crist is getting killed by a hug.
The Republican governor is being bombarded with images of him hugging President Barack Obama when he was in Florida to pitch his $787 billion economic stimulus plan earlier this year.
In just the past two weeks, that hug has appeared in an ad by the conservative Club for Growth attacking Crist, in a Democratic National Committee e-mail highlighting his recent assertion that he actually didn’t “endorse” the stimulus bill and in headlines all over Florida, including one Wednesday that read: “Charlie Crist needs to figure out a way to undo a hug.”
It will only get worse.
“These kinds of images can be deadly,” said Republican strategist Mark McKinnon. “Circumstances and context don’t matter. People impose their own meaning and interpretations. And it’s impossible to undo.”
It is one of the oldest and simplest forms of affection. It’s spanned cultures and religions and gone without stigma for generations. In politics, though, it’s never that simple. And as people, and politicians, have become more comfortable with the hug — particularly the “man hug” (always with a handshake in between to keep the chests from touching) — a downside of this friendly gesture has emerged.
Crist, who until recently maintained untouchable approval ratings, is now getting a taste of what a string of politicians over the past decade have learned the hard way: You’ve got to watch whom you hug.
In other words, political PDAs can be career killers.
Sometimes the hug comes and goes (Hillary Clinton and Yasser Arafat’s wife). Other times, it becomes such a fixture in a campaign that it indelibly labels a candidate (John McCain and George W. Bush).
The hug is most dangerous when it reinforces a narrative that’s already resonating with voters.
Take Crist. It’s not only that his Obama hug feeds into the widespread distrust of him among conservative Florida Republicans and allows his U.S. Senate primary opponent, Marco Rubio, to paint him as a liberal. Crist’s bipartisan embrace also comes at a time when there is a mounting effort among some in the GOP to drive out Republican candidates who aren’t seen as conservative enough.
Democratic strategist Chris Lehane called Crist’s bipartisan hug a “twofer.”
“This hurts him,” he said.
Roger Handberg, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida, put it more starkly: “What’s Charlie Crist’s hug of Obama going to do for him?” he asked. “Probably get him defeated.”
Handberg predicted that Rubio will “beat him to death with the picture.”
The hug attack is fairly new. That it exists at all indicates a cultural shift. As Lehane noted, it’s hard to imagine John F. Kennedy publicly hugging fellow politicians, as the macho cast of the HBO series “Entourage” does.
Crist has tried to shrug off the hug. “I’m a civil guy,” he explained when the gesture started to creep up as an issue.
But civil translates in civics, not in politics, where spontaneous moments of seemingly innocuous public displays of affection can come back to haunt someone.

In the past few election cycles, the hug has done its share of damage.

Ned Lamont was a political novice in 2006 when he ran a successful primary challenge against Sen. Joe Lieberman that was essentially based on the image of the veteran Connecticut Democrat being embraced by President George W. Bush after the 2005 State of the Union address. Bush even appeared to give Lieberman a peck on the cheek.

Lieberman’s embrace of the embattled Republican president played into the already-prevailing notion that he was out of touch with his liberal New England constituents.

Lamont supporters distributed a campaign button showing the moment, labeling it “the kiss.” After former President Bill Clinton campaigned in Connecticut for Lieberman, the senator’s camp made a button showing Clinton with his arm around Lieberman, labeling it “the hug.” And Lieberman held on to win as an independent.

But even embracing the wrong politician during a better time can be deadly. And Crist needs to look no further than his home state to see the hazards of a hug.

McCain’s embrace of Bush at a rally in Pensacola, Fla., in 2004 was meant to signal that the two former rivals had buried the hatchet after their bitter 2000 primary. But the moment was so awkward and strained that it seemed less than believable.

Then, in 2008, the Bush-McCain hug was splashed on billboards and in television ads. Just before the Republican National Convention last year, a Democratic Party spokesman said the image was a key part of a plan to “spend every day looking for every opportunity” to draw the connection between McCain and Bush. It certainly didn’t help McCain with independent voters who were down on Bush — and who flocked to Obama in the election.

Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle tried to leverage a Bush hug to his advantage.

Struggling for reelection in North Dakota, Daschle used the image of Bush embracing him on the Senate floor in 2001 to help him among conservatives. “Daschle: Time to Unite Behind Troops, Bush” read the headline above the image in his television ad. He still lost.

Dick Gephardt’s 2004 presidential campaign was done in by a hug from Bush. The former House majority leader recently told The Wall Street Journal: “The Howard Dean campaign ran multiple TV ads with me hugging George W. Bush, and I never recovered from that with liberal primary voters.”

There are instances when candidates overcome a perilous embrace.

One Bush-hug survivor, Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar, was able to fend off a primary challenge even though his opponent played up a photograph of Bush embracing Cuellar while he stood on the Republican side of the aisle during the State of the Union.

New York Republicans hit Hillary Clinton during the 2000 Senate campaign for her hug and kiss of Suha Arafat, the wife of the late Palestinian leader, after Arafat gave a speech in the West Bank attacking Israel. “While Israel sacrifices for peace, Arafat spreads hatred and lies — and Hillary embraces her,” said one ad aimed at turning New York’s sizable Jewish population against Clinton.

But Clinton was able to push past it because she had a long record of supporting Israel. And once the criticism started coming, Clinton became adamantly more pro-Israel — and was elected to the Senate.

So far, Crist’s embrace of Obama appears to be having an impact. Rubio has seen an uptick in fundraising, and Crist is already running campaign ads a year before the election.

The question for the Republican governor is: Can he live it down?

“Charlie’s very vulnerable at this stage,” Handberg said. “You know, a picture’s worth 1,000 words. ... It’s highlighting all of his weaknesses.”

But if there’s one universal truth about the hug, it’s that circumstances change.

If Crist survives the Republican primary, the hug may reappear — in his own ads.

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WASHINGTON – In a very early test of President Barack Obama's political influence, two states are choosing whether to continue Democratic rule while voters elsewhere elect a handful of congressmen and big-city mayors.
Elected just a year ago, the president has spent a considerable amount of time and energy trying to ensure that Democrats win governor's races in Virginia and New Jersey and pick up a GOP-held congressional seat in upstate New York.
In doing so, Obama raised the stakes of a low-enthusiasm off-year election season — and risked political embarrassment if any lost.
All three could.
Heading into Tuesday's elections, Democrat gubernatorial candidate R. Creigh Deeds was trailing Republican Bob McDonnell in polls by double digits in Virginia. In a three-way race in New Jersey, Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine was in a close race with Republican Chris Christie and independent Chris Daggett. And in the race to fill the vacant 23rd Congressional District seat in New York, Democrat Bill Owens was in a tight fight with conservative Doug Hoffman after the GOP's hand-picked candidate bowed out over the weekend.
Elsewhere, California Lt. Gov. John Garamendi is expected to maintain the Democratic Party's hold on the open 10th Congressional District seat near San Francisco, while New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is expected to cruise to a third term. Atlanta, Houston, Boston, Detroit and Pittsburgh also will elect mayors, while voters in Maine and Washington weigh in on same-sex unions and voters in Ohio decide whether to allow casinos.
To be sure, it's easy to overanalyze the results of such a small number of elections in a few places. The results will only offer hints about the national political landscape and clues to the public's attitudes. And the races certainly won't predict what will happen in the 2010 midterm elections.
But, given that Democrats control the White House and Congress, defeats in Virginia — a new swing state in national elections — or New Jersey — a Democratic stronghold — would be setbacks for the White House, even though both states having long histories of electing governors from a political party opposite that of the president.
After all, this is a president who won a year ago in an electoral landslide after building a fundraising and organizational juggernaut that attracted scores of new voters into what Obama loyalists have called a movement. And this is a party that has comfortable majorities in the House and Senate — and that controls governor's mansions in Virginia and New Jersey.
As the Democratic Party chief, Obama had little choice but to work hard to elect Corzine and Deeds; doing otherwise would have been seen by the base as a breach of duty.
So, he campaigned several times for Corzine and raised money for Deeds. Obama also was featured in campaign advertisements for both. He characterized the success of their candidacies as key components for the White House to make good on its political promises and advance its agenda. And he deployed the Democratic National Committee and his own political campaign arm, Organizing for America, to ensure the swarms of new voters he attracted in 2008 turn out even if he's not on the ballot.
Of the two races, a Republican victory in Virginia would be the most telling about potential trouble ahead for Democrats as they compete in swing states next fall.
Long reliably Republican in national races, Virginia is a new swing state. It's home to a slew of northern bellwether counties filled with swing-voting independents who carried Obama to victory last fall, the first Democrat to win the state in a White House race since 1964. Rapidly growing counties like Loudoun and Prince William swung toward Democrats in the 2005 governor's race, previewing an Obama win three years later.
Conversely, New Jersey is a traditional Democratic-leaning state with an incumbent Democratic governor. As such, it's the trickier of the two for Republicans to win — and yet the GOP just might.

KOROR, Palau – Six former Guantanamo Bay detainees brought to Palau for resettlement have received a warm official welcome, but a plan to deport Bangladeshi workers could halve this Pacific Island nation's already-tiny Muslim community, making integration harder.
The ex-detainees, who are Muslim ethnic Uighurs from a region in China's far west, already face tough challenges to adapt to their new lives in Palau after eight years in the U.S. military camp in Cuba, although they will be provided housing, job training and a full-time interpreter.
President Johnson Toribiong himself welcomed the group when they arrived before dawn Sunday on a secret flight, and he will treat them to a personal tour of the Rock Islands, a diving attraction that is country's top tourist destination, later this week as part of their orientation.
But Toribiong has also announced plans to send home between 200 and 300 Bangladeshi Muslim migrants whose work visas have expired, and last month he banned anyone else from the South Asian country from entering Palau. No timetable has been set for deporting the Bangladeshis.
Palau's Muslim community of about 500 is made up almost completely of Bangladeshi migrant workers. Reducing their number by half could make the Uighurs' transition to island life that much more difficult.
"They need a community of Muslims," Mujahid Hussain, the only Pakistani in Palau, said of the Uighurs.
"They need to sit together and pray together. So if they send home a lot of the Bangladeshis, that's going to be a problem," Hussain, 36, told The Associated Press on Monday.
Announcing the decision to repatriate the Bangladeshis whose visas have expired, Toribiong said last week it has nothing to do with the Uighurs but is a reflection of his administration's commitment to the rule of law.
"We follow the principles of justice and fairness," he said, adding that Bangladeshis with valid work permits have nothing to fear.
The Uighurs (pronounced WEE'-gurs) have been kept out of the public eye and away from media since they arrived.
They hail from one of the most landlocked regions on earth and are making the jump from the prison-like conditions of Guantanamo to another alien environment — the leisurely pace of a palm-fringed tropical island.
Muslims here say they will accept the newcomers.
"All the Muslims, they are our brothers," said Mohammed Main Uddin, 26, as he gathered with about 50 others recently for traditional Friday prayers at the small tin-roofed building sitting atop bamboo stilts that serves as one of just two mosques in Palau.
The Uighurs will be welcome as long as they "follow the Muslim rules" on tolerance and peace, said Uddin, a sweet potato farmer who moved to Palau from Bangladesh four years ago.
The Uighurs brought here were among 22 Chinese Muslims picked up by American forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2001 on suspicion of terrorism. They were taken eventually to Guantanamo, where they were held without trial as "enemy combatants."
The Uighurs were approved for release after a federal court ruled they were not enemy combatants, but they spent months in legal limbo as U.S. officials tried to find somewhere to send them. China calls them terrorists and has demanded they be returned. Uighur activists say they would face persecution and possibly death in China.
After protracted negotiations, the six agreed to accept Palau's offer of resettlement. Seven others are still at Guantanamo. One of them did not receive an invitation to resettle in Palau over concerns about his mental health.
Lawyers for the remaining Uighurs at Guantanamo say that among their clients' concerns about going to Palau is the lack of an existing Uighur population.

Palau is an archipelago of about 200 islands 800 miles (1,290 kilometers) east of the Philippines. It has just 20,000 residents, most of them of Micronesian origin with strong clan and family ties. The country is overwhelmingly Christian, with church pews filled on Sunday mornings. The community is close-knit, and, like other outsiders, the Uighurs are likely to find it hard to fit in.

"Some Palauans want (the Uighurs) to come here and some don't," says Johnson Salii, 41, a taxi driver. "Palauans are good people, so they will make friends with them."

Bangladeshis began arriving in Palau about a dozen years ago seeking steady work and a reprieve from the conflict and poverty plaguing their homeland. They mostly work as farmers, laborers and night watchmen, and they are at the bottom rung of Palauan society.

Most of them make the minimum wage for foreigners of $1.50 an hour — a dollar below the rate for Palauans. Like other immigrants in Palau — Palau hosts as many as 6,000 Filipinos — they don't mix much with the locals.

"The tourists come here for the natural beauty," said Harun Rashid, a 40-year-old gas station attendant who moved to Palau 13 years ago. "We are like tourists also, but we work here."

An influx of Bangladeshi immigrants in 2004 and 2005 more than doubled Palau's Muslim community, before the government moratorium on new arrivals.

"Language barriers and fraud among recruiters have resulted in social tensions and problems for the Palauan government, which does not have formal diplomatic ties with Bangladesh," the U.N. refugee agency said in a 2007 report. It did not elaborate, and there have been no reports of fighting between Palauans and migrants.

The United States is paying Palau a little less than $100,000 for each Uighur to cover housing, educating and food costs, Toribiong said.

Toribiong has stressed the Uighurs' resettlement is temporary, saying it could last "a few months or a few years."

Though they won't get Palauan passports, Toribiong says, the Uighurs will be free to leave Palau — if they can find a country that will take them.

MARRAKECH, Morocco – Trying to mute Arab criticism that the Obama administration had retreated from its tough stance on Israeli settlements, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday softened her praise for Israel's offer to restrain new housing in Palestinian areas.
While Israel was moving in the right direction in its offer to restrict but not stop the settlements, Clinton said, its offer "falls far short" of U.S. expectations.
Clinton said her earlier praise of Israel's offer, during a stop in Jerusalem, had been intended as "positive reinforcement." But her comment drew widespread criticism from Persian Gulf ministers who interpreted it as a U.S drawback on settlements, which have been the main obstacle to a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
In a sign of U.S. eagerness to calm Arab concerns, Clinton is extending her trip by one day to fly to Cairo to meet with President Hosni Mubarak on Wednesday, her staff announced. She had been scheduled to return to Washington on Tuesday.
Clinton's comments in Jerusalem on Saturday appeared to reflect a realization within the Obama administration that Netanyahu's government will not accept a full-on settlement freeze and that a partial halt may be the best lesser option. Her appeal on Saturday seemed designed to make the Israeli position more palatable to the Palestinians and Arab states.
Clinton had traveled to the region only reluctantly, concerned her visit might be seen as a failure, according to several U.S. officials. She agreed to meet Israeli and Palestinian leaders after pressure from the White House, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal administration thinking.
During a photo-taking session Monday with her Moroccan counterpart, Clinton was asked by a reporter about the Arab reaction, and she responded by reading from a written statement that appeared designed to counter the skepticism about the Obama administration's views on settlements.
"Successive American administrations of both parties have opposed Israel's settlement policy," she said. "That is absolutely a fact, and the Obama administration's position on settlements is clear, unequivocal and it has not changed. As the president has said on many occasions, the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements."
Clinton's tweaking of her earlier remarks appeared to satisfy at least some of the Morocco meeting attendees. Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki said Monday that "we have heard her say something completely different from that statement in line with previous statements, so we are happy that such a position was highlighted and brought back to the right line and right now we will see how things will go."
Malki added that "we completely appreciate the sincere efforts made by President Barack Obama and his team to take this issue as a top priority and to try to deal with it from day one."
In her recalibrated comments Monday, Clinton also called on the Israelis to do more to improve "movement and access" for Palestinians and on Israeli security arrangements.
She added, however, that Israel deserved praise for moving in the right direction.
"This offer falls far short of what we would characterize as our position or what our preference would be," she added. "But if it is acted upon, it will be an unprecedented restriction on settlements and would have a significant and meaningful effect on restraining their growth."
In her statement to reporters, Clinton also stressed that the Palestinian authorities deserved credit for what she called "unprecedented" steps to improve security in the West Bank and praised the Palestinians for progress in training their security forces.
On Monday evening, Clinton met with representatives of the Gulf Cooperation Council, plus officials from Egypt, Jordan, Iraq and Morocco. Clinton also flew Monday to the south-central city of Ouarzazate for an audience with King Mohammed VI, then returned to Marrakech for talks with foreign ministers of several Persian Gulf nations.
Clinton was expected to meet separately with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, who has rejected U.S. appeals for improved Arab relations with Israel as a way to help restart Middle East peace talks.
After taking office in January, Obama buoyed Palestinian hopes for progress toward establishing a Palestinian state with his outreach to the Muslim world and an initially tough stance urging a full freeze to all settlement construction.
But after making little headway with the Israelis in recent months, Clinton urged Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in a face-to-face meeting in Abu Dhabi on Saturday to renew talks, which broke down late last year, without conditions. Abbas said no, insisting that Israel first halt all settlement activity in the West Bank and east Jerusalem — lands the Palestinians claim for a future state.

Then, at a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late Saturday in Jerusalem, Clinton praised Netanyahu's offer to curb some settlement construction, saying it was an unprecedented gesture.

That statement provoked a chiding by Palestinian government spokesman Ghassan Khatib. Jordan and Egypt also issued statements Sunday critical of the latest U.S. approach.

___

Associated Press writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

HANOI, Vietnam – Tropical Storm Mirinae unleashed severe flooding in parts of central Vietnam, killing 11 people, leaving two missing and forcing families onto rooftops, disaster officials said Tuesday.
Floods in Phu Yen province killed 10 people after the storm hit, drenching the region with heavy rains Monday, said disaster official Duong Van Huong.
Several villages in neighboring Binh Dinh province suffered the worst flooding in four decades after the Ha Thanh River surged over its banks, said disaster official Nguyen Van Hoa. One man drowned in Binh Dinh and two others were missing, Hoa said.
Local authorities asked the central government to send helicopters to rescue people who were still trapped on rooftops a day after the storm, which lost force as it moved inland.
"We have received many calls for help from people who are still stranded," Hoa said by telephone.
Soldiers in speedboats navigated to submerged areas and ferried out residents.
Mirinae hit the Philippines with typhoon strength over the weekend, killing 20 people before losing strength as it moved across the South China Sea toward Vietnam.
Both Vietnam and the Philippines were still recovering from Typhoon Ketsana, which brought the Philippine capital of Manila its worst flooding in 40 years when it struck in September. Ketsana killed 160 people in Vietnam.
In the Philippines, Ketsana and two later storms killed more than 900. Some 87,000 people who fled the storms were still living in temporary shelters when Mirinae struck.
In a separate incident in northern Vietnam on Monday, one woman drowned and five others were still missing after a whirlwind toppled two boats in the northern province of Quang Ninh, disaster official Le Thanh Nam said.
Sixteen other passengers managed to swim to safety after the boats sank, Nam said.

NEW YORK – In the midst of a career surge that has made him one of rap's biggest stars, Lil Wayne is bracing for a year behind bars after pleading guilty Thursday in a two-year-old gun case.
A glum Lil Wayne said little as he admitted illegally having a loaded gun on his tour bus in 2007, moving to end a case that had churned along as he collected Grammys and gold records. He's expected to get a year in jail at his sentencing, set for February.
The plea, which came as he boasted the country's No. 1 pop song, makes Lil Wayne the latest in a long line of rappers to face incarceration after topping the charts.
Arguably rap's most popular artist, Lil Wayne somberly answered his judge's questions with "yes, sir" and "no, sir" as he pleaded guilty to a felony charge of attempted criminal possession of a weapon.
He acknowledged he had a loaded .40-caliber semiautomatic gun when the bus was stopped shortly after a Manhattan concert on July 22, 2007. His lawyer had previously disputed the gun was the rapper's, in part by questioning the reliability of a highly sensitive DNA test that prosecutors said tied him to the weapon.
State Supreme Court Justice Charles Solomon warned Lil Wayne that he wouldn't be able later to withdraw the plea, as some people try to do.
"I'm not one of those people," said the rapper, who sat in court in jeans and a hooded parka. He pulled up the hood and didn't speak as he left the courthouse with members of his entourage, who piled into four black SUVs. He's due back in court Dec. 15 before his sentencing date, which has yet to be set.
He had faced at least 3 1/2 years in prison if convicted of the original weapons-possession charges against him.
Lil Wayne, 27, also is scheduled for trial in Arizona in March on felony drug possession and weapons charges stemming from a January 2008 arrest at a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint. He has pleaded not guilty in that case.
In March, an Atlanta judge dismissed felony drug charges against Lil Wayne. His lawyer had said the rapper wasn't staying in the hotel room where police said the drugs were found in 2006.
Over the past two years, Lil Wayne — born Dwayne Carter — has emerged as the best-selling figure in music. His "Tha Carter III" topped all album sales in 2008 with 2.8 million copies sold off of such hits as the No. 1 smash "Lollipop." His Grammys include last year's best rap solo performance award, for "A Milli."
A rapper since he was a teen, Lil Wayne exploded in popularity thanks to his voluminous output on the mixtape circuit and collaborations with other artists. He currently has the No. 1 song in the country with Jay Sean, "Down."
While his lyrics sometimes are laced with violence, he's more known for clever wordplay and risque material.
The relationship between chronicling crime and living it has long been an issue in rap. Some of the genre's big names — including Tupac Shakur, Lil' Kim, Beanie Sigel, Shyne, Mystikal and C-Murder — have done a few months to several years behind bars for crimes committed after they became famous.
T.I., another of rap's top sellers, reported to a federal prison in May for his conviction on weapons charges. He's expected to serve a year and a day.
While some rappers haven't regained their chart status after prison or jail, Shakur became even more popular, and T.I. remains popular on the radio.
Police pulled over Lil Wayne's tour bus shortly after it left a concert venue, saying they had seen and smelled marijuana smoke wafting out the door when it was parked.
After ordering roughly a dozen or so other people off the bus, police found a freshly showered Lil Wayne in his boxer shorts in a bedroom at the back of the bus. Police said that as an officer approached, the rapper tossed away a Louis Vuitton bag containing the gun.

The Miami-based rapper wasn't licensed to carry a gun in New York, prosecutors said.

The Manhattan District Attorney's office said small amounts of DNA found on the gun connected it to Lil Wayne. Defense lawyer Stacey Richman had raised questions about the relatively new technique, used to derive the results from DNA samples that can consist of fewer than roughly 16 human cells.

A hearing on the method's level of scientific acceptance started Wednesday and had been expected to continue for days. After Lil Wayne's guilty plea, both prosecutors and Richman stressed that they stood by their contrasting positions on the technique.

But, Solomon said, "The issue is not going to be decided in this courtroom, in this case."

Meanwhile, another platinum-selling rapper, Ja Rule, still faces gun-possession charges stemming from his separate arrest after playing the same July 2007 show as Lil Wayne. Ja Rule, known to the court as Jeff Atkins, has pleaded not guilty. He has a court date next month.

For many people - more than you might think - public and political
dialogue seems dominated by extreme views that don't resonate.

A new study suggests a possible reason: People with extreme views seem more willing to share their opinions than others, but only if they believe, even falsely, that their views are popular.

However, the research looked at only a narrow topic range and
involved just college students, so more study would be needed to reveal
whether the findings apply broadly to other age groups and beliefs.

Still, the findings are intriguing.

The upshot of the research: Students who held extreme views on the
use of alcohol on campus were more likely than others to voice their
views. The key to their bold approach, scientists found, was that they
tended to believe their views actually represented a majority, when
that was not in fact the case.

That situation can set up a self-feeding cycle that promotes the
voicing of extreme views on one side of an issue and causes moderate
and even extremists on the other side to stay relatively quiet.

"When people with extreme views have this false sense that they are
in the majority, they are more willing to express themselves," said
Kimberly Rios Morrison, co-author of the study and assistant professor
of communication at Ohio State University. Those who take the extreme
version of their group's viewpoint may believe that they actually
represent the true views of their group, Morrison figures.

The studies

In a series of studies, Morrison and her co-author, Dale Miller of
Stanford University, found that college students who were extremely
pro-alcohol were more likely to express their opinions than others,
even though most students surveyed were moderate in their views about
alcohol use.

"Students who were stridently pro-alcohol tended to think that their
opinion was much more popular than it actually was," she said. "They
seemed to buy into the stereotype that college students are very
comfortable with alcohol use."

The results were detailed recently in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

The studies were done at Stanford, where alcohol use is prohibited
in common areas of all freshman dorms. In the first study, 37 students
were asked to rate their own views about this policy on a scale from 1
(very strongly opposed) to 9 (very strongly in favor).

The average students' own views were near the mid-point of the
scale, but most rated the typical Stanford student as more pro-alcohol
than themselves.

"There's this stereotype that college students are very pro-alcohol,
and even most college students believe it," Morrison said. "Most
students think of themselves as less pro-alcohol than average."

In the next two studies, students again rated themselves on similar
scales that revealed how pro-alcohol they were. They were then asked
how willing they would be to discuss their views on alcohol use with
other Stanford students.

In general, students who were the most pro-alcohol were the most
likely to say they wanted to express their views, compared to those
with moderate or anti-alcohol views.

A telling twist

Then researchers added a twist, giving participants fake data that
indicated that other Stanford students held relatively conservative,
anti-alcohol views. When extremely pro-alcohol students viewed this
data, they were less likely to say they were willing to discuss alcohol
usage with their fellow students.

"It is only when they have this sense that they are in the majority
that extremely pro-alcohol students are more willing to express their
views on the issue," Morrison said.

Interestingly, however, students who had more extreme anti-alcohol
views still did not desire to express them, even after seeing the data
that suggested a majority of their fellow students agreed with them.

"Their views that they are in the minority may be so deeply
entrenched that it is difficult to change just based on our one
experiment," Morrison said. "In addition, they don't have the
experience expressing their opinions on the subject like the
pro-alcohol extremists do, so they may not feel as comfortable."

The findings suggest possible parallels in politics, Morison figures.

She cites a hypothetical community that tends to be moderate
politically, but leans slightly liberal. People with more extreme
liberal views in the community may be more likely than others to attend
publicly visible protests and display bumper stickers espousing their
liberal views, because they think the community supports them.

A self-feeding cycle might ensue.

"Everyone else sees these extreme opinions being expressed on a
regular basis and they may eventually come to believe their community
is more liberal than it actually is," Morrison said. "The same process
could occur in moderately conservative communities.

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Original Story: Why Extremist Views DominateLiveScience.com chronicles the daily advances and innovations made in science and technology. We take on the misconceptions that often pop up around scientific discoveries and deliver short, provocative explanations with a certain wit and style. Check out our science videos, Trivia & Quizzes and Top 10s. Join our community to debate hot-button issues like stem cells, climate change and evolution. You can also sign up for free newsletters, register for RSS feeds and get cool gadgets at the LiveScience Store.

HARTFORD, Conn. – The players who were with Jasper Howard when the Connecticut cornerback was fatally stabbed Sunday are ready to play this weekend against West Virginia, coach Randy Edsall said Thursday.
Edsall said on a weekly conference call with reporters that he had been concerned about the mental state of sophomore receivers Kashif Moore and Mike Smith.
Moore held Howard in his arms after he was fatally stabbed outside a dance on campus early Sunday. Edsall earlier said a player had put pressure on the wound and identified him Thursday as Smith.
The two players and everyone else on the team had a good energy level and focus in practices Wednesday and Thursday, Edsall said.
"There's nobody from an emotional standpoint who is not ready to go and play," he said.
The Huskies plan to wear helmet stickers with Howard's initials on them and will take his jersey and helmet to Morgantown for Saturday's game.
Edsall said he doesn't know how each player will respond to the emotions of the day but isn't worried about them being too amped up.
"I want our guys to go out and approach the game just like they did every other game," he said. "Everybody's going to have different thoughts in their mind and all that, but I just want us to go out and make sure we're at that emotional level of optimal performance when the ball is kicked off, and then maintain that level of emotion throughout the football game."
The funeral for Howard, who was 20, will be at 11 a.m. Monday at New Birth Baptist Church in his hometown of Miami. A viewing will be held Sunday at the city's Richardson Mortuary.
Howard was stabbed outside a university-sanctioned dance early Sunday, hours after helping the Huskies to a homecoming game win over Big East foe Louisville.
One person has been charged in connection with the fight. Johnny Hood, 21, of Hartford, was arraigned Monday on charges of interfering with an officer and breach of peace.
According to a police report, Hood was pointed out to police on the scene by Brian Parker, a sophomore wide receiver who also was stabbed but only slightly hurt. Hood has not been charged with Howard's death, and police haven't identified him as a suspect.
Police say they have made "significant progress" in the investigation but are still seeking photos and videos of the crime scene from the public.

PHILADELPHIA – Some Dodgers lingered in the dugout, staring at another wild Phillies celebration on the infield.
Most of them headed back to the clubhouse.
After all, the Dodgers saw this show before. The sequel was just as bad as the original.
Bounced again in the NL championship series by Philadelphia for the second straight year, the Dodgers squandered home-field advantage and their league-best 95 wins seemed about as empty as Philadelphia's discarded champagne bottles.
It might be time to call rewrite in Los Angeles.
The NL West champions made all the right moves in the regular season, but they flopped two straight years in the NLCS.
Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley and Cole Hamels aren't leaving Philadelphia any time soon. The Dodgers are going to have to make some bold moves this offseason if they want to get past Philly and return to the World Series.
"It'd be nice to be celebrating like that," third baseman Casey Blake said.
They weren't even close to a wild and wet locker room party. If not for Utley's costly error in Game 2, the Dodgers would have been swept.
"There's a lot going on in that clubhouse. There's a lot going on in their stomachs, which is good," manager Joe Torre said. "They care a great deal. I don't think the Phillies wanted it more than us, it was just that they were able to do it."
Every possible weakness was exposed in the five-game series.
Closer Jonathan Broxton, who went 7-2 with 36 saves in 42 opportunities and a 2.61 ERA, was done in for the second straight year in Game 4 by aging pinch-hitter Matt Stairs. Stairs fashioned himself a Philly folk hero last year with his winning two-run homer off Broxton, and he coaxed a four-pitch walk Monday that led to the tying run in a ninth-inning rally.
The rest of a supposedly deep and strong bullpen flopped, and there was no true stopper anchoring the rotation.
Los Angeles hoped 21-year-old Clayton Kershaw would be the postseason ace, but he posted a 9.45 ERA in the NLCS. The Phillies picked up former Cy Young Award winner Cliff Lee and Pedro Martinez to bolster their staff down the stretch. The Dodgers countered with Phillies castoff Vicente Padilla — and he promptly got rocked on a familiar mound in a Game 5 loss.
"We kept passing around that No. 1 pitcher thing all year long, and I think we have a couple of guys in that clubhouse that certainly eventually will emerge as being capable of doing that stuff," Torre said.
Torre hasn't duplicated his World Series trips in Los Angeles, although he extended his streak of consecutive managerial playoff appearances to 14, tying the record set by Atlanta's Bobby Cox from 1991-05.
Torre won four World Series titles with the Yankees, the last in 2000.
The 69-year-old manager has one year left on a three-year deal he signed after 12 seasons guiding the New York Yankees. He plans to return for at least one more year and try and win his first World Series title in the National League.

"It's still something that keeps me around and keeps me wanting to do it some more," Torre said.

And then there's Manny Ramirez. Who knows what the dreadlocked slugger is thinking about heading into the offseason. Ramirez, whose season was interrupted by a 50-game suspension for violating baseball's drug policy, will likely exercise his $20 million option for next season and return to his familiar cleanup spot.

Ramirez was 5 for 19 with one home run and two RBIs in the series against the Phillies. The homer was his only extra-base hit.

The Dodgers have the most potential players (16) eligible for free agency and most of them don't figure to return. They took care of one contract this week when Ned Colletti agreed to a long-term extension to stay on as general manager.

The Dodgers have reached the postseason in three of his four seasons.

Not bad, but not a World Series.

"We have the capability, we have the talent, but that's all well and good," Torre said. "It's like having that good team on paper. You still have to go out there and play between the lines."

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Though at first glance a very simple object, the mug serves a number of functions which make it especially suited to holding hot liquids:

The mug stores some heat from the beverage, and so prevents it from cooling too quickly. The design of a mug helps insulation: (i) thick walls separate the beverage from the cool external air, and (ii) an indented base separates the beverage from the surface upon which the mug is set. The shape of the base forms the characteristic O-shaped stain, so often seen upon desks and documents.

Atlanta Georgia Real Estate Attorney

Some jurisdictions grant a "diploma privilege" to certain institutions, so that merely earning a degree or credential from those institutions is the primary qualification for practicing law.[75] Mexico allows anyone with a law degree to practice law.

Another interesting example is France, where for much of the 20th century, all magistrates were graduates of an elite professional school for judges. Although the French magistracy has begun experimenting with the Anglo-American model of appointing judges from accomplished advocates, the few advocates who have actually joined the bench this way are looked down upon by their colleagues who have taken the traditional route to magistracy.[86]

INDIANAPOLIS – Indiana said it was going to get outsourcing right when it turned welfare eligibility services over to a private contractor in 2007. Now critics say the failed move is the latest warning that states should not allow for-profit companies to run social services.
The ambitious, $1.34 billion effort to automate applications for food stamps, Medicaid and other welfare benefits was being closely watched after states such as Texas had problems when they tried similar plans.
Indiana fired IBM Corp. as the lead contractor on the project Thursday over problems including lost documents, delays in benefit approvals and poor service.
"Other states should beware," said Jim Wallihan, an advocate for senior citizens in Indiana. "Indiana's been a good demonstration, along with Texas, that there's some variables involved that just don't take well to privatization."
From the beginning, officials said Indiana had learned from the experiences of other states and was confident it had a better approach. But its contract with IBM quickly led to a long list of complaints.
Gov. Mitch Daniels, a privatization supporter who leased the Indiana Toll Road and proposed outsourcing the Hoosier Lottery, said IBM didn't make enough progress to fix poor service. Indiana will retain other private contractors as it works to create a new hybrid welfare eligibility system.
IBM has said it believed it was making progress and that high unemployment led to more demands on the welfare system, making the changes more difficult.
Daniels said the decision to cut ties with IBM is a reflection on the company's specific plan, not of the merits of privatization.
"It has nothing to do with private or public," Daniels said Thursday. "It had to do with a concept. If you've had tried to use the same concept IBM brought, and every worker was a state worker, you'd have had exactly the same results, or worse."
Both Indiana and Texas — where thousands of children lost health insurance because of problems from an outsourcing experiment that ended in 2007 — learned a costly lesson, said Celia Hagert, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Public Policy Priorities in Texas.
Yet more states could still consider privatization — touted as a way to save money — as they search for budget cuts during the economic downturn, she said.
"These two huge and costly errors in Texas and Indiana should give any state pause when it thinks that privatization is going to save them money, because it's not," Hagert said. "It causes a lot of damage."
That won't stop states from turning to privatization as a way to cut costs in the future, predicted Dru Stevenson, a professor at the South Texas College of Law who opposes the practice.
"States will continue to fall for this and it will continue to backfire," he said.
But Michael Kerr, senior director of state and local issues for the industry group TechAmerica, said private companies can give states better data, more predictable spending, additional skills and more manageable infrastructure while eliminating waste and fraud.
"It's just a question of finding the right mix of technology and delivery and cultural change and such that would enable some of these larger projects to work well," he said.
While Indiana has cut out IBM, it's keeping other companies, which will now work directly for the state's Family and Social Services Administration.
"The state may be taking a more direct managerial role, but I don't see very much being different despite the fanfare," said Stacy Dean, director of food stamp policy for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington-based think tank and advocate for low-income people.

The FSSA will develop a detailed plan by Dec. 14 for a new hybrid welfare system that Daniels said will incorporate successful elements of Indiana's old, face-to-face process along with the call centers, document imaging and other automation IBM and its partners introduced.

That was little consolation to Rene Fuller, a case manager at a women's shelter in Anderson who has helped residents there contend with lost documents and other problems in the new system.

"I have a fear that it's going to get worse before they can make any improvements," Fuller said. "We're kind of holding our breath, to be quite honest with you."

___

Associated Press Writer Mike Smith contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON – Pigs in Minnesota may have tested positive for the H1N1 virus in a preliminary test, the first potential U.S. cases in swine, Agriculture Department officials said Friday.
The officials cautioned that further tests were needed to confirm that the pigs had been infected with H1N1, also known as swine flu virus. The pigs did not exhibit signs of sickness and may have been infected by a group of children with the virus, they said.
Samples from the pigs that may have tested positive were collected at the Minnesota State Fair between Aug. 26 and Sept. 1. USDA officials did not say how many pigs may have tested positive.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement that testing was under way and results should be available in a matter of days. He says the USDA was working with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Vilsack said the USDA's National Veterinary Services Laboratories would be conducting tests to confirm the results.
Vilsack asked for caution from consumers and said people should not react to the news by avoiding pork products.
"I want to remind people that people cannot get this flu from eating pork or pork products," he said.
Vilsack's caution aside, the news is clearly unwelcome for the pork industry. Producers had been struggling before the H1N1 virus gained public attention. Advocates have worked assiduously to distance the pork industry from the H1N1 virus, but Friday's news once again ties the two.
Agriculture officials have said they expected H1N1 to reach domestic pigs this year. It has led pork producers to push for a hog vaccine for the virus. H1N1 infections of swine herds have previously been reported in Canada, Australia and Argentina but not previously the United States.
The potentially positive test was discovered by a CDC research project conducted by the University of Iowa and University of Minnesota, which is documenting instances of influenza viruses where humans and pigs regularly interact, such as state fairs.
A record crowd of nearly 1.8 million people attended the 2009 Minnesota State Fair, which is held annually in a St. Paul, Minn., suburb.
More than 100 students from two 4-H programs were sent home from the fair on Sept. 2 after health officials confirmed four students had come down with swine flu. Friday's USDA announcement said no link between the pigs and the children had been made and said current information suggests the children were not sickened by the pigs.