Anita Collins, 67, Charged With Stealing $1 Million From NY Archdiocese

By David Gibson
Religion News Service

NEW YORK (RNS) A 67-year-old woman with a criminal record for theft has been charged with siphoning $1 million in donations while working in a finance office of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, church officials announced Monday (Jan. 30).

The archdiocese said it did not conduct a criminal background check when the employee, Anita Collins, was hired in 2003. Collins' complex scheme drained money from an education fund at the same time the church was closing Catholic schools.

Church and law enforcement officials said that over seven years Collins sent fake invoices to the archdiocese, then issued some 450 checks to accounts she controlled, all in amounts just under the $2,500 threshold that would have required a supervisor's approval.

Most of the money was apparently siphoned from the accounts payable system in the archdiocesan Department of Education Finance Office, according to a statement from archdiocesan spokesman Joseph Zwilling.

In a 2010 article in the archdiocese newspaper Catholic New York, Collins was lauded for volunteering at St. Patrick's Cathedral when Archbishop Timothy Dolan presided over a Mass welcoming 600 people to Catholicism.

Collins was described as an "unassuming" person; in a 2010 article in the archdiocesan newspaper she said, "My faith has always been a steadfast part of my life."

Most of the money Collins allegedly embezzled was spent on mortgage payments and on "a lifestyle that was not extravagant but was far beyond her lawful means," Adam Kaufmann, the chief of investigations for the Manhattan District Attorney, told The New York Times.

Outside auditors implementing enhanced financial safeguards in late 2011 initially found $350,000 in missing funds, Zwilling said. After law enforcement officials were called in, the full extent of the theft was uncovered. Collins was confronted with the evidence and was fired on Dec. 6, 2011.

"Sadly, there will always be individuals who seek to exploit and circumvent whatever system is established, but we will remain vigilant in our oversight," Zwilling said.

There have been a rash of large-scale embezzlement cases in the Catholic Church in recent years, ranging from lay people embezzling from dioceses to pastors pilfering from their parishes. Many of these cases occurred despite warnings to church officials in the wake of the clergy sexual abuse scandals that they needed to tighten financial oversight as well.

Collins had previously pleaded guilty to criminal charges in fraud schemes at other New York employers in 1986 and 1999. The archdiocese says it now conducts criminal background checks on all employees and is reviewing its financial oversight policies.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/30/anita-collins-stole-archdiocese-of-ny_n_1242836.html

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Japan Cabinet OKs bill to cap nuke reactor life (AP)

TOKYO ? Japan's Cabinet approved bills Tuesday aimed at bolstering nuclear safety regulations following last year's Fukushima disaster, including one that would put a 40-year cap on the operational life of nuclear reactors.

The approval came as International Atomic Energy Agency experts generally endorsed "stress test" results at two idled reactors in western Japan, bolstering the Tokyo government's efforts to restart the facility, though the IAEA team said some safety measures needed clarification.

Japan currently has no legal limit on the operational lifespan of its 54 reactors, many of which will reach the 40-year mark in coming years. One reactor at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant had been in use 40 years when the tsunami struck last March.

The legislation, which still needs parliamentary approval to take effect, does allow for an extension of up to 20 years. Critics have blasted that exception as a loophole, but officials have said extensions will be rare and require strict safety standards.

Also Tuesday, the chief of Kawauchi village, which straddles the exclusion zone around the Fukushima plant, told more than 2,500 residents that returning to the town areas outside the no-go zone was safe, following extensive decontamination of radiation fallout.

Most residents whose homes were outside the exclusion zone chose to leave when the Kawauchi town hall moved to Koriyama City, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) away.

Mayor Yuko Endo said offices, schools and other public facilities will restart in April. Kawauchi is the first of nine townships whose administrative functions shifted elsewhere to make such an announcement.

"I encourage you to go home," Endo told a televised news conference from the Fukushima government office. "Those of you who can return now, please do so. If you are still worried, you can wait a little until you feel comfortable."

About one-third of Kawauchi village lies within the 12-mile (20-kilometer) exclusion zone and remains off-limits.

Since the government announced in December that the Fukushima plant was stable, guidelines have been made for affected towns that would allow residents to return to areas with contamination levels below 20 millisieverts per year, which it says is safe, though further reduction is recommended.

Another bill approved by the Cabinet would create a new nuclear regulatory agency under the Environment Ministry that would unify nuclear safety and regulatory bodies. The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency is currently under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry ? which also promotes nuclear energy. Critics say that placement has contributed to lax supervision of the industry.

After the Fukushima accident, Japan reversed its nuclear energy policy and now aims to reduce its dependency on atomic power. Officials say capping the lives of reactors at 40 years is consistent with that policy.

Still, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has said Japan must rely on nuclear energy during the transition and idled reactors deemed safe after inspections need to be restarted.

The government has ordered reactors shut down since the meltdowns at Fukushima to undergo "stress tests" before they can be restarted. But passing the tests may not lead to a quick startup because of deep safety concerns in local communities hosting the reactors.

With only three of the country's 54 reactors online, officials are desperately trying to avoid a power crunch. One of the three operating reactors will go offline for regular checks next month, and Japan will have no operating reactors by the end of April.

Last week, a 10-member IAEA delegation inspected the Ohi No. 3 and No. 4 reactors at a nuclear plant in Fukui prefecture ? a rural area where 13 reactors are clustered around a bay. The reactors have undergone stress tests, which are supposed to assess whether they can withstand earthquakes, tsunamis, loss of power or other emergencies, and to suggest changes to improve safety.

The IAEA team was invited by Tokyo to visit the plant in a step seen as an attempt to drum up support for the government's safety campaign.

In a preliminary assessment Tuesday, the team said that Japanese nuclear safety officials' instructions to their operator, Kansai Electric Power Co., and the review process for the tests were "generally consistent" with IAEA safety standards.

However, the team said authorities should clarify the stress tests' goals and better define what constitutes the safety margins within which plants would be able to tolerate disasters. It also said the nuclear safety agency, or NISA, still needs to confirm certain improvements to safety before allowing the facility to resume operation.

Mission leader James Lyons said that the team was "satisfied with the work they had done as part of their primary assessment" but that there was room for improvement.

NISA chief Hiroyuki Fukano welcomed the IAEA review, saying authorities were "encouraged" that stress tests were deemed valid.

Critics, however, say the tests are meaningless because they have no clear criteria, and view the IAEA as biased toward the nuclear industry.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120131/ap_on_bi_ge/as_japan_nuclear

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First Razer Blade Gaming Laptops Sell Out In Just 30 Minutes (video ...

The very first Razer Blade gaming laptops were launched late last week and sold out in just 30 minutes. Razer announced that their new high powered Razer Blade laptop would be going on sale on January 27th at 9PM. But just 30 minutes later all available stock had been purchased.?But don?t worry if you missed out on the first Razer Blade laptops priced at $2,800 each a new batch will be arriving in 2 weeks time.

Min-Liang Tan Razer?s CEO explained via Facebook:

?OMFG. Less than 30 minutes and we sold out of EVERY.SINGLE.ONE. of our first batch of Razer Blades,? Tan posted on his Facebook Wall. ?Our next batch will be in about 2 weeks and we?re making as many as we can. Hang in there. This is *CENSORED* amazing.?

To recap the Razer Blade is equipped with a 17-inch Full HD LED backlit display, Core i7 2640M processor, 8GB of DDR3-1333 memory, 256GB SATA 6Gbps solid state drive, Nvidia GeForce GT 555M graphics chip, and of course its highly touted ?Switchblade User Interface? with 10 dynamic adaptive tactile keys and a dual-mode LCD pad. Watch the video below for an introducetion

Source: Hot Hardware

Source: http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/first-razer-blade-gaming-laptops-sell-out-in-just-30-minutes-30-01-2012/

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Santorum cancels morning events to be with child (The Arizona Republic)

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

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Video: Ex-Yale player on defensive

Former Yale quarterback Patrick Witt finds himself playing defense these days, insisting candidacy for the Rhodes Scholarship was never suspended because of an accusation of sexual assault, as a newspaper claims. NBC?s Anne Thompson reports.

>>> a yale quarterback made headlines last fall when he chose to play in a game against archrival instead of attending an interview for a prestigious rhodes scholarship may not have been faced with that tough choice after all. nbc's anne thompson explains.

>> reporter: he explains his insist tency for it was not suspended. he attracted national attention last year for having to choose in playing in the game against harvard or going to the rhodes interview. friday "the new york times" reported he had no choice, writing that both witt and yale had been told by the rhodes commitny ty his candidacy would not go forward because of the accusati accusation. the times story was based on six annan news sources.

>> i think he's a public figure in the public eye and a misin misimpression was createsed about him. in the statement he said when the rhodes trust asked for a reendorsement patrick had already informed the act let image department officials that he intended to with draw the candida candidacy. the women file and inform nal complaint, never went to the police and no disciplinary action or finding of guilt or innocence was made against witt. he cited federal law and the rhodes trust had no comment because of privacy concern. for today, anne thompson ,

Source: http://video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/46173812/

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Video: Gingrich takes a tumble after debate

Friends, family say goodbye to Etta James

??Etta James was remembered at a service Saturday attended by hundreds of friends, family and fans as a woman who triumphed against all odds to break down cultural and musical barriers in a style that was unfailingly honest.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/46168899#46168899

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US Embassy: US citizen kidnapped in Nigeria freed (AP)

LAGOS, Nigeria ? A U.S. citizen kidnapped by gunmen in Nigeria's oil-rich southern delta has been freed after a week in captivity, the U.S. Embassy said.

U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Deb MacLean told The Associated Press on Friday that the man had been released after being kidnapped in Warri in Delta state on Jan. 20. MacLean declined to offer any other details, citing privacy rules. Delta state police spokesman Charles Muka said he had not been informed about the man's release, as his company refused to cooperate with local authorities.

The freed hostage was identified as William Gregory Ock, 50, of Bowdon, Georgia, by his sister, Dee Dee Patterson.

Patterson told the AP on Friday that the family had no details of his release.

"The only thing we know is that he is safe and he is in a secure location," Patterson said by telephone.

She had no information on when Ock would return home to Georgia.

It was not immediately clear whether a ransom had been paid to secure his release, though many companies working in the region carry kidnap insurance and simply pay a negotiated price to see their employees freed. Kidnappers had made contact with authorities previously and demanded a $333,000 ransom.

The attack Jan. 20 occurred outside a bank branch in Warri, one of the main cities in nation's Niger Delta, a region of mangroves and swamps where foreign oil companies pump 2.4 million barrels of crude oil a day. The gunmen attacked Ock as he came outside, shooting his police escort to death before abducting him, Muka said.

Investigators believe the gunmen trailed him for some time before the attack, Muka said.

Foreign firms have pumped oil out of the delta for more than 50 years. Despite the billions flowing into Nigeria's government, many in the delta remain desperately poor, living in polluted waters without access to proper medical care, education or work.

In 2006, militants started a wave of attacks targeting foreign oil companies, including bombing their pipelines, kidnapping their workers and fighting with security forces. That violence waned in 2009 with a government-sponsored amnesty program promising ex-fighters monthly payments and job training. However, few in the delta have seen the promised benefits and criminal gangs still roam the region, increasingly targeting middle-class Nigerians.

In 2011, there were five reported kidnappings of U.S. citizens in Nigeria, according to a recent U.S. State Department travel warning about the country. The most recent occurred in November when two U.S. citizens and a Mexican were kidnapped from a Chevron Corp. offshore oil field and held for about two weeks, the State Department said.

A German working in the city of Kano in north Nigeria was abducted Thursday by unknown gunmen, authorities have said.

___

Associated Press writer Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, contributed to this report.

___

Jon Gambrell can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120128/ap_on_bi_ge/af_nigeria_oil_unrest

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Video: Future of the Post Office

Bill payment online has dropped our volume by 50 percent over the last ten years and the economic situation has affected direct mail as well, says Patrick Donahoe, U.S. Postal Service postmaster general/CEO. Donahue says the Postal Service has a busine...

Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/cnbc/46162256/

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Judge: BP contract shielded Transocean in spill (AP)

NEW ORLEANS ? The rig owner involved in drilling the ill-fated well that blew out in the Gulf of Mexico and spewed more than 200 million gallons of oil will not have to pay many of the pollution claims because it was shielded in a contract with well-owner BP, a federal judge ruled on Thursday.

The decision may have spared the driller from having to pay potentially billions of dollars. However, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier said that Transocean still is not exempt from paying punitive damages and civil penalties that arise from the April 20, 2010, blowout 100 miles off the Louisiana coast.

The ruling comes as BP, the states affected by the disaster and the federal government are discussing a settlement over the nation's largest offshore oil spill. The Justice Department is working with the states to create an outline for a settlement that would resolve their potentially multibillion dollar claims against BP and the other companies involved in the disaster, Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange told The Associated Press.

Justice led a meeting last week in Washington among the states in an effort to formulate an agreement that would satisfy government and state claims, including penalties and fines, Strange said. He also indicated if there is a settlement that officials are discussing what to do with the $20 billion fund set up by BP to pay victims.

A first phase of the trial is set for Feb. 27 to determine liability for the spill.

Despite the setback, BP claimed victory and said Barbier's ruling "at a minimum" left Transocean facing "punitive damages, fines and penalties flowing from its own conduct."

Blaine LeCesne, an associate professor at Loyola University law school, however, said Barbier's ruling was a "major victory" for Transocean.

"If anything is going to compel the parties toward settlement, it's going to be this," he said. "I think BP is in a very bad position now, and they don't have a lot of leverage."

BP PLC, Transocean Ltd. and Halliburton Co. have been sparring over who was at fault for causing the blowout. The out-of-control well was capped in July, 2010. Federal investigators have said that BP bears ultimate responsibility for the spill, but has faulted all three companies to some degree.

Under a drilling contract, BP and Transocean agreed to indemnify each other in the case of an accident, with BP taking responsibility for pollution originating from the well and Transocean for any pollution or accidents aboard the rig.

However, in court BP argued that the contract did not shield Transocean if the drilling company acted in manner that was grossly negligent.

Barbier, though, largely sided with Transocean and said the contract was a "clear and unequivocal agreement" to provide "broad indemnity."

"As we have said from the beginning, Transocean cannot avoid its responsibility for this accident," BP said.

The British oil giant said it had "stepped up" and admitted its role in the spill and paid billions of dollars in claims.

___

Associated Press writer Michael Kunzelman contributed to this reported. Weber reported from Atlanta.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/environment/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120126/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill_litigation

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APNewsBreak: Bachmann says she'll seek 4th term (AP)

MINNEAPOLIS ? Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann announced Wednesday she will seek a fourth term in the U.S. House following her failed presidential bid.

Bachmann declared her plans in an interview with The Associated Press. The Republican congresswoman had been mum on her plans since folding her presidential campaign after a poor showing in the Iowa caucuses earlier this month.

"I'm looking forward to coming back and bringing a strong, powerful voice to Washington, D.C.," Bachmann said.

Bachmann will be a formidable candidate in Minnesota's 6th District, where other Republican hopefuls had stood aside until she made a decision on running for re-election. Some experts had speculated that Bachmann might instead turn to a career in talk media.

Bachmann is a potent fundraiser who raised $13.5 million in her last House race, but would likely start from scratch after the presidential campaign. A campaign finance report that would show how much money she can bring to the race isn't due until the end of the month.

Bachmann also faces uncertainty over how her district will be reshaped. One redistricting plan put forth by Democrats would throw her into a race with Rep. Betty McCollum, a six-term Democrat who represents the St. Paul area. A special redistricting panel is due to issue maps late next month.

Bachmann was an early media favorite in the chase for the GOP presidential nomination after winning the Iowa straw poll in midsummer, but she eventually faded.

Her announcement came in an interview to react to President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech. Just as she did on the campaign trail, Bachmann criticized Obama for "doubling down on failures that didn't work."

"We have to radically scale back on government spending, we have to radically cut back on debt accumulation," Bachmann said.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120125/ap_on_el_ho/us_bachmann_house

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Romney tax returns indicate that he underpaid Mormon church tithe (Daily Caller)

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney underpaid the Mormon church?s recommended 10 percent tithe, tax records released Monday evening indicate.

Romney has forcefully spoken about his lifelong commitment to both the Mormon church and its tithing rules. He served as a missionary in France during the 1960s and as a Mormon bishop in the 1980s.

As Romney recently told ?Fox News Sunday? host Chris Wallace, ?I made a commitment to my church a long, long time ago that I would give 10 percent of my income to the church, and I?ve followed through on that commitment.?

?So, if I had given less than 10 percent, then I think people would have to look at me and say, ?Hey, what?s wrong with you fella ? don?t you follow through on your promises??? Romney said.

Romney earned $21.6 million in 2010 and $20.9 million in 2011, the two years for which tax records were provided.

In 2010 Romney donated 7 percent of his pre-tax income, or $1.525 million, to the church, and in 2011 he donated 12.4 percent, or $2.6 million. For the two years combined, he donated 9.7 percent of his pre-tax income to the church.

Unlike most religious organizations, which strongly encourage tithing, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints requires members to give 10 percent to be ?in good standing.? (RELATED: Full coverage of Mitt Romney)

Good standing is required to enter Mormon temples or serve in a leadership position, a church leader explained to The Daily Caller. Verification of the tithing requirement is informal, and relies on an honor system.

In a December interview with Parade Magazine, Romney also mentioned his tithing, saying, ?I?ve given away 10 percent of what I?ve earned, pretax.?

Romney?s charitable trust, the Tyler Charitable Foundation, has also given money to the Mormon church. In 2010, the foundation gave $145,000. A figure for 2011 is not yet available.

A member of the Romney campaign tasked with answering inquiries about the tax returns initially insisted that the Tyler Foundation?s donations to the church made up for the 2010 deficit and satisfied the tithing requirement.

?Your math is off,? the campaign staffer told TheDC.

If the foundation?s giving was included as part of Romney?s tithing, however, income earned by the foundation ? according to 2010 tax returns, a net investment income of around $1.7 million that year ? would negate a positive impact on Romney?s tithing rate that year.

When pressed, the campaign staffer then asserted that Romney?s tax preparers initially underestimated his 2010 income, resulting in a lower contribution to the church, which he made up for with a higher giving rate in 2011. But even with his extra 2011 contribution, Romney still tithed less than 10 percent of his income over the two-year period.

?Mitt and Ann Romney have contributed significant sums to their church and countless other worthy causes,? the Romney campaign said in a statement provided to TheDC. ?The Governor tithes on all his income,? added Romney spokesperson Andrew Saul.

According to a campaign staffer, the Romneys ?have contributed significant sums to their church and have more than met their obligations.?

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Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/dailycaller/20120124/pl_dailycaller/romneytaxreturnsindicatethatheunderpaidmormonchurchtithe

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Study: Stem cells may aid vision in blind people

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Two legally blind women appeared to gain some vision after receiving an experimental treatment using embryonic stem cells, scientists reported Monday.

While embryonic stem cells were first isolated more than a decade ago, most of the research has been done in lab animals. The new results come from the first tests in humans for a vision problem. Researchers caution the work is still very preliminary.

"This study provides reason for encouragement, but plans to now get such a treatment would be premature," said stem cell expert Paul Knoepfler of the University of California, Davis, who had no role in the research.

Last summer, each patient was injected in one eye with cells derived from embryonic stem cells at the University of California, Los Angeles. One patient had the "dry" form of age-related macular degeneration, the most common cause of blindness. The other had a rare disorder known as Stargardt disease that causes serious vision loss. There's no cure for either eye problem.

After four months, both showed some improvement in reading progressively smaller letters on an eye chart. The Stargardt patient, a graphic artist in Los Angeles, went from seeing no letters at all to being able to read five of the largest letters.

However, experts said the improvement of the macular degeneration patient might be mostly psychological, because the vision in her untreated eye appeared to get better too.

Both patients remain legally blind despite their improvements, said experts not connected with the study.

"One must be very careful not to overinterpret the visual benefit," said Vanderbilt University retina specialist Dr. Paul Sternberg, who is also the president-elect of the American Academy of Ophthalmology.

The findings were published online Monday by the journal Lancet. This early test was meant to study whether the stem cell therapy was safe in people and not whether it would improve vision.

Scientists at UCLA and Advanced Cell Technology, which funded the work, said they were pleased that there have been no signs of rejection or abnormal growth months after the procedure.

Embryonic stem cells can transform into any cell of the body. Scientists are hoping to harness embryonic stem cells to create a variety of replacement tissues for transplant, but their use has been controversial because human embryos have to be destroyed to harvest the cells.

The latest news comes two months after Geron Corp. halted its stem cell-based experiment for spinal cord injuries, saying it planned to focus instead on two experimental cancer drugs.

Meanwhile, ACT is pushing ahead with its blindness study. The company said Monday that surgeons in London injected a patient with Stargardt disease last week.

___

Online:

Lancet: http://www.thelancet.com/journals

___

Follow Alicia Chang's coverage at http://www.twitter.com/SciWriAlicia

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/bbd825583c8542898e6fa7d440b9febc/Article_2012-01-23-US-MED-Stem-Cells-Blindness/id-ee1d128bc39c4f67870f8bb28fb46ffd

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Ancient Jewish scrolls found in north Afghanistan (Reuters)

KABUL (Reuters) ? A cache of ancient Jewish scrolls from northern Afghanistan that has only recently come to light is creating a storm among scholars who say the landmark find could reveal an undiscovered side of medieval Jewry.

The 150 or so documents, dated from the 11th century, were found in Afghanistan's Samangan province and most likely smuggled out -- a sorry but common fate for the impoverished and war-torn country's antiquities.

Israeli emeritus professor Shaul Shaked, who has examined some of the poems, commercial records and judicial agreements that make up the treasure, said while the existence of ancient Afghan Jewry is known, their culture was still a mystery.

"Here, for the first time, we see evidence and we can actually study the writings of this Jewish community. It's very exciting," Shaked told Reuters by telephone from Israel, where he teaches at the Comparative Religion and Iranian Studies department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The hoard is currently being kept by private antique dealers in London, who have been producing a trickle of new documents over the past two years, which is when Shaked believes they were found and pirated out of Afghanistan in a clandestine operation.

It is likely they belonged to Jewish merchants on the Silk Road running across Central Asia, said T. Michael Law, a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at Oxford University's Center for Hebrew and Jewish Studies.

"They might have been left there by merchants travelling along the way, but they could also come from another nearby area and deposited for a reason we do not yet understand," Law said.

"SOLD ELSEWHERE FOR TEN TIMES MORE"

Cultural authorities in Kabul had mixed reactions to the find, which scholars say is without a doubt from Afghanistan, arguing that the Judeo-Persian language used on the scrolls is similar to other Afghan Jewish manuscripts.

National Archives director Sakhi Muneer outright denied the find was Afghan, arguing that he would have seen it, but an advisor in the Culture Ministry said it "cannot be confirmed but it is entirely possible."

"A lot of old documents and sculptures are not brought to us but are sold elsewhere for ten times the price," said advisor Jalal Norani, explaining that excavators and ordinary people who stumble across finds sell them to middlemen who then auction them off in Iran, Pakistan and Europe.

"Unfortunately, we cannot stop this," Norani said. The Culture Ministry, he said, pays on average $1,500 for a recovered antique item. The Hebrew University's Shaked estimated the Jewish documents' worth at several million dollars.

Thirty years of war and conflict have severely hindered both the collecting and preserving of Afghanistan's antiquities, and the Culture Ministry said endemic corruption and poverty meant many new discoveries do not even reach them.

Interpol and U.S. officials have also traced looted Afghan antiquities to funding insurgent activities.

In today's climate of uncertainty, the National Archives in Kabul keep the bulk of its enormous collection of documents -- some dating to the fifth century -- under lock and key to prevent stealing.

Instead reproductions of gold-framed Pashto poems and early Korans scribed on deer skin, or vellum, are displayed for the public under the ornate ceilings of the Archives, which were the nineteenth century offices of Afghan King Habibullah Khan.

"I am sure Afghanistan, like any country, would like to control their antiquities... But on the other hand, with this kind of interest and importance, as a scholar I can't say that I would avoid studying them," said Shaked of the Jewish find.

(Additional reporting by Mirwais Harooni; Editing by Rob Taylor and Sanjeev Miglani)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/religion/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120123/lf_nm_life/us_afghanistan_jewish_scrolls

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DSK's long-silent wife launches Le Huffington Post

Editorial director of the French version of the Huffington Post's news website Anne Sinclair, right, and co-founder of "the Huffington Post" Arianna Huffington, left, chat as they give a press conference for the launch of the website, in Paris, Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

Editorial director of the French version of the Huffington Post's news website Anne Sinclair, right, and co-founder of "the Huffington Post" Arianna Huffington, left, chat as they give a press conference for the launch of the website, in Paris, Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

Editorial director of the French version of the Huffington Post's news website Anne Sinclair gives a press conference for the launch of the website, in Paris, Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

Co-founder of the news website "The Huffington Post", Arianna Huffington smiles as she gives a press conference for the launch of the French version of the website, in Paris, Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

Editorial director of the French version of the Huffington Post's news website Anne Sinclair, right, and co-founder of "The Huffington Post" Arianna Huffington, right, give a press conference for the launch of the website, in Paris, Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

PARIS (AP) ? Anne Sinclair, once a noted TV journalist, then the stoic, silent wife in the sex assault scandal that forced Dominique Strauss-Kahn to end his job as IMF chief, has returned to the spotlight to launch The Huffington Post ? made in France.

After eight months of seclusion, Sinclair faced a packed news conference Monday with Arianna Huffington, founder of the news and opinion Web site. But she divulged no secrets.

Sinclair is the editorial director of the startup, the Huffington Post's first foreign-language venture. Huffington says more are to come, in Spanish, Italian and Greek.

The 63-year-old Sinclair promises no conflict of interest, even if the news is about her husband. She says her private and professional lives have always been separated.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-01-23-EU-France-Strauss-Kahn's-Wife/id-ec5ec5c7e7f7485298acd564ee5d1d3e

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iPhone 4, iPad 2 jailbreak by the numbers

The iPhone Dev Team has shared some numbers on the Absinthe jailbreak for iPhone 4S and iPad. These are the downloads over the last 3 days.

491,325 new iPhone

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/JMbP7vI0Ytc/story01.htm

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Hibbert leads Pacers past Lakers, 98-96 (AP)

LOS ANGELES ? Roy Hibbert scored eight of his 18 points in the fourth quarter playing with a broken nose, and five of his teammates also scored in double figures to help the Indiana Pacers beat the Los Angeles Lakers 98-96 on Sunday night.

Kobe Bryant scored 33 points for the Lakers, but missed what would have been a tying 3-pointer from 30 feet from the top of the key with 3.5 seconds to play and the Pacers clinched it at the free throw line.

The Pacers (11-5) are off to their best start since 2003-04, when they won 14 of their first 16, finished the regular season 61-21 and came within two wins of getting to the NBA finals.

The Lakers, coming off road losses to Miami and Orlando, failed to reach 100 points for the 11th straight game ? their longest streak since a 12-game stretch in 2003-04.

Hibbert, the Pacers' second-leading scorer, left the court with the broken nose after fouling Bryant with 6:46 left in the first quarter. Tyler Hansbrough replaced Hibbert and missed all five shots during Hibbert's brief absence, but grabbed seven rebounds.

Hibbert reported back in with 5:12 left in the second quarter after a trainer stuffed cotton up his nose, but he had difficulty keeping it in at times. He also had eight rebounds in 27 minutes.

Bryant beat the third-quarter buzzer with a 16-footer from the right of the key to give the Lakers a 78-77 lead, and former Pacers forward Troy Murphy got his first points of the game on a 3 that made it 82-77.

Hibbert, more than willing to get his nose dirty, scored six consecutive points in the paint to cut the margin to one with 6:15 left, and former UCLA guard Darren Collison's 3-pointer tied it at 86 with 5:32 left.

West ended the first half with a buzzer-beating 3-pointer from the top of the key, capping a 15-6 run and slicing the Lakers' 13-point lead to three at 52-49. He finished the half with 15 points, helping offset 17 by Bryant. Danny Granger's 3-pointer 1:37 into the third quarter gave Indiana a 55-54 lead, its first since Paul George's game-opening dunk.

Notes: The National Anthem was sung by Kareem Rush, whose seven-year NBA career included stints with the Lakers and Pacers. ... Bryant is 180 points away from overtaking Shaquille O'Neal (28,596) for fifth place on the career scoring list. The two-time NBA scoring champ also is 20 field goals shy of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's Lakers career record of 9,935 and needs to make 11 more free throws to eclipse Jerry West's Lakers career record of 7,160. ... Pacers associate coach Brian Shaw, who won three NBA championship rings playing for the Lakers and two more as an assistant coach under Phil Jackson, made his first trip to Staples Center since leaving Los Angeles. He and most of the Lakers players ? particularly Bryant ? were hoping he'd be hired to replace Jackson as head coach instead of Mike Brown, and Shaw was upset that he had to learn about Brown's hiring from media reports instead of from general manager Mitch Kupchak. ... The last time the Pacers faced the Lakers at Staples Center, they won 95-92 to snap a 14-game road losing streak against them ? including three losses in the 2000 NBA finals. ... The Lakers have a rematch with the Clippers on Wednesday night, trying to even the season series after a 102-94 loss Jan. 14. ... Lakers F Josh McRoberts, who spent the previous three seasons with the Pacers, played 20 scoreless minutes and took two shots in his first game against them.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/sports/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120123/ap_on_sp_bk_ga_su/bkn_pacers_lakers

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Saudis quit Arab monitoring mission in Syria

CAIRO?? Arab foreign ministers agreed Sunday on a new political roadmap for Syria that sees President Bashar Assad delegating power to a deputy and setting up a unity government as a prelude to early parliamentary and presidential elections.

Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani told a news conference after a meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo that the Arab League would take its initiative to the U.N. Security Council and ask for its endorsement.

Earlier Sunday, the ministers extended a much-criticized monitoring mission to Syria for a month, but Saudi Arabia said it was withdrawing its observers.

"My country will withdraw its monitors because the Syrian government did not execute any of the elements of the Arab resolution plan," Prince Saud al-Faisal told fellow Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo.

"We are calling on the international community to bear its responsibility, and that includes our brothers in Islamic states and our friends in Russia, China, Europe and the United States," Saud said, calling for "all possible pressure" to push Syria to adhere to the Arab peace plan.

Saudi Arabia has been one of the harshest Arab critics of the crackdown, It recalled its ambassador from Damascus last year in protest.

Also Sunday, Syrian forces and army defectors clashed in a suburb of the tightly held capital of Damascus ? a sign that citizen protests against President Bashar Assad might turn into civil war.

The observer mission is supposed to be the first step toward implementing an Arab League plan to end the Syria crisis. Other points are pulling heavy Syrian weapons out of cities, stopping attacks on protesters, opening talks with the opposition and allowing foreign human rights workers and journalists in.

"There is partial progress in the implementation of the promises," Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby said in Cairo about Syria's implementation of the plan. Syria "did not carry out all its promises, although there are some implementation of pledges."

He added that the use of "extreme force" by Syrian forces have led to a reaction by the opposition "in what could lead to civil war."

So far the observer mission has not gone well. Though some credit it with tamping down violence in some places, the Local Coordination Committees activist group said Sunday that 976 people, including 54 children and 28 women, have been killed since the observers began their mission last month.

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The U.N. estimates some 5,400 have been killed since it began in March.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch called on the Arab League to "maximize" the effectiveness of the mission of the observers in Syria "to stop the killings."

"The deployment of the observers, has been disappointing ... Assad played games with observers," by moving around forces instead of removing them from cities, while the killing continues, Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

The Arab League faced three options Sunday: ending the mission and giving up its initiative, extending it, or turning the crisis over to the U.N. Security Council, as some opposition groups have urged. There, however, it would face a possible stalemate because of disagreements among permanent members over how far to go in forcing Assad's hand.

Story: Rights group: West hasn't embraced Arab Spring

The mission's one-month mandate technically expired on Thursday.

The pullout of Assad's security forces from the Damascus suburb of Douma marked the second time in a week that troops have redeployed from an area near the tightly-controlled Syrian capital, an indication that Assad might be losing some control.

Diplomacy has taken on urgency as opponents of Assad's regime and soldiers who switched sides increasingly take up arms and fight back against government forces.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights' head Rami Abdul-Rahman said government troops had pulled back early Sunday to a provincial headquarters and a security agency building in the Damascus suburb of Douma after hours of clashes, although they still controlled the entrances. The clashes broke out after Syrian troops opened fire at a funeral on Saturday.

On Sunday afternoon, the battles resumed between the defectors and troops loyal to Assad, according to the Observatory and the Local Coordination Committees, another activist group. The LCC said that heavy machine gun fire was used in the clashes, and five people were killed.

Abdul-Rahman had no information on casualties from the clashes but said security forces at an entrance checkpoint shot dead one man who was passing by on Sunday. He added that one person was shot dead in a nearby town of Rankous as well as another person in the northwestern province of Idlib.

The LCC said 12 people were killed in Syria Sunday. The LCC and the Observatory reported intense gunfire in the central city of Homs that left at least one person dead.

State-run news agency SANA said gunmen opened fire at the car of an army brigadier general, killing him and another army officers who was in the vehicle.

Syria-based activist Mustafa Osso confirmed that security forces had abandoned Douma.

A video posted by activists on social media showed five masked gunmen, one of them in uniform, who read a statement saying, "the city of Douma has been liberated from Assad's gangs." He warned Syrian troops not to try enter Douma or defectors would "fire rockets at the presidential palace" in Damascus and execute five prisoners they are holding.

The Associated Press could not verify the authenticity of the video.

Also Sunday, state-run SANA, said an estimated 5,255 Syrian prisoners have been released over the past week under an amnesty, raising the total freed since November to more than 9,000. Opposition groups say thousands are still being held.

The U.S. has imposed sanctions on Syria as the bloodshed escalates. The U.S. has long called for Assad to step down, and officials say his regime's demise is inevitable.

Two U.S. Senators plan to introduce a bill to stiffen the sanctions.

The bill, sponsored by Democratic Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York would require President Barack Obama to identify violators of human rights in Syria, call for reform and offer protection to pro-democracy demonstrators. It would also block financial aid and property transactions in the United States involving Syrian leaders involved in the crackdown.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46091558/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/

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Delay for space station's 1st private cargo run (AP)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. ? The first commercial cargo run to the International Space Station is off until spring.

SpaceX planned to launch its unmanned supply ship from Cape Canaveral on Feb. 7. But the company said more testing was needed with the spacecraft, named Dragon. And on Friday, officials confirmed the launch would not occur until late March.

Space station commander Daniel Burbank said as much as he'd like to take part in the historic event, it's important that SpaceX fly when it's ready. Burbank will return to Earth in mid-March.

"If that's not to be during our mission, then that's OK," Burbank said in an interview Friday with The Associated Press. "We've got plenty of other things to occupy us ... but they'll fly when they're ready and they'll fly when they need to."

Just over a year ago, the California-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp. launched a test version of the capsule, becoming the first private business to send a spacecraft into orbit and return it safely. NASA is counting on companies like SpaceX to keep the station stocked, now that the shuttles are retired.

Until then, the Russian, European and Japanese space agencies ? all government entities ? are picking up the slack as best they can, sending up regular shipments to the orbiting outpost.

SpaceX spokeswoman Kirstin Grantham pointed out that this is a developmental program for her company, and everyone wants it to be a complete success.

"It may take a little more time, but when it happens, it's going to be amazing," she said.

This first Dragon capsule to visit the space station will carry several hundred pounds of astronaut provisions ? nothing crucial, in case of a failure.

Astronauts aboard the space station will use a huge robot arm to grab and berth the Dragon.

"This will be one step in the long road to human expansion off of the planet into low-Earth orbit and beyond," space station astronaut Donald Pettit said Friday. He is barely one month into a five-month mission.

The beauty of the Dragon is that it will be able to return scientific samples to Earth, Burbank noted. None of the other countries' supply ships can do that; they burn up on re-entry.

Americans Burbank and Pettit, three Russians and a Dutchman make up the six-man crew.

NASA closed out its 30-year shuttle program last July.

"There have been some impacts ... the shuttle did all the heavy lifting" for space station, Burbank said. There's excess equipment and trash on board, especially given the loss of a Russian supply ship in a launch accident last year. Those cargo carriers are filled with garbage before being jettisoned.

"I think we're getting by OK," Burbank said, "but we need to have as much up-mass and down-mass capability as we can to support space station operations at the level we need it."

SpaceX ? run by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk ? is one of several companies vying for space station visiting privileges. Its long-term goal is to modify its Falcon rocket and Dragon capsule to ferry astronauts to the station.

In the meantime, Americans are buying seats on Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

___

Online:

NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

SpaceX: http://www.spacex.com/

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120120/ap_on_sc/us_sci_test_rocket

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Gingrich gets Perry nod, faces ex-wife allegations (AP)

BEAUFORT, S.C. ? In an up-and-down kind of campaign day, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich picked up an endorsement Thursday from former rival Rick Perry but also faced new accusations from one of his former wives that he had asked her permission to have an "open marriage" after she learned he was having an affair.

The former House speaker also prepared to release his 2010 income tax returns, certain to bring fresh scrutiny to his campaign.

Two days before the pivotal South Carolina primary, Gingrich's political and private life were clashing just as new polls showed him rising as he looks to overtake GOP front-runner Mitt Romney in the third state to weigh in on the presidential race. Gingrich has seen his crowds grow in recent days after a strong performance in a debate Monday.

With the second debate of the week looming Thursday night, it was unclear how the new revelations from Marianne Gingrich would play in a state where religious and socially conservative voters hold sway.

Equally uncertain was whether Gingrich would get a boost from Perry's endorsement, given that the Texas governor had little support in the state, and get conservative voters to coalesce behind his candidacy. Complicating Gingrich's effort is another conservative, Rick Santorum, who threatens to siphon his support.

"Newt is not perfect but who among us is," Perry said as he bowed out of the race and called Gingrich a "conservative visionary."

It was all but certainly intended to counter the interview with Marianne Gingrich, her first on television since the divorce from Gingrich in 2000, that ABC News was set to broadcast Thursday night.

In excerpts the network released before the broadcast, Marianne Gingrich said that when she learned of Gingrich's affair with Callista Bisek, a congressional staffer, he asked his wife to share him.

"And I just stared at him and he said, `Callista doesn't care what I do,'" Gingrich' second wife said. "He wanted an open marriage and I refused."

Gingrich brushed aside reporters' questions after a campaign event along the waterfront in Beaufort, S.C. on Thursday.

"Look, I'm not going to say anything about Marianne. My two daughters have already written to ABC complaining about this as tawdry and inappropriate," he said.

Gingrich has said in the past that tough questions are fair game for a candidate running for president. But on Thursday he referred all queries about his second marriage to his two daughters from his first marriage.

"I'm not getting involved," he said.

The television interview with Marianne Gingrich threw a wild card into the race in its final hours.

Its mere existence shines a spotlight on a part of Gingrich's past that could turn off Republican voters in a state filled with religious and cultural conservatives who may cringe at his two divorces and acknowledged marital infidelities.

Marianne Gingrich has said Gingrich proposed to her before the divorce from his first wife was final in 1981; they were married six months later. Her marriage to Gingrich ended in divorce in 2000, and Gingrich has admitted he'd already taken up with Callista Bisek, a former congressional aide who would become his third wife. The speaker who pilloried President Bill Clinton for his affair with Monica Lewinsky was himself having an affair at the time.

Underscoring the potential threat to his rise, Gingrich's campaign released a statement from his two daughters from his first marriage ? Kathy Lubbers and Jackie Cushman ? suggesting that Marianne Gingrich's comments may be suspect given the emotional toll divorce takes on everyone involved.

"Anyone who has had that experience understands it is a personal tragedy filled with regrets and sometimes differing memories of events," their statement said.

A CNN/Time South Carolina poll released Wednesday showed Gingrich in second place with support from 23 percent of likely primary voters, having gained 5 percentage points in the past two weeks. Romney led in the poll with 33 percent, but he had slipped some since the last survey. Santorum was third, narrowly ahead of Texas Rep. Ron Paul and well ahead of Perry.

Regardless of the South Carolina outcome, Gingrich was making plans to compete in Florida's primary on Jan. 31.

Confidence exuded from Gingrich, who rose in Iowa only to be knocked off course after sustaining $3 million in attack ads in Iowa from an outside group that supports Romney. Gingrich posted dismal showings in both Iowa and New Hampshire.

By the time the race turned to South Carolina, he was sharply criticizing Romney as a social moderate who is timid about attacking the nation's economic troubles. He also raised questions about Romney's experience as a venture capitalist, while a super PAC that supports Gingrich aggressively attacked Romney as a vicious corporate raider. Gingrich also ripped Romney for standing by as a super PAC run by former top Romney political aides continued to attack him in South Carolina.

Romney ended up on the defensive and by Monday night's debate, Gingrich was back in command. He earned a standing ovation when he labeled Democratic President Barack Obama "the best food stamp president in American history." The clip became the centerpiece of a television ad that began airing Wednesday as Gingrich worked to cast himself as the Republican with the best chance of beating Obama in the fall, stealing a page from Romney's playbook.

Said Gingrich senior adviser David Winston: "His taking on Barack Obama showed a toughness and an electability that the electorate is looking for."

Since then, Romney's campaign, sensing Gingrich's rise and working to deflect from its own troubles, has been trying to undercut Gingrich's claim that he helped President Ronald Reagan create millions of jobs in the 1980s, likening it to "Al Gore taking credit for the Internet."

Romney also dispatched supporters to make the case that Gingrich is erratic and unreliable. A new Romney Web video features former Republican Rep. Susan Molinari of New York saying Gingrich lacked discipline and labeling his time as speaker "leadership by chaos."

Gingrich, for his part, has been helped by the fact that Santorum has seemed unable to capitalize on the endorsement of a group of influential Christian conservatives. Those who aren't backing the former Pennsylvania senator seem to be coming Gingrich's way.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120119/ap_on_el_pr/us_gingrich

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APNewsBreak: Atlanta to repay $363K for cheating (AP)

ATLANTA ? Officials say the school district in Atlanta has agreed to repay more than $363,000 in federal money the district won by teachers and administrators cheating.

State schools Superintendent John Barge told The Associated Press on Friday that the district has 90 days to return the money.

A state investigation in July revealed widespread cheating by educators in nearly half of the Atlanta's 100 schools dating back to 2001. In all, nearly 180 teachers and principals were accused of giving answers to students or changing answers once the tests had been completed.

Schools serving low-income students that consistently get good test scores receive extra money from the U.S. Department of Education each year. That money can be spent wherever the schools need it most.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/education/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120120/ap_on_re_us/us_atlanta_schools_cheating

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Irish trade surplus hits new high as exports surge (AP)

DUBLIN ? Ireland's trade surplus has hit a record monthly high on the back of unexpectedly strong exports, the government said Wednesday as it expressed hope of rebounding from its debt crisis.

The Central Statistics Office said Ireland's seasonally adjusted trade surplus exceeded euro4.3 billion ($5.5 billion) in November, up 12.5 percent from a year ago and 15.7 percent from October. It's also 3.3 percent higher than the previous record high reached in September.

Exports in November rose to euro8 billion, up 9 percent from a year ago and 5 percent from the month before, confounding economists' consensus of little to no month-on-month growth.

Imports remained weak at euro3.7 billion, reflecting Ireland's nervous and recessionary domestic economy. The figure was 5 percent higher than a year ago but 6 percent lower than October.

Ireland's government has imposed four straight austerity budgets in a bid to rein in deficit spending that, thanks to a massive bank-bailout program, reached a modern European record of 32 percent of GDP in 2010. Overwhelming bank-rescue costs forced the Irish in November 2010 to negotiate a euro67.5 billion ($87 billion) credit line with the European Union and International Monetary Fund.

With the domestic economy reeling from spending cuts and higher taxes, the government is counting on strong export growth to pull Ireland out of the depths of its debt crisis.

"A strong export performance will be crucial to achieving the economic and jobs recovery we are all working so hard for," said Richard Bruton, Ireland's minister for jobs, enterprise and innovation.

Bruton said economists had expected Irish exports to suffer because of the weakening global economy. "Today's results, and the great resilience which our exports are showing in difficult circumstances, are encouraging," he said.

Alan McQuaid, chief economist at Bloxham Stockbrokers in Dublin, forecast that Ireland's full-year trade surplus would reach a record euro45 billion ($57.5 billion), 3.7 percent higher than last year's record performance.

"Despite the slowdown in the global economy, it is clear that Ireland has a very healthy and dynamic export model and (is) in a much better position than other eurozone peripheral debt countries to move forward once world growth picks up again," McQuaid said.

Ireland, a country of 4.5 million, runs the second-strongest trade surplus in the EU behind export powerhouse Germany. Nearly 1,000 foreign multinationals have made Ireland their EU base because of its 12.5 percent rate of corporate tax, less than half the western European average. The Irish have rebuffed French and German pressure to raise their rate.

EU, IMF and European Central Bank officials have been in Dublin for the past nine days assessing whether Ireland is meeting the terms of its international bailout. The troika officials are expected to praise Ireland's deficit-fighting and bank-reform efforts at a press conference Thursday.

___

Online:

Ireland's external trade, http://bit.ly/wx1Wha

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/eurobiz/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120118/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_ireland_financial_crisis

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Exclusive: Senior al Qaeda figure killed in drone strike (Reuters)

WASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD Jan 19 (Reuters) ? A militant who acted as a senior operations organizer for al Qaeda was targeted and killed in one of two U.S. drone strikes launched against targets inside Pakistan last week, a U.S. official said.

U.S. and Pakistani sources told Reuters that the target of the attack was Aslam Awan, a Pakistani national from Abbottabad, the same town where Osama bin Laden was killed last May by a U.S. commando team. They said he was targeted in a strike by a U.S.-operated drone on January 10 directed at what news reports said was a compound near the town of Miranshah in the border province of North Waziristan.

That strike broke an undeclared eight-week hiatus in attacks by the armed, unmanned drones that patrol Pakistan's tribal areas and are a key weapon in U.S. President Barack Obama's counter-terrorism strategy.

The sources described Awan, who also was known by the nom-de-guerre Abdullah Khorasani, as a significant figure in the remaining core leadership of al Qaeda, which U.S. officials say has been sharply reduced by the drone campaign. Most of the drone attacks are conducted as part of a clandestine CIA operation.

Pakistani officials could not confirm that Awan was killed in the drone attack, but the U.S. official said he was.

One of the sources described Awan as an associate of al Qaeda's current chief of external operations, whose identity is known to intelligence officials but not to the general public.

"Aslam Awan was a senior al-Qaeda external operations planner who was working on attacks against the West. His death reduces al-Qaeda's thinning bench of another operative devoted to plotting the death of innocent civilians," a U.S. official said.

Several previous alleged chiefs of external operations for al Qaeda have been caught or killed in drone attacks or counter-terrorism operations, the most notorious being Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington D.C. Mohammed was captured and is being held by U.S. authorities in the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba detention facility.

Because their role in arranging operations involves interacting with militants in the field, external operations chiefs of al Qaeda have found themselves more vulnerable to exposure and counter-attacks by security forces than the movement's most senior leaders, who until bin Laden's demise last year appeared to be able to move about the region and issue provocative audio and video messages with near-impunity.

A Pakistani security source based in the country's border region said that Awan was the remaining member of an al Qaeda cell Pakistani authorities have been trying to roll up since 2008.

"We thought he was very close to Ayman al-Zawahiri," the source said, referring to al Qaeda's current leader and bin Laden's long-time deputy, a former Egyptian doctor.

However, a U.S. source said that American experts did not believe that Awan was particularly close to al-Zawahiri.

The drone strike that targeted Awan was one of two such attacks last week, in what U.S. sources indicated was a resumption of the U.S. drone campaign following the eight-week pause. In the other drone strike, also in North Waziristan, a group of "foreign fighters" sympathetic to the Taliban and al Qaeda, some of Uzbek ethnicity, were targeted on January 12.

MILITANTS HIT NEAR BORDER

The targeted militants were believed to be travelling, possibly in preparation for an operation near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, and some were injured or killed in the attack, the U.S. source said.

U.S. officials said they could not confirm news reports, based on claims from Pakistani sources, that Hakimullah Mehsud, leader of the TTP, Pakistan's most potent domestic affiliate of the Taliban movement, was also killed in the June 12 attack. Pakistani and U.S. sources said that Mehsud was not targeted in the drone strike, and one Pakistani source said: "He is alive. Hakimullah is alive."

U.S. officials insisted that the drone strike lull did not represent an official moratorium on such operations by the Obama administration. The officials maintained that any fall-off in the pace of such operations was related to the availability of intelligence and operating conditions, such as weather.

However, some officials did privately acknowledge that the drone lull was at least in part calculated to try to improve strained relations between Washington and Islamabad, which had been on a downswing for much of last year in the wake of Pakistan's detention of a CIA operative and the secret U.S. commando raid on bin Laden's Pakistani hideout.

Relations plummeted to a new low following a late November incident in which 24 Pakistani troops were killed accidentally in a NATO aerial attack on border outposts.

Some U.S. and Pakistani officials say that both governments are making efforts to improve relations. As part of this process, a U.S. official said, it is possible that some permanent tweaks could be made in the U.S. drone program which could slow the pace of attacks.

(Reporting By Mark Hosenball in Washington and Christopher Allbritton in Islamabad; Editing by Eric Walsh)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120119/wl_nm/us_usa_pakistan_drones

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Lohan's progress report: It's all good!

Reed Saxon / AP

Lindsay Lohan arrives at Los Angeles Superior Court for a probation progress hearing Tuesday, Jan. 17.

By Denise Hazlick

Lindsay Lohan's scheduled?progress report?in front of Judge Stephanie Sautner was short and sweet on Tuesday.

After receiving a glowing report from her probation officer, the actress?was ordered by the judge to perform 15 more days?of morgue duty and attend five therapy sessions before her next court date, Feb. 22 at 10 a.m. PT. Game, set and match.

Total time of Tuesday's hearing? Ten minutes, and that's being generous.

If Lohan continues on her current path, she will complete her probation and be a free woman on March 29.

Related content:

Source: http://todayentertainment.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/17/10175426-lindsay-lohan-progress-report-its-all-good

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