Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/162167421?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Monday, November 14, 2011
Berlusconi faces future of legal, business woes (AP)
ROME ? His legacy tarnished and his hopes of clinging to power dashed, Silvio Berlusconi faces daunting legal and financial challenges and the prospect of life outside the international spotlight now that he has left office.
He has vowed he won't run again for office, though few expect he'll abandon Italian politics for good. Berlusconi himself has already said he might help out a campaign here or there because, well, "they've always turned out well for me."
But with Berlusconi's resignation as premier Saturday following months of market turmoil, a political era in Italy closes and the 75-year-old Berlusconi is just a billionaire businessman once again.
"What we are viewing now is not the end of a government, but the end of a system, of a political system," said Massimo Franco, a political analyst for leading daily Corriere Della Sera.
Indeed, Berlusconi dominated Italian politics for the last 17 years, a polarizing figure who served three terms as premier. He held off political opponents and jousted with magistrates pursuing him on corruption and sexual misconduct charges, but was felled by massive international and market pressure.
The media mogul had thrived rubbing shoulders with the powerful, whether vacationing with Russia's Vladimir Putin or getting a taste of Texas ranch life when hosted by then President George W. Bush in a meeting of Iraq war allies.
But seen as an impediment to economic reform, his exit came quickly as Italy was swept up by Europe's debt crisis.
Whether he goes back to running his media empire or even returning to the vacant post as president of his beloved AC Milan soccer team, he faces an unpleasant agenda. Judging from how his media voices are reacting, it won't be a completely quiet exit.
"Stop a Europe of technocrats," clamored a headline in the family newspaper Il Giornale of Italy's presumed new government headed by economist Mario Monti. "This government is a coup."
Berlusconi's resignation will mean he can no longer claim official government business as a reason for missing hearings in his three trials, a tactic that has been used to delay proceedings. His attempt at fashioning a law that would have given him immunity was overturned by the Constitutional Court.
But charges in two Milan trials related to his business dealings will run out due to the statute of limitations early next year ? leaving little peril that the billionaire would face any penalty even if courts can reach a conviction in the first trial. The Italian system allows for two levels of appeal.
Berlusconi is expected to testify before Christmas in his trial on charges of paying British lawyer David Mills to lie for him on the stand in another case. A verdict is expected in late January, but with the statute of limitations set to expire in March, it is impossible that two levels of appeal could be completed to make any verdict final.
Berlusconi has denied the charge, and Mills saw his conviction overturned on appeal.
In the other trial concerning his Mediaset media empire, Berlusconi is charged with tax fraud in the purchase of TV rights. Berlusconi denies the charges, which also expire in the spring.
In Berlusconi's most sensational trial, the 75-year-old is accused of paying for sex with a Moroccan teen ? known by her nickname Ruby Rubacuore, "Ruby the Heartstealer" ? and using his influence to cover it up. No fewer than 22 court dates have been scheduled through May.
A conviction would mean Berlusconi would be permanently barred from public office ? but he has already pledged not to run again and his hopes of one day becoming Italian president were dashed by the sex scandal.
That leaves the billionaire back where he started: running his considerable empire. The economic crisis has made that more challenging.
Shares in Mediaset have lost half of their value since May, as the debt crisis lapped ever more perilously at Italian businesses, and dropped by as much as 10 percent in trading sessions this week as Berlusconi's political future was decided by the markets.
Mediaset ? which is controlled by the family holding company Fininvest and includes private TV stations as well as newspapers and other publications ? dropped from euro4.242 a share in May to euro2.142 on Friday.
"It could be that Berlusconi is very scared by the financial crisis. If you think that Fininvest is 95 percent invested in Italy," said Carlo Guarnieri, a political scientist as the University of Bologna.
Even more dangerous was his loss of a civil suit to rival media group over corruption in the acquisition of the Mondadori publishing empire. A court has ordered him to euro560 million ($800 million) for corrupting a judge.
Alarmed by the amount, Berlusconi went as far as quietly introducing a measure into Italy's austerity budget this summer that would have allowed the company to delay payment until the final appeal, but withdrew it after political opponents raised an outcry.
He can still count on friends in high places to look after his interests: his 41-year-old political heir, Angelo Alfano, now heads his People of Liberties party and he remains its founder.
But Franco, the Corriere della Sera analyst, said Berlusconi's future in the near-term is probably not on Italy's center political stage.
"I think Berlusconi can just survive, maybe with a personal party, but I don't think he is due to rule and lead Italy in the foreseeable future any more," he said.
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Mexico loss of 2nd in charge won't change drug war (AP)
MEXICO CITY ? He was the face of Mexico's federal government, the chief public servant carrying a message to stay tough and bringing new offensives to states beleaguered by drug violence.
The death of Mexico's No. 2 official, Interior Secretary Francisco Blake Mora, in a helicopter crash Friday was a stunning mishap too odd for some Mexicans to accept as an accident. But just like the loss of another interior minister three years ago in a plane crash, Blake Mora's death won't change the course of the deadly assault on organized crime.
Even as President Felipe Calderon choked back emotion in announcing the loss of "a great patriot ... a dear friend" in a crash that may have been caused by weather, he reiterated his resolve to pursue the war against cartels. It has cost more than 40,000 lives by many estimates, though the government has given no official figures since 35,000 deaths nearly a year ago.
"I am convinced that the best way to honor his generosity and loyalty ... is to intensify the struggle," Calderon said in a national address announcing Blake Mora's death along with seven others outside the capital. "We will continue with renewed vigor and zeal."
Though the secretary of the interior is considered the government's second-in-charge, other Cabinet members are more central to carrying out the drug war: the secretaries of defense, navy, public security and the attorney general. The people currently in those positions have been with Calderon through most of his term. Blake Mora, 45, who was appointed in June 2010, was the fourth interior secretary since Calderon was elected five years ago.
Mexico's interior secretary coordinates domestic policies such as security, human rights, migration and the president's relations with the legislature and opposition parties. The post has diminished in power over time. Under Mexico's old one-party system that ruled for 71 years, the secretary of the interior often went on to be president, but that changed when the autocratic Institutional Revolutionary Party lost the presidency in 2000.
In his short time in the job, Blake Mora embodied the government's get-tough attitude toward drug cartels and other gangs, publicly pledging not to back down.
"Organized crime, in its desperation, resorts to committing atrocities that we can't and shouldn't tolerate as a government and as a society," he had said.
He was heading to a meeting of prosecutors in central Morelos state, which has been hit heavily by violence among warring cartels, when the Super Puma helicopter crashed in a hilly area southeast of Mexico City.
The political impact of Blake Mora's death is "relatively minor," said historian Lorenzo Meyer of the College of Mexico, adding that the position of interior secretary "is not remotely what it was ... it lost power in the new system."
Still, the crash adds to the public sense of tragedy the drug war has brought.
"Polls have been showing that insecurity now tops poverty as the No. 1 concern among Mexicans," said George W. Grayson, a Mexico expert at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. "An event like this ... is going to increase the sense of uncertainty and insecurity."
The crash of the Super Puma helicopter, part of the presidential fleet, also killed the undersecretary for legal affairs and human rights, Felipe Zamora, two other interior officials, the chief of Blake Mora's security detail and three crew members, all air force officers who served in the equivalent of Mexico's Secret Service.
The helicopter left from a military base in Mexico City at 8:45 a.m. and 10 minutes later disappeared from radar, Transportation Secretary Dionisio Perez Jacome said at a news conference late Friday.
Perez Jacome, who read a statement and didn't take questions, said the government has asked U.S. and French aviation crash experts to help in the investigation.
"The federal government should open the investigation well beyond the secretary of communications and transport," said organized crime analyst Edgardo Buscaglia. "Three Cabinet secretaries falling from the sky is too much of a challenge to the laws of probability."
In 2005, during President Vicente Fox's administration, a helicopter crash blamed on poor weather conditions killed Mexico's top police official, public safety secretary Ramon Martin Huerta.
Despite tendencies to suspect a deliberate hit on a top Mexican official, initial indications are that Friday's crash was an accident, Calderon said.
He seemed to try to quell any suggestions of sabotage, saying that Blake Mora's helicopter "was always under guard" in the Secret Service hangar and that it had recently undergone maintenance. He said it was traveling in bad weather, something local residents confirmed.
"In the morning, there was a whole lot of fog," said homemaker Marisol Palacios, who lives on the lower slopes of the hill where the helicopter went down.
She said she didn't hear the crash and wasn't aware anything had happened until helicopters carrying rescue teams arrived. Video of the wreckage suggested the helicopter plowed into the hillside and broke in half, but did not explode or burn.
In what many Mexicans find hard to believe was an odd coincidence, a Learjet slammed into a Mexico City street in 2008, killing former Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mourino and 15 others. That was blamed on pilot error, with the government issuing a detailed report on that accident in the face of even more persistent rumors that it was a drug-cartel hit.
One of Blake Mora's last postings on his Twitter account commemorated the loss of Mourino. "Today we remember Juan Camilo Mourino three years after his death, a person who was working to build a better Mexico," he tweeted on Nov. 4.
Blake Mora's funeral was scheduled for Saturday.
___
Associated Press writers Mark Stevenson, Michael Weissenstein and Isaac Garrido contributed to this report.
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Sunday, November 13, 2011
Is Katy Perry Ready For Babies With Rusty Rockets? (VIDEOS)
Is Katy Perry Ready For Babies With Rusty Rockets? (VIDEOS)
Katy Perry made a visit to Ellen DeGeneres’ talk show and discussed having children with her husband, comedian and actor Russell Brand. The couple have [...]
Is Katy Perry Ready For Babies With Rusty Rockets? (VIDEOS) Stupid Celebrities Gossip Stupid Celebrities Gossip News
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stupidcelebrities/~3/vG_cPsliyfU/
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Chicago's most extreme weather (ContributorNetwork)
Chicago is known for its fluctuating weather that can go from warm and sunny one week to freezing cold and rainy the next. And while this certainly isn't out of the ordinary, the Windy City has still had its fair share of weather oddities that have pushed both sides to the extreme. Here are some of the most extreme and out-of-place weather events to hit Chicago:
Blizzard of '67
Ask any Chicago native over the age of 50 what the worst weather event to hit the city is, and you'll almost always hear about the Blizzard of 1967. The snow began falling at 5:02 a.m. and didn't stop until 10:10 a.m. the next day. The result was 23 inches of snow and the largest single snowfall in the city's history, a record that still stands today. The snowstorm stranded thousands, trapped cars and buses right where they stood on the streets, and closed schools for days. Oddly enough, just two days before the blizzard, temperatures hit a record 65 degrees.
Heat wave of 1995
Thursday, July 13, marked the official start of the Chicago heat wave of 1995, an event that would drag on for a week. On that day, the temperature was recorded at 106 degrees, but added humidity put the heat index over 120. Air conditioning wasn't as common as it is today, and energy use in the city caused power outages for tens of thousands of households. Within the days of the heat wave, 739 Chicagoans died of heat-related deaths, and thousands were hospitalized.
Chicago's deadliest tornado
Following the 1967 blizzard, extreme weather continued that year. On April 21, 1967, the a deadly tornado hit the Chicago area. The twister touched down in Palos Hills before it ripped through Oak Lawn. It then moved through the south Chicago neighborhoods before moving out to Lake Michigan. On the same day, at least 10 tornadoes in total hit north and northeastern Illinois, and 33 people were killed and many others were injured.
Lake Michigan's 25-foot waves
Lake Michigan is one of Chicago's main focal points and attractions, but sometimes that's not always a good thing. On October 20, 2011, 40-mph winds stirred up waves to 25 feet, knocking joggers and cyclists off the Lakeshore Drive paths and prompting a flood warning. To add insult to injury, the wild weather caused flight delays and knocked out power for 27,000 households, but the rare massive waves are still remembered the most.
Rachel Bogart provides an in-depth look at current environmental issues and local Chicago news stories. As a college student from the Chicago suburbs pursuing two science degrees, she applies her knowledge and passion to both topics to garner further public awareness.
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Saturday, November 12, 2011
"Comedy Awards" returning to New York City (Reuters)
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) ? Comedy elite like David Letterman, Eddie Murphy, Bill Murray, Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Will Ferrell, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Louis C.K. turned out for last year's inaugural Comedy Central "Comedy Awards," and the network has announced the show will return to New York in 2012.
The second annual "Comedy Awards" show will tape at the Hammerstein Ballroom on April 28, and debut on the network on May 6.
Nominees for the awards will be selected by the awards' board of directors -- which includes Chris Rock, James Burrows, Don Rickles, Joan Rivers, Colbert, Stewart, Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg, Conan O'Brien and Ray Romano.
Winners will be voted on by 1,500 members of the "comedy community," which includes performers, writers, directors, producers and comedians, while fans will nominate and cast votes for online-only awards categories.
Last year's winners included "Modern Family" as best comedy TV series, Alec Baldwin as best TV actor for "30 Rock," "The Other Guys" as best comedy film, "Louis C.K.: Hilarious" as best stand-up special and the network's own Daniel Tosh as breakthrough performer.
"As much as I'd like to brag that we rig this in favor of our friends, the truth is probably more gratifying to the winners -- they are chosen by a massive voting body of their comedy peers," Kent Alterman, head of original programming and production for Comedy Central, said.
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tv/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111109/tv_nm/us_comedyawards
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Friday, November 11, 2011
Brazilian who dumped his fiancee must pay $6,000
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) ? A court has ordered a Brazilian man to pay $6,500 for saying "I don't" to his former fiancee.
Rio de Janeiro state Judge Benedicto Abicair said that Marcelo de Azevedo Fernandes must pay for "moral and material" damages to Cristiane Costa de Andrade. The ruling was posted Friday on the court's website.
The couple was to have been married in September of 2007, but Fernandes called it off.
The judge said in his ruling that Andrade's "suffering, anguish and humiliation cannot be ignored."
The fine is supposed to pay for the jilted woman's wedding costs and visits to a psychologist.
Andrade's lawyer, Viviane Sines del Giudice, said neither she nor her client would make any immediate comment regarding the case. Calls to Fernandes' attorney, Fabiano Ayupp Magalhaes, went unanswered.
The O Estado de S. Paulo newspaper reported there have been at least two similar cases since 2004. In that year, a judge in the state of Sao Paulo ordered a man to pay his fiancee $4,500 for getting cold feet days before the weddings. A year later, a woman in Rio de Janeiro state received $2,000 after her fiance decided not to get married 75 days before the wedding.
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