Separatist Scottish leader ponders compromise (AP)

LONDON ? Even as Scotland's separatist leader kicked off his party's independence campaign Friday, he also floated a compromise option which would fall short of his cherished goal of full separation from the United Kingdom.

It's a proposal that's been described as "Independence Lite" ? something which would give Scots control of all their affairs except foreign policy and defense, which would still be run out of London. First Minister Alex Salmond, the leader of the Scottish National Party, gave an ambiguous endorsement. On the one hand he called it a "legitimate proposal," on the other hand he told supporters gathered for a party conference in the city of Inverness on Friday that the move was "not enough."

So why propose it?

Scottish independence is a central goal of Salmond's Party, which received a big boost in May when the nationalists won an unprecedented majority in Scotland's parliament.

But while many Scots support the nationalists, a significant number still baulk at a full divorce from England, to which it was attached by the Act of Union more than 300 years ago. Survey figures vary, but in recent years most have suggested that fewer than half of all Scottish voters would choose independence in a straight "yes or no" referendum.

Given that Salmond's party has pledged to put the question of independence to the public within the next few years, commentators have suggested that having a middle option might be a way of winning more power away from London ? and salvaging a political victory ? even if most Scots rejected full independence.

In his speech to party stalwarts, Salmond made his preferred option clear, warning Scots that if they chose the middle road they could still be on the hook for Britain's military adventures.

"We could still be forced to spill blood in illegal wars like Iraq, and Scotland would still be excluded from the Councils of Europe and the world," he said.

Scotland already enjoys broad autonomy in domestic matters such as justice, education, housing and health.

___

Online:

Scottish National Party: http://www.snp.org/

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111022/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_scottish_independence

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Analysis: Will Obama's foreign policy success help in 2012? (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? President Barack Obama delivered on another foreign policy promise on Friday with plans to pull the last U.S. troops from Iraq. But in a re-election campaign all about the weak U.S. economy, he may not get much credit.

Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, radical Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi -- these are all dead U.S. opponents that Obama can claim a measure of credit for getting.

Now add to that Obama's announcement on Friday that the eight-year war in Iraq is ending, fulfilling a campaign goal he made in 2008 when he declared the conflict a misguided mistake by his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush.

In any other year, Obama might be able to ride these accomplishments to re-election in November 2012. But with the economy teetering and Americans hungry for jobs, the national security successes may only inoculate him from Republican criticism of his foreign policy.

Democratic strategist Bob Shrum said Obama has shown a decisiveness and coolness of character that will help him in 2012, when Obama is seeking a second term in office. And he called it proof that Obama was able to do the job that his chief opponent for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton, said he could not with a famous TV ad.

"We now know the answer to the question of whether he's good at answering the phone when it rings at 3 a.m. to tell him there's a crisis," said Shrum, who was 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's campaign manager.

But will voters care?

For clues, look at what happened to Republican President George H.W. Bush two decades ago. He saw his approval ratings rise past 90 percent after U.S. forces won the first Gulf War against Iraq, only to see his popularity tumble due to an anemic economy.

Bush lost the 1992 election to Democrat Bill Clinton, whose campaign mantra was, "It's the economy, stupid."

APPROVAL RATING

Now look at some numbers: Obama's job approval rating was at 42 percent on Friday with 74 percent saying the economic outlook was getting worse, according to a Gallup poll.

The biggest number he faces is the 9.1 percent unemployment rate.

"The debate this year and next year is going to be overwhelmingly focused on the economy, on jobs," said Ipsos pollster Chris Jackson. "Foreign policy and international affairs are really going to be sort of pushed to the background."

As political experts attest, however, it is never easy to oust an incumbent president who has the advantages of the office to make his case and ample campaign funds to portray his opponent in a negative light.

Much about politics is about positioning, and Republicans were reluctant to cede much ground to Obama on foreign policy.

Ari Fleischer, a former White House spokesman for George W. Bush, said Obama's announcement has to be seen in context, that it was Bush who had established the end of this year as the timetable for a U.S. pullout from Iraq, a date he declared when he visited Iraq in 2008 and just missed being hit by a shoe thrown by an Iraqi.

Still, he said, Obama deserves some credit. "Unlike Jimmy Carter who was vulnerable on both domestic and foreign policy, Barack Obama heading into this election will not be as vulnerable on foreign policy," Fleischer said.

Carter, a Democrat, lost his re-election bid to Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980.

Republicans raised questions about Obama's Iraq announcement because he had failed to reach an agreement with Iraqi leaders to leave several thousands U.S. troops there as a counter-weight against Iran.

"The unavoidable question is whether this decision is the result of a naked political calculation or simply sheer ineptitude in negotiations with the Iraqi government," said Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

And Michael Goldfarb, a Republican national security expert, said Republicans have plenty of ground to make a foreign policy case against the president.

"The mix of it makes it very difficult to attack Obama on war-on-terror policies. Republicans will have a compelling foreign policy argument against the president on Russia, China and the Middle East. Those are not bright spots," Goldfarb said.

(Editing by Will Dunham)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iraq/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111021/ts_nm/us_iraq_usa_campaign

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Ice cream vendor gets prison for selling drugs with treats (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) ? An ice cream vendor who peddled prescription painkillers from the same truck he sold frozen treats to kids, was sentenced on Tuesday to three and a half years in prison.

The sentence was part of a plea deal struck by Louis Scala, 30, the head of a $1 million drug-trafficking ring run out of his Lickety Split truck, prosecutors said. He pleaded guilty in August to one count of conspiracy and one count of criminal possession of a controlled substance.

Scala, 30, obtained the drugs with a prescription pad stolen by an accomplice from a Manhattan doctor's office. Through a network of more than two dozen runners, he was able to get nearly 43,000 oxycodone pills between July 2009 and June 2010, with a street value of $20 apiece, prosecutors said.

Scala drove his Lickety Split truck through neighborhoods in Staten Island, selling ice cream to children while inviting adults into the back to buy pills.

Recreational use of oxycodone, often known by the brand name OxyContin, produces an addictive, heroin-like high.

The city's Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor says the number of oxycodone prescriptions filled in New York City doubled between 2007 and 2010 to 1 million, evidence of a "dangerous drug epidemic."

Scala, wearing a sweater and casual pants, was kissed by his father and uncle in court and then faced Judge Jill Korviser. He declined the chance to speak before he was sentenced.

Scala's relatives declined to speak after the hearing.

"The family now just want to move on," Patrick Parrotta, Scala's attorney, told reporters.

Charges against Scala's alleged partner in crime, Joseph Zuffalo, are still pending.

(Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Greg McCune)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/oddlyenough/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111019/od_nm/us_crime_icecream

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Accuser Renounces Legal Action, Suspicions Still Swirl - Global ...

Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn. September 28, 2011. (Photo: Gonzalo Fuentes / Reuters)


Less than a week after French prosecutors dropped their criminal investigation for attempted rape against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the woman who brought the charges against the former International Monetary Fund chief said Wednesday morning she won't pursue her accusations further with a civil suit. The decision announced by writer Tristane Banon to end her legal efforts to bring Strauss-Kahn to trial for what she says was sexual assault committed during a 2003 interview means only one New York civil case still remains from the tempest of threats that swirled following DSK's May arrest on accusations of attempted rape. And even that may not make it to court.

But rather than the horizon of scandal appearing to clear with the news, other indicators suggest the former favorite to win France's 2012 presidential race may well be dogged by the allegations of sexual misconduct?and the reputation as a sexual predator?that engulfed him since his Manhattan arrest for some time yet.

?

In both Paris and New York, justice officials dropped their cases as too legally troubled to persecute; neither cleared DSK of accusations made against him, nor by declared them false. Indeed, in announcing their decision Oct. 13 to drop the attempted rape investigation against him for insufficient evidence, French prosecutors noted they had substantiated ?sexual aggression? had taken place during the 2003 encounter. (The expired three-year statute of limitations on the offense had run out, however.) Since then, French reports have stated prosecutors' based their conviction sexual assault had been committed based on Strauss-Kahn's own testimony that he'd taken a run at Banon?saying he stopped when she protested in fury. Clearly, officials didn't feel DSK halted his pass quickly enough to dismiss it as a mere flirt.

The cloud of suspicion dogging Strauss-Kahn managed to darken further following that ruling. On Oct. 15, Strauss-Kahn was forced to publicly demand to be interrogated by police after French press reports linked him to investigations into a prostitution ring in the northern city of Lille. Strauss-Kahn's lawyers denied he was in anyway involved in the ring or the inquiry into it, and demanded the end to "dangerous and malicious insinuations and extrapolations? targeting him. In all fairness, they've got a bit of a gripe at this point regarding the Lille case. Thus far, allegations implicating Strauss-Kahn to the Lille saga?and some reports relating them -- are giving considerably more weight to unsubstantiated suspicion and unidentified sources than they are to presumption of innocence. That, however, may well be the grim reality DSK faces in the months to come, as he face a press, public, and political class that remains marked by the details of his 2011 drama.

It remains to be seen whether the civil suit filed by his New York accuser, Nafissatou Diallo clears efforts by DSK's American lawyers to have it dismissed before going to court. Time will also tell whether reports tying Strauss-Kahn to the Lille investigation were accurate or not. But the albatross of sexual misconduct currently casting a shadow everywhere Strauss-Kahn goes isn't going to vanish any time soon. In announcing her decision not to pursue her case Tuesday, Banon went out of her way to make that point. She said she'd continue fighting to raise public consciousness?and get tougher laws passed?to help combat sexual assault in France that Banon calls all too frequent and unpunished. She also told French TV channel Canal Plus of many of the messages of support and thanks she received from women during her controversial legal campaign against Strauss-Kahn. And in revealing her transformation from plaintiff to activist, Banon said she considered prosecutors' findings in her complaint against Strauss-Kahn--whose lawyers at one point called her allegations ?imaginary??a moral victory, despite its disappointing legal outcome.

?It's a victory, because they called me a liar,? she said, before hinting her push to defend the victims of sexual assault is likely to use Strauss-Kahn as a kind of backdrop that DSK himself could hardly relish. ?I would waited for him to apologize, but I think that's too much to ask from this man. I (now) advise him, above all, to maintain a low profile.?

Probably not a bad idea--but also probably insufficient to keep DSK free of any associations he'd rather avoid from here on out..

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Source: http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/10/19/french-legal-threat-against-dsk-lifted-but-taint-remains/

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Lean Mean Green Machine, a Titanic, Terrifying Toddler?s Trike

This behemoth is called the Lean Mean Green Machine, and just about the only green thing about this oversized big-wheel copy is its color — it’s powered by a Harley Davidson Evolution V-twin engine, for instance, and not burning the energy of a child hopped up on sugar. But that doesn’t stop it being all [...]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GearFactor/~3/3kKZVBzn_tw/

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Colleges expand offerings amid natural gas boom (AP)

ZANESVILLE, Ohio ? Shuttered businesses and boarded-up houses dot the streets of historic Zanesville, the struggling river city where Cory May is starting a life with his young wife.

Until recently, job prospects in his native eastern Ohio were grim ? even for a hard-working Marine reservist willing to work hard or relocate. May's mother works as a school janitor in Cambridge, his nearby hometown. His machinist dad is among the county's 11 percent unemployed. Most of his better situated friends are in the military or work at one of the area's remaining factories.

"It's either that or working minimum wage for the rest of your life, and let's be honest, who really wants to do that?" said May, a sturdy 23-year-old who's done a tour each in Iraq and Afghanistan since he turned 18.

The natural gas industry has changed his prospects.

Vast stores of natural gas in the Marcellus and Utica shales running under Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and West Virginia have set off a rush to grab leases and secure permits to drill using the extraction technique called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

May snapped up the opportunity through his local community college, Zane State, to take a two-week, 80-hour shale exploration certification course developed by the private company Retrain America. When he graduated, he'd interviewed for three jobs and taken a position cementing wells for Halliburton that will pay $60,000 to $70,000 a year.

Zane State is among dozens of public colleges and universities across the northeastern shale states that are moving to add new staff, academic majors or job-training courses in fields related to natural gas.

Through a 3-year, $4.9 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor, for example, five communities colleges in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New York formed a coalition called ShaleNET. It's focused on recruiting, training and placing people in high-priority natural gas occupations.

"There's really been a sea change in these opportunities, a cornucopia of community colleges and local workforce training programs across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, even the southern tier of New York," said Travis Windle, a spokesman for the Marcellus Shale Coalition, representing energy and exploration companies. "As natural gas continues to expand, so do the needs for a local workforce with these skills that are going to be in need for the next 50 years, or even more."

Training shale workers is not only on the minds of energy interests in the Northeast; newly available resources in Colorado, Oklahoma, Wyoming and Texas have also been met with new educational offerings. Those include the Colorado Energy Research Institute's outreach efforts with a dozen community and technical colleges, and the professional land management certificate program started just last month by the University of Texas at Austin. The field's promised job growth is being documented.

New federal data released in September showed Washington County, Pa. ? one of the nation's most active shale gas-producing areas and home to the first Marcellus well ? saw the third-highest percent increase in employment in the nation. A July study conducted by Penn State University estimated that the industry supported 44,000 jobs statewide last year. Industry estimates show the Marcellus boom could continue robust employment for as long as 50 years.

A recent study by the Ohio Oil and Gas Association predicted that extracting natural gas from the Utica Shale, which deeply underlies the Marcellus, would create or support more than 200,000 Ohio jobs over the next four years.

Penn College of Technology, a member of ShaleNET, is offering classes in hot new areas of electronics, diesel technology or state-of-the-art welding, said Jeff Lorson, director of the college's shale-related jobs center.

"We're fortunate that in a lot of these cases these programs are full and with waiting lists," Lorson said. "For the most part, we've got really good opportunities for people in the credit programs. We've got good enrollment, I'll say that."

The opportunities range from two-week training courses like the one May took ? emphasizing rig operations, gas detection and site safety ? to master's and doctoral programs for scientists and engineers.

Professor Samuel Ameri, who chairs West Virginia University's historic Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering Department, said enrollments there have surged amid the rush, more than tripling from 74 students in 2004-05 to 242 students this year. Salaries are among the highest among engineering disciplines, he said ? where medians range from $70,000 in the northern mountain states of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming to $106,000 in parts of Texas.

"The growth has been such that we are actively in search of two professors," Ameri said recently. "We are drawing students from every corner of the world."

Retrain America is developing training and re-training programs, some tuition-free, for qualified veterans, low-income, unemployed and dislocated workers. Other students can get loans. CEO Pete Bellavia said the company got its start in Pennsylvania last year, saw its first graduation in Ohio on Oct. 7, and will stretch to north Texas in November and Michigan after that. About 86 percent of the Ohio graduates had jobs as of last week.

"Our vision would be allowing individuals not have to be burdened with debt during this degree or take four years out of their life to get it," he said.

History suggests that such booms ultimately make the rich richer and leave the working class about as it was. A 2008 academic analysis of Census data for the few years after the California Gold Rush began in 1848 found "economic outcomes were generally small or even zero for miners but were positive and large for non-miners." The findings, by Carnegie Mellon University economist Karen Clay and CGI Federal consultant Randall Jones, appeared in the Journal of Economic History.

Chuck Wyrostock, outreach organizer for the Sierra Club of West Virginia's natural gas campaign, said the economic benefits of the shale boom may be similarly short-lived.

"There is some danger in young people getting trained in the area, when maybe five or ten years from now other factors will keep them from taking advantage of it any further," he said. He said jobs in alternative energy may overtake the shale gas as America is weaned off fossil fuels.

The Penn State study anticipated shale-related jobs would be available for 30 to 50 years, but that many workers would have to migrate over time, following the drilling rigs as they move from place to place. Many of the early jobs in Pennsylvania have been landed by out-of-state professionals, especially from energy-rich Texas, and that has concerned labor groups.

For now, May is basking in the boom times. He's still floored that he got the opportunity right at home to catch such a wave.

"It blew my mind, really. I was like ? what? It's coming here?" May said. "It's kind of unheard of, really."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111016/ap_on_re_us/us_majoring_in_shale

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Breast cancer diagnosis for Giuliana Rancic

By Randee Dawn

Giuliana Rancic had to be dragged "kicking and screaming," as she put it, in to have a mammogram at the recommendation of her doctor. Sure, she was trying to have a baby via in vitro fertilization, but she was only 36 years old -- why should she bother?

E!'s celebrity news personality Giuliana Rancic tells TODAY's Ann Curry that she has breast cancer, a new struggle in her journey to have a baby.

It turned out to be one of the best decisions of her life, as Rancic revealed to TODAY's Ann Curry, that the mammogram showed she was in the early stages of breast cancer.

"It was just a kick in the stomach,"?Rancic recalled. "That was the hardest day ... (the emotions are) what you expect but so much more. It was incredible instant sobbing, and it was like the world just crashed down around me. I couldn't believe it, 36 years old, no family history."

Rancic?is personality on the E! Network and co-hosts "E! News" and "Fashion Police." She and husband Bill, season one winner of Donald Trump's "The Apprentice," married in 2007, and starting in 2010 the pair began appearing on a Style Network reality show, "Giuliana and Bill," which has detailed their struggles with infertility and attempts to conceive via IVF.

The last episode, which aired on September 26, showed her waving as she headed into a Denver clinic to get started on her next round of treatment. Not long after, she found out about the breast cancer diagnosis.

But as?Rancic told Curry, while this was her third try at IVF, it was the first time a doctor had insisted on a mammogram.

"He said, 'I don't care if you're 26 or 36, but I will not get you pregnant if possibly there's a small risk that you have cancer because the hormones will accelerate the cancer,'" said Rancic. "I never in my wildest dreams expected anything would be wrong."

Rancic had a message to share with women: "A lot of us think we're invincible ... but we have to start putting ourselves on the to-do list," she said. "I had a friend call me yesterday, and she said, 'I'm so sorry, can I do anything for you?' And I said, 'Just call your doctor tomorrow and make an appointment. That's what you could do for me.' ... I will be okay because I found it early."

That is the key. Rancic has found her breast cancer in an early stage, and expects all should be well, after some surgery and six and a half weeks of radiation treatments. And as for having a baby? That's on hold for just now, but Rancic says, "I'm not going to give up. I want that baby.... That baby will have saved my life."

Does this story make you want to get tested, or encourage a loved one to get tested? Share your thoughts on our Facebook page.

Related content:

Source: http://theclicker.today.com/_news/2011/10/17/8363134-es-giuliana-rancic-reveals-she-has-breast-cancer

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Cain says his rise in polls is for real

Republican presidential candidate, businessman Herman Cain, speaks with the media after an interview on NBC's Meet the Press at their studio in Washington on Sunday, Oct. 16, 2011. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Republican presidential candidate, businessman Herman Cain, speaks with the media after an interview on NBC's Meet the Press at their studio in Washington on Sunday, Oct. 16, 2011. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

(AP) ? Presidential hopeful and pizza executive Herman Cain says he "won't be a flavor of the week" and his sudden climb to the top of GOP presidential polls will last.

A recent spate of polls showed Cain joining Mitt Romney and Rick Perry in the top GOP tier.

Cain said Sunday that his signature 9-9-9 tax plan would lower taxes for most Americans, but conceded some middle-class-Americans might pay more. The plan would scrap the current federal tax code and replace it with 9% rates for personal income and corporate taxes and add a 9% national sales tax.

Many independent analysts say Cain's plan would lower taxes on the rich and raise them for many middle class Americans, but the Georgia businessman disputed those doubts on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2011-10-16-Cain-2012/id-ab69379f31384f2a9b9306680d033b9b

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Time zone database has new home after lawsuit

(AP) ? The organization in charge of the Internet's address system is taking over a database widely used by computers and websites to keep track of time zones around the world.

The transition to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, comes a week after the database was abruptly removed from a U.S. government server because of a federal lawsuit claiming copyright infringement.

Without this database and others like it, computers would display Greenwich Mean Time, or the time in London when it isn't on summer time. People would have to manually calculate local time when they schedule meetings or book flights.

The Time Zone Database allows people to set clocks simply by choosing a city. Select New York, for example, and the computer will know that it is normally five hours behind London, but four hours during a brief period when the U.S. is still on summer time and Britain is not.

The database is updated more than a dozen times a year and is used by a range of computer operating systems including Apple Inc.'s Mac OS X, Oracle Corp., Unix and Linux, but not Microsoft Corp.'s Windows.

It's also used by several websites that tell people what the current time is around the world, or what time it will be in Sydney or Moscow next Tuesday at 8 p.m. in Los Angeles. Some non-Internet functions, such as calendar software, also incorporate the database.

Although those functions continued to work after the database disappeared from the government's server, computer systems couldn't get updates to reflect changes in time zones and in the duration of summer time.

Kim Davies, a technical manager at ICANN, said that because much of the Internet depends on the database, its management by ICANN is consistent with the organization's mission to maintain a stable Internet.

One of ICANN's main functions is to coordinate Internet domain names ? the suffixes such as ".com" and ".org" in Internet addresses. Those are key for allowing computers to find websites and route email.

ICANN has been in discussions for months about taking over the database with the impending retirement of its longtime coordinator. Arthur David Olson, an employee of the National Institutes of Health who volunteered as coordinator as a side project, began looking for a new home for the database in 2009.

ICANN accelerated those discussions and took over management Friday after the database was removed from NIH's server on Oct. 6, following a lawsuit over historical data used.

Astrology software company Astrolabe Inc. argues that Olson and another volunteer at University of California, Los Angeles should have paid royalties for including data from its software. The defendants have insisted that the data are in the public domain and not subject to copyright. Their employers were not named as defendants.

The federal lawsuit, filed Sept. 30 in Boston, does not affect current time zone information, which comes from tips sent by volunteers through an email list.

However, ICANN is keeping the historical information in the database.

"We are aware of the lawsuit," Davies said. "We believe it's important to continue the operation of the database. We'll deal with any legal matters as they arise."

___

Time zone database: http://www.iana.org/time-zones

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2011-10-16-Time%20Zone%20Database/id-226764bcebfa40e98ffd1b69d63e3546

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