PARIS ? France's Constitutional Council has been asked on Tuesday to determine whether a bill concerning the mass killings of Armenians a century ago violates the constitution.
The bill makes it a crime to deny that the killings of some 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915 constituted genocide. Turkey, which says there was no systematic campaign against Armenians, is strongly opposed to the bill and says relations with France will suffer as a result.
Turkey suspended military and economic cooperation after the lower house approval of the measure in December. The Senate gave it the green light in late January.
President Nicolas Sarkozy ? who personally backed the bill ? must sign the legislation for it to become law. However, the latest action will delay the process.
The Constitutional Council said groups of legislators have submitted a formal request that the body rule on the measure's constitutionality. It has up to a month to do so.
Turkish officials welcomed the move. President Abdullah Gul said, "I hope the French court makes the right decision."
Even within the French mainstream, the measure sowed divisions on Sarkozy's right and on the rival left with some lawmakers expressing some of the same concerns as Ankara, notably that denying the mass killings of Armenians nearly a century ago impinges on freedom of expression and legislates in a domain better left to historians.
France's relations with Turkey are already strained, in large part because Sarkozy opposes Turkey's entry into the European Union.
Meet the beetles: Social networks provide clues to natural selectionPublic release date: 30-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Fariss Samarrai fls4f@virginia.edu 434-924-3778 University of Virginia
Think of them as a group of guys, hanging out together, but not spending much time with the ladies, nor getting much "action." Except these "guys" are forked fungus beetles.
Forked what? Yes, forked fungus beetles. Like other insects and animals, they have their own societies. Most are highly social, but some hang out in small guy groups.
It turns out, maybe not surprisingly, that the cliquish ones the small groups of male beetles that live on the fringes of society with their buddies are less likely to meet up with females, copulate and pass on their genes to offspring.
Why does it matter? Because social interactions likely are the products of evolution by natural selection Charles Darwin's description for nature's process whereby characteristics that help individuals to survive and propagate are spread through the population.
And so forked fungus beetles and their activities are of immense interest to Vince Formica and Butch Brodie, evolutionary biologists in the University of Virginia's College of Arts &Sciences. They study the beetles in a remote forest near U.Va.'s Mountain Lake Biological Station in southwest Virginia.
"Forked fungus beetles are not pretty they look like tree bark but they're helping us better understand the evolution of social behavior," Formica said. He is the lead author on a paper about the study published in the January edition of the Journal of Evolutionary Biology.
Formica and his team wanted to know if an individual beetle's place in society is related to its reproductive success.
"In the world of evolutionary biology, we are interested in how natural selection can shape traits or characteristics of organisms," he said. "Studying social networks are a way of analyzing the structure of animal societies. In this case, we were asking if an individual's position in a social network is a trait or characteristic of an individual that can experience natural selection. Apparently it is."
Formica said there are essentially two parts to evolution by natural selection: The first is a trait related to the number of offspring produced, and the second is the ability to pass that trait on to offspring, what scientists call heritability.
"We've shown that the trait of sociability is under natural selection, but we don't know yet if it's heritable," he said. "This is one of only a few studies that has shown that position in a social network is a trait that can experience natural selection and therefore has the potential to evolve. It's clear in this study that being central in a large social network is key to high reproductive success. If a trait such as an individual's position in a network is related to reproductive success, you can say it is experiencing natural selection and has the potential to evolve."
Formica chose forked fungus beetles as his study models partly because they are easy to capture, tag and observe.
"We can sit and watch their whole universe," he said.
But the beetles are nocturnal, so researchers spend long nights in the forests watching them.
"We drink a lot of espresso," he said.
The biologists tag the beetles with extreme-miniature ID numbers that glow when scanned under ultraviolet lights. The researchers then are able to watch their social activities everything from fighting to eating to mating, to just sitting there like bark on logs.
Formica's team, made up mostly of undergraduate students, observed that some of the beetles are very social and have a large network of friends. These active beetles also have a lot of sex. But the male beetles that have small social networks just a few male friends tend to spend little time with females and copulate rarely.
"Do individual behaviors cause their position to evolve, and does it cause the society to evolve as well? That's what we're attempting to answer," he said.
While Formica is hesitant to draw direct connections from his findings to the romantic lives of humans, he does believe that uncovering how social networks operate, even in a tiny bark-shaped beetle, is vital if we want to understand how all societies evolve.
###
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Meet the beetles: Social networks provide clues to natural selectionPublic release date: 30-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Fariss Samarrai fls4f@virginia.edu 434-924-3778 University of Virginia
Think of them as a group of guys, hanging out together, but not spending much time with the ladies, nor getting much "action." Except these "guys" are forked fungus beetles.
Forked what? Yes, forked fungus beetles. Like other insects and animals, they have their own societies. Most are highly social, but some hang out in small guy groups.
It turns out, maybe not surprisingly, that the cliquish ones the small groups of male beetles that live on the fringes of society with their buddies are less likely to meet up with females, copulate and pass on their genes to offspring.
Why does it matter? Because social interactions likely are the products of evolution by natural selection Charles Darwin's description for nature's process whereby characteristics that help individuals to survive and propagate are spread through the population.
And so forked fungus beetles and their activities are of immense interest to Vince Formica and Butch Brodie, evolutionary biologists in the University of Virginia's College of Arts &Sciences. They study the beetles in a remote forest near U.Va.'s Mountain Lake Biological Station in southwest Virginia.
"Forked fungus beetles are not pretty they look like tree bark but they're helping us better understand the evolution of social behavior," Formica said. He is the lead author on a paper about the study published in the January edition of the Journal of Evolutionary Biology.
Formica and his team wanted to know if an individual beetle's place in society is related to its reproductive success.
"In the world of evolutionary biology, we are interested in how natural selection can shape traits or characteristics of organisms," he said. "Studying social networks are a way of analyzing the structure of animal societies. In this case, we were asking if an individual's position in a social network is a trait or characteristic of an individual that can experience natural selection. Apparently it is."
Formica said there are essentially two parts to evolution by natural selection: The first is a trait related to the number of offspring produced, and the second is the ability to pass that trait on to offspring, what scientists call heritability.
"We've shown that the trait of sociability is under natural selection, but we don't know yet if it's heritable," he said. "This is one of only a few studies that has shown that position in a social network is a trait that can experience natural selection and therefore has the potential to evolve. It's clear in this study that being central in a large social network is key to high reproductive success. If a trait such as an individual's position in a network is related to reproductive success, you can say it is experiencing natural selection and has the potential to evolve."
Formica chose forked fungus beetles as his study models partly because they are easy to capture, tag and observe.
"We can sit and watch their whole universe," he said.
But the beetles are nocturnal, so researchers spend long nights in the forests watching them.
"We drink a lot of espresso," he said.
The biologists tag the beetles with extreme-miniature ID numbers that glow when scanned under ultraviolet lights. The researchers then are able to watch their social activities everything from fighting to eating to mating, to just sitting there like bark on logs.
Formica's team, made up mostly of undergraduate students, observed that some of the beetles are very social and have a large network of friends. These active beetles also have a lot of sex. But the male beetles that have small social networks just a few male friends tend to spend little time with females and copulate rarely.
"Do individual behaviors cause their position to evolve, and does it cause the society to evolve as well? That's what we're attempting to answer," he said.
While Formica is hesitant to draw direct connections from his findings to the romantic lives of humans, he does believe that uncovering how social networks operate, even in a tiny bark-shaped beetle, is vital if we want to understand how all societies evolve.
###
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
TEHRAN, Iran ? Iran's state TV is reporting the country has produced laser-guided artillery shells, capable of hitting moving targets with high accuracy.
The Monday report quoting Defense Minister Gen. Ahmad Vahidi also says that the shell was an "intelligent" munition with the capability to identify its own targets.
The report was accompanied by footage showing an artillery piece firing a shell, followed by an explosion in the desert.
The report does not give details on specifications of the shell. It could not be independently verified.
Iran occasionally announces the production and testing of military equipment, ranging from torpedoes to missiles and jet fighters.
The country's military has run a program dating from 1992 which aims at self-sufficiency in producing modern weaponry.
And now Delta's added even more functionality in Version 1.7. Here's the full changelog.
Check in for flights arriving or departing international locations
Discover Delta’s valued partners within the "Traveling with Us" section
Support for Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwhich) [sic]
Fixes for many of the bugs reported by our customers, along with several speed enhancements
It's nice that Delta's added check-ins for international flights. (Though you'll presumably still have to get your boarding pass when you arrive.) The "Traveling with Us" section is a little bit of advertising (we've got a screen cap after the break), where so far we have promotion of Delta's American Express credit card and something from TED. It's pretty unobtrusive, though, so no big deal. Then there's the ICS support and other bug fixes, which is always good (though the app had been working just fine for us), though there's still a menu button down at the bottom, and not as an Action Bar "overflow" as Google's pushing everyone toward. (On the other hand, the app's design is otherwise very nice, so we'll overlook that.)
But what really gets us excited is the prospect of "several speed enhancements." With previous versions of the app, you needed to fire it up a few minutes before you could get to your itinerary and find your confirmation number or seat assignment or mobile boarding pass. Things definitely feel a little quicker; hopefully that's not just a placebo -- it really was a big gripe with the Delta app.
WASHINGTON ? The Pentagon's decision announced Friday to take two heavy armor brigades out of Europe in 2013 and 2014 will not necessarily force NATO allies to shoulder more of the load if ground forces are needed for a large-scale conflict in the region, Gen. Raymond Odierno, the Army chief of staff, said Friday.
Odierno said the military will work hard to mitigate the impact of the shift on European allies, who rely heavily on U.S. military might to provide the bulk of the forces in a ground campaign.
The move to shift brigades out of Europe is part of a broader Pentagon plan to cut the size of the Army by 80,000 soldiers and restructure the service to ensure the military has the capabilities it needs to go to war. Odierno said the mandate to reduce the force from 570,000 soldiers during the height of the Iraq war to 490,000 by 2017 will force the military to rely more on the National Guard and reserves, particularly if the U.S. gets into two major, long-term combat operations at the same time.
Odierno said he is comfortable with the reduction in the force. But he suggested that the U.S. will now have to keep its reserve forces at a higher level of readiness than it did before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan pressed tens of thousands citizen soldiers into service to buttress the active duty Army.
He also said his support for the force cuts hinges on the fact that the Army will have more than five years to make the reductions, largely through normal attrition. He acknowledged, however, that a small number of officers may have to be forced to leave.
As the Iraq war dragged on, the Pentagon had to recruit thousands of additional active duty soldiers and beef up and repeatedly tap reserve brigades in order to meet the combat demands there and in Afghanistan. For roughly eight years, the U.S. battled in both countries at the same time, stretching and straining the Army.
Meeting that type of commitment with an Army of 490,000 would not work, Odierno said.
"Do I have the capability to go into Korea and meet the requirements? Yes," he said, when asked about the risks of a smaller force. "Do I have the ability to stay there for 10 years? No."
If the military had to fight two large, simultaneous, long-term wars, he said, the U.S. would rely more heavily on its allies in the region and call for a massive mobilization of the reserves.
"Because of the fact that they (Guard and reserves) have been involved in combat operations for very long period of time, we are going to come up with a readiness model that will keep them at a little bit higher level than they have been in the past," Odierno told reporters during an interview in his Pentagon office. And if needed, he said, the U.S. would use reserves to "buy us time to increase the active component" to wage two large, intensive wars.
NATO allies have long relied on the U.S. ground forces to wage such conflicts, so cutting the European-based force in half will be met with reservations from those leaders.
But one senior defense official said the U.S. is working on a variety of options to compensate for the loss. Those could include further U.S. commitments to NATO's rapid response force, which includes up to 25,000 forces provided by the allies. There also will likely be additional multinational military exercises. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the details have not been finalized.
Odierno said the two brigades being taken out of Europe ? both heavy armor units ? will be eliminated rather than reassigned somewhere in the United States. Both are based in Germany ? the 172nd Infantry Brigade, currently in Grafenwoehr, and the 170th Infantry Brigade in Baumholder. That will leave two U.S. Army combat brigades permanently stationed in Europe, one in Germany and one in Italy.
Baumholder Mayor Peter Lang noted that the German military ? which did away with conscription last year and is downsizing significantly ? is closing two barracks in the area already.
"This is a second tough blow for our region," he told the dapd news agency. The Rhineland-Palatinate state interior minister, Roger Lewentz, said he was holding out hope, however, that the U.S. troops may not leave the area entirely, saying he planned a trip in May to Washington, where he would lobby for at least some logistical facilities to remain open
"In reality, I think in the long run this will benefit all of us," Odierno told reporters. He said U.S. Army units will be rotated in and out of Europe based on the training and other needs of the NATO partners. That system, he said, will allow more U.S. units to work with the allies and "we will be able to tailor our engagements based on their needs."
Over the long-term, U.S. officials said they are planning to slash the number of combat brigades from 45 to possibly as low as 32. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss planning. Odierno said eight brigades will be shelved over the next several years, and officials will decide in the next six months or so if additional units should go.
Officials said the changes will likely increase the size of each combat brigade ? generally by adding another battalion ? in a long-term effort to ensure that those remaining brigades are robust and able to perform their missions without straining the force.
A brigade is usually about 3,500 soldiers but can be as large as 5,000 for the heavily armored units. A battalion is usually between 600 and 800 soldiers.
"We will make our brigades more capable to operate across missions, will eliminate unnecessary overhead, and allow us to sustain more combat capability if we do this right," said Odierno, who did not provide any details about the restructuring.
BAGHDAD ? A suicide bomber detonated an explosives-packed car near a funeral procession in southeastern Baghdad on Friday, killing at least 28 people in the latest brazen attack since the U.S. troop withdrawal, officials said.
Police officials said the blast occurred at 11:00 a.m. in the predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Zafaraniyah, where mourners had gathered for the funeral of a person killed the day before. They said 61 people were wounded in the attack.
Hospital officials confirmed the death toll. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
At least 200 people have been killed in a wave of attacks by suspected insurgents since the beginning of the year, raising concerns that the surge in violence and an escalating political crisis might deteriorate into a civil war, just weeks after the U.S. military withdrawal.
Most of the dead in the wave of attacks have been Shiite pilgrims and members of the Iraqi security forces.
Since the United States completed its pullout last month, militant groups ? mainly al-Qaida in Iraq ? have stepped up attacks targeting the country's majority Shiites to undermine confidence in the Shiite-led government and its efforts to protect people without American backup.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Friday's attack.
On Thursday, 17 people died in bombings around the country, including seven people in attacks on Baghdad's s two predominantly Sunni districts, suggesting that Shiite militants could be retaliating amid fears of a reignited sectarian conflict in the war-ravaged country.
How does this sound to you: $65 per month for unlimited talk, text, Web, and music with no contract. Pretty good, right? The catch: you're stuck accessing it all with a mediocre Android smartphone. That's the dilemma you face with the ZTE Score ($69.99) for Cricket Wireless. It's a great deal, in need of a better phone.
Design, Call Quality, and Plan Pricing The ZTE Score measures 4.4 by 2.5 by .5 inches (HWD) and weighs 4.5 ounces. The front and back are made of glass, with a thick ring of matte black plastic separating the two. It looks sharp, and its size makes it comfortable to hold and use. The 3.5-inch touch screen sports 320-by-480-pixel resolution, which is standard for budget Android phones. The onscreen keyboard is a bit small, but I didn't have any trouble typing on it.
The Score is a triband EV-DO Rev A (850/1700/1900 MHz) device with 802.11b/g Wi-Fi. It connected to my?WPA2-encrypted Wi-Fi network?without a problem, but reception on Sprint's network here in New York was shaky and voice quality is mixed. Cricket uses its own network in about a third of the country, and Sprint's network in the rest.
Volume is low in the earpiece, and voices sounded thin and robotic. Calls made with the phone are easy to understand, but again voices sounded computerized and background noise cancellation was poor. Calls sounded better through a Jawbone Era?Bluetooth headset ($129, 4.5 stars) and voice dialing worked fine over Bluetooth without training. The speakerphone sounds fine, but its volume is far too low to use outside. Battery life was on the short side at 4 hours, 49 minutes of talk time.
Cricket offers unlimited smartphone plans with its downloadable Muve Music service for $65/month, which is more affordable than all the major carriers but still more expensive than Boost Mobile's $55/month smartphone plan, which can actually reduce to $40/month as you pay your bills on time. But that extra $10 per month for unlimited music is an attractive option, and one that will likely be a deciding factor for many users. MetroPCS recently started offering a similar plan where $60 per month will get you unlimited talk, text, and Web, along with unlimited music via Rhapsody. (Without Rhapsody, that plan costs $50.)
OS, Multimedia, and Conclusions The Score runs Android 2.3.4 (Gingerbread). There's no word on an update to Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), and don't count on one. ZTE has added some light customizations to Android, but they're mostly visual. There are five home screens you can swipe between, and the phone feels surprisingly responsive given its outdated 600 MHz Qualcomm MSM7627 processor.
You get all of usual perks of Android, which include native support for Microsoft Exchange; free Google Maps Navigation for voice-enabled, turn-by-turn GPS directions; a solid?WebKit browser; and compatibility with more than 300,000 third-party apps in the Android Market.
There's a side-mounted microSD card slot on the right side of the phone. Slip the included card out and you'll notice it says "3GB Muve Music, 1GB Your Space." That means the card is divided into two partitions, and the Muve partition is hidden and encrypted. You can only see the extra 1GB on a PC. You also can't use standard MicroSD memory cards for Muve. Cricket doesn't yet sell the special cards the phone accepts, though replacement 4GB and 8GB cards are in the works.
In addition to the 1GB on the microSD card, there's also 110MB of free internal storage. Music sounded fine through both wired earbuds and?Altec Lansing Backbeat?Bluetooth headphones ($99, 3.5 stars), though bass response was somewhat lacking. Outside of Muve, the Score was able to handle AAC, MP3, OGG, and WAV music files. DivX, H.264, and MP4 video files played back smoothly at resolutions up to 800-by-480.
The 3.2-megapixel camera is weak. Test photos look average outdoors, but photos taken inside appear soft and blurry, almost hazy, like a scene from a bad music video. The camera also records video at a low 352-by-288-pixel resolution. Videos are tiny and grainy, and play back at a choppy 12 frames per second indoors, and 15 frames per second outside.
OHI, Japan (AP) ? Experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency on Thursday began their first inspection of a Japanese nuclear power plant that has undergone official "stress tests" ? a key step required to restart dozens of nuclear plants idled in the wake of the Fukushima crisis.
A 10-member IAEA team was inspecting the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors at the Ohi nuclear power plant in Fukui, western Japan, where there is a string of reactors.
"We look forward to seeing the types of specifications and types of improvements that Kansai Electric Power Co. has made at the Ohi nuclear plant," mission leader James Lyons said at the outset of the plant visit. "Because that would give us opportunity to see how nuclear utilities are responding to these instructions."
The inspection comes a week after Japanese nuclear safety officials gave preliminary approval on the Ohi reactors, a step closer to restarting them.
Authorities have required all reactors to undergo stress tests in the wake of Fukushima nuclear crisis and make necessary modifications to improve safety. The stress tests, similar to those used in France and elsewhere in Europe, are designed to assess how well the plants can withstand earthquakes, tsunamis, storms, loss of power and other crises.
Another hurdle will be gaining local approval for the plants to restart, required after regular 13-month inspections.
Only four of Japan's 54 reactors are currently operating, and if no idled plants get approval to go back on line, the country will be without an operating reactor by the end of April.
Public concerns about the safety of nuclear power have grown after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami knocked out the vital cooling system at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, sending three of its reactors to meltdowns and releasing massive radiation into the environment.
Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has promised to reduce Japan's reliance on nuclear power over time and plans to lay out a new energy policy by the summer. But the nation obtained about 30 percent of its electricity from nuclear power before the crisis, and it could face power shortages if it cannot get more nuclear plants back on line soon.
Some experts have been critical of the stress tests, saying they are meaningless because they have no clear criteria. They also say that the government's simulations of crises based on a single event are not realistic because disasters often occur in a string of events.
LYNN HAVEN, Fla. ? A Florida man has been arrested for allegedly hacking to death a Connecticut man and eating the victim's eye and part of his brain, police said Wednesday.
Tyree Lincoln Smith, 35, was arrested Tuesday night on a Connecticut warrant for murder, according to police in Lynn Haven, Fla.
A property inspector discovered the body of Angel L. Gonzalez on Friday on the third floor of an abandoned home in Bridgeport, Conn., according to that city's police department. A medical examiner determined that the cause of death was blunt head trauma and ruled Gonzalez's death a homicide.
On Monday a cousin of Smith's in Connecticut contacted the Bridgeport police about Gonzalez's death. She told detectives that Smith had arrived at her house Dec. 15 and said he wanted to "get blood on his hands" before going to a park and then to the abandoned home, where he used to live, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
The next day, Smith returned to the cousin's house with blood on his pants, hands and an axe, the affidavit said. Smith's cousin said he told her that he was sleeping on a porch at the abandoned home when we was awakened by a Hispanic man and invited inside. Then Smith described beating the man's face and head with the axe and collecting one of his eyes, a piece of his skull some of his brain matter, which he consumed in a nearby cemetery, the affidavit said.
The cousin told detectives she called Smith's mother, who notified police on Dec. 16 that they may want to check the abandoned home and that her son had "mental issues," the affidavit said.
Smith had left Connecticut for Florida on Friday on a Greyhound Bus, the cousin told detectives. Police and Smith's relatives reached Smith by telephone, and in a recorded call Smith admitted that he had been at the abandoned house and that he told a relative that he had killed the man, according to the affidavit.
Federal, state and local law enforcement officers took Smith into custody at an apartment Tuesday night without incident, Lynn Haven police said.
It was not immediately clear whether Smith had an attorney.
AT&T this morning released its earnings for the fourth quarter of 2011. Consolidated revenues clocked in at $32.5 billion, up 3.6 percent compared to the year-earlier quarter. Net income for Q4 2011 was $6.7 billion, or $1.12 per diluted share. Zooming in on smartphone sales, it's worth noting that AT&T delivered its best-ever quarter to date, hands down.
NEW YORK (Reuters) ? Wall Street held gains on Wednesday, after the Federal Reserve took the historic step of setting an inflation target of 2 percent.
The Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI) was up 46.01 points, or 0.36 percent, at 12,721.76. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index (.SPX) was up 7.53 points, or 0.57 percent, at 1,322.18. The Nasdaq Composite Index (.IXIC) was up 28.97 points, or 1.04 percent, at 2,815.61.
(Reporting By Angela Moon; editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)
NEW YORK ? Jorge Posada was watching television when he saw speculation on which teams were interested in signing him as a free agent.
"They put my face on different uniforms," he said. "And it didn't look good."
He began a Yankee and ended as a Yankee, spending his entire career in pinstripes.
Flanked by his wife and children, with five World Series trophies sitting on a table to his right, the five-time All-Star catcher retired at age 40 on Tuesday after 17 major league seasons. He finished with a .273 career batting average, 275 home runs and 1,065 RBIs.
At a crowded Yankee Stadium news conference, Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and CC Sabathia were among those who watched Posada fight off tears as he sat on a dais with wife, Laura, 12-year-old son Jorge Jr. and 9-year-old daughter Paulina. It was clear the rest of the family also wanted to be Yankees lifers.
"This is so cool," Paulina said to her dad as she picked up the cardboard in front of her seat with her name and the famous interlocking "NY" logo. "I'm going to keep this."
Posada joins Bernie Williams and Andy Pettitte in retirement, leaving only the 37-year-old Jeter and 42-year-old Rivera from the core group that led the Yankees to four World Series titles in five years from 1996-2000.
"Mariano said this is it. He says one more year. But Derek says he's got like three more to go. So we'll see," Posada said, adding he didn't expect the great closer to quit after next season.
"I don't think about it right now. But the time will come," Rivera said. "Definitely the time will come when I'll have to just admit it and hang (up) the glove and the uniform and move on. We all go through that."
Jeter, the Yankees' captain and leader, expects to outlast Rivera.
"Mo's still got to go first. He's a lot older than me," he said before adding with a laugh: "Mo's going to be here longer than all of us."
Shrieking at success and fuming over failure, Posada often was nuclear fission at the center of the Yankees and what became known as the Core Four. While Jeter and Rivera rarely reveal their feelings, and Pettitte does only on occasion, Posada has been a passionate open window into the Yankees, praising, strutting, venting and battling.
"We feel the same way; I'm just better at hiding it. But we feel the same way inside, and I think that's why we've gotten along so well throughout the years," said Jeter, who first played alongside Posada in the minors in 1992.
He has called him "Sado" for years, since late Yankee Stadium public address announcer Bob Sheppard mispronounced Posada's name when he pinch ran for Wade Boggs in Game 2 of the 1995 AL playoffs.
In the same room where Pettitte announced his retirement 11 1/2 months ago, select season ticket holders were invited to sit in the audience.
Posada talked with great fervor about the team that drafted him in the 24th round in 1991.
"Every time I stepped through the Yankee Stadium doors," he began, "I quoted Joe DiMaggio and said, `I want to thank the good Lord for making me a Yankee.'"
"I could never wear another uniform," he said. "I will forever be a Yankee."
Posada's voice broke up, especially when he spoke in Spanish about his parents. He thanked his teammates, rubbing his chin three times and wiping his eyes. He called Rivera "my brother" and praised Jeter "who helped me stay focused and positive."
"Hopefully you won't miss me that much," he said.
Diana Munson, wife of the late Yankees catcher Thurman Munson, spoke admiringly of Posada, who kept a quote from her husband in his locker: "Batting fourth and being in the lineup is important, but I think the stuff I do behind the plate is more important." One day at Yankee Stadium, Posada sat next to her and told her about his admiration for the former captain, who died in a plane crash when Posada was 7. She wound up following Posada in the box scores.
"He in fact is the one who brought me back to baseball again. After losing Thurman, I kind of lost my heart for baseball," she said. "He plays the game I think the way Thurman played it: a lot of grittiness, lot of toughness. ... I think he and Thurman would have been best buds. He definitely has the `it' factor. I can't describe it. I don't know what it is. But I knew immediately upon meeting him that he had it, and I think the Yankee fans also have realized that, and I imagine they're as sad today as we all are."
She was followed by a video of fan tributes and by Lisa and Brett Niederer from Bristol, Wis. She talked about the Jorge Posada Foundation and its emotional support and financial assistance to families affected by craniosynostosis, a disease that causes bones in the skull to fuse prematurely.
Jorge Jr. has had nine operations, and Lisa Niederer was watching on television when the father and son went onto the field together during the introductions for the 2002 All-Star game. Brett, then 2 1/2, was diagnosed with the disease around the start of that year, and they talked about the Posada family's assistance.
"I knew we were not alone anymore," said Lisa, who has become a mentor for the foundation.
When the focus returned to baseball, Posada recalled how he started his professional career as a shortstop, was moved to second base and was asked by the Yankees to move to catcher after the 1991 season.
"I felt like it was the worst decision ever," he said, remembering all the passed balls he allowed while catching top draft pick Brien Taylor. "It was not a pretty sight."
He went on to have one of the better offensive careers by a catcher. The switch-hitting Posada made the decision to retire during a season that turned tumultuous May 14 when he was batting .165 and was dropped to No. 9 in the batting order against Boston. He asked to be taken out of the lineup, saying he wasn't ready to play.
Posada rallied to hit .268 for the rest of the season, leaving him with a .235 average, 14 homers and 44 RBIs. And then on Sept. 21, his two-run pinch-hit single beat Tampa Bay to clinch the AL East and earn another huge ovation. He hit .429 (6 for 14) in the five-game loss to Detroit in the division series.
Yankees manager Joe Girardi and general manager Brian Cashman said that was just a blip in his career ? part of Posada's fiery disposition, the one that drew fans to him, one that he may take with him into coaching or managing ? after the Yankees likely honor him with a tribute this year.
That nature caused him to tell his agents not to negotiate with other teams.
"They kept saying that people are asking about you," Posada said. "I'm like ? not interested."
In an interview,?Zbigniew Brzezinski, one of America?s leading strategists, discusses shifting global power, looking at China, Europe, Turkey, Russia, the US, and the Arab Spring.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, one of America?s leading strategists, was national security advisor to President Jimmy Carter. His just published book is ?Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global Power.? He spoke on Friday with Global Viewpoint Network editor Nathan Gardels.
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Nathan Gardels:?The core of your strategic vision for the future is of a ?larger West? comprised of democratic powers that accommodates China. Yet the West, starting with the US, is in a period of political decay.
As you have noted, while China focuses on the long term and plots out its future, the US in particular is beset with a short-term mentality. In effect, we are no longer an ?industrial democracy? in the strict sense, but a ?consumer democracy? where all the feedback signals ? the market, the media, and politics ? are short-term and geared to immediate gratification.
Doesn?t that give China the competitive advantage of political capacity in the times ahead?
Zbigniew Brzezinski:?Obviously so.
Gardels:?How can America?s short-term mentality be changed? Are the West?s political institutions up to the challenge?
Brzezinski:?Yes, if we develop a more effective and longer-range response to the current crisis instead of simply wallowing in the present difficulties ? which is likely to further produce the same negative effects that got us into this mess. We are so preoccupied with the current crisis and so lacking in a longer-term perspective that we have no strategic vision which would give us some sense of historical momentum.
Democracy is capable of responding provided we focus on the right aims. The question today is whether democracies can thrive with financial systems that are out of control, that are capable of generating selfishly beneficial consequences only for the few, without any effective framework that gives us a larger, more ambitious sense of purpose. That is the real problem.
There is today a very dangerous imbalance between the lack of budgetary discipline, the commitment to austerity, the determination to keep inflation under control, and to maintain a costly social policy on the one hand ? all, on the other hand, without any larger conception about which direction our societies as a whole should be heading.
Gardels:?The rest of the West is also mired in paralysis. Europe has turned even further inward with the euro crisis as it decides whether to go all the way back to the nation-state or forward to full political union.
What is the solution for Europe?
Brzezinski:?I believe that, in the end, the resolution to today?s crisis in Europe won?t work out that badly. The essential political leadership in Europe ? the Germans and the French mainly, along with some others ??are demonstrating a sense of responsibility for the future of Europe. They are increasingly determined to shape a political framework which will supplant what Europe has been lately, namely a financial union for some and a politically loose community for all. Inevitably, a genuine political union will take shape in stages and steps, probably beginning through a de facto treaty reached by inter-governmental agreement in the near future.
Mitt Romney had a sizable lead going into the week only to fall short to the onetime House speaker. By Gil Kaufman
Newt Gingrich during the South Carolina primary Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images
If it weren't clear before, the results of the South Carolina primary Saturday night (January 21) made it crystal that former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is in for the fight of his political life in his quest to nab the Republican presidential nomination. After holding on to a double-digit lead as recently as Tuesday, Romney came up short in South Carolina, defeated by a surging Newt Gingrich.
Buoyed by two solid debate appearances this week, former House Speaker Gingrich managed to turn the tide in the first contest in the South, proving once again that the party faithful are not yet willing to fall into lockstep and give Romney a smooth ride to the nomination. Gingrich pulled off the upset victory despite a potentially crushing distraction Thursday in the form of an ABC News interview with his second ex-wife. In it, Marianne Gingrich claimed the ex-congressman had asked her to agree to an open marriage so he could carry on an affair with his now-third wife.
Romney started the week with a solid lead, but the distance between him and Gingrich shrunk in the days before the primary. In addition, on Thursday, the race was scrambled thanks to a trio of unforeseen events that further muddied the waters.
First, Republican leaders in Iowa announced that the final count in that state's caucus revealed that Romney's eight-point win over Rick Santorum was actually a 34-point loss, which handed the former Pennsylvania senator a pyrrhic victory in that first-in-the-nation contest. A short time later, Texas Governor Rick Perry announced he was suspending his campaign and would be throwing his support behind Gingrich, which could solidify the former House leader's draw to the all-important bloc of Evangelical Christian voters. The third shoe to drop was the ABC interview.
By Friday night, a Romney adviser told CNN the race was "real tight," even as a Gingrich staffer predicted a victory after the candidate came in fourth place in the two previous primaries. Santorum and Libertarian candidate Congressman Ron Paul were in a fight for third place at press time. Before results were announced, CNN reported that exit polls show the most important quality for Republican voters is that a candidate can beat President Obama.
Experts told MTV News that if Romney landed his second win in a row, he might take the wind out of Gingrich's sails and get one step closer to a virtual lock on the nomination should he win the next test, the January 31 primary in Florida. A further black cloud over the Gingrich win for Romney: The winner of the S.C. primary has gone on to secure the Republican nomination in every election since 1980.
Long considered the front-runner and likely nominee, Romney has gone from looking like he would win an unprecedented three primaries in a row to start the season to just one victory and continuing questions about his appeal to the party's conservative base. Though his campaign continues to be far ahead of the rest of the field in fundraising, even if Romney can pull it out, the constant battering of his image and résumé by his rivals for the nomination could leave him deeply scarred by the time the general election rolls around.
According to Fox News, the bigger problems for Romney, though, based on some early exit polls from South Carolina, are that voters are concerned about his moderate stance on some issues and his Mormon faith. Romney is vying to be the first Mormon Republican presidential candidate.
With another close loss behind him, Romney turns his attention to Florida, a state that has proved pivotal in the last three elections and one that is now a virtual must-win in order to keep his campaign steaming forward.
For the second time in this election, Gingrich has stampeded back into the game and political experts said that his effort is, even if it goes no further, is one of the finest examples of political savvy in memory.
Check back for up-to-the-minute coverage on the primary races and stick with PowerOf12.org throughout the 2012 presidential election season.
(Reuters) ? The Miami Dolphins named Joe Philbin as the team's new head coach on Friday.
A statement released by chairman of the board and managing general partner Stephen Ross and general manager Jeff Ireland confirmed Philbin as the franchise's 10th head coach.
"We are thrilled to have Joe Philbin join the Miami Dolphins as our head coach," Ross said. "Joe has all the attributes that we were looking for when we started this process.
"Joe was the right choice to bring the Dolphins back to the success we enjoyed in the past. I know I join our fans in welcoming him as the newest member of the Dolphin family."
Philbin has been the offensive coordinator of the Green Bay Packers since 2007 and originally joined the team as the assistant offensive line coach in 2003.
"I want to thank Steve Ross and Jeff Ireland for giving me the opportunity to become the head coach of one of the premier franchises in professional sports," said Philbin.
"I also want to thank the Green Bay Packers for all the support the organization has given me during my time there."
Philbin replaces interim head coach Todd Bowles, who took over from Tony Sparano with three games remaining in the season. Sparano had coached Miami since 2008.
"The Dolphins have a strong nucleus to build around, and together we will return the team to its winning tradition," added Philbin.
"I have seen how much the fans in South Florida care about the Dolphins, and that passion is one reason why I'm really excited to be here. I can't wait to get started."
(Reporting by Mike Mouat in Windsor, Ontario. Editing by Alastair Himmer)
All Critics (61) | Top Critics (17) | Fresh (58) | Rotten (3) | DVD (1)
What the filmmaker has created is an inspired simulacrum - a jewel-box that contains more of Bausch's kinetic soul than film has any right to.
Crane and steadycam allow Wenders to get so close to the action that in the minimalist Caf? M?ller, one's illusion of being on stage is uncanny.
"Pina"is the best possible tribute to Bausch, and to adventurous image-making.
I watched the film in a sort of reverie.
Whether you're familiar with Pina Bausch's work or not, the new film "Pina" is a knockout.
So this is what 3-D is capable of when used for art rather than the commerce of hiking ticket prices and repurposing cartoons!
You won't hear the names Merce Cunningham, Martha Graham, Paul Taylor or Bob Fosse breathed herein.
An exhilarating experience, both in its celebration of Bausch's groundbreaking work and in the thrilling way that Wenders captures it on camera.
It's not an overview of Bausch's career or a statement on her art, but a celebration of her work and the dancers who bring it to life.
This is a stunning film, a glorious homage to modern dance and one of its premier authors and the best justification of 3D technology to date.
With a breakout use of 3D for artistic rather than solely commercial blockbuster purposes, German director Wim Wenders gives extraordinary life to the work of choreographer Pina Bausch.
From the hauntingly beautiful to the scary, Pina Bausch's post-modern dance sparkles in 3D.
It's an enchanting film, one that makes you feel you are missing something dear if you don't dance or appreciate it as an art form.
An often exhilarating, lively, magical and breathtaking experience of Pina Bausch's art.
A welcome departure from the by-the-numbers fossilization in today's documentary deluge.
Thanks to 3D technology it's dance film quite unlike any other, which was filmmaker Wim Wenders' intention, and it's a transporting experience for the uninitiated and the cognoscenti alike.
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David Beckham considered offers from Paris, the Premiership and beyond. He decided nothing was better than his adopted home with the Los Angeles Galaxy.
The English superstar formally returned to his MLS club Thursday with a new two-year contract, vowing to win more trophies with the Galaxy while preparing to own an MLS franchise when his career ends. He'll also be free to play at the Olympics if he's chosen for Britain's national squad.
After the excitement died down from the Galaxy's run to the league title last fall during Beckham's most impressive MLS season, the midfielder made his final decision to stay in Hollywood on New Year's Eve over a glass of wine with his wife, Victoria.
"We've been happy here for the last five years, and we felt, why change something that works?" Beckham asked a packed room at Staples Center. "Los Angeles has been amazing to us as a family, so we're going to continue to enjoy it. ... We knew the first day that we arrived here that it would be a place that we'd spend many years, and I wasn't wrong."
The Beckhams' four children are comfortable living in Southern California, and he felt his family's well-being outweighed the intrigue of bigger offers from unnamed Premiership clubs or Paris Saint-Germain, which aggressively courted him in recent weeks.
"At 36 years old, to still have the offers that were being thrown at me, you have to look at all options," Beckham said.
The bold experiment that began nearly five years ago has survived a rough start to become longer and more fruitful than nearly anybody expected when Beckham left Real Madrid and moved stateside, hoping to spread the world's most popular sport in a nation that has always resisted its lure.
While Beckham's move hasn't transformed the sport in North America, he's the biggest star and fan draw in MLS even after five seasons, and the Galaxy have been the league's best team for two years.
"I must admit that I've never come back after a season with the Galaxy having been a champion," Beckham said. "I wanted to have that feeling and enter back into that locker room a champion. And we are, but we're not finished. I'm not just happy with one championship. I want more."
His second contract with the Galaxy was greeted with nothing near the spectacle of his July 2007 arrival, when the club threw a huge party at Home Depot Center to herald the biggest contract in MLS history.
This time around, Beckham quietly met his usual media retinue at the downtown arena owned by AEG, the conglomerate that also owns the Galaxy. Beckham spends much of his free time in Los Angeles at Staples Center, where he watches Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers from a courtside seat ? sometimes even making it to games just a few hours after the Galaxy's matches.
"I've become a Lakers fan, so being able to come to the games is great," Beckham said. "There are so many things that we love."
Staples Center's owners are thrilled by the decision. AEG President Tim Leiweke said Beckham can play for the Galaxy for the rest of his career, if he chooses ? and when he's done, AEG will help Beckham with his desire to own a franchise.
"For however long as he decides to play, the question of where he plays is not a question," said Leiweke, whose company spent aggressively to assemble top talent around Beckham in the last two years. "Unless I'm mistaken, (ownership is) his future, once he decides to retire. We have structured that option in a way to allow David to become a partner in the league at some point in the near future and operate his own franchise."
Even Beckham might not have predicted this outcome just two years into his tenure with the Galaxy, when the failed tenure of coach Ruud Gullit and the franchise's general disarray prompted Beckham to twice go on loan to AC Milan, where he blew out his Achilles tendon in 2010.
Everything came together for Beckham in Los Angeles last year after he returned from injury and another training stint with Tottenham. He was among the league's best players all season long with the Galaxy, who picked up Irish striker Robbie Keane as they topped the MLS table for the second straight season and steamrolled through the playoffs to the title.
Beckham's assist set up Landon Donovan's winning goal in a 1-0 victory over Houston in the MLS Cup on Nov. 20. Beckham celebrated the championship with his three sons on the Galaxy's home field before saying he planned to debate his future over the holidays.
Beckham claimed he would consider staying with the Galaxy, yet many fans and observers in Europe didn't believe him. Given his revitalized form with the Galaxy, many assumed he would take one of the offers sure to be dangled in front of him to resume his European career.
"I was always optimistic, because I felt he was really comfortable with the team and just happy," said coach Bruce Arena, whose steady influence has been praised by Beckham. "We literally were working all the way through the year to get David back."
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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More newsChristian Hartmann / Reuters
Pele: Messi's not me
Pele thinks Lionel Messi still needs to improve at international level before he can be considered the greatest soccer player ever and needs to score more goals to come close to matching the Brazilian great.
Robert Cianflone / Getty Images
Loyalty
David Beckham considered other offers but decided nothing was better than his adopted home with the L.A. Galaxy.
Who needs extra hardware to add mobile payments to iOS and Android? Not Card.io, who's unveiled a new SDK for it's visual card processing system alongside a payment app allowing anyone to accept payments from other users. Having already launched its scanner software development kit last year, the new SDK will open up the company's payment process to third-party developers. The new payment app works across Android and iPhone platforms, with no need to register as a merchant to access the feature. Although there are no registration charges, payments made through either PayPal or your bank account will have an additional 3.5 percent plus 30 cents nudged on top of each transaction. Going dutch has never been more (begrudgingly) easy.
BEIRUT ? Syrian government tanks and armored vehicles have pulled back from an embattled mountain town near Damascus, activists and witnesses said Thursday, but at least 16 people were killed by security forces elsewhere as a monthlong Arab League fact-finding mission expired.
The pullback from Zabadani left the town under the control of the opposition, activists said. The besieged town of Zabadani has witnessed heavy exchanges of fire between army troops and anti-government military defectors over the past six days.
The 10-month uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad has turned increasingly militarized and chaotic as more frustrated regime opponents and army defectors arm themselves and fight back against government forces. The capital has seen three suicide bombings since late December which the government blamed on terrorist extremists.
Arab League foreign ministers will consider extending the League's observer mission in Syria in a meeting Sunday in Cairo, officials said Thursday.
Although the mission expired Thursday, Adnan al-Khudeir, head of Cairo operations room that handles reports by the monitors, told The Associated Press that observers will remain in Syria until a decision is made on Sunday.
According to al-Khudeir, the meeting chaired by the Qatari foreign minister will discuss a report by the head of the mission Gen. Mohammed Ahmed al-Dabi who is arriving in Cairo from Syria on Thursday.
The monitors will remain in 17 different places around Syria until the Arab League makes a final decision, he says.
"If there is a decision to extend the mission of the observers, we are ready to send more monitors after training them in three days," he said, adding that the total number of monitors might reach 300.
The mission has been mired in controversy, with the opposition claiming it served as a cover for the regime to continue its brutal crackdown against protesters.
Rejecting charges that the observers have been ineffective in reducing violence, another official said extending the mission would help the opposition more than the regime.
"The killings are less, the protests increase," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because no decision has been made. "The mission's presence offers assurance to the people because the observers can spot any violations. There is a conviction even among Syria opponents that the extension is better than withdrawal."
U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Thursday the monitors have had a "mixed picture" of results, enabling some protests and some media coverage, but violence continues.
"We believe that we've got to increase the economic pressure on the Assad regime to change course," she said.
More than 5,400 people have been killed since the uprising erupted last March.
Activists reported continued violence Thursday. In Damascus, a Syrian security agent was wounded when a small explosive device tore through his car in the Tadamon neighborhood, a Syrian official said. No other damages were reported from the morning explosion, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give statements.
A military security brigadier, Adel Mustafa, also was killed by soldiers who had defected and refused his orders to shoot at civilians in the Bab Qibli area of Homs, according to the Local Coordination Committees, an umbrella group of activists. The officer had previously overseen many killing and arrest operations, according to the LCC.
In Zabadani, activist Fares Mohammad said Syrian forces withdrew Wednesday night to two military barracks on the outskirts.
"There is a cautious calm, but fear of another major assault being prepared against Zabadani," he told The Associated Press by telephone from the resort town, located alongside the Lebanese border 17 miles (27 kilometers) west of Damascus.
The Syrian opposition has on several occasions throughout the uprising gained control of a town or city, but ultimately forces loyal to Assad retook them. It is unusual however for the army to take so long to recapture a town so close to the capital.
The activist said the siege had eased, although heating oil has not been allowed into the town, where it snowed earlier this week. Military checkpoints surrounding the Zabadani were still in place, he said, while about 100 armed defectors were "protecting" it.
Residents said government mortars had shelled the town on Wednesday, but that too had stopped.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed the pullout from Zabadani, saying only two armored personnel carriers were left behind at one of the checkpoints near the town.
Syrian officials issued no comment about the fighting in Zabadani.
Activists said at least 16 people were killed by security forces across Syria on Thursday, including four activists who were ambushed in the northern Jabal al-Zawiya region.
___
Michael reported from Cairo. Additional reporting by Bradley Klapper in Washington.
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Public release date: 30-Jan-2012
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