Today’s news about the passing of Hollywood legend Carrie Fisher left everyone in a state of shock.

 Even though the actress had suffered a heart attack just a few days prior, the world hoped and prayed that she’d pull through. Now, we’re struggling to figure out what it means to no longer have this incredibly funny, talented, and passionate actress with us.

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 Here are just some of what Fisher’s Hollywood friends and colleagues are saying about her passing, including her Star Wars collaborators past and present.

 Updated: We updated with additional reactions over the course of the day. ||||| CLOSE Carrie Fisher, best known for her role as Princess Leia in the 'Star Wars' saga, has passed away. The 'Star Wars' actress suffered a heart attack on a flight Friday. She was taken to a hospital in L.A. where she died four days later. USA TODAY

 Carrie Fisher signed copies of her latest book, 'The Princess Diarist,' at a Los Angeles event in November. (Photo: Paul Archuleta, FilmMagic)

 Carrie Fisher is most widely known for her turn as Princess Leia in the hugely popular Star Wars films, but the daughter of two entertainers — actress Debbie Reynolds and singer Eddie Fisher — was also an acclaimed author renowned for her trenchant wit.

 The following is a sampling of memorable lines attributed to Fisher, who died Tuesday after suffering a heart attack during a Dec. 23 flight from London to Los Angeles.

 From Twitter:

 "If my life wasn't funny, it would just be true, and that is unacceptable." (2011)

 "There's no room for demons when you're self-possessed." (2014)

 From Fisher's 1987 semi-autobiographical novel, Postcards From the Edge:

 "Instant gratification takes too long."

 “I shot through my twenties like a luminous thread through a dark needle, blazing toward my destination: Nowhere.”

 “Actually, I am a failed anorexic. I have anorexic thinking, but I can't seem to muster the behavior.”

 “Life is a cruel, horrible joke and I am the punch line.”

 “You know how I always seem to be struggling, even when the situation doesn't call for it?”

 “Sometimes I feel like I've got my nose pressed up against the window of a bakery, only I'm the bread.”

 “My inner world seems largely to consist of three rotating emotions: embarrassment, rage, and tension. Sometimes I feel excited, but I think that's just positive tension.”

 From her 2008 memoir, Wishful Drinking:

 “Sometimes you can only find Heaven by slowly backing away from Hell.”

 “I feel I'm very sane about how crazy I am.”

 “No motive is pure. No one is good or bad — but a hearty mix of both. And sometimes life actually gives to you by taking away.”

 “I quote fictional characters, because I'm a fictional character myself!”

 “Having waited my entire life to get an award for something, anything … I now get awards all the time for being mentally ill. It’s better than being bad at being insane, right? How tragic would it be to be runner-up for Bipolar Woman of the Year?”

 From her new memoir, The Princess Diarist:

 “Vultures are difficult to charm unless you’re off somewhere rotting in the noonday sun. Casually rotting … a glib cadaver.”

 “Someone has to stand still for you to love them. My choices are always on the run.”

 “I act like someone in a bomb shelter trying to raise everyone’s spirits.”

 “Movies were meant to stay on the screen, flat and large and colorful, gathering you up into their sweep of story, carrying you rollicking along to the end, then releasing you back into your unchanged life. But this movie (Star Wars) misbehaved. It leaked out of the theater, poured off the screen, affected a lot of people so deeply that they required endless talismans and artifacts to stay connected to it.”

 Sources: Goodreads.com, USA TODAY research

 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2iB7jvR ||||| Actor Carrie Fisher was best known for playing Princess Leia in Star Wars, but she also left a legacy as an advocate for removing the stigma surrounding mental illness, changing minds by opening up about her own struggle with depression and bipolar disorder.

 Fisher, who died Tuesday after suffering a heart attack days earlier, had a long history of drug abuse in the 1970s and 1980s. She turned that experience into the comic novel Postcards From the Edge. In the 1990s, she opened up about her diagnosis with bipolar disorder and her experiences with depression.

 “I used to think I was a drug addict, pure and simple — just someone who could not stop taking drugs willfully,” Fisher told Diane Sawyer in 1995. “And I was that. But it turns out that I am severely manic depressive.”

 Many have credited Fisher’s openness with breaking down stigma over mental health issues, and the topic was on the top of the minds of many of her admirers following her death. ||||| LISTEN: Carrie Fisher, Terry Gross — And Gary The Dog

 toggle caption Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP/Getty Images

 Actress Carrie Fisher, beloved for her iconic role as Princess Leia, died on Tuesday at the age of 60.

 She leaves behind her daughter, Billie Lourd, her brother, Todd Fisher, her mother, Debbie Reynolds — and her French bulldog, Gary.

 Gary Fisher is a celebrity in his own right — he traveled widely with Fisher and was a star on Instagram and Twitter.

 And when Carrie Fisher visited NPR's studios in New York City, to talk to Fresh Air host Terry Gross, Gary came along, too.

 Gross, however, was in Philadelphia. She didn't know there was a dog in our studios. She didn't even know that was allowed.

 In the conversation that followed, it's impossible to miss the buoyant personalities of both Fishers — Carrie and Gary.

 (And a quick look at the photos will reveal, Carrie Fisher wasn't lying about that tongue.)

 LISTEN: 'Oh, my God, I hear him licking your hand.'

 GROSS: So I have to ask you about your dog Gary who is now a kind of famous dog, and you use him as your profile picture on Twitter. And he's - what kind of dog is he?

 FISHER: He is a French bulldog.

 GROSS: Oh, OK.

 FISHER: And he's right here in the studio with me.

 At it again this morning 🐶📖#garyworkswithhismom #theprincessdiarist #npr #garyinnewyork2016 #garyloveshismom #garyfisher A photo posted by Gary Fisher (@garyfisher) on Nov 22, 2016 at 9:23am PST

 GROSS: Yeah. You get to take him everywhere. It's like — I don't know that they usually let dogs in the NPR studio. You're in the NPR bureau in New York. Is he officially a therapy dog?

 FISHER: Yeah. I — you know, I didn't get him for that, but he's very soothing to have around. He's licking my hand right now. He's just very nice to have around.

 GROSS: Oh, my God, I hear him licking your hand (laughter).

 FISHER: Can you hear him?

 Oh, my God that is such a loud lick.

 GROSS: Yes.

 FISHER: (Laughter).

 GROSS: Let's listen.

 (SOUNDBITE OF DOG LICKING)

 FISHER: (Laughter).

 GROSS: Oh, my God that is such a loud lick (laughter).

 FISHER: Well, he has a very big tongue.

 GROSS: (Laughter).

 toggle caption Barry Brecheisen/Invision/AP

 FISHER: Well, at least it's not that wet, but it's a very, very long tongue.

 GROSS: (Laughter) So did you have him certified as a therapy dog, so you could, like, take him onto planes and things like that?

 FISHER: Yes. Yes. So he sits with me on the plane. Frequently, he sits in the chair, and I sit on the ground.

 GROSS: So how did you find him?

 FISHER: I got him here in New York in the village at a very tragic pet store.

 GROSS: And ...

 FISHER: So he looks like he was from like a puppy mill. He's not — everything is sort of wrong with him.

 Enlarge this image toggle caption Robin Marchant/Getty Images for Tribeca Film Festival Robin Marchant/Getty Images for Tribeca Film Festival

 GROSS: (Laughter). So what attracted you to him?

 FISHER: The tongue. No — I don't even know if the tongue was like that when I first got him. It just gradually got longer and longer and never went into his mouth.

 GROSS: I can't believe I still hear him licking you.

 I don't even know if the tongue was like that when I first got him.

 FISHER: He's still licking me. I'll put my hand up. He's very - he follows me everywhere. He's the most well-behaved dog I've ever had, and I didn't train him. He can give you a high five. He sits. He sits like Winston Churchill.

 GROSS: (Laughter).

 FISHER: He really does. I can't even — you have to see — I'll post a picture of what you'll see.

 ...

 GROSS: (Laughter). All right. Carrie Fisher, thank you so much for talking with us.

 FISHER: Well, thanks for talking to me.

 GROSS: And regards to your dog (laughter). Regards to Gary.

 FISHER: I'll lick him for you.

 toggle caption Joel Ryan/Invision/AP

 You can hear the full interview here. ||||| Images via Getty

 While the majority of Hollywood relies on a select handful of publicists to procure the same five designers for their red carpet events, Carrie Fisher did it like she did everything: by her damn self. It must have been funny to her to have been such an icon of the silver screen, and also a writer in a world that tends to Hollywoodize even the most unglamorous and solitary of professions, which is how we get, say, Meryl Streep playing Susan Orlean as immaculate and intellectual and in crisp white shirts to match the garden of freakin’ oleanders around her like a halo.

 Carrie Fisher wasn’t like that! She dressed for the part of herself exclusively, and it was wonderful. Her best accessory was Gary, her little dog with the uncontrollably wagging tongue, whom she toted everywhere, including late-night appearances—he wasn’t just her best friend, he was her therapy dog, too, a reminder of her fallibility and of our own. But also, his presence was a reminder of the way she consistently bucked convention; at Cannes in May, for instance, she not only flouted its notoriously sexist high-heel mandate for women by donning oxfords and a sensible tweed with a tulip skirt, she doubled down with Gary (and Fisher Stevens, who co-directed her Debbie Reynolds documentary) getting comfortable on the carpet. The French surely blanched; I hope Gary shed a little.

 Fisher’s own writerly looks were generally quirky-sensible with a bit of glam; at the New York Film Festival, she paired eggplant with eggplant, a long scarf and fur atop that; at ComicCon in August, her snake-print cardigan added brightness to sleek black, and her embellished sneakers were a chic topper—they could have been Prada, or Dior, or Donna Karan, or Christopher Kane.

 At the EE British Film Academy Awards, she spoke to us through her handbag and a swathe of painterly stripes; at the premiere of Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, with daughter Billie Lourd, she went as a proper schoolgirl, tweed and knee-highs; her The Force Awakens premiere look was crystalline and velvet like a royal would, but she also found time on the carpet to mock standard red-carpet posing, one leg cannily in front of the other, lips pursed.

 At the premiere of Vacation, a statement dress, and a selfie.

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 And one of the most iconic fashion moments on television of the past ten years happened at Roseanne Barr’s Comedy Central Roast: she wore a brown pantsuit, tinted eyeglasses, and puffed an e-cig for the duration. And she was funnier than any of the professional comedians on the lineup.

 A Michaelangelo-print blouse; full-body scarf; a silk robe for a pajama party in support of Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign. Every choice was made with whimsy, and to be unmistakably herself.

 And finally, with her mother Debbie Reynolds in a smart patterned blazer as a young girl, proving that she’s maintained this personal flair her whole life.

 Goodnight to a true queen.

  ||||| Enlarge Image Lucasfilm

 When I first saw Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia in 1977's "Star Wars: A New Hope," she was fresh-faced and full of confidence and witty comebacks for the roguish rake Han Solo.

 She didn't suffer fools gladly and she often battled Stormtroopers better than the fellas. She killed Jabba the Hutt with a chain, for crying out loud.

 She was the perfect geek girl role model because she was no damsel in distress. Inspired by her, I wore my hair in Princess Leia buns in elementary school yearbook photos.

 But Fisher, who died Tuesday at 60 after suffering a heart attack last week, impacted my life in much bigger ways than my childhood hairdo. And she was so much more than just a Star Wars icon.

 She battled her own personal demons with courage and honesty. She gained strength and insight from her battles with drug and alcohol addiction and bipolar disorder and wrote about these struggles with wit in her memoirs and semi-autobiographical novels -- "Postcards from the Edge," "Wishful Drinking" and most recently, "The Princess Diarist."

 I finally sought therapy to deal with depression after reading about her own mental health struggles. Her memoirs inspired me to write more personal essays.

 In addition to her popular books, Fisher had a successful career as a script doctor during the '90s, working on such films as "Hook," "Sister Act," "Lethal Weapon 3" and "The Wedding Singer."

 Since script doctors are rarely, if ever, credited on the films they save, many fans don't even realize the impact Fisher had on their favorite movies that don't involve lightsaber battles. Even Entertainment Weekly referred to Fisher as "one of the most sought after doctors in town."

 I took screenwriting classes because I wanted to learn skills that Fisher had clearly put to good use as a script doctor.

 Of course, Fisher is best known as Princess Leia from the Star Wars films, but she her acting went way beyond a galaxy far, far away. She made her mark acting in some stellar comedies including "Shampoo," "The Blues Brothers," "The Man with One Red Shoe," "Hannah and Her Sisters," "The 'Burbs" and "When Harry Met Sally."

 Fisher also appeared on numerous popular TV series including "Sex in the City," "The Big Bang Theory," "Entourage," "Family Guy," "Robot Chicken," "30 Rock," "Weeds," "Smallville" and "Frasier," to name a few.

 When I worked at Lucasfilm as a senior editor for the website StarWars.com, I was always honored when my path intersected with Fisher. Sometimes I'd be asked to walk her to panels at San Diego Comic-Con, or just make sure fans didn't get too unruly waiting in line for her autograph.

 One of my favorite memories of Fisher is the time a twenty-something hipster came up to her at one of her Comic-Con signings and demanded she write something unique and personal on a photo of Fisher dressed in her iconic Slave Leia metal bikini. She winked and wrote, "Bite me."

 She always had a funny quip or story and was thrilled when fans would lavish her beloved dog Gary -- who she took with her everywhere -- with love and affection.

 Fisher didn't just pave the way for more beloved female Star Wars characters like Rey ("The Force Awakens") and Jyn Erso ("Rogue One") to inspire a new generation of fans, she also made me proud to be a geek girl who spoke her mind and went after her dreams no matter what challenges life threw my way. And for that I will always be grateful.

 She will be missed, but her Force will be strong in my memory, always. ||||| Ranked on a scale from 1 to 10, the trending score reflects the number of users reading a story in real time.

 What is this? ||||| (CNN) She may be best known for playing Princess Leia, but Carrie Fisher was so much more than that. Here are seven surprising facts about her:

 She was a sought-after script doctor

 Among the scripts the good doctor rewrote and punched up without credit: "Sister Act" and "Hook."

 Dan Aykroyd saved her life and she almost married him in return

 Story: How she died Story: 7 things you didn't know about her

 Fisher starred in "The Blues Brothers" with Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi. Belushi set her up with Aykroyd (whom she calls Danny, by the way), and after a Brussels sprout-related mishap, the two ended up engaged. "I almost choked on some kind of vegetable that I shouldn't have been eating: Brussels sprouts!" Fisher said . "So he had to give me the Heimlich maneuver. He saved my life, and then he asked me to marry him. And I thought... wow, what if that happens again? I should probably marry him."

 John Belushi, Dan Ackroyd, Carrie Fisher on the set of The Blues Brothers. 1977 pic.twitter.com/81d2rNkJAB — Laurent Vachaud (@LaurentVachaud) September 1, 2015

 Meryl Streep played HER

 You know you're somebody when Meryl Streep portrays you in a movie. (Ok, it was a movie adaptation of Fisher's autobiography, "Postcards from the Edge." But still, MERYL STREEP!)

 When Meryl Streep was Carrie Fisher

 I'm checking out.#PostcardsFromTheEdgehttps://t.co/EaQEBMaiFU — DrAmor (@CeroPaciencia) December 27, 2016

 Her emoji game was next level

 She had a way with words ... without using them. She tweeted with emojis.

 Her dog was a celebrity in his own right

 Her pup, Gary, strutted his stuff on red carpets and accompanied her on movie sets.

 Me and mommy fighting over the mic. (But really I just wanted her attention). #CarrieFisher #MaytheForcebeWithHer pic.twitter.com/LJSo3D2LV0 — Carrie Fisher's Dog (@Gary_TheDog) December 24, 2016

 And he had the saddest tweet after her death (at least, the Carrie Fisher's Dog Twitter account did, although we don't quite know who runs it)

 Saddest tweets to tweet. Mommy is gone. I love you @carrieffisher — Carrie Fisher's Dog (@Gary_TheDog) December 27, 2016

 She was an awesome/terrible role model

 Okay, so maybe Carrie Fisher isn't the all-around best role model you could have. She was a self-proclaimed drug addict. She had, shall we say, a creative vocabulary. But, at the same time, she was an amazing writer and comic. She survived bipolar disorder that went undiagnosed for much of her life. And she never took herself too seriously: "If my life wasn't funny, it would just be true, and that is unacceptable." And she personified Grrl Power!

 Carrie Fisher. You taught me that being a princess doesn't mean you need to be saved. My heart is broken. #CarrieFisher #RIP — alisonhaislip (@alisonhaislip) December 27, 2016

 Without her, we'd never know there's no underwear in space

 At least, that's what director George Lucas told her on the set of "Star Wars."

 please honor carrie fisher's wishes and include in her obituaries that she "drowned in moonlight, strangled by her own bra." ❤❤❤ pic.twitter.com/Pj5sRsIvkz — elisabeth (@threelisabeth) December 27, 2016

 "He explained: You go into space and you become weightless. Then your body expands but your bra doesn't, so you get strangled by your own underwear." |||||

Write a summary.

– Carrie Fisher died at the age of 60 Tuesday, four days after suffering a major heart attack. Here's how the world is saying goodbye to the writer, actress, and mental-health advocate who will always be Princess Leia to millions: Calling it the "best morning show interview you'll ever see," Digg shares a clip of Fisher appearing with therapy dog Gary on Good Morning America to promote The Force Awakens. "Even the film crew can't stop laughing." Us Magazine remembers Fisher through photos from her life. Vanity Fair remembers when Fisher, in her one-woman show Wishful Drinking, explained why she's not wearing underwear in A New Hope, the answer to which explains why she wanted her obituary to read: "I drowned in moonlight, strangled by my own bra." Celebrities of all stripes are eulogizing Fisher, and io9 is updating a massive list of their tributes to her, including the following from Steven Spielberg: "She didn't need the Force; she was a force of nature." Meanwhile, Jezebel argues Fisher was an unexpected style icon, who recently angered the French by wearing flats and bringing Gary on the Cannes red carpet. "She dressed for the part of herself exclusively, and it was wonderful." Speaking of Gary, NPR says "it's impossible to miss the buoyant personalities of both Fishers" in a recent interview. "He sits with me on the plane," Fisher says. "Frequently, he sits in the chair, and I sit on the ground." CNN has a list of seven things you didn't know about Fisher, including that she's a prolific and well-regarded script doctor, having improved the scripts for Sister Act and Hook, among many others, while also punching up her own Star Wars dialogue. Time has a short piece on Fisher's position as a highly visible advocate for destigmatizing mental illness, having openly discussed her struggles with depression and bipolar disorder. “No motive is pure. No one is good or bad—but a hearty mix of both. And sometimes life actually gives to you by taking away," USA Today quotes Fisher as saying in a list of her best quotes. Finally, Cnet has a personal remembrance of Fisher from a former Lucasfilm employee: "One of my favorite memories of Fisher is the time a twentysomething hipster came up to her at one of her Comic-Con signings and demanded she write something unique and personal on a photo of Fisher dressed in her iconic Slave Leia metal bikini. She winked and wrote, 'Bite me.'"


Summarize this article:

Porn star and escort Devon James is claiming Tiger Woods fathered her secret love child, RadarOnline.com is reporting exclusively.

 In a stunning development set to reignite Tiger’s cheating scandal, James claims that Tiger is the father of her son.

 James, 29, gave birth to her son in early 2001, before Woods and Elin Nordegren were married.

 PHOTOS: Sexy Pics of All of Tiger’s Women

 James is one of approximately 15 women linked to Woods, 34, in secret sexual affairs.

 A source familiar with the situation told RadarOnline.com that Tiger has not taken or been asked to take a paternity test.

 However, RadarOnline.com has seen photographs of the purported love child who bears a striking resemblance to the world’s number one golfer.

 EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS: First Pictures Of Tiger Woods In Sex Rehab

 James recently dished about her secret on the set of a forthcoming porn movie in Los Angeles, a source told RadarOnline.com.

 Her bombshell accusation comes just a day after headlines blared that Tiger had a secret love child. But those reports did not name the alleged mother.

 PHOTOS: Tiger & Wife Through The Years

 Now RadarOnline.com has learned exclusively that James is claiming she is the mother of Tiger’s secret son and told him he was the dad in 2006 when she says they reconnected.

 “She says Tiger is the father of her child,” one source told RadarOnline.com. “And she’s insistent about it.”

 PHOTOS: Tiger Woods New Estate

 James claimed to have had a two-and-a-half year affair with the superstar when he paid her and another woman $2,000 each for a “two-girl party.”

 The pair engaged in unprotected sex and James became pregnant, a source told RadarOnline.com. Yet it wasn’t until a chance encounter with Woods, six years later, that the Florida woman told Woods that she believed her son was his, according to the source.

 PHOTOS: The Costliest Celebrity Divorces

 RadarOnline.com has found no evidence that Woods has paid James.

 We previously were first to report that alleged “cougar” mistress Theresa Rogers tried to have Woods’ baby.

 Rogers had a baby while she was seeing Woods, but sources close to her told RadarOnline.com that Tiger is not the father.

 PHOTOS: Hollywood’s Dirtiest Divorces

 Tiger is set to play in the U.S. Open. His wife Elin took their two children to China where they are visiting her brother in Shanghai, as RadarOnline.com as first to report. ||||| TROUBLED TIGER WOODS fathered a secret love child, a new TV documentary claims this week.

 A journalist who helped the golfer hide affairs says he knows someone who has full details of the girl ï¿½ and DNA evidence.

 Neal Boulton added: "There is a lot more to come out. Tiger will eventually admit to fathering a child."

 Rumours about a love child have circulated since dad-of-two Tiger, 34, split from wife ELIN. Theresa Rogers reportedly gave birth to a girl in 2003 and demanded ï¿½2million for her silence.

 The claims are in Channel 4's Tiger Woods: The Rise and Fall, on Thursday. |||||

– Guess who’s back in the news: Everyone’s favorite golfer…and his love children. Yes, another mistress has come forward claiming to have given birth to Tiger's child in 2001. This time it’s porn star/escort Devon James—whose son, Radar notes, looks an awful lot like the golfer. As if that’s not bad enough, a new documentary airing Thursday in the UK will delve into the mystery of Tiger Woods’ first purported love child, the Sun reports. Tiger Woods: The Rise and Fall includes interviews with journalist Neal Boulton, who says he knows someone who has DNA evidence that backs up the secret-baby claim and adds, “Tiger will eventually admit to fathering a child.” If this all sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because alleged mistress Theresa Rogers—who reportedly gave birth to Tiger’s daughter in 2003 and is the subject of the documentary’s claims—has been crying love child for months.


Summarize this article:

A federal appellate court decision on Tuesday raises the prospect that Netflix Inc. and other bandwidth-hogging websites may have to pay tolls to broadband providers to ensure quality service, a change that would throw a wrench into their business models and potentially raise prices for consumers.

 The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia struck down the Federal Communications Commission's so-called "open Internet" rules that had required equal treatment of Internet traffic and... ||||| Net neutrality is dead.

 At least that's the verdict of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which today struck down a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) order from 2010 that forced Internet service providers (ISPs) like Verizon, AT&T;, Comcast and Time Warner Cable to abide by the principles of network neutrality. These principles broadly stipulate that ISP network management must be transparent, and that ISPs can't engage in practices that block, stifle or discriminate against (lawful) websites or traffic types on the Internet.

 That's the bare bones story, wrapped in ugly acronyms (FCC, ISP, etc.). But why should you care that network neutrality ("net neutrality") may be gone for good?

 1. No more net neutrality means ISPs can now discriminate against content they dislike.

 Everyone gets their Internet from an Internet service provider -- an ISP like AT&T;, Verizon, Comcast or Time Warner Cable. Under net neutrality rules, these ISPs have to treat all content you access over the Internet "roughly the same way" -- they can't speed up traffic from websites they like or delay competitor's traffic.

 Now, with net neutrality gone, ISPs can discriminate, favoring their business partners while delaying or blocking websites they don't like. Think your cable CEO hates free online porn? Now you'll know for sure!

 2. No more net neutrality means ISPs can now force websites to PAY for faster content delivery.

 You know how some sites you go to just load slower than others? Usually, that's just because the slower site is image heavy, poorly coded, or dealing with intense server load. But with net neutrality gone, ISPs can now start charging hefty fees to websites that want quick content delivery -- shifting the long load times to poorer sites that can't pay up.

 Prefer indie retailers to Amazon.com? You may be in for a frustrating future.

 3. Destroying net neutrality is bad for small businesses.

 Put together items one and two and it becomes clear -- negating net neutrality is bad for small businesses. If ISPs force website owners pay for faster load times, tiny retailers and personal websites will be the ones to suffer from slower content delivery.

 Alternately -- or additionally -- ISPs will have no reason not to favor partner sites: Comcast, for instance, might favor the website of NBC News (which it owns) over competing outlets like Fox or CNN. Still, it's the indies again that will lose out here. While big sites might either get special treatment from their owners or have the means to pay in order to get placed in a bundle, smaller, independent networks won't get any notice from ISPs. Expand this out to music sites, web publishing, etc., and you begin to see the problem.

 In extreme cases, ISPs may hinder or block content that isn't produced by partners -- much like AT&T; did when it owned the telephone networks back in the day.

 4. Without net neutrality, entire types of online traffic (like Netflix) may be in jeopardy.

 Netflix watchers and BitTorrent users might want to beware -- soon your beloved services may not work like they used to. Now that net neutrality's down for the count, ISPs can discriminate against entire types of traffic: For instance, an ISP could slow or block all peer-to-peer file sharing, or all online video streaming.

 Think it sounds unbelievably stupid for an ISP to stifle a certain traffic types indiscriminately? Comcast has seen reason to stifle both streaming video and peer-to-peer in the past.

 From an ISP's perspective, discriminating against some traffic types makes business sense: Many ISPs are also cable television providers, which means the "cord-cutting" enabled by peer-to-peer and streaming online video isn't good for their bottom line.

 5. Without net neutrality, your ISPs can make even more money without actually improving the Internet.

 Right now, America's broadband is slow. It's slow because ISPs can already make gobs of money by charging the rich a ton for high-quality Internet while leaving the rest of America with subpar (or no) service.

 Now, with net neutrality gone, ISPs will be able to make even more money off their existing customer base. They won't need to improve service or bring broadband to rural areas because they'll be able to keep growing (financially, at least) by charging content providers more for faster delivery and charging customers more for faster access. In all likelihood, Tuesday's ruling means the problems with America's Internet will be magnified.

 Clarification: A previous hypothetical scenario in this article implied Time Warner Corporation still owned Time Warner Cable, which was spun off in 2009. The example has been changed. ||||| If you like how cable television works, you're going to love how a court decision Tuesday could change the Internet.

 Thanks to the ruling, broadband providers can now exert a lot more control over what sites you visit on the Internet and what services you can access. The decision would allow Comcast, for example, to bar its Internet subscribers from seeing videos from Netflix (NFLX) or from using Vonage's Internet phone service.

 In a decision that could reshape consumers' access to entertainment, news and other online content, a federal appeals court Tuesday set aside Federal Communications Commission rules designed to ensure that transmission of all Internet content be treated equally. (Paul Sakuma/AP file photo)

 Made by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the decision overturned rules put in place by the Federal Communications Commission in 2010 that barred wired Internet providers from blocking access to particular sites or services, and generally required them to treat all Internet traffic equally.

 While the court's ruling will worry and anger advocates of an open Internet, it's federal regulators, not the judges, who are to blame. Their subservience to the big telecommunications companies and timidity in writing the rules governing Internet traffic led directly to the court's decision.

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 One thing that has made the Internet distinct from pay television services is the role of the service provider. With pay TV, the cable or satellite company determines what channels you can watch, which often depends on what kind of financial deals the providers can strike with the channel operators. As subscribers have seen, disputes over who should pay what can lead to channels or programs going off the air.

 Since its founding, the Internet has operated differently, at least in this country. The understanding -- underwritten by certain legal precedents -- was that end users should be able to connect to any site or service attached to the network, not just those that their broadband service provider approves. There's also long been a generally understood principle that all Internet providers should treat the bits that pass through their networks more or less the same; that you should be able to access video from Netflix as easily as video from Comcast -- or even video on your Aunt Edna's website.

 But in recent years, this principle, dubbed "network neutrality," has been challenged by the service providers. Most notoriously, Comcast inhibited some of its customers from using file-sharing applications by deliberately slowing access to those services.

 In response to those challenges, the FCC, which regulates telecommunications services in this country, put in place its Open Internet rules, which sought to explicitly codify the principles of net neutrality.

 But the FCC made what turns out to have been a big mistake. As the appeals court noted in its ruling, the Open Internet rules essentially require the broadband providers to act as "common carriers," a class of highly regulated companies that are required to treat all customers the same. Unfortunately, the FCC determined long ago that the providers weren't common carriers.

 Under the Bush administration, the FCC was determined to deregulate the telecommunications industry. As part of that effort, it reversed its previous stance and removed Internet providers from common carrier regulations. But even as it deregulated the industry, the FCC sought to maintain the notion of net neutrality. Unfortunately, by determining that the broadband providers weren't common carriers, it basically took away from itself the legal authority to enforce that notion. That's what the court ruled Tuesday: that the FCC can't impose common carrier rules on companies that aren't common carriers.

 There are, of course, answers to this problem. One is that the U.S. Supreme Court could overrule the appeals court if the FCC appeals the ruling. The other is that the FCC could reclassify the broadband providers and give itself back the authority to regulate them.

 But you can bet it will face a lot of resistance to doing so. Back when the agency was debating the Open Internet rules, consumer groups urged the FCC to ground those rules in the finding that the broadband providers are in fact common carriers. But that proposal met considerable resistance from the big telecommunications companies and from those companies' champions in Congress. The final rules were an attempt by the agency to appease both sides.

 The agency may find the gumption this time to tick off the telecommunications giants by re-regulating them. But I wouldn't bet on it. I think it's much more likely that the agency, which is now headed by a former industry lobbyist, will capitulate.

 So enjoy accessing your Internet videos from Netflix and Aunt Edna. They may not be so easy to watch in the future -- if you can watch them at all.

 Contact Troy Wolverton at 408-840-4285 or twolverton@mercurynews.com. Follow him at www.mercurynews.com/troy-wolverton or Twitter.com/troywolv. ||||| Those comments were made with today's decision looming in the distance. "We are concerned about the two-sided market," pro-net-neutrality group Free Press told BuzzFeed at the time. Brent Skorup of the libertarian Mercatus Center at George Mason University, representing the other side of the issue, said that Wheeler was "a little more industry friendly" than his predecessor.

 This comes just a few weeks after the new chairman of the FCC, Tom Wheeler, a former lobbyist for the telecom industry, startled net neutrality advocates with this quote, given during a Q&A following his first formal public address:

 Today, vital portions of the FCC's Open Internet rules were struck down in federal court. These rules, put in place in 2010, were designed to preserve what advocates call net neutrality — an assurance that internet providers can't favor one kind of traffic over another, or charge for access to certain parts of the internet. All traffic, according to the rules, was to be treated equally. Verizon challenged these rules, and mostly won.

 It's an intoxicating pitch, and one you'll hear soon. The country's largest data providers are mulling it; their partners are figuring out how to make it work; the FCC, which is in charge of identifying downsides and regulating such things, just lost much of its ability to do so. Caught at the whirling nexus of theory and regulation and commerce, the average internet user's fate is uncertain. But today, a new and unexpected possibility has made itself clear: We may be entering the era of sponsored data — the era of an internet that we don't directly pay for, but that we also don't control. It's the old net neutrality nightmare, in other words, disguised as a gift.

 What if you didn't have to pay for your data plan? What if the biggest data hogs on your phone — your music apps, your streaming video apps — didn't count toward your monthly limit?

 For years, the net neutrality nightmare scenario was as follows: Carriers, such as Comcast, could charge different amounts for access to different tiers of the internet. The basic tier might include email and basic browsing; the next could include Facebook and Twitter; the final tier could include Netflix, YouTube, or Spotify. These tiers would be divided not by bandwidth or speed requirements, but by content type . The internet would become a club with various VIP sections, arbitrarily laid out to benefit internet providers.

 The FCC chairman's own statement, while suggesting he is weighing an appeal, was cold comfort to his predecessor's allies. "I am committed to maintaining our networks as engines for economic growth, test beds for innovative services and products, and channels for all forms of speech protected by the First Amendment."

 "Pretty much everybody in the industry pushed back very hard against it," he said. "There were a lot of people who came around to network neutrality — a reason why these rules were compromised, and had industry buy-in, was that a lot of people in the industry preferred these rules to reclassification." This is a potentially crippling defeat for net neutrality advocates. Trying to reclassify ISPs as utilities, essentially, would give anti-regulation opponents a much clearer position. Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which opposes net neutrality, declared victory in a statement, saying the cause is "dead and buried."

 By "treating broadband like a communications service," Free Press is suggesting categorizing internet providers as "common carriers," like phone companies, a possibility that, in comparison to preserving 2010's stricken FCC rules, is seen by insiders as a long shot. "From a legal perspective, it's easier," Harold Feld, a senior vice president at Public Knowledge, told BuzzFeed. "What makes it difficult is the politics."

 "This ruling means there is no one who can protect us from ISPs that block or discriminate against websites, applications or services," says a statement from the organization. Tell the FCC to start treating broadband like a communications service, and to restore its Net Neutrality rules."

 This was the vision that propelled net neutrality into the public consciousness, and that led to its inclusion in Barack Obama's 2008 platform. Since then, the nightmare scenario has evolved, with the help of wireless providers. It became more subtle but no less insidious to net neutrality advocates; rather than charging users more for access to different parts of the internet, carriers would charge content providers to make sure their content worked well. The fears changed: Now it wasn't just users that were at risk, but upstart companies. Facebook might be able to afford preferential treatment. But what about the startup that wants to replace Facebook? This is the kind of behavior that Verizon, and others, won the right to engage in today, and it's more likely than ever to come to pass. "We're going to see more pushing of the envelope," Feld says. "Look, you know, Verizon said that if it weren't for these rules, we'd be out negotiating all kinds of deals for [preferential] access." In a statement today, Verizon assured customers that it wouldn't block content, but left open the possibility of preferential access on the service side.

 In the last year, a third, equally insidious but even more subtle scenario has emerged, and today became a much realer possibility. On a less regulated internet, content providers — websites and services — might be able to pay for their users' data. Here's how AT&T describes its "Sponsored Data" plans:

 Similar to 1-800 phone numbers or free shipping for internet commerce, AT&T's new 'Sponsored Data' service opens up new data use options for AT&T wireless customers and customer-friendly mobile broadband channels to businesses that choose to participate as sponsors…

 With the new Sponsored Data service, data charges resulting from eligible uses will be billed directly to the sponsoring company; the customer simply enjoys their content via AT&T's wireless data network. Customers will see the service offered as AT&T Sponsored Data, and the usage will appear on their monthly invoice as Sponsored Data.

 If you wanted to access the internet 15 years ago, you would sign up for a service plan with a company like AOL. For a fee — maybe $20, $30, $40 — you would get as much monthly access as you could use, more or less. Five years later, you would have made a similar arrangement with your cable or phone company for broadband access. Five years after that, you would still have a broadband connection, but you could also enter a new contract, this time with your cell phone company: For a monthly fee, you would get access to the entire internet from your smartphone. Your service might be tiered by speed or data allowances, but it has always been a pure pipe to the internet. How you use your bits has been up to you.

 Sponsored data attacks the only major unappealing part of this long-standing tradition: its cost. It proposes the possibility that video sites, music sites, and social networking sites could pay for their users' access. It also poses a more fundamental question: If all your favorite services didn't count toward your phone's data plan, why would you bother having a data plan at all?

 Recasting internet access as a subsidiary of internet services is not a familiar idea, but it's arriving in many forms. In fact, in the developing world, Facebook has been operating such a service for some time. Facebook for Every Phone, through deals with carriers, provides access to basic Facebook services and apps for free. Facebook isn't just subsidizing some internet experiences, here — it's subsidizing users' very first internet experiences. "It's like the early days of broadcast television," Feld says, "where you would pay affiliates to carry your programming."

 The appeal of such an arrangement to a regular customer is obvious: you would pay less for your data, at least directly. "Consumers don't like it when you take things away," says Feld, so "carriers need to be more subtle than that." They will do so primarily, he says, by creating "artificial scarcity" — data caps — and requiring customers, or now, internet companies, to buy their way around them.

 The appeal of the latter arrangement to the internet's largest companies is even more obvious: It would give them unprecedented control over the internet and its users. If, in this future, you're choosing between two streaming music services, and one of them pays for your data, there's a very good chance you're going to pick that one.

 But which one would be able to do that? The largest one, the incumbent. "This will have profound implications for the internet's ecology," says Feld. Worse, he worries, companies that were willing to fight for net neutrality in the old days won't be such strong allies in 2014, now that they are the largest incumbents on the internet. "They're big, and they can negotiate," he says. "Once you're on the inside, exclusion doesn't seem like such a bad thing. If you're Google, maybe getting access for YouTube is what you want, rather than what you want to fight." |||||

– Yesterday was the day net neutrality died, with a court ruling that Internet service providers aren't bound by FCC non-discrimination rules—so they can prioritize some traffic over others. The decision may mean major changes for the everyday user, and today, media sites are offering the details. Among their warnings: The Wall Street Journal reports that the decision could have a huge impact on sites like Netflix and YouTube, whose video services hog a lot of bandwidth (they account for 32% and 19% of peak web traffic, respectively). If ISPs start making Netflix, for instance, pay a usage fee to maintain speedy content delivery, that cost could make a serious dent in its profits—or trickle down to consumers. ISPs could charge sites big fees in exchange for faster content delivery, potentially giving giants who can pay, like Amazon, a big leg up over independent retailers—not to mention other small businesses, the Huffington Post notes. Providers might even go so far as to prioritize traffic to partner sites—Time Warner might push CNN, for example. Another anti-competitive fear, via BuzzFeed: Big companies might start paying your data fees for the use of their sites. That might sound good—free data?—but it would mean that companies with the ability to pay would have a major advantage over start-ups in winning users. As BuzzFeed points out, "If, in this future, you're choosing between two streaming music services, and one of them pays for your data, there's a very good chance you’re going to pick that one." Beyond concerns over fees, there are worries that providers could block certain websites completely: Comcast users could theoretically end up with no access to, say, Netflix or Vonage, writes Troy Wolverton in the San Jose Mercury News. But net neutrality, in some form, may live to see another day, the Journal notes, reporting that the ruling "left open the door for the FCC to craft rules in a different form that might accomplish its earlier intentions."


– The CDC warned American hospitals last year to keep an eye out for the emergence of a possibly fatal, drug-resistant yeast infection, and now the agency's fears may be realized. CDC officials tell the Washington Post that 35 patients in the US have been stricken with Candida auris, a fungus that can cause bloodstream, wound, and ear infections, with another 18 people harboring the microbe without becoming ill. Some strains of the pathogen don't respond to the three main classes of antifungal drugs, and based on the small number of cases health officials have had the chance to review, 60% of patients hit with C. auris have died (though the agency notes many of those patients had other serious medical issues they were contending with). The fungus is contagious and durable, especially in health care facilities, where it can stick around on furniture and other equipment for months. The first C. auris strain was reported in 2009 in a Japanese man, and it has since spread around the globe, including to Colombia, India, Israel, Kenya, Kuwait, Pakistan, South Korea, Venezuela, and the UK. The first US case was reported in 2013, and the CDC's latest report places 28 of the incidents in New York state, with other affected states including New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Illinois. CDC Acting Director Anne Schuchat said at a recent briefing that "scary," "difficult to combat" drug-resistant microorganisms are on the rise, per the Post. Some good news is that C. auris hasn't morphed yet into new strains, and most people's chances of contracting it are very low, with it only affecting "the sickest of the sick," says CDC infectious disease specialist Tom Chiller. Also encouraging: a recent study IDing an antifungal that may prove useful. (No drug could save this Nevada woman.)

Expand this summary.

Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. ||||| What's New? December 21, 2018: Updated recommendations for laboratorians and health professionals, including environmental disinfection, species identification, and screening recommendations; reorganized webpages

 December 21, 2018: Case count updated to 523

 July 20, 2018: Fact sheets added for patients, laboratory staff, and infection preventionists

 Candida auris is an emerging fungus that presents a serious global health threat. CDC is concerned about C. auris for three main reasons:

 It is often multidrug-resistant, meaning that it is resistant to multiple antifungal drugs commonly used to treat Candida infections. It is difficult to identify with standard laboratory methods, and it can be misidentified in labs without specific technology. Misidentification may lead to inappropriate management. It has caused outbreaks in healthcare settings. For this reason, it is important to quickly identify C. auris in a hospitalized patient so that healthcare facilities can take special precautions to stop its spread.

 CDC encourages all U.S. laboratory staff who identify C. auris to notify their state or local public health authorities and CDC at candidaauris@cdc.gov.

 CDC Expert Commentary |||||


Focused crawls are collections of frequently-updated webcrawl data from narrow (as opposed to broad or wide) web crawls, often focused on a single domain or subdomain. ||||| We love a good live stream fail, even if the situation does get a bit ~hairy~.

 While live streaming herself playing League of Legends, Twitch user AnaPlaying found herself in a bit of a pickle after casually playing with a lighter a little too close to her head.

 As she casually flicks the lighter while talking to her followers, she accidentally lights her hair on fire and doesn't notice for a few good seconds. When she does notice, Ana quickly pats her head free of flames. Although she seems pretty shocked by her burning hair, she doesn't look hurt — she laughs off the fact that she lit her head on fire in front of a bunch of people.

 Life, like a video game, is unpredictable. |||||

Write a summary.

– A French gamer got quite a shock when she tried to do at least one too many things at the same time. Mashable reports Twitch user AnaPlaying was playing a game of League of Legends while live-streaming herself, chatting with fans, and flicking a lighter on and off. This, of course, ended with her accidentally lighting her hair on fire while a bunch of strangers watched. In the video, AnaPlaying appears not to notice the flames for a few seconds before quickly putting them out and sheepishly laughing it off. She doesn't appear to have been injured.


Article:

Mo Ibrahim prize for African leadership: No winner

 Mo Ibrahim said only exceptional leaders will get the prize

 Continue reading the main story Related Stories

 There is no winner this year for the world's most valuable individual prize - the Mo Ibrahim prize for good governance in Africa.

 The $5m (£3.2m) prize is supposed to be awarded each year to a democratically elected leader who governed well, raised living standards and then voluntarily left office.

 The panel said no candidate had met all of the criteria - as in 2009 and 2010.

 Last year, Cape Verde President Pedro Verona Pires won the prize.

 He led the fight against Portuguese colonialism, introduced multi-party politics and was praised for raising living standards.

 The $5m prize is spread over 10 years and is followed by $200,000 a year for life.

 'No compromise'

 Announcing the decision, Mr Ibrahim said: "You make your bed, you have to lie on it. If we said we're going to have a prize for exceptional leadership, we have to stick to that. We are not going to compromise."

 "We are not just in the business of positive messages - we would lose our credibility," the AFP news agency quotes him as saying.

 "The prize committee reviewed a number of candidates but none met all of the criteria needed to win the prize," said committee member Salim Ahmed Salim.

 The two other winners in the six years since the prize was launched were Botswana's President Festus Mogae and Mozambique's Joaquim Chissano.

 Earlier this month, Mr Ibrahim's foundation announced a special $1m award to Archbishop Desmond Tutu for "speaking truth to power".

 The London-based body called the cleric "one of Africa's great voices for justice, freedom, democracy and responsible, responsive government".

 Sudan-born telecoms entrepreneur Mr Ibrahim says the good governance prize is needed because many leaders of sub-Saharan African countries come from poor backgrounds and are tempted to hang on to power for fear that poverty awaits them when they leave office. ||||| The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited the two economists for "the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design."

 The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was the last of the 2012 Nobel awards to be announced.

 It's not technically a Nobel Prize, because unlike the five other awards it wasn't established in the will of Alfred Nobel, a Swedish industrialist also known for inventing dynamite.

 The economics prize was created by the Swedish central bank in Nobel's memory in 1968, and has been handed out with the other prizes ever since. Each award is worth 8 million Swedish kronor, or about $1.2 million. ||||| Two American economists won the Nobel Prize in economics Monday for their research into how to match different actors in given markets, such as job seekers with employers and patients with donated kidneys. David Wessel has details on Lunch Break. Photo: AP.

 Two Americans won the Nobel Prize in economics Monday for research that has improved the way people are matched with limited resources, such as patients with donated organs or students with their preferred high schools.

 Enlarge Image Close Reuters Lloyd Shapley, above, and Alvin Roth won the prize in economics for separate bodies of work that have helped kidney patients and high-school applicants.

 Alvin Roth, a Harvard University professor who is moving to Stanford University, and Lloyd Shapley of the University of California Los Angeles were honored "for the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.

 Their research focuses on how to fairly and efficiently match people with things—be they employers, schools or donated kidneys—when pricing isn't involved. Their work led to systems used by school districts in New York City, Boston and other cities to place students in high schools; by hospitals to match donated kidneys with patients; and by a program that assigns recent medical-school graduates to hospitals for residency programs.

 Messrs. Shapley and Roth worked independently, rather than together.

 The academy pointed to Mr. Shapley's research, starting in the 1950s, that was highly theoretical—he initially examined how spouses select one other—and later was used by Mr. Roth to address real-life situations.

 Real Time Economics Alvin Roth and Lloyd Shapley were lauded for their research on how to match different agents in markets, such as job seekers with employers. Find out more about their work in this Real Time Econ post.

 "Now we are able to see the fruits of this 50-year quest, if you wish, and these techniques—initially very much mathematical—are now directly affecting peoples' lives," said Tayfun Sonmez, a Boston College economist. Mr. Sonmez, who also has done research on matching kidney donors and patients, said the systems developed by Messrs. Shapley and Roth have made it easier for families to find others for kidney exchanges. "We can use some of these insights to optimally organize these exchanges so that we can save as many lives as possible," he said.

 Two American economists have won the Nobel Prize in economics for their work in researching market design and putting practical applications in use. Harvard's Alvin Roth and Lloyd Shapley of UCLA were honored. Video: Associated Press.

 The academy said the pair's combined work "has generated a flourishing field of research and improved the performance of many markets." The award, officially called the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, carries a $1.2 million prize.

 Mr. Shapley, 89 years old and a professor emeritus at UCLA, was honored for 1960s-era research, conducted with the late David Gale, that theorized how men and women could be matched for marriage. A "stable" match occurred when each side's preferences were met. The academy said Mr. Shapley's algorithm ensured "stable matching" and served to "limit agents' motives for manipulating the matching process."

 Winners & Their Work Read more about the 2012 laureates. View Graphics Nobel Prize Winners See which academic institutions and countries have had the most winners. View Graphics

 Mr. Roth, 60, later used that theoretical research to address real-world problems. Starting in the 1980s, he first examined the residency system used to assign medical-school graduates to hospitals and determined that the system led to "stable matches." But not for all. The system couldn't accommodate doctor couples who wanted to be placed in the same region. Mr. Roth redesigned the system to take into account such requests when placing residents.

 Mr. Roth helped redesign New York City's process for assigning students to high schools in 2004. Under the old system, students would list their top five preferred schools. Schools, in turn, were more likely to admit students who ranked them as their first choice. After three rounds of selections, remaining students were assigned through an administrative process, the Academy said. Some 30,000 students a year were assigned to schools for which they had expressed no preference, the academy said in a description of Mr. Roth's work. Mr. Roth designed a new system, based on Mr. Shapley's and Mr. Gale's initial algorithm, that addressed those issues. In the first year, the number of students assigned to schools they hadn't requested dropped by 90%.

 Getty Images Alvin Roth

 In a phone interview broadcast during a news conference in Sweden, Mr. Roth joked, "When I go to class this morning, my students will pay more attention."

 He said in a separate interview that one outcome of his research is that schools are responsive to families' preferences. "School places are scarce resources. What's a good place for one child may differ from child to child," Mr. Roth said. The algorithms developed by Mr. Roth and his colleagues let schools use the information provided by parents on which schools would best suit their children. "It would be a shame not to use that information well," he said.

 In a statement released by UCLA, Mr. Shapley's sons, Peter and Christopher Shapley, said, "We know he is tremendously thankful that his life's work is being recognized with such a prestigious award and grateful for the many congratulations expressed by colleagues and friends."

 Write to Josh Mitchell at joshua.mitchell@dowjones.com |||||
What is a summary?

– Americans Alvin Roth and Peter Shapley have won the Nobel prize for economics on the strength of their work matching players in a wide range of markets, the Wall Street Journal reports. "For example, students have to be matched with schools, and donors of human organs with patients in need of a transplant. How can such matching be accomplished as efficiently as possible?" asks the Swedish Academy in charge of the awards. "The prize rewards two scholars who have answered these questions on a journey from abstract theory on stable allocations to practical design of market institutions." The prize is the last of the 2012 Nobels to be awarded, the AP notes. In other major prize news, this year's winner of the Mo Ibrahim prize for good governance in Africa is... nobody. Just as in 2009 and 2010, no candidate qualified for the world's biggest individual prize, at $5 million. The prize is intended for a leader who's elected democratically, boosts living standards, and leaves office voluntarily, the BBC notes. "You make your bed, you have to lie on it. If we said we're going to have a prize for exceptional leadership, we have to stick to that. We are not going to compromise," said Ibrahim.


Article:

Watch Queue Queue

 Watch Queue Queue Remove all

 Disconnect ||||| Sitting in the coveted second-place spot as votes continued to roll in for the crowded New Hampshire Republican primary, Ohio Governor John Kasich Tuesday night presented himself as a compassionate alternative in what has become a negative campaign.

 Though he was well behind Donald Trump in the first-in-the-nation primary, Kasich said he saw the results as a sign that “the light overcame the darkness of negative campaigning.”

 A strong finish could help Kasich gather momentum as he moves on to other primary states.

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 Kasich, a former chairman of the House Budget Committee and a moderate conservative, described “magic in the air with this campaign.”

 Get Today in Politics in your inbox: A digest of the top political stories from the Globe, sent to your inbox Monday-Friday. Sign Up Thank you for signing up! Sign up for more newsletters here

 “In this campaign, I’ve become convinced even more about what it takes to win a political campaign and what it takes for somebody to be a leader,” he said. “It’s not just what’s up here in the head, it’s also what’s deep in here in the heart.”

 Kasich, who said via Twitter he would head to South Carolina to continue his primary bid, saved some tough talk for the Democratic candidates for president.

 He said he believed Sanders would speak Tuesday night until he turned 77 (Sanders is 74), and urged Hillary Clinton to move on because her campaign hadn’t worked in New Hampshire.

 “It’s not going to work here for them next fall,” Kasich said, “because I’m coming back to New Hampshire.”

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 Kasich, a former Lehman Brothers employee and nine-term House member, has stood back from joining attacks on his Republican opponents, priding himself on his “positive campaign” efforts, but he still has taken at least a few shots at Democrats.

 “I am for Bernie being president of Ben and Jerry’s,” Kasich, who finished eighth in the Iowa caucuses, said this week.

 Steve Annear can be reached at steve.annear@globe.com . Follow him on Twitter @steveannear .Andy Rosen can be reached at andrew.rosen@globe.com . Follow him on Twitter at @andyrosen ||||| Bernie Sanders Bernie SandersPro-Clinton Super-PAC launches 2 ads against Trump Reid blames Sanders supporters for disruptions at Nev. convention Overnight Finance: House unveils 2M Zika bill | GOP hasn't given up on budget | New phase in Puerto Rico fight MORE told a screaming crowd at his New Hampshire headquarters that his victory over Hillary Clinton Hillary Rodham ClintonPro-Clinton Super-PAC launches 2 ads against Trump Overnight Healthcare: Zika fight enters new phase Democrats’ promises same as past utopian efforts — they will fail MORE in the state's primary was the result of excited voters he said could be mobilized in a general election.

 "What happened here in New Hampshire in terms of the enthusiastic and aroused electorate ... that is what will happen all over this country," Sanders said.

 ADVERTISEMENT Surrounded by supporters chanting "we don't need no super-PAC," the Vermont Independent declared, "It is just too late for the same old same old establishment ... the American people want real change."

 "The government of our great country belongs to all the people and not just a handful of wealthy campaign contributors and their super-PACS."

 Sanders began speaking to the crowd a little more than an hour after The Associated Press called the race in his favor immediately after polls closed in New Hampshire.

 Sanders reminded the crowd that just nine months ago they had no campaign organization and no money, "and we were taking on the most powerful political organization in the United States of America" — referring to the Clintons.

 Sanders said he was going to New York City tonight and tomorrow but not to hold a fundraiser on Wall Street. He said he was instead going to hold a fundraiser "right here, right now, right across America," asking his supporters to go to his website and contribute.

 The crowd cheered loudest when Sanders talked about a "yuge" voter turnout. "And I say 'yuuuge,'" he said, riffing on a line he used on Saturday Night Live with comedian Larry David.

 "Yuge!" the Sanders supporters yelled. ||||| Bernie Sanders thrashed Hillary Clinton in the New Hampshire primary Tuesday, an emphatic early triumph for a populist campaign long dismissed as an afterthought in the Democratic presidential primary.

 The Vermont senator's dominant performance in his neighboring state could force Clinton's team to reassess its operations and solidify Sanders' candidacy as a serious threat for the nomination.

 Story Continued Below

 "The people of New Hampshire have sent a profound message to the political establishment, the economic establishment and by the way, to the media establishment," Sanders said in his victory speech. "What the people here have said is that given the enormous crises facing our country, it is just too late for the same-old, same-old establishment politics and establishment economics. The people want real change."

 He warned his supporters that his win could augur an uglier phase of the race. “They are throwing everything at me but the kitchen sink, and I have a feeling that kitchen sink is coming soon," Sanders said.

 With 93 percent of precincts reporting, Sanders led Clinton 60 percent to 38 percent. Sanders' senior strategist, Tad Devine, told POLITICO it “was, we believe, the biggest margin of victory in a contested Democratic primary in history."

 Clinton sought to signal a new stage of her campaign as it looks to regroup for the March contests, which feature more diverse electorates that should aid her cause.

 "It's not whether you get knocked down that matters, it's whether you get back up," she told supporters after calling Sanders to concede. She echoed many of Sanders' campaign themes — vowing to crack down on Wall Street, push for campaign finance reform and fight for women's rights, gay rights and workers' rights — but said that she could actually produce results.

 “Now we take this campaign to the entire country," she declared. "We’re going to fight for every vote in every state. We’re going to fight for real solutions to make a difference in people’s lives.”

 But the New Hampshire results were so convincing that the race was called as soon as the last polls in the state closed, and Sanders supporters were still making their way into Concord High School for his watch party. Cheers erupted and music blared when TVs showed him as the winner.

 "Nine months ago, if you told somebody that we would win the New Hampshire primary, they would not have believed you," Sanders wrote in a fundraising appeal to supporters asking for $3 a pop. "Not at all. Too bold, they would have said. Not enough money to compete against the billionaires. You showed them tonight."

 In her own message to supporters, Clinton wrote that she "[wished] tonight had gone differently."

 "But I know what it's like to be knocked down -- and I've learned from long experience that it's not whether you get knocked down that matters. It's about whether you get back up," she wrote.

 The Clinton campaign released a separate memo Tuesday evening mapping out the candidate's way forward.

 "The nomination will very likely be won in March, not February, and we believe that Hillary Clinton is well positioned to build a strong – potentially insurmountable – delegate lead next month," campaign manager Robby Mook wrote in the memo, which touted the importance of next month and Super Tuesday in particular.

 The campaign also emphasized Clinton's strength among Hispanic and African American voters, as well as her broader appeal beyond Iowa and New Hampshire.

 "Additionally, as the campaign moves to states with a heavier presence of military personnel and veterans, Sen. Sanders should expect renewed questions about his foreign policy proposals and preparedness to be Commander-in-Chief," Mook wrote, also pointing to the campaign's "data-driven operation" to get out the vote in the months to come.

 "We believe that Hillary’s unique level of strength among African Americans, Hispanics, women and working families of all backgrounds – combined with the most data-driven and targeted campaign ever waged – will net the delegates in March needed to put her on a clear path to the nomination," he wrote in the memo.

 Exit poll data from NBC News suggested that 55 percent of primary voters had made up their mind before last month, while just 23 percent said they had waited until the last few days. CNN's exit poll data showed similar results.

 Earlier Tuesday, Devine told MSNBC's "MTP Daily" that the margin of victory was important.

 “Yes, I mean I think if we have a substantial victory, that will help us even more," he said, noting the importance of bringing in younger and independent voters."I think that’s an important case that we’d want to prove," he added.

 Moments earlier, Mook told Chuck Todd that their operation is prepared for an "uphill climb" after Tuesday's primary.

 Eight years ago, after a humbling third-place Iowa finish, Clinton staged a come-from-behind win in New Hampshire that rescued her campaign. This time, Clinton eked out a win in Iowa, but New Hampshire never looked nearly as kind to her.

 For his part, Sanders achieved a bit of history with his victory, becoming the first Jewish candidate to win a primary, something that previous contenders such as Joe Lieberman, Arlen Specter and Milton Shapp were unable to achieve.

 The high stakes for both sides in the first-in-the-nation primary have been on glaring display all week long.

 In their first head-to-head debate last Thursday in Durham, New Hampshire, the two candidates dropped the comity of the first four debates for a bruising, two-hour rumble. In one memorable clash, Sanders attacked Clinton over her paid speeches to Goldman Sachs; Clinton responded that her rival was leveling a "very artful smear" of corruption against her: "Enough is enough," she admonished. "If you've got something to say, say it."

 Since then, though, Clinton has been on the defensive. After being asked at the debate whether she would release transcripts of her paid speeches, at first she said that she would "look into" it, but then struck a less amenable tone. “Let everybody who’s ever given a speech to any private group under any circumstances release them,” Clinton told ABC. “We’ll all release them at the same time.”

 Generational and gender tensions between the two candidates' supporters grew more pronounced over the weekend. Feminist icon Gloria Steinem declared to Bill Maher that young women are only supporting Sanders because "the boys are with Bernie," then later apologized. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, a Clinton surrogate, trotted out her maxim, "There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other." Sanders disavowed a group of supporters calling themselves "Berniebros," saying, "Anybody who is supporting me and doing sexist things, we don't want them."

 Former President Bill Clinton got into the act, too, denouncing Sanders (without mentioning him by name) as "the champion of all things small and the enemy of all things big.”

 Clinton had tried to tamp down expectations, saying some pundits have argued she would have been better off skipping the state. On Saturday, both candidates took brief detours from campaigning in the state: Clinton went to Flint, Michigan, to address the water crisis; Sanders traveled to New York City for a "Saturday Night Live" skit with his spot-on impersonator, Larry David.

 Gabriel Debenedetti contributed reporting from Concord, New Hampshire. ||||| AP Photo Trump: 'We are going to win so much'

 Donald Trump was magnanimous in declaring victory Tuesday night — but all signs of his immediate post-Iowa humility were gone.

 Instead, he was back to boasting about "winning" and pledging to make American great again, while taking slams at Democratic winner Bernie Sanders and totally ignoring Hillary Clinton.

 Story Continued Below

 “We are going to start winning again and we are going to win so much," Trump said at his victory party in Manchester, two hours after news outlets declared him the victor in the New Hampshire GOP primary. "You are going to be so happy.”

 He immediately blasted Sanders, who had given his own victory speech just before him.

 “I heard parts of Bernie’s speech," Trump said. "He wants to give away our country, folks.”

 But Trump also struck populist notes similar to those Sanders had sounded, trumpeting what he called his self-funded campaign and his independence from lobbyists and special interests. “I think one of the things that really caught on — self-funding my campaign,” Trump said.

 “We are now going to make [deals] for your benefit," he added. "We are going to make the deals for the American people.”

 Trump never mentioned Clinton, who trailed Sanders by more than 20 points with more than three-quarters of the results in.

 He nodded only obliquely to his second-place finish in Iowa behind Ted Cruz.

 "You know, we learned a lot about ground games in one week, I have to tell you,” he said.

 Trump acted the part of the GOP front-runner at the start of his speech, thanking Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and congratulating the Republicans who had finished far behind him — though he quickly moved on. “Now that I got that over with...,” he said.

 Trump reiterated many of the campaign pledges he's been making for months: rebuilding the military, taking care of veterans, protecting the Second Amendment and building a wall on the Mexican border.

 “We’re going to build a wall," he said. "It’s going to be built. Believe it or not, it’s not even a difficult thing to do.”

 He pledged to be "the greatest jobs president that God ever created" and cast doubt on the official unemployment rate of 4.9 percent, suggested that the real unemployment rate could be as high as 42 percent.

 Trump thanked his parents, his siblings, his wife and his children, as well as his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, and his spokeswoman, Hope Hicks.

 He said his wife, Melania, "said right from the beginning, 'You know, if you run you know you’re going to win.'”

 With 76 percent of the vote counted in the GOP primary, Trump was leading with 34 percent of the vote. John Kasich was in second with 16 percent, with Cruz, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio behind him. |||||
What is a summary?

– Donald Trump won the first electoral victory of his life Tuesday night and he promised supporters there would be many more to come. "We are going to start winning again and we are going to win so much," he said at his victory party in New Hampshire, per Politico. "You are going to be so happy." Trump—who cruised to victory with around 34% of the vote—went on to repeat campaign promises to build a border wall, "make America great again," and be the "greatest jobs president that God ever created." He also slammed fellow New Hampshire winner Bernie Sanders, accusing him of wanting "to give away our country." Here's what some of the other candidates had to say: Marco Rubio finally admitted that his debate performance on Saturday was a disaster, the Washington Post reports. "Our disappointment tonight is not on you—it's on me," Rubio, who finished in fifth, told supporters. "I did not do well on Saturday night, so listen to this: That will never happen again." During his victory speech, Bernie Sanders praised the "yuge" voter turnout and said that what happened in New Hampshire "in terms of the enthusiastic and aroused electorate" will happen all over America, reports the Hill. "The government of our great country belongs to all the people and not just a handful of wealthy campaign contributors and their super PACS," he said. In a fiery concession speech, Hillary Clinton vowed to "take this campaign to the entire country" and "fight for every vote in every state," reports Politico. "It's not whether you get knocked down that matters, it's whether you get back up," she said. Ted Cruz, claiming he was "effectively tied for third" in the New Hampshire race, congratulated Trump and John Kasich and thanked New Hampshire, telling supporters: "Your victory tonight has left the Washington cartel utterly terrified." After his second-place finish, Kasich told supporters that there was "magic in the air" and the "light overcame the darkness of negative campaigning," per the Boston Globe. "In this campaign, I've become convinced even more about what it takes to win a political campaign and what it takes for somebody to be a leader," he said. "It's not just what’s up here in the head, it's also what's deep in here in the heart."


Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. ||||| The gunman who attacked Dallas police headquarters in an armored van early Saturday provided authorities with a name and a motive for the assault, but officials said definitive identification will wait until a medical examination is completed.

 Concerns about explosive ordnance after pipe bombs were found near the headquarters building south of downtown prevented police from recovering the man's body hours after a police sniper targeted him through the windshield of the van.

 Officers used a robot to safely approach the vehicle to confirm the gunman was dead, and they alerted the public that some planned detonations might be heard as they tried to gain entry.

 Two loud blasts came from the vehicle about noon as authorities tried to neutralize explosives believed to be inside.

 Police spokesman Maj. Max Geron later said at least two pipe bombs were found in the vehicle, which had ports in its walls to fire guns from.

 As you can see the armored van used in the attack is burning #DPDattack pic.twitter.com/VIby2p5kCq — Dallas Police Assoc (@DPA_PoliceAssoc) June 13, 2015

 Police had spent hours trying to negotiate with the man in the armored van he used during his assault on police headquarters before he led dozens of squad cars on a chase that ended along Interstate 45 in Hutchins.

 No one was injured by the man, who identified himself as James Boulware, a 35-year-old with a history of family violence.

 Dallas police Chief David Brown said the gunman said he was going to blow up police because they “took his child and accused him of being a terrorist.”

 'I tried to tell him that the police are just doing their job'

 Boulware's mother, Jeannine, declined to comment Saturday morning when she was reached at her Dallas home by phone.

 "I don't want to talk to the media. I want to talk to my son. I want my grandson to talk to his father. Do not call this number again," she said.

 The suspect's father, Jim Boulware of Carrollton, said his son had blamed police for losing custody of his child, who is in middle school.

 But despite previous threats of violence, he said he never expected anything like Saturday's events.

 "He blames the police for taking his son away from him," Jim Boulware said. "I tried to tell him that the police are just doing their job."

 The elder Boulware said he saw his son Friday night and that there was no indication that trouble was coming.

 Jim Boulware did say that he had noticed a strange van but that his son's plans had been to buy a vehicle he could live in and use to travel to a friend's home in West Texas. |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– The chaos in Dallas is over after the city's police headquarters was attacked by a gunman with bombs. A police sniper has indeed killed the suspect inside his van, reports AP. It took a while to confirm because police were cautious about approaching the vehicle. It also appears that he acted alone, contrary to earlier police reports that up to four people were involved. Police Chief David Brown said the man identified himself as James Boulware and blamed police for "accusing him of being a terrorist" and causing him to lose custody of his son. He allegedly opened fire on police headquarters with automatic weapons about 12:30am and left two explosive devices near the building. One of them, described as a pipe bomb, detonated as an explosives robot moved it, but nobody was injured. Authorities say the gunman led police on a chase to a fast-food parking lot, where he holed up in his van and claimed it was rigged with bombs. The Dallas Morning News reports police arrested a James Boulware, now 50, in 2013 after he threatened to attack his family, churches, and schools, and had obtained firearms, ammunition, and body armor. "He blames the police for taking his son away from him," his father, Jim Boulware, tells the newspaper. "I tried to tell him that the police are just doing their job."


Article:
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, blamed politicians from the European Union and the United States for encouraging the fighting over the past three days. The situation in the city, he warned, was “getting out of control.”

 “It seems someone is interested in this chaos,” Mr. Lavrov said Tuesday at a news conference in Moscow.

 He noted that American diplomats had said in December at a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe that the Ukrainian government should heed the opinion of the population and seek greater integration with Europe or risk instability. “What was this, prophecy or a prediction?” he said.

 The European Union issued no official response to Mr. Lavrov, but its officials say it has never condoned or encouraged violence, as Mr. Lavrov seemed to suggest it had done by having an official mingle with the protesters when they first turned out two months ago.

 At a meeting in Brussels on Monday, European foreign ministers released a final statement on Ukraine saying that “the E.U. remains committed to Ukraine’s political association and economic integration” with Europe “as soon as Ukraine is ready.”

 Renewed Clashes in Kiev Trade Unions Building Independence Square Dynamo Stadium POLICE LINE Crowd on weekdays DOWNTOWN KIEV Parliament City Hall taken by protesters 1,000 FEET Recent clashes Protesters tried to march to Parliament on Sunday but were stopped by riot police. Clashes continued here through the week. It remains unclear where the protesters killed on Wednesday died. Young men captured Protesters detained men they said were pro-government provocateurs in this area on Tuesday and took them to the Trade Unions Building for questioning. Protest barricades Protesters barricaded this portion of the city in December and have remained since. The size of the crowd varies and is smaller on weekdays.

 Protest leaders said the authorities seemed to be giving the more radical protesters free rein while going out of their way to frighten more moderate ones, particularly with the threatening text messages sent on Tuesday.

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 The phrasing of the message, about participating in a “mass disturbance,” echoed language in a new law making it a crime to participate in a protest deemed violent. The law took effect on Tuesday. And protesters were concerned that the government seemed to be using cutting-edge technology from the advertising industry to pinpoint people for political profiling.

 Three cellphone companies in Ukraine — Kyivstar, MTS and Life — denied that they had provided the location data to the government or had sent the text messages, the newspaper Ukrainskaya Pravda reported. Kyivstar suggested that it was instead the work of a “pirate” cellphone tower set up in the area.

 Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters.

 The messages appeared to have little effect. Three hours after they were sent, riot police officers pushed past barricades of burned buses at that site and were met by a crowd of protesters in ski masks and bicycle helmets, carrying sticks and ready to fight.

 The police fired plastic bullets and threw stun grenades. They pressed as far as a cobblestone-throwing catapult built by protesters the day before and dismantled it before retreating.

 The opposition leaders who are members of parliamentary factions face a difficult choice over whether to embrace or denounce the more radical groups as the demonstrations grow more violent. So far, the politicians have condemned those fighting with the police as not representing the aspirations of the larger number of peaceful protesters who have gathered in Independence Square since November in support of closer economic integration with the European Union.

 Photo

 Some of those fighting the police, carrying baseball bats and throwing gasoline bombs say they are supporters of the European free-trade agreement whose rejection by Mr. Yanukovich set off the protests.

 But other groups have also appeared in Kiev, adding to the sense of chaos. Young men carrying sticks wandered side streets near the central square threatening to beat protesters who walked alone. One group shattered a shop window.

 The opposition leaders have said they believe that these people are soccer hooligans and unemployed men bused into Kiev by the government to provide a proxy force to intimidate protesters and darken the image of the movement by highlighting the violence.

 “Disorders should not be allowed to happen,” Vitali Klitschko, a former boxing champion and the leader of the political party Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform, wrote on Twitter. “This is a plan of authorities to introduce a state of emergency.”

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 Early Tuesday, opposition activists detained about a dozen of these rival young men and marched them to one of several buildings occupied by protesters, where several admitted in videotaped conversations that they had been promised 200 hryvnia, or about $25, to cause trouble. But they were not able to explain clearly who had hired them.

 A civic activist who has been prominent in the movement, Ihor Lutsenko, was missing on Tuesday after men forced him into a car in the parking lot of a hospital, according to a Facebook post by his wife.

 The protests, which peaked in December, had seemed to be fading, but were re-energized by opposition to the new laws against public assembly. ||||| MOSCOW/KIEV Russia told European governments on Tuesday to stop meddling in Ukraine's political crisis and said events could be spinning out of control in Kiev after violence that left vehicles burning in the streets.

 Moscow, which sees its fellow former Soviet republic as part of its traditional sphere of influence, has watched nervously as protests against President Viktor Yanukovich's decision to shun a trade pact with the European Union have turned violent.

 Scores of police and demonstrators have been hurt since Yanukovich, who received a multi-billion-dollar bailout package from Moscow after he spurned the EU deal, angered opponents by signing sweeping laws to curb public protests.

 Criticizing "members of certain European governments" for visiting the protesters in Kiev, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said: "We would prefer that some of our European colleagues refrained from acting unceremoniously over the Ukrainian crisis.

 "It is just distasteful," he said, adding that such action had helped encourage the protests.

 In December, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Guido Westerwelle, at the time Germany's foreign minister, visited the protesters.

 EU ministers have also denounced the new laws curbing public protests as "anti-democratic".

 Lavrov criticized the protesters for using "violence, attacks on police, arson, Molotov cocktails and explosive devices" and he called their behavior a "complete violation of all European standards of behavior".

 Russian state television has been repeatedly showing footage of the clashes and what appears to be protesters smashing the windows of a bus, underlining the case for the tough legislation and police action to curb violence.

 "OUT OF CONTROL"

 "I personally think that these calls for prudence, which the leaders of the opposition and Vitaly Klitschko in particular are now making, show that the situation is spinning out of control," Lavrov said.

 Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said in an interview with Russian state broadcaster Russia 24 the government would use force if clashes in Kiev do not cease.

 "If the provocateurs do not stop, then the authorities will have no other choice but to use force under the law to protect our people," said Azarov.

 One of Lavrov's deputies, Grigory Karasin, spoke by telephone with a Ukrainian deputy foreign minister on Tuesday and expressed "concern about provocative actions by radical opposition forces", the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

 It said Russia supported a Ukrainian statement that promised the government would do all it can to resolve the situation peacefully through dialogue - a pledge some opposition protesters suspect was a bid to buy time.

 "We are waiting to see what these talks produce, but there's little hope. Yanukovich is pretending he does not see us or hear us," said Vasyl Somkovych, 30, a protester from the region of Ivano-Frankivsk in largely pro-European western Ukraine.

 In Kiev, a presidential aide ruled out the declaration of a state of emergency to quell the unrest.

 Asked by a journalist if the presidency was considering such a step, Andriy Klyuev, secretary of the National Council of Security and Defense, said: "There will be no declaration of a state of emergency.

 On Tuesday, 2,000-3,000 protesters faced about 1,000 police in central Kiev, where Reuters reporters saw nine burnt-out buses and trucks, smoke wafting from some of the tyres.

 Cobblestones were strewn across a main street where violence erupted on Sunday. Priests were among people walking in an area between a police line and a protesters' barricade.

 Police periodically beat their shields with truncheons and constantly boomed out warnings to protesters through megaphones.

 "We will act according to the situation," said Sergei, 45, a protester from western Ukraine. "If the OMON (riot police) attack, we will respond with full force."

 (Editing by Gareth Jones and Janet Lawrence) nL5N0KV115 ||||| KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych refused to meet Tuesday with an opposition leader who came to his office hoping for negotiations, dimming hopes for a resolution soon to the political crisis that has escalated into vicious street clashes between protesters and police.

 Protesters burn car tires as they clash with police in central Kiev, Ukraine, early Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2014. After a night of vicious street battles, anti-government protesters and police clashed again... (Associated Press)

 Opposition supporters, right, escort people believed to be government-hired thugs away from an opposition camp in central Kiev, Ukraine, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2014. About thirty young men believed to be hired... (Associated Press)

 Protesters clad in improvised protective gear prepare for a clash with police in central Kiev, Ukraine, early Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2014. After a night of vicious street battles, anti-government protesters... (Associated Press)

 Protesters react to tear gas as they clash with police, in central Kiev, Ukraine, Monday, Jan. 20, 2014. After a night of vicious streets battles, anti-government protesters and police clashed anew Monday... (Associated Press)

 Protesters clad in improvised protective gear prepare for a clash with police in central Kiev, Ukraine, Monday, Jan. 20, 2014. After a night of vicious streets battles, anti-government protesters and... (Associated Press)

 An opposition supporter, right, escorts people believed to be government-hired thugs away from an opposition camp in central Kiev, Ukraine, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2014. About thirty young men believed to be... (Associated Press)

 Opposition supporters, left, and, second from left, escort people believed to be government-hired thugs away from an opposition camp in central Kiev, Ukraine, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2014. About thirty young... (Associated Press)

 Protesters assist a wounded comrade, in central Kiev, Ukraine, early Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2014. After a night of vicious street battles, anti-government protesters and police clashed again Monday in Ukraine's... (Associated Press)

 Protesters assist a wounded comrade, in central Kiev, Ukraine, early Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2014. After a night of vicious street battles, anti-government protesters and police clashed again Monday in Ukraine's... (Associated Press)

 Protesters fire at police with fireworks, in central Kiev, Ukraine, Monday, Jan. 20, 2014. After a night of vicious streets battles, anti-government protesters and police clashed anew Monday in the Ukrainian... (Associated Press)

 A protester stands on top of a barricade during during clashes with police in central Kiev, Ukraine, early Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2014. After a night of vicious street battles, anti-government protesters and... (Associated Press)

 Ukraine's two-month standoff shifted into a new phase after Yanukovych pushed through harsh anti-protest laws last week in an attempt to quash the demonstrations calling for his ouster. The mass protests in Kiev, the capital, erupted after Yanukovych spurned a pact with the European Union in favor of close ties with Russia, which offered him a $15 billion bailout.

 Seeing the government ignore their demands and opposition leaders unable to present a coherent plan or even select a single leader, radical protesters have clashed with riot police in Kiev since Sunday, hurling stones and fire bombs at police and getting hit with tear gas and rubber bullets in return.

 "A revolution is under way in Ukraine," said Petro Denkovets, 34, an entrepreneur. "What revolution takes place peacefully? Each side is showing its strengths. The government, its troops, and we, our fearlessness."

 In a bid to ease the crisis, opposition leader Vitali Klitschko, who is a heavyweight boxing champion, went to Yanukovych's office for face-to-face talks on Tuesday, but was received only by his aides. The aides were part of a working group that Yanukovych told to hold negotiations with the opposition.

 Yanukovych's office said the president was in a meeting at the time. But Klitschko held out hope that the leader would receive him later Tuesday.

 "The center of the city of Kiev has been burning for two days," a disappointed Klitschko said. "The president sits two blocks away and does not hear it."

 Despite heavy snowfall and freezing temperatures, several thousand protesters remained camped outside a government district in Kiev in front of rows of helmeted riot police who hid behind metal shields. Charred buses stood covered with ice, the ground was dotted with stones and the popular rock song "I will not give up without a fight" blared over the crowd.

 The protesters had managed to hold their ground overnight, even as police moved in to dismantle some barricades. Fighting lulled on Tuesday morning, after Orthodox priests intervened and asked both sides for calm.

 Still, nearly 1,500 activists sought medical help after the clashes, according to Oleh Musiy, who runs the protesters' medical team.

 Opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who had previously condemned violent protests, said the situation has changed.

 "People have received the right to switch from peaceful to non-peaceful protest because the deafness of the authorities and their disregard for the people," he said Tuesday.

 His ally, the jailed former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, also urged Ukrainians to go to the barricades.

 "There is no other way for the people to deal with the mafia. Those standing on the front lines for Ukraine are heroes!" Tymoshenko said in a statement.

 Heeding the call, young women worked Tuesday to clear the protest site of debris. Nearby, middle-aged men and women produced a drum beat of protest by hitting metal barrels and shields with sticks. In one dramatic scene, three black-robed Orthodox priests, holding crosses and icons, walked in between the police and the protesters, causing the fighting to stop.

 During the clashes Monday night, Klitschko claimed that groups of young men had been hired by pro-government forces to smash shop windows and set cars ablaze in Kiev to create a pretext for the government to introduce martial law.

 Protesters chased the men around, captured them and took them to be questioned. In a video broadcast by several Ukrainian media organizations, the activists showed a hammer and other tools used by the assailants. The protesters then marched the captives down the street and forced them to apologize.

 Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, meanwhile, accused the West of instigating the protests and some EU politicians of joining them.

 "We would prefer that our European colleagues, at least some of them, don't behave in such an unceremonious way in connection with the Ukrainian crisis," he said. "It's simply unseemly and this is what is heating up the situation." |||||Summary:

– Scourge of the modern protester: Ukraine demonstrators this morning got this text on their cell phones: “Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance," reports the New York Times. The threat is clear enough, given that the government also made it a crime punishable by prison to take part in such demonstrations. But the attempt to scare away protesters didn't work—clashes with police continued in Kiev. Protesters have been taking to the streets for two months now, angry that President Viktor Yanukovych rejected a trade pact with the EU in favor of stronger ties with Russia. An opposition leader arrived at Yanukovych's office today but was rebuffed by the leader, reports AP. Russia, meanwhile, accused European nations of encouraging the protests and demanded that they stop "meddling," reports Reuters. "The situation is spinning out of control," says Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.