Penn State's Sandusky denies he is a pedophile

Jerry Sandusky

(Reuters) - Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State University assistant football coach charged with child sex abuse, says he is not a pedophile, but admits he showered with young boys.

In a full-court media press across two television networks, Sandusky and his attorney, Joe Amendola, said they have answers for all 40 charges that Pennsylvania prosecutors have leveled.

"I am innocent of those charges," Sandusky told NBC's Bob Costas in excerpts released by the network on Monday night.

The former coach and founder of The Second Mile charity for disadvantaged youth, acknowledged that after workouts he has showered with boys.

"I have hugged them and I have touched their leg without intent of sexual contact," Sandusky told Costas.

Sandusky is just a "big overgrown kid," Amendola told CNN in a separate interview on Monday night.

The lawyer painted a sympathetic picture of his 67-year-old client, saying he is worried for Sandusky's health.

Amendola said he had advised Sandusky and his wife to leave State College, Pa., to relax, but Sandusky told him he would be recognizable anywhere.

For each charge, "We have an answer," Amendola said.

The defense team is having trouble finding some of the alleged victims mentioned in a grand jury report that was released November 4, Amendola said.

Sandusky, once considered a likely successor to legendary Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, is accused of sexually assaulting eight boys over more than a decade.

He is free on bail and is technically free to go anywhere ahead of his next court appearance, provided he does not contact witnesses, alleged victims, or any minor.

The allegations led to the firings of Penn State President Graham Spanier and Paterno. Athletic Director Tim Curley was placed on administrative leave and Gary Schultz, interim senior vice president for finance and business, retired.

Sandusky retired from Penn State in 1999. The grand jury alleged, among other charges, that Sandusky had sexually assaulted a boy in a Penn State football locker room in 2002 and university officials failed to report the incident.

Penn State assistant football coach Mike McQueary, who witnessed the alleged incident, is on paid administrative leave from the university.

The Big Ten athletic conference said on Monday it will remove Paterno's name from the trophy that will be given to the winner of its first-ever championship game, scheduled to be played in Indianapolis in December.

"The trophy and its namesake are intended to be celebratory and aspirational, not controversial," Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said in a statement.

The intertwined relationship between Penn State, its football program and The Second Mile charity continues to be a focus of the developing scandal.

On Sunday it was reported that the district court judge who ordered Sandusky to be freed on $100,000 unsecured bail had donated to the charity and worked as a volunteer for the group. Prosecutors had requested a $500,000 bail for Sandusky and that he be required to wear a leg monitor.

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Obama administration launches $1 billion healthcare drive

Barack Obama

(Reuters) - The Obama administration on Monday said $1 billion of federal funds allocated in last year's health reform law will go toward innovation programs designed to boost jobs and improve patient care.

The announcement is the administration's latest attempt to show that it is working outside of a deeply divided Congress to create jobs.

The administration will award grants in March to people who come up with the best ideas to lift care and save money for those enrolled in the federal healthcare programs Medicare, Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program.

However, the administration did not say how many jobs the measure would create.

Don Berwick, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said a good example includes the Baylor Heart Hospital in Dallas which has worked to lower readmission rates for congestive heart failure.

"With the healthcare innovation challenge, we're going straight to the source," Berwick said during a news conference for the announcement.

"We want to find them, we want to help them, we want to spread what they know and what they've learned."

The $1 billion of awards will cut into the $10 billion that Congress set aside in the Affordable Care Act to fund a new CMS Innovation Center. The center is meant to promote better care and health at reduced costs by identifying, testing and spreading new models of care and payment.

To get a grant, projects must start within six months and the program will concentrate on those ideas that spur the most hiring and workforce training, the Department of Health and Human Services said.

Awards will range from around $1 million to up to $30 million and be spread over three years. Applications are open to providers, payers, local government, community organizations and public-private partnerships.

Separately on Monday, the Supreme Court agreed to decide the legal fate of Obama's healthcare law, with an election-year ruling due by July.

JOB POLITICS

President Barack Obama has been aggressively promoting programs that hold potential to boost hiring, amid 9 percent U.S. unemployment which will hurt his re-election chances next year unless job creation improves.

Republican lawmakers have held up passage of most of a $447 billion jobs bill that Obama proposed in September, and which Democrats want funded by a tax on millionaires.

So far, only two modest proposals in the package have been approved by the Senate with Republican support.

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have meanwhile passed a number of measures to boost jobs, but these have yet to be taken up by the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Asked how many jobs the grants would create, Dr. Rick Gilfillan, acting director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, said: "This is not about a specific number. This is about recognizing that there are going to be more people involved in healthcare" as the population ages.

"The question is what are they going to be doing," he said, adding that the program would help identify high-value jobs in healthcare and help train people for them.

Some Republicans have questioned the innovation center's approach.

"We are concerned that at a time of significant uncertainty for the fiscal health of the U.S. government, funds are being expended by the Innovation Center with little to no actual value provided," three Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee wrote to Health and Human Service Secretary Kathleen Sebelius last week.

Senators Orrin Hatch, the top Republican on the committee, Mike Enzi and Tom Coburn said the innovation center received $10 billion in federal funding but has not yet produced recommendations or implemented any reforms.

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Brady, Patriots take control of AFC East with win over Jets

Rugby

New England, facing the prospect of dropping three successive games for the first time since 2002, instead gained the upper hand in the AFC East by silencing the New York Jets 37-16 Sunday night.

Defending champion New England, New York and the Buffalo Bills had all owned a share of the division lead when the day began at 5-3. But Buffalo was pummeled by the Dallas Cowboys 44-7 one week after the Jets handed the Bills a damaging 27-11 loss at home.

New England got it done in all three phases: offense, defense and special teams.

Quarterback Tom Brady regained his hot hand, completing 26 of 39 passes for 329 yards without tossing an interception. He twice found tight end Rob Gronkowski for TDs, hitting him from 18 yards out to establish a 13-9 halftime lead before they connected on a 5-yarder for a 23-9 margin late in the third quarter.

After New York responded with a 10-play, 71-yard drive that culminated in Mark Sanchez's 7-yard pass to Plaxico Burress, narrowing the deficit to 23-16 at the start of the fourth quarter, Brady took his club on a surgical 84-yard march that required 13 plays and burned 6:51 off the clock. Brady hit Deion Branch for an 8-yard scoring strike with 8:04 remaining.

New England's maligned defense, ranked last in allowing 416.3 yards per game and last in surrendering 314 yards passing when play began, finally rose up after the Patriots were outscored at the Pittsburgh Steelers (25-17) and against the New York Giants (24-20).

The latter ended New England's 20-game regular-season home winning streak, marked its first loss to a visiting NFC team since 2002 and spurred talk that the perennial power was primed for a mighty fall.

Such talk now appears to be as much off target as the boast by Jets coach Rex Ryan that his club will win the Super Bowl after consecutive appearances in the AFC Championship Game.

The Patriots' defense kept New York from moving the chains consistently and linebacker Rob Ninkovich produced a pair of key interceptions of Mark Sanchez. He returned the second of those 12 yards for a back-breaking touchdown that produced the final margin.

New York began the game driving from its 33 to first-and-goal at New England's 9. But Shonn Greene's 3-yard run off left tackle was followed by two incomplete passes. It was bad enough that the Jets were turned away without a TD. It got worse when Nick Folk missed the 24-yard field goal attempt.

New England, meanwhile, produced field goals on its first two possessions, with Stephen Gostkowski connecting from 50 and 36 yards out. He would add a 27-yarder early in the third quarter.

News by US Today

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Morocco: Marrakech palm grove threatened by the excesses of tourism

Palm tree

AFP - The Millennium vast palm grove of Marrakech in southern Morocco, is in great danger: water scarcity, urbanization, tourism projects and pharaonic golf course threaten the survival of this oasis, an ambitious program of conservation attempts back. Ten centuries after his birth, the palm, one of the most beautiful of Morocco, is now suffering the devastating combination of man and climate. This oasis full of hundreds of thousands of palm trees growing on 16,000 hectares, has lost 30% of its area over the past two decades, according to experts.

The introduction in recent years in the heart of the palm, and in disregard of the environment, major tourism projects, which "pump a lot" of water, promotes the degradation of the plantations and deteriorating ecological balance, they said. "Tourism projects, despite all the positives they generate, are pumping a lot. This has a negative effect on the ecological balance", told AFP Laftouhi Nour-Eddine, hydrogeologist at the Faculty of Marrakech. "Personally, I consider irrational proliferation of golf courses as a crime," he laments.

Nicknamed the "Red City" for the particular color of its houses, Marrakech is the most popular site for tourists and Moroccans. Fortunately for the walker-loving nature, the snowy mountains that surround the city and can be admired from the city center, is a picture postcard. But the city now has ten golf courses, including two in one palm, and a dozen others waiting to leave, even if they use a lot of water. The success of tourism this place that even the famous Club Med is deployed with three pools and golf inside the grove. A stark contrast to that remembers that the very name of this city, dating from 1062 and built by Youssef Ibn Tachfin, first ruler of the Almoravid dynasty, encouraged to dream.

"Marrakech" come from the Berber word "love" which means "country" and "Akouche" which means "god", giving "the land of God" or "holy land" or, as another dialect etymology "rangelands." This dream seems vanished at a time when the city has nearly a million people with an impressive number of hotels, swimming pools and a multitude of riads (traditional houses built around a courtyard). Part of riads have been bought and renovated by the Moroccan-born or wealthy foreigners, pushing the less advantaged population to the outside of the city. This sad state of affairs gives rise to feelings of bitterness and nostalgia for the people of the palm, fewer and fewer.

"The source went here where I stand. Before, there was a stream. There was a spring there, another next to it. Everywhere the place was full of sources. But the day they began to build villas and hotels, the water is gone. It's over, "indignant Boujemaa, a resident of the palm. To protect the grove, an extensive program was launched by local authorities in 2007, aiming to plant 430,000 palm trees in a year. "Thanks to the central waste water treatment, opened in 2010, and wells that are already operational, large quantities of water available," said Abdelilah Mdidech, the program director for the Protection of the palm, led by Mohammed VI Foundation for the environment. Hundreds of workers are busy day for planting new palm trees and maintain those who are aging.

"It is already in 415,292 young palms planted (...) and there, the young shoots have a good recovery, with green leaves and a good crown," says Mdidech. The latter claims to be "realistic but optimistic": "I know we can not afford, especially in water, into a verdant grove. We must be realistic." "But with this project, I can say it will be saved. I am optimistic."

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Hugo Chavez: the U.S. and the EU "infiltrate terrorists" in Syria

Hugo Chavez

AFP - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Sunday slammed the attitude in the Syrian crisis of the United States and the European Union, which he said "redouble their offensive against Syria" and "infiltrate terrorists" there. Chavez made the remarks during a speech to several thousand supporters gathered in central Caracas. Was the first time taking part in such a public gathering since he was treated for cancer. "The United States and its European allies redouble their offensive against Syria, infiltrate terrorists to generate violence, blood and death, as they have done in Libya earlier this year," he told Mr. Chavez, leader of the radical left in Latin America.

"A bombs, they managed not only to overthrow the Libyan government, but also to destroy this country and assassinate Colonel Muammar Gaddafi (...) and now they are Syria," said the Venezuelan president. Chavez, who was a strong support of Colonel Gaddafi, has strongly condemned from the beginning the military operation in western Libya. He described as "killing" the death of Colonel Gaddafi, who died in suspicious circumstances after being captured by rebels after an air strike against its NATO convoy. In Syria, President Bashar al-Assad is facing since mid-March to suppress an uprising that hard. According to the UN, the repression has more than 3,500 dead.

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EBook: The Japanese Rakuten buys Canadian Kobo

kobo

AFP - The manager of the largest Japanese online shopping mall, Rakuten, announced Wednesday the acquisition for $ 315 million (228 million) of Canadian society Kobo reading lights that provides electronic and digital books to sites of booksellers. Rakuten, which just opened in Japan's own virtual library "Raboo" ready, subject to regulatory approvals, to purchase and pay in cash 100% stake in Kobo, to expand its international presence considered promising in this area.

This acquisition marks a new stage for Rakuten, which extends its branches abroad. Kobo is a number of digital books in Canada. The company offers reading terminals enriched with attractive features (links to social networking sites Twitter and Facebook) and boasts a catalog of 2.5 million book titles, mainly in English. Founded in 2009 by Canadian bookseller Indigo, Kobo presents itself as one of the few companies in the sector to be able to resist the giant Amazon, through its partnerships with various distributors in the world, including Fnac in France.

For the founder and CEO of Rakuten, Hiroshi Mikitani, "Kobo provides reading experiences with the most community integration of social media, while Rakuten Kobo offers unique opportunities to grow." "This transaction will greatly strengthen our position in existing markets and will allow us to diversify rapidly in other countries and other types of e-commerce", for its part welcomed the Director General of Kobo, Michael Serbin , said in a statement released in North America. The French retailer Fnac cultural products has recently announced the launch of Kobo reading lights in France, which are already offered by foreign chains Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Target, Future Shop, WHSmith, and Collins Booksellers Whitcoulls?

Through its subsidiaries in various countries, claims to offer Kobo Rakuten an even broader international presence in Germany, Brazil, Taiwan, China, Thailand, Indonesia, and of course, in Japan, where its service Raboo (short Book of Rakuten) is already compatible with a special reading light, and soon Panasonic models with Sony Reader. Rakuten aims to build on its reputation and experience in selling products and services via the Internet and adapt its proven very lucrative for content immaterial. For the first nine months of fiscal 2011, Rakuten has certainly deplored a loss, but this disappointment is due to an exceptional charge related to the restructuring of a business credit card, while the purely operational it posted record sales and profits.

The group, which takes advantage of the historical force of the Japanese currency, launched a major offensive abroad where he buys companies with a vengeance. He announced the acquisition in September, to 25 million pounds (29 million), the British company that manages Play Holdings one of the most important platforms for electronic commerce in Britain. In July, Rakuten had put his hand on the mall Tradoria, one of the largest in Germany, a year after taking the French company.

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