One of the biggest winners in the sweeping Democratic victories in Senate races this month was a woman whose name appeared on no ballot: Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.).
With a low-key style that contrasts with some of the Senate’s camera hogs, Murray may be the most powerful senator a whole lot of people have never heard of outside of the two Washingtons where she lives and works.
BORDEAUX, France: Ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy told judges he received no money from France's richest woman, Liliane Bettencourt, a newspaper said, amid allegations that his 2007 election campaign was illegally financed.
"I have known the Bettencourts for 28 years and I am 57... They have never given me a sou (cent) and I have never asked them," Sarkozy said during a 12-hour hearing in front of investigating magistrates in the southern city of Bordeaux on Thursday, the Sud Ouest daily reported.
Sarkozy escaped indictment but will continue to be investigated over the allegations after the panel of three examining magistrates decided on Thursday to treat him as a witness under caution rather than formally charging him.
The newspaper report was the first to quote him from the written transcript of the confidential enquiry session.
The judges' decision will allow the former leader to retain hope he will eventually be exonerated of accusations he denies. But it also means the magistrates believe there are grounds for further investigation, a stance that deals a significant blow to Sarkozy's hopes of staging a political comeback.
The conviction last year of his predecessor Jacques Chirac on corruption charges related to his time as mayor of Paris demonstrated that French courts are willing to go after former leaders.
Sarkozy, was quoted as saying in his Bordeaux testimony that "in 36 years of political life, this is the first time that I have been brought before examining magistrates" and that "it's an ordeal".
Sarkozy's lawyer, Thierry Herzog, has said he hopes the judges will now leave his client in peace.
Sarkozy, who is married to former supermodel Carla Bruni, won international acclaim as the principal architect of last year's military campaign against Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi.
But since losing to Francois Hollande in the presidential election earlier this year, he has had to battle a string of allegations relating to his time in office and various electoral campaigns he has been involved in.
The suspicion at the centre of Thursday's interrogation is that he took financial advantage of elderly L'Oreal heiress Bettencourt when she was too frail to fully understand what she was doing.
In his comments on Thursday, the Sud Ouest reported, Sarkozy said he had noticed "no apparent sign" of mental fragility on her part.
"When I see her she was well-dressed, she doesn't slur her words. She says nothing implausible," Sarkozy was quoted as saying.
Bettencourt is now 90 and has been in poor health since 2006. Sarkozy, it is alleged, obtained significant amounts of money from her for his 2007 campaign, simultaneously breaching electoral spending limits and taking advantage of a person weakened by ill health.
Bettencourt's former accountant, Claire Thibout, told police in 2010 that she had handed envelopes stuffed with cash to Bettencourt's right-hand man, Patrice de Maistre, on the understanding it was to be passed on to Sarkozy's campaign treasurer, Eric Woerth.
Investigators suspect up to four million euros (US$5.2 million) of Bettencourt's cash subsequently made its way into Sarkozy's party coffers.
Sarkozy, who lost his immunity from prosecution after losing to Hollande, is embroiled in a string of scandals with legal repercussions.
As well as the Bettencourt case, he faces probes into contracts for opinion polls, an illegal police investigation into journalists and alleged kickbacks on a Pakistani arms deal used to finance the right in 1995, when Sarkozy was budget minister.
He has always denied any wrongdoing and has not ruled out another tilt at the presidency in 2017 amid signs that his party, the UMP, is on the point of disintegration.
A vote intended to produce a new leader for the centre-right party descended into chaos this week with ex-prime minister Francois Fillon contesting the result of a poll edged by party secretary-general Jean-Francois Cope.
With the party split down the middle, many party activists are calling for Sarkozy to return to the fray, but Thursday night's ruling suggests he might be otherwise engaged for some time to come.
- AFP/xq
Sopore Police and 22 Rashtriya Rifles cordoned Chatlora village, 55 kms from here, at around 1am after receiving information that a self-styled divisional commander of foreign origin of the outfit was hiding in a village, official sources told PTI.
At around 4am, when the security forces were conducting search operations, the militant opened fire and he was killed in the exchange of fire, the sources said.
The militant was operating with the code names Shoaib and Yasir and was active in Sopore area from 2007, they said, adding he had come to Kashmir in 2002.
He was involved in many field killings and attacks on mainstream politicians, the sources said, describing his killing as a "great achievement".
A sub-inspector identified as Dilraj was also injured in the encounter.
Orbiting at the frozen edges of our solar system, the mysterious dwarf planet Makemake is finally coming out of the shadows as astronomers get their best view yet of Pluto's little sibling.
Discovered in 2005, Makemake—pronounced MAH-keh MAH-keh after a Polynesian creation god—is one of five Pluto-like objects that prompted a redefining of the term "planet" and the creation of a new group of dwarf planets in 2006. (Related: "Pluto Not a Planet, Astronomers Rule.")
Just like the slightly larger Pluto, this icy world circles our sun beyond Neptune. Researchers expected Makemake to also have a global atmosphere—but new evidence reveals that isn't the case.
Staring at a Star
An international team of astronomers was able for the first time to probe Makemake's physical characteristics using the European Southern Observatory's three most powerful telescopes in Chile. The researchers observed the change in light given off by a distant star as the dwarf planet passed in front of it. (Learn how scientists found Makemake.)
"These events are extremely difficult to predict and observe, but they are the only means of obtaining accurate knowledge of important properties of dwarf planets," said Jose Luis Ortiz, lead author of this new study and an astronomer at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia, in Spain.
It's like trying to study a coin from a distance of 30 miles (48 kilometers) or more, Ortiz added.
Ortiz and his team knew Makemake didn't have an atmosphere when light from the background star abruptly dimmed and brightened as the chilly world drifted across its face.
"The light went off very abruptly from all the sites we observed the event so this means this world cannot have a substantial and global atmosphere like that of its sibling Pluto," Ortiz said.
If Makemake had an atmosphere, light from the star would gradually decrease and increase as the dwarf planet passed in front.
Coming Into Focus
The team's new observations add much more detail to our view of Makemake—not only limiting the possibility of an atmosphere but also determining the planet's size and surface more accurately.
"We think Makemake is a sphere flattened slightly at both poles and mostly covered with very white ices—mainly of methane," said Ortiz.
"But there are also indications for some organic material at least at some places; this material is usually very red and we think in a small percentage of the surface, the terrain is quite dark," he added.
Why Makemake lacks a global atmosphere remains a big mystery, but Ortiz does have a theory. Pluto is covered in nitrogen ice. When the sun heats this volatile material, it turns straight into a gas, creating Pluto's atmosphere.
Makemake lacks nitrogen ice on its surface, so there is nothing for the sun to heat into a gas to provide an atmosphere.
The dwarf planet has less mass, and a weaker gravitational field, than Pluto, said Ortiz. This means that over eons of time, Makemake may not have been able to hang on to its nitrogen.
Methane ice will also transform into a gas when heated. But since the dwarf planet is nearly at its furthest distance from the sun, Ortiz believes that Makemake's surface methane is still frozen. (Learn about orbital planes.)
And even if the methane were to transform into a gas, any resulting atmosphere would cover, at most, only ten percent of the planet, said Ortiz.
The new results are detailed today in the journal Nature.
A natural gas explosion in one of New England's biggest cities on Friday leveled a strip club with a boom heard for miles and heavily damaged a dozen other buildings but didn't kill anyone, authorities said.
Firefighters, police officers and gas company workers in the area because of an earlier gas leak and odor report were among the 18 people injured in the blast, authorities said.
"This is a miracle on Worthington Street that no one was killed," Lt. Gov. Tim Murray said at a press conference.
The explosion in Springfield, 90 miles west of Boston, blew out all windows in a three-block radius, leaving three buildings irreparably damaged and prompting emergency workers to evacuate a six-story apartment building that was buckling, police said.
Police Sgt. John Delaney marveled at the destruction at the blast's epicenter, where a multistory building housing a Scores Gentleman's Club, evacuated earlier because of the gas leak, was leveled.
"It looks like there was a missile strike here," he said.
The victims were taken to two hospitals in the city. None of their injuries was considered life-threatening, officials said. Those hurt were nine firefighters, two police officers, four Columbia Gas of Massachusetts workers, two civilians and another city employee.
Don Treeger, Springfield Republican/AP Photo
Firefighters responded to the scene at 4:20 p.m. and were investigating the gas leak when the blast happened about one hour later. The cause of the explosion hadn't been identified but was under investigation, they said.
Springfield, which has about 150,000 residents, is the largest city in western Massachusetts. It's known as the home of the Basketball Hall of Fame, which is not in the vicinity of the blast.
The city has been rebuilding from damage it sustained in a June 2011 tornado.
The explosion happened in an area of downtown Springfield with commercial properties and residences. Area resident Wayne Davis, who lives about a block away from the destroyed strip club building, said he felt his apartment shake.
"I was laying down in bed, and I started feeling the building shaking and creaking," he said.
The Navy veteran said the boom from the explosion was louder than anything he'd ever heard, including the sound of a jet landing on an aircraft carrier.
The blast was so loud it was heard in several neighboring communities for miles around. Video from WWLP-TV showed the moment of the explosion, with smoke billowing into the air above the neighborhood.
Mayor Domenic Sarno said it was through "God's mercy" that nobody had been reported killed in the explosion.
"My thoughts and prayers are with the individuals that have been injured and the people who have been displaced," he said, adding that emergency shelter was being set up for those unable to go home.
An official of the gas company said there were no signs of any additional gas leaks in the area but crews would be monitoring the area closely over the next two days.
———
Associated Press writers Bridget Murphy and Bob Salsberg in Boston contributed to this story.
Politicians tasked with negotiating a deal next month to avoid the “fiscal cliff” can be thankful that their talks are taking place immediately after a clarifying national election that laid out exactly how the public wants Washington to deal with debt and deficits.
Or not.
SINGAPORE: Senior Minister of State for Defence Chan Chun Sing observed Exercise APEX at the Changi Command and Control (C2) Centre on Friday morning.
The exercise, held from 29th October to 27th November, is led by the Singapore Armed Forces' Maritime Security Task Force (MSTF).
It involves over 1,000 personnel from agencies such as the Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN), Air Force (RSAF), the Army and the the Police Coast Guard.
Assets deployed include six patrol vessels, a frigate and a landing ship tank.
The defence ministry said this year's exercise is the eighth in the APEX series.
It is part of the continuing effort to enhance inter-agency collaboration and inter-operability to defend Singapore's territorial waters.
- CNA/xq
The Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha, which witnessed disruptions on the first day of the winter session on Thursday before being adjourned for the day, saw ruckus on Friday too as the BJP along with the CPM and the Trinamool Congress continued their protest for the second consecutive day.
The Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had yesterday hosted a dinner for L K Advani, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley, the three top BJP leaders, on Thursday night at his 7 Race Course Road residence in an effort to ensure that the winter session of Parliament is not lost to the standoff between the government and the opposition over the issue of FDI in retail.
At the dinner, the BJP was reportedly adamant that the only way it will allow Parliament to function without disruption is if the government agrees to discuss its major policy decision to allow 51 percent FDI in multi-brand retail under Rule 184, which entails a vote.
The government was equally adamant that it was an executive decision that does not need Parliament's approval. It is ready to discuss the issue, but it does not want a vote.
Orbiting at the frozen edges of our solar system, the mysterious dwarf planet Makemake is finally coming out of the shadows as astronomers get their best view yet of Pluto's little sibling.
Discovered in 2005, Makemake—pronounced MAH-keh MAH-keh after a Polynesian creation god—is one of five Pluto-like objects that prompted a redefining of the term "planet" and the creation of a new group of dwarf planets in 2006. (Related: "Pluto Not a Planet, Astronomers Rule.")
Just like the slightly larger Pluto, this icy world circles our sun beyond Neptune. Researchers expected Makemake to also have a global atmosphere—but new evidence reveals that isn't the case.
Staring at a Star
An international team of astronomers was able for the first time to probe Makemake's physical characteristics using the European Southern Observatory's three most powerful telescopes in Chile. The researchers observed the change in light given off by a distant star as the dwarf planet passed in front of it. (Learn how scientists found Makemake.)
"These events are extremely difficult to predict and observe, but they are the only means of obtaining accurate knowledge of important properties of dwarf planets," said Jose Luis Ortiz, lead author of this new study and an astronomer at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia, in Spain.
It's like trying to study a coin from a distance of 30 miles (48 kilometers) or more, Ortiz added.
Ortiz and his team knew Makemake didn't have an atmosphere when light from the background star abruptly dimmed and brightened as the chilly world drifted across its face.
"The light went off very abruptly from all the sites we observed the event so this means this world cannot have a substantial and global atmosphere like that of its sibling Pluto," Ortiz said.
If Makemake had an atmosphere, light from the star would gradually decrease and increase as the dwarf planet passed in front.
Coming Into Focus
The team's new observations add much more detail to our view of Makemake—not only limiting the possibility of an atmosphere but also determining the planet's size and surface more accurately.
"We think Makemake is a sphere flattened slightly at both poles and mostly covered with very white ices—mainly of methane," said Ortiz.
"But there are also indications for some organic material at least at some places; this material is usually very red and we think in a small percentage of the surface, the terrain is quite dark," he added.
Why Makemake lacks a global atmosphere remains a big mystery, but Ortiz does have a theory. Pluto is covered in nitrogen ice. When the sun heats this volatile material, it turns straight into a gas, creating Pluto's atmosphere.
Makemake lacks nitrogen ice on its surface, so there is nothing for the sun to heat into a gas to provide an atmosphere.
The dwarf planet has less mass, and a weaker gravitational field, than Pluto, said Ortiz. This means that over eons of time, Makemake may not have been able to hang on to its nitrogen.
Methane ice will also transform into a gas when heated. But since the dwarf planet is nearly at its furthest distance from the sun, Ortiz believes that Makemake's surface methane is still frozen. (Learn about orbital planes.)
And even if the methane were to transform into a gas, any resulting atmosphere would cover, at most, only ten percent of the planet, said Ortiz.
The new results are detailed today in the journal Nature.
With earlier-than-ever deals and 147 million people expected to hit the stores this holiday weekend, retailers such as Best Buy are taking extra steps to avoid the Black Friday shopper chaos -- and inevitable news stories -- of the past.
Best Buy officials said they've been prepping for the madness for days.
The retailer has created color-coded maps, moved merchandise around to ease congestion and held a dry run so that its employees can get practice.
"[We want to] get people in safely and out safely," said Jay Buchanan, a Best Buy employee. The goal is to get them "through the lines quick, fast and in a hurry so they can get what they need."
In Bloomington, Minn., the Mall of America extended its ban on young people younger than 16 shopping without an adult during the weekend evenings to Black Friday.
Daniel Acker/Bloomberg/Getty Images
At the Arden Fair Mall in Sacramento, Calif., security planned to place barricades at the mall entrance to control the crowds and officials planned to double the number of security officers.
In Los Angeles, the police were putting hundreds of extra officers on foot, on horseback and in the air to monitor shopping crowds.
"It seems like Black Friday's become bigger and bigger as the years have gone by," said Los Angeles Police Cmdr. Andrew Smith. "What we've seen across the country are huge problems with crowds. They just forget about everyday courtesy and sometimes go nuts."
According to today's news reports, though, things were already getting out of hand.
When a south Sacramento, Calif., K-Mart opened its doors at 6 a.m. today, a shopper in a line of people that had formed nearly two hours earlier reportedly threatened to stab the people around him.
And at two K-Marts in Indianapolis, police officers were called in after fights broke out among shoppers trying to score vouchers for a 32-inch plasma TV going for less than $200.
"When you have large crowds of people, control is the most important thing," Steve Reed, a security officer at the Arden Fair Mall, told ABC News affiliate News 10. "You want them [customers] to be able to get in the mall without getting trampled and having issues of any kind happening to them. That's really important for us."
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