Former New York mobster who turned on mafia gets less prison (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) ? A former New York mobster who turned against the mafia and helped convict Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano, then acting boss of the Bonanno crime family, was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Monday despite being involved in multiple murders.

Prosecutors said Dominick Cicale, 44, was convicted of racketeering and involvement in two murders and assaults in aid of racketeering. He avoided a maximum life sentence by agreeing to turn against his former crime-world associates, according to a motion filed in court on Monday by the U.S. Attorney's office for the Eastern District of New York.

He was sentenced to 10 years prison and was given credit for about seven years already served.

Prosecutors said that Cicale, who grew up in the Bronx in New York City, ascended the ranks of the Bonanno family from 1999 until his arrest in January 2005, during which time he took part in two "brutal" murders and other violence on the crime family's behalf.

He began cooperating with the government in January, 2006, the prosecution's motion said, giving information and testimony that helped convict Basciano and a dozen other reputed Bonanno family members.

Basciano, known by his nickname Vinny Gorgeous, was sentenced to life imprisonment in June 2011.

The prosecution's motion argued for a lenient sentence for Cicale based on his help to the government.

In February, 2001, during his tenure with the Bonanno family, Cicale took part in the fatal shooting of Frank Santoro, who was out walking his dog near his home in the Bronx, the motion said. Basciano, the acting boss, had ordered the killing on suspicion that Santoro was planning to kidnap his son, prosecutors said.

In December, 2004, Cicale orchestrated the murder of Randolph Pizzolo, an associate of the mob family that Basciano had ordered killed as a "wake-up call", the motion said.

The prosecution's motion said Cicale had since proved an "important and effective" government witness.

"While he has engaged in a multitude of crimes, including three murders, he has nonetheless provided information and testimony that has put dangerous criminals behind bars," the prosecutor's motion said.

Russell Neufeld, Cicale's lawyer, declined to comment on Monday.

(Editing By Barbara Goldberg and Greg McCune)

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Romney picks up 2 delegates in South Carolina

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Mitt Romney has picked up a consolation prize from the South Carolina Republican presidential primary: two delegates.

Newt Gingrich handily won the Jan. 21 primary and got 23 of the state's 25 delegates. South Carolina Republicans awarded 11 delegates to the statewide winner and two delegates for winning each of the state's seven congressional districts.

Gingrich won six congressional districts, but the vote in one district was too close to call on election night. State party political director Alex Stroman said Monday the party had determined Romney won the district by about 1,400 votes.

Romney now has 37 delegates, including endorsements from Republican National Committee members who will automatically attend the convention. Romney recently added an RNC delegate when he was endorsed by Puerto Rico Gov. Luis Fortuno, who is a member of the RNC.

Gingrich has 26 delegates, Rick Santorum has 14 and Ron Paul has four. It takes 1,144 delegates to win the nomination.

Associated Press

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The Oil Off Cuba: Washington and Havana Dance at Arms Length Over Spill Prevention (Time.com)

On Christmas Eve, a massive, Chinese-made maritime oil rig, the Scarabeo 9, arrived at Trinidad and Tobago for inspection. The Spanish oil company Repsol YPF, which keeps regional headquarters in Trinidad, ferried it to the Caribbean to perform deep-ocean drilling off Cuba -- whose communist government believes as much as 20 billion barrels of crude may lie near the island's northwest coast. But it wasn't Cuban authorities who came aboard the Scarabeo 9 to give it the once-over: officials from the U.S. Coast Guard and Interior Department did, even though the rig won't be operating in U.S. waters.

On any other occasion that might have raised the ire of the Cubans, who consider Washington their imperialista enemy. But the U.S. examination of the Scarabeo 9, which Repsol agreed to and Cuba abided, was part of an unusual choreography of cooperation between the two countries. Their otherwise bitter cold-war feud (they haven't had diplomatic relations since 1961) is best known for a 50-year-long trade embargo and history's scariest nuclear standoff. Now, Cuba's commitment to offshore oil exploration -- drilling may start this weekend -- raises a specter that haunts both nations: an oil spill in the Florida Straits like the BP calamity that tarred the nearby Gulf of Mexico two years ago and left $40 billion in U.S. damages.

The Straits, an equally vital body of water that's home to some of the world's most precious coral reefs, separates Havana and Key West, Florida, by a mere 90 miles. As a result, the U.S. has tacitly loosened its embargo against Cuba to give firms like Repsol easier access to the U.S. equipment they need to help avoid or contain possible spills. "Preventing drilling off Cuba better protects our interests than preparing for [a disaster] does," U.S. Senator Bill Nelson of Florida tells TIME, noting the U.S. would prefer to stop the Cuban drilling -- but can't. "But the two are not mutually exclusive, and that's why we should aim to do both."

(MORE: Cuba Set to Begin Offshore Drilling: Is Florida In Eco-Straits?)

Cuba meanwhile has tacitly agreed to ensure that its safety measures meet U.S. standards (not that U.S. standards proved all that golden during the 2010 BP disaster) and is letting unofficial U.S. delegations in to discuss the precautions being taken by Havana and the international oil companies it is contracting. No Cuban official would discuss the matter, but Dan Whittle, senior attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund in New York, who was part of one recent delegation, says the Cubans "seem very motivated to do the right thing."

It's also the right business thing to do. Cuba's threadbare economy -- President Ra?l Castro currently has to lay off more than 500,000 state workers -- is acutely energy-dependent on allies like Venezuela, which ships the island 120,000 barrels of oil per day. So Havana is eager to drill for the major offshore reserves geologists discovered eight years ago (which the U.S. Geological Survey estimates at closer to 10 billion bbl.). Cuba has signed or is negotiating leases with Repsol and companies from eight other nations -- Norway, India, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brazil, Venezuela, Angola and China -- for 59 drilling blocks inside a 43,000-sq.-mile (112,000 sq km) zone. Eventually, the government hopes to extract half a million bpd or more.

A serious oil spill could scuttle those drilling operations -- especially since Cuba hasn't the technology, infrastructure or means, like a clean-up fund similar to the $1 billion the U.S. keeps on reserve, to confront such an emergency. And there is another big economic anxiety: Cuba's $2 billion tourism industry. "The dilemma for Cuba is that as much as they want the oil, they care as much if not more about their ocean resources," says Billy Causey, southeast regional director for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's marine sanctuary program. Cuba's pristine beaches and reefs attract sunbathers and scuba divers the world over, and a quarter of its coastal environment is set aside as protected.

So is much of coastal Florida, where tourism generates $60 billion annually -- which is why the state keeps oil rigs out of its waters. The Florida Keys lie as close as 50 miles from where Repsol is drilling; and they run roughly parallel to the 350-mile-long (560 km) Florida Reef Tract (FRT), the world's third largest barrier reef and one of its most valuable ocean eco-systems. The FRT is already under assault from global warming, ocean acidification and overfishing of symbiotic species like parrotfish that keep coral pruned of corrosive algae. If a spill were to damage the FRT, which draws $2 billion from tourism each year and supports 33,000 jobs, "it would be a catastrophic event," says David Vaughan, director of Florida's private Mote Marine Laboratory.

(MORE: Will BP Spill Lower Risk of Deepwater Drilling?)

Which means America has its own dilemma. As much as the U.S. would like to thwart Cuban petro-profits -- Cuban-American leaders like U.S. Representative and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Miami say the oil will throw a lifeline to the Castro dictatorship -- it needs to care as much if not more about its own environment. Because fewer than a tenth of the Scarabeo 9's components were made in America, Washington can't wield the embargo cudgel and fine Repsol, which has interests in the U.S., for doing business with Cuba. (Most of the other firms don't have U.S. interests.) Nor can it in good conscience use the embargo in this case to keep U.S. companies from offering spill prevention/containment hardware and services to Repsol and other drilling contractors.

One of those U.S. firms is Helix Energy Solutions in Houston. Amid the Gulf disaster, Helix engineered a "capping stack" to plug damaged blow-out preventers like the one that failed on BP's Deepwater Horizon rig. (It later contained the spill.) Having that technology at hand -- especially since the Cuba rigs will often operate in deeper waters than the Deepwater rig was mining -- will be critical if a spill occurs off Cuba.

Helix has applied to the Treasury Department for a special license to lease its equipment, and speedily deliver it, to Cuba's contractors when needed. The license is still pending, but Helix spokesman Cameron Wallace says the company is confident it will come through since Cuba won't benefit economically from the arrangement. "This is a reasonable approach," says Wallace. "We can't just say we'll figure out what to do if a spill happens. We need this kind of preparation." Eco-advocates like Whittle agree: "It's a no-brainer for the U.S."

(MORE: U.S. Fails to Respond to Cuba's Freeing of Dissidents)

Preparation includes something the U.S.-Cuba cold-war time warp rarely allows: dialogue. Nelson has introduced legislation that would require federal agencies to consult Congress on how to work with countries like Cuba on offshore drilling safety and spill response, but the Administration has already shown some flexibility. Last month U.S. officials and scientists had contact with Cuban counterparts at a regional forum on drilling hazards. That's important because they need to be in synch, for example, about how to attack a spill without exacerbating the damage to coral reefs. Scientists like Vaughan worry that chemical dispersants used to fight the spill in the Gulf, where coral wasn't as prevalent, could be lethal to reefs in the Straits. That would breed more marine catastrophe, since coral reefs, though they make up only 1% of the world's sea bottoms, account for up to 40% of natural fisheries. "They're our underwater oases," says Vaughan, whose tests so far with dispersants and FRT species like Elkhorn coral don't augur well.

A rigid U.S. reluctance to engage communist Cuba is of course only half the problem. Another is Havana's notorious, Soviet-style secrecy -- which some fear "could override the need to immediately pick up the phone," as one environmentalist confides, if and when a spill occurs. As a result, some are also petitioning Washington to fund AUVs (autonomous underwater vehicles) that marine biologists use to detect red tides, and which could also be used to sniff out oil spills in the Straits.

What experts on both sides of the Straits hope is that sea currents will carry any oil slick directly out into the Atlantic Ocean. But that's wishful thinking. So probably is the notion that U.S.-Cuba cooperation on offshore drilling can be duplicated on other fronts. Among them are the embargo, including the arguably unconstitutional ban on U.S. travel to Cuba, which has utterly failed to dislodge the Castro regime but which Washington keeps in place for fear of offending Cuban-American voters in swing-state Florida; and cases like that of Alan Gross, a U.S. aid worker imprisoned in Cuba since 2009 on what many call questionable spying charges.

U.S. inspectors this month gave the Scarabeo 9 the thumbs-up. Meanwhile, U.S. pols hope they can still dissuade foreign oil companies from operating off Cuba. Last month Nelson and Cuban-American Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey introduced a bill to hold firms financially responsible for spills that affect the U.S. even if they originate outside U.S. waters. (It would also lift a $75 million liability cap.) Others in Congress say Big Oil should be exempted from the embargo to let the U.S. benefit from the Cuba oil find too. Either way, the only thing likely to stop the drilling now would be the discovery that there's not as much crude there as anticipated. That, or a major spill.

PHOTOS: Fidel Castro Steps Down

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Gingrich bemoans Romney's Florida "carpet-bombing" (AP)

MIAMI ? Newt Gingrich slammed GOP presidential rival Mitt Romney for "carpet-bombing" his record ahead of Tuesday's presidential primary in Florida, trying to cut into the resurgent front-runner's lead in the final 48 hours before the vote.

On the defensive after barrage of attacks from Romney and a political committee that supports him, Gingrich said Romney had lied and the GOP establishment had allowed it.

"I don't know how you debate a person with civility if they're prepared to say things that are just plain factually false," Gingrich said during appearances on Sunday talk shows. "I think the Republican establishment believes it's OK to say and do virtually anything to stop a genuine insurgency from winning because they are very afraid of losing control of the old order."

Despite Romney's effort to turn positive, the Florida contest has become decidedly bitter and personal. Romney and Gingrich have tangled over policy and character since Gingrich's stunning victory over the well-funded Romney in the South Carolina primary Jan. 21.

Showing no signs of letting up, Gingrich objected to a Romney campaign ad that includes a 1997 NBC News report on the House's decision to discipline the then-House speaker for ethics charges.

"It's only when he can mass money to focus on carpet-bombing with negative ads that he gains any traction at all," Gingrich said.

Gingrich acknowledged the possibility that he could lose in Florida and pledged to compete with Romney all the way to the party's national convention this summer.

An NBC/Marist poll showed Romney with support from 42 percent of likely Florida primary voters and Gingrich slipping to 27 percent.

While Romney had spent the past several days sharply attacking Gingrich, he pivoted over the weekend to refocus his criticism on President Barack Obama, calling the Democratic incumbent "detached from reality." The former Massachusetts governor criticized Obama's plan to cut the size of the military and said the administration had a weak foreign policy.

Gingrich's South Carolina momentum has largely evaporated amid the pounding he has sustained from Romney's campaign and the pro-Romney group called Restore Our Future. They have spent some $6.8 million in ads criticizing Gingrich in the Florida campaign's final week.

Gingrich planned to campaign Sunday in central Florida, while Romney scheduled rallies in the south. He was also looking ahead to the Nevada caucuses Feb. 4, airing ads in that state and citing the endorsement Sunday of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Nevada's largest newspaper.

Gingrich collected the weekend endorsement of Herman Cain, a tea party favorite and former presidential hopeful whose White House effort foundered amid sexual harassment allegations.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, trailing in Florida by a wide margin, planned to remain in Pennsylvania where his 3-year-old daughter, Bella, was hospitalized, and resume campaigning as soon as possible, according to his campaign. She has a genetic condition caused by the presence of all or part of an extra 18th chromosome.

Texas Rep. Ron Paul has invested little in the Florida race and is looking ahead to Nevada. The libertarian-leaning Paul is focusing more on gathering delegates in caucus states, where it's less expensive to campaign. But securing the nomination only through caucus states is a hard task.

Gingrich appeared on "Fox News Sunday" and ABC's "This Week." Paul was on CNN's "State of the Union."

___

Associated Press writer Philip Elliott in Tampa contributed to this report.

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Cruise ship fuel removal stalled due to rough seas

Italian Financial police scuba divers sale around the grounded cruise ship Costa Concordia off the Tuscan island of Giglio, Italy, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012. Costa Crociere SpA offered uninjured passengers ?11,000 ($14,460) apiece to compensate them for lost baggage and the psychological trauma they suffered after their cruise ship ran aground and capsized off Tuscany. But some passengers are already refusing to accept the deal, saying they can't yet put a figure on the costs of the trauma they endured. Costa announced the offer after negotiations with consumer groups who say they are representing 3,206 passengers from 61 countries who suffered no physical harm when the massive Costa Concordia cruise ship hit a reef on Jan. 13. In addition to the lump-sum indemnity, Costa, a unit of the world's biggest cruise operator, the Miami-based Carnival Corp., also said it would reimburse uninjured passengers the full costs of their cruise, their return travel expenses and any medical expenses they sustained after the grounding. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)

Italian Financial police scuba divers sale around the grounded cruise ship Costa Concordia off the Tuscan island of Giglio, Italy, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012. Costa Crociere SpA offered uninjured passengers ?11,000 ($14,460) apiece to compensate them for lost baggage and the psychological trauma they suffered after their cruise ship ran aground and capsized off Tuscany. But some passengers are already refusing to accept the deal, saying they can't yet put a figure on the costs of the trauma they endured. Costa announced the offer after negotiations with consumer groups who say they are representing 3,206 passengers from 61 countries who suffered no physical harm when the massive Costa Concordia cruise ship hit a reef on Jan. 13. In addition to the lump-sum indemnity, Costa, a unit of the world's biggest cruise operator, the Miami-based Carnival Corp., also said it would reimburse uninjured passengers the full costs of their cruise, their return travel expenses and any medical expenses they sustained after the grounding. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)

View of the bow of the grounded cruise ship Costa Concordia off the Tuscan island of Giglio, Italy, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012. Costa Crociere SpA offered uninjured passengers ?11,000 ($14,460) apiece to compensate them for lost baggage and the psychological trauma they suffered after their cruise ship ran aground and capsized off Tuscany. But some passengers are already refusing to accept the deal, saying they can't yet put a figure on the costs of the trauma they endured. Costa announced the offer after negotiations with consumer groups who say they are representing 3,206 passengers from 61 countries who suffered no physical harm when the massive Costa Concordia cruise ship hit a reef on Jan. 13. In addition to the lump-sum indemnity, Costa, a unit of the world's biggest cruise operator, the Miami-based Carnival Corp., also said it would reimburse uninjured passengers the full costs of their cruise, their return travel expenses and any medical expenses they sustained after the grounding. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)

Italian firefighters approach the grounded cruise ship Costa Concordia off the Tuscan island of Giglio, Italy, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012. Costa Crociere SpA offered uninjured passengers ?11,000 ($14,460) apiece to compensate them for lost baggage and the psychological trauma they suffered after their cruise ship ran aground and capsized off Tuscany. But some passengers are already refusing to accept the deal, saying they can't yet put a figure on the costs of the trauma they endured. Costa announced the offer after negotiations with consumer groups who say they are representing 3,206 passengers from 61 countries who suffered no physical harm when the massive Costa Concordia cruise ship hit a reef on Jan. 13. In addition to the lump-sum indemnity, Costa, a unit of the world's biggest cruise operator, the Miami-based Carnival Corp., also said it would reimburse uninjured passengers the full costs of their cruise, their return travel expenses and any medical expenses they sustained after the grounding. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)

GIGLIO, Italy (AP) ? Rough seas off Italy's Tuscan coast forced a delay in the planned Saturday start of the operation to remove a half-million gallons of fuel from the grounded Costa Concordia, and officials said pumping may now not begin until midweek.

Recovery operations continued, however, and on Saturday yielded a 17th body: The woman who wasn't wearing a life jacket was found by divers on the submerged sixth floor deck, civil protection officials said.

The Concordia ran aground on Jan. 13 off the port of the island of Giglio port after the captain deviated from his planned route and gashed the hull of the ship on a reef. Some 4,200 passengers and crew endured a panicked evacuation after the abandon ship alarm didn't sound until the ship had capsized so much that some life boats couldn't be lowered.

Some 16 people remain unaccounted for and are presumed dead. The body discovered Saturday has not yet been identified.

The removal of the fuel aboard the Concordia is a key concern since the seas around Giglio form part of a protected marine sanctuary and are a favorite destination for scuba divers. So far, no leakage has been detected.

Dutch shipwreck salvage firm Smit has been contracted by the Concordia's owner Costa Crociere SpA, a unit of Miami-based Carnival Corp., to remove the fuel. Smit's divers have made the necessary preparations to begin pumping out fuel from six outer tanks that hold more than half of the 500,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil that are aboard the ship.

The rest of the fuel is contained in inner tanks that are harder to access.

So far, divers have drilled into four of the six outer tanks and fixed valves on them: one on top, one on bottom. Hoses will then be attached to the valves and as the oil ? which must be warmed to make it less gooey ? is sucked out of the upper hose, sea water is pumped in to fill the vacuum via the lower hose.

Smit spokesman Martijn Schuttevaer told reporters Saturday that the pumping operation may not begin now until midweek since the poor weather is forecast at least through Tuesday. Officials don't want to risk the possibility that a battering of the hoses caused by rough seas might lead to leakage.

On Saturday, the choppy waters partially dislodged Smit's barge that was hitched to the Concordia's hull and had served as a staging platform for the fuel removal operation. Smit brought it back into port, where it will stay until the weather improves, Schuttevaer said.

The Concordia's captain, Francesco Schettino, remains under house arrest, accused of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning a ship before its passengers had evacuated. He has admitted he took the ship on "tourist navigation" to bring it close to Giglio but said the reef he hit wasn't marked on his nautical charts.

___

Winfield reported from Rome.

Associated Press

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Spice Girls Reuniting For Queen Elizabeth?s Diamond Jubilee?

Could a Spice Girls reunion be in the works? Well maybe not a permanent one but it is looking like the all girl group will reunite to perform at Queen Elizabeth?s Diamond Jubilee this summer. Melanie Brown, a.k.a Scary Spice, accidentally revealed during an interview on an Australian TV show that the Spice Girls just might be reuniting for one big event this summer. Nope I am not talking about the 2012 Summer Olympics either, although that would have been pretty sweet too. Here is what Mel had to say about the reunion that is looking like it is going to happen. I think the Queen’s Jubilee concert is the event I’d be looking at more closely for that to happen. Although that is some fabulous news Brown quickly changed the subject. Perhaps she realized she had revealed too much too soon. Don?t you just love it when a celeb accidentally spilled the beans on soemthing that they are not supposed too? In case you aren?t entirely sure what the Queen?s Jubilee is let me give you some info on that. This marks the 60th year that Queen Elizabeth has been well Queen. So in honor of that amazing milestone [...]

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Costa offers $14,460 per person for ruined cruise (AP)

ROME ? Costa Crociere SpA is offering uninjured passengers euro11,000 ($14,460) apiece to compensate them for lost baggage and psychological trauma after its cruise ship ran aground and capsized off Tuscany when the captain deviated from his route.

Costa, a unit of the world's biggest cruise operator, the Miami-based Carnival Corp., also said it would reimburse passengers the full costs of their cruise, travel expenses and any medical expenses sustained after the grounding.

The agreement was announced Friday after negotiations between Costa representatives and Italian consumer groups who say they represent 3,206 cruise ship passengers from 61 countries who suffered no physical harm when the Costa Concordia hit a reef on Jan. 13.

The deal does not apply to the hundreds of crew on the ship, the roughly 100 cases of people injured or the families who lost loved ones.

Passengers are free to pursue legal action on their own if they aren't satisfied with the deal.

Some consumer groups have already signed on as injured parties in the criminal case against the Concordia's captain, Francesco Schettino, who is accused of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning the ship before all passengers were evacuated. He is under house arrest.

In addition, Codacons, one of Italy's best known consumer groups, has engaged two U.S. law firms to launch a class-action lawsuit against Costa and Carnival in Miami, claiming that it expects to get anywhere from euro125,000 ($164,000) to euro1 million ($1.3 million) per passenger.

But Roberto Corbella, who represented Costa in the negotiations, said the deal offered Friday provides passengers with quick, "generous," and certain restitution that consumer groups estimate could amount to some euro14,000 per passenger including the reimbursements.

"The big advantage that they have is an immediate response, no legal expenses, and they can put this whole thing behind them," he told The Associated Press.

Angry passenger Herbert Greszuk, a 62-year-old German who left behind everything he had with him, including his tuxedo, camera, jewelry, and even his dentures, told the AP before the compensation was announced that it was an issue of accountability.

"Something like this must not be allowed to happen again. So many people died; it's simply inexcusable," he said.

The Concordia gashed its hull on reefs off the island of Giglio after Schettino made an unauthorized deviation from its approved route to bring it closer to Giglio. Some 4,200 passengers and crew were hastily evacuated after the Concordia ran aground and capsized a few kilometers away near the port of Giglio.

Sixteen bodies have been recovered and another 16 remain unaccounted for and presumed dead. Search efforts for them resumed Friday as salvage crews prepared to begin extracting some 500,000 tons of heavy fuel oil before it leaks.

Italy's civil protection office on Friday released a list of some of the other possibly toxic substances aboard the cruise liner amid concerns of possible environmental pollution. They include 50 liters of insecticide and 41 cubic meters of lubricants, among other things.

But so far, even though there has been some film detected in the waters around the ship, tests on the waters indicate nothing outside the norm, according to Tuscany's regional environment agency.

"Toxic tests have all resulted negative," the agency said. "For now, there are no significant signs of sea water pollution."

The crystal clear seas around Giglio are a haven for scuba divers and form part of a marine sanctuary for dolphins, porpoises and whales.

Passengers have said the evacuation was chaotic, with crew members unprepared to deal with an emergency and constantly downplaying the seriousness of the situation. Coast guard data shows the captain only sounded the evacuation alarm an hour after the initial collision, well after the Concordia had listed to the point that many lifeboats couldn't be lowered.

Schettino has admitted he had taken the ship on "touristic navigation" near Giglio but has said the rocks he hit weren't charted on his nautical maps.

Codacons has called for a criminal investigation into the not-infrequent practice of "tourist navigation" ? steering huge cruise ships close to shore in a publicity stunt to give passengers a view of the sites.

The chief executive of Costa, Pier Luigi Foschi, told an Italian parliamentary committee this week that "tourist navigation" wasn't illegal, and was a "cruise product" increasingly sought out by passengers and offered by cruise lines to try to stay competitive.

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Israeli film industry is a surprising powerhouse (AP)

JERUSALEM ? The budgets are bare-bones and the talent pool is limited, but Israel has emerged as a surprising powerhouse in the foreign film industry.

The Israeli film "Footnote," up for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film this year, is Israel's fourth such nomination in the past five years, giving Israel more nominations during that period than any other country.

It's an indication to the renaissance of Israeli cinema, which has grown from a fledgling industry with poor cinematography and low box office sales to a darling of world film festivals. That's in spite ? or perhaps because ? of the country's troubled international reputation, due to its lengthy conflict with the Arab world.

The last three Israeli films that made it to the Oscar shortlist all mine the country's troubles with its Arab neighbors. "Beaufort," nominated in 2008, and "Waltz with Bashir," nominated a year after, both explored Israeli soldiers' experiences in Lebanon. "Ajami," the 2010 nominee, centers on Arab-Jewish tensions in a violence-ridden neighborhood near Tel Aviv.

This year's nomination went to an Israeli film featuring a more internal conflict ? two professors of Talmud, a father and son, dueling for academic prestige and a coveted national prize.

"It's a badge of honor for Israel," said Moshe Edery, producer of "Footnote," at a news conference after the Oscar nomination. "It's Israel's best business card around the world, especially these days."

Israeli cinema was long an embarrassment. Cheap comic melodramas were the norm in the 1960s and 1970s. Called "bourekas films" ? the Israeli equivalent of spaghetti Westerns ? they dealt with ethnic stereotypes of European and Middle Eastern Jews.

Sick of those tired tropes, a group of Israeli moviemakers created an Israeli national movie fund in 1979, hopefully named the "Israeli Fund to Encourage Quality Films."

With meager funding from studios and other private entities, filmmakers rely on public funds. But even with help from the new fund, the industry still floundered for two decades.

In 1995, the government cut public funding for cinema in half, leaving enough money to produce only five films a year. Three years later the industry hit an all-time low: Only 0.3 percent of Israeli moviegoers bought tickets to Hebrew-language cinema.

The national film body took on a new name, the Israel Film Fund, and in 2000 it begged Israel's parliament to save Israeli cinema. It did, boosting the budget to $10 million a year for investment in feature films, mandating that young filmmakers get a chance to make themselves known.

It's what gave Joseph Cedar, the Israeli director of the Oscar-nominated films "Footnote" and "Beaufort," his first big break fresh out of film school: The Israel Film Fund supported his first feature, "Time of Favor," which debuted in 2000.

"We didn't know him, but he had enthusiasm. There was something about his passion," said Katriel Schory, executive director of the national fund. "We took a chance."

In the past, "cinema funds would not support a filmmaker's first feature," said Renen Schorr, founder and director of the Sam Spiegel Film & Television School in Jerusalem. "Today, Israel wants young people to make their first films."

The boost in public funding has dovetailed with investments in Israeli cinema by European and Canadian producers, totaling about $15 million and increasing the number of films Israel puts out annually to nearly 20, according to the Film Fund.

Israel's television industry has also blossomed in recent years. After cable channels and a commercial TV station broke the monopoly and monotony of a lone state-run channel in the early 90s, there was a sudden need for new TV content, spurring competition and creativity among local screenwriters.

Now Hollywood TV executives are taking notice, adapting Israeli shows for American audiences. Showtime's hit thriller "Homeland" is adapted from the Israeli drama "Prisoners of War," the NBC game show "Who's Still Standing" originated in Israel, and other Israeli adaptations are currently in development for American TV.

Despite the surge in budgets, funding is a fraction of public money available for filmmakers in European countries.

While Israel has scored some Academy Award nominations in recent years, it hasn't won. None of the 10 Israeli films that made the best foreign language film shortlist over the years has won the big prize.

Now the focus is on Cedar, director of "Footnote," but he told reporters that the coveted Oscar isn't the only measure of success for a filmmaker.

That is exactly the lesson that his Oscar-nominated film imparts, he said.

"'Footnote' deals with the question of what happens when, while you're living your daily life, a prize is offered, which really takes over your moral reasoning and changes your perspective and sometimes completely destroys your perspective," Cedar said, summarizing the main plot line of his movie.

___

Follow Daniel Estrin: http://www.twitter.com/danielestrin

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120127/ap_on_en_mo/ml_israel_film_frenzy

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Could a Balloon Fly in Outer Space?

Here?s the sort of crazy idea that animates our office conversation at Scientific American. It all started with my colleague Michael Moyer?s joke that a certain politician could build his moon base using a balloon: just capture the hot air and float all the way up. Ha ha, we all know that balloons don?t work in outer space.

But is that really true? Why couldn?t they?

The more I thought about it, the more confused I got, so let me float it as a trial balloon and see whether you can shoot it down. Ground rules: no weaselly appeal to ?feasibility? or ?practicality? allowed. You have to argue from pure physics.

As long as the balloon?s interior density is lower than ambient, it should rise?no matter how low the ambient pressure is. Drag force will limit the balloon?s ascent velocity, but shouldn?t stop it altogether and can be minimized by choosing a prolate rather than spherical shape.

As the balloon rises, it will expand in inverse proportion to the ambient pressure and, neglecting temperature, density. At launch, the interior and exterior pressure is equal, and the interior density is lower; during the ascent, the pressure remains equalized, so the interior density will?always be less than the ambient. Neglecting temperature is probably not a bad approximation: the absolute temperature will vary at most a couple of orders of magnitude, whereas the pressure and density fall off much more drastically, and in any event we can include a politician to regulate the temperature difference between interior and exterior.

The material tension would rise in proportion to radius. It has units of force, and the maximum possible force in nature, the Planck force, is 10⁴⁴ newtons, so the balloon could get bigger than the known universe before it absolutely has to pop. The balloon walls would become extremely thin and porous, but because of the scaling of area and volume, they should always remain able to confine the gas.

Bottom line: if you release a helium balloon on the ground, it should rise forever! It will float up until Earth?s atmosphere dovetails with the interplanetary medium, then float up and out of the solar system, then reach interstellar space and float out of the plane of the galaxy like the bubbles blown by supernova, and ultimately settle in one of the voids of large-scale cosmic structure.

Unless I?m missing something, it is a myth that balloons are inherently unable to work in space. The limit is set not by physics, but by trifling engineering problems such as material strength and permeability. Another caveat is that the laws of gas dynamics assume a continuum, an approximation that already fails in Earth?s upper atmosphere.

Now, someone, tell me what I?m missing.

Image credit: NASA/ARCADE/Roen Kelly

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=2ce44ebb1bfc8f87347e3cf8cdf62c36

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Google Thinks I'm a Middle-Aged Man. What About You? (Mashable)

I'm a woman who is too young to remember the Reagan administration, but Google has me pegged as a middle-aged man. Given my habit of browsing technology websites, the search engine probably placed me in my father's demographic a long time ago. But it didn't break the news to me until Tuesday, when it rolled out a revamped privacy policy that drew my attention to my account.

[More from Mashable: Meme Machine: 5 Hilarious Viral Topics Trending Right Now]

That's when I noticed a settings tab in my Google account called Ads Preferences, launched a few months ago, that shows the basic profile Google has compiled based upon my web browsing habits. Other websites who partner with Google use the profile to target ads on their sites.

Here is a snapshot of what Google thinks I'm interested in:

[More from Mashable: European Lawmakers Want ?Right to Be Forgotten? on Facebook, Google]

Look like a 35- to 44-year-old dude to you? Google, too. Google uses a cookie, that is, a long string of alphanumeric characters, to convey this snapshot along with its guess for my age and gender to other websites.

If Google were to have attached a non-PR-filtered, honest note to this page (it didn't), I imagine it would say something link this:

"See, this is all we're concerned about in this whole tracking business. It's not even detailed enough information to distinguish a middle-aged man from a girl technology reporter. To us, your profile is just a series of random digits, nothing more. And if you don't like it, we are making it so easy to opt out that you have no excuse not to."

Easy it may be, but there's still a battle raging between privacy advocates on one side and Google and advertising agencies on the other over whether an opt-out solution to privacy in behavioral advertising, like the one Google participates in, is sufficient.

User data has become the number one factor that advertisers take into account when searching for a media partner, and the Network Advertising Initiative released a study that found behaviorally targeted advertising secured more than 2.5 times as much revenue per ad as its non-targeted counterpart. Both parties are hoping to prove that a choice to opt out of behavioral tracking is sufficient privacy protection.

Privacy advocates, meanwhile, have demanded an opt-in solution that would only allow behavioral tracking if a user consented to it, citing, for instance, a 2010 study in which only 51% of participants realized that online behavioral advertising "happened a lot."

?People understand that the [grocery store] is obviously keeping track of the food that they buy, but they?re getting it cheaper,? John Simpson, a privacy advocate with the non-profit Consumer Watchdog advocacy group, told me about a year ago while explaining why he opposed an opt-out solution. ?And if they?re using those cards, they?re willing to give up some of their information for cheaper prices. The thing about what?s going on online is nobody really understood what they were giving up.?

Google looks to be making a bigger effort to help people understand how they are being tracked. And after looking at my own profile, what it's telling other sites about me doesn't make me paranoid. The step is probably not a big enough effort for most privacy advocates -- some people don't know how to find the opt-out button on the settings page and it's easy to imagine the havoc Google could wreak with information it is capable of collecting -- but is it enough for you?

Let us know in the comments.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, hidesy

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/internet/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/mashable/20120125/tc_mashable/google_thinks_im_a_middleaged_man_what_about_you

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Watch the world?s longest-running experiment on webcam (Yahoo! News)

The experiment aiming to demonstrate that tar pitch is fluid has been running for more than 80 years

It all started in 1927, back when bob cuts were in and?talkies had only begun gaining traction. Professor Thomas Parnell wanted to?demonstrate that tar pitch ? a derivative of tar that's so brittle, a hammer could shatter it ? is actually?fluid. To do so, he heated a pitch sample, poured it into a funnel, and waited for it to cool?for three years. Once it was settled, he broke the seal of the funnel's stem, and waited for the tar pitch to drip out. And it did! After eight years, that is.

The next dollop of pitch that took a year longer than the first was the last one that occurred within the University of Queensland's first physics professor's lifetime. The third pitch blob settled at the bottom of the beaker in 1954, and?there have only been five more drops since then. Thanks to this?experiment, we now know that tar pitch is roughly 100 billion times more viscous than water!

For quite some time, the experiment (protected by nothing but a bell jar) had been in danger of being thrown out if not for John Mainstone, who joined the university's physics faculty back in 1961. It took another 14 long years before he was able to persuade his department to display the tar pitch set-up again.

Now, you can even watch Professor Parnell's brainchild on?webcam if you suddenly get the urge to stare at the black globule forming at the end of the funnel stem very, very slowly. Mainstone reckons the ninth drop will happen sometime in 2013. This will be the first one to ever be recorded on?video, as the plan to document the eighth instance in 2000 was ruined by a broken camera. If you're wondering how long it will actually take for the experiment to be marked complete, Mainstone says, "it has at least 100 years left if someone doesn't throw it out."

University of Queensland via?PopSci

This article was written by Mariella Moon and originally appeared on Tecca

More from Tecca:

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/techblog/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_technews/20120126/tc_yblog_technews/watch-the-worlds-longest-running-experiment-on-webcam

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UFC on FX 1?s Three Stars: Jim Miller, Jorge Rivera and Nick Denis

The UFC's first event on FX may as well have been nickname, "Guys who need to win the get their career back on track." However, that's a bit wordy. Instead, fighters like Pat Barry and Jim Miller, who were in need of a win got back on their feet. Here are Cagewriter's Three Stars. Tell us yours in the comments or on Facebook.

No. 1 star -- Jim Miller: After losing the Ben Henderson in August, Miller needed a win to remain among the stacked lightweight division's best. He easily picked it up, choking out Melvin Guillard in just two minutes. It won him an extra $45,000 for Submission of the Night.

No. 2 star -- Jorge Rivera: Every fighter wants to leave the game on his own terms. Rivera was one of the lucky few who got to do that, winning by TKO in the second round over Eric Schaefer hours after announcing his retirement. He finished his 11-year career with 20 wins, nine losses, and a cadre of fans who admired Rivera's never say die attitude in the cage.

No. 3 star -- Nick Denis: Thankfully, the UFC replayed Denis' ballet of elbow violence after the main card, allowing fans without Fuel or Fox Deportes (a viable option for fans without Fuel) to see Denis knock out Joseph Sandoval with short elbows in just 22 seconds in the winner's UFC debut. "The Ninja of Love" walked away with an extra $45,000 for Knockout of the Night.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/ufc-fx-1-three-stars-jim-miller-jorge-140205469.html

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Obama offers condolences to Paterno's family (AP)

WASHINGTON ? President Barack Obama has offered his condolences to the family of legendary Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, who died Sunday of lung cancer.

The White House says the president spoke with Paterno's wife, Sue, and son, Jay, on Monday to express his condolences.

The White House says the president recalled fond memories of when he first met Coach Paterno and said he and first lady Michelle Obama would keep the Paterno family in their prayers.

Penn State is planning a memorial service on Thursday for Paterno, who was fired in November after he was criticized over his handling of child sex-abuse allegations leveled against his former assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky.

Paterno won two national championships and 409 games ? the most in the history of major college football.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/health/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120124/ap_on_re_us/us_obama_paterno

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Friend: Defendant tried to sell bloodstained rug

ALHAMBRA, California (AP) ? A man who masqueraded as a Rockefeller on the East Coast and is now accused of murder in California has been confronted in court by witnesses who say he tried to sell them an Oriental rug with a bloodstain.

Christian Gerhartsreiter is charged with murdering 27-year-old John Sohus, whose bones were unearthed in a backyard in a wealthy Los Angeles suburb in 1994, nearly 10 years after Sohus and his wife vanished.

Robert Brown testified Monday during a preliminary hearing that in 1985 the man he and his wife knew as Chris Chichester showed up with the rug among belongings he wanted to sell because he was going away.

Brown says his wife looked at the rug, pointed out the bloodstain, and Chichester quickly rolled it up and left.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-01-23-Rockefeller%20Mystery/id-c3f556755a14458ab3f16a6cb01a2815

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Stung by defeat, Romney ready to right tax "mistake" (Reuters)

Columbia, South Carolina (Reuters) ? Humbled by a stunning loss in South Carolina, Mitt Romney said on Sunday he would release this week the tax returns demanded by rivals as he bids to regain the upper hand in the volatile Republican presidential race.

Romney, the longtime front-runner in the Republican race and one of the wealthiest presidential candidates in history, lost to a resurgent Newt Gingrich in the conservative Southern state on Saturday after stumbling badly in debates with clumsy responses to demands that he disclose his tax history.

Trying to recapture his footing as the contest heads to more populous and more moderate Florida, Romney said he would release his 2010 returns and an estimate for 2011 on Tuesday.

"We made a mistake holding off as long as we did and it just was a distraction," Romney said on "Fox News Sunday."

Romney said the returns would be on the Internet and emphasized he was releasing two years of returns after Gingrich posted 2010 taxes on Thursday.

He slammed Gingrich as a Washington insider, a line of attack he is expected to use going forward, and called on his rival to release details of his contract with the government-sponsored mortgage finance giant Freddie Mac.

Gingrich's work for Freddie Mac could raise concerns for some voters in Florida, a state that has been hit hard by the downturn in the U.S. real estate market.

"He talks about great, bold movements and ideas, well what's he been doing for 15 years? He's been working as a lobbyist ... that's selling influence around Washington," Romney told about 300 supporters in a campaign stop later on Sunday outside Daytona Beach, Florida.

Romney's tax announcement was meant to draw a line under a bad week punctuated by his own missteps, a surprising turn in an otherwise tightly scripted campaign.

In the midst of a halting response to the tax return controversy, Romney said he paid a rate of about 15 percent, low compared with many U.S. wage earners but in line with what wealthy individuals pay on income from investments.

Gingrich, a former speaker of the House of Representatives with a sharp tongue that played well in debates, pounced on Romney's weak flank and walloped the former Massachusetts governor by 40 percent to 28 percent in South Carolina.

The Gingrich win reshaped the Republican race and reflected a party sharply divided over how to beat Democratic President Barack Obama in the November 6 election.

There have been three nominating contests so far and Gingrich, Romney and former Senator Rick Santorum have each won one.

A victory in Florida's primary on January 31 would restore Romney's luster after South Carolina, and a Gingrich win would solidify him as a serious challenger to the former business executive. A protracted and poisonous Republican battle, in turn, could be a boon to Obama's re-election bid.

"It's hard to see it ending soon. It could drag on to April," said Al Cardenas, the chairman of the American Conservative Union. Cardenas headed Romney's campaign in Florida in 2008, but has remained neutral this time.

"When this is over, we are going to have a presidential candidate showing all his warts. We are going to enter into a national election with a candidate whose chinks in the armor are visibly seen," he said.

With 19 million people, Florida presents logistical and financial challenges that may give an advantage to Romney's well-funded campaign machine.

In Florida, he leads Gingrich by 40.5 percent to 22 percent, according to polls cited by RealClearPolitics.com, conducted before Romney's battering in South Carolina. Santorum, a social conservative who won the Iowa contest but has struggled to gain traction since then, is third with 15 percent.

Texas Congressman Ron Paul, who is not campaigning in Florida, is fourth at about 9 percent.

ROMNEY FLOODS FLORIDA

Some Florida voters were delighted by Gingrich's rise.

Eugenio Perez, 58, a Miami property manager, said Gingrich's experience would help him in the White House.

"We live in a very complex world and we can't put a novice in such a high place, as we did in 2008," he said.

The more moderate electorate in Florida may help Romney, who has failed to consolidate conservative support despite his longtime front-runner status and had hoped to wrap up the nomination after Texas Governor Rick Perry and former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman bowed out last week.

Facing a real estate crisis and an unemployment rate of 9.9 percent, above the national average, Floridians are also expected to be more open to Romney's argument that he is the type of "CEO president" the country needs.

"I like the fact that Romney is a businessman who has been successful. Some people criticize that but I think that's commendable," said Mike Sullivan, 57, a professional golfer who attended the Romney rally.

"Right now, we need a chief executive who can run America like a business and not like the Salvation Army."

The tax release shift and financial advantage could help Romney regain his momentum after Gingrich's win.

A political action committee formed by Romney backers, Restore Our Future, has spent $5 million in Florida for Romney since mid-December, 20 times the amount spent there so far by any other group supporting a Republican candidate, according to Federal Election Commission filings analyzed by Reuters.

Romney could get some help from Santorum, who is competing with Gingrich to be the conservative alternative to Romney.

"It's a choice between a moderate and an erratic conservative - someone who on a lot of the major issues has been just wrong," Santorum told ABC's "This Week" program, saying Gingrich was out of step with many Republicans on Wall Street bailouts, health policy, immigration and global warming. "I think he's a very high-risk candidate.

Gingrich has see-sawed in national polls but has shown an uncanny ability to hang on, especially after an exodus of his staff last summer. Now he must prove he is the most "electable" choice despite hefty political and personal baggage.

Gingrich, who refers to Romney as a "Massachusetts moderate," said having his rival's taxes on the table would at least put an end to that part of the campaign narrative.

"As far as I'm concerned, that particular issue is now set aside and we can go on and talk about other bigger and more important things," Gingrich said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

But the tax issue will almost certainly not go away.

Income inequality has become a leading topic in the presidential race, and Obama has signaled he will talk about an economy that works "for everyone, not just a wealthy few" in his State of the Union address on Tuesday, the day of Romney's tax return release.

(Additional reporting by Ros Krasny in Coral Springs, Florida, Patricia Zengerle and David Adams in Miami, Terry Wade in Daytona Beach and David Morgan and Andrea Shalal-Esa in Washington. Writing by Jeff Mason and Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Mary Milliken and Peter Cooney)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120123/ts_nm/us_usa_campaign

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Video: Newt Gingrich on ?Meet the Press?

A Second Take on Meeting the Press: From an up-close look at Rachel Maddow's sneakers to an in-depth look at Jon Krakauer's latest book ? it's all fair game in our "Meet the Press: Take Two" web extra. Log on Sundays to see David Gregory's post-show conversations with leading newsmakers, authors and roundtable guests. Videos are available on-demand by 12 p.m. ET on Sundays.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/vp/46090515#46090515

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Small SC wildly succeeded at making voice heard

Mary Michaelis, left, prepares to vote in the South Carolina Republican presidential primary as her granddaughter Reese Ward, 3, looks over a neighboring voting booth in Columbia, S.C., Saturday, Jan., 21, 2012. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Mary Michaelis, left, prepares to vote in the South Carolina Republican presidential primary as her granddaughter Reese Ward, 3, looks over a neighboring voting booth in Columbia, S.C., Saturday, Jan., 21, 2012. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Poll manager Gene Corrigan closes the front door as he waits for voters at the Hazel V. Parker Playground polling place in Charleston, S.C., Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012. (AP Photo/Rainier Ehrhardt)

A supporter of Republican presidential candidate former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney displays a sign during a rain storm before campaign stops by two Republican presidential candidates, Romney and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, at Tommy?s Country Ham House in Greenville, S.C., Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012, South Carolina's Republican primary election day. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) ? South Carolina Republicans established their presidential primary more than three decades ago as way to raise the state's national political profile. They succeeded wildly.

Ever since 1980, when Ronald Reagan won, every candidate who has won the GOP primary in this Southern state of fewer than 5 million has gone on to claim the Republican presidential nomination. State party officials are fond of saying the road to the White House passes straight through South Carolina.

Harry Dent, the late South Carolinian who engineered Richard Nixon's 1968 Southern strategy of appealing to Southern conservatives, and Dan Ross, the late state GOP chairman, are generally credited with planting the seeds for the primary.

Former Gov. James B. Edwards, who in the 1970s was the first GOP governor of the state in modern times, says no one at the time thought the presidential primary would morph into what it has become today bringing all the major GOP candidates to crisscross the state with hundreds of reporters in tow.

"I wasn't that foresighted and I don't know that anybody else was or not. I doubt it," said Edwards, who is now 84.

South Carolina is a different battleground from the corn fields of Iowa and predominantly white New Hampshire. The state is poorer, more conservative and has a population that is 28 percent black. Voters don't register by parties so Democrats and independents enter the mix in the primary.

The state has also proven a second-chance for candidates who have stumbled in earlier contests with their different constituencies.

In the GOP primary in 2000, Texas Gov. George W. Bush beat Sen. John McCain of Arizona after he was upset by McCain in New Hampshire. Four years ago, it was McCain who capped a comeback following a dismal showing in Iowa with a win in New Hampshire and another in South Carolina.

Republican state Sen. John Courson, elected to the Senate in 1984, was a Reagan delegate in 1976 when Reagan lost the nomination to President Gerald Ford. Reagan supporters wanted a primary in 1980 because they believed Reagan would fare better against former Texas Gov. John Connally in an open primary than in a traditional nominating convention.

Courson said two elements have helped to make the primary a success: It's always been the first in the South and has always been held on a Saturday, which party leaders knew would bring conservative Democrats to the polls.

"We had to be the first-in-the-South primary. If any other Southern large state, like Texas or Florida, were before us, we would not see the candidates," he said.

What is lost with all the candidates trooping through is that the primary also helped build the modern Republican Party in South Carolina. Until 2008, the party ran the primary using volunteers. Now it's the job of the State Election Commission.

Getting volunteers involved was central to building the GOP.

"If you start working with the party and working at the polls and organizing the primary, that gives you the stimulus to be a real party," Edwards said.

Much of the proof is in the office-holding.

In 1980, when the GOP presidential primary was established, only 23 of the 170 South Carolina state lawmakers and one of the nine statewide office-holders were Republican. Today, there are 103 GOP lawmakers and the party holds all nine statewide offices.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-01-21-South%20Carolina-Primary%20History/id-f4b21a39c4bd45c3bd51d8b05815def2

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Gingrich, Romney Ham house standoff fizzles

Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, displays an autographed sign during a campaign stop at Tommy?s Country Ham House, Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012, in Greenville, S.C., on South Carolina's Republican primary election day. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, displays an autographed sign during a campaign stop at Tommy?s Country Ham House, Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012, in Greenville, S.C., on South Carolina's Republican primary election day. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, steps over a table during a crowded campaign stop at Tommy?s Country Ham House, where former House Speaker Newt Gingrich also scheduled an appearance, on South Carolina's primary election day in Greenville, S.C., Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, center right, campaigns at Tommy?s Country Ham House, Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012, in Greenville, S.C., on South Carolina's Republican primary election day. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

People hold on to Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, as he steps over a table during a campaign stop at Tommy?s Country Ham House, where former House Speaker Newt Gingrich also scheduled an appearance, on South Carolina's primary election day in Greenville, S.C., Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, steps over a table during his campaign stop at Tommy's Country Ham House, where former House Speaker Newt Gingrich also scheduled an appearance, on South Carolina's primary election day in Greenville, S.C., Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) ? So just where was the beef?

It turns out that the great ham house standoff had no sizzle, no matter how you sliced it.

GOP presidential rivals Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich were expected to cross paths at a campaign stop in Greenville as they rallied voters on primary day. But the much-hyped Republican run-in failed to materialize after Romney showed up at Tommy's Ham House earlier than originally planned.

A sea of "Newt 2012" and "Romney" signs jostled in the packed restaurant.

Romney departed about 20 minutes before Gingrich arrived. When Gingrich walked in he said, "where's Mitt?"

Earlier, Gingrich urged voters to support him if they want to stop Romney from winning the nomination.

Gingrich stopped by The Grapevine restaurant in Boiling Springs not long after the polls opened g. He told diners who were enjoying plates of eggs and grits that he's the "the only practical conservative vote" if Republicans want to slow Romney, described by Gingrich as a Massachusetts moderate.

Gingrich said he would put a stop to federal actions against South Carolina's voter ID and immigration laws.

The former House speaker, who has seen his support rise in the days before the primary, said "polls are good, votes are better."

After disappointing finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire, the former House speaker hit his stride as the nation's first Southern primary neared, rallying conservatives behind him as the most viable alternative to the former Massachusetts governor.

Fueled by fiery debate performances and assisted in part by his Southern roots, Gingrich counted on a strong performance Saturday in South Carolina's GOP primary to catapult him back into the top tier of White House hopefuls.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-01-21-Gingrich/id-a12867edcd1b41ab83cba21b43b19fcc

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TechStars Grad Promoboxx Signs Deal With Chevy On Super Bowl Campaign

Promoboxx, a TechStars Boston 2011 company focused on brand-to-retailer marketing, is going to the Super Bowl! (Well, kind of.) The startup has signed a deal with Chevy (via its client Big Fuel), which will allow 6,000 of its dealers to share Chevy's Super Bowl ads prior to the big game via social media, email and on their own websites.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/pSu46Se_3OY/

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Live-Blogging The Google Q4 2011 Earnings Call

We're live and listening.... A bunch of the execs are on. You can also follow along here.... Everything below is paraphrased.? Chief executive Larry Page: Good afternoon everyone. Google had a very strong quarter with revenue up 25% year over year...

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/E87D_RU4yDg/

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Apple revamps iTunes U and intros dedicated app (video)

A facelift for iBooks wasn't the only change on Apple's agenda today, as the company's SVP Eddy Cue has just announced an overhaul of iTunes U. The service, mostly used as a means of delivering lectures to college students, has seen over 700 million downloads since its launch and is now gearing up to offer full online courses from the likes of Duke University, Yale, MIT, amongst others.

As an example of this new remote method of learning, the company demoed a Chemistry course at its event, showing an overview, syllabus, credits and even the professor's office hours. Tabs are placed along the right side of page with options for Info, Posts, Notes and Materials, allowing teachers to send updates direct to the app and students the ability to jot down important highlights. Wondering about integration? A simple tap on these pushed assignments will transport students direct to iBooks, where their specific coursework lies in wait and, once completed, can be crossed off on the provided task list.

The app can even be used for course registration, eliminating the frenzied rush typically associated with such events. It's all available to download on the App Store right now at no cost in 123 countries. So, if you're on Apple's participating list of schools and you're rocking an iPad, go ahead and get to virtually cracking those books.

Update: We've got our hands-on video up of the new iTunes U application!

Gallery: iTunes U app

Continue reading Apple revamps iTunes U and intros dedicated app (video)

Apple revamps iTunes U and intros dedicated app (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/19/apple-revamps-itunes-u-and-intros-dedicated-app/

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The One Wikipedia Page You Can Actually Read Today [Sopa Protest]

The SOPA Blackout may be spreading across the internet today, which includes Wikipedia. But as Giz comrade Mark Wilson points out, there's one Wiki entry you can actually navigate to: the Stop Online Piracy Act page (DUH!). More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/_GM5ULBnNc0/the-one-wikipedia-page-you-can-actually-read-today

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Mortgage rates for the past 52 weeks, at a glance (AP)

Skip to navigation ? Skip to content ? By The Associated Press The Associated Press ? Thu?Jan?19, 10:48?am?ET

The average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage fell to a record low of 3.88 percent, Freddie Mac said Thursday. That's just below the previous record of 3.89 percent reached one week ago. Here's a look at rates for fixed- and adjustable-rate mortgages over the past 52 weeks.

Current week's average Last week's average 52-week high 52-week low

30-year fixed 3.88 3.89 5.05 3.88

15-year fixed 3.17 3.16 4.29 3.16

5-year adjustable 2.82 2.82 3.92 2.82

1-year adjustable 2.74 2.76 3.40 2.74

All values are in percentage points.

Source: Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey.

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Copyright ? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personalfinance/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120119/ap_on_bi_ge/us_mortgage_rates_glance

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