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China has suspended imports of shellfish from the west coast of the United States -- an unprecedented move that cuts off a $270 million Northwest industry from its biggest export market.

 China said it decided to impose the ban after recent shipments of geoduck clams from Northwest waters were found by its own government inspectors to have high levels of arsenic and a toxin that causes paralytic shellfish poisoning.

 The restriction took effect last week and China's government says it will continue indefinitely. It applies to clams, oysters and all other two-shelled bivalves harvested from the waters of Washington, Oregon, Alaska and Northern California. U.S. officials think the contaminated clams were harvested in Washington or Alaska. Right now they’re waiting to hear back from Chinese officials for more details that will help them identify the exact source.

 State and federal agencies oversee inspection and certification to prevent the shipment of tainted shellfish. Jerry Borchert of the Washington Department of Health said he's never encountered such a ban based on the Chinese government's assertion that these U.S. safeguards failed to screen out contaminated seafood.

 “They’ve never done anything like that, where they would not allow shellfish from this entire area based on potentially two areas or maybe just one area. We don’t really know yet,” Borchert said.

 The biggest blow could fall to those who farm or harvest the supersized geoduck clams. In the Northwest, they're concentrated in Washington's Puget Sound, where about 5 million pounds of wild geoduck are harvested each year. Aquaculture accounts for an additional 2 million pounds, according to estimates from the Washington Department of Natural Resources.

 A barricade around the Chinese consumer market means trouble for those in the Northwest who rely on Asian trade.

 “It’s had an incredible impact,” said George Hill, the geoduck harvest coordinator for Puget Sound's Suquamish Tribe. “A couple thousand divers out of work right now.”

 The U.S. exported $68 million worth of geoduck clams in 2012 -- most of which came from Puget Sound. Nearly 90 percent of that geoduck went to China.

 Geoduck are highly prized in China, where the clams sell for retail prices of $100 to $150 per pound. Although geoduck are harvested year round, demand peaks during the holiday season leading up to the Chinese celebration of the lunar new year -- which falls on Jan. 31 for 2014.

 The geoduck (pronounced "GOO-ee-duck") is a the world’s largest burrowing clam. It’s slow-growing, regularly reaching 100 years old and often weighing as much as 10 pounds.

 Harvesters are waiting for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to negotiate with the Chinese government to come to an agreement on how to move forward and reopen shellfish trade. NOAA stopped issuing certification for shellfish exports last Friday.

 Officials say the investigation is ongoing but the closure could last for months. While the industry awaits a resolution at the international level, it is adjusting to the new reality.

 The Suquamish Tribe is trying to develop other markets in New York, California and locally at seafood markets in Seattle, Hill said.

 Bill Dewey, a spokesman for the largest shellfish supplier in Washington said his company, Taylor Shellfish, is looking at other solutions.

 "I was just talking to our geoduck manager and he’s got two harvest crews and three beach crews essentially doing makework," Dewey said. "He’s too nice a guy to lay them off during the holidays but there’s only so much you can be charitable about making work for people and eventually you’re going to have to lay them off.”

  ||||| Originally published December 14, 2013 at 8:20 PM | Page modified December 15, 2013 at 3:21 PM

 Washington geoduck farmers and harvesters have turned to politicians to help overturn a Chinese shellfish-import ban that’s all but shut down the local industry.

 Washington geoduck harvesters and government officials, including Gov. Jay Inslee, are scrambling to overturn China’s decision to ban some shellfish exports from the Pacific Northwest.

 The ban has brought the geoduck industry here to a virtual halt.

 Fish inspectors in China notified the U.S. Embassy on Dec. 3 that China was tentatively suspending imports of geoduck and other “double-shell aquatic animals,” such as oysters, because they found high levels of paralytic shellfish poisoning, or PSP, in a Nov. 21 shipment of geoducks.

 PSP is a biotoxin produced by algae that shellfish eat and, in humans, in high levels it can lead to severe illness and even death.

 KUOW first reported news of the ban.

 The ban is a particularly nettlesome problem in Washington because China accounts for about 90 percent of geoduck exports from the state. And fisheries in the state harvest and farm 5.5 million to 7 million pounds of geoduck annually, according to Taylor Shellfish Farms, one of the state’s largest geoduck providers. Those companies generally sell geoduck, which is a burrowing clam, for between $7 and $25 a pound.

 The ban also affects Alaskan shellfish.

 Local fish companies, though, are struggling to understand the ban because testing by the Washington State Department of Health in the area where the geoduck shipments originated found PSP levels well below internationally accepted limits.

 “We’ve gone back and looked at all records — they show results way below any human-health concern,” Donn Moyer, a health-department spokesman, said Saturday. “We don’t have any evidence or information whatsoever about any high levels of PSP in any shellfish.”

 Geoduck harvesters believe the Chinese inspectors applied a standard for the level of toxicity that is well below what is considered safe for humans.

 “The numbers I saw (that Chinese inspectors used) are just plain ridiculous,” said Tony Forsman, general manager of Suquamish Seafoods, a business run by the Suquamish Tribe.

 To compound the challenge, communication from the Chinese government has been scant. State regulators and fishery executives say they have heard nothing more from the Chinese since the Dec. 3 notification. Press officials from the Chinese embassy in Washington didn’t respond to an email query Saturday.

 That’s led the industry to turn to political leaders to resolve the issue. On Friday, the governor and Commissioner of Public Lands Peter Goldmark sent a letter to the heads of the Food and Drug Administration and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration asking them to engage in “direct interaction with the Chinese government” to determine the status of the ban and to gather information about the Chinese inspection.

 In the meantime, local geoduck harvesters and farmers are curtailing operations. Suquamish Seafoods, which sends all of its geoduck, between $2 million and $3 million a year, to China, has idled its 24 divers.

 “This is unprecedented,” Forsman. “The tribe really depends on it.”

 Taylor Shellfish Farms, which sells some geoduck domestically, has had to reduce hours for its workers. And if the Chinese ban continues much longer, prices for geoduck sold domestically will drop because of a market glut.

 “That may have an impact on domestic prices,” said Bill Dewey, Taylor’s director of public policy and communications.

 Staff reporter Carol M. Ostrom contributed to this report. Jay Greene: 206-464-2231 or jgreene@seattletimes.com. Twitter: iamjaygreene |||||

– Seafood producers from Alaska to northern California have been hit hard by a Chinese ban on imports of West Coast shellfish, the Seattle Times reports. China says it has suspended imports indefinitely after high levels of arsenic and other toxins were found in a shipment of geoduck clams, but fish companies are crying foul, noting that even in the area where the clams were harvested, health authorities have found no evidence of toxins anywhere near harmful levels. Officials say that Chinese authorities have never imposed such a widespread ban on shellfish before and although the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is expected to enter negotiations with the Chinese government, the closure could last months, forcing seafood producers to find new markets or lay off thousands of workers. "It's had an incredible impact," the geoduck harvest coordinator for Puget Sound's Suquamish Tribe tells KUOW. "A couple thousand divers out of work right now."


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Bodybuilder Rich Piana Had 20 Bottles of Steroids During Medical Emergency

 Bodybuilder Rich Piana Had 20 Bottles of Steroids During Medical Emergency

 EXCLUSIVE

 Bodybuilding superstar Rich Piana had 20 bottles of steroids in his home at the time of his medical emergency ... this according to the police report obtained by TMZ Sports.

 Cops were called to Piana's Florida home at 1:30 PM on Monday after the 46-year-old social media sensation suddenly collapsed in his bathroom while getting a haircut from his girlfriend, Chanel.

 Piana's girlfriend says she tried to catch the former Mr. California bodybuilding champ when he collapsed but couldn't due to his massive size and weight. Chanel told officials Piana struck his head during the fall.

 The 911 operator instructed Chanel to perform CPR but she was unable to revive him.

 When emergency personnel arrived, paramedics found crushed up white powder on a table along with a credit card and straw and decided to give Rich 2 doses of Narcan (often used to treat opiate overdoses) to try and revive him.

 Chanel told responders Rich had battled opiate addiction in the past but she believed he was clean.

 Rich never regained consciousness and was transported to a nearby hospital where he was placed into a medically induced coma.

 The report notes that police found bottles and bottles of testosterone in the home, 20 in total. Chanel said Rich is an admitted steroid user who's been juicing for more than 20 years.

 Chanel also noted Rich had suffered from a slightly enlarged heart at one point in his life -- but didn't know if that contributed to the medical emergency.

 Chanel says Rich is still alive and fighting -- but has asked for prayers. ||||| See more of Sara Piana on Facebook |||||

– Another bodybuilder has suffered an untimely death, just days after Dallas McCarver apparently choked to death at 26. Rich Piana, 46, collapsed while his girlfriend was cutting his hair at his Florida apartment Aug. 7. He was rushed to a hospital and placed into a medically induced coma, but never recovered; he died early Friday, TMZ reports. In its initial report on the incident, TMZ Sports reported that Piana's girlfriend, Chanel, said that he hit his head when he fell. She also told authorities that he at one point in the past had a slightly enlarged heart. His cause of death is not yet clear, but TMZ notes that in a search of his apartment, authorities found not only steroids but also a crushed-up white powder near a credit card and a straw. Emergency responders gave him two doses of Narcan in an attempt to revive him, though his girlfriend told authorities she believed Piana, who did struggle with opiate addiction in the past, was currently clean. Piana had won several bodybuilding competitions, including Mr. California, and was a hit on Instagram. Both his girlfriend and his ex-wife have posted remembrances on social media.


Article:

The great political surprise of 2018 will be the size of the Republican victory.

 After members of the elite media have spent two years savaging President Trump, lying about Republican legislation, and reassuring themselves that Republican defeat was inevitable, the size of the GOP victory in 2018 will be an enormous shock.

 Two very interesting columns (one by Barry Casselman and one by Scott Adams) illustrate how the media is deceiving itself.

 Casselman contends that the Democratic victory in Alabama may have blocked a year-long embarrassment and actually strengthened Republican prospects in the Senate. He asserts there may be a new political wave coming, but no one knows whether it will be a red or blue wave.

 As I listened to the end of the year "analysts," I was struck by how little they know, how little they have questioned their own mistakes, and how mutually reinforcing their false information has been.

 Adams, the author of Dilbert, has a list of 20 political opinions and predictions made about President Trump and his Administration, which were just plain wrong. He suggests if you were wrong about 15 or more of these assertions, you might quit talking about politics while Trump is in the White House. By Adams’s standard, most elite "analysts" would have to be quiet, because they have been so consistently wrong about Trump.

 As I listened to the end of the year "analysts," I was struck by how little they know, how little they have questioned their own mistakes, and how mutually reinforcing their false information has been.

 These are not analysts. These are liberal propagandists. Much of what they assert is just plain wrong. Fake news is, sadly, an accurate term. And the topic about which they have been the most fake is the GOP’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

 First, the media lied about the tax bill in an effort to convince most Americans their taxes would go up.

 Then, the media took surveys of people who opposed the GOP bill based on the false information supplied by the media.

 Then, the media talked again and again about how unpopular the Republican plan was and how it was going to weaken Republican candidates in 2018.

 Then, the bill passed, and unsurprisingly, it turned out to be dramatically better for Americans than the elite media had described.

 In fact, the tax cuts will be the 2018 proving ground of media liberal bias and dishonesty.

 CBS News just provided a vivid example of the false impressions created by the liberal news media’s lies. They interviewed three families about how they expected the GOP tax bill to affect them. Then they had a CPA tell them, on camera, what they would actually be paying in taxes next year.

 Of course, after months of convincing most Americans their taxes would go up, the three families either expected to be paying more in taxes or to not save any money. And you can tell by watching the segment that the liberal hosts expected the same.

 Of course, it turned out that all three families would pay less under the GOP tax cuts than under current law.

 A North Carolina single mother with an income slightly under $40,000 who didn’t think she would be affected will keep about $1,300 more per year under the GOP bill.

 Two college teachers in Rhode Island with a joint income of over $150,000 a year thought they would pay more taxes, but they will actually pay about $650 less under the GOP tax cut.

 The biggest surprise in the CBS report was the impact the tax cuts would have on a California couple with three children, a small business, and earning an income of approximately $300,000. The family believed that because California is a high-tax state, that capping state and local tax deductions would really hurt them. Instead, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will save them nearly $13,000 in taxes.

 The look on the three families faces as they learned how much they would be saving was remarkable to behold.

 The CBS analyst concluded "every one of the families will have more money in their pocket next year."

 As my colleague Joe Desantis wrote me: "This segment drove me crazy. As if CBS was incapable of doing math before the tax cuts passed."

 The gap between the news media falsehoods and the dramatically better reality of the GOP tax cuts will have three huge effects on the 2018 campaign:

 1. The American people will be positively surprised and pleased by the degree to which Republicans kept their word and actually put more money in taxpayer pockets. After 10 months of frustration from trying to repeal Obamacare, Republicans have proven they can get big things done.

 2. The news media’s dishonesty will be vivid at a personal level. People will be able to compare their personal experience with the news media's fake reporting and endless bias. As the truth sinks in, the ability of the liberal media to shape opinion will decline even further.

 3. Democrats who voted against the bill will live to regret it as people look at their family budgets and realize Democrats in the House and Senate wanted Washington bureaucrats to have more money, rather than hard-working Americans. This will certainly be a losing proposition for the 10 Senate Democrats up for re-election in states President Trump won in 2016.

 In fact, the stage is being set for a definitive election.

 Do you want higher taxes, bigger bureaucracy, more power in Washington, and a smaller economy with lower take-home pay and fewer jobs? If yes, vote Democrat, because that is what they stand for and will continue to vote for next year.

 If you want a bigger economy, more jobs, more take-home pay, less power with Washington bureaucrats, and lower taxes with more money in your pocket, then vote Republican.

 If Republicans can learn to tell the truth better than the elite media and Democrats lie, the GOP will win an astonishing victory in 2018. ||||| When candidate Trump first set about the job of redefining politics (and reality) back in 2015, people had lots of predictions about how things would turn out. One year isn’t long enough to know everything we need to know about his presidency, but it’s long enough to to check some of our predictions. As a public service, I put together a list of predictions that various people made about Trump that you can use to evaluate your own predictive powers. Count the number of items on the list that you once predicted would be true. I’ll tell you how to evaluate your score at the end.

 Did you once believe…

 Trump will never win the GOP nomination.

 Trump will never win the presidency.

 Stocks will drop if Trump is elected.

 President Trump will deport ten million illegal immigrants.

 Trump will be gone (impeached, jailed, or quit) by end of 2017.

 Trump’s immigration ban on several Muslim countries will be found unconstitutional.

 Trump colluded with Russia, and that’s a crime.

 Trump obstructed justice (a crime) by firing Comey.

 Trump’s skills as a “con man” might get him elected but it won’t transfer into doing the job of president.

 Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel will cause huge problems.

 Trump’s tweeting will cause huge problems.

 GOP will never embrace Trump.

 Trump will get nothing important done.

 Trump will not work effectively with leaders of other countries.

 GOP senators will vote against GOP priorities because of President Trump’s mean tweets.

 Trump will not nominate qualified judges to the Supreme Court.

 Trump is incompetent.

 Presidential approval polls are a good predictor of how a president will perform.

 The military won’t follow Trump’s orders.

 GDP will never stay above 3%.

 — end —

 I didn’t get any of those predictions wrong. But if you got 15 or more wrong, you might want to consider never saying anything about politics out loud again for the rest of your life. Just a suggestion.

 Okay, okay. I know you are quibbling with a few items I included on the list. Maybe you think the bad news for Trump — such as the alleged Russia problems — will sink Trump eventually. We can revisit this list next year. But if you are wrong for three years straight — about almost everything Trump-related — please adjust your confidence in your predictive powers accordingly.

 If you got 15 or more of those predictions wrong, please consider reading a copy of my book, Win Bigly, to learn how to use what I call the Persuasion Filter to predict better. |||||
What is a summary?

– One common sentiment among political pundits is that Democrats are on track to deliver a political shellacking to Republicans in the 2018 elections. At Fox News, however, Newt Gingrich is predicting the "great political surprise" of the new year: Republicans will not only win, they'll win big. "After members of the elite media have spent two years savaging President Trump, lying about Republican legislation, and reassuring themselves that Republican defeat was inevitable, the size of the GOP victory in 2018 will be an enormous shock," writes the former House speaker. One key reason for his prediction is the newly passed Republican tax plan. Ordinary Americans have been told in the press over and over that the changes will hurt them and benefit the rich, he writes. But when people actually receive fatter paychecks next year, Gingrich argues, they'll see the truth. "In fact, the tax cuts will be the 2018 proving ground of media liberal bias and dishonesty," he writes. What's more, he predicts that Democrats who voted against the measure will pay the price in the midterms, particularly the 10 Senate Democrats up for re-election in states won by Trump. Click for the full column, in which Gingrich references another by Dilbert creator Scott Adams that offers up a list of 20 doomsday political predictions about Trump that Adams says failed to materialize.


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President Barack Obama said Friday that "left unchecked, we have every reason to believe Gadhafi (will) commit atrocities against his own people" and the surrounding region could be destabilized.

 "The democratic values that we stand for would be overrun" and the "words of the international community would be rendered hollow," the president said.

 The focus of the United Nations is on protecting innocent civilians and holding Moammar Gadhafi accountable, Obama said.

 A cease-fire must be implemented immediately, and Gadhafi's troops must be pulled back from several cities, he said. Power and water must be restored to those cities, he declared.

 "These terms are not negotiable," Obama said.

 If Gadhafi doesn't comply, the U.N. resolution will be imposed through military action. The United States will work as part of an international coalition, Obama said, but American troops will not be deployed in Libya. ||||| President Barack Obama demanded Friday that Moammar Gadhafi halt all military attacks against civilians and said that if the Libyan leader did not stand down the United States would join in military action against him.

 President Barack Obama leaves the podium after making a statement about Libya, Friday, March 18, 2011, in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo) (Associated Press)

 President Barack Obama makes a statement on Libya, Friday, March 18, 2011, in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo) (Associated Press)

 President Barack Obama makes a statement on Libya, Friday, March 18, 2011, in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo) (Associated Press)

 President Barack Obama makes a statement on Libya, Friday, March 18, 2011, in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo) (Associated Press)

 President Barack Obama makes a statement on Libya, Friday, March 18, 2011, in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo) (Associated Press)

 Still, Obama also said the United States "is not going to deploy ground troops into Libya."

 In a brief appearance at the White House, Obama said Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton would travel to Paris on Saturday to join in a meeting of allies called to discuss next steps in Libya, where Gadhafi has launched a brutal crackdown against rebels trying to end his 42-year reign.

 Obama's remarks came less than 24 hours after the United Nations Security Council voted to authorize military action to prevent the killing of civilians by Libyan forces.

 There should be no doubt about Gadhafi's intentions "because he has made them clear," Obama said. "Just yesterday, speaking of the city of Benghazi, a city of roughly 700,000, he threatened `we will have no mercy and no pity.' No mercy on his own citizens."

 The president has been criticized by U.S. lawmakers and others for not moving more forcefully while Gadhafi has regrouped in recent days and taken the offensive against the rebels. Obama said the United States and other nations have imposed sanctions on Libya, frozen assets of the leader and delivered humanitarian supplies to bordering countries to help ease the plight of thousands fleeing the fighting.

 "Now, once more, Moammar Gadhafi has a choice," Obama said, listing what he said were non-negotiable conditions laid out by the U.N. Security Council.

 "If Gadhafi does not comply, the international community will impose consequences, and the resolution will be enforced through military action," Obama said.

 Obama did not specify what responsibilities would fall to the United States if military action is carried out against Gadhafi, but officials have said previously that American forces would help enforce a no-fly zone to prevent the Libyan leader from using his air force to bomb civilians.

 The president made no reference to a Libya's declaration of an immediate cease-fire on Friday _ a statement that a rebel spokesman said was fiction.

 Instead, Obama listed a series of demands for Gadhafi, including the halting of all attacks against civilians, a stop to military action against Benghazi and other cities and permission for humanitarian supplies to reach the civilian population of the country.

 "Let me be clear, these terms are not negotiable," he said.

 "Our goal is focused, our cause is just, and our coalition is strong," the president said.

 He emphasized that the United States was not acting alone but in concert with Britain, France and Arab countries he did not name.

 "Change in the region will not and cannot be imposed by the United States or any foreign power. Ultimately, it will be driven by the people of the Arab world," he said.

 The uprising against Gadhafi is only one of many struggles being played out in the region as long-time autocratic regimes come under pressure. Protests in Tunisia and Egypt have led to the ouster of long-time rulers, and there have been demonstrations in Yemen, Jordan and Bahrain. Protests erupted in at least three parts of Syria during the day Friday, according to state television and other source

 Earlier, Clinton told reporters that Gadhafi must make "a very clear set of decisions" to halt violence against anti-government rebels.

 Clinton said the U.S. had seen the reports of a cease-fire by the Libyan government, but she added that the American government was not going to be "impressed by words." She said the immediate objective of any intervention was to halt the violence against civilians, but insisted that the "final result of any negotiation would have to be the decision by Col. Gadhafi to leave."

 The U.S. has ships and warplanes within striking distance of Libya, including submarines and surface ships armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles. If military action were to proceed, a first step likely would involve attacks on Libyan air defenses, including radar and surface-to-air missile sites along its Mediterranean coastline. That would allow aircraft enforcing a no-fly zone to maneuver with impunity.

 The nearest U.S. aircraft carrier, the USS Enterprise, was far to the east, in the Arabian Sea supporting air operations in Afghanistan. The Pentagon gave no indication that substantial additional firepower was being moved toward Libya, even as it focused on providing humanitarian relief in stricken northern Japan.

 Britain, France and NATO were holding emergency meetings Friday on using military force to enforce a no-fly zone. NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the alliance was "completing its planning to be ready to take appropriate action in support of the U.N. resolution as part of the broad international effort."

 Officials announced that the leaders of Britain, France and Germany and the chiefs of the United Nations and Arab League would join other world leaders for an emergency summit on Libya in Paris on Saturday. |||||

– President Obama warned Moammar Gadhafi today if he doesn't immediately pull back his troops from major cities and cease attacks on protesters, the world community will make good on its promise of military action, reports CNN. He emphasized that the US would not act alone and that no American ground troops would be involved, notes AP. Gadhafi has already declared a cease-fire in the wake of last night's UN Security Council resolution, but reports of attacks on rebels continue. “Let me be clear, these terms are not negotiable—these terms are not negotiable,” said Obama. “If Colonel Qaddafi does not comply with the resolution, the international community will impose consequences. The resolution will be enforced through military action."


Article:

Mark Hamill ಪರಿಶೀಲಿಸಿದ ಖಾತೆ @HamillHimself

 @ tedcruz

 https:// twitter.com/tedcruz/status /942460828242063361 …

 Thanks for smarm-spaining it to meI know politics can be confusing, but you'd have more credibility if you spelled my name correctly. I mean IT'S RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF YOU! Maybe you're just distracted from watching porn at the office again-mh ||||| Tweet with a location

 You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| Add this Tweet to your website by copying the code below. Tuilleadh eolais

 Add this video to your website by copying the code below. Tuilleadh eolais

 Níorbh fhéidir an freastalaí a theagmháil. An dtriailfidh tú arís é? Cuirtear an bun-Tweet san áireamh Bíodh meáin mar chuid de

 Trí ábhar Twitter a leabú i do láithreán gréasáin nó aip, tá tú ag aontú le Comhaontú an Fhorbróra agus Polasaí an Fhorbróra.

 Réamhamharc ||||| Tweet with a location

 You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| Who knew that a Tatooine farmboy would rise up from his humble beginnings to become one of the greatest defenders of net neutrality the galaxy has ever known?

 But this is 2017, so we shouldn't expect anything less at this point. So please, pull up a chair while we unpack how actor Mark Hamill, best known for his role as Luke Skywalker, clapped back at Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in a Twitter debate about ending net neutrality.

 The backstory: Last week, the Federal Communications Commission voted to repeal rules that protected net neutrality by barring internet service providers from slowing websites or charging premiums for specific sites. The FCC is led by longtime net neutrality critic Ajit Pai, who was appointed to the role by President Trump, so the vote was not entirely surprising.

 Critics argue that the move to get rid of net neutrality favors big corporations, and have threatened to file lawsuits to try to slow or stop the process of deregulation. Artists, actors, and musicians have also argued that repealing net neutrality will hurt those in entertainment and other creative industries.

 In what would otherwise have been completely unrelated news, the latest Star Wars movie, The Last Jedi, was released Friday and everyone was really excited about it, including one of the film's stars, Mark Hamill. Hamill happens to be really good at Twitter and likes to chat with his fans, and has also occasionally tweeted things that make it clear he's not a fan of Trump. |||||
What is a summary?

– The Force was not with Sen. Ted Cruz on Sunday when he tried to use Star Wars references to win an argument on net neutrality—with Luke Skywalker. BuzzFeed reports that it began Saturday when Mark Hamill tweeted a picture of FCC chair Ajit Pai wielding a lightsaber in a video he made to defend killing Obama-era net neutrality rules. Hamill said Pai was "profoundly unworthy" because "a Jedi acts selflessly for the common man." On Sunday, Cruz tweeted to Hamill, misspelling his name as "Hammill": "Luke, I know Hollywood can be confusing, but it was Vader who supported govt power over everything said & done on the Internet." He added: "Reject the dark side: Free the net!" Hamill quickly fired back with a burn: "Thanks for smarm-spaining it to me," he tweeted. "I know politics can be confusing, but you'd have more credibility if you spelled my name correctly. I mean IT'S RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF YOU! Maybe you're just distracted from watching porn at the office again," he said, mocking the gaffe that Cruz blamed on a staffer. In a follow-up tweet, he said he regrets leaving the "L" out of "smarm-splaining"—and the fact that Twitter's 280-character limit isn't enough to unpack "all the lies and all the stupid" in a Cruz tweet. Cruz quoted Yoda in another tweet to Hamill, saying Hamill had responded with anger instead of facts and asking: "Who was it that said, "Fear is the path to the dark side…fear leads to anger…anger leads to hate?"


News article:

PARIS (AP) — The Pompidou Centre in Paris hopes to display a long-vanished Picasso painting in May, now that it has been recovered by U.S. customs authorities.

 This undated photo provided by the United States Department of Justice, shows a cubist painting entitled “The Hairdresser” by Pablo Picasso. Authorities say the painting worth millions of dollars was... (Associated Press)

 The 1911 cubist painting "The Hairdresser," worth millions of dollars, was reported missing from a Pompidou storeroom in 2001. It was smuggled into the U.S. in December from Belgium.

 Pompidou director Alain Seban said the discovery comes as a "true comfort" at a time when the cultural world is reeling from an Islamic State video showing the destruction of statues in Iraq.

 Seban said in a statement Friday that he hopes the work can be exhibited again publicly in May.

 U.S. and French authorities have not announced any arrests in the case. ||||| A stolen Picasso worth millions of dollars was shipped to the U.S. in a package that described it as a $37 "art craft" — but it will soon be on its way back to France.

 Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn filed papers Thursday to forfeit the century-old cubist painting, which was swiped from a museum storeroom in 2001. "A lost treasure has been found," U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch said in a statement.

 The canvas, titled "La Coiffeuse," was bequeathed to France's National Museum and was placed in storage at the Centre Georges Pompidou, where staffers discovered it was missing when they received a loan request for it.

 It was shipped by Federal Express from Belgium in December and seized at the Port of Newark. Officials said shipper was identified only as "Robert" and the destination was a climate-controlled storage facility in Queens. Court papers did not indicate whether the sender or intended recipient have been identified.

 La Coiffeuse, painted by Picasso in 1911. U.S. Department of Justice

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 — Tracy Connor ||||| A Picasso painting missing from Paris for more than a decade resurfaced in the United States, where it had been shipped under false pretenses as a $37 holiday-themed “art craft.”

 The 1911 painting, “La Coiffeuse,” which translates to “The Hairdresser,” was unearthed in December in a FedEx shipment from Belgium to Newark. The canvas had been smuggled out of a storeroom of the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Paris museum and arts center, and its whereabouts had not been known.

 On Thursday, Loretta E. Lynch, the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, filed a civil complaint to forfeit the Picasso and return it to France.

 Its shipping papers described it as a $37 “art craft/toy” and also read “Joyeux Noel,” French for “Merry Christmas.” When federal Customs and Border Protection officials examined the shipment, though, they found the master artist’s work. Department of Homeland Security officials working from Long Island City, Queens, which is within the Eastern District of New York’s jurisdiction, then took over.

 The oil painting is owned by the French government; it had been bequeathed to the National Museums of France by one of its former directors. It was last exhibited in Munich in 1998, and then returned to Paris, where it was stored at the Pompidou. Officials there thought it was safe and sound until they received a loan request for it in 2001, searched the storerooms and could not find it. They declared the painting, then valued more than $2.5 million, stolen.

 On Dec. 17, someone going by “Robert” with an address in Belgium shipped the painting to a climate-controlled warehouse in Long Island City. The next day, the painting arrived at the Port of Newark and was seized.

 French museum officials came to New York last month to examine the painting in person alongside historical records and photographs, and they confirmed that it was “La Coiffeuse.”

 Under federal law, imported merchandise can be seized by the government if it was stolen or smuggled.

 “The market to sell stolen antiquities in the United States is drying up,” Anthony Scandiffio, deputy special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations, which seized the painting after border officials flagged it, said in a statement. |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article?

– A Picasso painting that was found to have vanished from a Paris museum more than a decade ago has turned up—in the US, in a package shipped from Belgium. Its papers identified it as a $37 "art craft/toy" and also included the line "Joyeux Noel," or Merry Christmas, the New York Times reports. A man named "Robert" attempted to send the package to a climate-controlled warehouse in Queens, New York, in December, but custom officials at the Port of Newark seized what turned out to be Picasso's 1911 La Coiffeuse (The Hairdresser). French museum officials traveled to New York last month and confirmed the find is indeed the missing Picasso work, which the Centre Georges Pompidou realized was missing from its storerooms in 2001 following a loan request; it was then valued at more than $2.5 million. Court documents don't specify whether the sender or would-be recipient have been identified, NBC News reports, but "a lost treasure has been found," US attorney Loretta Lynch said in a statement. She filed a civil complaint yesterday that will have the painting returned to France. The Pompidou's director, who called the painting's rediscovery a "true comfort," hopes the painting can go on display at the museum as early as May, the AP reports. (Another Picasso work was stolen days before this one was found.)


Write a summary based on this article:

Update:

 LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - The Arkansas State Police (ASP) is shedding more light on the apprehension this past weekend of an escaped state prison inmate who had been on the run for more than 30 years.

 The ASP is investigating where Steven Dishman has been since his 1985 escape.

 Dishman, 60, was found Sunday at a home in Springdale by the ASP and Springdale Police Department. He is now being held at the Varner Unit in Grady.

 Special Agents of the ASP Criminal Investigation Division have begun to question individuals who may have known Dishman by another name.

 The ASP says an individual who had met Dishmam about five years after his escape came forward and told authorities where to find him.

 Original story:

 SPRINGDALE, Ark. -- A man on the run for more than three decades is back in custody, according to the Arkansas Department of Correction (ADC).

 Steven Dishman, 60, was taken into custody at a home in Springdale. Dishman was originally arrested for theft of property and burglary, according to Solomon Graves, the ADC Public Information Officer.

 Dishman's original term was set for seven years from Dec. 20, 1984, when he was originally charged in Washington County for Theft of Property and Burglary. He would have been eligible for parole in 1987.

 Dishman escaped custody in May 1985 from the Benton Unit. Earlier that year he was held at the Cummins and Wrightsville units.

 Graves says Dishman will be required to finish his original sentence.

 The file regarding the escape will be forwarded to the Jefferson County prosecutor for further possible action. ||||| An Arkansas inmate who escaped three decades ago from prison was taken into custody Sunday at a residence in the state’s northwest, according to a prisons spokesman.

 In an emailed statement, Arkansas Department of Correction spokesman Solomon Graves said Steven Dishman, 60, was arrested at a home in Springdale.

 Dishman escaped May 28, 1985, from a facility while serving a sentence on burglary and theft of property charges. He was sentenced Dec. 20, 1984, in Washington County, and was eligible for parole Dec. 28, 1987, Correction Department records show.

 Dishman was taken into custody by local law enforcement officials as well as the Arkansas State Police.

 It was not immediately clear Sunday afternoon from what facility Dishman escaped 32 years ago. Additional information regarding his capture was also not released.

 Another Arkansas inmate, 39-year-old Joel W. Lane, was also caught Sunday after a foot chase in Pine Bluff. Lane escaped Saturday from a work release program in Pine Bluff while serving a sentence for simultaneous possession of drugs and a firearm and possession of a firearm by a certain person.

 Four prisoners in the state remain at large as of Sunday after escaping from facilities on various dates between July 5, 1988, and Tuesday, according to department records. ||||| SPRINGDALE (KFSM) — An inmate who escaped prison 32 years ago is back in police custody.

 Steven Dishman, 60, was taken into custody Sunday (June 25) morning at a home in the 2700 block of McMillan Drive in Springdale, according to police.

 Dishman was located after police received an anonymous tip.

 He escaped from the Benton Unit during May 1985. Prior to that, he was being held at Cummins and Wrightsville prisons.

 He had been sentenced to seven years for theft of property and burglary out of Washington County.

 Dishman is now being held in the Varner Unit, a maximum security prison in Lincoln County, according to the Arkansas Department of Corrections. ||||| CREDIT: Arkansas Department of Correction

 SPRINGDALE, Ark. (KTHV) -- Steven Dishman escaped from the Cummins Unit in 1985.

 Sunday, a little over 32 years after his initial escape, he was captured in Springdale. He was taken into custody by local law enforcement and Arkansas State Police. He is now being held in the Varner Unit.

 Dishman was originally arrested in Washington County. He was serving a seven year sentence for theft of property and burglary, according to the Arkansas Department of Correction.

 Dishman was convicted on December 20, 1984. He escaped on May 28, 1985. His original parole eligibility date was December 28, 1987 and his original discharge date was June 28, 1991.

 © 2018 KTHV-TV |||||

– After three decades on the lam, an Arkansas man has been quickly reacquainted with life behind bars. Steven Dishman, 60—who was five months into a seven-year sentence for burglary and property theft when he escaped from the Cummins Unit in Lincoln County, Ark., on May 28, 1985, reports KTHV—was arrested Sunday at a home in Springdale in the northwestern part of the state, report Arkansas Online and KFSM. Arkansas State Police and local cops raided the home after receiving a tip. A rep for the Arkansas Department of Correction tells Fox 16 that Dishman will now be required to serve the remainder of his sentence. Dishman may also face additional charges related to his escape, the details of which were not immediately explained. Had Dishman stayed in jail, he would have been eligible for parole in 1987 and freed by 1991.


Here is a news article: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, on Wednesday reportedly said his nation will “shred” the nuclear accord should the United States get rid of the agreement.

 “I don’t want to waste my time on answering the rants and whoppers of the brute (U.S.) president,” the supreme leader said, as reported by Reuters, which cited Iran’s state television.

 “Trump’s stupidity should not distract us from America’s deceitfulness. ... If the U.S. tears up the deal, we will shred it,” he said.

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 Khamenei’s comments come after last week announced that he would not recertify Iran’s compliance in the accord, though he did not pull out of the pact, which provided Tehran with sanctions relief in exchange for curbs to its nuclear program. The decision allows Congress 60 days to reinstate sanctions on Iran, though Trump in the announcement did not call on lawmakers to do so.

 The supreme leader also called on allies in Europe to “stand against” the U.S. decision.

 “European states stressed their backing for the deal and condemned Trump ... We welcomed this, but it is not enough to ask Trump not to rip up the agreement. Europe needs to stand against practical measures (taken) by America,” he said. ||||| In this photo released by an official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks at a meeting in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2017. Khamenei... (Associated Press)

 In this photo released by an official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks at a meeting in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2017. Khamenei on Wednesday urged Europe to do more to back the 2015 nuclear deal after President Donald Trump refused... (Associated Press)

 TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's supreme leader on Wednesday urged Europe to do more to back the 2015 nuclear deal after President Donald Trump refused to re-certify the pact.

 European companies have rushed into the Iranian markets since the landmark accord, which lifted international sanctions in exchange for restrictions on Iran's nuclear program.

 "The European governments have underlined the nuclear deal's issue and condemned the U.S. president's remarks," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said, according to comments posted on his official website. "We welcome this approach but it is not enough that they only tell him not to tear up the deal."

 "The nuclear deal is to their benefit", Khamenei said.

 Khamenei also said of Trump: "I will not spend time responding to the nonsensical comments by the foul-mouthed president." He also referred to Trump and his administration as being "mentally retarded."

 He warned that if the U.S. scuttles the deal, "we will shred it into pieces."

 Khamenei's comments show the supreme leader's hope that he can leverage European business interests into protecting the nuclear deal. The supreme leader wants to ensure that Iran continues to have access to the international market for its crude oil as part of efforts to revive its stagnant economy.

 Since the nuclear accord, European aviation consortium Airbus has signed billions of dollars in sales agreements with Iran. France's Total SA and state-run China National Petroleum Corporation signed a $5 billion agreement with Iran to develop the country's massive offshore natural gas field. And French automobile manufacturer Groupe Renault signed a $778 million deal.

 Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the European Union — the other parties to the nuclear accord — all have been telling Trump's administration to stay in the deal.

 Trump's refusal last week to re-certify the agreement has sparked a new war of words between Iran and the United States, fueling growing mistrust and a sense of nationalism among Iranians. Trump also criticized Europeans for their participation in Iran's energy projects.

 Trump has yet to announce a withdrawal from the pact, instead kicking it to Congress for a decision. ||||| Ayatollah Ali Khamenei responds to US president decertifying nuclear deal, saying Tehran will not violate agreement first

 Iran’s supreme leader has said his country will not take heed of “rants and whoppers of a foul-throated US president”, in a speech that also made clear that Tehran will not be the first to violate the nuclear deal.

 Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in his first reaction since Donald Trump decertified the Iran deal, said on Wednesday that “we will not tear up the nuclear deal so long as the other side has not torn it up, but if they do, we will cut it in pieces”.

 The 78-year-old ayatollah told a gathering of students in Tehran that the US was angry because Iran had foiled its plots in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Egypt.

 “I don’t want to waste our time to respond to the rants and whoppers of the foul-throated president of the United States,” he said, according to the transcript of his speech posted on his official website.

 “The US is the agent of the international Zionism, it was the US that created Daesh [Arabic acronym for Islamic State] and Takfiri movements [Iran’s terminology for Sunni extremist groups].”

 Khamenei said the US was infuriated by Iran’s role in fighting Isis. “They are angry because the Islamic Republic has foiled their plots in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Egypt,” he said.

 “Everyone should know that once again America will receive a slap in its mouth and will be defeated by the people of Iran.”

 Khamenei was reacting to Trump’s vituperative speech on Friday, during which he announced he was decertifying Tehran’s compliance under the nuclear accord, a move that could lead to the end of the agreement.

 “Based on the factual record I have put forward, I am announcing today that we cannot and will not make this certification. We will not continue down a path whose predictable conclusion is more violence, more terror and the very real threat of Iran’s nuclear breakout,” Trump said at the White House.

 Despite Trump’s move, European states involved in two years of negotiations that led to the 2015 landmark nuclear deal, known as the joint comprehensive plan of action, has remained adamant that the agreement should remain in force.

 The EU’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, said this week that she would be travelling to Washington in November to reiterate Europe’s message on the deal. High-level officials from the EU have been lobbying the US Congress to preserve the deal.

 Trump said this week that terminating the deal was a “very real possibility” and that Iranian leaders had a “very modified” tone in their reaction to his speech.

 His decision does not immediately mean that the agreement is in jeopardy. He has asked Congress to add a series of amendments to the deal for a more stringent implementation.

 Iran and Europe have said renegotiating was not possible and that the agreement was multilateral and the US could not unilaterally change it. But the US’s influence over the financial market limits European leverage.

 “The European governments have affirmed [their stance] on the agreement and have condemned the statement made by the American president,” Khamenei said.

 “We welcome this but it is not enough for [Europe] just to say that they will not tear it up. The nuclear agreement is in their interest. Europe should stand up against [US’s] practical measures and they should refrain commenting about our defensive capabilities,” he said referring to EU’s repeated concerns over Tehran’s missile programme. |||||
A summary of this is?

– If President Trump thinks the Iran nuclear deal should be scrapped, the ayatollah seems happy to oblige. "If the US tears up the deal, we will shred it," Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Tuesday in a speech to students, per Reuters. He was referring to President Trump's decision last week not to recertify the deal struck under the Obama administration. Trump's move doesn't mean the US is withdrawing—instead he essentially turned that decision over to Congress. In his own speech, Khamenei unleashed a torrent of criticism against Trump. "I don't want to waste our time to respond to the rants and whoppers of the foul-throated president of the United States," the Guardian quotes him as saying. (Translations differ slightly in various accounts.) "Everyone should know that once again America will receive a slap in its mouth and will be defeated by the people of Iran." The AP's account has the ayatollah referring to the Trump administration as "mentally retarded." Other nations are part of the nuclear accord, but Khamenei suggested that a US withdrawal would effectively kill it. And he seemed to be urging other parties, especially in Europe, to stand up to the US. "European states stressed their backing for the deal and condemned Trump," he said, per the Hill. "We welcomed this, but it is not enough to ask Trump not to rip up the agreement. Europe needs to stand against practical measures (taken) by America." The next big move may be up to Congress, which has 60 days to decide whether to reimpose sanctions that were lifted by the agreement.


News article:

“He doesn’t seem to have moved an inch since summer 2011,” said Yezid Sayigh, an analyst at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, noting that Mr. Assad gave “barely the slightest nod” to Mr. Brahimi’s proposals.

 Coming after days of hints that Mr. Assad might at last be ready to negotiate, his defiant speech on Sunday promised trouble for both his friends and his enemies. Russia may find it harder to stave off international action against Syria, which it has done so far using its veto at the United Nations Security Council, as the chances for a political solution seem to recede.

 Moreover, Mr. Assad’s defiance may prompt Mr. Brahimi to decline to continue his mission. That would present the “Friends of Syria,” the group of nations supporting the opposition — the United States and its Western allies, Turkey and some Arab countries — with an unpalatable choice: intervene more aggressively or risk allowing the conflict to drag on indefinitely.

 “Assad is not letting the Friends of Syria off the hook by making it easy for them to declare victory and close the Syria file,” Mr. Sayigh said. “Now what will they do?”

 Photo

 The United Nations estimates that more than 60,000 people have died in the civil war, which began as a peaceful protest movement and turned into an armed struggle after security forces fired on demonstrators. Rebels have made gains in the north and east and in the Damascus suburbs, but Mr. Assad’s government has pushed back with deadly air and artillery strikes, and appears to be confident that it can hold the capital. Neither side appears ready to give up the prospect of military victory, though analysts say neither side is close to achieving it.

 Mr. Assad’s defiant stance on Sunday “means we’re in for a long fight,” said Joshua Landis, a scholar on Syria and Mr. Assad’s minority sect, the Alawites, at the University of Oklahoma. “This is a dark, dark tunnel. There is no good ending to this. Assad believes he is winning.”

 Victoria Nuland, the spokeswoman for the State Department, said in a statement that Mr. Assad’s speech was “yet another attempt by the regime to cling to power, and does nothing to advance the Syrian people’s goal of a political transition.” She said that even as Mr. Assad “speaks of dialogue, the regime is deliberately stoking sectarian tensions and continuing to kill its own people.”

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 Before the speech, Lebanese media outlets close to the Syrian government reported, citing unnamed sources, that Mr. Assad would be much more conciliatory, offering to share some power with the armed opposition. But if anyone close to Mr. Assad was pushing that view, it did not make it into the speech he delivered.

 Instead, Mr. Assad repeated his longstanding assertions that the movement against him was driven by “murderous criminals” and terrorists financed by rivals such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia with American blessing.

 “Who should we negotiate with — terrorists?” Mr. Assad said. “We will negotiate with their masters.”

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 The main opposition body, the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, issued a statement calling the speech “a pre-emptive strike against both Arab and international diplomatic solutions.”

 There was little immediate reaction in Russia, where the speech came on the eve of the Orthodox celebration of Christmas on Monday.

 But Boris Dolgov of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Eastern Studies said the speech reflected a new push by Russia and other nations to resolve the crisis.

 Mr. Dolgov told the Voice of Russia radio station that Mr. Assad was correct to assert in his speech that the first step toward a resolution of the civil war must be the cessation of aid for armed rebel groups, adding that the current situation was “complex, but not a dead end.”

 Photo

 In Midan, a contested neighborhood of southern Damascus, a shopkeeper said that Mr. Assad’s speech had dashed his hopes that the president would end the conflict.

 “He divided Syrians in two camps, one with him who are patriots and one against him who are criminals, terrorists and radicals,” said the shopkeeper, who gave only a nickname, Abu Omar, for safety reasons. “He doesn’t see Syrians who are patriots but don’t like him, and want to have another president in democratic, fair elections.”

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 Mr. Assad, whose family has ruled Syria for 42 years, said Sunday that he was open to dialogue with “those who have not sold Syria to foreigners,” most likely a reference to tolerated opposition groups that reject armed revolution, such the National Coordinating Body for Democratic Change. But his speech appeared unlikely to satisfy even those opponents, since it made no apology for the arrests of peaceful activists or for airstrikes that have destroyed neighborhoods. Nor did he acknowledge that his opponents sought anything but ruin for Syria.

 “They killed the intellectuals in order to inflict ignorance on us,” Mr. Assad said of his opponents. “They deprived children from school in order to bring the country backward.”

 Some armed rebel groups have used techniques that randomly target civilians, like car bombs, and there are foreign fighters among the rebels. But most of the armed movement is made up of Syrians who took up arms during the uprising or defected from the armed forces.

 Mr. Assad thanked military officers and conscripts in the speech and vowed to stay by their side, seeking to dispel speculation that he would flee the country.

 The audience of government officials and university students at the opera house chanted, “With our souls, with our blood, we defend you, Assad,” and vowed to be his “shabiha,” a term that has come to mean progovernment militias that have attacked demonstrators.

 When the president finished speaking, scores of people rushed frantically to greet him, and his bodyguards formed a phalanx to slowly escort Mr. Assad through the crowd.

 Several observers noted in social media postings that the opera house seemed a fitting setting for such a speech.

 “It was operatic in its otherworldly fantasy, unrelated to realities outside the building,” Rami Khouri, the editor of the Beirut-based Daily Star newspaper, wrote on Twitter. ||||| BEIRUT Fighting raged across Syria on Monday with clashes reported just a few miles from where President Bashar al-Assad had unveiled a "peace plan" that Syrians on both sides said would do nothing to end the country's 21-month-old uprising.

 Hours after Assad addressed cheering loyalists at the Damascus Opera House on Sunday in his first public speech in months, fighting erupted near the road to the city's international airport, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

 The opposition-linked group said artillery hit the district of Aqraba, 3 miles from the Opera House. Fighting continued all night and into Monday around the capital, as well as in the northern provinces of Idlib and Aleppo, it said.

 In central Syria, the towns of Taybet Imam and Halfaya were bombarded with aerial strikes and artillery, said Abu Faisal, an activist speaking over the internet from Taybet Imam.

 "Every four to five minutes, we hear the burst from a rocket. We cannot get any wounded out because we are essentially under siege by the shelling," he said, adding that many civilians had fled. Taybet Imam sits on an entrance to Syria's main north-south highway, close to the central city of Hama.

 The government restricts access by international media and the accounts could not be verified.

 Damascus residents said Assad's speech, which offered no concessions to his foes, was met with celebratory gunfire in pro-Assad neighborhoods.

 But even there, some saw no sign peace was closer: a loyalist resident of southern Damascus reached by internet said the speech was eloquent but empty.

 "It sounded more like gloating than making promises," said the woman, who gave only her first name, Aliaa. "I agree with the ideas but words are really just words until he takes some action. He needs to do something. But even so, everything he suggests now, it is too late, the rebels aren't going to stop."

 "NO ONE CARES"

 In the once-affluent district of Mezzeh, scene of several bomb attacks, an Assad critic said people had more pressing concerns than a TV speech. "Here, no one cares about this speech. They care about food and electricity."

 Another said few people had watched the speech and that Assad's crackdown would not stop: "Military operations will continue in full swing, and he is staying."

 France, the United States, Britain and Turkey all said Assad's speech, his first to an audience since June last year, showed he had lost touch with reality after unrest that the United Nations says has killed 60,000 people.

 U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland had harsh words for Assad when she was asked whether the United States regarded him as a rational actor and whether he was "evil."

 "I don't think anybody who is guilty of the kinds of crimes against your own people that he's guilty of could be considered rational," Nuland told reporters in Washington. "I personally consider what he's done evil."

 Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan accused Assad on Monday of "directing state terrorism".

 "Bashar al-Assad's speech is further evidence of just how far he has cut himself off from reality in order to justify his repression of the Syrian people," French Foreign Ministry spokesman Philippe Lalliot said.

 The plan described by the Syrian leader as a new peace initiative proposed an army ceasefire only after rebels halt their operations and summoned Syrians to mobilize for a war to defend the state against "a puppet made by the West".

 The United Nations said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was disappointed that Assad's speech rejected the idea of a transitional government to pave the way to new elections - a central plank of a peace plan promoted by international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi.

 "NATIONAL PROGRAMME"

 Syria's Prime Minister Wael al-Halki called on Monday for a special cabinet meeting to implement the "national program announced by President Bashar al-Assad yesterday to solve the crisis in Syria", the state news agency SANA said.

 George Sabra, vice president of the opposition National Coalition, said the putative peace plan "did not even deserve to be called an initiative".

 "We should see it rather as a declaration that he will continue his war against the Syrian people," he told Reuters.

 Assad's ally Iran defended the speech as offering a "comprehensive political process". "This plan rejects violence and terrorism and any foreign interference," Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said.

 There was no immediate response from Moscow, which has acted as Assad's main protector on the diplomatic stage. Russian state offices were quiet for the Orthodox Christmas holiday.

 Syrian state television played up the speech, showing footage of convoys of cars driving through main streets in Damascus. People waving the Syrian flag leaned out of car windows and some braved the cold and rain to walk alongside.

 "It was a victorious speech that respects the martyred Syrian soldiers," said one man on state TV, adding that his brother had been killed fighting the opposition.

 After six months of advances, rebels now control wide areas of northern and eastern Syria, most of its border crossings with Turkey and a crescent of Damascus suburbs.

 Assad's government is still firmly entrenched in the capital and controls most of the densely populated southwest, the Mediterranean coast, the main north-south highway and military bases countrywide. Its helicopters and jets are able to strike rebel-held areas with impunity.

 U.S. military cargo planes carrying equipment and personnel arrived at the Incirlik air base in Turkey on Monday, part of a deployment of NATO Patriot anti-missiles to bolster security along Turkey's 900-km (560-mile) border with Syria. Dutch Patriot missile batteries bound for Turkey left an army base in the Netherlands.

 (Additional reporting by Ayat Basma in Beirut, Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem, Vicky Buffery in Paris and Arshad Mohammed in Washington; writing by Peter Graff; editing by Philippa Fletcher and Giles Elgood) |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article?

– Syria's civil war raged on today, without the slightest pause of acknowledgement for yesterday's rare Bashar al-Assad speech. It was billed as the unveiling of a "peace plan," but Assad offered essentially no concessions and spent much of the speech justifying his bloody crackdown. And there may be repercussions: In it, he dismissed the work of UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, saying, "Everyone who comes to Syria knows that Syria accepts advice, but not orders," and the New York Times predicts such remarks might cause Brahimi to wash his hands of the conflict. That would present the US and other "Friends of Syria" with a quandary: Get more involved, or potentially watch the conflict continue indefinitely. And though celebratory gunfire rang out afterward, even some loyalists were unimpressed. "It sounded more like gloating than making promises," one Assad supporter tells Reuters. "Everything he suggests now, it is too late. The rebels aren't going to stop." Indeed, hours after the speech, fresh clashes broke out along the road to Damascus' international airport, and regime artillery reportedly hit a district just three miles from where Assad spoke. One Assad critic in a hard-hit district agreed that the speech meant little. "Here, no one cares about this speech. They care about food and electricity."


Article:

The last we heard from British singer-songwriter Adele, she was pining away for a clueless but maybe (hopefully!) deserving guy in "Chasing Pavements." Well, Adele's follow-up album, 21, was released yesterday, and it sounds like that whole "Chasing" situation didn't end so well. As in, Adele got her heart broken, big-time. The very chatty singer has made no secret of the fact that 21 is a breakup album, written entirely about one heartless ex-boyfriend, and that got us thinking: How does Adele's effort stack up against the other great call-out songs in music history? Who else has made it explicitly clear what their ex did that got them called out in song? No vague "he/she broke my heart" stuff — we wanted details! Herewith, the most deserved musical shamings, as explained in the song by the person doing the shaming, rated by the level of revenge achieved. Bring on the very public hate! ||||| Adele Bares Her Soul on '21' to Get 'Cheap Therapy'

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 As Adele tells our colleagues at Spinner, the soulful songstress' second album '21' is the deeply personal by-product of drunken diary entries, through which the London born singer-songwriter comes to terms with her own flaws. Inspired by her relationship and the aftermath of a painful breakup with a former lover, the undeniable emotion in Adele's performance stands on its own. Admitting that some of the songs from the new album will simply be too painful for her to perform in the future, the 22-year-old bares her soul in bluesy tunes like 'Someone Like You' and 'Rolling in the Deep.'

 Watch Adele's Sessions Interview

 Watch Adele's Complete Live Sessions Performance

 In Adele's own humble eyes, the new album serves as "cheap therapy" for the artist herself, but will hopefully also give hope to her fans suffering from heartbreak and love hangovers. With a voice that will knock you off your feet and a candidness that will bring you to tears, this girl needs no bells and whistles, her talent speaks for itself.Adele also talks about the new inspiration she has recently found across the pond in American musical traditions like country and bluegrass, which she plans to study up on going forward with her musical career -- an unexpected career that the singer describes as an "out-of-body experience." |||||
What is a summary?

– British singer-songwriter Adele is getting tons of acclaim for her second album, 21, which is entirely about one person: the guy who broke her heart. In her honor, New York lists 13 of the most deserving exes famously called out in song: Nick Jonas: In Miley Cyrus’s “7 Things,” she recounts all the teenage-y wrongs he did her, like being vain and liking other girls. John Mayer: Taylor Swift’s “Dear John” is about him, but it didn’t really enact too much vengeance, considering Mayer is probably jazzed Swift penned a song about him. Amber Rose: Kanye West’s “Blame Game,” in which he complains about a lover who, among other things, let her brother buy cocaine with his money, is likely about the model. Anna Gordy: Marvin Gaye’s ex-wife got a whole album named for her—Here, My Dear—after she was awarded a chunk of his royalties in the divorce agreement. But he got the last laugh—the album is considered a landmark. Britney Spears: She cheated, Justin Timberlake wrote “Cry Me a River,” and we all know who won in the end: Timberlake, who is starring in Oscar-nominated movies while Spears is still trying to live down that head-shaving incident. Click for the complete list, or check out more on Adele’s album.


There are a lot of different ways to measure the relative "greenness" of a given city.

 You can look the energy efficiency of its buildings, the average carbon footprint of its citizens or even the number or people who have "An Inconvenient Truth" in their Netflix queue.

 The people behind event finding app Gravy, on the other hand, used a different measure in determining their list of the greenest cities in America--the number of "green-friendly" events happening in a given year.

 Does a critical mass of self-congratulatory "awareness building" festivals necessarily translate into a city and its citizens making serious strides toward protecting the Earth?

 Of course not. But looking at the overall number of events does yield a pretty good idea of a city's level of publicly stated commitment to environmentalism, which often results in action. So it's not exactly surprising that the cities sitting atop Gravy's list for hosting the most environmentally-themed events also tend to cluster near the top of rankings of greenest cities based on other metrics.

 Check out this list of Gravy's five "Most Earth-Friendly Cities" that comes complete with a unique Earth Day activity for each city:

 Most Earth-Friendly Cities ||||| 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. |||||
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– You can measure the green-friendliness of a city in many ways—like its average carbon footprint per citizen or the energy efficiency of buildings. But the event-finding app Gravy has decided to measure cities by the number of pro-environmental events each one hosts in a year, the Huffington Post reports. Is this an official barometer? Hardly, but it does reflect people's interest in the green movement. Here are the top five US cities, each with a unique Earth Day activity: Portland: Operation Clean Street San Francisco: Earth Day SF Boston: Earth Day Massive Spin Jam Austin: Annual Earth Day Festival Chicago: Chicago Earth Day 5K Click for more.


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"The Road" is a road you'll wish hadn't been taken. Not because anything's been badly done, but because there's a serious imbalance in the complicated equation between what the film forces us to endure and what we end up receiving in return.Given that it's based on Cormac McCarthy's somber novel, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for a devastating report from the end of the world witnessed by a man who's been there, it's no surprise that the film is for the most part profoundly depressing.What is disappointing is that despite numerous strong areas, including fine acting by Viggo Mortensen and young Kodi Smit-McPhee as father-and-son survivors of an unnamed apocalypse, what we've been given is no more than a reasonable facsimile, an honorable attempt at filming an unfilmable book.As adapted by British playwright Joe Penhall and directed by John Hillcoat, best known for the slickly violent "The Proposition," "The Road" turns out to be good at shocking and upsetting us, but it lacks the compensating emotional heft that would make absorbing those shocks worth our while.For while Chris Kennedy's formidable production design places us in an uncomfortably real space, absent McCarthy's haunting language, "The Road" for the most part is not so good at transcendence, at making us feel, as the book definitely does, that there is reason for us to endure its pitiless descriptions of what Joseph Conrad described in "Heart of Darkness" as "the horror, the horror."What Conrad was likely talking about, and what "The Road" devotes considerable time to on the screen and on the page, is the terrors that humans inflict on each other. One of the provocative questions this story asks is whether staying alive is worth the savagely inhuman actions necessary to make survival possible.Unwilling to begin on a totally downbeat note, "The Road" opens with what turns out to be a dream flashback to a time just before the unspecified catastrophe happens, a time when Mortensen's unnamed man is married to Charlize Theron's unnamed woman and their first child is on the way.Ten years into the post-apocalypse, the mother is gone, the unborn child is a young boy (Australian actor Smit-McPhee) and the world has changed. It's a blasted, blighted, ashen and slowly dying Earth, shaken by quakes, lighted by out-of-control fires and filled with dead cars, empty buildings, deserted bridges and very few people.To stay alive in this world, you have to keep moving, wearing the most utilitarian rags you can find (Margot Wilson did the excellent costume design) and pushing the shopping cart that contains all your possessions. It's a vision of a world largely without us that completely chills the soul.The casting of Mortensen and Smit-McPhee is one of the film's strengths. With straggly hair and a great wild look, Mortensen is convincing as a harried survivor, and the rapport he has with the more innocent and soulful child played by Smit-McPhee is excellent."I've never had a better acting partner," Mortensen has said, "someone I knew had my back, and he knew I had his."One of the great fears of those few survivors is cannibalism, something the strong inflict on the weak, and scenes that hint at that are among "The Road's" hardest to take.The man's greatest fear is that he will die before his son is old enough to protect himself, and the son's greatest fear, paradoxically, is that he and his father will somehow lose the essence of their humanity in the drive to stay alive. "Are we still the good guys?" he asks his father plaintively. "Are we carrying the fire?"This pair have their affecting moments, as does Robert Duvall as a kind of barely alive human lump, but absent McCarthy's transformative prose, which has a power even images can't improve on, what we are left with is more endurance test than anything more elevated.If it is to do more than horrify and depress us, "The Road" is in need of a finer sensibility, and that is simply not on offer. ||||| The Road

 November 24, 2009

 Cast & Credits The Man Viggo Mortensen

 The Boy Kodi Smit-McPhee

 Wife Charlize Theron

 Old Man Robert Duvall

 The Veteran Guy Pearce

 Dimension Films presents a film directed by John Hillcoat. Written by Joe Penhall, based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy. Running time: 119 minutes. Rated R.

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 Note: I first saw "The Road" in September at the Toronto Film Festival, as one of eight films I saw in three days. I wrote a draft of a review at the time and sent it. That review accidentally found its way into sight in October, long before the film was scheduled to open. I yanked it offline as quickly as I could.

 I saw the movie a second time at a press screening on Oct. 27 in Chicago. I see festival films again whenever I have the chance. I find the second viewing makes the good ones better, and the bad ones worse. Such is the case with "The Road."

 "The Road" evokes the images and the characters of Cormac McCarthy's novel. It is powerful, but for me lacks the same core of emotional feeling. I'm not sure this is any fault of the filmmakers. The novel itself would not be successful if it were limited to its characters and images. Its effect comes above all through McCarthy's prose. It is the same with all of McCarthy's work, but especially this one, because his dialogue is so restrained, less baroque than usual.

 The story is straightforward: America has been devastated. Habitations have been destroyed or abandoned, vegetation is dying, crops have failed, the infrastructure of civilization has disappeared. This has happened in such recent memory that even The Boy, so young, was born into a healthy world. No reason is given for this destruction, perhaps because no reason would be adequate. McCarthy evokes the general apprehension of post-9/11. The Boy and The Man make their way toward the sea, perhaps for no better reason than that sea has always been the direction of hope in this country.

 The surviving population has been reduced to savage survivalists, making slaves of the weaker, possibly using them as food. We've always done that, employing beef cattle, for example, to do the grazing on acres of pasture so we can consume the concentrated calories of their labor. In a land where food is scarce, wanderers seek out canned goods and fear their own bodies will perform this work for the cannibals.

 Although we read of those who stockpile guns and ammunition for an apocalypse, weapon stores on the Road have dwindled down. The Man has a gun with two remaining bullets. He is a wary traveler, suspecting everyone he sees. He and The Boy are transporting a few possessions in a grocery cart. He encourages his son to keep walking, but holds out little hope for the end of their journey.

 I am not sure the characters could be played better, or differently. Viggo Mortensen portrays The Man as dogged and stubborn, determined to protect his boy. Kodi Smit-McPhee is convincing as a child stunned by destruction, depending on his father in a world where it must be clear to him that any man can die in an instant. The movie resists any tendency toward making the child cute, or the two of them heartwarming.

 Flashback scenes star Charlize Theron as the wife and mother of the two in earlier, sunnier days. These sequences show the marriage as failing, and these memories haunt The Man. I'm not sure what relevance this subplot has to the film as a whole; a marriage happy or sad -- isn't it much the same in this new world? It has a lot of relevance, however, to The Man and The Boy. In times of utter devastation, memories are what we cling to.

 The external events of the novel have been boldly solved, and this is an awesome production. But McCarthy's prose has the uncanny ability to convey more than dialogue and incident. It's as dense as poetry. It is more spare in The Road than in a more ornate work like Suttree; in The Road, it is as evocative in the way Samuel Beckett is. If it were not, "The Road" might be just another film of sci-fi apocalypse. It's all too easy to imagine how this material could be vulgarized, as Richard Matheson's novel was in the 2007 version of "I Am Legend."

 How could the director and writer, John Hillcoat and Joe Penhall, have summoned the strength of McCarthy's writing? Could they have used more stylized visuals, instead of relentless realism? A grainy black-and-white look to suggest severely limited resources? I have no idea. Perhaps McCarthy, like Faulkner, is all but unfilmable.

 The one great film of his work is the Coens' "No Country for Old Men," but it began with an extraordinary character and surrounded him with others. The Road is not fertile soil, providing a world with life draining from it. McCarthy's greatest novels are Suttree and Blood Meridian. The second, set in the Old West, is about a fearsome, bald, skeletal man named Judge Holden, who is implacable in his desire to inflict suffering and death. ("Blood Meridian" is being prepared by Todd Field, director of "In the Bedroom.")

 Hillcoat's earlier film, "The Proposition" (2005), written by Nick Cave, seems almost McCarthy-like. Something in McCarthy's work draws Hillcoat to it, and you must be a brave director to let that happen. Writing this, I realize few audience members can be expected to have read The Road, even though it was a selection of Oprah's Book Club. Fewer still will have read McCarthy's other works.

 I've been saying for years that a film critic must review the film before him, and not how "faithful" the film is to the book -- as if we're married to the book, and somehow screen adaptation is adultery. I realize my own fault is in being so very familiar with Cormac McCarthy. That may affect my ability to view any film adaptation of his work afresh. When I know a novel is bring filmed, I make it a point to not read the book. Yet I am grateful for having read McCarthy's. ||||| In “The Road,’’ the world has ended with a bang and a whimper. Author Cormac McCarthy’s lean prose has been lifted off the printed page and laid carefully into the soundtrack like antique china in a packing crate. “The clocks stopped at 1:17,’’ says the narrator. “A long shear of light and then a series of low concussions.’’ That’s all we know about the apocalypse and all we need to know.

 The movie takes place in an America that has been turned into an ash heap, with skeletal human survivors picking their way across the cinders. Kept rigorously in the foreground are a Man (Viggo Mortensen) and a Boy (Kodi Smit-McPhee), the latter born shortly after the end came and thus a creature exclusively of this fallen world.

 The two are traveling from the interior to the coast before winter comes - that’s the action of the movie. That, and keeping clear of marauding bands of men who would gladly skin them and eat them. Also, as the boy reminds his father, the two “carry the fire,’’ whatever that means. It could refer to decency and goodness, the guttering spark of humanity. It could just mean they’re still alive.

 “The Road’’ has been poured straight from McCarthy’s bleak bottle and brought to the screen by Australian John Hillcoat, who turned the 2005 Outback Western “The Proposition’’ into an epic of blasted landscapes and bloody motivations. He’s the man for the job, yet in adapting this harsh, unyielding book for the screen, Hillcoat and screenwriter Joe Penhall pull their punches the slightest degree and thus too much.

 Or maybe movies can only dully visualize horrors the best writers hint at. Hillcoat’s “Road’’ is true to the book’s profoundly moving post-nuclear stoicism, but it can’t quite get those biblical cadences that make McCarthy such a transfixing read. The Coens managed it with “No Country for Old Men,’’ so it can be done, but you have to be willing to go all the way into the dark. As a colleague said after seeing this movie, you need to show the baby on the spit. “The Road’’ doesn’t dare, can’t dare, and is the lesser thing.

 What’s on the screen is disturbing enough. (Even at that, it has taken a year for the Weinsteins, the producers and distributors of “The Road,’’ to get the nerve to release the film.) As the Man and the Boy drag their shopping cart across what’s left of America, the enormity of the cataclysm is glimpsed forward and backward. A wife (Charlize Theron) who may have been the braver for opting out. An impossibly old man (Robert Duvall) like a figure out of “Godot,’’ unable to go on but still going on. A trap door in a kitchen that leads to something you’d better not think about.

 There are other basements and further revelations in “The Road,’’ but Hillcoat avoids jack-in-the-box suspense clichés; the movie plods with a literalism that’s at times too reverent (as is Nick Cave’s score, piling on a sensitive “mournfulness’’ both redundant and unnecessary). Mortensen underplays his role admirably, and Smit-McPhee is gratifyingly unactorly. At the movie’s best we see their relationship shift as something crucial and inarticulate is passed from one generation to the next.

 Like all end-of-the-world fiction, “The Road’’ brings iconic meaning to the smallest of gestures. A single kindness becomes the hope of humanity; a cruel act the path to hell. If I have mixed feelings about the movie, it’s because Hillcoat honors the story’s minimalism without bringing his own sensibilities to bear on the material. He’s spooked by the responsibility, and maybe he’s right: When the director does add a single furry detail to the final scenes, it feels like a surrender to sentiment.

 At the same time, everything about the film is a welcome rebuke to the happy-face apocalypse of “2012,’’ a movie that turns mass extinction into the Greatest Show on Earth. In “The Road,’’ what has been lost is recognized as infinitely precious; what’s left is bitter and our due.

 Ty Burr can be reached at tburr@globe.com. For more on movies, go to www.boston.com/movienation.

 © Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company. |||||
What is a summary?

– It’s a thankless job adapting a literary darling like The Road, and, sure enough, director John Hillcoat hasn’t gotten much thanks. Critics have mixed feelings about the bleak post-apocalyptic film. Here’s what they’re saying: Despite good acting, the film is merely adequate, “an honorable attempt at filming an unfilmable book,” writes Kenneth Turan of the LA Times. “To do more than horrify and depress us, The Road is in need of a finer sensibility.” A devoted Cormac McCarthy fan, Roger Ebert wrestles with his review. “It is powerful, but for me lacks the same core of emotional feeling,” he writes. “I'm not sure this is any fault of the filmmakers.” The movie can only “dully visualize horrors the best writers hint at,” says Ty Burr of the Boston Globe. Still, it’s a “welcome rebuke to the happy-face apocalypse of 2012.” “The Road isn't a masterpiece,” writes Steven Rea in the Philadelphia Inquirer. But it stuck with him, “its images of dread and fear kicking around like such a terrible dream.”


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Mariah Carey & Nick Cannon Divorce 'A Done Deal' Separated for Months

 Mariah Carey & Nick Cannon: Divorce 'A Done Deal' -- Separated For Months

 EXCLUSIVE

 Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon separated back in May -- and are living apart ... and we're told divorce lawyers have been negotiating a property settlement and custody agreement for months and the divorce is "a done deal."

 Sources connected with the couple tell TMZ ... Mariah and Nick have been living in separate houses in NYC since May. He sees the kids but that's the extent of their contact.Our sources say ... Nick's appearance on Big Boy's radio show in March was the beginning of the end. Nick played Big Boy's game -- name the 5 celebs you've slept with. Nick named 5, but our sources say the one that made Mariah insane wasWe're told Mariah tore into Nick for weeks ... feeling humiliated and the relationship never recovered.We're told it went from bad to worse when Nick went onand talked about Mariah not giving it up before they got hitched. She went nuclear.Our sources say Mariah feels Nick has abandoned her by taking every gig that's on the table ... when they don't need the money. She's especially angry because it keeps him away from their kids.For Nick's part ... we're told he feels Mariah has become impossible because she surrounds herself with "yes men." He says she can't handle it when he dares to disagree with her.We're also told Nick is incredulous Mariah is bitching about his work ethic ... he says he's generated $75 million since 2011 for the family. ||||| Jersey Shore's Ronnie Magro and Sammi Giancola Break Up for Good

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 Chris Christie: What You Don't Know About the Jersey Shore

 After a tumultuous five-year romance , which played out on MTV's smash hit reality show Jersey Shore, Ronnie Ortiz-Magro, 28, and Sammi "Sweetheart" Giancola, 27, have called it quits for good , he tells PEOPLE."We were drifting apart and not really spending any time together," Magro told PEOPLE at the premiere of former costar Jenni "JWoww" Farley's new film, Jersey Shore Massacre, out Aug. 22.After splitting and rekindling their romance several times on the show, the couple finally parted ways two months ago, he says."I still care about her," he said, adding that he's not ready to date again. "She's a great girl, but we were growing distant. It was for the best."For now, Magro says, he's getting practice for his own future family playing uncle to JWoww's 5-week-old daughter Meilani , with her fiancé Roger Mathews.Adds Magro: "She's really squirmy and looks just like Roger!" ||||| Meg Ryan and John Mellencamp Split

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 Meg Ryan and John Mellencamp have ended their relationship as quietly as they began it The actress, 52, and the rocker, 62, split recently after dating for more than three years , PEOPLE has confirmed."It was the distance," a source tells PEOPLE. "She lives in New York and he resides in Indiana. It was the long distance that ultimately was the cause."The pair – who were last spotted together in May – became an item in late 2010, shortly after Mellencamp's split from wife Elaine after 18 years of marriage.They kept a low profile during the past three years, stepping out together for the occasional industry event and being spotted now and again on the streets of New York. But Indiana native Mellencamp had expressed his unhappiness at calling New York City home."I'm too sensitive to live there," he told Rolling Stone in December. "I can't see poor people. I can't see the suffering. I can't see the trash on the streets." When it comes to paparazzi attention, he added, "I don't like it for [Ryan]. "I'm not leaving Indiana. I'm going to die here."Both stars have big projects coming up: Mellencamp, a father of five, is poised to release his 22nd album, Plain Spoken, in November. Meanwhile, Ryan, who has son Jack, 22, with ex-husband Dennis Quaid, and daughter Daisy, 9, has been busy working on her directorial debut, Ithaca, a WWII coming-of-age drama that's being executive-produced by Ryan's Sleepless in Seattle costar Tom Hanks.The film marks a major return to Hollywood for the very private actress, who has deliberately avoided the spotlight since making her last major film, 2008's The Women. The onetime soap star had been poised to make her small-screen return this fall with a new pilot and the role of the narrator in the planned How I Met Your Mother spin-off, but neither show was picked up.Reps for the pair have not yet commented. Closer Weekly first broke news of the split. |||||

– Is there something in the water? Hollywood has been hit with a rash of break-ups: After more than three years together, Meg Ryan and John Mellencamp are over, People reports. "It was the long distance that ultimately was the cause," says one source; Ryan, 52, lives in New York while Mellencamp, 62, lives in Indiana. Michelle Rodriguez and Zac Efron weren't together nearly so long, but they, too, are finished after almost two months of dating, Us reports. "Michelle is going to do her own thing. Zac knew this about her when he got with her," one source says. "He's very into her though, and perhaps more than she's into him." Rodriguez, 36, and Efron, 26, reportedly had a big fight in Ibiza that prompted the split. In slightly more D-list news, Jersey Shore couple Ronnie Magro and Sammi "Sweetheart" Giancola are done for good after an on-again, off-again five-year relationship, Magro tells People. "We were drifting apart and not really spending any time together," he says. "She's a great girl, but we were growing distant." And, though there's no official word on this yet, multiple outlets are reporting that Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon are all but divorced. Lawyers have been negotiating property and custody agreements for months, according to TMZ, and the couple has been living separately since May. According to Page Six's sources, Carey, 45, thinks Cannon, 33, might have cheated.