Apple lead designer Jonathan Ive knighted for the New Year, how's your 2012 looking? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 31 Dec 2011 01:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) ? Spike Lee is returning to familiar territory for his latest movie -- er, joint.
"Red Hook Summer," which will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 22, depicts a diverse set of characters sweating out the summer in Brooklyn, according to a new synopsis released by the festival.
But it's not just summer in Brooklyn that Lee is going back to. He also reprises his role as Mookie from 1989's "Do the Right Thing," which launched Lee into the ranks of major filmmakers.
One of the main characters in the movie, which doesn't yet have a theatrical release date, is a boy named Flik, according to the new synopsis. His mother sends him from their well-to-do life in Atlanta to spend the summer with his grandfather in a Brooklyn housing project called Red Hook.
Flik has never met his grandfather, who is played by Clarke Peters of "The Wire."
Flik is "bored and friendless, and his strict grandfather, Enoch, a firebrand preacher, is bent on getting him to accept Jesus Christ as his personal savior," according to the synopsis.
Flik becomes involved with Chazz, a girl from Enoch's church, and romance presumably ensues.
The film also stars Jules Brown, Toni Lysaith, Nate Parker, James Ransone, Keke Palmer, James Ransone and Thomas Jefferson Byrd.
"Red Hook Summer" is produced by Lee and James McBride, who collaborated together on the script.
Lee is also working on an American remake of the 2003 South Korean thriller "Oldboy."
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SAN ANTONIO ? Ron Paul wants to legalize pot and shut down the Federal Reserve. He thinks the federal government has no authority to outlaw abortion, no business bombing Iran to keep it from acquiring a nuclear weapon, and no justification to print money unless it's backed up by gold bars.
And he might win the Iowa caucuses.
The closer the first votes of the 2012 presidential campaign get, the more competitive the Texas congressman has become. It's a moment his famously fervent supporters have longed for. Plenty of others are asking: What's Ron Paul about, again?
As in his two prior quixotic campaigns for president, Paul has toiled for months as a fringe candidate best known for staking out libertarian positions. As every other Republican candidate lined up to attack President Barack Obama's health care law and to promise tax cuts, Paul again demanded audits of the Federal Reserve and a return to the gold standard.
Leading in some state polls, Paul is getting a look from mainstream voters in Iowa, where the 76-year-old obstetrician has emerged as a serious contender in the Jan. 3 caucuses ? and in other early voting states, should he pull off a victory.
The sudden rush of attention to Paul's resume hasn't been kind. He's spent the past week disowning racist and homophobic screeds in newsletters he published decades ago, including one following the 1992 riots in Los Angeles that read, "Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to collect their welfare checks three days after rioting began."
"Everybody knows I didn't write them and they're not my sentiments, so it's sort of politics as usual," Paul said during a recent Iowa campaign stop.
Looking to cut into Paul's support, rivals laid into him on Tuesday.
In an interview on CNN, Newt Gingrich said Paul holds "views totally outside the mainstream of virtually every decent American." And Rick Santorum chided, "The things most Iowans like about Ron Paul are the things he's least likely to accomplish and the things most Iowans are worried about about Ron Paul are the things he can accomplish."
Paul returns to Iowa on Wednesday, giving his impressive grass-roots organization in the state a last chance to present, and perhaps defend, positions he's staked out over a long political career and reiterated during the 13 Republican debates held this year.
Paul has served a dozen terms in Congress as a Republican, but he espouses views that have made him the face of libertarianism in the U.S. He blames both Republicans and Democrats for running up the federal debt and opposes any U.S. military involvement overseas. He wants to bring home all troops from all U.S. bases abroad.
He vows to do away with five Cabinet-level departments ? Commerce, Education, Energy, Housing and Urban Development, and Interior ? and repeal the amendment to the Constitution that created the federal income tax. He opposes federal flood insurance and farm subsidies and wants to remove marijuana from the federal list of controlled substances while allowing states to decide how to regulate it.
He says he'll cut $1 trillion out of the first budget he offers as president. He doesn't believe in a border fence but says illegal immigrants shouldn't get a free education in public schools.
He's reliably described by political pundits as non-establishment, quirky, unorthodox. During a Republican debate in Sioux City, Iowa, earlier this month, Paul defended his views and rejected the idea that they make him unelectable.
"The important thing is, the philosophy I'm talking about is the Constitution and freedom, and that brings people together," Paul said. "It brings independents in the fold and it brings Democrats over on some of these issues."
Paul doesn't always side with the most extreme conservative proposals. When it comes to Gingrich's suggestion that judges could be hauled before Congress to explain their rulings, Paul joined other Republicans in dismissing the idea.
Paul's recent surge in Iowa isn't the first time the GOP establishment has been forced to pay attention to him. A fundraising blitz that netted $5 million in one day in 2008 led Republican operatives to weigh whether he was a bigger threat to siphon votes than previously thought.
Now he may be in his best position yet to do more than just steal votes.
"I see this philosophy as being very electable, because it's an American philosophy, it's the rule of law," Paul said.
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Makerbot's Thing-O-Matic is pretty pricey - $1,299 for the kit and $2,500 for the assembled kit - but (and this is my professional opinion) it is amazing and everyone in the world should own one. That said, Fab.com has a special deal on Thing-O-Matics this week - $999 for the kit and $2,000 for the assembled device - one of the first and biggest discounts ever on the entire system.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/6tWI4Rzj0-k/
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RightCelebrity/~3/49mp24ST5L4/
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Google+ now has more than 62 million users, according to Paul Allen, Ancestry.com founder and unofficial traffic analyst for Google's social network. That's not 62 million active users, though -- a point that everyone covering these numbers seems to have missed. It's just the number of total users. And specifically, it's the number of new surnames that Allen's team has tracked being created on the service. Because Google has aggressively integrated G+ into many other properties, including its top navigation bar and the OneBox, one would expect a certain baseline amount of sign-ups from among the hundreds of millions of people using other Google products. The real question is how many people are returning after creating their accounts, which Allen doesn't try to answer.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/_xcO5bgaTS0/
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The Apple Store has Apple Certified Refurbished iMacs available starting at $1019. An Apple one-year warranty is included with each model, and shipping is free:
- 27? 3.1GHz iMac: $1659 $340 off MSRP
- 27? 2.7GHz iMac: $1419 $280 off MSRP
- 21? 2.7GHz iMac: $1249 $250 off MSRP
- 21? 2.5GHz iMac: $1019 $180 off MSRP
Source: http://www.macprices.net/2011/12/27/apple-refurbished-imacs-available-for-up-to-340-off-msrp-5/
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1. abdane posted on 4 2
hope it have the flexible OLED displays ! ^_^
FIRST :D
3. bobfreking55 posted on 4 2
if the galaxy S III had a flexible screen, i won't buy. not yet standard enough
http://www.concept-phones.com/samsung/samsung-galaxy-iii-fresh-design-specs-samsung-galaxy-tab-andromeda-tablet/
I made this one. :) i also gave my wanted specs here. take time to read. :)
you can see my name there, lol.
15. abdane posted on 0 1
oh and what about the Intel chip ? o.O
2. gznmember posted on 3 0
actually, the 5250 will almost definitely be powering the SGS3.
Exynos 4210, aka Orion, was said to be scheduled for 1H 2011 mass production when the announcement came in late 2010. All was revealed in MWC when the SGSII was unveiled. It was later rolled out worldwide by June/July, exactly on schedule.
The same thing is happening here. Announcement coming in late-2011, with the SGS3 as the release vehicle in Q2 2012.
Now, you might be thinking, what about the 4212 and the 4412? Sadly I cannot answer this. However I want to make clear that the 5250, with dual-A15s will certainly perform better than quad-A9s. Samsung knows this. Being Sammy's flagship, the SGS3 will never be forced to settle for an inferior SoC, especially since OMAP 5 and NovaThor will be shipping by then.
One will also note that the 4412 was never officially announced - and never will. It has no reason to exist. My theory is that the 4212 will go into a second-place Galaxy R II device.
Lastly I advise Phonearena to do a little more research before publishing silly speculation in future articles.
4. Hunt3rj2 posted on 1 0
If the SGS3 is released with a 1.8 GHz quad-core Cortex A9, HTC and Motorola will undoubtedly destroy Samsung and be laughing all the way to the bank.
Unfortunately Samsung's Galaxy S is their crown jewel, and since they can make a massive amount of hardware in house, from SoC to RAM and flash NAND, it'll probably have a dual core Cortex A15 and postively destroy any Cortex A9 SoC and also probably edge out the Snapdragon S4.
6. wsker posted on 2 7
Dual-core = FAIL.
Samsung has to be on the top by lifting up to quads ;),Quad-core = Me buying it :)
7. thebikerboi2 posted on 1 1
well samsung better live up to the performance that they are promising after nvidia had such a performance flop with the tegra 3
19. c.hack posted on 1 0
Why don't you just strap on an AMD hexacore processor on the back - it will have much the same effect - a high priced handwarmer.
8. arcq12 posted on 5 3
no matter how superior these galaxy s phones are than others, i still wont buy any samsung products.. they have great specs and at the same time poorest quality..
12. Martine posted on 3 2
What's ur definition of quality?
9. hunted posted on 3 1
The scariest news for Apple. Come on sammy!!!!
18. c.hack posted on 1 3
Cheap hardware, poor reception, clumsy OS, unweildly size and short battery life. Which on of these is scary?? Just another cheap Korean crapware phone.
22. hunted posted on 2 0
Oh!! do you think apple give great hardware for their phones?? have a test between 800mhz dual core and a 1.2GHZ dual core. which one do you think will have better performance
10. Darnelll posted on 1 1
I really hope its not 4.6 inches! These phones are getting massive! It would be nice if it had a 4.6 option and a 4.0 option. Hipsters don't get iPhones because they're trendy, they get them because they're the only phones small enough to fit in their skinny jeans.
11. nanozander posted on 1 3
Another manufacturer trying to squease 12mp outa a tiny sensor..
13. Martine posted on 3 1
Actually, Sammy got a well proven 12MP phone well before any manufacturer and Nokia N8 with its "Tiny Sensor" still remains the best Camera phone today.
So what are you gonna say now?
14. warlockz posted on 1 1
Wonder when it will have a state wide release, prob when the sg4 gets announced, ridiculous.
16. DROIDX0430 posted on 5 1
Here we go again...more waiting and hype--just like the Nexus on Verizon with so many problems. Signal, battery, no hdmi, no external sd, no swype, 5.0 camera, multi-touch issues..As I've already said long ago..Samsung does not build a good phone! Yes, a beautiful, gorgeous display and that's about it. Samsung did not build any great feature phones--so they jumped on the road to smartphones---I know you all remember--The Rogue, The Glyde, The Omnia 1 and 2--just to name a few---catch my drift--what was great about those phones---Resets, multi-touch issues, signal issues ALL on previous phones ...I say they fix what they have on the market instead of launching all of these new series of phones!
23. SuperAndroidEvo posted on 1 1
I have a Samsung Galaxy Nexus & the signal issue is nonexistent. They are going to release an update to the software just so it shows more bars that is it. The signal for the Verizon Galaxy Nexus is one of the better ones for their whole 4G LTE line up. The battery issue is also nonexistent. It lasts about the same or even better than other 4G LTE phones. It kills my HTC Evo 3D 4G WiMAX by a long shot.
I can go on but there is no reason for it. Every phone sold always has issues. There is no phone that you can buy & not do an immediate update to fix any quirky bugs. Tech moves very very fasts & it's just the nature of the beast.
To go as far & say Samsung doesn't make a good phone is silly at best. Samsung would not have sold so many Galaxy S, Galaxy S II & whatever other phones they sell if they were not good devices. Over 30 million is no coincidence, it?s proof of a superior product.
A company who doesn't make good devices is LG. LG consistently makes subpar devices & the sales prove that. They don't sell well in the whole world, not just the U.S. So my point is that the masses do recognize poor products & good products. LG makes poor products thus it's poor sales.
Samsung indeed makes good products thus its great sales. I mean the facts are there. Samsung DOES make good products & there are numbers to back that up. Unless you think that over 30 million people are fooled into buying what you say are bad or not good products, you really can?t refute that Samsung does have great devices. Look at all the ratings they have received throughout the industry, they all have been stellar.
Samsung Galaxy S III rumored to come at MWC 2012 with a quad-core chip, a Galaxy S 3D could also be in the making
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Congressman calls for banning Twitter accounts he doesn't like. Another idea from Senator 'kill Wikileaks' Lieberman telegraph.co.uk/technology/twi? 
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Source: http://twitter.com/wikileaks/statuses/151112148582539264
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A 3-year-old boy accidentally shot and killed a 5-year-old friend, according to reports.
NBC station KSNW reported that a 23-year-old Kansas man was arrested following Friday's shooting at an apartment in Lakewood, Colo.
Adam Dean Laham appeared in court on Saturday and bond was set at $40,000, 9news.com reported. He faces charges of child abuse resulting in death and criminal negligence.
It's believed Laham was a family friend who was staying at the apartment.
KCNC reported that the 5-year-old had been shot in the chest. It said that Laham was the 3-year-old boy's father.
NBC News station KSNW and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45782866/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/
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People rush into a department store as it opens for Boxing Day sales in central London, Monday, Dec. 26, 2011. Despite disruptions caused by London's subway drivers striking over a pay dispute, large crowds of shoppers started flooding department stores in London as soon as doors opened early Monday. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)
People rush into a department store as it opens for Boxing Day sales in central London, Monday, Dec. 26, 2011. Despite disruptions caused by London's subway drivers striking over a pay dispute, large crowds of shoppers started flooding department stores in London as soon as doors opened early Monday. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)
People crowd into a department store as it opens for Boxing Day sales in central London, Monday, Dec. 26, 2011. Despite disruptions caused by London's subway drivers striking over a pay dispute, large crowds of shoppers started flooding department stores in London as soon as doors opened early Monday. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)
People queue early in the morning outside a department store ahead of it opening for Boxing Day sales in central London, Monday, Dec. 26, 2011. Despite disruptions caused by London's subway drivers striking over a pay dispute, large crowds of shoppers started flooding department stores in London as soon as doors opened early Monday. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)
People rush into a department store as it opens for Boxing Day sales in central London, Monday, Dec. 26, 2011. Despite disruptions caused by London's subway drivers striking over a pay dispute, large crowds of shoppers started flooding department stores in London as soon as doors opened early Monday. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)
Underground trains are parked during a 24-hour strike by train drivers over public holiday pay, at Mordern depot, south London, Monday, Dec. 26, 2011. (AP Photo/Sang Tan)
LONDON (AP) ? London's subway drivers walked out over a pay dispute Monday, causing trouble for thousands of shoppers out to take advantage of traditional Boxing Day sales.
Transport for London warned that shoppers seeking bargains in the capital's shopping centers face "significant disruption." Several subway lines have been suspended, and limited services are operating on the rest of the network.
The ASLEF union is staging the one-day strike to demand extra pay as well as a day off for members working on the public holiday.
The London Underground ? the organization that manages the subway system ? condemned the move, saying it was pointless and demonstrated "a complete disregard for our customers." Authorities said extra buses are running in the main shopping areas to cater to the increased flow of travelers on one of the year's busiest shopping days.
Despite the disruptions, large crowds of shoppers ? some lining up from midnight ? started flooding department stores in London and other British cities as soon as doors opened early Monday.
Selfridges, one of Britain's most popular department stores, reported its biggest ever first hour of trading Monday morning.
In northwest London, the Brent Cross shopping center said that 10,000 people had piled through its doors within an hour of opening.
The ASLEF union plans to stage three more strikes in January and February if the dispute is not resolved.
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WASHINGTON (AP) ? The earthquake-damaged Washington Monument has extensive cracking and chipped stones near its peak that left it highly vulnerable to rainfall, and inspectors found cracks and loose stones along the entire length of the 555-foot structure, according to a report released Thursday by the National Park Service.
The report was prepared by the engineering firm whose employees rappelled down the sides of the monument in September to inspect the damage. It offers the most detailed portrait yet of damage to the 127-year-old monument, which has been closed to visitors since a 5.8-magnitude earthquake shook the nation's capital on Aug. 23.The report does not estimate how long repairs would take or how much they would cost. The federal spending bill approved last week allocates $7.5 million to fix the monument, with the understanding that the National Park Service will raise an equal amount through private donations.
The repairs recommended by the report include reinforcing the cracks with stainless steel plates and filling them with sealant; replacing as many loose pieces of marble as possible and shoring them up with steel anchors or mortar; and cleaning and re-sealing all joints in the top portion of the monument to keep water out.
The report also recommends a seismic study to gauge the monument's vulnerability to future earthquakes.
While the monument remains structurally sound, the cracks left it so exposed that after rainstorms, "a substantial amount of standing water collects on the floors of the display and observation levels," the report found.
The inspection found six cracks that extend through the full thickness of the marble panels that form the exterior of the monument's pyramidion, the uppermost portion of the obelisk where it begins narrowing to a point. Cracks and chipped or loose stones, found all along the structure, were more concentrated at the 450-foot mark and above.
The largest piece of stone to become dislodged was in the interior of the monument and weighed more than 200 pounds.
The corners of the pyramidion, which are topped by metal lightning rods, sustained particularly complex damage, and the entire lightning protection apparatus will need to be removed so that portions can be replaced before it is reinstalled, the report says.
There is no timetable for repairing and reopening the monument. The park service plans to solicit bids for the work, and it's not clear whether the monument could reopen before repairs have concluded.
Construction began on the monument in 1848 and, after an interruption during the Civil War, it was completed in 1884. It remains the tallest structure in Washington and was the world's tallest manmade structure until it was eclipsed by the Eiffel Tower.
___
Follow Ben Nuckols on Twitter at http://twitter.com/APBenNuckols.
Source: http://www.hometownannapolis.com/cgi-bin/read/2011/12_24-09/REG
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PEABODY, Mass. (AP) ? A woman who just flew back home from Las Vegas says an airport security officer confiscated her frosted cupcake because he thought the icing on it could be a security risk.
Rebecca Hains said the Transportation Security Administration agent at McCarran International Airport took her cupcake Wednesday, telling her its frosting was enough like a gel to violate TSA restrictions on allowing liquids and gels onto flights to prevent them from being used as explosives. She said the agent told her the frosting was conforming to the jar it was inside.
"I just thought this was terrible logic," Hains said Friday.
Hains, who lives in Peabody, just north of Boston, said the agent didn't seem concerned that the cupcake could actually be explosive, just that it fit some bureaucratic definition about what was prohibited. She said he even offered to let her eat it away from the airport security area.
Hains, a 35-year-old communications professor at Salem State University, said she told the agent she had passed through security at Boston's Logan International Airport earlier in the week with two cupcakes packaged in jars, gifts from a student. But she said the agent told her that just meant TSA in Boston didn't do its job.
The TSA, which is entrusted with protecting the nation's transportation system, was reviewing the situation, agency spokesman Nico Melendez said. Passengers are allowed to take cakes and cupcakes through checkpoints, he said.
Hains ultimately surrendered the cupcake. But she said the situation highlighted a lack of common sense by the agent and the ludicrousness of TSA policies.
"It's not really about the cupcake; I can get another cupcake," she said. "It's about an encroachment on civil liberties. We're just building up a resistance and tolerance to all these things they're doing in the name of security, when it's really theater. It is not keeping us safe."
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FILE - In a Sunday, Jan. 23, 2011 file photo, Chaz Bono, left, subject of the Oprah Winfrey Network documentary film "Becoming Chaz," poses with his girlfriend Jennifer Elia at the premiere of the film at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Howard Bragman, a publicist for Bono, says the relationship between Bono and and his longtime partner Jennifer Elia has ended. Bono, who recently appeared on ?Dancing with the Stars,? and Elia have been dating and engaged for years. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)
FILE - In a Sunday, Jan. 23, 2011 file photo, Chaz Bono, left, subject of the Oprah Winfrey Network documentary film "Becoming Chaz," poses with his girlfriend Jennifer Elia at the premiere of the film at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Howard Bragman, a publicist for Bono, says the relationship between Bono and and his longtime partner Jennifer Elia has ended. Bono, who recently appeared on ?Dancing with the Stars,? and Elia have been dating and engaged for years. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? A publicist for Chaz Bono says the relationship between the author and activist and his longtime partner has ended.
Howard Bragman says in a statement that Bono and Jennifer Elia "leave this relationship with great love, respect and affection towards one another." He adds that the two are seeking privacy in the matter.
Bono, who recently appeared on "Dancing with the Stars," and Elia have been dating and engaged for years. The pair dated as Bono, who was born Chastity Bono to musicians Cher and Sonny Bono, changed his gender through surgery and the court system.
Bragman says no further details will be released about the couple.
Bono has written two books and has discussed his transition in a documentary project that aired on the Oprah Winfrey Network.
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Syrian troops have killed 111 people in one of the deadliest incidents since the uprising against President Bashar Assad's regime began in March, activists said Wednesday.
Only on msnbc.com
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the killings occurred in the town of Kfar Owaid in the northwestern province of Idlib Tuesday.
"It was an organized massacre. The troops surrounded people, then killed them," said Rami Abdul-Rahman, head of the organization.
The killings were reported a day before Arab League observers were due to visit Syria to monitor pledges by Assad's government to withdraw troops from besieged areas.
The White House said it was "deeply disturbed" by Tuesday's attack, the State Department stepped up its travel warning, France called the deaths a "murderous spiral," and the Arab League reminded the Assad regime of its responsibilities to protect its civilians.
In a statement, the rights organization said government forces surrounded about 150 local residents and shot them with bullets and tank shells for more than five hours.
"Some women tried to break the siege but in vain," it said. "The security forces arrested a number of young people from their homes, shackled them [and] executed them," it added.
It said 111 bodies were counted in the local mosque, of which 56 had been identified by its local activists.
Dr. Mousab Azzawi, a coordinator in London for the organization, told msnbc.com that the total number of victims its local activists had verified since Monday was 228.
"The situation is absolutely getting worse by the day," he said. "This area has been crippled by protest strikes and there is no electrical power, freezing cold weather and very little communication."
The accounts could not be independently confirmed because Syria has banned entry to most foreign journalists and places heavy restrictions on the work of local reporters.
Azzawi claimed Syria's decision on Monday to allow Arab League monitors to enter the country had simply prolonged the bloodshed.
"Every time they talk it means another day without change for the people in Syria," he said.
Warnings from US
The Obama administration reacted to the latest reports by renewing its call for Assad to step down, saying he "does not deserve to rule Syria."
"The United States is deeply disturbed by credible reports that the Assad regime continues to indiscriminately kill scores of civilians and army defectors, while destroying homes and shops and arresting protesters without due process," the White House said in a statement read by spokesman Jay Carney, warning that the international community could take more steps against Syria.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland added that the stepped-up violence signaled that Syria's acceptance of the Arab League plan is merely a "stalling tactic."
"This is not the behavior of a government that is getting ready to implement the Arab League proposals," she told reporters, adding later that: "We've got lots of promises as the government continues to mow down its own people."
The department, renewing its travel warning for Syria, repeated earlier alerts that urged Americans to leave while there is still commercial air service and limit their travel inside the country due to the violence. The warning also said that already limited services at the embassy in Damascus likely would be curtailed "as staff levels ... are being further reduced."
French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said "everything must be done to stop this murderous spiral into which Bashar Assad is leading his people more every day." He added that the U.N. Security Council must "pass a firm resolution demanding the end to this repression."
The German government's human rights commissioner, Markus Loening, called for an immediate end to violence against deserters and demonstrators.
Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said "it is unacceptable" that so many people were killed after Syria agreed to an Arab League plan to halt the bloodshed.
In Cairo, Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby expressed deep concern about reports of an escalation in violence and appealed to Damascus to shoulder its responsibilities to protect civilians in compliance with its pledges to abide by the league's plan.
The Arab League plan calls for Syria to halt its crackdown, open talks with the opposition, withdraw military forces from city streets and allow in human rights workers and journalists. The 22-member Arab League has also suspended Syria's membership and leveled economic and diplomatic sanctions.
Despite the new violence, the Arab League appeared to be going ahead with its plans to send in its first delegation of monitors on Thursday. An Arab League official said the second team of observers ? 30 experts in military affairs and human rights ? will head for Syria on Sunday, led by Lt. Gen. Mohammed Ahmed Mustafa of Sudan.
Another team of 100 observers will leave for Syria within two weeks, he said.
Syria's main opposition group, the Syrian National Council, described this weeks killings as "brutal massacres and genocide," saying it has urged the U.N. Security Council to hold an emergency meeting on Syria. The SNC also asked the international community to help protect Syrian citizens.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
? 2011 msnbc.com
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45748624/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/
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FILE -- In a Nov. 7, 2011 file photo former Penn State athletic director Tim Curley, left, and former Penn State Vice President Gary Schultz, right, enter a district judge's office for an arraignment in Harrisburg, Pa. Curley and Schultz have been charged with perjury and failure to report under Pennsylvania?s child protective services law in connection with the investigation into allegations involving former football defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, the state attorney general?s office. (AP Photo/Bradley C. Bower/file)
FILE -- In a Nov. 7, 2011 file photo former Penn State athletic director Tim Curley, left, and former Penn State Vice President Gary Schultz, right, enter a district judge's office for an arraignment in Harrisburg, Pa. Curley and Schultz have been charged with perjury and failure to report under Pennsylvania?s child protective services law in connection with the investigation into allegations involving former football defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, the state attorney general?s office. (AP Photo/Bradley C. Bower/file)
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) ? Two of Penn State's most powerful officials will fight perjury charges and allegations they did not respond properly nine years ago after getting a report a young boy had been sodomized in the football team's showers, and will hear more of the alleged evidence against them Friday in a preliminary hearing to determine if their cases should go to trial.
Gary Schultz and Tim Curley were charged with perjury and failure to report child abuse in early November, on the same day Jerry Sandusky was accused of sexual abuse of eight children.
Schultz was a vice president at the university and had overseen the campus police. Curley was the university's long-serving athletic director. Since they were arrested six weeks ago, Schultz has retired and Curley has been on administrative leave.
The hearing in Dauphin County court in Harrisburg requires the attorney general's office to prove there is a minimum of evidence to support the charges, a relatively low bar and a proceeding that defendants have the right to waive. Sandusky, the school's retired assistant football coach, is charged with 52 criminal counts and a second indictment brought to 10 the number of alleged victims.
Sandusky on Tuesday waived his preliminary hearing at the last minute. His lawyer said he was concerned the proceeding would be too one-sided and that prosecutors had agreed not to seek a bail increase.
The attorneys for Curley and Schultz have not indicated they intend to waive, and even issued a statement earlier this week saying the defendants were looking forward to the preliminary hearing and "to start the process of clearing their good names and demonstrating that they testified truthfully to the grand jury." They declined comment Thursday, but said they would speak with reporters after the hearing.
A key witness Friday could be Mike McQueary, an assistant football coach who the grand jury said told them he saw Sandusky attacking a boy in the shower.
Curley and Schultz gave different accounts, and are charged with not properly alerting law enforcement when McQueary contacted them.
To support the perjury charges, prosecutors must show probable cause the two men lied and that the lies were intentional and material to the case.
"Even though you've had some fairly celebrated folks convicted of perjury, it's a very tough charge to prove," said Temple University law professor Edward Ohlbaum. "You have to have a clear question, an unequivocal answer, and (prove) the defendant knew what he was saying was false."
McQueary's testimony is central to the case, and Sandusky's lawyer and others think he will have to testify Friday. His appearance would mark the first time he has testified in public about what he saw and heard inside the Lasch Football Building.
McQueary told the grand jury he saw Sandusky raping the boy one Friday night before spring break. He said he called his father, then left distraught. He and his father met with coach Joe Paterno the next day.
Paterno, in turn, told his boss, Curley.
Paterno, according to the grand jury report, told Curley that his graduate assistant had seen Sandusky "fondling or doing something of a sexual nature."
Schultz, who oversaw campus security, and Curley met with McQueary 10 days later. McQueary told them that he thought Sandusky had sodomized a young boy, according to his grand jury testimony, which the panel found "extremely credible."
Curley, though, denied that McQueary reported a rape or anything "of a sexual nature whatsoever," the report said. The athletic director described the conduct as "horsing around," the panel said.
Schultz was unsure of what he had been told, but denied the reported conduct included sodomy. He told the grand jury that he was left with "the impression that Sandusky might have inappropriately grabbed the young boy's genitals while wrestling."
The accounts continued to morph, according to the grand jury's outline, when the two university officials spoke to school President Graham Spanier. Spanier testified that he was told Sandusky and a boy "were horsing around in the shower."
Curley, 57, and Schultz, 62, face up to seven years in prison if convicted of perjury. The other charge is a summary offense, less serious than a misdemeanor.
The hearing raises the prospect that Paterno, the 84-year-old campus icon now being treated for lung cancer and a re-fractured pelvis, may be called to the stand. The attorney general's office declined to say who is on its witness list, and it's unclear whether prosecutors could have his grand jury testimony read into the record.
In Pennsylvania, prosecutors must corroborate a lone witness' testimony with either physical evidence or a second person's testimony to meet the probable cause threshold, Ohlbaum said.
Bruce Antkowiak, a former federal prosecutor and defense attorney who now teaches law at St. Vincent College near Latrobe, said he'd bet on McQueary taking the stand.
"If I were the defense, I would be expecting to see McQueary," Antkowiak said. "While some hearsay is permissible, you can't just get up and re-read his grand jury testimony or some other statement into the record."
Charles Porter, a veteran Pittsburgh defense attorney, said the law is that an entire case can't consist of just hearsay evidence at a preliminary hearing.
"To the extent the government has anything else they can offer (as evidence) they could try to just read in his statement into the record," Porter said. "But, the reality in a case like this is, I think he has to take the stand. He appears to be their entire case, as much as I can tell."
No one answered the door at McQueary's home Thursday. His father, John, declined comment to The Associated Press.
McQueary told the grand jury that he happened upon "rhythmic, slapping sounds" in the locker room showers and added that both Sandusky and the boy saw him there, according to a grand jury presentment. Authorities did not know the boy's identity when the report was issued.
McQueary has become a lightning rod in the case, taking heat for not going to the boy's aid or immediately calling police. In a recent email to friends, he went on the defensive, saying he made sure the abuse stopped and went to authorities.
Defense lawyers would no doubt challenge McQueary about his more recent statements. Local and campus police have said they received no such complaint.
Meanwhile, The Patriot-News of Harrisburg has reported that McQueary's story changed when speaking in 2002 to Dr. Jonathan Dranov, a family friend. The newspaper report cited a source said to be familiar with Dranov's testimony.
"If this information is true, and we believe it is, it would be powerful, exculpatory evidence and the charges against our clients should be dismissed," Caroline Roberto, a lawyer for Curley, and Tom Farrell, the attorney representing Schultz, said in their statement.
The Associated Press was unable to reach Dranov this week at his home and office.
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Associated Press writer Joe Mandak in Pittsburgh contributed to this report.
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BAGHDAD ? In the beginning, it all looked simple: topple Saddam Hussein, destroy his purported weapons of mass destruction and lay the foundation for a pro-Western government in the heart of the Arab world.
Nearly 4,500 American and more than 100,000 Iraqi lives later, the objective became simply to get out ? and leave behind a country where democracy has at least a chance, where Iran does not dominate and where conditions may not be good but "good enough."
Even those modest goals may prove too ambitious after American forces leave and Iraq begins to chart its own course. How the Iraqis fare in the coming years will determine how history judges a war which became among the most politically contentious in American history.
Toppling Saddam was the easy part. Television images from the days following the March 20, 2003, start of the war made the conflict look relatively painless, like a certain type of Hollywood movie: American tanks speeding across the bleak and featureless Iraqi plains, huge blasts rattling Baghdad in the "shock and awe" bombing and the statue of the dictator tumbling down from his pedestal.
But Americans soon collided with the complex realities of an alien society few of them knew or understood. Who were the real power brokers? This ayatollah or that Sunni chief? What were the right buttons to push? America had its own ideas of the new Iraq. Did most Iraqis share them?
Places most Americans had never heard of in 2002, like Fallujah and Abu Ghraib, became household words. Saddam was captured nine months after the invasion. The war dragged on for eight more years. No WMD were ever found. And Iraq drained billions from America's treasury and diverted resources from Afghanistan, where the Taliban and al-Qaida rebounded after their defeat in the 2001 invasion.
In the early months, America's enemy was mostly Sunnis angry over the loss of power and prestige when their patron Saddam fell. In September 2007, the bloodiest year for U.S. troops, Shiite militias ? part of a community that suffered terribly under Saddam ? were responsible for three-quarters of the attacks in the Baghdad area that killed or wounded Americans, according to the then-No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno.
Saddam had not tolerated al-Qaida. With Saddam gone and the country in chaos, al-Qaida in Iraq became the terror movement's largest and most dangerous franchise, drawing in fighters from North Africa to Asia for a war that lingers on through suicide bombings and assassinations, albeit at a lower intensity.
As American troops prepare to go home by Dec. 31, they leave behind a country still facing violence, with closer ties to the U.S. than Saddam had but still short of what Washington once envisioned. Iranian influence is on the rise. One of the few positive developments from the American viewpoint ? a democratic toehold ? is far from secure.
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In 20-20 hindsight, the U.S. probably should have seen it coming. By 2003, communal rivalries and hatreds, fueled by years of Saddam's suppression of Kurds and Shiites, were brewing beneath the lid of a closed society cobbled together from the wreckage of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. Saddam's rule of terror kept all these passions in the pot. Lift the lid and the pot boils over. Remove Saddam and a new fight flares for the power that the ousted ruler and his Baath Party had monopolized for decades.
A day after Saddam's statue was hauled down in Baghdad, the U.S. arranged what was supposed to be a reconciliation meeting in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, bringing together prominent clerics from the majority Shiite sect eager for a dominant role in Iraq after the collapse of Saddam's Sunni-dominated rule.
One of them was Abdul-Majid al-Khoie, son of a revered ayatollah. Al-Khoie had fled to Britain during Saddam's crackdown against Shiites after the 1991 Gulf War. Now he and the other clerics were back in Iraq, freed from Saddam's yoke.
As al-Khoie approached a mosque, a crowd swarmed around him. He was hacked to death in an attack widely blamed on Muqtada al-Sadr, a fellow Shiite cleric.
In Baghdad, meanwhile, mobs looted and burned much of the city as bewildered U.S. soldiers stood by.
"Stuff happens," then-U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld famously said at the time. "And it's untidy, and freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes, and commit crimes and do bad things. They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things. And that's what's going to happen here."
Within months, angry Sunnis had taken up arms to resist what they saw as a Shiite takeover on the coattails of the Americans. Their ranks were bolstered by former soldiers whose livelihood was taken away when the Americans, in a bid to appease Shiite and Kurdish leaders, abolished Saddam's military.
In August 2003, a massive truck bomb devastated the U.N. headquarters, killing the chief of mission, his deputy and 20 other people. Two months later, rockets slammed into the U.S.-occupied Rasheed Hotel in the Green Zone, killing an American lieutenant colonel and wounding 17 people. One of the architects of the war, visiting Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, barely escaped injury.
By then it was clear: America was in for a long and brutal fight. The triumphant scene of Saddam's statue falling would be replaced by new iconic images: the bodies of butchered Americans hanging from a bridge in Fallujah, military vehicles engulfed in flames, terrified hostages staring into a video camera moments before decapitation, and flag-draped caskets resting at open graves as aging parents and young widows wept for their loved ones.
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The Americans arrived with their own agenda for the new Iraq. That didn't always mesh with what the Iraqis had in mind.
Phillip J. Dermer, a now-retired U.S. colonel who has returned to Iraq as a businessman, spent the summer of 2003 helping set up a city council in Baghdad.
The idea was to give Iraqis a quick taste of democracy while issues like a constitution and national elections were being worked out.
After months of preparation, the council was elected and got down to its first order of business: To the Americans' surprise, an al-Sadr representative came forward to change the name of the Shiite slum in eastern Baghdad from Saddam City to Sadr City in honor of the cleric's father, who was assassinated by the deposed regime. The measure passed unanimously.
Dermer and his colleagues had been expecting a vote for something like a new budget for water. For Dermer it was a signal. The Iraqis had their own priorities.
"We were so focused on getting this council together and hold their hands up to vote when the whole time something else was happening. We weren't aware of it, and we didn't catch it," he said.
The Americans would soon learn the Iraqis were primarily interested in promoting their own religious or ethnic group at the expense of others.
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Increasingly, Sunni militants were targeting not just U.S. troops but Iraqi Shiites.
Shiites initially held their fire and did not retaliate. Their highest-ranking cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, wanted Shiites to keep focused on the main prize: majority control of the government.
All that changed with the bombing of a major Shiite shrine in Samarra in February 2006.
Newly formed Shiite militias struck back against random Sunnis, often dragging them away in the dead of night. It was now Shiites against Sunnis, neighbor against neighbor.
America was now in the middle of a civil war, partly of its own making, despite intense efforts by the Bush administration to resist that view.
The U.S. seemed overwhelmed. Just keeping count of the death tolls was a challenge, leading to a bizarre U.S. military formula where a body found on the streets was listed as a "sectarian" victim if the fatal wound was in the head. If the wound were in the torso, it was counted as random violence.
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For Americans back home, Iraq was not a war with morale-boosting milestones that could point to progress. No Pacific islands secured, no heroic storming of the beaches at Normandy. No newsreel scenes of grateful civilians welcoming liberators with flowers.
Instead, the war became a mind-numbing litany of suicide bombings and ambushes. "Progress" was defined by grim statistics such as fewer civilians found butchered today than yesterday. Soon it all began to sound the same, a bloody, soul-killing "Ground Hog Day" of brutality after brutality seemingly without purpose. Pacify one village, move on to another, only to have violence flare again in the first place.
Sen. John McCain summed it up at a congressional hearing three years into the war: "What I worry about is we're playing a game of whack-a-mole here."
A 24-year-old platoon leader in Ramadi expressed the same sentiment in a different way. "Every time we go out, we run," he told an Associated Press reporter in 2006. "If you stand still, you WILL get shot at."
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It was even worse for the Iraqis. Everyone was a potential target for death. Sunni militants, especially in al-Qaida, considered Shiites as much of an enemy as American soldiers. Shiite militias viewed all Sunnis as Saddam loyalists ready to bring back the old regime.
By such twisted logic, mothers shopping for food in a market were just as legitimate a target as armed, uniformed soldiers. Car bombs and suicide attacks killed thousands. Sons, fathers and brothers disappeared ? often without a trace ? abducted by death squads and presumably buried in unmarked desert graves. Nearly everyone had a relative or a close friend who died or disappeared ? more than 3,700 were slaughtered in the month of October 2006 alone, according to the United Nations.
By the end of 2006, the U.N. estimated that 100,000 Iraqis were fleeing every month for sanctuary in Jordan and Syria.
Death could come at any moment: from a bomb on a bus filled with people heading for work or from an errant shell on a home as a family enjoyed an evening meal. Or from foreigners. In September 2007, Blackwater contractors guarding a U.S. State Department convoy in Baghdad opened fire on civilian vehicles, mistakenly thinking they were under attack. Seventeen Iraqis died. A U.S. federal judge dismissed the charges two years later because the case was built on testimony in exchange for immunity.
A review by the AP in April 2009 showed that more than 110,600 Iraqis had died in violence since the U.S.-led invasion. The actual number was likely higher because many of those listed as missing were doubtless buried in the chaos of war without official records.
"They wanted Iraq to be a model for democracy to be followed by other countries in the region," a Shiite preacher, Sheik Muhannad al-Bahadli, said of the Americans in March 2007. "Look what happened in Iraq after four years of occupation: booby-trapped cars and bombs blowing up and killing Iraqis."
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In 2007, the tide began to turn, though historians will debate the reason for years. The change was probably a result of a confluence of events. Many Sunni militants concluded that they needed the Americans for leverage against the "real enemy" ? the Shiites. Many Sunni insurgents resented al-Qaida's power grab and did not share its vision of a global jihad. Many Shiites recoiled against the brutality and gangsterism of some of their own Shiite militias. And finally the American military surge.
In January 2007, President George W. Bush announced he was sending 30,000 more troops to secure Baghdad and the provinces around it. Talk of a troop withdrawal in 2007, which had been widely expected, disappeared. With the Americans promising and paying for support, more and more Sunni insurgents switched sides and turned against al-Qaida. Eight months into the surge, Shiite militia leader al-Sadr declared a cease-fire and violence began dropping in the capital.
Fighting continued. But the commanding general, David Petraeus, was able to tell Congress by the end of the year that the "military objectives" of the surge were being met. Skeptics, including then-Sen. Barack Obama, acknowledged the trend while noting that the second goal of the surge ? to allow the Iraqis to establish a stable, effective government ? remained unfulfilled.
"The surge succeeded in those aspects where the Americans had full control, the military aspects," said Marina Ottoway, director of the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There was no willingness to compromise. There still is no willingness to compromise."
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With the Stars and Stripes lowered and the last of the troops on their way out, America's role in the Iraq war is over. For Iraqis, however, the war and the struggle to build a functioning democratic state continue. Bombs still explode, gunmen attack police checkpoints. Iraq's government, though far more representative than Saddam's regime, still falls short of an ideal.
Tensions between Sunnis and Shiites, Arabs and Kurds remain unresolved. It's an open question who will ultimately govern in Iraq and whether Iran will in time come to dominate its weakened neighbor.
America will not be abandoning Iraq. The U.S. will leave behind thousands of diplomats and security contractors, whose presence will influence the direction of the country for years to come. Still, the disappearance of uniformed troops will have a profound effect on Iraqis in ways that will take years to define.
For the first time in nearly nine years, Iraq's future will be entirely in the hands of Iraqis.
Less clear is whether America's mission was truly accomplished. Saad Eskander, who heads Iraq's National Library and Archives, said the Americans created as many enemies as they have allies, and are leaving with only part of the job done.
"What the Americans have accomplished in Iraq is a 50/50 project. It's not completed. The other 50 is up to us," he said. "Either we are people who deserve this country or we don't deserve it."
And what of the American legacy?
"They did get rid of the Baathist Iraq state and Saddam Hussein from power. They did succeed in bringing a proto-democracy," said Theodore Karasik, an analyst at the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf. But the war also "permitted the rise of people who may not share America's point of view."
History will be the judge, but for now many observers believe the costs in dollars and blood dwarf the war's achievements.
"The U.S. and Iraqi forces scored impressive tactical victories against the insurgents in Iraq during 2005-2009, but the U.S. invasion now seems to be a de facto grand strategic failure," wrote Anthony Cordesman, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
"Its tactical victories ? if they last ? did little more than put an end to a conflict it helped create."
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Reid, who reported from Cairo, Egypt, covered the Iraq war from 2003 until 2009.
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