(via NY POST)

GIGLIO, Italy — The search for bodies on the wreck of the Costa Concordia resumed Thursday amid reports that a mystery blonde woman was on the bridge alongside the ship’s captain before the liner crashed off the Italian coast.

The woman is believed to be Domnica Cemortan, a 25-year-old Moldovan, thought to be the same female seen dining with Captain Francesco Schettino at around 9 p.m. last Friday, just under half an hour before the disaster, Italian newspaper Il Secolo reported.

Cemortan, who may have been a guest of either Schettino or another officer, or a ship employee, may emerge as a key witness to Friday night’s events, but Italian prosecutors will neither confirm nor deny the reports.

Read more: http://trade.cc/aaqm

If there is nothing new, what will this say for ABCNews’s “ethics?”

————————————————————————————————-

“A knowledgeable insider says that Newt Gingrich’s second wife does not say anything in the taped interview with ABC News that she hasn’t said in previous print interviews. But to repeat her account of how their marriage failed—because the then-House speaker was having an affair—in a form that can be endlessly replayed on television could prove a serious distraction for the presidential candidate two days before the South Carolina primary.”

Read the rest here.

Odd. I had no idea that Hollywood types were Democrats.

—————————————————————————————–

By NIKKI FINKE | Wednesday January 18, 2012 @ 3:20pm PST

EXCLUSIVE: Internet sites on their SOPAStrike may be conducting a blackout but Hollywood studios are conducting a boycott. I’ve learned that Hollywood studio chiefs individually and as a group are drawing a line in the sand on the piracy issue with the Obama re-election campaign and refusing to give any more donations.  The blowup came after President Obama on Saturday dashed moguls’ hopes that he would remain on the sidelines in the dispute over the U.S. House Of Representatives’ Stop Online Piracy Act and the U.S. Senate’s Protect IP Act. In a posting on the White House web site, three of the Obama administration’s top officials for Internet and intellectual property matters said that  they share many of the concerns that the Internet community has about the Hollywood-supported bills.

Read the rest here.

(via DrudgeReport.com)

(Drudge gets the big scoop again)

NEWT EX-WIFE UNLOADS ON CAMERA; NETWORK DEBATES 'ETHICS' OF AIRING BEFORE SC PRIMARY**Exclusive**
Wed Jan 18 2012 18:47:14 ET

Marianne Gingrich has said she could end her ex-husband’s career with a single interview. Earlier this week, she sat before ABCNEWS cameras, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

She spoke to ABCNEWS reporter Brian Ross for two hours.

Her explosive revelations are set to rock the campaign.

But now a “civil war” has erupted inside of the network, an insider claims, on exactly when the confession will air!

ABCNEWS suits determined it would be “unethical” to run the Marianne Gingrich interview so close to the South Carolina Primary, a curious decision, one insider argued, since the network has aggressively been reporting on other candidates.

A decision was tentatively made to air the interview next Monday, after all votes have been counted.

Gingrich canceled a press conference on Wednesday to deal with the matter.

“He believes that what he says in public and how he lives don’t have to be connected,” Marianne Gingrich, Newt’s wife of 18 years, explained to ESQUIRE last year. “When you try and change your history too much, and try and recolor it because you don’t like the way it was or you want it to be different to prove something new … you lose touch with who you really are.”

MORE

 

(via Fox Business)

The markets turned higher as traders paid close attention to headlines from Europe, and mulled a slew of economic data and quarterly earnings reports.

Today’s Markets

As of 10:40 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 57.9 points, or 0.46%, to 12539, the S&P 500 rose 7.1 points, or 0.55%, to 1301 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 22 points, or 0.81%, to 2750.

Wall Street has been off to a strong start so far this year, with the Dow presently sitting at its highest level since July.

Traders have been keeping a close eye on developments from Europe, where the debt crisis is still posing a serious threat to many world economies. The International Monetary Fund said Wednesday it needs to raise its firepower by roughly $1 trillion in coming years, and plans to raise its lending capacity by $500 billion. However, the IMF said it is “exploring options on funding and will have no further comment until the necessary consultations with the Fund’s membership have been completed.”

Also on the European front, the Greek government is still struggling to hash out a deal with creditors on the size of private-sector losses on its debt. The talks, which are resuming on Wednesday, fell through last week. If a deal can’t be struck, it may lead to a Greek debt default when the country’s next major payment comes due in March, analysts have said.

The euro rose 0.49% to $1.2799, while the U.S. dollar slipped 0.32% against six world currencies.

Goldman Sachs (GS: 103.02, +5.34, +5.47%) posted a fourth-quarter profit of $1.84 a share on $6.1 billion in revenue. Analysts expected the investment banking giant to earn $1.24 on sales of $6.5 billion. Shares were up 2.3% in pre-market trading following the report.

Market participants also got a fresh read on wholesale inflation and industrial production on the day.

The Producer Price Index fell 0.1% in December from November, compared with expectations of a 0.1% gain. Excluding the more volatile food and energy components, core prices were up 0.3% on the month, a bigger increase than the 0.1% economists forecast. Inflation at the producer level has jumped 4.8% from the year prior, or 3% on the core level.

The more closely-watched report on consumer prices is on tap for Thursday. Meanwhile, industrial production was up 0.4% in December from the month prior, slightly weaker than the 0.5% gain economists were looking for.

Commodities were mixed. The benchmark crude oil contract traded in New York rose 38 cents, or 0.41%, to $101.12 a barrel. Wholesale RBOB gasoline jumped 2.2% to $2.831 a gallon.

In metals, gold was unchanged at $1,655.

Foreign Markets

European blue chips fell 0.06%, the English FTSE 100 dipped 0.06% to 5,690 and the German DAX rose 0.18% to 6,344.

In Asia, the Japanese Nikkei rallied 0.99% to 8,551 and the Chinese Hang Seng climbed 0.3% to 19,687.

Read more: http://trade.cc/aaflixzz1jpFZqeTc

(via) 

Goldman Sachs set aside $12.2bn (£8bn) to pay its staff in 2011 – an average of $367,000 each – sparking criticism that the Wall Street firm was living in a “parallel universe”.

The size of the payouts sparked a backlash from unions, who regard them as evidence that David Cameron’s government should take steps to ensure top pay is better linked to performance. Campaigners for a “Robin Hood tax” on transactions said it backed their case for new levies on banks.

“When even in a bad year each Goldman employee pockets an average of $367,000 – nearly ten times the average UK salary – it’s proof that banks live in a parallel universe to the rest of us,” a spokesman for the Robin Hood Tax campaign, said.

Goldman used a greater proportion of its revenue (42%) to pay its 33,000 staff in 2011 compared with 39% a year ago. The firm axed 7% – 2,400 – of its staff during the year and those who remain will begin to learn the size of their annual bonuses in the coming days.

The highest profile firm on Wall Street reported better than expected full year revenue of $28.8bn – down 26% – while earnings almost halved to $4.4bn prompting Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and chief executive of Goldman, to blame “global macro-economic concerns” for the fall..

The total payout per staff of $367,000 – a figure which includes salaries, bonuses, equity awards and benefits – was down 15% on the $430,000 the previous year. The actual amount set side to pay staff at $12.2bn was down 21%.

David Viniar, Goldman’s finance director, insisted that “discretionary” bonuses were down “considerably more than revenues” during the year and said the firm had embarked on a strategy to cut $1.4bn of costs.

But TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: “Goldman Sachs are brazenly defying their own sliding profits by dishing out pay and top bonuses worth £240k a head. This latest example of excessive rewards for mediocrity should give the government the green light to get tough on top pay. Ministers should start by putting workers on remuneration committees and making pay and bonuses exceeding £260,000 liable for corporation tax.”

The firm has recently provided more disclosure than in the past about its pay deals in the UK as a result of rules set out by the Financial Services Authority requiring firms to publish pay for “code staff” – those taking or managing risk. Regulatory filings for Goldman Sachs Group Holdings (UK) show that it had 95 code staff in 2010 who had an average pay deal of $6.2m (£4m) in 2010 – and had a further $595m awarded in a one-off mid-year award of shares in 2010.

“This past year was dominated by global macroeconomic concerns which significantly affected our clients’ risk tolerance and willingness to transact,” Blankfein said.

“As economies and markets improve – and we see encouraging signs of this – Goldman Sachs is very well positioned to perform for our clients and our shareholders,” he added. The turmoil in the eurozone held back many of its business areas. Revenues in investment banking were down 9% while its business that underwrites share offerings was down 14%. Its fixed income, currency and commodities operations suffered a 34% fall in revenue. “Although activity levels in 2011 were generally consistent with 2010 levels, and results were solid during the first quarter of 2011, the environment during the remainder of 2011 was characterised by broad market concerns and uncertainty, resulting in volatile trading and significantly wider credit spreads, which contributed to difficult market-making conditions and led to reductions in risk by the firm and its clients,” the firm said.

Testing for cesium and other radioactive particles seem to be on the rise and there is not much to be done about it unfortunately…

(via)

A secret dossier detailing plans for policing this summer’s London Olympics was left on a train.

The file, which could have provided terrorists planning an attack with invaluable data, was lost by a cop.

A commuter found it and handed it to The Sun, who returned the file to the police, the newspaper reported Tuesday.

The chief inspector in Scotland Yard’s Territorial Policing branch is said to be “hugely embarrassed” by the potentially serious blunder.

“Restricted” files spell out the security plans in place at the sites of events and provide minutes of top-level meetings in which ways to beat terrorists were discussed.

The dossier contains dates and details of pre-Olympics rehearsals, explains emergency lockdown procedures and sets out plans to avoid traffic congestion.

It also reports at length on damning complaints from officers about the radios they will use during the Olympics.

The documents were found by a commuter on a train in Dartford in Kent, southeastern England, on Jan. 5.

“I couldn’t believe any policeman could have left this on a train. It’s a worry,” the unnamed commuter said.

London’s Metropolitan Police played down the incident, saying the files were not thought to be operationally sensitive.

A spokeswoman said, “An officer lost his bag containing a number of documents. He reported the loss. The Directorate of Professional Standards have been informed, as is routine.”

ZAGG has been approached by APPL and Samsung for their water repellent technology for phones ” HzO (majority owned by ZAGG). Story here

Hearing Research in Motion is in talks with Samsung for sale.

(via)

Mitt Romney is all tied up with President Barack Obama in a likely general election matchup, with the president showing signs of weakness on the economy and Romney seen as out of touch with ordinary Americans, according to a new national survey.

And a CNN/ORC International Poll released Monday also indicates that Rep. Ron Paul of Texas is also even with Obama in another possible showdown this November. The survey also suggests the Republican advantage on voter enthusiasm is eroding, which could be crucial in a close contest.

See full results (pdf)

Tune in Thursday at 8 p.m. ET for the CNN/Southern Republican Presidential Debate hosted by John King and follow it on Twitter at #CNNDebate. For real-time coverage of the South Carolina primary, go to CNNPolitics.com and on the CNN apps for iPhone,iPad, Android or other phones.

– Follow the Ticker on Twitter: @PoliticalTicker

According to the survey, if the November election were held today and Romney were the Republican presidential nominee, 48% say they’d vote for the former Massachusetts governor, with 47% supporting the president. Romney’s one point margin is well within the poll’s sampling error.

The poll also indicates Paul statistically tied with Obama, with the president at 48% and the longtime congressman at 46%. But according to the poll, the president is doing better against two other Republican presidential candidates. If Rick Santorum were the GOP nominee, Obama would hold a 51%-45% advantage over the former senator from Pennsylvania. And if Newt Gingrich faced off against the president, Obama would lead the former House speaker 52%-43%.

Enthusiasm in voting in the presidential election this November now stands at 54% among registered Republicans, down ten points from last October. Meanwhile, enthusiasm among registered Democrats has risen six points, and now stands at 49%.

“In a race that tight, turnout is likely to determine the outcome, and the Democrats have begun to close the ‘enthusiasm gap’ that damaged their prospects so badly in the 2010 midterms,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

While the Obama re-election campaign and the Democratic National Committee have all of the GOP White House hopefuls in their sights, they are directing most of their firepower towards Romney, and the poll indicates why that is the case.

According to the survey, both men are seen as strong leaders, and both are viewed as having the personal qualities that a president should have. Forty-eight percent of Americans say that Obama agrees with them on the issues they care about – not great, but better than the 43% who feel that way about Romney.

“But on the economy – issue number one to most Americans – Romney has a clear advantage. 53% say the former Massachusetts governor can get the economy moving; only 40% say that about President Barack Obama,” says Holland. “But the numbers are reversed when voters are asked whether the candidates are in touch with ordinary Americans. Fifty-three percent say that Obama is in touch; only four in ten feel that way about Romney.”

Obama and Romney are virtually tied on whether they are seen as strong and decisive leaders. The survey indicates that by a 61%-34% margin, Americans say Romney changes his position on the issues for political reasons. By a 56%-42% margin, the public feels the same way about the president.

The poll was conducted for CNN by ORC International from January 11-12, with 1,021 adult Americans, including 928 registered voters, conducted by telephone on January 11-12, 2012. The survey’s overall sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

CNN Political Editor Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.

 46 minutes ago via breakingnews.com Favorite Retweet Reply

WASHINGTON (AP) – Jon Huntsmanwill withdraw Monday from the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

Campaign officials tell The Associated Press Huntsman will endorse Mitt Romney at an event in South Carolina on Monday morning.

The former Utah governor placed third in last week’s New Hampshire primary despite devoting much of his campaign resources to the state. He had already acknowledged that expectations for him in South Carolina’s primary this week will be “very low.”

Read the rest here.

STORY HERE

Blowout City. Follow the game live here

 (via Reuters) 

Iran said on Saturday it had evidence Washington was behind the latest killing of one of its nuclear scientists, state television reported, at a time when tensions over the country’s nuclear program have escalated to their highest level ever.

In the fifth attack of its kind in two years, a magnetic bomb was attached to the door of 32-year-old Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan’s car during the Wednesday morning rush-hour in the capital. His driver was also killed.

U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton denied responsibility and Israeli President Shimon Peres said Israel had no role in the attack, to the best of his knowledge.

“We have reliable documents and evidence that this terrorist act was planned, guided and supported by the CIA,” the Iranian foreign ministry said in a letter handed to the Swiss ambassador in Tehran, state TV reported. The Swiss embassy represents U.S. interests in a country where Washington has no diplomatic ties.

The spokesman for Iran’s Joint Armed Forces Staff, Massoud Jazayeri, said: “Our enemies, especially America , Britain and the Zionist regime (Israel), have to be held responsible for their actions.”

Iran in the past has accused Israel of causing a series of spectacular and sometimes bloody mishaps to its nuclear programme. Israeli officials do not comment on any involvement in those events, although some have publicly expressed satisfaction at the setbacks.

Feeling the heat from unprecedented new sanctions, Iran’s clerical establishment has brandished its sword by threatening to block the main Mid-East oil shipping route, starting to enrich uranium at an underground bunker and sentencing an Iranian-American citizen to death on spying charges.

State TV said a “letter of condemnation” had also been sent to Britain, saying the killing of Iranian nuclear scientists began after the head of Britain’s MI6 spy service announced intelligence operations against states seeking nuclear weapons.

The West says Iran’s nuclear programme is aimed at building a bomb. Tehran says it has the right to peaceful nuclear power.

Tehran has urged the U.N. Security Council and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to condemn the latest killing.

After years of international sanctions that had little impact on Iran, U.S. President Barack Obama signed new measures on New Year’s Eve that, if fully implemented, would make it impossible for most countries to pay for Iranian oil.

Washington is requiring that countries gradually reduce their purchases of Iranian oil in order to receive temporary waivers from the sanctions.

The European Union is expected to unveil similar measures next week, and announce a gradual oil embargo among its member states, who collectively buy about a fifth of Iran’s exports.

The combined measures mean Iran may fail to sell all of the 2.6 million barrels a day of exports it relies on to feed its 74 million people. Even if it finds buyers, it will have to offer steep discounts, cutting into its desperately-needed revenue.

On Tuesday shipping sources told Reuters Iran was storing an increasing supply of oil at sea – as much as 8 million barrels – and was likely to store more as it struggles to sell it.

Iran denies it is having trouble: “There has been no disruption in Iran’s crude exports through the Persian Gulf … We have not stored oil in the Gulf because of sanctions as some foreign media reported,” oil official Pirouz Mousavi told the semi-official Mehr news agency on Friday.

The sanctions are causing real hardship on the streets, where prices for basic imported goods are soaring, the rial currency has plummeted and Iranians have been flocking to sell rials to buy dollars to protect their savings.

The pain comes less than two months before a parliamentary election, Iran’s first since a presidential vote in 2009 that was followed by eight months of street demonstrations.

Iran’s authorities successfully put down that revolt by force, but since then the “Arab Spring” has shown the vulnerability of authoritarian governments in the region to protests fueled by anger over economic difficulty.

CLASH THREAT

Iran has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz leading to the Gulf if sanctions are imposed on its oil exports, and has threatened to take unspecified action if Washington sails an aircraft carrier through the strait, an international waterway.

Military experts say Tehran can do little to fight the massive U.S.-led fleet that guards the strait, but the threats raise the chance of a miscalculation that could lead to a military clash and a global oil crisis.

The Pentagon said on Friday that small Iranian boats had approached close to U.S. vessels in the strait last week, although it said it did not believe there was “hostile intent.”

The United States and Israel have not ruled out military action if diplomacy fails to resolve the nuclear dispute. Iran says it would retaliate if attacked.

The tension has caused spikes in global oil prices in recent weeks, although prices eased at the close of last week’s trading on the prospect of reduced demand in economically stricken European countries. Brent crude fell 82 cents to settle at $110.44 a barrel on Friday.

The chances for an imminent easing of tension look even more remote as the nuclear deadlock continues because of Iran’s refusal to halt the sensitive nuclear work.

Last week Iran began enriching uranium underground – the most controversial part of its nuclear programme – at a bunker deep below a mountain near the Shi’ite holy city of Qom.

Nuclear talks with major powers collapsed a year ago. Iran says it wants the talks to resume, but the West says there is no point unless it is willing to discuss a halt to uranium enrichment, which can be used to make material for a bomb.

(Additional reporting by Mitra Amiri; Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Peter Graff)

13 Jan 2012

Scientists have shown that a new molecule in the earth’s atmosphere has the potential to play a significant role in off-setting global warming by cooling the planet.

In a breakthrough paper published in Science, researchers from The University of Manchester, The University of Bristol and Sandia National Laboratories report the potentially revolutionary effects of Criegee biradicals.

These invisible chemical intermediates are powerful oxidisers of pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide, produced by combustion, and can naturally clean up the atmosphere.

Although these chemical intermediates were hypothesised in the 1950s, it is only now that they have been detected. Scientists now believe that, with further research, these species could play a major role in off-setting climate change.

The detection of the Criegee biradical and measurement of how fast it reacts was made possible by a unique apparatus, designed by Sandia researchers, that uses light from a third-generation synchrotron facility, at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Advanced Light Source.

The intense, tunable light from the synchrotron allowed researchers to discern the formation and removal of different isomeric species – molecules that contain the same atoms but arranged in different combinations.

The researchers found that the Criegee biradicals react more rapidly than first thought and will accelerate the formation of sulphate and nitrate in the atmosphere. These compounds will lead to aerosol formation and ultimately to cloud formation with the potential to cool the planet.

The formation of Criegee biradicals was first postulated by Rudolf Criegee in the 1950s. However, despite their importance, it has not been possible to directly study these important species in the laboratory.

In the last 100 years, Earth’s average surface temperature increased by about 0.8 °C with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades.

Most countries have agreed that drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions are required, and that future global warming should be limited to below 2.0 °C (3.6 °F).

Dr Carl Percival, Reader in Atmospheric Chemistry at The University of Manchester and one of the authors of the paper, believes there could be significant research possibilities arising from the discovery of the Criegee biradicals.

He said: “Criegee radicals have been impossible to measure until this work carried out at the Advanced Light Source. We have been able to quantify how fast Criegee radicals react for the first time.

“Our results will have a significant impact on our understanding of the oxidising capacity of the atmosphere and have wide ranging implications for pollution and climate change.

“The main source of these Criegee biradicals does not depend on sunlight and so these processes take place throughout the day and night.”

Professor Dudley Shallcross, Professor in Atmospheric Chemistry at The University of Bristol, added: “A significant ingredient required for the production of these Criegee biradicals comes from chemicals released quite naturally by plants, so natural ecosystems could be playing a significant role in off-setting warming.’

Source