Snooki shows off her fresh face! Plus, check out more stars' cute, candid and crazy Twitter photos
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Saturday, January 21, 2012
Friday, January 20, 2012
US calls on S. Africans to prevent Sudan crisis (AP)
PRETORIA, South Africa ? The U.S. is calling on South Africa to help prevent a humanitarian disaster in Sudan.
Speaking Wednesday in South Africa, Princeton Lyman, the special U.S. envoy on Sudan, said civilians caught up in fighting in Sudan's Blue Nile and South Kordofan states are running out of food and medicine. Lyman says South Africa should pressure Sudan to allow in international humanitarian agencies.
Lyman says he fears "the prospect of hundreds of thousands of people dying with no access to food or medicine."
Fighting between the Sudanese army and rebels who want to topple the Khartoum government started last year in the states. Groups in both states, which border the new country of South Sudan, sided with the south during a lengthy civil war but remain part of the north.
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Thursday, January 19, 2012
Toddler's cuss word on 'Modern Family' draws ire (omg!)
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? An anti-profanity crusader is asking the ABC television network to pull this week's "Modern Family" episode about a cursing toddler.
A college student who founded the No Cussing Club in 2007 said Tuesday that he's called on club members to contact ABC and ask that the episode be dropped.
McKay Hatch says that he wants the network to at least realize people are uncomfortable with the idea of a toddler using profanity. He says ABC should set a better example.
In the episode titled "Little Bo Bleep," the tot playing Lily says the word "fudge" during taping as a substitute for an obscenity. It's to be bleeped when the show airs on Wednesday night.
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Romney: I'll release tax records in April (AP)
WASHINGTON ? Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney says he's "happy" to release his tax records and suggested he would do so in April if he becomes the Republican nominee for president.
Under tough questioning during a presidential debate Monday, Romney said he has looked at the campaigns of past GOP nominees who released their tax information around tax day, which is April 15. Romney earned millions of dollars at a venture capital firm. He said there's nothing in the records to indicate anything amiss.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry suggested Romney should follow other candidates and release the returns before the nomination contest is decided.
The comments came during the first of two debates ahead of the South Carolina primary Saturday. Romney, who won the Iowa and New Hampshire contests, is the front-runner.
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Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Nigeria troops appear; president offers concession
Fuel tankers are parked near an oil terminal in Lagos, Nigeria, Sunday, Jan. 15, 2012. Nigeria's government and labor unions failed to end a paralyzing nationwide strike over high gasoline costs, potentially sparking an oil production shutdown in a nation vital to U.S. oil supplies. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)
Fuel tankers are parked near an oil terminal in Lagos, Nigeria, Sunday, Jan. 15, 2012. Nigeria's government and labor unions failed to end a paralyzing nationwide strike over high gasoline costs, potentially sparking an oil production shutdown in a nation vital to U.S. oil supplies. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)
A cabbage cleaner stands in front of fuel trucks in Lagos, Nigeria, Sunday, Jan. 15, 2012. Nigeria's government and labor unions failed to end a paralyzing nationwide strike over the high costs of gasoline, and potentially sparking a national oil production shutdown. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)
LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) ? For the first time since protests erupted over spiraling fuel prices, soldiers barricaded key roads Monday in Nigeria's two biggest cities as the president offered a concession to stem demonstrations that he said were being stoked by provocateurs seeking anarchy.
Soldiers in Lagos fired apparent live rounds over the heads of several hundred protesters who were walking to a park where demonstrations were held last week ? and where armored personnel carriers and troops awaited on Monday.
The deployment of troops is a sensitive issue in a nation with a young democracy and a history of military coups. President Goodluck Jonathan said in his speech that was televised early Monday that agitators have hijacked the demonstrations, which were initially focused on his removal of a fuel subsidy but more recently focused on government corruption and inefficiency.
At a park in Lagos' Ojota neighborhood where more than 20,000 people had demonstrated Friday, two military armored personnel carriers were parked near an empty stage. About 50 soldiers and 50 other security personnel surrounded the area carrying Kalashnikov rifles, waving away those who tried to enter to resume demonstrations. A crowd of several hundred people gathered a few hundreds yards (meters) away.
"They are here because they don't want us to protest," said Remi Odutayo, 25, referring to the soldiers in the park. "They are using the power given to them to do something illegal" by stopping demonstrators from gathering.
A few miles (kilometers) away, about 300 protesters marched on a highway toward Ojota. One waved a white puppy above his head like a protest placard. When they approached a military checkpoint, soldiers slung their Kalasnikov rifles to their sides and let the demonstrators pass unhindered. But then around 20 soldiers arrived in two pickup trucks, bayonets affixed to their assault rifles. They told the protesters to go back. Soldiers fired into the air and tear-gassed the crowd to disperse it.
In Nigeria's second-largest city of Kano, soldiers and police barricaded entrances to protest venues, including a park near a university and a square in the city center.
Jonathan announced the government would subsidize gasoline prices to immediately reduce the price to about $2.27 a gallon. The concession might not be enough to stem outrage over the government's stripping of fuel subsidies on Jan. 1 that kept gas prices low in this oil-rich but impoverished nation. Even with the measure announced Monday, gasoline would still be more than 50 cents a gallon higher than it was just 16 days ago. Most people live on less than $2 a day in Africa's most populous nation. Tens of thousands have marched in cities across the nation.
In Lagos, a city of 15 million, army soldiers set up a checkpoint Monday morning on the main highway that feeds traffic from the mainland into its islands. An AP reporter saw more than 10 soldiers carrying assault rifles and wearing camouflage uniforms. On Ikoyi Island, where some of Nigeria's wealthy live, air force personnel erected roadblocks of metal barricades and debris at a roundabout where more 1,000 protesters had regularly gathered last week. The airmen asked drivers who they were and where they were headed before letting them pass.
At the Lagos headquarters of the Nigeria Labor Congress, some 50 protesters gathered Monday despite requests from union leaders to stay home. Lawyer Bamidele Aturu led the crowd in chants and cheers, comparing the president to military rulers of the past who used soldiers to suppress dissent.
"It's very clear the revolution has begun!" Aturu shouted. However, those gathered looked warily at passing pickup trucks filled with soldiers.
Wearing a traditional black kaftan, Jonathan was alone on camera as he read from a printed speech on state TV.
"It has become clear to government and all well-meaning Nigerians that other interests beyond the implementation of the deregulation policy have hijacked the protest," Jonathan said. "This has prevented an objective assessment and consideration of all the contending issues for which dialogue was initiated by government. These same interests seek to promote discord, anarchy and insecurity to the detriment of public peace."
Jonathan's speech comes after his attempt to negotiate with labor unions failed late Sunday night to avert the strike entering a sixth day. Nigeria Labor Congress President Abdulwaheed Omar said early Monday morning he had ordered workers to stay at home over Jonathan's fears about security.
The strike began Jan. 9, paralyzing the nation of more than 160 million people. The root cause remains gasoline prices: Jonathan's government abandoned subsidies that kept gasoline prices low on Jan. 1, causing prices to spike from $1.70 per gallon (45 cents per liter) to at least $3.50 per gallon (94 cents per liter). The costs of food and transportation also largely doubled.
Anger over losing one of the few benefits average Nigerians see from living in an oil-rich country led to demonstrations across the nation and violence that has killed at least 10 people. Red Cross volunteers have treated more than 600 people injured in protests since the strike began, officials said.
Jonathan and other government officials have argued that removing the subsidies, which are estimated to cost $8 billion a year, would allow the government to spend money on badly needed public projects across a country that has cratered roads, little electricity and a lack of clean drinking water for its inhabitants. However, many remain suspicious of government as military rulers and politicians have plundered government budgets since this African nation won independence from Britain in 1960.
The strike also could cut into oil production in Nigeria, which produces about 2.4 million barrels of crude a day and remains a top energy supplier to the U.S. A major oil workers association threatened Thursday to stop all oil production in Nigeria at midnight Saturday over the continued impasse in negotiations. However, the Nigeria Labor Congress said the association had held off on the threatened production halt.
___
Associated Press writer Bashir Adigun in Abuja, Nigeria, and Ibrahim Garba in Kano contributed to this report.
___
Jon Gambrell can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.
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Stop it Mr. President -- Quit Giving Our Money Away (ContributorNetwork)
COMMENTARY | When will the insanity stop? One day after President Barack Obama asked Congress for yet another increase in the debt limit so the federal government can continue to borrow money to stay solvent; he then offers to give Bangladesh another free billion dollars.
Reuters reported another $1 billion in aid was offered to the impoverished Asian country over five years to help alleviate hunger and malnutrition, as well as assist in family planning. There is little doubt Bangladesh needs help, but the U.S. has already provided nearly $6 billion in developmental assistance.
This is absolute craziness. The federal government is well over $15 trillion in debt -- all of which have been borrowed on the backs of current and future taxpayers and yet our government continues to pass it out to other countries without hardly a mere consideration for how Americans might feel about that. The people of Bangladesh need help -- they have always needed more help than any one nation can provide.
While the U.S. is a land of plenty, that "plenty" comes at a cost. The cost is too high anymore. We cannot continue to pass out aid to every cause or need. The need is too big. The wallet has run dry.
It is unconceivable that any American president would consider passing out aid with the financial conditions the U.S. is currently in. Not two months ago Congress missed a statutory deadline to strip money from the budget over a 10-year period. They couldn't do it.
Just one day ago, The Washington Post reported Obama asked for a $1.2 trillion increase in borrowing authority for the Treasury. The madness must stop and maybe it's time for ordinary Americans to cry "Enough already!" in the face of every elected official.
There are people suffering all around the world. The need is so great that no one nation -- no matter how mighty its economy may be -- can possibly meet the need. There are needs here too. Our inner cities are falling apart. Food stamp recipients are at an all time high. There has to be a time when the answer is "no."
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