By Dylan Stableford | The Sideshow â€"Â
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Gunman kills top member of Afghan peace council- Senator calls for charges in Al Qaeda plot leak
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January 26, 2012: Former Taliban minister Maulvi Arsala Rahmani, a member of the High Peace Council set up by President Hamid Karzai two years ago to liaise with insurgents, speaks during an interview in Kabul.Reuters
KABUL, Afghanistan â€"  An assassin armed with a silenced pistol shot dead a top member of the Afghan peace council Sunday at a traffic intersection in the nation's capital, police said. The killing strikes another blow to efforts to negotiate a political resolution to the decade-long war.
Arsala Rahmani was a former Taliban official who reconciled with the government and was active in trying to set up formal talks with the insurgents.
He was shot at an intersection in western Kabul by a gunman in a white Toyota Corolla while being driven to his office, said Mohammad Zahir, head of the city police's criminal investigation division. He did not have a bodyguard with him at the time.
"Only one shot was fired," Zahir said. "Our initial reports are that it was a pistol with a silencer. Rahmani died on the way to the hospital." Zahir said an investigation was under way.
The Taliban denied responsibility for the killing, although they had earlier indicated that they would target peace negotiators.
Rahmani was one of about 70 influential Afghans and former Taliban appointed by President Hamid Karzai to try to convince insurgent leaders to reconcile with the government.
The U.S. has backed the council's efforts to pull the Taliban into political discussions with Kabul as part of its strategy for reducing violence and turning over responsibility to Afghan forces so international combat troops can go home or move into support roles by the end of 2014.
But this effort suffered a major setback in September 2011 when former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was head of the peace council, was assassinated by a suicide bomber posing as a peace emissary from the Taliban.
The U.S. has its own contacts with the Taliban, but in March the militant organization said they were suspending contacts with the United States over what they said was a lack of progress in releasing Taliban prisoners from U.S. detention in Guantanamo.
The last substantive discussions between U.S. officials and Taliban representatives were in January, and both initiatives to build trust and move toward real peace talks are in limbo.
A year ago, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the United States was launching a "diplomatic surge to move this conflict toward a political outcome."
The alternative to a political resolution is a protracted conflict that neither the war-weary Afghans, Americans or Europeans want or can afford.
On Twitter, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul called the assassination of another peace council member "a tragedy."
NATO praised Rahmani for "turning his back" on the insurgent movement and said his contributions will be missed.
"The only possible aim of this attack is to intimidate those, who like Rahmani, want to help make Afghanistan a better place for its citizens and the region," the coalition said in a statement.
Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman Janan Mosazai said work toward reconciliation with the Taliban would continue despite Rahmani's killing.
"No one but the sworn enemies of peace in Afghanistan and the region would commit such a heinous act," he said in a statement.
Rahmani, who was in his 70s, served as deputy minister of higher education during the Taliban regime, which ruled Afghanistan for five years and sheltered Al Qaeda before being driven out of power in the U.S.-led invasion in late 2001. He reconciled with the government established in Kabul after the Taliban's fall and subsequently served in parliament.
Rahmani was one of several former members of the Taliban who were removed from a U.N. blacklist in July 2011. The decision by a U.N. committee eliminated a travel ban and an assets freeze against Rahmani and the others -- a move seen as key to promoting the peace effort.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in a statement that his group had nothing to do with Rahmani's assassination.
When they announced the start of their annual "spring offensive" earlier this month, the Taliban said that members of the peace council -- who they view as government collaborators -- would be among their primary targets.
The offensive, which comes every year as the weather warms, normally leads to an increase in attacks as the insurgents seek to intimidate the government and retake territory lost over the winter.
Publicly, the leadership of the Taliban has said that it will not talk to the Afghan government, which it calls a puppet regime of the U.S. and its international partners. Privately, however, some representatives of the Taliban who are open to negotiating a settlement have met with U.S., Afghan and other international officials.
Rahmani, along with other members of the peace council, was trying to forge relations with those Taliban amenable to peace talks.
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Drawing Raises Doubts Over Iran\'s Nuclear Claims
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This undated rendering said to come from inside Iran' Parchin military site and obtained by The Associated Press from an official of a country tracking Iran's nuclear activities, shows a chamber of the type needed for nuclear arms-related tests that U.N. inspectors suspect Tehran has conducted at the site.AP
VIENNA â€"  A drawing based on information from inside an Iranian military site shows an explosives containment chamber of the type needed for nuclear arms-related tests that U.N. inspectors suspect Tehran has conducted there. Iran denies such testing and has neither confirmed nor denied the existence of such a chamber.
  The computer-generated drawing was provided to The Associated Press by an official of a country tracking Iran's nuclear program who said it proves the structure exists, despite Tehran's refusal to acknowledge it.
  That official said the image is based on information from a person who had seen the chamber at the Parchin military site, adding that going into detail would endanger the life of that informant. The official comes from an IAEA member country that is severely critical of Iran's assertions that its nuclear activities are peaceful and asserts they are a springboard for making atomic arms.
  A former senior IAEA official said he believes the drawing is accurate. Olli Heinonen, until last year the U.N. nuclear agency's deputy director general in charge of the Iran file, said it was "very similar" to a photo he recently saw that he believes to be the pressure chamber the IAEA suspects is at Parchin.
  He said even the colors of the computer-generated drawing matched that of the photo he had but declined to go into the origins of the photo to protect his source.
  After months of being rebuffed, IAEA and Iranian officials meet starting Monday in Vienna, and the IAEA will renew its attempt to gain access to the chamber, allegedly hidden in a building. Any evidence that Iran is hiding such an explosives containment tank, and details on how it functions, is significant for IAEA investigations.
  Beyond IAEA hopes of progress, that two-day meeting is being closely watched by six powers trying to persuade Iran to make nuclear concessions aimed at reducing fears that it may want to develop atomic arms as a mood-setter for May 23 talks between the six and Tehran in Baghdad.
  Warnings by Israel that it may attack Iran's nuclear facilities eased after Iran and the six - the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany - met last month and agreed there was enough common will for the Baghdad round. But with the Jewish state saying it is determined to stop Iran before it develops the capacity to build nuclear weapons, failure at the Iraq talks could turn such threats into reality.
  In Tehran on Sunday, Saeed Jalili, Iran's top nuclear negotiator, said it was up to the Western nations coming to the Baghdad talks to "build trust of the Iranian nation," adding, "Any kind of miscalculation by the West will block success of the talks."
  The IAEA has been stonewalled by Iran for more than four years in attempts to probe what it says is intelligence from member states strongly suggesting that Iran secretly worked on developing nuclear weapons.
  It first mentioned the suspected existence of the chamber in a November report that described "a large explosives containment vessel" for experiments on triggering a nuclear explosion, adding that it had satellite images "consistent with this information."
  It did not detail what the images showed. But a senior diplomat familiar with the IAEA's investigation who has also seen the image provided to the AP said they revealed a cylinder similar to the image at Parchin. Subsequent photos showed a roof and walls going up around the cylinder that then hid the chamber from satellite surveillance.
  IAEA chief Yukiya Amano said in March that his agency has "credible information that indicates that Iran engaged in activities relevant to the development of nuclear explosive devices" at the site. Diplomats subsequently told the AP that the experiments also appear to have involved a small prototype neutron device used to spark a nuclear explosion - equipment that would be tested only if a country was trying to develop atomic weapons.
  Iran has strenuously denied conducting such work - and any intentions to build nuclear weapons - but has been less clear on whether the structure where it allegedly took place exists.
  The senior diplomat familiar with the IAEA investigations said the Iranians have refused to comment "one way or the other" on that issue to agency experts. He and others interviewed by the AP demanded anonymity because their information was privileged, and the official providing the drawing and other details on the structure also demanded that he and his country not be identified in return for sharing classified intelligence.
  Attempts to get Iranian comment were unsuccessful. A copy of the diagram was attached to an email sent to Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's chief delegate to the IAEA, with a note that the AP would be asking for reaction. Subsequent phone calls over the weekend went to his voice mail.
  The technology used for the suspected multipoint explosives trigger experiments is similar to that employed in manufacturing tiny industrialized diamonds, and the IAEA believes former Soviet scientist Vyacheslav Danilenko - an expert in such diamond-making - helped Iran with designing the chamber.
  Diplomats say Danilenko has told the agency that he did not work on such a chamber, but his son in law, identified by the diplomats as Vladimir Padalko, told the IAEA that the container was built under Danilenko's direct supervision. Repeated attempts by the AP and other media organizations to contact the two men have been unsuccessful since the IAEA revealed Danilenko's suspected involvement in November.
  "What one does inside such a chamber is conduct high explosives testing," said Mark Fitzpatrick, director of the Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Program of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. "You are going to make something go boom with maybe 70 kilograms (more than 150 pounds) of high explosives, you need to contain the explosion.
  "And particularly if you are using uranium, which is reportedly the case, you want to contain all the uranium dust so there's not any tell-tale, observable signals of that experimentation."
  The official who provided the drawing also shared the following information on the chamber:
  ORIGINS
  -Built in the early 2000s by Azar AB Industries Co. in the city of Arak and then transported to Parchin. Both the senior diplomat familiar with the IAEA investigations and Heinonen, the former senior IAEA official, confirmed this. Company officials did not answer calls seeking comment.
  SIZE
  -Volume: 300 cubic meters, or about 10,600 feet. Diameter: 4.6 meters, or 15.09 feet. Length: 18. 8 meters, or 61.68 feet. The senior diplomat confirmed the measurements.
  EQUIPPED WITH
  -A vacuum pump used to remove air from the chamber to minimize pressure that could damage the structure during an explosion; a compressor that shoots water into the chamber after testing to flood and clean it; a septic tank that receives the waste; an elevation system to suspend the explosives in the upper part of the chamber during testing; and a neutron detection system outside the explosion chamber to measure neutron emissions. The senior diplomat said these features would make sense, or such testing, but could not verify they existed, suggesting they may have been added after the Iranians put up the superstructure shielding the chamber from satellite surveillance.
  TIME FRAME
  -The official said the chamber was used for detonation experiments in 2003, 2005 and 2006. Two officials familiar with the investigations said the first date appeared to be valid but they had no information of subsequent experiments. The United States believes Iran stopped working on a concerted nuclear weapons program at various sites after 2003, while the IAEA suspects Tehran is continuing some work but in a much less organized way than before 2003.
  THE SCIENTISTS
  -Seyed Ashgar Hashemi-Tabar, described as "an expert in measuring detonation phenomena" and not previously identified. Acting on information from the same official, the AP previously named other scientists allegedly involved as Fereydoun Abbasi, the current head of Iran's nuclear agency, who escaped an assassination attempt in 2010; Darious Rezainejad, who was killed by a car bomb last year; and Reza Ibrahimi.
  Inspecting the site at Parchin, southeast of the capital, Tehran, was a key request made by senior IAEA teams that visited Tehran in January and February. Iran rebuffed those demands and subsequent ones - the most recent within the last two weeks - as well as attempts by the nuclear agency to question Iranian officials and secure other information linked to the allegations of secret weapons work.
  At the same time, the IAEA has voiced alarm at unexplained "activity" at the site - a term diplomats familiar with the agency's concerns say stands for attempts to clean up any evidence of the kinds of experiments the agency suspects were carried out.
  A second senior diplomat familiar with the investigation recently told the AP that spy satellite images shared with the agency show what seems to be water streaming from the building housing the chamber. He said it also depicts workers removing bags of material from that building and put on vehicles outside.
  A third senior diplomat said that the apparent cleanup was continuing in early May, the last time he had seen the images.
  Iran has scoffed at suggestions of a cleanup in general and of testing a neutron device in particular, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mahmanparast asserting that nuclear contamination cannot be washed away. But experts challenge that assertion.
  A cleanup "could involve grinding down the surfaces inside the building, collecting the dust and then washing the area thoroughly," said David Albright, whose Institute for Science and International Security in Washington looks for signs of nuclear proliferation. "This could be followed with new building materials and paint.
  "It could also involve removing any dirt around the building thought to contain contaminants," Albright said in a statement emailed to selected recipients. "These types of activities could be effective in defeating environmental sampling."
  Fitzpatrick, the other nuclear nonproliferation expert, also said a cleanup could be effective.
  "In the past, the IAEA has been able to catch out Iran by going to a building that Iran tried to clean and they still found traces of uranium," he said. "And Iran learned from that and they learned that `boy you have to scrub everything really clean; get down into the drains and grind away any possible residue."'
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Yahoo CEO steps down amid resume dispute
Yahoo revealed Sunday that it is replacing its chief executive and chairman following a scandal over former CEO Scott Thompson's resume.
Thompson is leaving the company and will be replaced by Ross Levinsohn effective immediately, the company said in a statement. Levinsohn had previously served as the head of global media.Â
Fred Amoroso will take over as chairman of the company's board in place of Roy Bostock. Yahoo also said it has reached a settlement with activist hedge fund Third Point to appoint three of its nominees to the board: Daniel Loeb, Harry Wilson, and Michael Wolf.
Yahoo's board said in a statement that it "is pleased to announce these changes and the settlement with Third Point, and is confident that they will serve the best interests of our shareholders and further accelerate the substantial advances the Company has made operationally and organizationally since last August."
Third Point, which owns a 5.8% stake in Yahoo's common stock, brought to light earlier this month that Thompson embellished his resume by saying he had an accounting and computer science degree. The company later confirmed that he only possessed an accounting degree.Â
"We are confident this Board will benefit from shareholder representation, and we are committed to working with new leadership to unlock Yahoo!'s significant potential and value," Third Point Chief Executive Officer Daniel Loeb said in a statement.Â
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Romney: I\'m Not Running For \'Pastor in Chief\'
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May 12, 2012: Mitt Romney speaks at the Liberty University commencement ceremony in Lynchburg, Va.Reuters
Mitt Romney, addressing his Mormon faith on the sidelines of his major speech Saturday at an evangelical university, said he's not running to be "pastor in chief."Â
Asked to address "misconceptions" about his faith, Romney said he couldn't' characterize the views of others. But he said despite "significant differences" between religions, "we find common ground and common purpose" in service and values.Â
"These causes bring us together and allow us to lock arms despite the different theological views that we have. And ... we care very deeply about finding people who share our values and our views, and work for a person who can become our Commander in Chief but perhaps not our Pastor in Chief."Â
The Republican presidential candidate discussed his faith with CBN News while visiting Virginia's Liberty University for his speech Saturday.Â
The former Massachusetts governor also discussed his reputation as a prankster.Â
Romney has apologized in recent days for what he described as high school "hijinks" -- after a Washington Post story claimed he had cut a fellow student's hair while attending school decades ago. Romney, though, has said he doesn't recall that specific incident and the family of the alleged victim, who has since died of cancer, has disputed the accuracy of the story.Â
In the CBN interview, Romney explained some of his more common pranks -- like "short sheeting" a bed, which is when the sheets in a bed are folded improperly to make it impossible for the person in the bed to stretch out.Â
"We have in our family of course, a number of things that we do like pushing people out of a boat, short sheeting their bed, putting corn flakes in their bed, a lot of jokes and tricks that we play among ourselves," Romney said.Â
The candidate said he once had a state trooper who short-sheeted his bed once -- but explained how he returned the prank.Â
"The next morning when I came down to breakfast, he of course had a big smile because he was going to see how I reacted. I pretended not to notice," Romney said.Â
Instead, Romney said, he wrote up an official-looking letter to himself saying the hotel had the maid fired over the improper bed-making. When the "letter" arrived at his office, his secretary showed it to the state trooper.Â
"He was so upset. His boss told him he had to call the hotel and explain to the manager that he was the one that had messed up, not the person that they had fired. He got on the phone all red faced, and then finally, of course when the manager had no idea what he was talking about, he realized the joke was on him.Â
"So, we play tricks even with the people I work with," Romney said.
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Flier Fights Airline to Get Back Unlimited Pass
He's the man who flew too much.
Steve Rothstein bought a golden ticket from American Airlines in 1987 - granting him a lifetime of unlimited travel.
He clocked more than 10 million miles and 10,000 flights. He used his power to fly hopeless strangers home, a friend to the Louvre, and a priest to Rome to meet the pope. He hopped planes to other cities just for a baseball game or a sandwich.
"[I] became a hero at the airline," Rothstein, 61, a Manhattan investment banker, told The Post. "I could just show up and get a seat."
But in 2008, AA accused him of fraud and snatched his bottomless boarding pass.
American is reviewing its AAirpass program to find ways to terminate some of the 66 high-flying contracts that are costing the company millions of dollars a year.
Rothstein, then living in Chicago, bought his AAirpass for $250,000, plus a companion ticket for $150,000 more.
He traveled 18 times in July 2004 alone, jetting to Nova Scotia, Maine, London, Los Angeles and Denver.
He booked flights under fake names such as "Bag Rothstein" if he didn't know who his companion would be - a practice that the airline later used to accuse him of fraud.
Because of the AAirpass, his daughter went to boarding school in Switzerland. He took his son to dozens of nationwide sporting events including the Yankees-Mets Subway Series.
Some days he flew to Providence, RI, home of his alma mater, Brown University, just for a baloney-and-Swiss-cheese melt from a place called Geoff's.
Still, the charmed traveler paid his fortune forward.
He gave away all of his 14 million air miles. If a stranded traveler was crying - such as one woman desperately trying to return to Bronxville, NY, because her children didn't have a baby sitter - he'd offer her his companion seat.
"I felt those random acts of kindness were exactly the sorts of things that we're meant to do as people," he said.
It was on another goodwill trip that Rothstein was ultimately dethroned, and he had no idea it was coming.
On Dec. 13, 2008, he checked in at Chicago O'Hare International Airport with a friend, a policeman hoping to return to his native Bosnia.
An AA employee gave him a letter saying his pass had been terminated due to fraudulent activity.
He went home in shock and didn't leave bed for days.
"I feel betrayed," Rothstein said, adding that he helped sell AAirpasses to firms and spoke at the carrier's events. "They took away my hobby and my life. They essentially destroyed my persona."
Rothstein filed a lawsuit and a federal judge in Illinois ruled against him for booking under phony names. The case is now being appealed.
"Our country is almost captive to big companies who have incredible power to do whatever they want to do," said Rothstein, who moved to New York in 2009. "It's hard to fight them."
But that's just what he's doing to get his beloved AAirpass back.
“They signed a contract,†he said, “and a contract's a contract.â€
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Taliban Leader Turned Peace Negotiator Killed
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January 26, 2012: Former Taliban minister Maulvi Arsala Rahmani, a member of the High Peace Council set up by President Hamid Karzai two years ago to liaise with insurgents, speaks during an interview in Kabul.Reuters
KABUL, Afghanistan â€"  An assassin armed with a silenced pistol shot dead a top member of the Afghan peace council Sunday at a traffic intersection in the nation's capital, police said. The killing strikes another blow to efforts to negotiate a political resolution to the decade-long war.
Arsala Rahmani was a former Taliban official who reconciled with the government and was active in trying to set up formal talks with the insurgents.
He was shot at an intersection in western Kabul by a gunman in a white Toyota Corolla while being driven to his office, said Mohammad Zahir, head of the city police's criminal investigation division. He did not have a bodyguard with him at the time.
"Only one shot was fired," Zahir said. "Our initial reports are that it was a pistol with a silencer. Rahmani died on the way to the hospital." Zahir said an investigation was under way.
The Taliban denied responsibility for the killing, although they had earlier indicated that they would target peace negotiators.
Rahmani was one of about 70 influential Afghans and former Taliban appointed by President Hamid Karzai to try to convince insurgent leaders to reconcile with the government.
The U.S. has backed the council's efforts to pull the Taliban into political discussions with Kabul as part of its strategy for reducing violence and turning over responsibility to Afghan forces so international combat troops can go home or move into support roles by the end of 2014.
But this effort suffered a major setback in September 2011 when former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was head of the peace council, was assassinated by a suicide bomber posing as a peace emissary from the Taliban.
The U.S. has its own contacts with the Taliban, but in March the militant organization said they were suspending contacts with the United States over what they said was a lack of progress in releasing Taliban prisoners from U.S. detention in Guantanamo.
The last substantive discussions between U.S. officials and Taliban representatives were in January, and both initiatives to build trust and move toward real peace talks are in limbo.
A year ago, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the United States was launching a "diplomatic surge to move this conflict toward a political outcome."
The alternative to a political resolution is a protracted conflict that neither the war-weary Afghans, Americans or Europeans want or can afford.
On Twitter, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul called the assassination of another peace council member "a tragedy."
NATO praised Rahmani for "turning his back" on the insurgent movement and said his contributions will be missed.
"The only possible aim of this attack is to intimidate those, who like Rahmani, want to help make Afghanistan a better place for its citizens and the region," the coalition said in a statement.
Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman Janan Mosazai said work toward reconciliation with the Taliban would continue despite Rahmani's killing.
"No one but the sworn enemies of peace in Afghanistan and the region would commit such a heinous act," he said in a statement.
Rahmani, who was in his 70s, served as deputy minister of higher education during the Taliban regime, which ruled Afghanistan for five years and sheltered Al Qaeda before being driven out of power in the U.S.-led invasion in late 2001. He reconciled with the government established in Kabul after the Taliban's fall and subsequently served in parliament.
Rahmani was one of several former members of the Taliban who were removed from a U.N. blacklist in July 2011. The decision by a U.N. committee eliminated a travel ban and an assets freeze against Rahmani and the others -- a move seen as key to promoting the peace effort.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in a statement that his group had nothing to do with Rahmani's assassination.
When they announced the start of their annual "spring offensive" earlier this month, the Taliban said that members of the peace council -- who they view as government collaborators -- would be among their primary targets.
The offensive, which comes every year as the weather warms, normally leads to an increase in attacks as the insurgents seek to intimidate the government and retake territory lost over the winter.
Publicly, the leadership of the Taliban has said that it will not talk to the Afghan government, which it calls a puppet regime of the U.S. and its international partners. Privately, however, some representatives of the Taliban who are open to negotiating a settlement have met with U.S., Afghan and other international officials.
Rahmani, along with other members of the peace council, was trying to forge relations with those Taliban amenable to peace talks.
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Teen scores NFL star as prom date on Twitter
INDEPENDENCE, Ohio â€"  When 18-year-old Joyce Grendal's prom date backed out before the big dance, the Ohio teen did not despair. Instead, she got creative.
Fox 8 reports the bold teen decided to ask someone else to prom: Joe Haden, cornerback for the Cleveland Browns.Â
Grendal has long been a Haden supporter. She follows him on Twitter, has sent him encouraging messages and has gone to a few signing events.
"She's been a really good Haden Nation supporter," Haden told Fox 8.
Grendal tweeted Haden, asking him to her senior prom.
“It just said, ‘Hey Joe, would you consider going to my senior prom with me because my date backed out and didn't go,' †she told Fox 8.
Grendal said despite her gutsy tweet, she "didn't really think she had a chance" of scoring a date with Haden.
However, about an hour later Haden tweeted back, saying he would take Grendal to prom.
On Saturday, Haden escorted Grendal to her prom, and even drove the teen to the dance in his own white Lamborghini.
23-year-old Haden says the night was special to him too, as he never got to attend his own senior prom.
"This is my prom, too,†he told Fox 8.
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Libertarian Candidate Faces Debate Challenge
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File: Libertarian candidate Gary JohnsonJohnson campaign
Former GOP Gov. Gary Johnson pulled an end run to get into the presidential elections by switching to the Libertarian Party and winning the party's nomination. But Johnson still faces the same challenge he had as a Republican -- trying to get to debate the top candidates.
The Commission on Presidential Debates tells Fox News a final determination will be made in early fall. But Johnson, the former New Mexico governor who supports gay marriage and the legalization of marijuana, appears to be facing long odds.
"We know what the challenges are," campaign spokesman Joe Hunter said Saturday. "To get the attention we believe we deserve, we have to stay relevant, say things that get people's attention."
Hunter said that like other third-party or second-tier candidates, Johnson has relied on the Internet to get out his message and on grassroots efforts, including a burgeoning unofficial campaign called Let Me Speak to get him into the debates.
Johnson, highlighting his outside-the-GOP-mainstream position, called out President Obama this week for supporting gay marriage, but saying it should remain a state issue.
"When the smoke clears, gay Americans will realize the president's words have gained them nothing," Johnson said in a blog post. "Millions of Americans in most states will continue to be denied true marriage equality. What is the President saying -- that he would eat a piece of cake at a gay wedding if the state the happy couple lives in allows it?"
Johnson was essentially shut out of the GOP debates for failing to garner even 1 percent of the popular vote â€" until an exception was made and he was allowed to participate in two debates cosponsored by Fox News.
The criteria of getting in the presidential debates is that a candidate must be constitutionally eligible, which means being a natural-born U.S. citizen who is at least 35 and has lived in the country for 14 years. The other two rules are the candidate must be on enough state ballots to "at least have a mathematical chance" of getting the majority of Electoral College votes, which would be a minimum 270, and have at least 15 percent of the popular vote.
Johnson appears to be on the ballot in all 50 states, but getting 15 percent of the vote appears unlikely.
A committee official said earlier this week that Gallup will take the average of five national polls to determine the percentages for candidates. The non-partisan group has in years past made the announcement in September.
"If we get in the debates, which we believe we can, the game changes entirely," Hunter said.
The debate schedule is Oct. 3 at the University of Denver, in Colorado; Oct. 16 at Hofstra University, in Hempstead, N.Y.; Oct. 22 at Lynn University, in Boca Raton, Fla.
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Asian nations seek to ease North Korea tensions
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May 13, 2012: South Korea's President Lee Myung-bak, left, China's Premier Wen Jiabao, center, and Japan's Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda hold their hands together as they pose for photographs ahead of the fifth trilateral summit among the three nations in Beijing.AP
BEIJING â€"  The leaders of China, South Korea and Japan said Sunday that they will work together to try to calm tensions on the Korean peninsula. The three largest East Asian economies also took steps toward deepening their economic ties by laying the groundwork for a regional free trade area.
The nations -- which together account for 90 percent of the East Asian economy -- were holding their fifth annual trilateral summit, with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao hosting, and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda attending.
Lee said the three countries all agreed that any further provocations from North Korea would be unacceptable.
A failed rocket launch by North Korea last month drew sanctions from the U.N. Security Council, and there are now fears Pyongyang is preparing to conduct its third nuclear test. China -- a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council -- is North Korea's closest diplomatic ally.
"The pressing task is to try our best to prevent tensions on the Korean peninsula from escalating," Wen said. He urged all parties to "return to the right track of dialogue and negotiations."
Noda said Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul should work together to try to prevent further provocations by North Korea.
Lee, meanwhile, said South Korea was pleased that China has been urging North Korea to improve the living standards of its people.
The summit -- which followed a meeting among the three nations' economic and trade ministers -- also saw the signing of an investment agreement, paving the way for the setup of a free trade area among the three nations.
The leaders agreed that negotiations for the free trade area should begin by the end of the year.
The initiative comes amid a slow global economic recovery.
"In times of crisis, if countries, for their own survival, carry out protectionist ideas, then the recovery of the economy will take a long time," Lee said.
Wen said the regional pact -- which exists in several other parts of the world -- would benefit the East Asian countries at a time of rising trade protectionism around the world.
"The establishment of (a free trade area) will unleash the economic vitality of our region and give a strong boost to economic integration in East Asia," Wen said.
Noda said the economic cooperation among Japan, China and South Korea was crucial in ensuring the Asia-Pacific region remain the growth center of the world economy.
Trade among the three countries grew to $690 billion in 2011, and China is the biggest trade partner for both South Korea and Japan, according to a Chinese government report on the three-nation relationship.
The investment agreement -- the first such document among the three nations -- will stimulate further investment and promote additional trade, the Chinese Commerce Ministry said in a statement.
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Shooter kills top member of Afghan peace council
KABUL, Afghanistan â€"  A gunman shot dead a top member of the Afghan peace council Sunday in Kabul, police said. The assassination strikes another blow to efforts to negotiate a political resolution to the decade-long war.
Arsala Rahmani, a former Taliban official turned Afghan peace negotiator, was in his vehicle when he was killed by an unknown attacker in another vehicle at an intersection in the west part of the city, according to Mohammad Zahir, head of the Kabul police department's criminal investigation division.
The peace effort suffered a major setback in September 2011 when former Afghan president, Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was head of the peace council, was assassinated by a suicide bomber posing as a peace emissary from the Taliban.
On Twitter, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul called the assassination of another peace council member "a tragedy."
Rahmani, a former member of parliament, was one of about 70 influential Afghans and former Taliban appointed by President Hamid Karzai to try to reconcile with the insurgents.
Rahmani served as minister of higher education during the Taliban regime, which ruled Afghanistan for five years and sheltered al-Qaida before being driven out of power in the U.S.-led invasion in late 2001.
Rahmani was one of several former members of the Taliban who were removed from a U.N. blacklist in July 2011. The decision by a U.N. committee eliminated a travel ban and an assets freeze against Rahmani and the others -- a move seen as key to promoting the peace effort.
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Authorities Search for \'Distraught\' FBI Agent
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FILE: FBI agent Stephen Ivens. Ivens was last seen by family members April 10, KABC-TV reported.AP
BURBANK, Calif. â€"  Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department officials and other law enforcement personnel searched a rugged mountain area Saturday for an FBI agent who had not been seen for more than 24 hours and was said to be despondent and possibly suicidal.
Los Angeles-based Special Agent Stephen Ivens was last seen by family members Thursday evening, KABC-TV reported. He left his Burbank home the next morning on foot and hasn't been seen since, FBI officials said at a news conference.
Ivens was distraught and authorities fear he may have harmed himself, according to KABC-TV. Officials did not say why Ivens was distraught.
A search of his home did not turn up his handgun and police believe he may have taken it with him.
About 100 FBI agents, 40 sheriff's department rescuers and a dozen local police officers were participating in the search for Ivens, who was described as an avid hiker and runner.
FBI Special Agent Steve Gomez said dogs had tracked Ivens' scent toward the rugged Verdugo Mountains, east of Burbank, but searchers were fanning out throughout Los Angeles County.
Ivens was described by FBI colleagues as well liked. Married with a one-year-old child, he has been working for the FBI for the past three years in the national security area. Prior to that, he worked as a Los Angeles police officer for eight years.
Gomez told reporters that foul play was not suspected and Ivens was not believed to pose a threat to others.
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Searchers hunt for clues in Russian plane wreckage
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May 11, 2012: The logo of Sukhoi Co. is clearly visible, center, among the wreckage of a Sukhoi Superjet-100 scattered on the mountainside in Bogor, West Java, Indonesia.AP2012
JAKARTA, Indonesia â€"  Officials say search teams on the face of an Indonesian volcano are still looking for the black box recorder that could explain why a Russian-made jetliner crashed into the mountain.
The Sukhoi Superjet-100 had 45 people aboard when it crashed into Mount Salak on Wednesday during a flight intended to woo potential Indonesian airline buyers. All aboard are presumed dead and helicopters are ferrying remains to the capital for identification.
Top civil aviation official Herry Bakti Gumay says Indonesian and Russian investigators including professional climbers are searching for the black box in a ravine near where the plane's scattered wreckage was found.
The Superjet is Russia's first new model of passenger jet since the fall of the Soviet Union two decades ago.
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Missing California FBI agent may be armed, suicidal
BURBANK, Calif. â€"  Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department officials and other law enforcement personnel searched a rugged mountain area Saturday for an FBI agent who had not been seen for more than 24 hours and was said to be despondent and possibly suicidal.
Los Angeles-based Special Agent Stephen Ivens was last seen by family members Thursday evening, KABC-TV reported. He left his Burbank home the next morning on foot and hasn't been seen since, FBI officials said at a news conference.
Ivens was distraught and authorities fear he may have harmed himself, according to KABC-TV. Officials did not say why Ivens was distraught.
A search of his home did not turn up his handgun and police believe he may have taken it with him.
About 100 FBI agents, 40 sheriff's department rescuers and a dozen local police officers were participating in the search for Ivens, who was described as an avid hiker and runner.
FBI Special Agent Steve Gomez said dogs had tracked Ivens' scent toward the rugged Verdugo Mountains, east of Burbank, but searchers were fanning out throughout Los Angeles County.
Ivens was described by FBI colleagues as well liked. Married with a one-year-old child, he has been working for the FBI for the past three years in the national security area. Prior to that, he worked as a Los Angeles police officer for eight years.
Gomez told reporters that foul play was not suspected and Ivens was not believed to pose a threat to others.
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Article from FOXNEWS
California May Face Big Cuts as Deficit Hits $16B
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Feb. 26, 2012: California Gov. Jerry Brown speaks with reporters during the National Governors Association winter meeting in Washington.AP
SACRAMENTO, Calif. â€"  California's budget deficit has swelled to a projected $16 billion -- much larger than had been predicted just months ago -- and will force severe cuts to schools and public safety if voters fail to approve tax increases in November, Gov. Jerry Brown said Saturday.
The Democratic governor said the shortfall grew from $9.2 billion in January in part because tax collections have not come in as high as expected and the economy isn't growing as fast as hoped for. The deficit has also risen because lawsuits and federal requirements have blocked billions of dollars in state cuts.
"This means we will have to go much farther and make cuts far greater than I asked for at the beginning of the year," Brown said in an online video. "But we can't fill this hole with cuts alone without doing severe damage to our schools. That's why I'm bypassing the gridlock and asking you, the people of California, to approve a plan that avoids cuts to schools and public safety."
Brown did not release details of the newly calculated deficit Saturday, but he is expected to lay out a revised spending plan Monday. The new plan for the fiscal year that starts July 1 hinges in large part on voters approving higher taxes.
The governor has said those tax increases are needed to help pull the state out of a crippling decade shaped by the collapse of the housing market and recession. Without them, he warned, public schools and colleges, and public safety, will suffer deeper cuts.
"What I'm proposing is not a panacea, but it goes a long way toward cleaning up the state's budget mess," Brown said.
Democrats, who control the Legislature, have resisted Brown's proposed cuts so far this year. Republican lawmakers criticized the majority party for building in overly optimistic tax revenues.
"Today's news underscores how we must rein in spending and let our economy grow by leaving overburdened taxpayers alone," said Assembly Republican leader Connie Conway in a statement.
The governor pursued a ballot initiative because Republican lawmakers would not provide the votes needed to reach the two-thirds legislative majority required to raise taxes.
Assembly Speaker John Perez, D-Los Angeles, acknowledged that lawmakers have "limited and difficult choices left to solve the deficit." Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said he wasn't surprised by the deficit spike given that state tax revenue have fallen $3.5 billion below projections in the current year.
"We will deal with it," Steinberg said Saturday. "And we know that more cuts are inevitable but we will do our very, very best to save more than we lose, especially for those in need."
Under Brown's tax plan, California would temporarily raise the state's sales tax by a quarter-cent and increase the income tax on people who make $250,000 or more. Brown is projecting his tax initiative would raise as much as $9 billion, but a review by the nonpartisan analyst's office estimates revenue of $6.8 billion in fiscal year 2012-13.
Supporters of the "Schools and Local Public Safety Protection Act of 2012" say the additional revenue would help maintain current funding levels for public schools and colleges and pay for programs that benefit seniors and low-income families. It also would provide local governments with a constitutional guarantee of funding to comply with a new state law that shifts lower-level offenders from state prisons to county jails.
A second tax hike headed for the November ballot is being promoted by Los Angeles civil rights attorney Molly Munger, whose initiative would raise income taxes on a sliding scale for nearly all wage-earners to help fund schools.
Anti-tax groups and Republican lawmakers say both tax increases will hurt California's economic recovery. State GOP Chairman Tom Del Beccaro has embarked on a statewide campaign to discuss alternatives to Brown's tax hikes.
The governor is expected to propose a contingency plan with a list of unpopular cuts that would kick in automatically if voters reject tax hikes this fall. In January, he said they would result in a K-12 school year shortened by up to three weeks, higher college tuition fees and reduced funding for courts.
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Greece in final attempt to form emergency coalition
Greece's president will meet political party chiefs Sunday in a final attempt to forge an emergency coalition, and avoid fresh polls, amid heightened fears of a eurozone exit following inconclusive elections.
Article from YAHOO NEWS
JPMorgan leader\'s reputation nosedives in a matter of days
NEW YORK (AP) - The reputation that Jamie Dimon honed for decades on Wall Street has been severely damaged in a matter of days.
In the 1980s and 1990s, he was the protege of banking industry legend Sanford Weill. In the early 2000s, he took over Bank One, an institution few believed was fixable, and restored it to a profit.
And in 2008 and 2009, at JPMorgan Chase, Dimon built a fortress strong enough to stay profitable during the financial crisis.
His zeal for cost-cutting and perceived mastery of risk did more than keep JPMorgan strong enough to bail out two failing competitors, Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual. It gave him a kind of street cred during the post-crisis years, when he lashed out at regulators who sought to rein in banks, and Occupy Wall Street protesters who raged against them.
Now all that is on the line.
Dimon had to face stock analysts and reporters on Thursday and confess to a "flawed, complex, poorly reviewed, poorly executed and poorly monitored" trading strategy that lost a surprise $2 billion.
The revelation caused traders to shave almost 10 percent off JPMorgan's stock price the following day and brought a shower of complaints from industry observers and lawmakers who said banks needed tighter scrutiny.
Making the black eye worse for Dimon, the loss came in derivatives trading, the complex financial maneuvering that - on a much greater scale - led to large losses and dissolved banks during the financial crisis.
Dimon "staked so much of his reputation on creating this perception of being the ultimate, infallible risk manager," said Simon Johnson, a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund who is now a professor at MIT. "And along comes this huge mistake."
Dimon, 56, grew up in the Queens borough of New York City, the grandson of a Greek immigrant. His father was a stockbroker who worked for many years at Merrill Lynch.
After college and business school, Dimon turned down an offer from the venerable investment bank Goldman Sachs. Weill had been Dimon's father's boss at a previous job and recruited the younger Dimon to American Express.
Weill became Dimon's mentor. When Weill left American Express in 1986, Dimon followed him to Commercial Credit Co., a sleepy finance firm that catered to middle-class clients.
Weill went on to buy a host of companies, including Smith Barney and Travelers, and Dimon led some of those divisions. The empire-building culminated when Travelers merged with Citicorp to form Citigroup in 1998, the largest U.S. bank at that time.
Dimon was the heir apparent but had started to clash with Weill. Weill was insecure about Dimon's growing assertiveness, and Dimon often showed his temper in meetings. Weill fired Dimon in 1998.
Dimon spent time reading biographies of statesmen and took up boxing lessons to let off steam. In 2000, he became CEO of Bank One, a Chicago bank that was losing money. By 2003, he had turned the bank around, and in 2004 it merged with JPMorgan Chase. Dimon became CEO of JPMorgan in 2006.
By that time, Dimon had lived through several industry crises, including the savings and loan meltdown of the late 1980s, a Russian debt default in 1998 and the dot-com stock bust of the early 2000s.
Dimon was not the man responsible for any of those, of course, as he is for the $2 billion error.
His admission of the mistake this week left some analysts asking whether his grip is slipping, and the bank's more than $2 trillion in assets have become too big for him to manage.
More likely, some other analysts said, it is a statement about how, three and a half years after the crisis, banks still conduct impossibly complex trades that are difficult to track.
"If even Jamie gets it wrong managing a $2 trillion bank, what does it say about banks where management is far inferior?" said Mike Mayo, a bank analyst at the brokerage CLSA and author of the book "Exile on Wall Street."
Just a few weeks ago, while answering questions from stock analysts, Dimon dismissed media reports of big market-moving trades by JPMorgan as a "complete tempest in a teapot."
He admitted Thursday that he should have been paying better attention. Asked to what, he first said trading losses then said, "There was some stuff in the newspaper and a bunch of other stuff."
Dimon's signature trait has been cost-cutting, an attribute that helped the banks he led squirrel cash away. At Bank One, after finding out how many newspaper subscriptions the bank paid for, he is reported to have told an executive: "You're a businessman; pay for your own Wall Street Journal."
That low tolerance for profligacy kept the banks he managed strong enough to weather any crisis. Now, Dimon says the trade that was conducted is so complex that the losses could easily get worse.
JPMorgan's $2 billion loss was caused by trades that were meant to hedge, or protect, the bank from trading losses that could occur in the investments of the bank's corporate treasury.
The amount of the loss was small for an institution of JPMorgan's size - it cleared $19 billion in profit last year - but will hurt its second-quarter earnings and was an embarrassment. It rattled the industry, too. Other bank stocks fell as much as 4 percent Friday.
"It puts egg on our face, and we deserve any criticism we get," Dimon said at a hastily convened conference call with investors to reveal the losses.
During the crisis in 2008, Dimon drew wide praise for keeping his bank healthy, including from President Barack Obama and billionaire investor Warren Buffett. One biographical book that was released soon after the financial crisis was titled "Last Man Standing."
In the years since, other Wall Street bankers and CEOs have cowered as the public backlash against bankers and their bonuses has grown. But Dimon, who made $23 million last year, according to an Associated Press calculation, used his stature to become the most outspoken banking CEO.
He attacked any obstacle that came in his way or his company's - especially regulations aimed at stopping banks from taking the kinds of risks that precipitated the financial crisis. Dimon viewed them as impediments to the bank's ability to make a profit.
He did not even spare the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, or one of his iconic predecessors, Paul Volcker. At times, his outspokenness took on a swagger that raised eyebrows.
At a public forum last year, Dimon pointedly challenged Bernanke to defend his regulatory drive, which he said was going to slow down the U.S. economic recovery.
Earlier this year, Dimon said in a Fox Business Network interview: "Paul Volcker, by his own admission, has said he doesn't understand capital markets. ... He has proven that to me."
One of the most respected Fed chiefs, Volcker has championed a law that restricts banks from trading with their own money.
Since Thursday, Dimon has contended the trades in question were meant to manage the bank's financial risk, not turn a profit, and thus would not be subject to the so-called Volcker rule.
Outside analysts have been more skeptical, and the mistake has breathed energy into the push to toughen financial regulations. Dimon did say that he should have been paying closer attention.
"We know we were sloppy. We know we were stupid. We know there was bad judgment," he told NBC News on Friday in an interview to air Sunday on "Meet the Press."
He said he did not know whether laws had been broken and invited regulators to look into the matter. "But we intend to fix it and learn from it and be a better company when it's done," he added.
Most analysts gave Dimon kudos for coming clean on the trading loss, but few disagreed that his reputation had taken a severe hit.
Said Nancy Bush, longtime bank analyst at NAB research, and contributing editor at SNL Financial: "Jamie certainly cannot be standard-bearer for the banking industry anymore."
Article from YAHOO NEWS
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