Column: BCS runs out of tweaks ? and luck (AP)

Over at the Bowl Championship Series, the short answer to the question of when there will be a playoff in college football remains the same.

Never.

But get back in touch with the BCS next week, or better yet, with their sponsors after the Jan. 9 championship game and ask the question then.

For years now, playoff advocates have been drawing up nightmare scenarios that would shame the BCS out of business, but this season it's practically guaranteed that the title game will leave many fans unsatisfied.

Last week, four of the top seven teams in the BCS standings lost their footing and left an unprecedented three teams from the same division ? the SEC West ? holding down the top of the leaderboard.

Two of them, most likely current No. 1 LSU and No. 2 Alabama, figure to be on hand at the Superdome for the title game. But even if No. 3 Arkansas grabs one of those spots, the newly crowned BCS champion will seem more mythical than ever.

Remember, the BCS hijacked the postseason in 1998 with the promise of matching the No. 1 and No. 2 teams at the very end. And every time logic didn't jibe with their rankings, the guys in charge "tweaked" the formula after the championship game and promised it wouldn't happen again. You can argue over which school got jobbed the worst since then, but the two unofficial tweaks that matter here ? a team must win its conference championship; the BCS finale shouldn't be a rematch of a regular-season game ? likely means it's the fans who will feel cheated the most.

LSU, Alabama and Arkansas all will have played each other by the time next weekend rolls around and it's possible that none of them will be the SEC champion when the game ends on Dec. 3.

Given the results of that little round-robin tournament so far, only fans of tractor pulls will be rooting to see any two of those three reprise those games in January.

LSU slogged past Alabama 9-6 in overtime and the Crimson Tide pounded Arkansas 38-14.

In the past, the waiting period between the end of the regular season and the championship game has always worked in the BCS' favor. Tempers cool as weeks pass. The outrageous lobbying and occasionally over-the-top remarks coaches make about the selection process recede into the background. Among fans, a kind of fatigue sets in. Arguing over whether either or both teams are deserving gives way to acceptance. It's like walking around with a rock in your shoe.

What makes this season even more aggravating is that the rankings are just about right. Arkansas ventures into Baton Rouge on Friday and if the Razorbacks pull off an upset and go on to beat SEC East entrant Georgia in the conference championship, they will have earned the trip to New Orleans. There are 14 one-loss teams in the mix at the moment, but few would deny that LSU ? even if the Tigers lose to Arkansas ? and Alabama would be the most deserving of the lot. The problem is that all three would have flaws we might be willing to overlook if they had to clear a path to that championship game on the field ? it's called a playoff ? instead of relying on computer operators and best guesses to deposit them there. Now, there's virtually no chance the winner gets the benefit of the doubt from the majority of fans.

All we know for certain is that the guys in charge at the BCS don't mind seeing their brand being kicked around like a rusty can everywhere from the Oval Office down to the corner tavern. It hardly matters to them if the tweaks require additional tweaking, or if they throw out a stinker in the showcase game now and then. We keep hearing how resilient college football is, but it's hard to remember a worse couple of years for the game.

Southern California isn't bowl eligible because of the excesses of the Reggie Bush era and Miami didn't even wait for an invitation to turn down because of the ongoing investigation into a rogue booster's largesse. Ohio State, on the other hand, isn't likely to say no, despite standing on the threshold of NCAA double-secret probation, and probably neither will Penn State, embroiled in a child sex-abuse scandal that makes the usual transgressions in the sport barely worth mentioning.

What all those scandals have in common is, at the very least, the whiff of corruption, not to mention what the NCAA terms a lack of institutional control. So how fitting is that the BCS, which has twisted itself into a pretzel countless times to hang onto the postseason franchise and been just transparent enough to stay ahead of lawsuits and the Congress, could finally get called out by the fans for doing exactly what it was created to do?

It's shaping up to be a bowl season that will be memorable for all the wrong reasons. Can't wait to see how the BCS tries to tweak its way out of this one.

___

Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitke(at)ap.org. Follow him at http://Twitter.com/JimLitke.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/sports/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111122/ap_on_sp_co_ne/fbc_jim_litke112111

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Egypt's Entire Cabinet Has Resigned (The Atlantic Wire)

Updated 2:14 p.m.: ?After months of criticism for its perceived ineffectiveness and a weekend of lethal protests, Egypt's cabinet offered its resignation to the ruling army council yesterday, and the council has accepted it today, Al Jazeera reports.?The cabinet's decision comes after increasingly violent confrontations between protesters and police left over 30 people dead this weekend. The Associated Press report notes:

Prime Minister Essam Sharaf's government has come under consistent criticism from across the political spectrum since it came to office in March for its perceived inefficiency and its subordination to the military.

The protesters have taken to Tahrir Square, as they did to oust the former president Hosni Mubarak, to resist the army's attempt to retain power over the new government that will be chosen in elections scheduled for November 28. So make that two governments?that?the protesters in Tahrir have now taken out, though in this case the army is their real target and it remains in tact.?The country's culture minister had already resigned in protest over the cabinet's violent handling of the protests. Al Jazeera reports that while some observers said the resignation is just further proof of the cabinet's ineffectiveness, others see it as an opportunity for a unity government to step in and end the violence.?

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/atlantic/20111121/wl_atlantic/egyptscabinetofferedresignation45259

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Candidates focus on debate caution in YouTube era (The Arizona Republic)

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Bachmann campaign manager blasts 'manipulation' of debates (Star Tribune)

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Mexican president's sister seeks governorship (AP)

MORELIA, Mexico ? Mexicans voted in the western state of Michoacan in a crucial political test Sunday for President Felipe Calderon in his home state, where his sister sought the governor's post.

Voters also were electing 40 federal congressional representatives and 112 mayors following dozens of drug cartel-related attacks over the last two years targeting local officials in the state. Initial results were expected to begin a few hours after polls closed Sunday night.

The election was being watched as an indicator for Mexico's presidential election next year, for which opinion polls have been indicating that Calderon's conservative National Action Party, or PAN, will struggle to retain the presidency.

The vote results also would reflect more clearly on the president, whose sister, Luisa Maria "Cocoa" Calderon, ran for the governorship in the family's home state where the president launched his offensive against drug cartels in late 2006.

Luisa Maria Calderon promised to advance her brother's anti-drug campaign and led in most opinion polls going into the vote, the last state election before the presidential contest in July. A victory would boost the morale of the PAN, which has held the presidency since 2000 but has been hurt recently by voter fatigue over drug violence.

Such violence has been a main concern in Michoacan and many people feared it could disrupt Sunday's vote.

Jesus Zambrano Grijalvo, president of the leftist Revolutionary Democratic Party, or PRD, said his party sympathizers in a mountainous zone plagued by drug violence were being intimidated by organized crime gangs and pressured not to vote. Zambrano did not go into details at a news conference Sunday.

Residents of the rural city of Cheran refused to let poll workers into their town amid demands for an election that they said would respect their customs and traditions. The indigenous Purepecha people who live in Cheran have in recent months wielded rifles and mounted roadblocks keeping out suspected illegal loggers and drug traffickers.

The Michoacan Electoral Institute said in a news release Sunday that officials were still unable to carry out elections in Cheran and were determining how the 16,000 residents there will elect their leaders. Voting continued elsewhere in the state, despite the problems in Cheran.

In the city of La Piedad, a local newspaper published on Sunday an unsigned note blaming the PAN for drug killings and threatening the party's supporters. News reports said the newspaper had been forced to publish the warning.

"Don't wear T-shirts or PAN advertising because we don't want to confuse you and have innocent people die," read the note, which was also circulated by email.

It was not immediately clear who sent the email or published the newspaper ad, which came 11 days after La Piedad Mayor Ricardo Guzman was shot dead while handing out leaflets for several PAN candidates, including Luisa Maria Calderon. No arrests have been made in the attack.

Twitter users claiming to belong to the "Anonymous" hackers movement said they were behind an attack on the website of a party backing Luisa Maria Calderon. The tweets also said hackers attacked the Michoacan Electoral Institute's website, the site where election results are announced and which had been down for hours.

The PAN has yet to win a governorship in Michoacan, and the PRD has dominated federal offices and the presidential vote there since 2000. Local offices have been a toss-up between the PRD and the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

Calderon faced PRD candidate Silvano Aureoles Conejo and Morelia Mayor Fausto Vallejo Figueroa of the PRI.

The PRI sought a victory in Michoacan to build momentum for regaining the presidency, which it lost to the PAN in 2000 after 71 years of single-party rule. The PRI so far is fielding the most popular pre-candidate in the presidential race, former Mexico state Gov. Enrique Pena Nieto.

"Whoever wins, their party will claim it helps for 2012, especially the current underdogs ? PAN and PRD," said Shannon O'Neil, a Latin America expert for the U.S.-based think tank the Council on Foreign Relations.

The once-dominant PRD trailed the other two major parties in the Michoacan governor's race, according to opinion polls. As Michoacan's governing party for a decade, the PRD drew criticism for the state's drug violence, and some of its legislative candidates were accused of having close ties to drug cartels.

More than 40,000 people have died in drug-related violence across Mexico during the federal government's five-year offensive, according to many estimates. Calderon's administration hasn't released official figures since nearly a year ago, when it counted 35,000.

___

Associated Press writer Adriana Gomez Licon contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mexico/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111113/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_mexico_election_michoacan

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James Murdoch: Others, not I, misled Parliament (AP)

LONDON ? James Murdoch told Parliament Thursday that he'd told the truth when he said he'd been kept in the dark about the culture of criminality at the now-defunct News of the World tabloid.

In comments to often-skeptical and occasionally hostile lawmakers, Murdoch stuck to his guns, accusing his former subordinates of keeping him in the dark and misleading Parliament over the extent of the phone hacking that has shaken his father Rupert Murdoch's media empire.

"Any suspicion of wider spread wrongdoing, none of that was mentioned to me," the junior Murdoch said, taking the same stance he took before Parliament during testimony in July despite increasing evidence linking him to the scandal.

Murdoch's repeated denials that he'd seen critical evidence of widespread criminality at his company prompted derisive comments from the lawmakers investigating the scandal.

"You must be the first mafia boss in history who didn't think he was running a criminal enterprise," said Labour lawmaker Tom Watson, a strident Murdoch critic.

Murdoch, stony-faced, called the comment inappropriate.

He laid the blame squarely at the door of the News of the World's former editor, Colin Myler, and News International's former legal adviser, Tom Crone, both of whom insist that they briefed Murdoch about damning evidence which proved that phone hacking went much further than had previously been acknowledged.

"I believe their testimony was misleading, and I dispute it," Murdoch said.

The finger-pointing follows months of drip-drip revelations which have undermined Murdoch's credibility.

Crone and Myler's account of events has called Murdoch's credibility into question. Documents published in the months since James Murdoch's earlier appearance in Parliament ? in which he insisted he was blind-sided by the scandal ? have been particularly damning.

One, written by a senior lawyer, warned Murdoch's News International that there was "overwhelming evidence" that some of its most senior journalists had been involved in illegal practices.

"No documents were shown to me," Murdoch said.

The phone hacking scandal has thrown News International, the British newspaper arm of media conglomerate News Corp., into turmoil.

Revelations that journalists routinely intercepted the voicemails of public figures, including celebrities, politicians, police, and even crime victims sent shock waves across the British establishment, forcing the closure of the News of the World and scuttling its parent company's multibillion pound (dollar) bid for full control of satellite broadcaster BSkyB.

The stakes are high: Investors have become increasingly restive as the scandal continues to spread. Murdoch's position as heir apparent to his father's company is under threat.

Media commentator and former tabloid editor Paul Connew on Thursday expressed some sympathy with James Murdoch, noting that the fresh-faced TV executive had just taken over his father's U.K. newspaper business taken when efforts to contain the scandal were launched.

"It's quite possible that people didn't actually level with James Murdoch," Connew said ahead of Murdoch's testimony.

Still, Murdoch should expect a rough ride.

"He's under more pressure now than he's ever been," Connew said.

___

Online:

Media committee website: http://www.parliament.uk/cmscom

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111110/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_britain_phone_hacking

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Nixon's long-secret Watergate testimony coming out (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Richard Nixon's grand jury testimony about the Watergate scandal that destroyed his presidency is finally coming to light.

Four months after a judge ordered the June 1975 records unsealed, the government's Nixon Presidential Library was making them available online and at the California facility Thursday. Historians dared hope that the testimony would form Nixon's most truthful and thorough account of the circumstances that led to his extraordinary resignation 10 months earlier under threat of impeachment.

"This is Nixon unplugged," said historian Stanley Kutler, a principal figure in the lawsuit that pried open the records. Still, he said, "I have no illusions. Richard Nixon knew how to dodge questions with the best of them. I am sure that he danced, skipped, around a number of things."

Nixon was interviewed near his California home for 11 hours over two days, when a pardon granted by his successor, Gerald Ford, protected him from prosecution for any past crimes. Despite that shield, he risked consequences for perjury if he lied under oath.

It was the first time an ex-president had testified before a grand jury and it is rare for any grand jury testimony to be made public. Historians won public access to the transcript over the objections of the Obama administration, which argued in part that too many officials from that era are still alive for secret testimony involving them to be made public.

The library is also releasing thousands of pages of other Watergate-era documents, several oral histories from that time and 45 minutes of recordings made by Nixon with a dictating machine.

The recordings include his dictated recollections of an odd episode late one night in May 1970 when Nixon impulsively had the Secret Service take him to the Lincoln Memorial so he could meet anti-war protesters there. He lingered with the astonished crowd and, according to accounts of that time, asked the protesters to "keep it peaceful. Have a good time in Washington, and don't go away bitter."

On the grand jury testimony, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth sided with the historians in his ruling in July. He decided that with the investigation long over, Nixon dead for 17 years and most of the surviving Watergate figures having written or talked about the scandal at length, the historical importance of the transcript outweighed arguments for secrecy. "The court is confident that disclosure will greatly benefit the public and its understanding of Watergate without compromising the tradition and objectives of grand jury secrecy," he wrote.

Even so, certain portions of the testimony that deal with people still living or that are considered still relevant to national security will remain classified for now, possibly to come out after further review, said the National Archives, which operates the Nixon library and 12 other presidential libraries.

One of the topics covered with Nixon in the grand jury probe was the famous 18 1/2-minute gap in a tape recording of a June 20, 1972, meeting between the president and his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman. The meeting came three days after the break-in at Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate complex by burglars linked to Nixon's re-election committee.

The questions of what Nixon knew and when were at the core of the investigation of the Watergate cover-up that ultimately implicated the president and brought him down.

Kutler expressed doubt Wednesday that people will learn much more about Watergate from the new records. "The grand jury after that testimony had a chance to sit and indict but they did not," he said, "so I don't expect it to be that important." But he said the opening of grand jury records is a milestone by itself, "another precedent for opening up secretiveness in public life."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/crime/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111110/ap_on_re_us/us_nixon_s_watergate_testimony

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Outage knocked out Internet ... for a few seconds

Twitter

By Athima Chansanchai

For a few moments yesterday, those who live some aspect of their lives online ? which is to say, a lot of people???might have felt like the ground beneath them fall away, as there were brief, widespread Internet outages that apparently affected much of North America.

Again, it wasn't long ? seconds for some, such as customers plugged into the Time Warner Cable Network, for others it may have been hours ? but it was just a little bit alarming that knocking out one pivotal network, Level3, could have such far reaching consequences.

A bug appeared during a firmware update that reset the network's Juniper routers, which caused outages throughout all the other networks that link back to it. These include Time Warner, RCN, BlackBerry and others, according to The Atlantic Wire.

The problem and its resolution seemed to span about an entire workday, as Level3 had this to say at about 5 p.m. yesterday, as reported by ZDNet UK:

"Shortly after 9 am ET today, Level 3's network experienced several outages across North America and Europe relating to some of the routers on our network," the company said. "Our technicians worked quickly to bring systems back online. At this time, all connection issues have been resolved, and we are working hard with our equipment vendors to determine the exact cause of the outage and ensure all systems are stable."

To put it in some perspective, this wasn't an isolated event.

Twitter

Host Virtual called it a "global failure" since they consider Level3 a "major transit provider" and reported other ISPs with Juniper issues yesterday. They?linked to the usual mea culpa, this time issued by?Mark Bauhaus, Juniper executive vice president of services, support and operations: "This morning, Juniper learned of a Border Gateway Protocol edge router issue that affected a small percentage of customers.?A software fix is available, and we?ve been working with our customers to immediately deploy the fix."

As is common practice nowadays when something goes wrong with technology, Time Warner customers took to Twitter to blow off steam about the outage, with the usual colorful language describing their agony and how bad the service is, etc.

We saw some outages hit major sites early in October, and while it seems that groups like Anonymous are usually the first suspects in such things, it did not unravel that way this time. Panic did not overwhelm the Web, and life seemed to go on for most people without a hitch. But for the rest who suffered some kind of withdrawal: It's ok now.

More stories:

Check out Technolog on?Facebook, and on Twitter, follow?Athima Chansanchai, who is also trying to keep her head above water in the?Google+?stream.

Source: http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/08/8698494-outage-knocked-out-internet-for-a-few-seconds

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A "Near" Miss: Asteroid 2005 YU55

?To attain any kind of life in this universe of ours appears to be quite an achievement. As humans we are doubly lucky, of course: We enjoy not only the privilege of existence but also the singular ability to appreciate it and even, in a multitude of ways, to make it better. It is a talent we have only barely begun to grasp.??-Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything

Asteroid 2005 YU55. Credit: Arecibo Observatory/Michael Nolan

It?s easy to forget while going about our daily lives that we?re perched on a spinning mass of magma, rock and water that?s hurtling through space. Around us for billions of light years in all directions are celestial bodies, including planets, stars, moons, galaxies, comets and asteroids.

Today, one of these galactic objects, a 400-meter wide asteroid named 2005 YU55, will soar within a few hundred thousand kilometers of Earth. The asteroid will be nearest ? about 201,000 miles away ? at 6:28pm EDT. In a universe with vast amounts of space between its celestial bodies, a comet or asteroid this proximate to Earth is considered a near-Earth object (NEO).

The last time an asteroid of similar size came this close was 35 years ago. Though there?s no chance of YU55 plunging it?s spherical body into our tender planet?s crust, nor the possibility of it entering Earth?s atmosphere (at least for the next 100 years), this event can serve as both an opportunity to study NEO?s and as reminder of the continued luck necessary to sustain life on on our planet.

?We firmly believe that these sorts of events have been happening for most of the lifetime of the Earth, about 4.5 billion years,? wrote Scott Fisher, program director in the Division of Astronomical Sciences at the National Science Foundation, during a live Internet chat. ?In fact, early in the life of the Earth we went through a time that astronomers have named the ?Era of Heavy Bombardment? where close passes and massive impacts happened much more frequently then now.?

Though nothing could really stop an asteroid should it be on a collision course with Earth, scientists are studying the heavens and increasingly able to give advance notice.

?Baseball sized object hit the Earth?s atmosphere daily,? wrote Donald Yeomans, NASA project scientist for the Japanese mission to land upon Hayabusa, a near-Earth asteroid, during the live chat. ?Volkswagen sized objects hit every few weeks but are too small to cause any ground damage. On average, a 30 meter sized object, the smallest that could cause significant ground damage, would be expected to hit every few hundred years, and a larger object of a kilometer in diameter would not be expected to hit but every few hundred thousand years.?

Again, none of this is likely with the 2005 YU55 since it?s safe orbit has probably been the same since before the dawn of astronomy. What?s more likely, is your chance of watching YU55?s fly by. All you need is a fairly good telescope and to be located on the East Coast this evening.

Perhaps then this event will inspire you as it has with me to seek out a dimly lit patch of earth from which to gaze outwards and contemplate the complexity our universe and the fragility of our planet.

?

Who else will be watching:

-?????? NASA Infrared Telescope Facility

-?????? The Gemini Observatory in Hawaii

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=b054efac4ca35c4bc323bb886a7ed1ec

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Industry says Africa fastest growing mobile market (AP)

JOHANNESBURG ? Mobile phone system operators say Africa is their fastest growing market.

In a report released Wednesday, the industry group GSMA, or Groupe Speciale Mobile Association, said for each of the past five years, the number of subscribers across Africa has grown by almost 20 percent and will reach 738 million by the end of next year.

GSMA says that mobile penetration in Africa has reached 649 million connections, second only to Asia.

In releasing its report, GSMA is calling on African governments to allocate more mobile broadband spectrum and cut taxes on mobile operators to further spur expansion. Citing studies by the World Bank and others, GSMA says that in developing countries, for every 10 percent increase in mobile penetration there is a 0.81 percent increase in GDP.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111109/ap_on_bi_ge/af_africa_mobiles

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Batman 'The Dark Knight Rises' Films In New York City (PHOTOS)

Now where have we seen this before?

Now well entrenched in New York City, filming on "The Dark Knight Rises" took an excitingly chaotic turn over the weekend, as a mass brawl went down between the ex-con followers of Tom Hardy's Bane and the Gotham City police, led by a resurgent Batman. If it looks familiar, it's probably because the same scenes were enacted earlier in the year while filming on the movie went down in Pittsburgh.

In late October, Christian Bale, in citizen skin of Bruce Wayne, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, in full cop outfit as special assignment officer John Blake, were spotted filming a scene as the NYC shoot began to unfold. In October, filming in Los Angeles yielded some sweet paparazzi shots of Batman's plane.

PHOTOS/VIDEOS:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/06/batman-the-dark-knight-rises-films-nyc_n_1078572.html

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State Department agent accused of homicide in Hawaii (Reuters)

HONOLULU (Reuters) ? A U.S. State Department agent visiting Honolulu for this week's Asia-Pacific economic summit has been charged with criminal homicide in the after-hours shooting death of a man on Waikiki Beach, attorneys said on Monday.

The suspect, identified as Christopher Deedy, was arraigned on Sunday morning in Honolulu court on charges of second-degree homicide and use of a firearm in commission of a felony, and he was released on $250,000 bond, authorities said.

Dave Koga, a spokesman for the city prosecutor's office, confirmed that Deedy is a State Department employee, and police said he was suspected in the fatal shooting of a man during a confrontation at a Waikiki McDonald's shortly before 3 a.m. on Saturday. They gave no further details.

However, an attorney hired by the family of the victim said Deedy is a federal agent with the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security who was in town for this week's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference.

The lawyer, Michael Green, said the shooting erupted after the victim, Kollin Elders, 23, stopped into the McDonald's with a friend following a night out at a club and encountered Deedy as he entered the restaurant with three other people.

According to Green, Elders taunted Deedy by telling him he looked "pretty serious" and jokingly asked him, "'Hey, are you going to shoot me or something?'"

Green said Deedy, who appeared intoxicated, replied saying, "'How would you like to get shot tonight?'" as he reached behind his back, pulled out a gun, knocked Elders to the floor and fired three shots -- one of them striking the victim.

Green said the sequence of events was captured on security cameras and also was relayed by Elders' friend, who fled the restaurant after the shooting. Police said the suspect was identified by eyewitnesses and arrested at the scene.

The lawyer said he was retained by the Elders' family to ensure that the case was not "swept under the rug."

(Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Peter Bohan)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111108/us_nm/us_hawaii_shooting_agent

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Cain presses on amid allegations (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Sexual harassment accusations roiling his campaign, Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain looked to reassure donors and tea party backers Friday that his White House bid would press on even as a lawyer for one of his accusers readied a statement from her about what happened.

At the same time, a new national poll indicated that Cain remained in strong position in the GOP nomination race despite the disclosures that at least three women allege that he engaged in inappropriate sexual behavior toward them while he was the head of the National Restaurant Association, where they then worked.

Over the past five days, Cain has repeatedly denied wrongdoing even as he gave conflicting accounts about what ? if anything ? he knew about the alleged incidents as well as whether he knew about financial settlements two of his accusers reportedly received from the trade group. He's blamed the mainstream media, liberals and GOP rival Rick Perry's campaign, which said it had nothing to do with it. A black conservative, he has said his race has played a factor in the turmoil.

He was back in Washington on Friday, after spending a day in New York, to deliver a speech to the conservative Americans for Prosperity, a group aligned with the tea party movement that has helped Cain rise from the back of the GOP presidential pack in recent weeks. He also was meeting privately with his national finance team as the campaign looks to broaden a grassroots fundraising base that's so far been driven by small online donations.

That includes what the campaign says is more than $1.2 million in contributions since Sunday when Politico first reported the harassment accusations.

Also Friday, the National Restaurant Association was set to decide whether to allow one woman who accused Cain of sexual harassment to publicly address the allegations, despite an agreement that prevented her from talking.

Joel Bennett, an attorney for one of the women alleging sexual harassment, said Thursday he was seeking permission from the National Restaurant Association to release a statement on her behalf. Under an agreement stemming from her accusation in 1999, the woman agreed not to speak publicly about the episode she said occurred when she worked for the trade group and Cain was its president.

Meanwhile, a new Washington Post-ABC News survey showed Cain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney running nearly even atop the field of 2012 GOP presidential hopefuls, with most Republicans dismissing the harassment allegations. Seven in 10 Republicans say reports of the allegations don't matter when it comes to picking a candidate.

But in a sign of the possible danger ahead, the poll found that Cain slipped to third place among those who see the accusations as serious, and Republican women were significantly more likely than men to say the allegations make them less apt to support the businessman. The survey found that support for Cain was basically steady over the four nights of interviewing, even as new accusations against him surfaced.

Politico, citing anonymous sources, reported late Thursday that one of the women contended that Cain made a sexual overture to her and invited her to his hotel room during a National Restaurant Association event in the late 1990s. The report said the woman was livid and complained to a member of the group's board later that night.

Also, the New York Times, also citing anonymous sources, reported that one of the woman complained that the workplace turned hostile after she alleged that Cain had made advances toward her during a work-related outing in which Cain and several younger staff members drank alcohol until late in the evening.

Cain's rivals were focused on anything other than Cain.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was delivering a speech about cutting spending in an appearance before the same group as Cain. Others, including Texas Gov. Rick Perry, were appearing late Friday at an Iowa GOP dinner to pitch their candidacies to Republicans in the state that hold the leadoff presidential caucuses in just two months.

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, in an interview with NBC's "Today" show, said "you won't find any surprises with me" but otherwise refused to talk publicly about the allegations against the Georgia businessman. She focused, instead, on talking about the economy and taxes.

The furor erupted at a time when Cain had vaulted to the top of public opinion polls as a leading conservative challenger to Romney for the Republican nomination ? adding spice to a race already as unpredictable as any in recent memory.

"This will not deter me" in the race for the White House, Cain declared Thursday in interviews on conservative media outlets.

"As of today," he said hopefully, "we're back on message and we're going to stay on message, and we've answered all of these questions."

His campaign has argued that he's benefiting from the controversy. Cain has hired at least one more national finance staffer since Sunday, when the allegations first surfaced.

For now at least, his political allies were rallying around him.

Late Thursday, a group called Americans for Cain released a Web video that, without offering proof, blamed liberals for the furor surrounding Cain and called the process "a high-tech lynching."

The one-minute video maintains that liberals and the mainstream media can't challenge Cain on the merits of his policies, so they've attacked him with the sexual harassment reports, just as Clarence Thomas came under similar scrutiny during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111104/ap_on_el_pr/us_cain

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Emmert: Stipend not a lean toward 'pay for play'

HOUSTON (AP) ? NCAA President Mark Emmert said Thursday that university leaders across the country are "adamant" about never allowing student to be paid for playing and disputed the suggestion that adding up to $2,000 to athletic scholarships is a move in that direction.

Emmert spoke Thursday to the Houston Economic Club, a week after the Division I Board of Directors approved a set of sweeping reforms. The move included an option for conferences to add up to $2,000 annually to athletic scholarships.

Critics viewed the stipend of spending money as the first step toward eventually paying students to compete. Emmert said the money is simply meant to close the gap between a scholarship ? which only covers tuition, room and board and books ? and the "full cost of attendance," which includes other miscellaneous expenses incurred by athletes who travel during their seasons.

The $2,000 was a "compromise" among board members, Emmert said. Some thought the total amount should have been higher, but Emmert said the board wanted to settle on a reasonable amount it felt all schools would be able to afford.

"It could've been higher, it could've been lower," he said. "But that was the number that everyone agreed was a good place to be."

Emmert says the stipend bears no comparison to offering a salary to a student-athlete, essentially making him or her a paid employee of the university.

"We're still supporting them as students, not as somebody we're paying to play a game," said Emmert, a former president at the University of Washington. "When you move from that model to a model where the students who play the games are paid, well now you don't have student athletics anymore. We already have that. That's the NFL and the NBA and Major League Baseball.

"Everyone in intercollegiate athletics among the leadership is completely adamant about that issue," he said. "I know there's a lot of debate out there for pay for play, but that's not even open for discussion. It's so antithetical to what college athletics is."

Aside from the philosophical conflict, Emmert said another fundamental flaw with the "pay for play" idea is how to implement it.

"Who would set the pay?" he said. "Would it be the same for all players? Would it be the same for all sports? Does the volleyball team get paid? Do women athletes get paid? Does a starting quarterback get paid more than the third-string offensive lineman? Is the pay the same for every school across the country?

"We are the only nation that has intercollegiate athletics," Emmert said. "It's a uniquely American tradition. Turning them into professional athletes is not the solution to the challenges we face right now."

Emmert took over the NCAA in November 2010, and the agency has confronted a rash of major scandals over the past year, most notably involving the football programs at Ohio State and Miami.

More than a dozen Buckeyes have been suspended for a series of violations, most of them involving improper benefits linked to a tattoo parlor. Jim Tressel was forced to resigned as coach, and the school offered to vacate its 12-1 record from 2010.

Ohio State is awaiting word from the NCAA regarding its final sanctions, and Emmert would not say when those might be announced.

"It'd be inappropriate for me to speculate," he said.

Emmert says the NCAA is still gathering information in the Miami case, where more than 70 players allegedly received extra benefits provided by former booster and convicted Ponzi scheme architect Nevin Shapiro. Major sanctions are expected when the investigation, spurred by a Yahoo Sports expose, is completed.

"The Miami case is not there yet," Emmert said. "We're still working with the university to get as many facts as we can. The University of Miami has been very cooperative, and we're pleased about that."

Emmert also took over the agency amid the first waves of conference realignment. He said schools should reserve the right to choose their leagues, but he's concerned with how the shifts will affect the student-athletes.

While Texas A&M's move from the Big 12 to the Southeastern Conference won't add much mileage to Aggies' road trips, the Big East is talking about adding Boise State, Navy and Air Force for football only and SMU, Houston and Central Florida for all sports.

And that could create some very disruptive long-distance travel, Emmert said.

"If you're flying them halfway across the country to play a mid-week volleyball game and they've got to be back in class the next day at 9 o'clock, what's the reality of that?" Emmert said. "What are the realities of the cost of flying teams all over the country, and does that eliminate any economic advantage of being a part of that conference?"

Emmert also questions what's motivating some schools to make their moves.

"Are they making the decisions because they've got good information because of what's really going on?" he said, "or are they doing it out of fear and reactiveness and concern about what may happen somewhere else rather than what's really going on?

"As long as the process is thoughtful, deliberative and keeps focus on student-athletes, how they're being affected, then they can do what they want to do," he said. "My job is to look at intercollegiate athletics as a whole and remind them that they need to be attentive to those things."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2011-11-03-NCAA-Emmert/id-dd1ecfe37e9545bea14ac5eafee69aff

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