Budweiser Super Bowl commercial 2014. Puppy Love.
NFL Super Bowl XLVIII
Monday, February 3, 1:30 AM
MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford, New Jersey
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Is Selena Gomez dating Austin Mahone?
Taylor Swift tried to play matchmaker for Selena Gomez this time by arranging a date with Austin Mahone, who opened up for Taylor on tour Us Weekly reported.
Sources close to Austin Mahone, said: “They’re seeing each other.”
Selena Gomez, 21, and Austin Mahone, 17, are apparently trying to keep the ostensible romance hush-hush. To that end, after a January 24 concert in Los Angeles, they “sneaked out separately, then got in the same car,” says an eyewitness.
The two were previously spotted together over the summer enjoying a jaunt to Disneyland.
As for Justin Bieber, he’s seemingly moved on with a Kim Kardashian-alike named Chantel Jeffries, who is upset by all the negative publicity swirling around her.
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Kanye West settles alleged assault for $250,000
The teenager who allegedly had been assaulted by Kanye West earlier this month after he tossed racially charged insults at Kim Kardashian has pocketed a hefty settlement from the rapper, TMZ reported.
The 18-year-old is believed to have walked away with more than $250,000 in a civil settlement over the January 13 incident, in which he purportedly insulted Kim Kardashian and used the n-word as she walked into a paparazzi-surrounded office building in Beverly Hills.
Kanye West, who was nearby, came to help her, and he reportedly followed the teen into a chiropractor’s office, where a tussle ensued.
According to TMZ, the purported settlement makes it far less likely that Kanye West will be prosecuted for battery.
Before the incident, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West were heading into a meeting to discuss furniture for their new Bel Air estate, and judging by their rumored interior design plans, the $250,000-plus payout won’t put much of a dent in their finances.
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Jimmy Fallon hands off Late Night giant pickle to Seth Meyers
Jimmy Fallon officially handed-off the traditional Late Night giant plastic pickle to Seth Meyers on Tuesday’s show.
The pickle was given to Jimmy Fallon by previous Late Night host Conan O’Brien in 2009.
Conan O’Brien received the pickle from David Letterman’s staff in 1993. Before that, the giant plastic pickle was a staple decoration in the Letterman offices.
A few days before Jimmy Fallon’s first Late Night on March 2, 2009, the charming comedian shared the pickle’s tale and a sweet letter from his predecessor in an online video.
“Whenever you’re done – which won’t be for a long time – make sure you pass it on to the next sap,” Conan O’Brien penned and Jimmy Fallon read aloud.
“Knock ’em dead.”
Jimmy Fallon opined at the time: “It just kind of put everything in perspective, even though I’m holding a giant pickle …What a great tradition this is and what a great honor that I’m following in the footsteps of these great comedians.”
Seth Meyers takes over Late Night on February 24, when his first guest will be former SNL colleague Amy Poehler.
Jimmy Fallon’s first Tonight Show is a week earlier, with guests Will Smith and U2.
Late Night With Jimmy Fallon – soon to be Late Night With Seth Meyers – airs on NBC at 12:35 a.m. ET.
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Madonna introduces Pussy Riot members at Barclays Center concert
Madonna has decided to introduce two members of Russian protest punk rock act Pussy Riot at a concert promoting human rights at the Barclays Center in New York City.
Madonna said she was “honored” to introduce “my fellow freedom fighters” Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova at the Amnesty event.
“I have admired their courage and have long supported their commitment and the sacrifices they have made,” the singer added.
Maria (Masha) Alyokhina and Nadezhda (Nadya) Tolokonnikova were released in December after spending 16 months in prison.
They and Yekaterina Samutsevich were arrested in August 2012 for singing a protest song in a Moscow cathedral.
Amnesty International announced last week that “Masha” and “Nadya” would make an appearance at the concert on February 5.
It will form part of their first trip to New York since being granted amnesty by Russian President Vladimir Putin – a gesture the pair dismissed as a publicity stunt.
Lauryn Hill, Bob Geldof, Yoko Ono and Imagine Dragons are also on the bill of the Bringing Human Rights Home event at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
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Deep South winter storm leaves thousands stranded on highways
A snow storm spawned traffic chaos in the Deep South leaving thousands of people stranded overnight on motorways, in schools and churches.
Airports and roads were closed as five states declared emergencies.
Military vehicles were deployed to aid stuck motorists and to reach those in need of food and water.
Barely 3in of snow caused havoc in a warm-weather region where many cities do not even have snow ploughs or fleets of salt trucks.
Hundreds of road accidents were reported, a number of them involving trucks jackknifing on highways.
Despite ample weather warnings, school officials waited until the middle of Tuesday when snow was already falling to send students home on routes where traffic was grinding to a halt.
Nearly 8,000 students across Georgia and Alabama spent the night in school gyms or on buses, reports ABC News.
Many commuters abandoned cars along jammed motorways to seek shelter in churches and fire stations.
Gridlock on the streets of Atlanta, Georgia, was so bad that a police officer had to deliver a baby on a snowy motorway.
Georgia Governor Nathan Deal said on Wednesday morning that the National Guard had sent military Humvees on to the city’s motorways to move stranded school buses and provide food and water to people.
A school bus flipped over as it was driving students home amid dismal weather near Asheville, North Carolina.
Motorists were instructed to stay off roadways in Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, where states of emergency were declared.
“Residents should not overreact but should make plans now to ensure they are prepared for prolonged freezing conditions and icy roadways,” Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant told US media.
At least five people were killed due to weather-related accidents in Alabama on Tuesday.
New Orleans’ main airport, which was closed on Tuesday, has reopened with a reduced service.
Some 1,700 flights across the US were grounded on Wednesday.
State legislature activities in South Carolina were also cancelled due to weather.
The latest cold snap stretched across much of the US on Wednesday, sending temperatures as low as -30F.
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DDT exposure may increase chances of developing Alzheimer’s
According US researchers, exposure to a once widely used pesticide, DDT, may increase the chances of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
A study, published in JAMA Neurology, showed patients with Alzheimer’s had four times as much DDT lingering in the body as healthy people.
Some countries still use the pesticide to control malaria.
DDT was a massively successful pesticide, initially used to control malaria at the end of World War Two and then to protect crops in commercial agriculture.
However, there were questions about its impact on human health and wider environmental concerns, particularly for predators.
It was banned in the US in 1972 and in many other countries. But the World Health Organization (WHO) still recommends using DDT to keep malaria in check.
DDT also lingers in the human body where it is broken down into DDE.
The team at Rutgers University and Emory University tested levels of DDE in the blood of 86 people with Alzheimer’s disease and compared the results with 79 healthy people of a similar age and background.
The results showed those with Alzheimer’s had 3.8 times the level of DDE.
However, the picture is not clear-cut. Some healthy people had high levels of DDE while some with Alzheimer’s had low levels. Alzheimer’s also predates the use of DDT.
The researchers believe the chemical is increasing the chance of Alzheimer’s and may be involved in the development of amyloid plaques in the brain, a hallmark of the disease, which contribute to the death of brain cells.
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Egypt: 20 journalists accused of belonging to terrorist organization
Twenty journalists, including four foreigners, are facing charges in Egypt, prosecutors have said.
The Egyptian journalists are accused of belonging to a “terrorist organization” and the four foreigners are accused of assisting it, or spreading false news.
The defendants include two Britons, a Dutch national and an Australian – believed to be al-Jazeera correspondent Peter Greste.
Earlier, international news networks called for the release of five al-Jazeera journalists.
The 16 Egyptian defendants face several allegations including belonging to a terrorist group, harming national unity and social peace, and using terrorism as a means to their goals.
The four foreigners are accused of collaborating with the Egyptians and providing them with information, equipment, and money as well as broadcasting false information and rumors to convince the international community that Egypt was undergoing a civil war.
Eight of the defendants are in detention, while 12 are on the run with arrest warrants issued against them, according to the prosecutor’s statement.
No names are mentioned. But it said the four foreigners were correspondents for the Qatari al-Jazeera news network.
“We only know of five people in jail,” said al-Jazeera’s head of newsgathering Heather Allen.
“We don’t know about the full charge. Things are not clear at the moment. We are still waiting for clarity.”
Peter Greste’s appeal against his detention without charge was denied on Wednesday by a Cairo court.
The staff members and journalists of al-Jazeera were arrested in late December following interior ministry accusations of illegally broadcasting from a hotel suite.
Al-Jazeera has said the men were merely reporting the situation in Egypt.
Of the three arrested a month ago, Peter Greste is accused of collaborating with “terrorists” by talking to members of the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been banned by the military-backed government.
Al-Jazeera Cairo bureau chief Mohammed Fahmy, who is Egyptian-Canadian, and Egyptian producer Baher Mohamed are accused of the more serious offence of membership of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The al-Jazeera network says it was “surprised” when its reporters were arrested by Egyptian authorities.
Two more of its staff – journalist Abdullah al-Shami and cameraman Mohammad Badr – were arrested in July and August.
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Stem cell researchers claim major scientific discovery
Stem cell researchers in Japan are heralding a “major scientific discovery”, with the potential to start a new age of personalized medicine.
Scientists showed stem cells can now be made quickly just by dipping blood cells into acid.
Stem cells can transform into any tissue and are already being trialed for healing the eye, heart and brain.
The latest development, published in the journal Nature, could make the technology cheaper, faster and safer.
The human body is built of cells with a specific role – nerve cells, liver cells, muscle cells – and that role is fixed.
However, stem cells can become any other type of cell, and they have become a major field of research in medicine for their potential to regenerate the body.
Embryos are one, ethically charged, source of stem cells. Nobel Prize winning research also showed that skin cells could be “genetically reprogrammed” to become stem cells (termed induced pluripotent stem cells).
Now a study shows that shocking blood cells with acid could also trigger the transformation into stem cells – this time termed STAP (stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency) cells.
Dr. Haruko Obokata, from the Riken Centre for Developmental Biology in Japan, said she was “really surprised” that cells could respond to their environment in this way.
She added: “It’s exciting to think about the new possibilities these findings offer us, not only in regenerative medicine, but cancer as well.”
The breakthrough was achieved in mouse blood cells, but research is now taking place to achieve the same results with human blood.
Angry Birds website hacked after Edward Snowden leaks
Angry Birds home pages have been hacked, two days after reports that the personal data of its customers might have been accessed by the NSA and British spy agency GCHQ, Rovio Entertainment Ltd. has announced.
Rovio spokeswoman says the hacking lasted a few minutes early Wednesday and that end-user data “was in no risk at any point”.
The hacking came after documents leaked by Edward Snowden suggested that the NSA and GCHQ had been able to extract information through a host of smartphone apps across the globe, including the Angry Birds game franchise.
Rovio has denied the claims, saying it does not “share data, collaborate or collude” with any spy agencies and that it would re-evaluate third-party advertising networks.
Tom Sherak dead: Former Oscars president dies of prostate cancer at 68
Tom Sherak, former president of the Academy of Motion Pictures, has died aged 68.
Tom Sherak’s family confirmed he died at home on Tuesday after suffering from prostate cancer for 12 years.
He oversaw hits such as Titanic, Alien and Die Hard during 17 years at 20th Century Fox and led the Oscars organization from 2009 to 2012.
The Academy said it was “deeply saddened” by Tom Sherak’s passing.
The movie executive was awarded with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame just hours before his death, but was unable to attend the ceremony.
Tom Sherak served three terms on the Board of Governors, from August 2003 until July 2012, with the last three as president.
He was credited with renewing the public’s interest in the Oscars ceremony, and extended the best picture category, making more room for box office hits.
Tom Sherak was responsible for completing a deal for the academy’s new film museum with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which is set to open in 2017.
“Tom is a true hero in our lives who has a star on the sidewalk and wings to fly,” said the Sherak family in a statement released by the academy and addressed “to the entertainment community”.
They hailed him as a “loving husband, daddy, papa, brother, friend, and <<go to guy>>.”
The Academy’s chief executive Dawn Hudson called him “my mentor and my friend”.
“I learned from him, I laughed with him, and I couldn’t be more grateful for the time we shared together.
“He had a huge influence on the direction of our Academy and on me personally,” said Dawn Hudson.
Current president Cheryl Boone Isaacs said: “In the more than 30 years I’ve known Tom, his passionate support of and excitement about the motion picture business, the Academy, his family and friends never wavered.”
Tom Sherak was chairman of 20th Century Fox’s domestic film group until 2000, working on high profile blockbusters such as Wall Street, Independence Day and Star Wars: Episode 1 The Phantom Menace.
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Sochi Winter Games 2014: CPJ criticizes Russian authorities for restricting news coverage
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on Tuesday criticized Russian authorities for restricting news coverage of preparations for the Sochi Olympics.
The international journalism watchdog detailed in a report how Russian and international journalists have been harassed and prevented from covering sensitive stories in Sochi such as the abuse of migrant workers and environmental issues.
The report documented how Russian state-controlled media have been ignoring critical issues while few local journalists working for independent news outlets faced a campaign of smear and harassment.
”Russian authorities have cracked down on journalists, rights defenders, and civil activists in a way not seen since the break-up of the Soviet Union,” CPJ coordinator Nina Ognianova said in a statement.
There was no immediate response from Russian authorities to the criticism leveled by CPJ.
Months before the start of the games, journalists and activists were detained and some of them put on trial. Svetlana Kravchenko of the Caucasian Knot website, a prominent local journalist who has covered environmental travesties in Sochi and the heavy-handed tactics of local officials, was tried and found guilty of beating up a security guard.
Rights groups including Human Right Watch called local authorities responsible for the campaign of harassment against journalists and activists. Local authorities insist that criminal prosecution against members of the public including journalists is a matter of law enforcement agencies and is in no way politicized.
Sochi will host the Winter Games between February 7 and 23.
Justin Bieber to be arraigned on Valentine’s Day
Justin Bieber is to be arraigned on February 14 on charges of DUI, resisting arrest and driving with an expired license.
Justin Bieber, 19, does not have to attend the Valentine’s Day court date, where prosecutors will formally file charges and a plea will be entered.
He was arrested last week in Miami Beach for participating in what police called an illegal street drag race.
Justin Bieber was released from custody after posting bail of $2,500.
The singer will have his case seen by Judge William Altfield of the Miami-Dade County Criminal Division on February 14.
He appeared in court last week via video link and has since been seen on holiday in Panama.
It is claimed Justin Bieber had been racing a yellow Lamborghini against a red Ferrari in the early hours of Thursday.
Khalil Sharieff, the driver of the other car, was also arrested after being reportedly found to be under the influence of alcohol and drugs.
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State of the Union 2014: Barack Obama promises to bypass Congress to tackle economic inequality
In his annual State of the Union address, President Barack Obama has promised to bypass a fractured Congress to tackle economic inequality.
Barack Obama pledged to “take steps without legislation” wherever possible, announcing a rise in the minimum wage for new federal contract staff.
On Iran, the president said he would veto any new sanctions that risked derailing talks.
Barack Obama is facing some of his lowest approval ratings since first taking office in 2009.
“Let’s make this a year of action,” Barack Obama said.
Noting that inequality has deepened and upward mobility stalled, he would offer “a set of concrete, practical proposals to speed up growth, strengthen the middle class, and build new ladders of opportunity into the middle class”.
“America does not stand still – and neither will I,” he said.
“So wherever and whenever I can take steps without legislation to expand opportunity for more American families, that’s what I’m going to do.”
Just over a year after his re-election, Barack Obama must contend with determined opposition from the Republican Party, which controls the House of Representatives and has the numbers in the Senate to block his agenda.
Time is running short before Washington DC turns its attention to the 2016 race to elect his successor, threatening to sideline him even with three years remaining in office.
During his address, Barack Obama appealed to Congress to restore unemployment insurance that recently expired for 1.6 million people, and asked Republicans to stop trying to repeal his signature healthcare overhaul.
The botched rollout of the website on which Americans could sign up for healthcare has dented the president’s popularity.
Barack Obama stressed the importance of early childhood schooling, better value university education, and equal opportunities in the workplace for women.
He also appealed to Congress to approve a rise in the national minimum wage, currently $7.25 per hour. His executive order raising the hourly rate of federal contract workers to $10.10 will only apply to future contracts.
House Speaker John Boehner said the impact would be “close to zero” and warned that such a move would cost jobs. He told reporters his party would watch to ensure the president did not exceed his authority through the use of such executive actions.
Barack Obama also urged the Republican House of Representatives to support a broad overhaul of the US immigration system, saying it would “make our country a more attractive place for businesses to locate and create jobs for everyone”.
Last year, the Senate passed a bill that included a path to citizenship for some of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US.
The House has thus far declined to hold a vote on that legislation, although in recent days US media have reported the chamber’s Republican leaders are weighing a series of more limited measures.
On foreign policy, Barack Obama pledged to:
- support a unified Afghanistan as it takes responsibility for its own future
- back the opposition in Syria “that rejects the agenda of terrorist networks”
- make sure any long-term deal on Iran’s nuclear program is “based on verifiable action”.
He also said that, with major US operations in Afghanistan due to end, “this needs to be the year Congress lifts the remaining restrictions on detainee transfers and we close the prison at Guantanamo Bay”.
After Barack Obama’s speech, three Republicans are offering several rebuttals, a departure from the tradition of the opposition choosing a single voice to follow the president.
Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington gave the official response on behalf of the Republican Party, calling on Barack Obama to take action “by empowering people, not making their lives harder with unprecedented spending, higher taxes, and fewer jobs”.
Republican Kentucky Senator and presumed 2016 presidential hopeful Rand Paul, a favorite of the party’s libertarian wing, released a taped address.
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Edward Snowden leaks: GCHQ spied on YouTube and Facebook
According to the latest Edward Snowden leaks, the UK intelligence agency , GCHQ, has monitored in real-time YouTube video views, Facebook “likes” and Blogger visits.
Details of an alleged GCHQ program codenamed Squeaky Dolphin have been published by NBC News.
It reports that the agency showed off its abilities to the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2012.
Facebook has since started encrypting its data, but Google’s YouTube and Blogger services remain unencrypted.
Both firms have said that they did not give GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) permission to access the data.
The alleged operation’s leaked logo – showing a dolphin holding a canister branded GTE – appears to refer to Global Telecoms Exploitation, a GCHQ division believed to be capable of collecting data from fibre-optic cables.
According to an earlier leak, published by the Guardian, GCHQ has been tapping fibre-optic cables to create a “buffer” of information it could search through since at least 2011, as part of a scheme called Tempora.
The newspaper said that by 2012 the agency had tapped more than 200 cables – including transatlantic communication links – and was able to process phone and internet data taken from up to 46 of them at a time.
GCHQ declined to comment on the specifics of the latest report.
The NBC report is based on a presentation entitled Psychology: A New Kind of Sigdev [signals development]. It was part of the trove of documents former NSA contractor Edward Snowden passed to journalist Glenn Greenwald, who contributed to NBC’s report.
The papers refer to the use of Splunk Dashboard to provide real-time analysis of how people use YouTube, Facebook and Blogger.
Splunk is commercially available software designed to let organisations “listen” to their own data.
Examples that GCHQ is said to have shown off include:
- a table showing how many people based in the city of Lagos looked at a specific job vacancies blog over a 24-hour period
- a graph showing how many London-based internet users “liked” links about former Defense Secretary Liam Fox on Facebook over a week-long period
- a pie chart highlighting 20 trending YouTube video tags a day before planned anti-government protests in Bahrain
Although the examples provided do not identify specific users, NBC suggests this would have been possible to do if GCHQ had access to such data.
A spokesman for Facebook added: “Network security is an important part of the way we protect user information, which is why we finished moving our site traffic to HTTPS [encryption] by default last year, implemented Perfect Forward Secrecy, and continue to strengthen all aspects of our network.”
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Multiple sclerosis linked to food poisoning bacterium Clostridium perfringens
According to US researchers, food poisoning bacterium Clostridium perfringens may be implicated in Multiple sclerosis (MS).
Lab tests in mice by the team from Weill Cornell Medical College revealed a toxin made by a rare strain of Clostridium perfringens caused MS-like damage in the brain.
An earlier work by the same team, published in PLoS ONE, identified the toxin-producing strain of C. perfringens in a young woman with MS.
But experts urge caution, saying more work is needed to explore the link.
No-one knows the exact cause of MS, but it is likely that a mixture of genetic and environmental factors play a role.
Clostridium perfringens, found in soil and contaminated undercooked meat, comes in different strains.
Most cases of human infection occur as food poisoning – diarrhoea and stomach cramps that usually resolve within a day or so. More rarely, the bacterium can cause gas gangrene.
A particular strain of C. perfringens, Type B, which the Weill team says it identified in a human for the first time, makes a toxin that can travel through blood to the brain.
In their lab studies on rodents the researchers found that the toxin, called epsilon, crossed the blood-brain barrier and killed myelin-producing cells – the typical damage seen in MS.
Lead investigator Jennifer Linden said the findings are important because if it can be confirmed that epsilon toxin is a trigger of MS, a vaccine or antibody against the toxin might be able to halt or prevent this debilitating disease.
Jennifer Linden presented the group’s latest findings at a meeting of the American Society for Microbiology.
Ukraine’s parliament debates protest amnesty
Leonid Kravchuk, Ukraine’s first post-independence president, has warned the country is on the “brink of civil War” as parliament debates an amnesty for protesters.
Leonid Kravchuk, president from 1991 to 1994, opened the debate in parliament by urging everyone involved to “act with the greatest responsibility”.
President Viktor Yanukovych wants any amnesty conditional on demonstrators leaving official buildings.
The opposition has so far ruled this out and is demanding early elections.
On Tuesday, PM Mykola Azarov and his cabinet resigned after months of protests.
Parliament also scrapped a controversial anti-protest law in the biggest concession yet to opposition protesters.
Leonid Kravchuk earned a standing ovation in parliament after telling members that “all the world acknowledges and Ukraine acknowledges that the state is on the brink of civil war”.
“It is a revolution. It is a dramatic situation in which we must act with the greatest responsibility,” he said.
Demonstrations began in November when President Viktor Yanukovych pulled out of a planned trade deal with the EU in favor of a $15 billion bailout from Russia to bolster ailing public finances in the former Soviet state.
The White House on Tuesday said the issue of a possible amnesty for scores of detained protesters had been raised in a telephone conversation between Vice-President Joe Biden and President Viktor Yanukovych.
The White House said Joe Biden welcomed “progress made” and called on Viktor Yanukovych to sign the repeal of several anti-protest laws.
On Tuesday, PM Mykola Azarov said he was stepping down to create “social and political compromise”. His deputy, Serhiy Arbuzov, has stepped in as interim leader.
Members of his cabinet also resigned, but they can remain in their posts for 60 days until a new government is formed.
Parliament, in an emergency debate on Tuesday, voted to repeal anti-protest legislation, which among other measures banned the wearing of helmets by protesters and the blockading of public buildings.
Correspondents say Mykola Azarov was deeply unpopular with the opposition, who accused him of mismanaging the economy and failing to tackle corruption.
Meanwhile, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has criticized what he called foreign “interference” in Ukraine.
Speaking at the end of an EU-Russia summit in Brussels on Tuesday, Vladimir Putin said visits by overseas envoys were adding to the unrest.
“I think that the Ukrainian people are capable of solving this on their own,” he said.
“I can only imagine how our European partners would respond if in the heat of a crisis in a country like Greece or Cyprus, our foreign minister would appear at one of their anti-European rallies and begin addressing them.”
Correspondents say Vladimir Putin’s comments appear to be a thinly veiled criticism of the EU and other Western nations that have sent a string of diplomats to Ukraine in recent weeks.
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Is Phil Robertson jealous of Si Robertson’s popularity?
Sources close to Duck Dynasty cast revealed that family patriarch Phil Robertson is jealous of his brother Si’s popularity.
“Phil is just plain fit to be tied that Si has become the most favorite Robertson with fans of the show, and it’s driven a wedge between them,” a Robertson family friend told the National Enquirer.
Tensions brewed when A&E executives floated the idea of Si Robertson getting his own spinoff TV show – and he decided to think it over.
“When SI didn’t immediately reject the idea, Phil blew a fuse because he’s got plans to ditch A&E altogether and do his own show where he can preach the gospel all he wants without producers interfering,” said the source.
“Phil’s already rich and not interested in money, he just wants to have more control over his message. But now Si is throwing a monkey wrench into his plans by considering A&E’s idea of him doing his own show.”
Si Robertson, 65, wasn’t even supposed to be on Duck Dynasty in the first place.
“He tagged along to one of the meetings with A&E producers and they really liked his personality,” said the source.
“So they decided to sign him up. Then his popularity just took off, and that got under Phil’s skin. The feud is actually quite troubling to both of them. Phil is Si’s big brother and has always looked after him. When Si came out of the Army after 20 years and really didn’t have any direction, Phil hired him to work for his Duck Commander business.
“For now, everyone’s just hoping they can make peace.”
Willie Robertson to join Rep. Vance McAllister during State of the Union address
Duck Dynasty’s Willie Robertson will join Louisiana Rep. Vance McAllister during the State of the Union address on Tuesday.
Willie Robertson had endorsed Vance McAllister during his Congressional bid.
The CEO of Duck Commander appeared in a TV ad advising voters to “send somebody from the 5th District who speaks for us to help turn Washington around”.
Vance McAllister, a wealthy Louisiana businessman, was elected in November.
He had also scored an endorsement from Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson, whose anti-gay remarks earned him a short-lived suspension from the A&E show.
“I am proud to have my close friend, constituent and small business owner, Willie Robertson, attend tonight’s State of the Union Address as my special guest,” Vance McAllister said in a statement about his choice of guest for his first State of the Union.
“Willie is thankful for this opportunity and honored to attend. I look forward to the two of us representing the Fifth District in DC this evening and bringing some diversity to our nation’s capitol.”
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State of the Union 2014: Barack Obama to unveil minimum-wage raise
President Barack Obama will unveil a minimum-wage raise as he delivers his annual State of the Union address later.
The president is expected to bypass a fractured Congress to act on income inequality.
The White House said Barack Obama would unveil an executive order to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour for new federal contract workers.
The president is also expected to announce other executive orders, which do not require congressional approval.
He is facing some of the lowest approval ratings of his presidency.
Barack Obama has called for a “year of action”, though Congress will limit his ability to get much done.
He will speak in the House of Representatives at 21:00 local time on Tuesday.
Just over a year after his re-election, Barack Obama must contend with determined opposition from the Republican Party, which controls the House of Representatives and has the numbers in the Senate to block his agenda.
Time is running short before Washington DC turns its attention to the 2016 race to elect his successor, threatening to render him irrelevant even with three years remaining in office.
In the face of a divided Congress, Barack Obama has pledged to use executive action to bypass Congress, and the White House says he will flesh out some of his plans in the State of the Union speech.
Barack Obama is also expected to address long-term joblessness, expansion of early childhood education and infrastructure spending.
He will reiterate his call for a broad rise in the national minimum wage, currently $7.25 per hour, say White House officials.
The president’s executive order raising the hourly rate of federal contract workers prompted a swift response from Republicans.
Barack Obama is also tipped to urge the Republican House of Representatives to support a broad overhaul of the US immigration system.
Last year, the Senate passed a bill that included a path to citizenship for some of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US.
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US house prices keep rising in 2013
According to the S&P/Case-Shiller indexes, the US home prices extended a winning streak in November, with 2013 shaping up as the best year for gains since 2005.
The composite 20-city home price index, a key gauge of US home prices, was up 13.7% in November 2013 from a year earlier. All 20 cities have posted year-over-year gains for 11 straight months.
Prices in the 20-city index were 0.1% lower than the prior month, but that’s mostly due to the weaker winter selling season. Adjusted for seasonal variations, prices were 0.9% higher month-over-month. Nine of the 20 cities posted a monthly decline, though on a seasonally adjusted basis priced no city saw a drop.
Though home-price gains have been strong, the Case-Shiller data are lagged.
Many analysts expect increases to moderate this year.
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Colombia: Modelo prison fire leaves 10 inmates dead in Barranquilla
At least ten inmates died and 42 others were injured in a fire at Modelo prison in the Colombian city of Barranquilla, police say.
Some inmates with slight injuries have now been released from hospitals in the city, but at least 15 are still being treated for the severe burns they suffered or for the smoke they inhaled.
The fire broke out Monday night, apparently when several inmates in Cellblock B of Modelo jail set mattresses on fire during a clash between rival gangs, following an inspection carried out by Inpec guards.
It took seven fire engines to extinguish the 39ft flames.
The director of the Colombian prison system, General Saul Torres, told local radio that a fight broke out after guards carried out a search of the cell block during which drugs, mobile phones and weapons were confiscated.
Saul Torres said that the guards fired tear gas to break up the fight, at which point the fire started.
Barranquilla authorities slammed the overcrowding at the Modelo jail, where close to 1,200 prisoners are held, triple the facility’s capacity for 400 inmates.
About 200 police and a hundred guards have surrounded the jail to prevent any inmates from escaping.
Ford reports one of company’s best years ever in 2013
Ford has announced that last year was “one of the company’s best years ever”, driven by a strong performance in the US and Asia.
The company said net income for 2013 was $7.2 billion, up $1.49 billion on the previous year.
Q4 2013 net income was $3 billion, or 74 cents per share, an increase of $1.4 billion compared with the same period in 2012, the company said.
The strong performance helped offset losses in Europe and South America.
Ford president and chief executive Alan Mulally said 2013 was “an outstanding year”.
“We are well positioned for another solid year in 2014,” he added.
The results follow Ford’s warning in December that the cost of introducing new vehicles and a deteriorating Venezuelan economy would hit its profits in 2014.
Ford plans to triple the number of product launches in North America this year.
But that will hit its profit margins, the company said, as older models will have to be discounted and Ford will have to spend more on marketing.
Ford produced 6.4 million vehicles in 2013, up 646,000 from a year ago.
As a result of its 2013 performance, Ford said it planned to make record profit-sharing payments of about $8,800 per person to around 47,000 of its hourly employees in the US.
Ford has been open in acknowledging that 2014 will be a transition year for the firm, both in terms of products and changes in leadership.
Alan Mulally is scheduled to step down at the end of the year.
He is credited both with leading the firm back to profitability after the 2008-2009 financial crisis, as well as with changing the corporate culture at Ford.
Ford faces difficulty in the future returning its European operations to profitability, as well as maintaining its streamlined supply chain to avoid the oversupply issues that plagued Ford and other US car makers during the financial crisis.
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Deep South hit by worst snow and ice in a generation
According to forecasters, Deep South will be hit by what could be its worst snow and ice in a generation.
Schools were closed, hundreds of flights were scrapped and cities blew the dust off the few snowplows they have Tuesday.
From Texas to the Carolinas, almost 40 million people are in the storm’s path.
In New Bern, North Carolina, where the last 6-inch snowfall happened in 1989, forecasters said as much as 7 inches could come down. In Charleston, South Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia, ice was the major threat – as much as a half-inch.
Columbia, South Carolina, a city of 130,000 people with only eight snowplows, was expecting up to 4 inches of snow. The city put emergency workers on 12-hour shifts and mixed up sand, salt and brine to put on the city’s major roadways as the weather got worse.
Schools were closed from Texas through the Florida Panhandle and up to North Carolina. The Johnson Space Center in Houston shut down for the day. Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant declared a state of emergency for almost half the state’s counties.
Drivers were warned to use extreme caution or stay home entirely. Just north of Austin, Texas, where ice was accumulating on bridges and overpasses, emergency crews responded to a reported 20-car wreck.
Airlines canceled more than 2,600 flights, including more than 800 in the hub of Atlanta and more than 600 at the major airport in Houston.
Snow was already falling Tuesday morning from just north of Austin, Texas, up to the southern tip of Maryland, and a band of ice reached from San Antonio to the suburbs south of Atlanta.
By Wednesday, forecasters said, the storm will bend up the East Coast, traveling as far north as Providence, Rhode Island, before moving offshore by lunch.
Farther north, millions of people suffered Tuesday under another day of deep freeze. Subzero temperatures stretched from Montana to Pennsylvania. It was 11 below zero as the sun came up in Chicago, 8 below in Pittsburgh and 6 below in Cincinnati.
The unbearable cold forced schools to close in Minnesota, Chicago and western Pennsylvania. The University of Michigan shut down because of weather for the first time since 1978. Lake Geneva, Wis., recorded its 17th day of subzero temperatures this winter, double the average.
The latest blast of frigid weather arrived just as a shortage of propane, the fuel used by 14 million Americans to heat their homes, reached critical proportion.
With prices more than doubling from $2 a gallon to more than $4 last week, the governors of Minnesota and Illinois declared states of emergency Monday, urging people to cut back and regulators to lift restrictions on shipping to their states.
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Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala’s properties raided by fraud police
Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala’s properties have been raided by police as part of a fraud inquiry, French media report.
Police swooped on several properties owned by Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala as well as the Main d’Or theatre in Paris, where he has staged some of his shows.
The controversial comedian is suspected of a fraudulent declaration of bankruptcy, money-laundering and abuse of company assets.
The government has vowed to make Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala pay fines for hate speech.
According to French media, Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala has transferred 400,000 euros ($547,000) to Cameroon since 2009 while failing to pay fines totalling 65,000 euros.
Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala has been convicted six times of hate speech against Jews and popularized a gesture called the “quenelle”, widely regarded as an inverted Nazi salute.
Police have detained a man suspected of distributing a photo of a quenelle being made outside a Jewish school in the south-western city of Toulouse, where an Islamist gunman shot dead three small children and a teacher in March 2012, AFP news agency reports.
The man who was detained near Marseille on Tuesday is also suspected of distributing another image of a quenelle outside the Toulouse flat of the killer, Mohammed Merah, who died in a police siege.
Youths could be seen making quenelles at a rally against President Francois Hollande on Sunday in Paris, which was organized by small, mainly right-wing organizations.
Interior Minister Manuel Valls accused Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala of trying to bankrupt himself earlier this month in order to avoid paying the fines.
Police questioned the comedian last week after bailiffs reported being fired on with rubber bullets at his house.
The bailiffs had said they could not ascertain who had opened fire but a weapon was later found during a search of Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala ‘s property.
Earlier this month a ban on Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala ‘s one-man show The Wall (Le Mur) was upheld by France’s highest court.
Interior Minister Manuel Valls had taken strenuous steps to ban the show. Initial performances in Paris contained sketches including the performer miming urination against the Western Wall in Jerusalem.
Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala was also recorded referring to the Holocaust in remarks about a Jewish journalist and mocking commemoration of the Nazi extermination of the Jews.
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