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বুধবার, ১৪ ডিসেম্বর, ২০১১
sex
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মঙ্গলবার, ৯ আগস্ট, ২০১১
Kate Gosselin: 'news to me Kate Plus 8' cancellation talk is
during a Monday appearance when Curry asked her to address "talk" that the show is about to be canceled."We're happy to continue on and we will do so as long as people are watching. There's been a lot of fans and supporters who have continued to watch us through good and through bad and I just have to take this opportunity to say thank you and we'll still be on TV as long as you're watching us."
There's some real moments [in] these shows that are coming up here soon that are very real and raw moments. And I'm not going to lie, it's really setting in now, two years later, being a single mom of eight kids," Gosselin told curry about the new episodes, which will continue to air Mondays through September 12.
There's some real moments [in] these shows that are coming up here soon that are very real and raw moments. And I'm not going to lie, it's really setting in now, two years later, being a single mom of eight kids," Gosselin told curry about the new episodes, which will continue to air Mondays through September 12.
"It's difficult -- I mean, I have a lot of difficult moments and stressful moments and you're going to see it: the good, the bad and the ugly."
In addition, Gosselin also reiterated she's ready to begin dating again.
"I've said it a lot of times, I'm definitely ready to start dating," she told Curry. "I think there's a lot of obstacles for me."
Gosselin then proceeded to describe a reality dating show-like concept in which her best friend would travel around the country "collecting" men interested in dating the mother of eight.
"I hope to just sort of bump into somebody but in all honesty, I['ve] talked to my best friend about wouldn't it be great if she could go around the country and collect suitable people, sort of. Because the odds of me sort of bumping into someone are rare... I have eight kids, I have a crazy work schedule, I'm known -- there are a lot of obstacles," she said.
"I am ready to start dating. It's sort of daunting though, when I think about my obstacles. Which is why my best friend and I talk about, 'Can you sort of go out and collect some people that you think would suit [me]?' So I don't know, I don't know where life will take me, I'm hoping that that person is out there, because the kids on a daily basis are begging for me to get married again! They bring it up all the time and I'm like... I don't -- I'm not dating anyone."
শনিবার, ২ জুলাই, ২০১১
Citizens Bank stock drops to 25 cents
http://secure.signup-way.com/6978/16514/win_lotteryStock prices for Citizens Bancorp, based in Nevada City, has dropped again, this time to a new low of 25 cents per share — though some observers question the significance of price on a stock with such low trading volume.Bancorp has 2.3 million shares outstanding, spread among about 350 people, mostly in Nevada County, company President Gary Gall said Thursday.
“People holding the stock are not that motivated to sell right now,” as they wait to see what happens with the company's efforts to raise fresh capital, Gall said.
The stock, whose ticker symbol is CZNB, last traded on Thursday, June 23. In five trades ranging from 950 shares to 101 shares, the price dropped from 89 cents a share earlier in the morning to close at 25 cents, according to market information service Interactive Data. Total volume that day was fewer than 1,600 shares, Interactive Date reported.
In the previous day of trading, on June 22, Citizens stock traded as high as 89 cents and closed at 60 cents, Interactive Data reported. The June 23 close marked a loss of 58 percent from that value.
Stock information is listed only for days on which stock is traded — and none has changed hands since June 23, according to Interactive.http://secure.signup-way.com/6978/16514/win_lottery
The service does list offers to buy and sell. While sellers are listing Citizens stock offers ranging from $5.45 to $9 per share, buyers are offering as little as 11 cents. So far, they have no takers, according to Interactive.The New York Stock Exchange measures trading volume in millions of shares. Stocks that trade on small volumes typically show much greater volatility, said Chris Nielsen, first vice-president of investments and branch manager for Stifel-Nicolaus and Co. Inc. in Grass Valley.
And, “just in the last month or so, volume (generally) has been one-half to two-thirds of what it normally is” due to summertime vacations, Nielsen added.
Bancorp officials are trying to recruit private investors beyond the stock market in a bid to recapitalize; federal regulators want the bank to raise $12 million, while bank officials are shooting for $20 million, Gall has said.
Bank operations continue to be profitable, with $4.3 million in net income before provisions in 2010, Gall has said. That's apart from losses of $8.2 million posted in 2010 due to devaluations in real estate put up as collateral on bank loans.
Citizens Bancorp is the parent company of Citizens Bank of Northern California, with six branches in Nevada County and Auburn. It lends entirely to businesses and individuals in the area and has more than 1,700 deposit accounts.
শুক্রবার, ১ জুলাই, ২০১১
Mother-in-law sends worst email ever to bride: forgivable
Last month, 60-year-old British florist and total mom-zilla, Carolyn Bourne attacked. After her stepson’s bride-to-be, Heidi Withers, was a guest in her house she had a thing or two to teach her before she entered the Bourne family.
So Bourne sent the 29-year-old a soul-crushing email. The subject line: “Your lack of manners.” The bullet points for the bride, in paraphrase: her wedding is going to be tacky, she’s too picky of an eater, her sense of humor sucks, and her stepson is making a dreadful choice in marrying her. And one more thing: her out-of-work parents are cheap.
When Withers received the email (Bourne sent it three times to be sure) she did what anyone would do: she forwarded it to a few friends to share in the shock. What was the alternative —respond with a 'frowny' face? But instead of simply offering advice, some anonymous friend got pro-active and forwarded Bourne’s e-attack, launching a viral sensation in a matter of hours. Now everyone in the Western Hemisphere has laid eyes on Bourne’s email.
In a way, it’s the ultimate revenge on a mother-in-law who needed to be put in her place after such power-mongering. But it’s not going to make for smooth wedding. Bourne has been labeled the mother-in-law from hell by media outlets and Withers’ father Alan has fueled the fire by publicly calling Bourne “Miss fancy pants." Now parents on both sides of the couple are fueding and nobody's manners are in check. Suggestion for Heidi and Freddie, her groom: elope.
Bourne has told London's Telegraph she still plans to attend the wedding, but will maintain a "dignified silence." She may know about English etiquette but she’s clueless about the cardinal rule of the Internet: never send an email you don’t want the world to see. You almost have to feel bad for the lady, mom-zilla or not. That is, until you read the actual email she sent Withers. Here’s an excerpt:
সোমবার, ৩০ মে, ২০১১
raid on bin Laden compound avenged CIA deaths
http://secure.signup-way.com/3092/16514/earn_money_double_one_day, WASHINGTON – For a small cadre of CIA veterans, the death of Osama bin Laden was more than just a national moment of relief and closure. It was also a measure of payback, a settling of a score for a pair of deaths, the details of which have remained a secret for 13 years.Tom Shah and Molly Huckaby Hardy were among the 44 U.S. Embassy employees killed when a truck bomb exploded outside the embassy compound in Kenya in 1998.
Though it has never been publicly acknowledged, the two were working undercover for the CIA. In al-Qaida's war on the United States, they are believed to be the first CIA casualties.
Their names probably will not be among those read at Memorial Day memorials around the country this weekend. Like many CIA officers, their service remained a secret in both life and death, marked only by anonymous stars on the wall at CIA headquarters and blank entries in its book of honor.
Their CIA ties were described to The Associated Press by a half-dozen current and former U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because Shah's and Hardy's jobs are still secret, even now.
The deaths weighed heavily on many at the CIA, particularly the two senior officers who were running operations in Africa during the attack. Over the past decade, as the CIA waged war against al-Qaida, those officers have taken on central roles in counterterrorism. Both were deeply involved in hunting down bin Laden and planning the raid on the terrorist who killed their colleagues.
"History has shown that tyrants who threaten global peace and freedom must eventually face their natural enemies: America's war fighters, and the silent warriors of our Intelligence Community," CIA Director Leon Panetta wrote in a Memorial Day message to agency employees.
These silent warriors took very different paths to Nairobi.
Hardy was a divorced mom from Valdosta, Ga., who raised a daughter as she travelled to Asia, South America and Africa over a lengthy career. At the CIA station in Kenya, she handled the office finances, including the CIA's stash of money used to pay sources and carry out spying operations. She was a new grandmother and was eager to get back home when al-Qaida struck.
Shah took an unpredictable route to the nation's clandestine service. He was not a solider or a Marine, a linguist or an Ivy Leaguer. He was a musician from the Midwest. But his story, and the secret mission that brought him to Africa, was straight out of a Hollywood spy movie.
"He was a vivacious, upbeat guy who had a very poignant, self-deprecating sense of humor," said Dan McDevitt, a classmate and close friend from St. Xavier High School in Cincinnati, where Shah was a standout trumpet player.
Shah — his given name was Uttamlal — was the only child of an Indian immigrant father and an American mother, McDevitt said. He had a fascination with international affairs. He participated in the school's model United Nations and, in the midst of the Cold War, was one of the school's first students to learn Russian. From time to time, he went to India with his father, giving him a rare world perspective.
"At the time, that was unheard of. You might as well have gone to Mars," said McDevitt, who lost touch with his high school friend long before he joined the agency.
Shah graduated from Berklee College of Music in Boston and Ball State University's music school. He taught music classes and occasionally played in backup bands for entertainers Red Skelton, Perry Como and Jim Nabors. His doctoral thesis at Indiana's Ball State offered no hints about the career he would pursue: "The Solo Songs of Edward MacDowell: An Examination of Style and Literary Influence."
"He was one of our outstanding people," said Kirby Koriath, the graduate student adviser at Ball State.
Shah and his wife, Linda, were married in 1983, the year he received his master's degree. In 1987, after earning his doctorate, Shah joined the U.S. government. On paper, he had become a diplomat. In reality, he was shipped to the Farm, the CIA's spy school in Virginia.
He received the usual battery of training in surveillance, counterespionage and the art of building sources. The latter is particularly hard to teach, but it came naturally to Shah, former officials said. Shah was regarded as one of the top members of his class and was assigned to the Near East Division, which covers the Middle East.
He spoke fluent Hindi and decent Russian when he arrived and quickly showed a knack for languages by learning Arabic. He worked in Cairo and Damascus and, though he was young, former colleagues said he was quickly proving himself one of the agency's most promising stars.
In 1997, he was dispatched to headquarters as part of the Iraq Operations Group, the CIA team that ran spying campaigns against Saddam Hussein's regime. Around that time, the CIA became convinced that a senior Iraqi official was willing to provide intelligence in exchange for a new life in America. Before the U.S. could make that deal, it had to be sure the information was credible and the would-be defector wasn't really a double agent. But even talking to him was a risky move. If a meeting with the CIA was discovered, the Iraqi would be killed for sure.
Somebody had to meet with the informant, somebody who knew the Middle East and could be trusted with such a sensitive mission. A senior officer recommended Shah.
The meetings were set up in Kenya, former officials said, because it was considered relatively safe from Middle East intelligence services. It was perhaps the most important operation being run under the Africa Division at the time, current and former officials said. Among the agency managers overseeing it was John Bennett, the deputy chief of the division. He and his operations chief, who remains undercover, were seasoned Africa hands and veterans of countless spying operations.
Because of the mission's sensitivity, Shah bottled up his normally outgoing and friendly personality while at the embassy.
"This is the glory and the tragedy of discreet work," said Prudence Bushnell, the former ambassador to Kenya. "You keep a very low profile and you don't do things that make you memorable."
Officials say Shah was among those who went to the window when shooting began outside the embassy gates. Most who did were killed when the massive bomb exploded. He was 38. Hardy was also killed in the blast. She was 51.
The U.S. government said both victims were State Department employees. But like all fallen officers, they received private memorial services at CIA headquarters. Every year, their names are among those read at a ceremony for family members and colleagues.
Hardy's daughter, Brandi Plants, said she did not want to discuss her mother's employment. Shah's widow, Linda, sent word through a neighbor that the topic was still too painful to discuss.
Shah's death did not stall his mission. The Africa Division pressed on and confirmed that the Iraqi source was legitimate, his information extremely valuable. He defected and was re-located to the United States with a new identity.
Bennett later went on to be the station chief in Islamabad, where he ran the agency's effort to kill al-Qaida members by using unmanned aircraft. He now sits in one of the most important seats in the agency, overseeing clandestine operations worldwide. His former Africa operations chief now runs the agency's counterterrorism center. Both have been hunting for bin Laden for years. Both were directly involved in the raid.
Shah and Hardy are among the names etched into stone at a memorial at the embassy in Nairobi, with no mention of their CIA service. Shah is also commemorated with a plaque in a CIA conference room at its headquarters. Both were among those whose names Panetta read last week at the annual ceremony for fallen officers.
রবিবার, ২৯ মে, ২০১১
Surfers brave the "biggest day ever" at world's craziest wave: Tasmania's Shipstern Bluff
"It doesn't get bigger," said photographer Andrew Chisolm, a Surfer Magazine shooter who's been covering the action out at "Shipsterns" since surfers first attempted riding what's often described as a beast of a wave. His photo gallery got the surf world talking in a hurry after the late May action was revealed.
Shipstern Bluff has a small crew of dedicated riders ready to meet any challenge, but Marti Paradisis, Sandy Ryan and brothers Tyler and James Hollmer-Cross approached with extreme caution this time.
Paradisis described his first glimpse of the waves last Tuesday as "the biggest mutated lumps of water I've ever laid my eyes on." Buoy reports were reporting swells of 33 feet in the area, which according to Paradisis is "as big as it gets. I haven't seen anything near that big."
Upon arrival the surfers and photographers barely recognized their familiar break. It was being swallowed by the biggest swells they'd ever seen, which is why they approached with extreme caution this time.
"Marti was out there for an hour having a look around before he dropped in," says Tim Bonython, an award-winning cinematographer who's been filming the wave for years. "Finally he found one that he liked, and it had a 30-foot plus face."
For surfers like Paradisis, the allure of Shipstern Bluff is its enormous tube. The heaving caverns of water are so big trucks could be driven through them. But getting inside, even with the assist of personal watercraft, is anything but easy because of this wave's horrific character flaw. Due to a unique underwater rock formation directly in the impact zone each wave mutates, folding over on itself, creating a watery staircase on the face that tortures surfers during their most critical moment of setup.
Regardless of whether these surfers can navigate the drop or not, the results are always breathtaking. It's no wonder surfers here are regularly nominated for Ride of the Year honors during the annual Billabong XXL Big-Wave Award Show.
শনিবার, ২৮ মে, ২০১১
Tony Romo's wedding to Candice Crawford: Badgley Mishka, Jerry Jones, and a Dallas mansion
Crawford tells Cowboys blog Blue Star that they plan to keep the affair "as private and personal as possible."
"You dream about this as a little girl," she says. "You don't dream, though, that Badgley Mischka's going to do your bridesmaids dresses and you don't dream that people are going to give you the support that they have. So we're just really thankful that people have wrapped their arms around us."
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is invited to the wedding, and he had to get special permission to attend due to the complicated legalities of the NFL lockout. He won't be allowed to talk football with Romo at the event, but he's able to attend as a friend of the couple.
Romo and Crawford got engaged last December on her 24th birthday
শুক্রবার, ২৭ মে, ২০১১
Dickey injured in Mets' loss to Cubs
ttp://secure.signup-way.com/5394/16514/Watch_scoreThe injuries are piling up on the Mets, and so are the losses.R.A. Dickey left with a foot injury in the third inning and the Chicago Cubs took advantage, beating the Mets 9-3 Thursday.
Dickey was running to cover first base when he felt something in his foot and collapsed to the ground. He eventually limped off the field and down the dugout steps, and was replaced on the mound by reliever Pedro Beato. The team said Dickey had “pain in his right heel.”
“I felt a real intense burning sensation in my heel and involuntarily went down,” Dickey said. “I walked around and it subsided. I’m optimistic and I feel like I’m a pretty quick healer.”
AP
R.A. Dickey is attended to after falling in the third inning against the Cubs on Thursday. Dickey left the game with an injured right heel.
Preliminary examinations showed no damage to the Achilles’ tendon, a good sign for the right-hander. Mets manager Terry Collins said Dickey will get a full evaluation Friday when the team returns to New York.
The Mets already have starters Johan Santana and Chris Young on the disabled list. First baseman Ike Davis has been banged up, third baseman David Wright has a stress fracture in his back, and outfielder Angel Pagan has been out for a while.
“You’ve got to stay as healthy as you can,” Collins said. “It’s hard to keep asking guys from Triple-A or your extra players to fill in for these guys.”
The Mets bullpen allowed eight hits and seven runs after Dickey departed. Beato (1-1) took the loss, allowing four runs in 1 1/3 innings.
BOX SCORE
In the third, Carlos Zambrano reached on a two-out single, and Kosuke Fukudome chopped a grounder to second. First baseman Daniel Murphy had come off the bag in pursuit the ball, so Dickey ran over to cover first. He stumbled and fell, and remained on the ground for several minutes.
“I knew I couldn’t go any more,” Dickey said. “It’s frustrating because I felt like I wasn’t going to give up much today.”
The Cubs got to Beato in the fourth. Starlin Castro led off with a walk, and Pena lined a 2-1 pitch into the right-field bleachers through a stiff wind. Koyie Hill added an RBI groundout, and Zambrano lined a run-scoring single, giving Chicago a four-run inning.
The Cubs tacked on another couple of runs in the fifth on Soriano’s two-run double.
Zambrano (5-2) allowed two runs on six hits and two walks, picking up his first win at Wrigley Field since Sept. 4.
Carlos Pena stayed hot for Chicago, lacing a two-run homer in the fourth. It was Pena’s sixth of the year, all of them since May 3. Pena has reached base in 19 of his past 20 games.
Alfonso Soriano had a two-run double, a single and scored a run for the Cubs. Rookie Tony Campana added three singles and made a couple of nice catches in center in his first start.
Fukudome also had three hits, including his first homer of the season, a solo shot in the eighth that gave the Cubs their last run. Chicago matched its season high with 17 hits.
The game didn’t start so well for the Cubs. After the first two innings passed quickly, the Mets broke out on top on a mash and some miscues.
Jose Reyes lined a double into the left-field corner. As he rounded the bag at second, the throw from Fukudome skipped by second baseman Barney. Reyes raced for third as Barney retrieved the errant throw, but Barney’s throw to third was wild, allowing Reyes to score.
Barney also was charged with an error in the first trying to flip a ball to shortstop Castro at the second base bag, giving Chicago three errors in the first two innings. The Cubs entered the game 15th in National League fielding percentage.
The Mets’ second run came in the fifth, when Jason Pridie led off with a triple and scored on Josh Thole’s two-out single.
More depressing spring weather delayed the start of the game for 31 minutes. The temperature at game time was 42 degrees and a 15 mph wind was blew out of the north.
*
Pagan (strained left oblique) could rejoin the Mets on Friday. ... Davis (ankle) worked out inside for the second consecutive day, according to Collins. He is still unable to move laterally or do on-field activities. ... Wright (back) received good news Wednesday, Collins said. Wright has begun core workouts and doctors think his back his healing well.
Jennifer Lopez says it is 'too early to tell' if she will return to ‘American Idol’
The 41 year-old, who has boosted ratings and attracted rave reviews since joining eight months ago, has earned significantly less money from the show than fellow judge Steven Tyler.
Tyler, who is tied into a multi-year contract that ensures he will return through the 11th season alongside original judge Randy Jackson, reportedly raked in $18 million for the first season alone.
Jen Lowery/Splash News
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Lopez signed a single-year contract for a rumored $12 million -- and now has to decide whether she wants to remain as a judge on the show next year or relaunch her pop career.
"It's too early to tell," said Lopez, who is believed to be in contract negotiations with FOX.
"Everyone has multiple-year contracts. Jennifer had [a] single-year contract. We loved having her -- the hope and expectation is she'll return," FOX chief Peter Rice said earlier this week.
মঙ্গলবার, ২৪ মে, ২০১১
Five potential landing spots for soon-to-be-free Plaxico Burress
http://secure.signup-page.com/3858/16514/ReaderUnfortunately for him, he's also going from lockdown to lockout. The NFL's work stoppage means that no team can offer him a contract at the moment, but according to his agent, if there's NFL football in 2011, Burress will be playing it.Where? Several possibilities come to mind.
1. Philadelphia Eagles. A column in Monday's New York Daily News says that the Eagles will be "first in line" to give Burress a once-over. Receiver isn't a huge area of need for the Eagles, but they have proven to be pretty good at integrating once-imprisoned Pro Bowlers back into society.
2. New York Giants. Jay Glazer says that the Giants' front office would consider it. Some might question the wisdom of Burress stepping right back into the same situation where he got himself in trouble, but it would make some sense. A lot of Plaxico's Giant buddies are still on the roster, and he had good chemistry with quarterback Eli Manning(notes). About New York City being a bad situation for him, well, there are going to be bars, guns and sweatpants wherever he winds up. He's either learned his lesson or he hasn't.
3. St. Louis Rams. No team has a greater need at receiver than the St. Louis Rams. Donnie Avery(notes) was the best receiver on their roster last year, and he spent the season injured, leaving Danny Amendola(notes) at the top of their depth chart. No disrespect to Danny Amendola, but he's not making anyone forget Torry Holt(notes) or Henry Ellard. Or Ricky Proehl, for that matter. Adam Schefter notes that Rams head coach Steve Spagnuolo, who coached Burress with the Giants, is a fan.
4. New York Jets. The Jets were interested before Burress went away, but that was a long time ago. The Jets seem to be OK at the receiver position with Santonio Holmes(notes), Jerricho Cotchery(notes) and Braylon Edwards(notes) (should they choose to bring him back). Rex Ryan doesn't mind taking a risk on a player, though, and I don't think he minds getting himself a few headlines, either.
5. Baltimore Ravens. The Ravens were also mentioned in the New York Daily News column, and it seems like they've been tied to every potential big-name free-agent receiver that has existed over the past decade. Anquan Boldin(notes) and Derrick Mason(notes) were a solid tandem for them last season, but Mason isn't going to be around forever.
সোমবার, ২৩ মে, ২০১১
Danica Patrick finally qualifies for Indianapolis 500
http://secure.signup-way.com/3092/16514/Earn_Money_SomuchDanica Patrick has taken advantage of a second chance and qualified for the Indianapolis 500.IndyCar's most marketable personality is in the 33-car field with a four-lap qualifying average of 224.861 mph, the second fastest of the day.
It wasn't easy.
Patrick pulled out of the qualifying line when her car failed inspection, then had to wait through two rain delays before making a qualifying attempt. At one point, it looked like Patrick might not even get that shot.
When the track dried, Patrick quickly got up to speed and qualified 26th, the middle of Row 9. Paul Tracy has the day's fastest speed, 224.939, and Team Penske driver Ryan Briscoe will start on the outside of Patrick at 224.630.
The race is May 29.
American Graham Rahal and Brazilian Ana Beatriz qualified for the race earlier in the day.
Beatriz made the first run, completing her four laps with an average of 223.979 mph. That's the slowest speed in the field. She currently holds the No. 26 starting spot.
Rahal posted an average speed of 224.380, completing the run as rain fell on the south end of the 2.5-mile oval. He's tentatively in the No. 25 starting spot.
শনিবার, ২১ মে, ২০১১
Savage a wrestling legend in ring and out
Savage, born Randall Mario Poffo, was 58. While perhaps best known for his pro wrestling battles as Hulk Hogan’s major storyline rival in the late 1980s, Savage was also an actor and a one-time major league baseball prospect.
Lanny Poffo, his brother and also a former pro wrestler under the handle “Leaping” Lanny Poffo, told TMZ.com that Savage suffered a heart attack behind the wheel while driving a 2009 Jeep Wrangler.
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Legendary wrestler Randy "Macho Man" Savage, with his wife, Lynn, after the couple's 2010 wedding in Sarasota, Fla. Savage, age 58, died Friday.
(Getty Images)The Seminole fire department responded to the scene to provide medical care, and he was transported to Largo Memorial Hospital, where he died at 9:25 a.m. The incident remains under investigation and an autopsy will be performed over the weekend.
Savage’s wife, Barbara Lynn Poffo, who he had known from his days as a minor league baseball player in Florida, long before he met his famous first wife, Elizabeth Hulette, was also in the car. She suffered minor injuries.
Savage was best known in wrestling for a storyline that serves as a fond childhood memory to this day for wrestling fans, both lapsed and current.
It was a one-year plot which started at WrestleMania IV in 1988, in Atlantic City, N.J., when Hogan, who was taking time off wrestling for a movie role in real life, helped Savage “win” the finals of a tournament for the World Wrestling Federation (now World Wrestling Entertainment) championship, beating “The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase.
During the postmatch celebration, Savage gave Hogan a glare as Hogan was celebrating too closely with “The Lovely Elizabeth,” Savage’s real-life wife. The WWF teased tension between the two, who remained tag-team partners, throughout 1988 and into the following year.
It climaxed on a live NBC prime time TV special on Feb. 3, 1989, as Savage exploded with jealousy on a live NBC special and blamed Hogan for accidentally “injuring” Elizabeth, leading to the end of the team and a full-on rivalry in which Elizabeth sided with Hogan. The match drew a 9.7 Nielsen rating.
[Related: Randy ‘Macho Man’ Savage played pro baseball]
This led to an encounter at WrestleMania V, on April 2, 1989, also in Atlantic City, where Hogan defeated Savage and won the championship. At the time, it was the biggest pay-per-view wrestling event ever, doing more than 760,000 buys, a record that would stand until 2000, with the onset of the “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson era.
While Hulette and Savage had been married since 1984, a year before Savage joined the WWF, in 1991, the WWF promoted a storyline reconciliation between the two moments after Savage had lost a “retirement” match to “The Ultimate Warrior” at WrestleMania VII in Los Angeles. A storyline wedding between the two was held on PPV in Madison Square Garden a few months later.
But shortly after that mock wedding, the couple separated in real life and Elizabeth left the wrestling business for many years. They officially divorced in late 1992.
Hulette died on May 1, 2003, at the age of 42, while living in an Atlanta suburb with wrestling star Larry “Lex Luger” Pfohl, of an accidental overdose from a combination of drugs.
Savage’s other most famous match during wrestling’s 1980s golden era was on March 29, 1987, at WrestleMania III, before a then-pro wrestling record crowd of 78,000 at the Pontiac, Mich., Silverdome. While Hogan vs. Andre the Giant was the main event, Savage’s match with Ricky Steamboat over the Intercontinental title was generally considered the best WWF match of that era, a fast-paced, back-and-forth battle won by Steamboat.
[Related: Randy Savage’s career highlights]
From the late 1970s until the early ’90s, Savage was considered one of the great in-ring workers in the business. In his prime, he was a quick and fearless daredevil known for his intensity, which bordered on scary at times. His unique interviews were among the most recognizable in the industry, imitated by people in and out of wrestling to this day.
However, his national fame didn’t come until 1985 with WWF because his family ran a renegade wrestling promotion based out of Kentucky and were unofficially blacklisted from the mainstream of the industry for several years.
“I remember in 1980 when we were talking about new talent in St. Louis, and [promoter] Pat O’Connor told me, the best young talent in the business is Randy Savage, but we can’t use him,” remembered Larry Matysik, a longtime wrestling announcer and promoter out of St. Louis. Savage and his family sued the then-dominant National Wrestling Alliance at one point, claiming restraint of trade, but the case never went to trial as many of the key witnesses on the Poffo family side were hired away by NWA promoters.
In his early 40s, Savage was being phased out of in-ring competition by WWF promoter Vince McMahon Jr., and in 1994, he signed with rival World Championship Wrestling, following the lead of Hogan, who had signed there a few months earlier.
He was back in the ring as one of the major stars in that organization through 1999, including a period from the spring of 1996 through the spring of 1998 when it was the wrestling business’ leading promotion. By that point Savage had suffered a number of serious injuries from his years of high-flying, physical wrestling style. When his contract expired and the company, bleeding money by that time, didn’t offer him similar money for a new deal, he opted to leave the company.
Savage was intense and driven in everything he did. He played minor league baseball from 1971-74 in the St. Louis Cardinals, Cincinnati Reds and Chicago White Sox farm systems. He wrestled during the offseason, often under a mask to hide his identity from his baseball employers, but sometimes under his real name, as part of a family unit with his father, Angelo, and brother Lanny.
An outfielder, after he blew out his right shoulder, making him unable to throw with any force, he taught himself to throw left-handed in an attempt to continue his career.
“I saw his tryout with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1971,” remembered Matysik. “Man, he could hit. He was a little squirt, I don’t think he was more than 165 pounds at the time.”
He batted .232 with nine home runs and 66 RBIs in his final season of pro ball, with Tampa of the Class-A Florida State League, before turning his attention full time to wrestling.
Savage also appeared as an actor in a number of television shows, often playing himself. His best known role, of course, was as the legendary Slim Jim pitchman, but he also played the role of wrestler Bonesaw McGraw in the 2002 “Spider-Man” movie.
World Wrestling Entertainment released an official statement on Friday afternoon.
“WWE is saddened to learn of the passing of one of the greatest superstars of his time, Randy Poffo, aka Randy “Macho Man” Savage. Poffo was under contract with WWE from 1985 to 1993 and held both the WWE and Intercontinental championships. Our sincerest condolences go out to his family and friends. We wish a speedy recovery to his wife Lynn. Poffo will be greatly missed by WWE and his fans.”
The end of Savage’s wrestling career was unique. He was scheduled to appear in the main event of a pay-per-view show put on by the group Total Nonstop Action on January 16, 2005, against Jeff Jarrett.
“I hadn’t seen him since the TNA show,” remembered Dusty Rhodes, one of wrestling’s biggest stars of the 1970s and 1980s, who had done a WrestleMania match with Savage almost 15 years earlier. “The last words he said to me, five minutes before the PPV, was, ‘I can’t do this. I don’t want people to see me looking like this.’ Jerry [Jarrett, a TNA company co-owner] called [event producer] Keith Mitchell in, and I said, ‘Change the main event. I said to him, ‘Randy, just go home. It’s okay with me.’ That’s the last words he said to me.” Rhodes, who lived a 20-minute drive from Savage, never saw him again, and compared Savage of the past five years to notorious recluse Howard Hughes.
বৃহস্পতিবার, ১৯ মে, ২০১১
Obama's Mideast speech offers punishment, praise
WASHINGTON – In his first comprehensive response to revolts across the Arab world, President Barack Obama is doling out punishment and praise, targeting Syrian President Bashar Assad for attacking his people but also promising fresh U.S. aid to nations that support democracy. Obama is also trying to erase any doubt that the U.S. supports the call for change.Obama was expected to use his Middle East speech Thursday to sharply defend new sanctions on Assad as the U.S. government toughens its message for the repressive leader: Embrace democracy or get out. In a primary thrust of his address, Obama also was announcing aid for Egypt and Tunisia, the two nations seen as models while protests for freedoms elsewhere have been crushed.
Collectively, Obama's economic proposals will account for much of what's new in a speech that, by design, is intended to look back and let him put his imprint on the massive change across the Middle East and North Africa over the last six months. The core of what Obama will argue is that the United States must help nations modernize their economies and give job opportunities to their young people so that democracy can take hold and thrive — the kind of regional stability that is deeply in the political interests of his government.
The president plans to forgive roughly $1 billion in debt owed by Egypt to free up money for job-creation efforts there. And he will reveal other steps to bolster loans, trade and international support in Egypt and in Tunisia, where uprisings led to dictators being overturned. Protesters in Bahrain, Yemen, Syria and other nations have endured brutal setbacks.
Senior administration officials offered some details of the speech in advance only on condition of anonymity. The president was speaking Thursday morning at the State Department.
Obama also was expected to recalibrate the U.S. position on the flailing Israeli-Palestinian peace process. He will warn both sides that they face greater risks by not coming together on a peace deal than by going their own ways. It is an effort in which he has sunk his own political capital and will spend more before his heavy week of Mideast diplomacy ends.
Overall, Obama will try to convince American audiences that the fate of countries in the region is worth the money and attention of the United States even during weak economic times at home. To his global audience, Obama wants to leave no doubt that the U.S. stands behind those seeking greater human rights even as it has had to defend its responses to crises.
Obama's speech was expected to be roughly split into thirds: a review of the political changes across the region for better and worse, country by country; the economic aid package; and the push for better security in the region, which will include the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
It will all be presented in the context of a future with al-Qaida terrorist Osama bin Laden dead and gone.
The White House on Wednesday announced the sanctions on Assad and six senior Syrian officials for human rights abuses over their crackdown on anti-government protests.
It was the first time the U.S. personally penalized the Syrian leader for the actions of his security forces. More than 850 people have died since the uprising began in March.
Obama, in an executive order, said the Syrian government leaders were being held to account for "attacks on protesters, arrests and harassment of protesters and political activists, and repression of democratic change."
The Obama administration had pinned hopes on Assad, seen until recent months as a pragmatist and potential reformer who could buck Iranian influence and help broker an eventual Arab peace deal with Israel. But U.S. officials said Assad's increasingly ruthless crackdown left them little choice but to abandon the effort to woo Assad and to stop exempting him from the same sort of sanctions already applied to Libya's Moammar Gadhafi.
Obama has not called on Assad to step down, but his government came close Wednesday.
"It is up to Assad to lead a political transition or to leave," the State Department said in talking points prepared for the announcement of sanctions.
The sanctions will freeze any assets Assad and the six Syrian government officials have in U.S. jurisdiction and make it illegal for Americans to do business with them. The U.S. had imposed similar sanctions on two of Assad's relatives and another top Syrian official last month but had thus far refrained from going after Assad himself.
The U.S. move came as Assad claimed the country's crisis is drawing to a close even as forces unleashed tank shells on opponents.
Obama's offering of economic help is intended to serve as an incentive for other peoples to keep pushing for democracy. Among the elements of his approach:
• The canceling of roughly $1 billion in debt for Egypt. The intention is that money freed up from that debt obligation would be swapped toward investments in priority sectors of the Egyptian economy, likely to focus on entrepreneurship and employment for younger people. Unemployment rates are soaring in Egypt and across the region.
• The guaranteeing of up to $1 billion in loans for Egypt through the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, a U.S. government institution that mobilizes private capital.
• Promises by the U.S. to launch a new trade partnership in the Middle East and North Africa and to prod world financial institutions to help Egypt and Tunisia more.
রবিবার, ১৫ মে, ২০১১
Kym Johnson Doing "Ok" After 'Dancing With The
Kym Johnson is "OK" after falling Friday during practice for "Dancing with the Stars" in Los Angeles, her publicist .E! News said the professional dancer was transported to a hospital by ambulance after she took a tumble while working with her partner, Hines Ward.
It was unclear what exactly went wrong or what part of her body she hurt.
"She's doing OK," her representative told E! News. "Better safe than sorry."
শনিবার, ১৪ মে, ২০১১
Maria Shriver 'humbled' by fans' love
"Thank you for all the kindness, support and compassion," she wrote to her Twitter fans on Friday. "I am humbled by the love. Thank you."
This is the first time Shriver, 55, has commented on her split, which Schwarzenegger, 63, addressed on Tuesday, one day after the longtime couple announced their separation in a statement.
Said the actor-politician at the time: "We're extremely blessed to be surrounded by so many wonderful people [and] by so many wonderful friends."
বৃহস্পতিবার, ১২ মে, ২০১১
Princess Beatrice's Royal Wedding 'Hat'
Princess Beatrice's royal wedding 'hat': Up for auction -- it could be yours!By Liz Kelly Nelson
May 11, 2011 4:19 PM ET
Follow @lizkellynelson on TwitterPrincess Beatrice, who showed up to the royal wedding of Wills and Kate as one of Cinderella's evil stepsisters and took much (justifiable) flack for her hat, is auctioning off that headgear for charity.
And honestly, this is the first good move young Beatrice has made since April 29 (the day she, umm, wore the hat). We're hoping Eugenie follows in her sister's footsteps and surrenders her entire wedding day ensemble.
Mom Sarah Ferguson tells Oprah Winfrey that Beatrice will auction the blush-colored Philip Treacy topper on eBay with all proceeds going to UNICEF. According to People, Treacy's hats sell for approximately $3,000. We'll see how it does at auction.
বুধবার, ১১ মে, ২০১১
Royal honeymoon begins for Prince William, Kate
Prince William and his wife, the former Kate Middleton, have left for a honeymoon at an undisclosed location, palace officials said Tuesday, declining to elaborate on the key details of where or for how long. They also requested the young couple's privacy be respected during that time.
British media widely reported they had jetted off to the Seychelles, an island chain in the Indian Ocean. William has two weeks leave from his job as a search-and-rescue helicopter pilot, but palace officials would not say if they will be away the entire two weeks.
After the media blitz surrounding their April 29 wedding at Westminster Abbey, the couple have made it clear they'd like to be left alone by photographers. A day after the wedding, the newlyweds asked the media not to intrude on their first weekend of married life, which they spent at home before William returned to military duty.
Privacy has long been a main concern for the royals while planning their honeymoon. They are thought to have considered private islands in the Caribbean — although photographers on boats could conceivably get pictures of them cavorting on a beach — and hideaways in Africa, where William has traveled extensively in the past.
The couple's decision earlier to delay their honeymoon surprised many. While he went back to work, Middleton — now known as the Duchess of Cambridge — was snapped by photographers grocery shopping near the couple's home on the remote Welsh island of Angelsey.
The Seychelles is an archipelago of 115 Indian Ocean islands about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) east of the Kenyan coast. A popular luxury destination, it lies outside the cyclone belt, so severe storms are rare, adding to the destination's appeal.
Srdjana Janosevic, the press secretary for the Seychelles' president, had no confirmation Tuesday that the royal couple had arrived or planned to vacation there, but noted they have visited the Seychelles before.
"Anyone who comes back and continues to enjoy the island, it just shows that it's a very desirable tourist destination," Janosevic said. "I think everyone would be happy if they are here."
The Seychelles has only about 90,000 people. While the British media feature constant stories on the royals, a top headline Tuesday in the Seychelles Nation newspaper was about an increase in pork and chicken production.
The top local topic is the country's May 19-21 presidential election, where President James Michel faces three challengers.
If the couple have chosen the Seychelles, it will be East Africa's second connection to the royal wedding. William proposed to Kate last October in a rustic log cabin on the slopes of Kenya's highest peak, Mount Kenya.
Both Kenya and the Seychelles are former British colonies.
মঙ্গলবার, ১০ মে, ২০১১
Sada Thompson, 1970s Tv Mom, Dies In Conn. At 81
Thompson died Wednesday of a lung disease at Danbury Hospital, agent David Shaul said Sunday from Los Angeles.
Thompson won wide acclaim during an illustrious career that spanned more than 60 years, during which she gravitated toward quality work that allowed her to plumb her characters' complexities.
"When you start off acting, it does seem very romantic, and the make-believe part of it all seems very exciting," she told the Los Angeles Times in 1991. "It's only later that you begin to realize how fascinating the work is — that it's a bottomless pit, and you never get to the end of it. Human character is just endlessly fascinating."
Even before she graduated in 1949 from Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University, then called the Carnegie Institute of Technology, she was on a trajectory to take on challenging roles drawn from the classics as well as contemporary plays.
A prolific actress, she made her mark in theater and film generally portraying the matriarchs in family dramas.
In her stage debut in 1945, she played Nick's Ma in William Saroyan's "The Time of Your Life." She was Mrs. Higgins in "Pygmalion" (1949), the resentful matriarch determined not to hurt again in "Real Estate" (1987), the embattled Mrs. Fisher in the 1991 comedy "The Show-Off," the slovenly and bitter mother, Beatrice, in the 1965 production of "The Effect Of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds" and Dorine in "Tartuffe" (1965). She collected Obies for the latter two.
By far, her biggest Broadway success was "Twigs," by George Furth, in which she played three sisters — as well as their mother. The play took its title from a line by Alexander Pope: "Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined." She won a Tony and the New York Drama Critics Award that season.
The New York Times' Walter Kerr noted that what held the play together was "the peculiar luminosity that moves with Miss Thompson wherever she goes."
Throughout her career, her choices brought recognition from fellow actors more than they made her famous.
"When you're around great actors (like Thompson), they become an ideal or a goal that keeps reminding you of the quality you want your work to be," William Anton, who played Thompson's son in the 1989 San Diego production of "Driving Miss Daisy" and a preferred son-in-law in "The Show-Off," told the Los Angeles Times in 1991.
In the late `70s, she picked up an Emmy for her portrayal of the levelheaded Kate Lawrence in the ABC drama "Family," which ran for five seasons.
Born Sada Carolyn Thompson on Sept. 27, 1929, in Des Moines, Iowa, she got her unusual name from her maternal grandmother, whose name, Sarah, was turned into Sada. Her parents moved to New Jersey when she was 5, and her fascination with the stage began soon thereafter. Her parents would often take her to a summer theater where plays would stop on their way to Broadway or before they began their national tours.
"I saw stars like Helen Hayes, Maurice Evans, Tallulah Bankhead and Cornelia Otis Skinner," she told The Associated Press in 1987. "It was enchanting. I knew that was the world I wanted to be in."
In 1956, she won a Drama Desk Award for Moliere's "The Misanthrope" and for an English girl mourning the death of her half-brother in war in "The River Line" (1957). She was nominated for an Emmy for her portrayal of Carla's mother in the NBC comedy "Cheers" (1991).
Thompson said she loved a good character role.
"There's always something more to be accomplished with a character," she told the AP in 1987. "Theater is a human experience. There's nothing shellacked or finished off about it. I guess that's why it always draws me back."
Thompson met and married a fellow drama student, Donald Stewart, at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1949. Their daughter is a costume designer.
Tiger Woods
সোমবার, ৯ মে, ২০১১
Obama: 'Getting our man' outweighed risks of raid
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama ordered the commando raid that killed terrorist leader Osama bin Laden after deciding the risks were outweighed by the possibility "of us finally getting our man" following a decade of frustration, he said in a Sunday broadcast interview.The helicopter raid "was the longest 40 minutes of my life," Obama told CBS' "60 Minutes," with the possible exception of when his daughter Sasha became sick with meningitis as an infant.
Monitoring the commando raid operation in the White House Situation Room a week ago, Obama said he and top aides "had a sense of when gunfire and explosions took place" halfway around the world, and knew when one of the helicopters carrying Navy SEALs made an unplanned hard landing. "But we could not get information clearly about what was happening inside the compound," he said.
Public opinion polls have shown a boost in Obama's support in the days since the raid, and his re-election campaign was eager to draw attention to the interview.
Jim Messina, the president's campaign manager, emailed supporters encouraging them to watch the program. The note included a link to a listing of all of the network's local affiliates around the country — and another one requesting donations to Obama's re-election effort.
In the interview, Obama said that as nervous as he was about the raid, he didn't lose sleep over the possibility that bin Laden might be killed. Anyone who questions whether the terrorist mastermind didn't deserve his fate "needs to have their head examined," he said.
Obama said bin Laden had "some sort of support network" inside Pakistan to be able to live for years at a high-security compound in Abbottabad, a city that houses numerous military facilities. But he stopped short of accusing Pakistani officials of harboring the man who planned the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks that killed nearly 3,000.
"We don't know who or what that support network was. We don't know whether there might have been some people inside of government, people outside of government." He said the United States wanted to investigate further to learn the facts, "and more importantly, the Pakistani government has to investigate."
Some members of Congress have called for a cessation of U.S. aid to Pakistan, at least until it becomes clear what role, if any, the government played in bin Laden's ability to avoid detection for years. But Obama said that since the Sept. 11 attacks, "Pakistan has been a strong counter-terrorism partner with us" despite periodic disagreements.
The president was guarded in discussing any of the details of the raid, and offered no details that have not yet been made public.
Discussing his own role, he said the decision to order the raid was very difficult, in part because there was no certainty that bin Laden was at the compound, and also because of the risk to the SEALs.
"But ultimately, I had so much confidence in the capacity of our guys to carry out the mission that I felt that the risks were outweighed by the potential benefit of finally getting our man," he said.
Two influential lawmakers rebutted calls for a cut-off in American aid to Pakistan, an inconstant ally in the long struggle against terrorists.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said: "Everybody has to understand that even in the getting of Osama bin Laden, the Pakistanis were helpful. We have people on the ground in Pakistan because they allow us to have them.
"We actually worked with them on certain parts of the intelligence that helped to lead to him, and they have been extraordinarily cooperative and at some political cost to them in helping us to take out 16 of the top 20 al-Qaida leaders with a drone program that we have in the western part of the country," he said.
The senior Republican on the committee, Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, said: "Pakistan is a critical factor in the war against terror, our war, the world's war against it, simply because there are a lot of terrorists in Pakistan." He also noted that the nation possesses nuclear weapons, and said a cut-off in aid could weaken the United States' ability to make sure they do not fall into the hands of terrorists.
Kerry strongly defended the president's decision to order the raid, and the shooting death of bin Laden.
The administration has offered shifting accounts of the events that unfolded in the 40 minutes the Navy SEALs were inside bin Laden's compound, most recently saying the terrorist mastermind was unarmed but appeared to be reaching for a weapon when he was shot in the head and chest.
"I think those SEALs did exactly what they should have done. And we need to shut up and move on about, you know, the realities of what happened in that building," Kerry said.
National security adviser Tom Donilon said, "I've not seen evidence that would tell us that the political, the military, or the intelligence leadership had foreknowledge of — of bin Laden" being in the country. He said the U.S. has asked the Pakistani authorities for access to people whom the SEALs left behind in the compound, including three of bin Laden's wives. The U.S. also wants access to additional materials collected there, he said.
Officials have said the SEALs took voluminous computerized and paper records when they choppered out of bin Laden's compound. Donilon likened the amount of information retrieved to the size of a small college library.
Donilon also sidestepped when asked if waterboarding and other so-called enhanced interrogation of detainees had produced information that led to the successful raid against bin Laden's compound. "No single piece of intelligence led to this," he said.
রবিবার, ৮ মে, ২০১১
Angela Bassett keeping it real
“Betty Shabazz told me ‘I never wore those kinds of clothes,'” Bassett said recently at a downtown Chicago hotel. “She could say whatever she wants. She lived quite a life.”
Bassett has thrived under the pressure that comes with playing a real-life figure (her role as Turner in 1993's “What's Love Got to Do With It” earned her an Oscar nomination). In fact, she admitted she has more fun playing these roles than fictional characters because she enjoys watching people and picking up their mannerisms.
That's one of the reasons her acting resume is so drama-heavy. Another reason? She believes she's been pigeonholed into the genre — not that she minds.
“My friends say I'm very funny and that I should do a comedy,” Bassett said. “But I love dramas. I'm attracted to them. I'm known for them. I love to cry and emote.”
Still, Bassett took her friends' advice and will appear in the upcoming romantic comedy, “Jumping the Broom,” which hits theaters Friday. She plays the mother of the bride (Paula Patton), who comes from an upper-class family, unlike the groom (Laz Alonso), who comes from a working-class family.
Loretta Devine plays the groom's brutally honest and short-tempered mother — a character Bassett knows all too well.
“My mom is definitely Loretta,” Bassett said. “She will speak her mind. She'll give you a look if she's displeased with something. It's like ‘Mom. If you want friends, show yourself friendly.'”
Personalized Mothers Day Gifts
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শনিবার, ৭ মে, ২০১১
Jodie Foster Defends Mel Gibson, 'The Beaver'
The comedy-drama stars Mel Gibson as Walter Black, a suburban family man whose paralyzing depression leads to a personality split: A blunt-talking, Cockney-accented beaver puppet becomes his alter ego and coping mechanism, much to the amusement and consternation of his family and co-workers — and eventually to his own horror.
"The film has a strange tone to it," said Foster, who co-stars as Walter's befuddled wife. "It's challenging for an audience because it starts out on a light note and has a very high-concept tone in some ways, and little by little it sort of becomes darker fairly quickly."
The unusual premise is certainly one marketing challenge (the film's initial concept leaned more heavily on the comedy, with Steve Carell attached at one point). And there is, obviously, the dilemma of Gibson himself, who has become persona non grata to audiences turned off by his well-publicized temper and a string of bad acts.
Bin Laden plotted 9/11 anniversary attack
WASHINGTON -- Holed up in a compound in Pakistan, Osama bin Laden was scheming how to hit the United States hard again, according to newly uncovered documents that show al-Qaida plans for derailing an American train on the upcoming 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
Details of the plan emerged Thursday as some of the first intelligence was gleaned from the trove of information found in bin Laden's residence when Navy SEALs killed the al-Qaida leader and four of his associates. They took his body and scooped up computers, DVDs and documents from the compound where U.S. officials think he had been living for as long as six years.
The confiscated materials reveal the rail attack planning as of February 2010. One idea outlined in handwritten notes was to tamper with an unspecified U.S. rail track so that a train would fall off the track at a valley or a bridge. Counterterrorism officials said they believe the plot was only in the initial planning stages, and there is no recent intelligence about any active plan for such an attack. The FBI and Homeland Security issued an intelligence bulletin with details of the plan to law enforcement around the country. The bulletin, marked "for official use only," was obtained by The Associated Press.
Other intelligence pulled from the compound represented a terrorist wish list but has revealed no specific plan so far. Some documents indicated a desire to strike the U.S. with large-scale attacks in major cities and on key dates such as anniversaries and holidays. But there never was any sign that those were anything more than ambitions, said a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the intelligence.
Even before the raid, intelligence officials for years had warned that al-Qaida was interested in attacking major U.S. cities on prominent dates on the American calendar. Since bin Laden's death, authorities have warned of the possibility of revenge attacks.
A statement posted on militant websites Friday, apparently issued by al-Qaida leadership, gives the group's confirmation that bin Laden is dead and threatens retaliation against Americans. "Soon, God willing, their happiness will turn to sadness," it said, "their blood will be mingled with their tears."
Monday's raid by helicopter-borne SEALs was fraught with risk, sensationally bold and a historic success, netting a man who had been on the run for nearly a decade after his terrorist organization pulled off the devastating Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. During the raid, the SEALs met far less resistance than the Obama administration initially described. The commandos encountered gunshots from only one man, whom they quickly killed, before sweeping the house and shooting others, who were unarmed, a senior defense official said in the latest account.
The New York Times and Washington Post reported Thursday on their websites that a CIA surveillance team had been watching bin Laden's residence from a rented house near the compound for months. The agency declined to comment on the reports.
President Barack Obama visited New York's ground zero on Thursday during a somber and understated event where he avoided mentioning bin Laden by name.
The U.S. account of what happened inside bin Laden's Abbottabad compound is so far the only one most Americans have. Pakistan has custody of the people rounded up afterward, including more than two dozen children and women. Differing accounts purporting to be from witnesses have appeared in Pakistani and Arab media, and on the Internet.
Intelligence analysts have been reviewing and translating the material seized from the compound, looking for information about pending plots and other terror connections. In light of the intelligence indicating al-Qaida was considering an attack on a U.S. railway, the FBI and Homeland Security told local officials to be on the lookout for clips or spikes missing from train tracks, packages left on or near the tracks and other indications that a train could be vulnerable.
"While it is clear that there was some level of planning for this type of operation in February 2010, we have no recent information to indicate an active ongoing plot to target transportation and no information on possible locations or specific targets," Thursday's warning to law enforcement said.
Homeland Security spokesman Matt Chandler said, "This alleged al-Qaida plotting is based on initial reporting, which is often misleading or inaccurate and subject to change." He said the government has no plans to issue an official terror alert because of it.
On Monday, the FBI and Homeland Security warned law enforcement officials around the country that bin Laden's death could inspire retaliatory attacks in the U.S., and terrorists not yet known to the intelligence community could be operating inside the country.
The transportation sector -- including U.S. railways -- continue to be attractive targets for terrorists. In the past few years, U.S. officials have disrupted other terror plots that targeted rails, including a 2009 plan to bomb the New York City subway system.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she's urged the homeland security secretary to increase the country's threat level while the material seized from bin Laden's compound is reviewed.
"I continue to question the secretary's decision not to increase the threat level," said Collins, the top Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
Moon Microbe Mystery Finally Solved
There has been a long-lived bit of Apollo moon landing folklore that now appears to be a dead-end affair: microbes on the moon.
The lunar mystery swirls around the Apollo 12 moon landing and the return to Earth by moonwalkers of a camera that was part of an early NASA robotic lander – the Surveyor 3 probe.
On Nov. 19, 1969, Apollo 12 astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean made a precision landing on the lunar surface in Oceanus Procellarum, Latin for the Ocean of Storms. Their touchdown point was a mere 535 feet (163 meters) from the Surveyor 3 lander -- and an easy stroll to the hardware that had soft-landed on the lunar terrain years before, on April 20, 1967. [Video: Apollo 12 Visits Surveyor 3 Probe]
The Surveyor 3 camera was easy pickings and brought back to Earth under sterile conditions by the Apollo 12 crew. When scientists analyzed the parts in a clean room, they found evidence of microorganisms inside the camera.
In short, a small colony of common bacteria -- Streptococcus Mitis -- had stowed away on the device.
The astrobiological upshot as deduced from the unplanned experiment was that 50 to 100 of the microbes appeared to have survived launch, the harsh vacuum of space, three years of exposure to the moon's radiation environment, the lunar deep-freeze at an average temperature of minus 253 degrees Celsius, not to mention no access to nutrients, water or an energy source. [Photos: Our Changing Moon]
Now, fast forward to today.
NASA's dirty little secret?
A diligent team of researchers is now digging back into historical documents -- and even located and reviewed NASA's archived Apollo-era 16 millimeter film -- to come clean on the story.
As it turns out, there's a dirty little secret that has come to light about clean room etiquette at the time the Surveyor 3 camera was scrutinized.
"The claim that a microbe survived 2.5 years on the moon was flimsy, at best, even by the standards of the time," said John Rummel, chairman of the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) Panel on Planetary Protection. "The claim never passed peer review, yet has persisted in the press -- and on the Internet -- ever since." [Coolest New Moon Discoveries]
The Surveyor 3 camera-team thought they had detected a microbe that had lived on the moon for all those years, "but they only detected their own contamination," Rummel told SPACE.com.
A former NASA planetary protection officer, Rummel is now with the Institute for Coastal Science & Policy at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C.
Rummel, along with colleaguesJudith Allton of NASA’s Johnson Space Center and Don Morrison, a former space agency lunar receiving laboratory scientist, recently presented their co-authored paper: "A Microbe on the Moon? Surveyor III and Lessons Learned for Future Sample Return Missions."
Poor space probe hygiene
Their verdict was given at a meeting on "The Importance of Solar System Sample Return Missions to the Future of Planetary Science," in March at The Woodlands,Texas, sponsored by the NASA Planetary Science Division and Lunar and Planetary Institute.
"If 'American Idol' judged microbiology, those guys would have been out in an early round," the research team writes of the way the Surveyor 3 camera team studied the equipment here on Earth. Or put more delicately, "The general scene does not lend a lot of confidence in the proposition that contamination did not occur," co-author Morrison said.
For example, participants studying the camera were found to be wearing short-sleeve scrubs, thus arms were exposed. Also, the scrub shirt tails were higher than the flow bench level … and would act as a bellows for particulates from inside the shirt, reports co-author Allton.
Other contamination control issues were flagged by the researchers.
In simple microbiology 101 speak, "a close personal relationship with the subject ... is not necessarily a good thing," the research team explains.
All in all, the likelihood that contamination occurred during sampling of the Surveyor 3 camera was shown to be very real.
A cautionary tale
On one hand, Rummel emphasized that today’s methods for handling return samples are much more effective at detecting microbes.
However, the Surveyor 3 incident back then raises a cautionary flag for the future.
"We need to be orders of magnitude more careful about contamination control than was the Surveyor 3 camera-team. If we aren't, samples from Mars could be drowned in Earth life upon return, and in all of that 'noise' we might never have the ability to detect Mars life we may have brought back, too," Rummel said. "We can, and we must, do a better job with a Mars sample return mission."
Winner of this year's National Space Club Press Award, Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is past editor-in-chief of the National Space Society's Ad Astra and Space World magazines and has written for SPACE.com since 1999.
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