Syria forces retake Damascus suburbs; showdown at U.N. (Reuters)

AMMAN/UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) ? Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces have taken the upper hand in escalating battles on the outskirts of the capital Damascus, while top Western and Arab diplomats are seeking a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for him to go.

Rebels who seized suburbs of Damascus were driven out after three days of fighting that activists say killed at least 100 people.

Activist organizations said 25 people were killed on Monday in Damascus suburbs and dozens more died in other parts of the country, mostly in raids in Homs and the surrounding countryside.

Events on the ground are difficult to confirm, as the Syrian government restricts most access by journalists.

The Arab League wants the Security Council to pass a resolution backing an Arab peace plan that calls on Assad to relinquish power to his deputy and prepare for elections.

Its Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby and the prime minister of Qatar will make the case at the world body on Tuesday.

The Arab delegation will be supported in person by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, British Foreign Secretary William Hague and French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe as the West presents a united front.

The resolution's fate depends on whether the Arabs and their Western backers can persuade Russia not to veto it.

NEW PHASE

A 10-month uprising against Assad - one of the most violent revolts of the "Arab Spring" - has entered a new phase in recent weeks, with an increasingly armed and organized opposition attempting to hold territory.

A last-ditch bid by Moscow to broker talks between Assad's government and rebels foundered when the opposition refused to attend, citing the continued killing, torture and imprisonment of the president's opponents.

Washington said countries needed to accept that Assad's rule was doomed and stop shielding him in the Security Council.

"It is important that the Security Council take action," White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Monday. "We believe that the Security Council should not permit the Assad regime to assault the Syrian people while it rejects the Arab League's proposal for a political solution."

"As governments make decisions about where they stand on this issue and what further steps need to be taken with regards to the brutality of the Assad regime, it is important to calculate into your considerations the fact that he will go," Carney said. "The regime has lost control of the country and will eventually fall."

Syria was dismissive of the U.S. remarks.

"We are not surprised at the lack of wisdom or rationality of these statements and regret that they are still issued by countries that are used to making the Middle East an arena for their follies and failures," the state news agency quoted a Foreign Ministry source as saying late on Monday.

A draft of the U.N. Security Council resolution, obtained by Reuters, calls for a "political transition" in Syria, and says the Security Council could adopt unspecified "further measures" if Syria does not comply with its terms.

It endorses the Arab League power transfer plan. So far Moscow has shown little sign of being persuaded to let it pass.

"The current Western draft is only a step away from the October version and can by no means be supported by us," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov told Interfax. "This document is not balanced ... and above all leaves the door open for intervention in Syrian (internal) affairs."

Nevertheless, some Western diplomats said they hoped Russia and China could be persuaded not to block the draft.

An abstention by Russia and China last March paved the way for the Security Council to authorize force against Muammar Gaddafi's military in Libya with Arab League support.

Making the Arab League's case, Elaraby will be joined by Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, whose country heads the League's committee dealing with Syria.

ASSAULT ON DAMASCUS BEATEN BACK

Assad's forces appear to have decisively beaten back an attempt by the opposition to march on the outskirts of Damascus.

Activists and residents said Syrian troops now had control of Hamouriyeh, one of several districts where they have used armored vehicles and artillery to push back rebels who came as close as 8 km (5 miles) to Damascus.

An activist said the Free Syrian Army (FSA) - a force of military defectors with links to Syria's divided opposition - mounted scattered attacks on government troops who advanced through the district of Saqba, held by rebels just days ago.

Rebels are risking heavier clashes and speaking of creating "liberated" territories to force diplomatic action. In the past three weeks they have taken Zabadani - a town of 40,000 in mountainous near the border with Lebanon.

"God willing, we will liberate more territory, because the international community has only offered delayed action and empty threats," said a lieutenant colonel who had defected to the FSA and asked not to be identified.

Homs residents said fighting erupted on Monday in the al-Qusour neighborhood, and several armored vehicles belonging to loyalist forces where destroyed.

In the northern commercial hub of Aleppo, which had remained mostly on the sidelines in the uprising as an alliance between Assad and the city's Sunni Muslim merchant class held, demonstrations erupted for a fourth day in several districts.

Tension rose there after pro-Assad militiamen killed 10 people following a pro-democracy demonstration on Friday.

Security forces cut off electricity from Fardos neighborhood of Aleppo and arrested 100 youths on Monday after a demonstration demanding the removal of Assad, activists said.

Syria's state news agency said six soldiers died in an attack near Deraa in the south and a gas pipeline was blown up.

The state news agency SANA has reported funerals of more than 70 members of the security forces members since Friday.

Russia's Foreign Ministry said Syria agreed to Russian-brokered negotiations over the crisis, but senior members of the council set up to speak for a fragmented Syria opposition said there was no point in talking to Assad, who must quit.

"We rejected the Russian proposal because they wanted us to talk with the regime while it continues the killings, the torture, the imprisonment," Walid al-Bunni, foreign affairs chief for the Syrian National Council, told Reuters.

The escalating bloodshed prompted the Arab League to suspend the work of its monitors on Saturday. Arab foreign ministers, who have urged Assad to step down and make way for a government of national unity, are due to discuss the crisis on February 5.

The United Nations said in December more than 5,000 people had been killed in the protests and crackdown. Syria says more than 2,000 security force members have been killed by militants.

(Writing by Peter Graff)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/un/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120131/wl_nm/us_syria

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'The Help,' Dujardin win at lively SAG Awards

Castmembers of "The Help" pose backstage with their awards for outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture at the 18th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday Jan. 29, 2012 in Los Angeles. From left, Chris Lowell, Emma Stone, Octavia Spencer, Allison Janney and Viola Davis(AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

Castmembers of "The Help" pose backstage with their awards for outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture at the 18th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday Jan. 29, 2012 in Los Angeles. From left, Chris Lowell, Emma Stone, Octavia Spencer, Allison Janney and Viola Davis(AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

From left, Robert Clohessy, Michael Shannon, Kevin O'Rourke, Gretchen Mol, Peter Van Wagner and Aleksa Palladino pose backstage with their awards for outstanding performance by an ensemble in a drama series for "Boardwalk Empire" at the 18th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday Jan. 29, 2012 in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

Jean Dujardin is seen backstage with the award for outstanding performance by a male actor in a leading role for "The Artist" at the 18th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday Jan. 29, 2012 in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles)

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Finally, an awards show with some surprises and spontaneity.

The Screen Actors Guild Awards featured some unexpected winners, including "The Help" for best overall cast performance and Jean Dujardin for best actor in "The Artist" alongside some of the longtime favorites in movies and television.

But there was a looseness and a playfulness that permeated the Shrine Exposition Center Sunday night ? maybe because it was a room full of people who love to perform, without the rigidity of one single host to lead them.

Unlike the great expectations that came with the sharp-tongued Ricky Gervais' reprisal at the Golden Globes a couple weeks ago or the much-anticipated return of Billy Crystal to the Academy Awards next month, there was no master of ceremonies at the SAG Awards. The presenters and winners seemed to have more room to improvise and put their own spin on the evening ? but mercifully, the show itself still managed to wrap up on time after just two hours.

And so we had three of the stars of best-cast nominee "Bridesmaids" ? Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph and Melissa McCarthy ? introducing their comedy with a joke about turning the name "Scorsese" into a drinking game, which became a running gag throughout the night. When HBO's "Boardwalk Empire" won the award for best drama series cast, among the first words star Steve Buscemi uttered in accepting the prize were "Martin Scorsese" ? he just happens to be one of the show's executive producers.

One of the more exciting moments of the night was the announcement of Dujardin's name in the best-actor category for his performance in the silent, black-and-white homage "The Artist." In winning the award for his portrayal of a silent-film star who finds his career in decline with the arrival of talkies, Dujardin definitely boosts his chances at the Oscars on Feb. 26. Little-known in the United States before this, the French comic bested bigger names like George Clooney ("The Descendants"), Brad Pitt ("Moneyball") and Leonardo DiCaprio ("J. Edgar").

If he follows this up with an Academy Award, Dujardin would become the first French actor ever to take the prize. Asked backstage how it would feel, Dujardin launched into a jaunty rendition of "La Marseillaise," the French national anthem.

"Pressure, big pressure," Dujardin then added in his halting English. "It's unbelievable. It's amazing already. Too early to tell."

Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer continued to cement their front-runner status in the actress and supporting actress categories, respectively, for their formidable work in "The Help." Both women play black maids in 1960s Mississippi who dare to go public about the bigotry they've endured.

"I just have to say that the stain of racism and sexism is not just for people of color or women. It's all of our burden, all of us," Davis said, accepting the ensemble prize on behalf of her "The Help" co-stars.

Backstage, Davis said of her own victory: "A few more people checked my name in the box for whatever reason. This time I kind of fooled them."

Meanwhile, Christopher Plummer picked up yet another supporting-actor prize for his lovely turn as an elderly widower who finally comes out as gay in "Beginners." Plummer won at the Golden Globes and is nominated for an Oscar. He would become the oldest actor ever to win an Academy Award at age 82, two years older than Jessica Tandy was when she won best actress for "Driving Miss Daisy."

Backstage, Plummer joked when asked if he would like to win an Oscar, an honor so elusive during his esteemed 60-year career that he did not even receive his first Academy Award nomination until two years ago, for "The Last Station."

"No, I think it's frightfully boring," Plummer said. "That's an awful question. Listen, we don't go into this business preoccupied by awards. If we did, we wouldn't last five minutes."

The win for overall cast for "The Help," when "The Artist" and "The Descendants" have been the favorites all along, makes the conversation more interesting but it isn't necessarily an indicator of how the film will do come Oscar time.

The guild's ensemble prize, considered its equivalent of a best-picture honor, has a spotty record at predicting what will win the top award at the Oscars. While "The King's Speech" won both honors a year ago, the SAG ensemble recipient has gone on to claim the top Oscar only eight times in the 16 years since the guild added the category.

The winners at the SAG ceremony often do go on to earn Oscars, however. All four acting recipients at SAG last year later took home Oscars ? Colin Firth for "The King's Speech," Natalie Portman for "Black Swan" and Christian Bale and Melissa Leo for "The Fighter."

On the television side, comedy series awards went to "Modern Family" for best ensemble; Alec Baldwin as best actor for "30 Rock"; and Betty White as best actress for "Hot in Cleveland."

"You can't name me, without naming those other wonderful women on 'Hot in Cleveland,'" the 90-year-old White said. "This nomination belongs to four of us. Please, please know that I'm dealing them right in with this. I'm not going to let them keep this, but I'll let them see it."

The TV drama show winners were: Jessica Lange as best actress for "American Horror Story"; and Buscemi as best actor for "Boardwalk Empire."

For TV movie or miniseries, Kate Winslet won as best actress for "Mildred Pierce," while Paul Giamatti was named best actor for "Too Big to Fail."

The guild gave its lifetime achievement award to Mary Tyler Moore, presented by Dick Van Dyke, her co-star on the 1960s sit-com "The Dick Van Dyke Show."

Moore recalled that when she entered show business at age 18 in 1955, there were already six others Mary Moores in the Screen Actors Guild. Told to change her name, she quickly added Tyler, the middle name she shares with her father, George.

"I was Mary Tyler Moore. I spoke it out loud. Mary Tyler Moore. It sounded right so I wrote it down on the form, and it looked right," she said. "It was right. SAG was happy, my father was happy, and tonight, after having the privilege of working in this business among the most creative and talented people imaginable, I too am happy, after all."

___

AP writers David Germain and Beth Harris contributed to this report.

___

Online:

http://www.sagawards.com

Associated Press

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Man kidnapped in Nigeria says he wasn't tortured (AP)

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2 convicted in al-Qaida terror plot in Norway

Shawan Sadek Saeed Bujak appears in the Oslo courthouse, Oslo, Norway Monday Jan. 30, 2012. Two men accused of plotting to attack a Danish newspaper that caricatured the Prophet Muhammad were found guilty Monday of terror charges in Norway, the first convictions under the country's anti-terror laws. The Oslo district court sentenced alleged ringleader Mikael Davud to seven years in prison and co-defendant Shawan Sadek Saeed Bujak to three and a half years. (AP Photo/Scanpix/Berit Roald) NORWAY OUT

Shawan Sadek Saeed Bujak appears in the Oslo courthouse, Oslo, Norway Monday Jan. 30, 2012. Two men accused of plotting to attack a Danish newspaper that caricatured the Prophet Muhammad were found guilty Monday of terror charges in Norway, the first convictions under the country's anti-terror laws. The Oslo district court sentenced alleged ringleader Mikael Davud to seven years in prison and co-defendant Shawan Sadek Saeed Bujak to three and a half years. (AP Photo/Scanpix/Berit Roald) NORWAY OUT

Judge Oddmund Svarteberg prepares to read the sentences of two men accused of planning an attack in the Oslo courthouse, Oslo, Norway Monday Jan. 30, 2012. Two men accused of plotting to attack a Danish newspaper that caricatured the Prophet Muhammad were found guilty Monday of terror charges in Norway, the first convictions under the country's anti-terror laws. The Oslo district court sentenced alleged ringleader Mikael Davud to seven years in prison and co-defendant Shawan Sadek Saeed Bujak to three and a half years. (AP Photo/Scanpix/Berit Roald) NORWAY OUT

Shawan Sadek Saeed Bujak appears in the Oslo courthouse, Oslo, Norway Monday Jan. 30, 2012. Two men accused of plotting to attack a Danish newspaper that caricatured the Prophet Muhammad were found guilty Monday of terror charges in Norway, the first convictions under the country's anti-terror laws. The Oslo district court sentenced alleged ringleader Mikael Davud to seven years in prison and co-defendant Shawan Sadek Saeed Bujak to three and a half years. (AP Photo/Scanpix/Berit Roald) NORWAY OUT

OSLO, Norway (AP) ? Two men were found guilty Monday of involvement in an al-Qaida plot to attack a Danish newspaper that caricturerd the Prophet Muhammad, the first convictions under Norway's anti-terror laws.

A third defendant was acquitted of terror charges but convicted of helping the others acquire explosives.

Investigators say the plot was linked to the same al-Qaida planners behind thwarted attacks against the New York subway system and a shopping mall Manchester, England, in 2009.

The Oslo district court sentenced alleged ringleader Mikael Davud, to seven years in prison and co-defendant Shawan Sadek Saeed Bujak to three and a half years.

Judge Oddmund Svarteberg said the court found that Davud, a Chinese Muslim, "planned the attack together with al-Qaida." Bujak was deeply involved in the preparations, but it couldn't be proved that he was aware of Davud's contacts with al-Qaida, the judge said.

The third defendant, David Jakobsen, who assisted police in the investigation, was convicted on an explosives charge and sentenced to four months in prison ? time he's already served in pretrial detention.

It wasn't immediately clear if any of the defendants would appeal.

The case was Norway's most high-profile terror investigation until last July, when a right-wing extremist killed 77 people in a bomb and shooting massacre.

The three men, who were arrested in July 2010, made some admissions but pleaded innocent to terror conspiracy charges and rejected any links to al-Qaida.

During the trial Davud denied he was taking orders from al-Qaida, saying he was planning a solo raid against the Chinese Embassy in Oslo. He said he wanted revenge for Beijing's oppression of Uighurs, a Muslim minority in western China.

Davud, who moved to Norway in 1999 and later became a Norwegian citizen, also said his co-defendants helped him acquire bomb-making ingredients but didn't know he was planning an attack.

Prosecutors said the Norwegian cell first wanted to attack Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, whose 12 cartoons of Muhammad sparked furious protests in Muslim countries in 2006, and then changed plans to seek to murder one of the cartoonists instead.

Bujak, an Iraqi Kurd, said the paper and the cartoonist were indeed the targets, but described the plans as "just talk."

Prosecutors had to prove the defendants worked together in a conspiracy, because a single individual plotting an attack is not covered under Norway's anti-terror laws.

"There is no doubt that Davud took the initiative to prepare the terror act and that he was the ring leader," the judge said as he delivered the verdict.

He said Davud planned to carry out the attack himself by placing a bomb outside Jyllands-Posten's offices in Aarhus, in western Denmark.

The men had been under surveillance for more than a year when authorities moved to arrest them. Norwegian investigators, who worked with their U.S. counterparts, said the defendants were building a bomb in a basement laboratory in Oslo.

Jakobsen, an Uzbek national who changed his name after moving to Norway, provided some of the chemicals for the bomb, but claims he did not know they were meant for explosives. Jakobsen contacted police and served as an informant, but still faced charges for his involvement before that.

An Associated Press investigation in 2010 showed that authorities learned early on about the alleged cell by intercepting emails from an al-Qaida operative in Pakistan and ? thanks to those early warnings ? were able to secretly replace a key bomb-making ingredient with a harmless liquid when Jakobsen ordered it at an Oslo pharmacy.

The judge said it had been proven that Davud had contacts with al-Qaida in Pakistan, and that his notebook contained references to Saleh al-Somali, al-Qaida's chief of external operations, who officials believe helped organize the New York, Manchester and Norway plots. He was killed in a CIA drone strike in Pakistan in 2009.

During the trial, prosecutors presented testimony obtained in the U.S. in April from three American al-Qaida recruits turned government witnesses.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-01-30-EU-Norway-Terror-Trial/id-c7ec3463350e40ef910a8b854d6685c8

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Screen actors get their say in Oscar race (omg!)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - After months of talking and weeks of voting, Hollywood's actors finally name their picks for the best performances in the films and TV shows of 2011 at the annual Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday.

The SAG honors, which are closely watched in the race for Oscars, follow the Golden Globe, Critics' Choice and other awards given by media watchers, as well as acknowledgements from the U.S. Producers Guild and Directors Guild, which represent their respective professional groups in industry matters.

"The Artist," a romantic tale of a fading actor whose career is eclipsed by the woman he loves just as talkies are putting an end to silent pictures, has won top awards from many of those groups including the Directors Guild on Saturday night and will look to do as well with SAG voters on Sunday.

But "Artist" faces stiff competition from civil rights-era drama "The Help," which comes into Sunday night's awards with more nominations, four, more than any other movie, as well as from George Clooney-starring "The Descendants".

The actors in all three of those movies, along with the performers in Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris" and the ladies of comedy "Bridesmaids," will compete for the night's top honor, best ensemble cast in a film.

The SAG Awards are a key barometer of which films and actors have a good chance at winning Oscars, the world's top film honors given on February 26 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, because performers make up the largest voting branch of the academy.

In other SAG races, Clooney, playing a father struggling to keep his family together, squares off against Jean Dujardin of "Artist" fame and Brad Pitt for his role as a numbers-crunching baseball executive in "Moneyball." The other two nominees in that category are Demian Bichir in the little seen "A Better Life" and Leonardo DiCaprio for "J. Edgar."

The SAG race for best actress is seen as a tight one among Meryl Streep playing former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in "The Iron Lady," Viola Davis as a maid in "The Help" and Michelle Williams for her turn as Marilyn Monroe in "My Week with Marilyn."

Rounding out that category are Glenn Close in a gender-bending role as a butler in "Albert Nobbs" and Tilda Swinton as a troubled mother in dark drama, "We Need to Talk about Kevin."

SAG also hands out awards for best supporting roles in movies, and it honors performances in TV dramas, comedies and mini-series. But because of SAG's importance in the Oscar race, the film categories are most closely followed.

The SAG Awards air on U.S. TV on Sunday night from Los Angeles on cable networks TNT and TBS.

(Reporting By Bob Tourtellotte and Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Sandra Maler)

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Bradley Cooper, Zoe Saldana celebrate at Sundance

AAA??Jan. 28, 2012?3:30 AM ET
Bradley Cooper, Zoe Saldana celebrate at Sundance
SANDY COHENSANDY COHEN, AP Entertainment Writer??

Actress Zoe Saldana, left, co-writer and co-director Lee Sternthal, center, and actor Bradley Cooper pose at the premiere of "The Words" during the 2012 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah on Friday, Jan. 27, 2012. (AP Photo/Danny Moloshok)

Actress Zoe Saldana, left, co-writer and co-director Lee Sternthal, center, and actor Bradley Cooper pose at the premiere of "The Words" during the 2012 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah on Friday, Jan. 27, 2012. (AP Photo/Danny Moloshok)

Actor Bradley Cooper, from the film "The Words," poses for a portrait during the 2012 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Danny Moloshok)

Actress Zoe Saldana, from the film "The Words," poses for a portrait during the 2012 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Danny Moloshok)

From left to right, actor Dennis Quaid, actor Ben Barnes, actress Zoe Saldana, co-director and co-writer Brian Klugman, co-director and co-writer Lee Sternthal, and actor Bradley Cooper, from the film "The Words," pose for a portrait during the 2012 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Danny Moloshok)

PARK CITY, Utah (AP) ? Bradley Cooper and Zoe Saldana are in Park City to promote their film, "The Words," which is closing the Sundance Film Festival.

The two actors play a married couple in the film, which follows an aspiring writer who gains fame when he finds an old manuscript and passes it off as his own.

The pair avoided any appearance of their reported off-screen romance by staying apart from one another while posing for photos and giving interviews to support the film. Saldana did affectionately touch Cooper as they passed in a hallway, though.

"The Words" was among the first films acquired at Sundance. CBS Films is set to release it in the fall.

The drama, which also stars Dennis Quaid, Jeremy Irons, Ben Barnes and Olivia Wilde, premiered Friday.

Associated Press

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Taliban willing to compromise, Afghan negotiators say (Reuters)

KABUL (Reuters) ? Senior Afghan peace negotiators believe the Taliban are willing to significantly soften past hardline ideologies, with its leaders already laying the ground for possible peace talks in the Gulf state of Qatar.

Former Taliban minister Maulvi Arsala Rahmani, a member of the High Peace Council set up by President Hamid Karzai two years ago to liaise with insurgents, said that after a decade of fighting with NATO, the Taliban were ready to moderate on reimposition of fundamentalist positions.

And despite the assassination only last September of former president and leader of the peace process Burhanuddin Rabbani, secret discussions that began in Germany in November 2010 between U.S., Taliban, German and Qatari representatives had a good chance of success, Rahmani said.

"The Taliban are not back to govern the same way as the old Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. When they are back, they will be back as Afghans," Rahmani, a Taliban defector but with strong ties to the movement, said at his sparsely furnished home in a part of western Kabul heavily damaged during the country's bloody civil war.

"For Taliban members with the talent and skills, they will be election candidates for parliament, the presidency or the cabinet. The Taliban are not back to take over Afghanistan," he said.

Martine van Bijlert, of respected independent think-tank Afghanistan Analysts Network in Kabul, said no one could assume that talks with the Taliban would not work.

"But at the same time, we can't get ahead of ourselves," she said. "There seems to be a real chance at the moment. The high council has an interest in optimism of course, given their role in the process. But whether it can work is a fine balance. There is not an option not to try."

The Taliban announced this month that it would open a political office in Qatar to support possible peace talks with the United States and key allies, seen by backers like Rahmani as the best chance of reaching a ceasefire ahead of a withdrawal of foreign combat troops in 2014.

As a confidence-building measure, the Islamist group which ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until the U.S.-led invasion of the country in late 2001 called for the release of five members being held at Guantanamo Bay, a U.S. military enclave in Cuba.

Rahmani said preparations in Qatar were under way, with a team of senior aides to the Taliban's one-eyed leader Mullah Mohammad Omar already in Doha.

"I think the (Qatar) office is operational, but media are strictly banned," he said, looking frail with age and swathed in a heavy, fur-lined coat against the winter cold.

"People are already there like Shahabuddin Delawar (a former Taliban envoy to Saudi Arabia), Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai (a former Taliban deputy foreign minister) and Tayeb Agha (said to be a close aid and former secretary to Mullah Omar)."

Talks could begin in weeks and Rahmani said he expected that junior Taliban fighters would accept any peace agreed by their leaders if negotiations with U.S. and Afghan government officials proved ultimately successful.

"Those who fight on the field take their instruction from the leaders. The soldiers will not fight, or have someone else organize them and supply them. To say otherwise just looks like propaganda to me," he said.

TALIBAN SPLIT

But Mohammad Ismail Qasimyar, another peace council member and its adviser on foreign relations, said while he saw signs of moderation among the Taliban leadership, a peace deal had the potential to split junior members with more hardline views away from Taliban, possibly to continue a lower-level war.

"I would not dare to say all of the Taliban are thinking the same," said Qasimyar, appointed to the council of 62 men and eight women along with Rahmani in 2010.

"Some, especially the leadership, have changed hearts and minds. But the new recruits and younger ones, they are more ideological. I don't think they will change, but the majority will join the peace process," he said.

While a Qatar office for the Taliban was already a reality, Qasimyar said more had to be done before it could be called officially open. A Taliban spokesman told Reuters he could not comment on the progress of preparations.

And Qasimyar said Pakistan, seen by some political analysts as a possible disgruntled spoiler in the process because of its longstanding demand to have a big say in Afghanistan's future, had been quietly supportive, helping move Taliban named on a United Nations travel blacklist.

Pakistan, and its powerful military and intelligence service ISI, has consistently denied meddling in Afghanistan, but Islamabad had pushed for a Taliban office in the Turkish capital Ankara or Saudi Arabia's Riyadh, because of Pakistan's close ties with both countries.

Qasimyar said the Taliban had no choice but to compromise in a peace process he believed could be concluded "in a couple of years," embracing other insurgent groups as well as Afghan ethnic groups which fought brutal Taliban rule.

But Afghanistan could eventually emerge with a different shape of government, possibly with a stronger parliamentary system and less power in the hands of the presidency, he said.

"The constitutional system has to prevail," he said. "But if we all agree, and we all come into a peace agreement and we all come back to our country, all of us here, then we have to think about amendments to the constitution, amended through the machinery that is set up in the constitution."

(Editing by Nick Macfie)

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Leadership scramble: GOP rivals vie for title (AP)

WASHINGTON ? The Republican presidential contenders are making a pitch to voters that sounds a lot like a children's game: Follow the leader.

When Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich aren't puffing up their own leadership credentials, they're running down the leadership skills of one another and President Barack Obama.

If anyone missed Monday's conference call from the Romney campaign about Gingrich's record as a "failed leader," not to worry. They could have tuned in to Tuesday's conference call. Or Wednesday's. Or Thursday's. Or checked out the "unreliable leader" banner splashed across a Romney news release that labeled Gingrich "unhinged." Romney's political biography, meanwhile, is all about his leadership as a businessman, Massachusetts governor and savior of the 2002 Olympic Games.

It's hard to miss Gingrich's frequent broadsides at Romney, meanwhile, for failing to provide consistent, visionary leadership. Or the former House speaker's pronouncements that he, by contrast, offers "exactly the kind of bold, tough leader the American people want." Or Gingrich's muscular descriptions of all that was accomplished in his four years as speaker in the 1990s.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, lagging them in the polls, keeps trying to muscle his way into the leader palooza by offering himself as the steady bet who can be counted on to offer more reliable conservative leadership than "erratic" Gingrich or "moderate" Romney.

In a race where all the candidates are trying to out-conservative one another, stressing leadership credentials gives the GOP rivals a way to try to distinguish themselves. And in a year when Obama's own leadership skills are seen as one of his weakest qualities, it gives the Republicans another arrow in their quiver as they argue over who would be most electable in a matchup with Obama come November.

Leadership is always a part of the equation in presidential elections. In 2008, for example, the candidates all were abuzz with claims that they offered "transformational" leadership. Obama announced he was running by declaring, "I want to transform this country."

This year, leadership is getting an extra dose of attention, perhaps because of statistics such as this: The share of Americans who view Obama as a strong leader slipped from 77 percent at the start of his presidency to 52 percent in a Pew Research Center poll released this month. And among Republicans, only about a fourth of those surveyed in the most recent poll viewed Obama as a strong leader, compared with 80 percent of Democrats.

At a campaign debate last week in Tampa, Fla., Gingrich and Romney both turned a question about electability into an answer about the L-word.

"This is going to come down a question of leadership," Romney said. Then the former Massachusetts governor recited his track record as a leader in business and government and took a dig at Gingrich for having to "resign in disgrace" when he was speaker in the 1990s.

Gingrich, answering the same question, aligned himself with the leadership record of conservative hero Ronald Reagan and offered himself as someone "prepared to be controversial when necessary" to bring about great change.

The answers offer a window into how differently the two candidates define leadership ? Romney more as a manager with business school credentials, Gingrich more as a big-thinking visionary.

The leadership argument is a particularly potent campaign weapon for Romney because a number of Republicans who served in Congress with Gingrich have been happy to describe his shortcomings in running the House.

"If you were somebody trying to serve with him, you were always sort of left standing with your hands empty in terms of moving forward with an actual plan or putting a plan to paper," Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., said of Gingrich on a Romney campaign conference call on Thursday. "So for me, it's an example that he's just not an effective leader. I think Mitt has the temperament and the ability to lead."

Gingrich, who resigned after a spate of ethics problems and a poor showing for House Republicans in the 1998 elections, managed to turn even his resignation as speaker into evidence that he's a strong leader.

"I took responsibility for the fact that our results weren't as good as they should be," he said in the Tampa debate. "I think that's what a leader should do."

As for the turbulence of his tenure as speaker, Gingrich casts that, too, as evidence of his bold leadership.

"Look, I wish everybody had loved me, but I'd rather be effective representing the American people than be popular inside Washington," he said earlier in the campaign.

Stephen Wayne, a presidential scholar at Georgetown University, said the harsh judgment of Obama's presidential leadership by Republicans and even some Democrats in part is due to the high hopes that he raised during the 2008 campaign. Obama the president has been measured against the words of Obama the candidate ever since.

Now that it's campaign season again, says Wayne, "he's not competing against his own image, he's competing against a real life person that has frailties. ... In a sense, that lowers the bar for Obama."

___

AP Deputy Polling Director Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.

___

Follow Nancy Benac at http://www.twitter.com/nbenac

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120128/ap_on_el_pr/us_gop_follow_the_leader

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Gap between dueling Snow White movies shrinks (AP)

LOS ANGELES ? Hollywood's Snow White rivalry is heating up.

Movie studio Relativity Media said Thursday that it is pushing back the release of its fairy tale "Mirror Mirror" by two weeks to March 30.

While that moves it within a week of the potentially lucrative Easter weekend, it also cuts the time between it and Universal Picture's movie, "Snow White and the Huntsman," to nine weeks from 11.

Relativity insists its version of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale is a family comedy while "Huntsman" is a grittier action flick, so the thinking is the audiences won't overlap. Most movies make the majority of their ticket sales in the first few weeks.

Still, that's a pretty quick turnaround for people who might want to see both movies.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/movies/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120126/ap_en_mo/us_dueling_snow_whites

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Certain Brain Cells Become Toxic in Lou Gehrig's Disease

Head Lines | Mind & Brain See Inside

Brain cells known for assisting neurons may be killing them in patients with ALS

By Erica Westly ?| January 25, 2012?|

Image: Stephen Waxman and Hank Morgan/Photo Researchers, Inc

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig?s disease, is a progressive neuromuscular disease that affects about 130,000 people worldwide a year. The vast majority of patients are isolated cases with no known family history of the disease. They usually start developing symptoms of the loss of motor neurons in middle age and die within five years of diagnosis. Researchers know very little about what causes ALS. Now a recent study in Nature Biotechnology suggests that the neuron death associated with the disease may be caused by astrocytes, a type of brain cell that normally helps neurons.

Previous research had suggested that astrocytes could become toxic in the rare form of ALS known to have genetic roots, and the study authors wanted to see if a similar phenomenon might happen in the more common iso??lated cases. The answer turned out to be yes: when they cultured astro?cytes from those ALS patients, the healthy motor neurons in the culture began to die off after a few days. Other types of neurons were unaffected by the astrocytes, suggesting that they specifically harm the neurons involved in controlling the body?s movements.

Lead author Brian Kaspar, a neuroscientist at Ohio State University, and his collaborators next will attempt to figure out what makes the astrocytes behave this way. If researchers can understand why motor neurons die in ALS, they may have a better chance of finding a cure.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=02250b8156c50e73f3d18c71a1b62daa

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Teen saves school bus after driver dies

A teen with just two weeks of driving experience managed to steer her school bus to safety after her driver had a heart attack. WCAU-TV's Deanna Durante reports.

By NBCPhiladelphia.com

Graceann Rumer, 17, started driving only two weeks ago. But when her school bus driver collapsed from a heart attack Tuesday afternoon,?she didn't hesitate to use what she knew to?steer a bus full of children to safety.

"I just realized that there's no one driving this bus... I need?to do something,"?Rumer said.

The 17-year-old senior at Calvary Christian Academy in northeast Philadelphia had been driving herself to?school recently for practice,?but on Tuesday she opted for the?bus.

---

For more information, visit NBCPhiladelphia.com

Rumer and about three dozen other students were riding the bus home when 51-year-old driver Charles Duncan suddenly crumpled to the floor at about 3:30 p.m. Duncan died soon after.

With the driver obstructing the brake pedal, Rumer acted quickly?-- grabbing the wheel of the moving bus and making a U-turn to slow it down and change direction, as it was heading into oncoming traffic, witnesses say.

With still no access to the brake pedal, Rumer put the bus into park and successfully and safely stopped it, according to witnesses and bus company officials.

"I usually panic at like everything but I just reached over... grabbed the wheel and I pulled it over to the side and got off the road,"?Rumer said.?

None of the students were injured.

Parents of fellow students, friends and school officials all praised Rumer?s quick thinking and action.

"We had three of our children on the bus along with dozens of other kids and the outcome could have been much different," said Renee Lawsin, one of the parents. "She did something very heroic."

But Rumer dismisses being a hero, instead saying she was just the closest student to the front of the bus who had any driving experience.

"I don't think it was that heroic though. But it was a legit miracle," Rumer tweeted Thursday. "God really protected us."

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News

Source: http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/26/10242761-teen-drives-school-bus-to-safety

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Another Applied Hayek Moment (Powerlineblog)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/190499287?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Obama plans new team to get tough on China trade (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? President Barack Obama on Tuesday said he was creating an enforcement unit to crack down on unfair trade practices in China and other countries and would beef up border inspections to block imports of counterfeit goods.

"I will go anywhere in the world to open new markets for American products. And I will not stand by when our competitors don't play by the rules," Obama said in his annual State of the Union speech.

The White House said the new enforcement team would bring together resources and investigators from across the federal government to go after unfair foreign trade practices.

Obama said his administration had already brought trade cases against China "at nearly twice the rate as the last administration ... But we need to do more. It's not right when another country lets our movies, music, and software be pirated. It's not fair when foreign manufacturers have a leg up on ours only because they're heavily subsidized."

Republicans vying to take on Obama in this year's presidential race have slammed his handling of China. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has promised a tougher approach, begin with labeling China a currency manipulator.

The U.S. trade deficit with China is expected to hit a new record high of about $300 billion in 2011 when figures are released next month.

The U.S. Trade Representative's office has filed five World Trade Organization cases against China since Obama took office in January 2009, compared to seven during the two terms of former President George W. Bush. China joined the WTO in December 2001.

In addition, the Commerce Department is currently investigating U.S. industry charges of unfair pricing practices by Chinese wind and solar energy equipment manufacturers.

Obama did not mention those cases, but urged Congress to pass tax credits to create more U.S. clean energy jobs.

"I will not cede the wind or solar or battery industry to China or Germany because we refuse to make the same commitment here," he said.

A business group representing U.S. companies that do business in China said it welcomed Obama's push to open China's markets to more U.S. exports.

"Direct negotiation with China is the best first approach to dealing with commercial problems American companies have with China. But we also can use other sound legal tools - such as anti-dumping investigations and WTO cases," said John Frisbie, president of the U.S.-China Business Council.

Another group that represents both labor and domestic manufacturers that compete with China also welcomed the initiative, but urged lawmakers to go further.

Congress should pass "a bipartisan bill to stop China's currency manipulation," said Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing.

Last month, a top U.S. trade official said China continued to fall short on many of its WTO promises including barriers to its agricultural markets, weak intellectual property rights protection, discriminatory industrial policies and barriers in services.

Obama, in his speech to Congress, promised to increase border inspections to stop counterfeit name-brand goods and other pirated or unsafe products from getting into the United States.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce complains the worldwide trade in fake goods, many of which come from China, costs the United States hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs.

Obama said the United States cannot afford to stand by when competitors like China offer cheap government financing to help their businesses win sales overseas.

He also appeared to make a subtle pitch for lawmakers to approve "permanent normal trade relations" with Russia in order to ensure that U.S. companies benefit from the market-opening benefits of Moscow's expected accession to the WTO.

"This Congress should make sure that no foreign company has an advantage over American manufacturing when it comes to accessing finance or new markets like Russia. Our workers are the most productive on Earth, and if the playing field is level, I promise you - America will always win," Obama said.

(Reporting By Doug Palmer; Editing by Eric Walsh)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120125/ts_nm/us_usa_obama_speech_trade

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Steuben County To Get Emergency Communications Upgrade

Steuben County emergency system getting $1.5 million grant
Work taking place now to ensure continuity of Steuben emergency communications

By Mary Perham

Bath, N.Y. ?

Extensive plans are now under way to be sure emergency communications in Steuben County are not interrupted after the end of the year.

County Office of Emergency Services Director Michael Sprague said Motorola is on schedule with plans to set up a "narrow band" communications system in the county by Dec. 31, 2012.

The new system will be funded by a $1.5 million grant recently awarded by the state, Sprague told the county Legislature?s Public Safety and Corrections Committee recently. More...

Source: http://solomonswords.blogspot.com/2012/01/steuben-county-to-get-emergency.html

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Legal Theory Blog: Legal Theory Lexicon: Transparency

Introduction

Sooner or later, most law students encounter the idea that "transparency" (as opposed to "opaqueness") is (all else being equal) a desirable characteristic in markets, procedures, and governance institutions (both private and public).?But what is "transparency" and why is it a good thing??This entry in the?Legal Theory Lexicon?provides a very brief introduction to the concept of transparency for law students (especially first-year law students) with an interest in legal theory. The basic idea of transparency is simple: things go better when processes are open. Markets function best when transactions are public and terms are disclosed. Judicial processes work best when they are visible to the participants and the public. Governments work best when both inputs to decisions and the meetings in which decisions are made are public. This post provides a brief introduction to the idea of transparency in a few important contexts.

Transparency and Democratic Process?

Why should the processes of democratic decisionmaking be transparent??There are so many different answers to this question that one hardly knows where to begin, but we might start by distinguishing between answers that rely on consequentialist reasoning and those that appeal to ideas about rights, fairness, or legitimacy. The consequentialist case for transparency in government usually rests on the idea that opaque processes are likely to facilitate corruption or capture. Corruption is more likely because secret decisionmaking facilitates rent-seeking (soliciting bribes) by public officials; transparency processes make bribery more difficult and increase the likelihood that it will be exposed. "Capture" is the term used to describe domination of a regulatory process by the interests who are supposed to be regulated. When lawmaking (or administrative rulemaking) is done in secret, there is a greater likelihood that the information flow will be one sided.

The process that led to the formation of the Bush Administration's energy policy provided a good example of debates over the pros and cons of transparency in government. The administration developed its energy policy through non-transparent procedures. Vice-President Cheney met in private with a variety of interest groups, and the records of the meetings were not made available to the public. Critics charged that this secrecy allowed oil and coal interests to dominate the decision-making process to the detriment of the public interest. The administration defended the process, arguing that public processes would have inhibited free and frank discussion of the issues by the various interest groups. Whether or not this argument was correct in this particular context, it illustrates an important point. Transparency in government comes at a price. Transparent processes may be inefficient--what can be done in private in minutes may take hours in public. Transparent processes may also distort decision-making, forcing political actors to pander to public opinion at the expense of good policy.? And transparency may inhibit rather than facilitate the free flow of information--unpopular truths may be discussed behind closed doors but avoided in the sunshine.

The case for transparency in government need not rest on consequences. It might also be argued that transparent government is required by the rights of citizens to meaningfully participate in democratic self-government. If public officials conduct business in private, then it becomes more difficult for citizens to make meaningful decisions at the ballot box.? This deontological foundations of the values of transparency are likely to be rooted in theories of procedural justice and the role of democracy a conception of the political equality of citizens.

Transparency in the Market and the Boardroom

The case for transparent markets is simple. Efficiency requires information. Efficient pricing, for example, requires that buyers know what they are buyng and sellers know what they are selling. "Buying a pig in a poke" is simply a colorful way of expressing the idea that a nontransparent transaction has occurred. Transparency may be especially important in capital markets.? Securities regulation in the United States rests on the assumption that mandatory disclosure of accurate financial information will lead to investor confidence and facilitate efficient financial markets. Without transparency each investor would face either uncertainty or enormous information acquisition costs. Efficient capital markets produce enormous benefits, because they enable resources to be allocated to their highest and best use. Finally, transparency in corporate governance aims to prevent management from appropriating wealth owned by stockholders.

There are, however, situations in which transparency is inconsistent with efficient markets. Trade secret law, for example, aims at the opposite of transparency. The theory is that the ability to keep secrets creates an incentive to develop new ideas, inventions, and processes; disclosure would allow competitors to appropriate the new idea without compensation, and hence would reduce the incentives for the creation of new knowledge. Similarly, corporations are not required to disclose business strategies and tactics.

Transparent Judicial Procedures

Civil litigation and criminal trials provide a final context in which transparency is an important value. When we think about the transparency of judicial procedures, there are two different groups for whom the process may be transparent or opaque. The first group is comprised of litigants (plaintiffs/defendants in civil litigation and defendants in criminal litigation). The second group consists of the public at large. Most legal systems place a higher value on transparency to participants than on transparency to the public. While it is not unusual for a hearing to be closed to the public, it is very unusual for a judicial proceeding to exclude the parties themselves. But there are important exceptions to this rule. Deliberations by both judges and juries are usually opaque.

Thus, even the defendant in a criminal case is not allowed to observe the deliberations of the jury. A similar rule applies to judicial deliberations. For example, the conferences of an appellate court (e.g. the United States Supreme Court) are conducted in the strictest secrecy, as are the communications between among judges and between judges and their clerks. In these contexts, the thought is that open deliberations would actually distort the decision making process, leading to worse rather than better decisions.

Connections with Normative Legal Theory

As should be clear by now, debates about transparency in law connect with larger debates in normative legal theory. ?The case for transparency in a given context may rest on either utilitarian or deontological considerations. ?And the case against transparency, likewise, might be grounded in a right to privacy or on the basis of benefits of secrecy. ?As is frequently the case, some debates about transparency do not get very far, because the participants are operating on the basis inconsistent premises about the kinds of values that should guide legal choice. ?One way to move past this kind of impasse might involve appeal to public reasons--reasons that draw on values that are accepted in the public political and legal culture that do not directly invoke comprehensive moral conceptions (like Bentham's utilitarianism or Kant's deontology).

Conclusion

Concern with process is ubiquitous in legal theory, and processes can be transparent or opaque. As a law student, you might begin to ask yourself about the effect of legal rules on transparency. Does this rule make the process more transparent or more opaque. When you encounter rules that render processes opaque, always ask?why? There may be an answer to the question, but then again, there may not. ?One way to deal with this problem involves conceptual ascent--moving directly to address the underlying value conflict. ?Another solution may involve the attempt to refocus the discussion in a way that involves?public reasons--reasons that appeal to public values that do not directly depend on comprehensive moral or political theories.

Related Lexicon Entries

Bibliography

(This entry was last revised on January 22, 2012.)

Source: http://lsolum.typepad.com/legaltheory/2012/01/legal-theory-lexicon-transparency.html

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AP IMPACT: Health overhaul lags in states

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Here's a reality check for President Barack Obama's health overhaul: Three out of four uninsured Americans live in states that have yet to figure out how to deliver on its promise of affordable medical care.

This is the year that will make or break the health care law. States were supposed to be partners in carrying out the biggest safety net expansion since Medicare and Medicaid, and the White House claims they're making steady progress.

But an analysis by The Associated Press shows that states are moving in fits and starts. Combined with new insurance coverage estimates from the nonpartisan Urban Institute, it reveals a patchwork nation.

Such uneven progress could have real consequences.

If it continues, it will mean disparities and delays from state to state in carrying out an immense expansion of health insurance scheduled in the law for 2014. That could happen even if the Supreme Court upholds Obama's law, called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

"There will be something there, but if it doesn't mesh with the state's culture and if the state is not really supporting it, that certainly won't help it succeed," said Urban Institute senior researcher Matthew Buettgens.

The 13 states that have adopted a plan are home to only 1 in 4 of the uninsured. An additional 17 states are making headway, but it's not clear all will succeed. The 20 states lagging behind account for the biggest share of the uninsured, 42 percent.

Among the lagging states are four with arguably the most to gain. Texas, Florida, Georgia and Ohio together would add more than 7 million people to the insurance rolls, according to Urban Institute estimates, reducing the annual burden of charity care by $10.7 billion.

"It's not that we want something for free, but we want something we can afford," said Vicki McCuistion of Driftwood, Texas, who works two part-time jobs and is uninsured. With the nation's highest uninsured rate, her state has made little progress.

The Obama administration says McCuistion and others in the same predicament have nothing to fear. "The fact of states moving at different rates does not create disparities for a particular state's uninsured population," said Steve Larsen, director of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight at the federal Department of Health and Human Services.

That's because the law says that if a state isn't ready, the federal government will step in. Larsen insists the government will be ready, but it's not as easy as handing out insurance cards.

Someone has to set up health insurance exchanges, new one-stop supermarkets with online and landline capabilities for those who buy coverage individually.

A secure infrastructure must be created to verify income, legal residency and other personal information, and smooth enrollment in private insurance plans or Medicaid. Many middle-class households will be eligible for tax credits to help pay premiums for private coverage. Separate exchanges must be created for small businesses.

"It's a very heavy lift," said California's health secretary, Diana Dooley, whose state was one of the first to approve a plan. "Coverage is certainly important, but it's not the only part. It is very complex."

California has nearly 7.5 million residents without coverage, more than half of the 12.7 million uninsured in the states with a plan. An estimated 2.9 million Californians would gain coverage, according to the Urban Institute's research, funded by the nonpartisan Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Democrats who wrote the overhaul law had hoped that most states would be willing partners, putting aside partisan differences to build the exchanges and help cover more than 30 million uninsured nationally. It's not turning out that way.

Some states, mainly those led by Democrats, are far along. Others, usually led by Republicans, have done little. Separately, about half the states are suing to overturn the law.

Time is running out for states, which must have their plans ready for a federal approval deadline of Jan. 1, 2013. Those not ready risk triggering the default requirement that Washington run their exchange.

Yet in states where Republican repudiation of the health care law has blocked exchanges, there's little incentive to advance before the Supreme Court rules. A decision is expected this summer, and many state legislatures aren't scheduled to meet past late spring.

The result if the law is upheld could be greater federal sway over health care in the states, the very outcome conservatives say they want to prevent.

"If you give states the opportunity to decide their own destiny, and some choose to ignore it for partisan reasons, they almost make the case against themselves for more federal intervention," said Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb.

A conservative, Nelson was on the winning side of a heated argument among Democrats over who should run exchanges, the feds or the states. Liberals lost their demand for a federal exchange, insulated from state politics.

"It's pretty hard to take care of the states when they don't take care of themselves," said Nelson, who regrets that the concession he fought for has been dismissed by so many states.

The AP's analysis divided states into four broad groups: those that have adopted a plan for exchanges, those that made substantial progress, those where the outlook is unclear, and those with no significant progress. AP statehouse reporters were consulted in cases of conflicting information.

Thirteen states, plus the District of Columbia, have adopted a plan.

By contrast, in 20 states either the outlook is unclear or there has been no significant progress. Those states include more than 21 million of the 50 million uninsured Americans.

Four have made no significant progress. They are Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana and New Hampshire. The last three returned planning money to the federal government. In Arkansas, Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe ran into immovable GOP opposition in the Legislature. Beebe acknowledges that the federal government will have to run the exchange, but is exploring a fallback option.

In the other 16 states, the outlook is unclear because of failure to advance legislation or paralyzing political disputes that often pit Republicans fervently trying to stop what they deride as "Obamacare" against fellow Republicans who are more pragmatic.

In Kansas, for example, Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger is pushing hard for a state exchange, but Gov. Sam Brownback returned a $31 million federal grant, saying the state would not act before the Supreme Court rules. Both officials are Republicans.

"It's just presidential politics," said Praeger, discussing the situation nationally. "It's less about whether exchanges make sense and more about trying to repeal the whole law." As a result, outlook is unclear for a state with 361,000 uninsured residents.

There is a bright spot for Obama and backers of the law.

An additional 17 states have made substantial progress, although that's no guarantee of success. Last week in Wisconsin, GOP Gov. Scott Walker abruptly halted planning and announced he will return $38 million in federal money.

AP defined states making substantial progress as ones where governors or legislatures have made a significant commitment to set up exchanges. Another important factor was state acceptance of a federal exchange establishment grant.

That group accounts for just under one-third of the uninsured, about 16 million people.

It includes populous states such as New York, Illinois, North Carolina and New Jersey, which combined would add more than 3 million people to the insurance rolls.

Several are led by Republican governors, including Virginia and Indiana, which have declared their intent to establish insurance exchanges under certain conditions. Other states that have advanced under Republican governors include Arizona and New Mexico.

For uninsured people living in states that have done little, the situation is demoralizing.

Gov. Rick Perry's opposition to the law scuttled plans to advance an exchange bill in the Texas Legislature last year, when Perry was contemplating his presidential run. The Legislature doesn't meet this year, so the situation is unclear.

McCuistion and her husband, Dan, are among the nearly 6.7 million Texans who lack coverage. Dan is self-employed as the owner of a specialty tree service. Vicki works part time for two nonprofit organizations. The McCuistions have been uninsured throughout their 17-year marriage, although their three daughters now have coverage through the Children's Health Insurance Program. Dan McCuistion has been nursing a bad back for years, and it only seems to get worse.

"For me it almost feels like a ticking time bomb," his wife said.

Dan McCuistion says he doesn't believe Americans have a constitutional right to health care, but he would take advantage of affordable coverage if it was offered to him. He's exasperated with Perry and other Texas politicians. "They give a lot of rhetoric toward families, but their actions don't meet up with what they are saying," he said.

Perry's office says it's principle, not lack of compassion.

"Gov. Perry believes 'Obamacare' is unconstitutional, misguided and unsustainable, and Texas, along with other states, is taking legal action to end this massive government overreach," said spokeswoman Lucy Nashed. "There are no plans to implement an exchange."

___

Online:

AP interactive: http://hosted.ap.org/interactives/2011/healthcare

Urban Institute estimates: http://tinyurl.com/86py8nd

Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight: http://cciio.cms.gov

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-01-22-US-Health-Overhaul-States/id-d24137291c1e4d1995924669a9499539

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Steelers QB settles lawsuit alleging '08 rape

RENO, Nev. (AP) ? Lawyers for Ben Roethlisberger and a woman who accused him of raping her at a Lake Tahoe hotel-casino in 2008 have reached a settlement that ends her civil lawsuit against the Steelers quarterback.

Cal Dunlap, the Reno lawyer representing the woman, told The Associated Press on Friday "the matter has been resolved." He said he had no further comment.

The Reno Gazette-Journal first reported the settlement. It also dismisses claims against Harrah's employees whom the woman had accused of covering up the alleged sexual assault in Roethlisberger's penthouse suite.

Dunlap said in papers filed in Washoe District Court that his client wanted to have the case dismissed because all the parties had reached a resolution of all claims and counterclaims.

The Pittsburgh quarterback's lawyer has had no comment.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2012-01-20-Roethlisberger%20Lawsuit-Settled/id-620f54df290944cfa3be85953871cf9b

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