Atlanta rapper T.I. released from Arkansas prison

ATLANTA – Atlanta rapper T.I. has been released from a federal prison in Arkansas and is headed to a halfway house in Georgia.

A lawyer for T.I. said the rapper was released Tuesday morning.

T.I., whose real name is Clifford Harris Jr., last May began serving his sentence of a year and a day for illegal firearms possession and possessing a gun as a convicted felon.

Steve Sadow said his client was expected to report to Dismas Charities halfway house in Atlanta on Tuesday night and will be there for up to three months.

Sadow said Harris "did his very best to adjust to his circumstances" in prison and knew he had to pay for his crime. He said Harris was most looking forward to getting back to his family and being as productive as he can be.

Bin Laden daughter hides in Saudi embassy in Iran

A Saudi-owned newspaper says that one of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden's daughters has taken refuge in the Saudi Embassy in Tehran after eluding guards who have held her and five brothers under house arrest for eight years.

It has long been believed that Iran has held in custody a number of bin Laden's children since they fled Afghanistan following the U.S.-led invasion of that country in 2001 — most notably Saad and Hamza bin Laden, who are thought to have held positions in al-Qaida.

Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper says the 17-year-old daughter, Eman, slipped away from guards and fled to the Saudi Embassy. The report quotes the embassy's charge d'affaires confirming she is there.

Iranian and Saudi officials would not immediately comment.

the Most Popular Video of 2009 Is…

Susan Boyle - Singer - With Lyrics - The funniest movie is here. Find it

...and we’re talking most popular by far, with more than 120 million views: Susan Boyle’s astonishing performance at Britain’s Got Talent. This is hardly a surprise, given the enormous buzz the video has caused. Because it’s basically a reprise of Paul Potts’s performance from 2007, one has to wonder whether Britain’s Got Talent — with its “surprising” discovery of hidden talents — will continue its YouTube reign in 2010, too. 

Susan Boyle’s performance is followed by “David After Dentist” with more than 37 million views, “JK Wedding Entrance Dance” with more than 33 million views, the trailer for the New Moon movie with 31 million views and “Evian Roller Babies” in the fifth place with more than 27 million views.

Facebook Is Destroying the Sanctity of Marriage

Stop the digital presses: People use Facebook to cheat on their spouses and said cheating leads to d-i-v-o-r-c-e (in case there are kids in the room), or so says a rather reactionary piece in the Telegraph.

The British paper seeks to cast Facebook as a enemy to the sanctity of marriage, citing evidence along the lines of:

“One law firm, which specialises in divorce, claimed almost one in five petitions they processed cited Facebook.”


Although the ratio of one in five is staggering, the fact that the reporter only mentions a single law firm is wholly unconvincing. I’m sorry, Telegraph, but one law firm does not a trend make.

The piece does make a strong case for how social media has broadened the definition of cheating (Does sex in Second Life count as sex?) and made it easier to reconnect with old flames, but it seems too early to point the finger at Facebook when it comes to couples calling it quits. In fact, the article states that the UK’s divorce rate has fallen in recent years.

Yes, Facebook and social media users have utilized online tools to screw over their spouses — the Telegraph mentions a woman whose husband notified her of their impending divorce by updating his relationship status on Facebook — but it seems rather simplistic to blame the onset of martial malcontent on a website.

Although Facebook may facilitate cheating — as well as public displays of affection (or loss of affection as the case may be) — the old argument comes into play when you start pointing fingers. Is it the medium or the message? Would these marriages have ended anyway, somewhere down the road, even if there were no incriminating chats on the laptop screen?

A sexy Dr. Watson? Jude Law says it's elementary

Jude Law hopes to rectify that situation with his charismatic performance alongside Robert Downey Jr. in "Sherlock Holmes," making the detective's right-hand-man a handsome action hero in his own right. He's just not that comfortable with his new nickname: "Hotson."

"Mostly I was only hot because I was wearing those thick tweed suits, massive overcoats and hat and gloves," Law said, deflecting the accolade. "I was always the one perspiring on set."

Law stresses that the film's version of Watson — a dapper army veteran with an eye for the ladies — is firmly based on the 19th-century stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Director Guy Ritchie wanted to give the tales a 21st-century spin while staying close to the original material.

"There's a reference in one of the books to Watson being very popular with women," Law said. "So that fits."

Far from being the bumbler familiar from classic Holmes movies, Watson is a foil and an equal for the detective, and their bickering relationship gives the film a big dose of buddy comedy.

"As soon as I knew Guy and Robert were involved, it was clearly going to be a reevaluation of a very familiar duo dynamic," said Law, cheerful and relaxed in an interview to promote the movie, which opens around the world this week.

"We were much more interested in creating this equal of two halves, both flawed and both trying to put up with living with each other and both sort of adoring each other but also hating each other."

Law, 36, has had an eventful 2009, in which he played a critically praised "Hamlet" in London's West End and on Broadway. He was also in the news for fathering a child during a brief relationship with model Samantha Burke.

Law said he was still "slightly shell-shocked" after eight months of "Hamlet," "of the most remarkable experiences in my life."

Meeting Broadway theatergoers reminded him that interacting with the public can be a pleasure. Avoiding the paparazzi is more of a chore. But he says he doesn't let it stop him.

"You just live accordingly," Law said. "You learn back routes to an awful lot of places. The glamour is going in through the kitchen and over the back fence."

Alaina Reed-Amini, ‘Sesame Street’ Resident, Dies at 63

Alaina Reed-Amini, an actress and singer whose best-known characters were denizens of two of television’s celebrated addresses, “Sesame Street” and the tenement known only by its street number, “227,” died Thursday in Santa Monica, Calif. She was 63.

The cause was cancer, her publicist, Billy Laurence, said.

Through most of her career — before her marriage to Tamim Amini in 2008 — Ms. Reed-Amini was known as Alaina Reed Hall or Alaina Reed. She was an accomplished cabaret singer and musical theater performer when she arrived on “Sesame Street,” public television’s long-running children’s program, in 1976, seven years into the life of the show. She played Olivia, a photographer whose brother, Gordon (played by Roscoe Orman) was already a character on the show.

She remained in the cast until 1988, frequently performing in skits with Mr. Orman that illustrated lessons about sibling relationships. She also sang, either solo or with her “Sesame Street” neighbors, human and puppet.

In 1985, Ms. Reed-Amini was cast in “227,” a comedy series about the residents of an apartment building in Washington that focused on the character of Mary Jenkins, an engaging busybody (played by Marla Gibbs), her family and their neighbors. Ms. Reed-Amini played Rose Lee Holloway, a single neighbor and friend of Mary’s who became, at one point, the building’s landlord. While working on “227” she met and married a fellow cast member, Kevin Peter Hall. (Their characters married on the show as well.) Mr. Hall died in 1991.

Bernice Reed was born Nov. 10, 1946, in Springfield, Ohio, and attended Kent State University. She was already known as Alaina Reed when she began singing in New York nightclubs in the early 1970s, usually to glowing reviews.

“Miss Reed is a lean, willowy young woman with a gospel-based style that sometimes takes her to the edges of the Aretha Franklin idiom of pop singing but, primarily, is used to project her songs with an unusual sense of believability,” John S. Wilson wrote of her in The New York Times in 1972.

She appeared in musical theater pieces, including “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band on the Road,” an adaptation of the Beatles’ album, and William Finn’s “In Trousers,” the first of a trilogy of plays about a young gay man named Marvin. (Parts two and three became the Broadway musical “Falsettos.”) On Broadway, she appeared as a replacement cast member in the original “Chicago,” the 1977 revival of “Hair” and “Eubie!”

Ms. Reed-Amini appeared on numerous television series, among them “A Different World,” “Ally McBeal,” “Friends,” “The Drew Carey Show” and “E.R.” Her movie credits included “Death Becomes Her” and “Cruel Intentions.”

Ms. Reed-Amini’s first marriage ended in divorce. Her survivors include her husband; information about others was not available.

World markets rise on stronger US housing sales

Asian and European stock markets were higher Wednesday after a jump in U.S. housing sales suggested the world's biggest economy is picking up speed.

Shanghai, Seoul and Sydney all rose after major U.S. indexes gained Tuesday on news that November home resales jumped 7.4 percent, above a forecast 2.5 percent. As trading got started in Europe, benchmarks in Germany, France and Britain were up about 0.5 percent. Stock futures augured modest gains Wednesday on Wall Street.

The housing figures, which came after upbeat earnings and forecasts from technology companies and more corporate dealmaking, countered gloom about third quarter economic growth being revised lower.

The advance in stocks is "being driven by sentiment out of the U.S. and the fact that U.S. markets continue to hold up in the face of rather mixed data," said Kirby Daley, senior strategist at Newedge Group in Hong Kong.

China's benchmark Shanghai Composite Index rose 23.26 points, or 0.8 percent, to 3,073.78, while Sydney's S&P/ASX added 0.8 percent to 4,739.30 amid strength in coal stocks.

Tokyo was closed for a holiday after the benchmark Nikkei 225 added 1.9 percent on Tuesday. Hong Kong's Hang Seng reversed losses to climb 236.70, or 1.1 percent, to 21,328.74.

Investors were closely watching U.S. markets in the absence of major Asian developments.

"The market realizes that as long as China remains strong, Asia is going to benefit, and as long as the U.S. doesn't hit a major bump in the road, Asia will remain stable," Daley said. However, he said that after recent strong gains, "I don't think there will be a significant push higher."

China's government is forecasting full-year 2009 growth of 8.3 percent following a rebound driven by Beijing's 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) stimulus. Private sector economists expect growth of up 9.4 percent.

Elsewhere, Seoul's Kospi gained 0.4 percent to 1,661.35, while Singapore was up 0.6 percent and Taiwan's Taiex rose 0.6 percent.

Tuesday on Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 50.79, or 0.5 percent, to 10,464.93 following the housing report by the National Association of Realtors.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 3.97, or 0.4 percent, to 1,118.02, while the Nasdaq composite index rose 15.01, or 0.7 percent, to 2,252.67. Both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq are at their highest levels since last October.

That came despite a government report revising down U.S. third-quarter gross domestic product growth. The Commerce Department's new reading showed a growth rate of 2.2 percent, down from the previous estimate of 2.8 percent. The growth, while smaller than originally believed, still managed to break a record four straight quarters of decline.

Oil rose 26 cents to $74.66 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

In currencies, the dollar fell 0.2 percent to 91.65 yen. The euro was little changed at $1.4253.

Weapons-carrying plane headed for Sri Lanka

The mystery of an aircraft seized in Thailand with a cache of North Korean weapons deepened further Wednesday when a senior Thai police officer said it was not headed to Iran as some reports have indicated.

The five-man crew charged with illegal arms possession also insisted their destination was Sri Lanka and not Iran when it was seized in the Thai capital where it made a refueling stop, their lawyer said Wednesday.

Defense lawyer Somsak Saithong told the Associated Press shortly after visiting the jailed crew that they also denied any knowledge of accused international weapons trafficker Victor Bout, who is in the same prison battling attempts to be extradited to the United States on terrorism charges.

There has been much speculation since it was impounded Dec. 12 about where the plane was headed and whether it was linked to Bout.

"They told me they don't know Victor Bout," Somsak said. He quoted the five men — four from Kazakhstan and one from Belarus — as saying that their flight plan called for a refueling stop in Bangkok before flying on to Sri Lanka.

Police Col. Supisarn Bhaddinarinath, acting chief of the Crime Suppression Division, said that investigators have so far found no evidence that the aircraft was bound for Iran or any link between Bout and the arms seizure.

But according to a flight plan seen by arms trafficking researchers, the aircraft was chartered by Hong Kong-based Union Top Management Ltd., or UTM, to fly oil industry spare parts from Pyongyang to Tehran, Iran, with several other stops, including Bangkok, Colombo in Sri Lanka, Azerbaijan and Ukraine.

Thai authorities, acting on a U.S. tip, impounded the Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane after uncovering 35 tons of weapons, reportedly including explosives, rocket-propelled grenades and components for surface-to-air missiles. The plane's papers described its cargo as oil-drilling machinery for delivery to Sri Lanka.

"They always deny any involvement with the weapons or any charges they are accused of. They told me that their job was just to fly the cargo plane to its destination. They don't know about or had anything to do with the cargo itself," Somsak quoted his clients as saying.

The U.N. imposed sanctions in June banning North Korea from exporting any arms after the communist regime conducted a nuclear test and test-fired missiles. Impoverished North Korea is believed to earn hundreds of millions of dollars every year by selling missiles, missile parts and other weapons to countries such as Iran, Syria and Myanmar.

Daniel Pinkston, a Seoul-based North Korea watcher for the International Crisis Group think tank, said that while the incident remains murky, it was clear that U.N. sanctions have not stopped North Korea from trying to engage in arms sales.

"It's a major source of foreign exchange and earnings for the Korean People's Army," Pinkston said. "I don't think anyone believed they were going to desist or just say, 'OK, well, you guys wrote up a tough resolution so we're gonna get out of this business now.'"

But he said that cases such as the Bangkok seizure will likely have an impact on those willing to purchase North Korean weapons.

"It's very clear that if you are a buyer you run a risk of losing your cargo or getting intercepted," he said.

The Thai government has been investigating the arms cache and says it will send the results to the United Nations.

Somsak said the five men complained that they had been forced by police investigators into signing documents written in Thai. They asked to be provided with a translator "or someone who can explain to them what is going on."

The report on the flight plan from the nonprofit groups TransArms in the United States and IPIS of Belgium was funded by the Belgian government and Amnesty International. It could not be independently verified.

The report says the plane was registered to Air West, a cargo transport company in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. Asked to comment on whether the plane was bound for Tehran, company owner Levan Kakabadze told The Associated Press that he was unaware of the plane's final destination.

Speaking by telephone from Batumi, Georgia, Kakabadze said that he had leased the plane to the SP Trading company and could bear no responsibility for what happened next.

"I know that the flight documents listed the cargo as oil drilling equipment. It turned out that they were carrying weapons," Kakabadze said. "After leasing the plane, I can't be held responsible for what happened. It's a problem for people who leased the plane. I have nothing else to say."

The authors cite confidential e-mails saying that UTM had ruled out a direct flight from Pyongyang to Tehran.

The report also raises multiple questions, including why the plane would stop in Thailand, since arms traffickers would be wiser to fly over China toward the former Soviet republics and on to Iran, rather than the well-policed southeastern Asian country.

"I don't know why they chose to stop in Thailand, we will investigate this further," the Thai police colonel said.

It says that the final flight plan shows that the aircraft stopped at an Azerbaijani air force base a few miles (kilometers) north of the capital, Baku, on its way to North Korea, and was expected to make a stop there on its way back from Pyongyang to Tehran.

An Azerbaijani aviation spokesman Tuesday denied the plane stopped in his country, which shares a border with neighboring Iran.

"The claims that the plane made a refueling stop in Azerbaijan have nothing to do with reality," said Maharram Safarli, a spokesman for the national flag carrier AZAL. "This plane has never landed in Azerbaijan."

The researchers say that the plane's previous registration documents link it to Air Cess and Centrafrican Airlines, which are allegedly connected to Bout, who has been in prison in Thailand since he was arrested March 6.

But the report, which was released Monday, said there was not enough evidence to link the plan definitively to Bout.

Plane overshoots Jamaica runway; more than 40 hurt

KINGSTON, Jamaica – An American Airlines flight from Miami with more than 150 aboard overshot a runway while landing during a heavy rainstorm in Kingston Tuesday night, injuring more than 40 people, officials said.

Flight 331 skidded across a road at Norman Manley International Airport and halted at the edge of the Caribbean Sea, apparently prevented from going into the water only by the upward slope of the sand. The nose of the jet was less than 10 feet from the water.

Some 44 passengers were taken to nearby hospitals with broken bones and back pains, Information Minister Daryl Vaz told The Associated Press. Four people were seriously injured, said Paul Hall, senior vice president of airport operations.

The plane's fuselage was cracked, its right engine broke off from the impact and the left main landing gear collapsed, said Tim Smith, an American Airlines spokesman at the company's headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas. Most of the injuries were cuts and bruises and none were life threatening, though he had no details, he said.

The Boeing 737-800, which originated at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., had taken off from Miami International Airport at 8:52 p.m. and arrived in Kingston at 10:22 p.m. It was carrying 148 passengers and a crew of six, American said. The majority of those aboard were Jamaicans coming home for Christmas, Vaz said.

Those getting off the plane were bleeding, mostly from the upper parts of their bodies.

Passenger Pilar Abaurrea described a chaotic scene when the plane hit the ground with a loud crash skidded along the runway.

"All of a sudden, when it hit the ground, the plane was kind of bouncing, someone said the plane was skidding and there was panic," Abaurrea of Keene, N.H., said in a telephone interview.

As the crew opened the emergency exits and people scrambled to get off, 62-year-old Abaurrea and her husband, Gary Wehrwein, noticed a number of people with injuries, including one person who had a cut on his head from falling baggage.

Abaurrea said she had pain in her neck and back from the impact and her husband had pain in a shoulder from falling luggage, but were otherwise unhurt. "I'm a little bit shook up but OK," she said.

Abaurrea said the flight was very turbulent, with the crew being forced to halt the beverage service three times before finally giving it up. Just before landing, the pilot warned of more turbulence but said it likely wouldn't be much worse than what they had experienced so far, she said.

Smith said it was too soon to provide details about the precise of the extent of the damage to the aircraft.

The airport has not reopened because of concerns that the plane's tail might be hindering visibility, Security Minister Dwight Nelson told Radio Jamaica.

Some 400 passengers were waiting for their flights to be cleared for takeoff, he said.

Final Senate health care vote scheduled

WASHINGTON (AP) — The end is near.

The Senate has scheduled a vote on final passage of its health care overhaul bill for around 8 a.m. on Thursday, Christmas Eve.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada announced the agreement on the Senate floor Tuesday afternoon, after working out the details with his Republican counterpart, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Since the Democrats lined up the 60 votes needed prevail in the Senate, they have been shutting down Republican opposition to their 10-year, nearly $1 trillion bill to expand coverage and try to slow increasing medical costs.

Passage would set the stage for negotiations to resolve differences with the House-passed bill.

Jesus-era house in Nazareth

Israel passes demands in prisoner swap to Hamas

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Israel delivered its counter-demands Tuesday for a deal with Hamas to exchange about 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for a single Israeli soldier held captive by Gaza militants for more than three years.

As families on both sides agonized over the outcome, last-minute differences over who should be freed or sent into exile threatened to imperil the deal.

Israel insists on expelling some West Bank-born prisoners to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip or abroad and balks at releasing some inmates high on the Hamas wish list, said a senior Hamas official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not supposed to brief reporters.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak appeared to be trying to temper expectations when he told a group of students that returning Sgt. Gilad Schalit was a "top priority" — but "not at any price," a reference to Palestinian prisoners convicted of bloody attacks.

Israel's Channel 10 TV broadcast its coverage of the negotiations over a headline that read, "Not Yet." Israeli media said the deal could take days or weeks to complete.

It wasn't clear how soon Hamas would respond.

The Hamas official said that while progress has been made, a deal is not imminent. A Hamas Web site, al-Risalah, said a German mediator would meet later Tuesday with Hamas leaders in Gaza who will "take a final and conclusive decision on what the German mediator brings from his visit to the occupied territories."

Yet another Hamas official said that meeting would take place Wednesday.

In recent days, marathon discussions about the swap at the top level of Israel's government conveyed a sense of urgency. However, more than three years of negotiations following the capture of the Israeli soldier have been shrouded in a fog of disinformation and spin, leading to repeated false alarms that a deal is close.

The decision on whether to accept what would be the biggest swap in years is crucial for Hamas, which wrested Gaza from Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007.

A swap may be the militant group's only means of easing the Israeli-Egyptian blockade that has plunged most of Gaza's 1.5 million residents deeper into poverty and kept them from rebuilding from an Israeli military offensive a year ago. Israel has said it would not consider lifting the embargo until Schalit is freed.

A high profile prisoner release could also boost the militant group's popularity at the expense of Abbas, who favors a peaceful solution to the conflict with Israel but has little to show for years of negotiations.

On the flip side, Hamas has proven resistant to compromise in the past, and may refuse to give up the soldier, its only bargaining chip, if offered less than it demands.

Israel wants to deport dozens of prisoners, according to a Palestinian official who said he has been briefed on the negotiations. Another Palestinian, who is close to the talks, said the German mediator arranged with six countries to take the released prisoners.

Both spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the negotiations.

Hamas has tried to lower the number of prisoners to be exiled but has shown flexibility on the issue, saying it would let individual prisoners decide whether to accept deportation.

Two officials, one in Gaza and one in the West Bank, said Israel refuses to release several prisoners high on Hamas' wish list. There were conflicting reports about what the proposed deal would mean for Marwan Barghouti, a hugely popular Palestinian uprising leader seen by many as a potential successor to Abbas.

One official said Israel wants to exile him. Another said it refused to release him at all. Barghouti is serving multiple life sentences for involvement in fatal attacks against Israelis.

Analyst Mouin Rabbani said Hamas is feeling pressure to close a deal. "Within the Hamas leadership ranks there is a widespread view that this is now or never," he said.

A decision would require consideration by Hamas leaders in the group's Gaza stronghold, as well as members of the group's exiled leadership in Syria.

Inside Israel, the proposed deal has stirred up an entirely different set of considerations and emotions.

Clinching the deal might win points for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by ending the ordeal of the soldier, Gilad Schalit.

But a large-scale release could also hurt Netanyahu's standing among Israelis who feel releasing prisoners convicted of violence could encourage militants to take more hostages, inviting more bloodshed.

The deportation of violent militants could defuse an angry backlash in Israel.

Yossi Melman, who writes on security issues for the Israeli Haaretz daily, said the deportation of Palestinian militants after a standoff at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in 2002 set a precedent. Thirteen militants were sent to Cyprus, and 12 went on to Spain, Italy, Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Belgium.

On the other hand, many in Israel believe that a 1985 swap, in which 1,150 prisoners were allowed to return to the Palestinian territories, contributed to the outbreak of the first Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation two years later. Melman called that a "trauma."

Barak said Israel must end the practice of lopsided prisoner exchanges. "Clearly we need a change in concept, and I hope it will be done quickly ... after the Gilad Schalit issue is resolved," he said.

Pressure on Hamas has mounted from a new direction since Egypt started building an underground iron wall to stop the rampant smuggling through hundreds of tunnels under its border with Gaza.

The tunnels provide Gazans with electronics, cement and foodstuffs not otherwise available, while Hamas is believed to use them to import weapons.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Deputy Parliament Speaker Ahmed Bahar of Hamas pleaded with Egypt not to close the tunnels.

"Egypt knows well that the results of constructing an iron wall along the border of the Gaza Strip will bring catastrophic results and destructive dangers upon Gaza residents," he said.

Ahmadinejad dismisses US deadline for nuclear deal

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran's president on Tuesday dismissed a year-end deadline set by the Obama administration and the West for Tehran to accept a U.N.-drafted deal to swap enriched uranium for nuclear fuel. The United States warned Iran to take the deadline seriously.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also accused the U.S. of fabricating a purported Iranian secret document that appears to lay out a plan for developing a critical component of an atomic bomb.

Ahmadinejad's remarks underscored Tehran's defiance in the nuclear standoff — and also sought to send a message that his government has not been weakened by the protest movement sparked by June's disputed presidential election. He spoke a day after the latest opposition protest by tens of thousands mourning a dissident cleric who died over the weekend.

Late Tuesday, the Web site of state-run television said Ahmadinejad had appointed a new chief of Iran's prestigious Art Academy, removing opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi from the post.

Mousavi, a presidential challenger who alleged voting fraud, had attended Monday's funeral procession. There was no immediate comment from Mousavi.

President Barack Obama has set a rough deadline of the end of this year for Iran to respond to an offer of dialogue on the nuclear issue. Washington and its allies are warning of new, tougher sanctions on Iran if it doesn't respond.

The U.N.-proposed deal is the centerpiece of the West's diplomatic effort. Under the deal, Tehran would ship most of its stockpile of low-enriched uranium abroad to be processed into fuel rods, which would ease the West's fears that the material could be used to produce a nuclear weapon.

Iran, which denies it seeks to build a bomb, has balked at the deal's terms.

The international community can give Iran "as many deadlines as they want, we don't care," Ahmadinejad said in a speech to thousands of supporters in the southern city of Shiraz.

Ahmadinejad dismissed the threat of sanctions, saying Iran wants talks "under just conditions where there is mutual respect."

"We told you that we are not afraid of sanctions against us, and we are not intimidated," he said, addressing the West. "If Iran wanted to make a bomb, we would be brave enough to tell you."

As the crowd cheered: "We love you, Ahmadinejad," the Iranian leader lashed out at Washington, vowing Iran will stand up against U.S. attempts to "dominate the Middle East."

The U.S. responded sternly.

"It is a very real deadline for the international community," said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs.

In Paris, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said the chances of finding a diplomatic solution to the nuclear standoff with Iran were "never very significant" and that in the "worst case," France will bring up the issue of new sanctions on Tehran.

"We all have talked about bringing that (sanctions) up before the end of the year," Kouchner said, but also cautioned, "We mustn't exaggerate the deadline. It's not a cleaver, which would mean that after a certain day we wouldn't speak to one another again."

In a separate interview with ABC News, Ahmadinejad accused the U.S. of forging the document that appears to describe an Iranian work plan for developing a neutron initiator, a key component in detonating a nuclear bomb.

"They are all a fabricated bunch of papers continuously being forged and disseminated by the American government." He said the accusations that Iran seeks a weapon has "turned into a repetitive and tasteless joke." The comments were aired Monday night.

The memo was first reported in the British newspaper Times of London. U.S. officials have said it's unclear whether the document is real.

In his speech Tuesday, Ahmadinejad also shrugged off Iran's continued political turmoil since the June election, which the opposition says Ahmadinejad won by fraud. Large street protests have continued despite a fierce government crackdown. In the latest, tens of thousands turned out for the funeral of Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who died Sunday, and chanted slogans against the country's rulers.

Ahmadinejad did not directly mention the protests. But he said the West mistakenly believed that Iran "has been weakened."

"The people of Iran and the government of Iran are 10 times stronger than last year," he said. "I want the whole world to know it's impossible for Iran to allow the United States to dominate the Middle East."

Iran says its nuclear program is intended only to generate electricity and that it has a right to proceed with uranium enrichment, which the United Nations has demanded it suspend. The process can produce low-enriched uranium used to fuel a nuclear reactor — or higher enriched uranium, which is the basis for building a nuclear warhead.

Under the deal brokered by the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency last month, most of Iran's low-enriched uranium would be shipped abroad, where it would be enriched further to produce fuel rods. The rods would then be returned to Iran for use in a research reactor in Tehran, but it would not be possible to enrich them further to a high enough level to build a bomb.

Iran's response has been unclear, with officials floating a number of alternative ideas for a swap — including carrying out the exchange simultaneously or in stages. At times, Tehran has threatened to reject it outright and enrich its own fuel rods, though last week Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Tehran was still open to the idea of an exchange.

Ford to Enable Wi-Fi in Autos

If you thought that DVD players and texting were dangerous distractions for drivers, wait until you see people streaming television shows on Hulu during their morning commute. Ford has announced a new feature for upcoming car models that will allow owners to turn their car into a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot.

The next generation of Ford's SYNC technology will provide a USB port in the console of the car that will accept USB mobile broadband modems that people normally use to get Internet connections on laptops that aren't near a Wi-Fi hotspot. These mobile broadband modems are available from most major mobile networks and use cell network signals to connect to the Internet. By plugging the modem into your Ford car, the internal Wi-Fi module can take the mobile Internet signal and rebroadcast it as a Wi-Fi signal for any device that can use Wi-Fi.

This feature makes it possible for entire families to use their devices while in the car, even if you only have one mobile broadband modem. "While you're driving to grandma's house, your spouse can be finishing the holiday shopping and the kids can be chatting with friends and updating their Facebook profiles," said Mark Fields, Ford president of The Americas. "And you're not paying for yet another mobile subscription or piece of hardware because Ford will let you use technology you already have."


Of course, Verizon and Sprint already offer broadband modems that can serve as "mobile hotspots" and which can be used by multiple devices at once, but Ford's move aims to make Internet access in automobiles more convenient and widespread.

Wi-Fi enabled Ford vehicles will have secure connections (using WiFi Protected Access 2, or WPA2, protection) so only those with permission will be able to use the signal as you drive (alleviating the pesky problem of fellow motorists tailing your car in order to steal your Wi-Fi signal; you laugh, but welcome to the 21st century).


Ford said the technology should be available in cars sometime next year but gave no further details.

Court bans sale of Word; Microsoft has fix ready

SEATTLE – A federal appeals court ordered Microsoft Corp. to stop selling its Word program in January and pay a Canadian software company $290 million for violating a patent, upholding the judgment of a lower court.

But people looking to buy Word or Microsoft's Office package in the U.S. won't have to go without the software. Microsoft said Tuesday it expects that new versions of the product, with the computer code in question removed, will be ready for sale when the injunction begins on Jan. 11.

Toronto-based i4i Inc. sued Microsoft in 2007, saying it owned the technology behind a tool in the popular word processing program. The technology in question gives Word users an improved way to edit XML, or code that tells the program how to interpret and display a document's contents.

A Texas jury found that Microsoft Word willfully infringed on the patent. Microsoft appealed that decision, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Tuesday upheld the lower court's damage award and the injunction against future sales of infringing copies of Word.

Michel Vulpe, founder and co-inventor of i4i, said in a statement that the company is pleased with the decision, calling it "an important step in protecting the property rights of small inventors."

Microsoft said it has been preparing for such a judgment since August. Copies of Word and Office sold before Jan. 11 aren't affected by the court's decision. And Microsoft said it has "put the wheels in motion to remove this little-used feature" from versions of Word 2007 and Office 2007 that would be sold after that date.

"Beta" or test versions of Word 2010 and Office 2010, expected to be finalized next year, do not contain the offending code, the software maker said.

Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft said it may appeal further, asking for either a rehearing in front of the appeals court's full panel of judges or in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.

White House picks new cyber coordinator

WASHINGTON – The White House has tapped a corporate cyber security expert and former Bush administration official to lead the effort to shore up the country's computer networks and better coordinate with companies that operate 80 percent of those critical systems.

Howard A. Schmidt, a former eBay and Microsoft executive, will become the government's cyber security coordinator, weathering a rocky selection process that dragged on for months, as others turned the job down.

In a letter posted on the White House web site Tuesday, John Brennan, assistant to President Barack Obama for homeland security and counterterrorism, said Schmidt will have regular access to the president and play a vital role in the country's security.

Schmidt's selection comes more than 10 months after Obama declared cyber security a priority and ordered a broad administration review.

A senior White House official said Obama was personally involved in the selection process and chose Schmidt because of his unique background and skills. Schmidt will have regular and direct access to the president for cyber security issues, the official said. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the selection process.

Obama released the findings of the cyber security review nearly seven months ago, vowing that the White House would name a cyber coordinator to deal with one of the "most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation."

U.S. government computer systems are being attacked or scanned millions of times a day. Hackers and cyber criminals pose an expanding threat, using increasingly sophisticated technologies to steal money or information, while nation-states probe for weaknesses in order to steal classified documents or technology or destroy the networks that run vital services.

Corporate computer security leaders have openly expressed frustration with the White House as movement on the job post stalled.

At the same time, cyber experts and potential job candidates have complained that the position lacks the budgetary and policy-making authority needed to be successful. Schmidt will report to the National Security Council and closely support the National Economic Council on cyber issues.

Schmidt's selection suggests that economic and business interests in the White House held more sway in the selection process. Schmidt, president and CEO of the Information Security Forum, a nonprofit international consortium that conducts research in information security, has served as chief security officer for Microsoft and as cyber security chief for online auction giant eBay. He was reportedly preferred by Lawrence Summers, director of the economic council.

Roger Thornton, a cyber security expert and chief technology officer for Fortify Software, praised the choice. He said Schmidt understands the technology, has broad management experience and has worked well within the political arena, a key requirement for the White House post.

"I think he would be able to get people to compromise and move things forward," said Thornton.

Considered an expert in computer forensics, Schmidt's roughly 40-year career includes 31 years in local and federal government service, including a stint as vice chairman of President George W. Bush's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board. He also was for a short time an adviser to the FBI and worked at the National Drug Intelligence Center.

Congress members, business leaders and cyber security experts have called for a more coordinated effort by the federal government to monitor and protect U.S. systems and work with the private sector to insure that transportation systems, energy plants and other sensitive networks are equally protected.

Serena Williams is 2009 AP Female Athlete of Year

Playing her best at the most important events, Serena Williams re-established herself as the top player in women's tennis in 2009 and was a landslide choice as Female Athlete of the Year by members of The Associated Press.

Williams received 66 of 158 votes cast by editors at U.S. newspapers that are members of the AP. No other candidate got more than 18 votes in the tally, which was announced Tuesday.

Clearly, Williams' most infamous on-court episode — a tirade directed at a line judge after a foot-fault call near the end of her U.S. Open semifinal loss in September — didn't hurt her standing in the eyes of the voters.

"People realize that I'm a great player, and one moment doesn't define a person's career," Williams told the AP. "And I was right, for the most part: It wasn't right the way I reacted — I never said it was — but I was right about the call."

She also noted that the outburst, which resulted in a record fine and two-year probationary period at Grand Slam tournaments, "got a lot more people excited about tennis."

The 28-year-old American tends to do that, thanks to her powerful, athletic play and her outgoing personality.

"We can attribute the strength and the growth of women's tennis a great deal to her," WTA chairman and CEO Stacey Allaster said in a telephone interview. "She is a superstar."

Williams, who is based in Florida, also won the AP award in 2002, a seven-year gap that is the longest between AP Female Athlete of the Year honors since golf's Patty Berg won in 1943 and 1955.

"I'm just happy and blessed to even be playing seven years later. All this is a bonus, really," Williams said. "In 2002, I just was really dominant, and I think in 2009, I just brought that back. I kind of became that player again."

Indeed she did.

Williams finished the year at No. 1 in the WTA rankings. She topped $6.5 million in prize money, breaking the single-season tour record by more than $1 million. She won three significant singles titles — Wimbledon, the Australian Open and the season-ending tour championships — and paired with sister Venus to win three Grand Slam doubles championships.

"An incredible performance," Allaster said. "Her game just continues to improve through this long career she's had."

Williams went 50-12 in singles, an .806 winning percentage that was the highest for any woman who played at least 20 matches in 2009. She tied for the tour lead in singles titles. She led the tour with 381 aces, 75 more than anyone else, and also led in percentages of first-service points won and service games won.

Her two Grand Slam singles titles raised her career total to 11, the most among active women. At the year's other two majors, she lost to the eventual champion: Svetlana Kuznetsova at the French Open, Kim Clijsters at the U.S. Open.

"Serena really peaks for those big moments on big stages," Allaster said.

Zenyatta, the 5-year-old mare who capped her 14-0 career by becoming the first female horse to win the Breeders' Cup Classic, finished second for the AP honor — with 48 fewer votes than Williams. For context: Last year's AP honoree, WNBA star Candace Parker, edged runner-up Lorena Ochoa by a single vote, while two other athletes finished within seven votes of Parker.

Clijsters, who came out of retirement only weeks before winning the U.S. Open, was third in 2009 with 16 votes. Lindsey Vonn, who won her second consecutive overall title in Alpine skiing's World Cup, finished third with 15 votes, followed by Diana Taurasi, the WNBA's MVP, who received 14.

In what was widely considered the best women's tennis match of 2009, Williams was one point from defeat before coming back to beat Beijing Olympics gold medalist Elena Dementieva 6-7 (4), 7-5, 8-6 in the Wimbledon semifinals. The affair lasted 2 hours, 49 minutes — longer than any All England Club women's semifinal or final on record.

Williams hit 20 aces in that victory, then beat her older sister in the final two days later.

The younger Williams also beat her sibling in the season-ending tour championships title match on Nov. 1.

And what does she have planned for 2010?

"My goal is to have a better year than '09 — and to stay healthy," Williams said, "and I think if I can do that, I'll be fine."

China expands Internet controls

BEIJING – China has issued new regulations that expand its Internet controls by tightening procedures for domain name registration.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology posted the new rules over the weekend, part of a three-phase plan to target what it called pornography accessible through cell phones.

The regulations require telecom companies and Internet service providers to carry out "complete and thorough" checks to determine if Web sites are officially registered. Any Web sites that have not registered with the ministry should be taken off the Internet, the order says.

But the new rules have the potential to freeze out thousands of legitimate Web sites by creating a pre-approved "whitelist" of sites.

It also tightens the registration process for domain names. Any service provider must have a business license and the Web site itself must also have a business license or be registered — which would appear to prohibit sites set up by individuals.

It was unclear if the new rules would apply to foreign Web sites, though many sites have already been blocked by China's Internet authorities, including Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and host of other media and news Web sites.

Beijing's pervasive policing of cyberspace and attempts to block the Internet — among the world's most stringent — are often referred to as the "Great Firewall of China."

The communist government says the main targets of its Web censorship are pornography, gambling and other sites deemed harmful to society. Critics, however, say that often acts as cover for detecting and blocking sensitive political content.

Earlier this year, China had backed down from a requirement for new computers to be loaded with a controversial Internet-filtering software known as Green Dam Youth escort after a major outcry from Chinese citizens and computer companies. That software had also been introduced as a filter against porn.

Dems, White House predict success on health care

The White House and Democrats are confidently predicting Senate passage of President Barack Obama's health overhaul by Christmas after the bill cleared its second 60-vote test.


"The finish line is in sight," Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said Tuesday at a press conference with other Senate leaders and cheering supporters. "We're not the first to attempt such reforms but we will be the first to succeed."

At the White House, spokesman Robert Gibbs said: "Health care reform is not a matter of if. Health care reform is now a matter of when."

Senate Democrats remained united early Tuesday behind their compromise bill, over steadfast Republican opposition. A motion to shut off debate and move to a vote on a package of changes by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid passed 60-39.

`Survivor' winner: Quitting job for show a gamble

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – The winner of the CBS reality television show "Survivor: Samoa" says she took a huge gamble by quitting her job to be on the show.

The gamble paid off Sunday for 26-year-old Natalie White of Van Buren, Ark., when it was revealed she won the competition and $1 million prize.

White had worked as a saleswoman for Teva Pharmaceuticals USA for about 15 months.

She told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in Tuesday editions that she loved the job, but appearing on the show was a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" and she would've been crazy not to take it.

White says she still has the check and plans to hire an accountant but otherwise doesn't know what's in her future.

She says she plans to stay in Arkansas for now while waiting to see what opportunities may arise.

Terrorist attack feared after Jackson arrest

NEW YORK – Police concerns about a terrorist attack stemming from the 2003 arrest of Michael Jackson led to a request for federal help, according to FBI files kept on the late pop star.

The Santa Maria Police Department in California asked for FBI "involvement" after Jackson was arrested for child molestation. Police, according to the FBI, said they believed the court case would be a "soft target" for terrorism because of "worldwide media coverage."

The FBI concluded there were no threats, but did note the presence in an early court appearance of "The Nation of Islam, represented by its security unit Fruits of Islam," and of a "New Black Panther Party" member whose name was left blank in the files.

The files also show that the FBI's legal office in London assisted local authorities with a child molestation probe in 1993 and in 1995, U.S. customs officials asked the FBI to analyze a VHS videotape as part of a child pornography investigation.

The documents were released Tuesday through a Freedom of Information Act request from The Associated Press and other media.

Eurostar resumes service between Paris and London

PARIS – Eurostar resumed its high-speed rail service linking Britain, France and Belgium on Tuesday after a three-day suspension that stranded tens of thousands of holiday travelers and left French President Nicolas Sarkozy indignant.

The first train pulled out of the Gare du Nord station in Paris shortly after 8 a.m. (0700 GMT) carrying 750 passengers, many of whom had been stranded for days. Hundreds of others waited in a line that stretched across the cavernous Paris train station, as Eurostar staff circulated with trays of pastries and coffee in paper cups.

Terminal manager Nelly Clair-Meunier said people who were supposed to travel over the weekend were being given priority on Tuesday's trains, which were expected to leave hourly throughout most of the day. That represented about two-thirds of Tuesday's regularly scheduled trains, she said.

"It's going quite well," Clair-Meunier told The Associated Press. "The passengers were quite happy and they were thanking us for getting to travel on that first train."

Claire Morley, a 23-year-old student from Paris, said she and her traveling companion had been waiting in line since 5:30 a.m. (0430 GMT). Both were scheduled to travel Tuesday and had been closely following news of Eurostar's suspension throughout the weekend.

"It's supposed to be a pleasurable trip, just a little holiday," Morley said of her planned three-day stay in the British capital. "It's not starting off on such a relaxing note, though," she said as she boarded the first train of the day.

Others, like Britain's Isabella Comba, were worried about making connections to flights and other trains in London.

"My mother's sick, said I really want need to get home to be by her bedside," said Comba, who works at Sotheby's auction house and was hoping to catch an afternoon train to Cornwall, in southwestern England. "It will really throw off my plans if I'm not able to get to London today."

Officials at the Eurostar train company said they had identified the problem that caused trains to break down in the Channel Tunnel — unusually dry, powdery snow that got into the engines.

As many as 40,000 people have been affected by the suspension. Eurostar offered its "deepest apologies" and promised compensation.

Jennifer Eboule, another French student waiting in line at Gare du Nord, said things were "going smoothly" Tuesday morning but complained about Eurostar's overall handling of the incident.

"It's not like it never snowed before," said the 21-year-old. "It's hard to understand how something like that could cause such a big problem."

President Sarkozy summoned the head of France's SNCF rail operator into the Elysee Palace on Monday for a one-on-one meeting and ordered him to get the Eurostar moving again, saying the situation was "unacceptable for travelers."

Problems started Friday after five trains failed inside the Channel Tunnel, trapping more than 2,000 passengers for hours in stuffy and claustrophobic conditions. Exhausted, sometimes teary-eyed passengers appeared in British and French TV broadcasts complaining that they had been left underground for more than 15 hours, without food, water or any clear idea of what was going on.

Eurostar's CEO Richard Brown, who has faced stiff criticism over the company's handling of the crisis, pledged that "we will be doing our very best to get everyone home by Christmas."

The company's operations chief, Nicolas Petrovic, said dry snow had got past the train's snow-screens and into the engines Friday. Then the snow turned into condensation inside the Channel Tunnel, where temperatures were higher than those outside. That condensation caused the trains' electrical circuits to fail, he said.

"It's the first time we have these snow conditions in 15 years," he said, adding that normally snow in the region tends to be wet and heavy. Eurostar has commissioned an independent review into the problems.

While Eurostar works on getting the huge backlog of passengers home, it is blocking any new ticket sales until after Christmas.

Petrovic blamed Eurotunnel, which operates the Channel Tunnel, for the delay in rescuing passengers from the stuck trains, and did not exclude possibility of legal action.

Ahmadinejad dismisses US deadline for nuclear deal

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran's president on Tuesday dismissed a year-end deadline set by the Obama administration and the West for Tehran to accept a U.N.-drafted deal to swap enriched uranium for nuclear fuel, and claimed his government is now "10 times stronger" than a year ago.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also accused the U.S. of fabricating a purported Iranian secret document that appears to lay out a plan for developing a critical component of an atomic bomb.

Ahmadinejad's remarks underscored Tehran's defiance in the nuclear standoff — and also sought to send a message that his government has not been weakened by the protest movement sparked by June's disputed presidential election. He spoke a day after the latest opposition protest by tens of thousands mourning a dissident cleric who died over the weekend.

President Barack Obama has set a rough deadline of the end of this year for Iran to respond to an offer of dialogue and show it will allay fears of weapons development. Washington and its allies are warning of new, tougher sanctions on Iran if it doesn't respond.

The U.N.-proposed deal is the centerpiece of the West's diplomatic effort. Under the deal, Tehran would ship most of its stockpile of low-enriched uranium abroad to be processed into fuel rods, which would ease the West's fears that the material could be used to produce a nuclear weapon.

Iran, which denies it seeks to build a bomb, has balked at the deal's terms.

The international community can give Iran "as many deadlines as they want, we don't care," Ahmadinejad said in a speech to thousands of supporters in the southern city of Shiraz.

Ahmadinejad dismissed the threat of sanctions, saying Iran wants talks "under just conditions where there is mutual respect."

"We told you that we are not afraid of sanctions against us, and we are not intimidated," he said, addressing the West. "If Iran wanted to make a bomb, we would be brave enough to tell you."

As the crowd cheered: "We love you, Ahmadinejad," the Iranian leader lashed out at Washington, vowing Iran will stand up against U.S. attempts to "dominate the Middle East."

The U.S. responded sternly, warning Iran's leader to take the year-end deadline seriously. "It is a very real deadline for the international community," said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs.

In Paris, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said the chances of finding a diplomatic solution to the nuclear standoff with Iran were "never very significant" and that in the "worst case," France will bring up the issue of new sanctions on Tehran.

"We all have talked about bringing that (sanctions) up before the end of the year," Kouchner said, but also cautioned, "We mustn't exaggerate the deadline. It's not a cleaver, which would mean that after a certain day we wouldn't speak to one another again."

In a separate interview with ABC News, Ahmadinejad accused the U.S. of forging the document that appears to describe an Iranian work plan for developing a neutron initiator, a key component in detonating a nuclear bomb.

"They are all a fabricated bunch of papers continuously being forged and disseminated by the American government." He said the accusations that Iran seeks a weapon has "turned into a repetitive and tasteless joke." The comments were aired Monday night.

The memo was first reported in the British newspaper Times of London. U.S. officials have said it's unclear whether the document is real.

In his speech Tuesday, Ahmadinejad also shrugged off Iran's continued political turmoil since the June election, which the opposition says Ahmadinejad won by fraud. Large street protests have continued despite a fierce government crackdown. In the latest, tens of thousands turned out for the funeral of Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who died Sunday, and chanted slogans against the country's rulers.

Ahmadinejad did not directly mention the protests. But he said the West mistakenly believed that Iran "has been weakened."

"The people of Iran and the government of Iran are 10 times stronger than last year," he said. "I want the whole world to know it's impossible for Iran to allow the United States to dominate the Middle East."

Iran says its nuclear program is intended only to generate electricity and that it has a right to proceed with uranium enrichment, which the United Nations has demanded it suspend. The process can produce low-enriched uranium used to fuel a nuclear reactor — or higher enriched uranium, which is the basis for building a nuclear warhead.

Under the deal brokered by the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency last month, most of Iran's low-enriched uranium would be shipped abroad, where it would be enriched further to produce fuel rods. The rods would then be returned to Iran for use in a research reactor in Tehran, but it would not be possible to enrich them further to a high enough level to build a bomb.

Iran's response has been unclear, with officials floating a number of alternative ideas for a swap — including carrying out the exchange simultaneously or in stages. At times, Tehran has threatened to reject it outright and enrich its own fuel rods, though last week Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Tehran was still open to the idea of an exchange.

Gunmen kill family of Mexican drug war hero

MEXICO CITY – Gunmen have killed the family of a Mexican marine who died during a raid that took down powerful drug kingpin Arturo Beltran Leyva.

Police say the attack happened shortly before midnight Monday at the home of fallen marine Melquisedet Angulo — just hours after the military honored him as a national hero during a memorial service.

A federal government official tells The Associated Press that the dead include Angulo's mother, two siblings and an aunt. An unidentified woman is being treated at a hospital. The family was attacked at their home in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco, where the Beltran Leyva cartel has a strong presence. The official cannot be named under departmental rules.

Angulo and Beltran Leyva were both killed during a shootout last week between marines and the cartel.

FBI investigates Russian hacker attack on Citigroup

WASHINGTON - The FBI is investigating a hacker attack on Citigroup Inc. that led to the theft of tens of millions of dollars, The Wall Street Journal reported today.

Citing anonymous government officials, the Journal reported that the hackers were connected to a Russian cyber gang. Two other computer systems, at least one of connected to a U.S. government agency, were also attacked.

Citigroup denied the report. "We had no breach of the system and there were no losses, no customer losses, no bank losses," said Joe Petro, managing director of Citigroup's Security and Investigative services. "Any allegation that the FBI is working a case at Citigroup involving tens of millions of losses is just not true."

The Journal reported that the attack on Citigroup's Citibank subsidiary was detected over the summer, although it may have occurred up to one year earlier. The FBI, the National Security Agency, the Homeland Security Department and Citigroup worked together to investigate the attack.

Cyber crime is of increasing concern to businesses and the federal government, with President Barack Obama calling it one of the "most serious economic and national security challenges we face."

On Tuesday, Obama announced the appointment of Howard A. Schmidt, a former eBay and Microsoft executive, as the government's cyber security coordinator.

Internet attacks on banks are very common, said Tom Kellermann, a former senior member of the World Bank's Treasury security team and now vice president of security awareness for Core Security Technologies.

While he said he has no knowledge of an attack specific to Citigroup, Kellermann said Tuesday that large financial institutions are "consistently targeted" by criminal organizations in Eastern Europe, Brazil and Southeast Asia.

"Ninety-eight percent of bank heists are now occurring virtually and not in the real world," he said, adding that the industry is "hemorrhaging funds" as a result.

Banks that accept deposits made more than 53,000 reports of wire transfer fraud between April 1996 and the end of 2008, according to the Department of Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. These reports are filed when a bank suspects criminal activity, though they are not necessarily evidence that a crime was committed. Nevertheless, such reports have been increasing. Nearly 15,000 of these reports were filed in 2008, up from 9,300 the year before.

It's often difficult to determine who pulled off a virtual bank heist. Hackers tend to use "botnets," worldwide networks of "zombie" personal computers they've infected with viruses without the knowledge of the computers' owners.

And even if the hackers are caught, punishing them is another hurdle.

"Less than 30 countries have actually criminalized cybercrime," Kellermann said.

FBI assisted authorities in Jackson probes

LOS ANGELES – Newly released documents show the FBI assisted local authorities in the U.S. and in Britain as they investigated Michael Jackson for child molestation.

According to documents released Tuesday through a Freedom of Information Act request from The Associated Press and other media, the FBI assisted local authorities on several occasions from 1993 to 2005.

The FBI's legal office in London assisted local authorities with a child molestation probe in 1993 and in 1995 U.S. customs officials asked the FBI to analyze a VHS videotape as part of a child pornography investigation.

The files also detail an investigation in Los Angeles into extortion threats against Jackson and others in 1992.

The subject of that investigation pled guilty and was sentenced to prison in 1993.

Pakistani court orders 2 men's noses, ears cut off

LAHORE, Pakistan – A Pakistani court has ordered the noses and ears of two men cut off after they did the same thing to a young woman whose family spurned one of the men's marriage proposal, a prosecutor said Tuesday.

The anti-terrorism court in the eastern city of Lahore said it was applying Islamic law by ordering the punishment.

Lahore prosecutor Chaudhry Ali Ahmed said one of the accused, Sher Mohammad, was a cousin of the 19-year-old woman and wanted to marry her. Her parents refused his proposal.

Sher Mohammad and a friend, Amanat Mohammad, were accused of kidnapping the woman and cutting off her ears and nose in late September in the Raiwind area of Lahore.

The court on Monday also sentenced each man to 50 years in prison and told them to pay fines and compensation to the woman amounting to several thousand dollars, the prosecutor said.

Pakistan's legal system has Islamic elements that sometimes lead to orders for harsh punishments, but the sentences are often overturned and rarely carried out. Serious crimes are often referred to anti-terrorism courts in Pakistan because they move faster.

Violence against women, especially attacks by spurned lovers, also occurs frequently in this impoverished South Asian nation.

The men have seven days to appeal the ruling, Ahmed said.

Brazil court to rule today on American's custody appeal

RIO DE JANEIRO - Brazil's Supreme Court chief justice is expected to rule today on an appeal that a U.S. father hopes will reunite him with his young son after a five-year custody battle.

A Supreme Court official said that the decision by Chief Justice Gilmar Mendes would be issued before the end of the day. It originally was set for release Monday, but was delayed for unexplained reasons. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to discuss the case.

David Goldman, a New Jersey man who has pledged to fight for his 9-year-old son, Sean, as long as it takes, was still holding out hope of being reunited in time to celebrate the holidays with his son in the United States.

Mendes will rule on appeals made by Goldman and Brazil's attorney general seeking to lift a stay on a lower court's order that Sean be handed over to his father.

If Mendes lifts the stay, a lawyer for the Brazilian family said the family would continue its legal battle to keep the boy in Brazil.

When the ruling is issued, "we will read it carefully and consider the legal remedies available, if needed," Sergio Tostes said in an e-mailed statement. "All necessary action will be taken."

The family could take the case to Brazil's top appeals court, but some have doubted whether that court would be willing to review the case if the Supreme Court backs a lower federal court ruling awarding custody to Goldman.

Tostes previously said he would like to see a negotiated settlement, saying he wanted to end the damage being done to Sean and to U.S.-Brazil relations.

But Goldman said that as the child's only surviving parent he wasn't interested in shared custody.

New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith, in Brazil to support Goldman, expressed optimism Monday that the case would be resolved in the U.S. man's favor.

"I think it is only a matter of 'when' and not 'if,' and we are hoping that the abductors will convey this young boy … as soon as the chief justice renders his decision," the Republican congressman said.

Goldman, 42, launched his case in U.S. and Brazilian courts after Sean was brought by his mother in 2004 to her native Brazil, where she then divorced Goldman and remarried. She died last year in childbirth, and the boy has lived with his stepfather since.

The lawyer for the boy's Brazilian family offered to negotiate a settlement, and the family also invited Goldman to spend Christmas with them. Goldman has not said whether he would accept the invitation if the case was not resolved this week.

The case has affected diplomatic ties between Brazil and the United States, reaching talks between President Barack Obama and his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Democratic New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg has blocked the renewal of a $2.75 billion trade deal that would lift tariffs on some Brazilian exports.

The U.S. State Department pressed for the boy to be returned. But a Brazilian Supreme Court justice last week stayed a lower court decision ordering Sean to be turned over to his father.

Goldman and Brazil's attorney general both filed appeals asking the Supreme Court to overturn the justice's decision to block Sean's return while the court considers hearing direct testimony from the boy.

Police: Body found in river missing American man

FRANKFURT – German police say that the body of a man pulled from the Rhine River has been identified as missing 22-year-old American Devon Hollahan.

Frankfurt police said Tuesday that Hollahan, from Arizona, who was reported missing Nov. 21, was positively identified through DNA testing. His body was pulled from the Rhine Dec. 15 near the town of Boppard, which is about 60 miles (100 kilometers) northwest of Frankfurt.

Police said that Hollahan died from drowning and they don't suspect foul play.

Suicide bomber kills 3 near NW Pakistan press club

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – A suicide bomber detonated his explosives outside a press club in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Tuesday, leaving three people dead in an attack that comes at a time of growing violence and political turmoil in Pakistan.

A policeman tried to search the attacker as he approached the press club's gate, but the man resisted and was able to trigger his explosives, killing the officer and an accountant who worked for the organization, said Peshawar's police chief, Liaquat Ali Khan.

A woman who was at the site of the attack died of a heart attack caused by the shock of the bombing, said Sahib Gul, a doctor at a hospital in Peshawar where the three bodies were brought.

Adil Khan, a local photographer who was inside the press club when the attack occurred, said he heard the police officer at the gate, Muhammad Riaz, trying to force the bomber to submit to a search.

"Suddenly a big explosion occurred and smoke made me unable to see immediately what happened," said Khan. "After a while, I saw Riaz and accountant Mian Iqbal lying dead in a pool of blood and there were some scattered body parts."

Seventeen other people were injured in the attack, many of whom were traveling in a bus that passed the press club when the explosion occurred, said Gul.

The blast blew out the club's windows and peppered the wall with shrapnel, while also damaging several surrounding buildings.

Peshawar has been hit by at least seven attacks in the past two months in retaliation for a military offensive launched in mid-October against the militant stronghold of South Waziristan in Pakistan's lawless tribal area near the Afghan border. A single attack in late October in a market popular with women and children in Peshawar killed 112 people.

The government has pledged to persevere despite the violence. But growing political turmoil threatens to distract leaders after a Supreme Court decision to strike down an amnesty protecting several senior officials, including President Asif Ali Zardari, from corruption charges.

Former President Pervez Musharraf issued the amnesty in 2007 as part of a U.S.-backed deal to allow Zardari's wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, to return from self-imposed exile. Bhutto was killed in a bombing in December of that year, and Zardari led the party to an election victory in 2008.

One of those affected by the Supreme Court ruling was Interior Minister Rehman Malik, who was convicted several years ago of fleeing the country to avoid two corruption cases and sentenced to three years in prison.

An appeals court in the city of Lahore on Tuesday suspended the prison sentence, allowing Malik to avoid arrest until the judges begin hearings at the end of January. Malik told reporters he was falsely accused.

Since last year's elections, Zardari has battled both the opposition and a growing insurgency from Taliban and al-Qaida militants who have declared war on the government.

The Peshawar Press Club targeted in Tuesday's attack is a well-known landmark in the city, and many journalists congregate there.

"Journalists have played a vital role in our war by exposing the terrorists, so they are on the target list too like mosques, bazaars and security institutions," said Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the information minister for Northwest Frontier Province, where Peshawar is the capital.

The press club's president, Shamim Shahid, praised the police officer who prevented the bomber from entering the building.

"The policeman averted a major incident by sacrificing his life," said Shahid.

12 Most Shocking Moments of 2009

MICHAEL JACKSON DIES

When Michael Jackson died suddenly on June 25 at age 50, the world seemed to stop just long enough for fans to mourn, moonwalk and reminisce across generations of "Thriller" lovers. No doubt about it, the King of Pop left behind a rich legacy of musical greatness – but also a complex one, marked by increasingly erratic behavior.He also left behind three children – Blanket, 7; Paris, 11; and Prince Michael, 12 – looming legal battles and a stunning final act: the over $100 million-grossing film This Is It, featuring rehearsal shots from the sold-out comeback tour that never was.

 
MIRACLE CRASH ON THE HUDSON

It could have ended tragically. But when US Airways flight 1549 to Charlotte, N.C., made an emergency landing in the Hudson River off midtown Manhattan on Jan. 15, all 155 people aboard escaped alive. Credit goes to "hero pilot" Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III for calmly gliding the plane into the water after a flock of geese knocked out both engines. "In hindsight," he told PEOPLE in February, "I think something remarkable did happen that day."

CHRIS BROWN ASSAULTS RIHANNA

Rihanna and Chris Brown were supposed to perform at the Grammys on Feb. 8 – instead, Brown was charged withattacking his then-girlfriend on the eve of the show, and Rihanna dropped out of sight. Ultimately, Brown was forbidden from contacting his now ex-girlfriend for five years, received five years' probation and had to attend a domestic violence class. Months later, Rihanna broke her silence in Glamour, saying she was "stronger, wiser and more aware" – and ready to speak for battered women.

JAYCEE DUGARD FOUND ALIVE

Nearly two decades after a sex offender abducted her as she walked to a school bus stop, Jaycee Lee Dugard, 29, was discovered in August living in a maze of lean-tos and tents in Phillip Garrido and wife Nancy's Antioch, Calif., back yard, where she also bore him two daughters, now 15 and 11. While the Garridos have pleaded not guilty to 29 charges – including rape and kidnapping – Dugard and her family have begun the healing process. "All of us are doing very well under the circumstances," her mom, Terry Probyn, said in a statement. "Miracles can happen."

BALLOON BOY HOAX

When a silver balloon lifted off in Ft. Collins, Colo., on Oct. 15 reportedly carrying 6-year-old Falcon Heene, the quest to save him made for gripping live TV. But the real drama would come later: The boy, a son of a thrill-seeking reality show couple, was never onboard; he was in his family's attic. Parents Richard and Mayumi Heene initially said the incident wasn't a stunt, but after a federal investigation, Mayumi pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor – for false reporting to authorities. Then on Nov. 13, her husband pleaded guilty to a felony charge of attempting to influence a public servant.

LETTERMAN'S BLACKMAIL CONFESSION

On Oct. 1, David Letterman took a break from the humor for two startling, serious revelations: First, he was the victim of a $2 million extortion plot attempt and, second, he had sex with staff members. In the following days, a grand jury indicted CBS news producer Robert Joel "Joe" Halderman for extortion – and Letterman publicly apologized to his staff and wife Regina Lasko for his infidelities. While the legal matter is ongoing, there has been one positive outcome for Letterman: His ratings have not suffered at all.

DAISY GETS COYOTE-NAPPED

It happened right before Jessica Simpson's eyes:A coyote snatched the little maltipoo she called Daisy, her beloved pet of five years, on Sept. 14."My heart is broken," the singer Tweeted after the incident. With her maternal instinct kicking in, Simpson held out hope that Daisy would return safely – even offering a reward for her recovery. But after being inundated with false sightings, the singer eventually conceded that her pup was gone for good, Tweeting on Oct. 12, "Please respect her memory."

MACKENZIE'S INCEST SECRET

Mackenzie Phillips dropped a bombshell this September in her tell-all book High on Arrival: that her father, musician John Phillips, raped her at 19 and engaged with her in a long-term incestuous relationship. "My father was not a man with boundaries," she wrote. "He was full of love, and he was sick with drugs." While some of his surviving family met her dark accusations with doubt, Phillips took her story to Oprah and the Today show, and had the support of half-sister Chynna. And people were listening: Calls to the National Sexual Assault Hotline spiked 26 percent following her revelation.

SARAH PALIN RESIGNS

"You can effect change from the outside, and I can, too," former Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin told a stunned nation on July 3 outside her Wasilla home as she announced she was resigning as Alaska's governor. Speculation pointed to a coming Senate run or scandal, but Palin clarified things days later, telling NBC News that ethics challenges and the scrutiny of the spotlight had impeded her day-to-day work. By November, she was back on the campaign trail – for her bestselling book, Going Rogue.

MIAMI PRIEST IN LOVE

Known to many as Padre Alberto, dashing Roman Catholic priest and media personality Alberto Cutié found himself in a public crisis of faith after photos of him kissing a woman hit the press. Yanked from his radio and TV programs, Cutié grappled with leaving the church for Ruhama Buni Canellis, his longtime girlfriend. In the end, he went with his heart, but also kept his faith: Cutié joined the Episcopal Church and, on June 16, wed Canellis in a civil ceremony.

S.C. GOVERNOR ADMITS AFFAIR

His staff said he was "hiking the Appalachian Trail," but South Carolina governor Mark Sanford was actually in Buenos Aires, where he was having an affair with a "dear, dear friend from Argentina." In a tearful press conference June 24, Sanford apologized to wife Jenny, his four sons and his staff for misleading them. In the fallout, he resigned as Chairman of the Republican Governors Association and his wife eventually filed for divorce – but he retained his elected post.

TIGER'S FALL FROM GRACE

In the wake of his Thanksgiving night car accident, rumors swirled that golf great Tiger Woods had been cheating on his wife Elin Nordegren – and an argument with his angry wife predicated his crash. In a statement on his Web site, Woods addressed the allegations of cheating – sort of – writing, "I have let my family down and I regret those transgressions with all of my heart ... I am not without faults and I am far short of perfect." Nor was the scandal far from over, as the athlete was eventually linked to a dozen women, including porn star Holly Sampson and Tool Academy alum Jamiee Grubbs, who apologized for the affair.