CORAL SPRINGS, Fla. – If there's any place where tea partiers in Congress might hesitate to call for cuts in Social Security and Medicare to shrink the federal debt, Florida's retirement havens should top the list.
Even here, however, Republican lawmakers are racing toward a spending showdown with Democrats exhibiting little nervousness about deep cuts, including those that eventually would hit benefit programs long left alone by politicians.
In fact, many GOP freshmen seem bolder than ever. It's Democrats, especially in the Senate, who are trying to figure out how to handle the popular but costly retirement programs. Congress, meanwhile, is rapidly nearing critical decisions on the budget and the nation's debt ceiling.
In southeast Florida last week, first-term GOP Rep. Allen West, a tea party favorite, called for changes that some might consider radical: abolish the Internal Revenue Service and federal income tax; retain tax cuts for billionaires so they won't shut down their charities; stop extending unemployment benefits that "reward bad behavior" by discouraging people from seeking new jobs.
As for entitlements, West told a friendly town hall gathering in Coral Springs, if Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid "are left on autopilot, if we don't institute some type of reform, they'll subsume our entire GDP" by 2040 or 2050. GDP, or gross domestic product, measures the value of all goods and services produced in the United States.
Social Security, the largest federal program, mainly benefits retirees. Medicare provides health coverage for older people. Medicaid helps those with low incomes. Combined, the three consume about 40 percent of the budget. Their costs are growing rapidly. Social Security and Medicare benefits now exceed the payroll taxes that fund them.
West, who's likely to draw serious Democratic opposition next year, showed scant interest in edging toward the center on anything. He didn't take issue with the man who said congressional Democrats "have joined with the radical Islamists," or with the woman who said President Barack Obama "certainly doesn't support Israel."
In Greenville, S.C., a different Republican freshman with tea party ties, Rep. Trey Gowdy, also suggested during last week's congressional break a paring back of social programs.
According to a Greenville News account posted on his website, Gowdy "described a recent school classroom where most children indicated they think it's the government's job to provide health care, Social Security and education. 'We've got to do something about the sense of entitlement,' Gowdy said."
Gowdy's office later said he thinks Social Security "is a key aspect of a broad effort to fundamentally reform our entitlement system, but any solution must honor our commitment to current retirees."
Indeed, West and many other Republicans say current and soon-to-be retirees should see no benefit cuts. Their calls for changing Medicare and Social Security often lack specifics, and it's unclear whether the divided Congress will tackle the programs' long-term problems or postpone action, as has happened many times before on Capitol Hill.
West's desire to slash spending seems to stop at his district's doorstep. The Coral Springs audience cheered loudly when he said he helped secure a $21 million grant for a new runway at the nearby Fort Lauderdale airport.
"Grant money is not pork," West said. He issued a press release saying the runway project "will generate at least 11,000 jobs" by 2014 and cost $791 million.
While West spoke in Coral Springs, several dozen Republicans had wine and hors d'oeuvres in Palm Beach as they awaited a speech by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. There was ample sympathy in the room for raising the eligibility age for Social Security benefits.
Obama's debt commission recommended gradually increasing the full retirement age, from 67 to 69, over the next 65 years.
"No one is going to be hurt by it," said Steve Stevens, 80, a retired real estate developer. If people, rich or poor, count on Social Security to fund their retirement, he said, "it's very poor planning."
Obama's debt commission has recommended gradually increasing the full retirement age, from 67 to 69, over the next 65 years.
Cynthia Steele, 51, said anyone making more than $100,000 a year should not receive Social Security benefits, even if it affected her and her friends.
In Washington, Democrats are conflicted. Thirty-two Senate Democrats joined 32 Republicans in urging Obama to negotiate a broad-based spending plan that includes changes to Social Security and Medicare.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., says he opposes cuts in Social Security benefits.
The centrist Democratic group Third Way says the public is ready to embrace gradual changes to entitlement programs and that Republicans are winning the issue so far.
"We don't believe Republicans 'going too far' will be their Waterloo," the group said in a memo. "The party seen as most serious on the issue will win the day."
If Republicans and Democrats cannot agree soon on spending plans for this year and next, the government could face its first partial shutdown since 1996. That prospect worries leaders of both parties, and they are watching to see if last week's recess hardened of softened lawmakers' positions.
West suggested there is room for compromise, but not much.
"I'm not for shutting down the government," he told the Coral Springs crowd. But he said Obama must lead the budget negotiations, or else.
If there is a shutdown, West said, "it's going to be because the president is not engaged."
Monday, March 28, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Trump "screwed" Gadhafi in a real estate deal
(CNN) – Donald Trump, whose flirtations with a presidential bid continue, says he has special experience dealing with Libyan leader Moammer Gadhafi.
Speaking on Fox News Monday, Trump says he has more of a track record than anyone in the Republican presidential field when it comes to dealing with foreign leaders and dignitaries: "I sell them real estate for tremendous amounts of money. I mean, I've dealt with everybody."
Trump, who has said he will decide on a presidential bid by June, said he is particularly happy with the fact he "screwed" Gadhafi on a past real estate deal.
"I rented him a piece of land. He paid me more for one night than the land was worth for two years, and then I didn't let him use the land," Trump boasted. "That's what we should be doing. I don't want to use the word 'screwed', but I screwed him."
Speaking on Fox News Monday, Trump says he has more of a track record than anyone in the Republican presidential field when it comes to dealing with foreign leaders and dignitaries: "I sell them real estate for tremendous amounts of money. I mean, I've dealt with everybody."
Trump, who has said he will decide on a presidential bid by June, said he is particularly happy with the fact he "screwed" Gadhafi on a past real estate deal.
"I rented him a piece of land. He paid me more for one night than the land was worth for two years, and then I didn't let him use the land," Trump boasted. "That's what we should be doing. I don't want to use the word 'screwed', but I screwed him."
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Concern in Tokyo over radiation in tap water
TOKYO – Radiation leaking from Japan's tsunami-damaged nuclear power plant has caused Tokyo's tap water to exceed safety standards for infants to drink, officials said Wednesday, sending anxiety levels soaring over the nation's food and water supply.
Residents cleared store shelves of bottled water after Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara said levels of radioactive iodine in tap water were more than twice what is considered safe for babies. Officials begged those in the city to buy only what they needed, saying hoarding could hurt the thousands of people without any water in areas devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
"I've never seen anything like this," clerk Toru Kikutaka said, surveying the downtown Tokyo supermarket where the entire stock of bottled water sold out almost immediately after the news broke, despite a limit of two, two-liter bottles per customer.
The unsettling new development affecting Japan's largest city, home to around 13 million people, added to growing fears over the nation's food supply.
Radiation from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant has seeped into raw milk, seawater and 11 kinds of vegetables, including broccoli, cauliflower and turnips, from areas around the plant. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it was halting imports of Japanese dairy and produce from the region near the facility. Hong Kong went further and required that Japan perform safety checks on meat, eggs and seafood before accepting those products.
Officials are still struggling to stabilize the nuclear plant, which on Wednesday belched black smoke from Unit 3 and forced the evacuation of workers, further delaying attempts to make needed repairs. The plant, 140 miles (220 kilometers) north of Tokyo, has been leaking radiation since the quake and tsunami knocked out its crucial cooling systems.
The crisis is emerging as the world's most expensive natural disaster on record, likely to cost up to $309 billion, according to a new government estimate. Police say an estimated 18,000 people were killed.
Concerns about food safety spread Wednesday to Tokyo after officials said tap water showed elevated radiation levels: 210 becquerels of iodine-131 per liter of water — more than twice the recommended limit of 100 becquerels per liter for infants. Another measurement taken later at a different site showed the level was 190 becquerels per liter. The recommended limit for adults is 300 becquerels.
"It is really scary. It is like a vicious negative spiral from the nuclear disaster," said Etsuko Nomura, a mother of two children ages 2 and 5. "We have contaminated milk and vegetables, and now tap water in Tokyo, and I'm wondering what's next."
Infants are particularly vulnerable to radioactive iodine, which can cause thyroid cancer, experts say. The limits refer to sustained consumption rates, and officials urged calm, saying parents should stop giving the tap water to babies, but that it was no problem if the infants already had consumed small amounts.
They said the levels posed no immediate health risk for older children or adults.
"Even if you drink this water for one year, it will not affect people's health," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said.
Dr. Harold Swartz, a professor of radiology and medicine at Dartmouth Medical School in the U.S., said the radiation amounts being reported in the water are too low to pose any real risk, even to infants who are being fed water-based formula or to breast-fed infants whose mothers drink tap water.
Although the amounts are well above established limits, that doesn't automatically mean there's a health threat, he said.
"We live in a world that has natural background radiation that's many times greater than the amounts we're talking about here," Swartz said.
Still, because it's easy to avoid tap water, it makes sense for Japanese parents with infants to do so, he said.
Radioactive iodine is also short-lived, with a half-life of eight days — the length of time it takes for half of it to break down harmlessly.
Richard Wakeford, a public health radiologist at the University of Manchester in Britain, blamed the spike in radiation on a shift in winds from the nuclear plant toward Tokyo. He predicted lower levels in coming days once the wind shifts back to normal patterns. "I imagine that bottled water is now quite popular in Tokyo," he said.
Tokyo's municipal government said it would distribute 240,000 bottles of water to households with infants. They estimated that there are currently 80,000 babies in the affected area, with each infant getting three bottles of 550 milliliters.
Edano pleaded with shoppers to restrict purchases of bottled water to the bare necessity, urging them to think of tsunami victims in need.
"We have to consider Miyagi, where there is no drinking water at all," he said, referring to a stricken region. "Under these conditions, we would appreciate it if people would avoid buying more water than they need."
The latest data showed sharp increases in radioactivity levels in a range of vegetables. In an area about 25 miles (40 kilometers) northwest of the nuclear plant, levels for one locally grown leafy green called kukitachina measured 82 times the government limit for radioactive cesium and 11 times the limit for iodine.
The death toll from the disaster continued to rise, with more than 9,500 bodies counted and more than 16,000 people listed as missing.
With supplies of fuel and ice dwindling, officials have abandoned the traditional practice of cremation in favor of quick, simple burials. Some are interred in bare plywood caskets and others in blue plastic tarps, with no time to build proper coffins. The bodies will be dug up and cremated once crematoriums catch up with the glut, officials assured families.
In Higashimatsushima in Miyagi prefecture, about 200 miles (320 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo, soldiers lowered plywood coffins into the ground, saluting each casket.
Some relatives placed flowers on the graves. Most remained stoic, folding hands in prayer. Two young girls wept inconsolably, hugged tightly by their father.
"I hope their spirits will rest in peace here at this temporary place," said mourner Katsuko Oguni, 42.
Masaru Yamagata, a Higashimatsushima official, said the crematorium cannot keep up with demand.
"Giving the grieving families coffins is the most we can do right now," Yamagata said. "Every day, more dead bodies are found, and we need more coffins quickly."
Hundreds of thousands remained homeless, squeezed into temporary shelters without heat, warm food or medicine and no idea what to call home after the colossal wave swallowed up communities along the coast.
The tsunami also heavily damaged the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear facility, with explosions and fires in four of the plant's six reactors sending radioactive steam into the air.
Progress in cooling down the troubled plant has been intermittent, disrupted by rises in radiation, elevated pressure in reactors and overheated storage pools.
The plant's operator had restored circuitry to bring power to all six units and turned on lights at Unit 3 late Tuesday for the first time since the disaster — a significant step toward restarting the cooling system.
It had hoped to restore power to cooling pumps at the unit within days, but experts warned the work included the risk of sparking fires as electricity is restored through equipment potentially damaged in the tsunami.
And then on Wednesday, black smoke suddenly billowed from Unit 3, prompting another evacuation of workers from the plant in the afternoon, Tokyo Electric Power Co. officials said. They said there had been no corresponding spike in radiation at the plant.
Hidehiko Nishiyama of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said officials did not know the reason for the smoke.
Tokyo Electric manager Teruaki Kobayashi said the pump for Unit 3 had been tested and was working Wednesday. But officials weren't sure when they would be able to turn the power on to the pump.
Nuclear agency official Kenji Kawasaki said workers would not be allowed to return to the plant until Thursday morning, since smoke was still rising as of late Wednesday night.
As a precaution, officials have evacuated residents within 12 miles (20 kilometers) of the plant and advised those up to 19 miles (30 kilometers) away to stay indoors to minimize exposure.
And for the first time, Edano, the chief Cabinet secretary, suggested that those downwind of the plant should stay indoors with the windows shut tight — even if just outside the zone.
___
Associated Press writers Tomoko A. Hosaka, Yuri Kageyama and Jay Alabaster in Tokyo, Tim Sullivan in Higashimatsushima, Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington, Lindsey Tanner in Chicago and Foster Klug in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report.
Residents cleared store shelves of bottled water after Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara said levels of radioactive iodine in tap water were more than twice what is considered safe for babies. Officials begged those in the city to buy only what they needed, saying hoarding could hurt the thousands of people without any water in areas devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
"I've never seen anything like this," clerk Toru Kikutaka said, surveying the downtown Tokyo supermarket where the entire stock of bottled water sold out almost immediately after the news broke, despite a limit of two, two-liter bottles per customer.
The unsettling new development affecting Japan's largest city, home to around 13 million people, added to growing fears over the nation's food supply.
Radiation from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant has seeped into raw milk, seawater and 11 kinds of vegetables, including broccoli, cauliflower and turnips, from areas around the plant. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it was halting imports of Japanese dairy and produce from the region near the facility. Hong Kong went further and required that Japan perform safety checks on meat, eggs and seafood before accepting those products.
Officials are still struggling to stabilize the nuclear plant, which on Wednesday belched black smoke from Unit 3 and forced the evacuation of workers, further delaying attempts to make needed repairs. The plant, 140 miles (220 kilometers) north of Tokyo, has been leaking radiation since the quake and tsunami knocked out its crucial cooling systems.
The crisis is emerging as the world's most expensive natural disaster on record, likely to cost up to $309 billion, according to a new government estimate. Police say an estimated 18,000 people were killed.
Concerns about food safety spread Wednesday to Tokyo after officials said tap water showed elevated radiation levels: 210 becquerels of iodine-131 per liter of water — more than twice the recommended limit of 100 becquerels per liter for infants. Another measurement taken later at a different site showed the level was 190 becquerels per liter. The recommended limit for adults is 300 becquerels.
"It is really scary. It is like a vicious negative spiral from the nuclear disaster," said Etsuko Nomura, a mother of two children ages 2 and 5. "We have contaminated milk and vegetables, and now tap water in Tokyo, and I'm wondering what's next."
Infants are particularly vulnerable to radioactive iodine, which can cause thyroid cancer, experts say. The limits refer to sustained consumption rates, and officials urged calm, saying parents should stop giving the tap water to babies, but that it was no problem if the infants already had consumed small amounts.
They said the levels posed no immediate health risk for older children or adults.
"Even if you drink this water for one year, it will not affect people's health," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said.
Dr. Harold Swartz, a professor of radiology and medicine at Dartmouth Medical School in the U.S., said the radiation amounts being reported in the water are too low to pose any real risk, even to infants who are being fed water-based formula or to breast-fed infants whose mothers drink tap water.
Although the amounts are well above established limits, that doesn't automatically mean there's a health threat, he said.
"We live in a world that has natural background radiation that's many times greater than the amounts we're talking about here," Swartz said.
Still, because it's easy to avoid tap water, it makes sense for Japanese parents with infants to do so, he said.
Radioactive iodine is also short-lived, with a half-life of eight days — the length of time it takes for half of it to break down harmlessly.
Richard Wakeford, a public health radiologist at the University of Manchester in Britain, blamed the spike in radiation on a shift in winds from the nuclear plant toward Tokyo. He predicted lower levels in coming days once the wind shifts back to normal patterns. "I imagine that bottled water is now quite popular in Tokyo," he said.
Tokyo's municipal government said it would distribute 240,000 bottles of water to households with infants. They estimated that there are currently 80,000 babies in the affected area, with each infant getting three bottles of 550 milliliters.
Edano pleaded with shoppers to restrict purchases of bottled water to the bare necessity, urging them to think of tsunami victims in need.
"We have to consider Miyagi, where there is no drinking water at all," he said, referring to a stricken region. "Under these conditions, we would appreciate it if people would avoid buying more water than they need."
The latest data showed sharp increases in radioactivity levels in a range of vegetables. In an area about 25 miles (40 kilometers) northwest of the nuclear plant, levels for one locally grown leafy green called kukitachina measured 82 times the government limit for radioactive cesium and 11 times the limit for iodine.
The death toll from the disaster continued to rise, with more than 9,500 bodies counted and more than 16,000 people listed as missing.
With supplies of fuel and ice dwindling, officials have abandoned the traditional practice of cremation in favor of quick, simple burials. Some are interred in bare plywood caskets and others in blue plastic tarps, with no time to build proper coffins. The bodies will be dug up and cremated once crematoriums catch up with the glut, officials assured families.
In Higashimatsushima in Miyagi prefecture, about 200 miles (320 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo, soldiers lowered plywood coffins into the ground, saluting each casket.
Some relatives placed flowers on the graves. Most remained stoic, folding hands in prayer. Two young girls wept inconsolably, hugged tightly by their father.
"I hope their spirits will rest in peace here at this temporary place," said mourner Katsuko Oguni, 42.
Masaru Yamagata, a Higashimatsushima official, said the crematorium cannot keep up with demand.
"Giving the grieving families coffins is the most we can do right now," Yamagata said. "Every day, more dead bodies are found, and we need more coffins quickly."
Hundreds of thousands remained homeless, squeezed into temporary shelters without heat, warm food or medicine and no idea what to call home after the colossal wave swallowed up communities along the coast.
The tsunami also heavily damaged the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear facility, with explosions and fires in four of the plant's six reactors sending radioactive steam into the air.
Progress in cooling down the troubled plant has been intermittent, disrupted by rises in radiation, elevated pressure in reactors and overheated storage pools.
The plant's operator had restored circuitry to bring power to all six units and turned on lights at Unit 3 late Tuesday for the first time since the disaster — a significant step toward restarting the cooling system.
It had hoped to restore power to cooling pumps at the unit within days, but experts warned the work included the risk of sparking fires as electricity is restored through equipment potentially damaged in the tsunami.
And then on Wednesday, black smoke suddenly billowed from Unit 3, prompting another evacuation of workers from the plant in the afternoon, Tokyo Electric Power Co. officials said. They said there had been no corresponding spike in radiation at the plant.
Hidehiko Nishiyama of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said officials did not know the reason for the smoke.
Tokyo Electric manager Teruaki Kobayashi said the pump for Unit 3 had been tested and was working Wednesday. But officials weren't sure when they would be able to turn the power on to the pump.
Nuclear agency official Kenji Kawasaki said workers would not be allowed to return to the plant until Thursday morning, since smoke was still rising as of late Wednesday night.
As a precaution, officials have evacuated residents within 12 miles (20 kilometers) of the plant and advised those up to 19 miles (30 kilometers) away to stay indoors to minimize exposure.
And for the first time, Edano, the chief Cabinet secretary, suggested that those downwind of the plant should stay indoors with the windows shut tight — even if just outside the zone.
___
Associated Press writers Tomoko A. Hosaka, Yuri Kageyama and Jay Alabaster in Tokyo, Tim Sullivan in Higashimatsushima, Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington, Lindsey Tanner in Chicago and Foster Klug in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report.
Liz Taylor Dead at 79
LOS ANGELES – Elizabeth Taylor, the violet-eyed film goddess whose sultry screen persona, stormy personal life and enduring fame and glamour made her one of the last of the old-fashioned movie stars and a template for the modern celebrity, died Wednesday at age 79.
She was surrounded by her four children when she died of congestive heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she had been hospitalized for about six weeks, said publicist Sally Morrison.
"My Mother was an extraordinary woman who lived life to the fullest, with great passion, humor, and love," her son, Michael Wilding, said in a statement.
"We know, quite simply, that the world is a better place for Mom having lived in it. Her legacy will never fade, her spirit will always be with us, and her love will live forever in our hearts."
"We have just lost a Hollywood giant," said Elton John, a longtime friend of Taylor. "More importantly, we have lost an incredible human being."
Taylor was the most blessed and cursed of actresses, the toughest and the most vulnerable. She had extraordinary grace, wealth and voluptuous beauty, and won three Academy Awards, including a special one for her humanitarian work. She was the most loyal of friends and a defender of gays in Hollywood when AIDS was still a stigma in the industry and beyond. But she was afflicted by ill health, failed romances (eight marriages, seven husbands) and personal tragedy.
"I think I'm becoming fatalistic," she said in 1989. "Too much has happened in my life for me not to be fatalistic."
Her more than 50 movies included unforgettable portraits of innocence and of decadence, from the children's classic "National Velvet" and the sentimental family comedy "Father of the Bride" to Oscar-winning transgressions in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and "Butterfield 8." The historical epic "Cleopatra" is among Hollywood's greatest on-screen fiascos and a landmark of off-screen monkey business, the meeting ground of Taylor and Richard Burton, the "Brangelina" of their day.
She played enough bawdy women on film for critic Pauline Kael to deem her "Chaucerian Beverly Hills."
But her defining role, one that lasted long past her moviemaking days, was "Elizabeth Taylor," ever marrying and divorcing, in and out of hospitals, gaining and losing weight, standing by Michael Jackson, Rock Hudson and other troubled friends, acquiring a jewelry collection that seemed to rival Tiffany's.
She was a child star who grew up and aged before an adoring, appalled and fascinated public. She arrived in Hollywood when the studio system tightly controlled an actor's life and image, had more marriages than any publicist could explain away and lasted long enough to no longer require explanation. She was the industry's great survivor, and among the first to reach that special category of celebrity — famous for being famous, for whom her work was inseparable from the gossip around it.
The London-born actress was a star at age 12, a bride and a divorcee at 18, a superstar at 19 and a widow at 26. She was a screen sweetheart and martyr later reviled for stealing Eddie Fisher from Debbie Reynolds, then for dumping Fisher to bed Burton, a relationship of epic passion and turbulence, lasting through two marriages and countless attempted reconciliations.
She was also forgiven. Reynolds would acknowledge voting for Taylor when she was nominated for "Butterfield 8" and decades later co-starred with her old rival in "These Old Broads," co-written by Carrie Fisher, the daughter of Reynolds and Eddie Fisher.
Taylor's ailments wore down the grudges. She underwent at least 20 major operations and she nearly died from a bout with pneumonia in 1990. In 1994 and 1995, she had both hip joints replaced, and in February 1997, she underwent surgery to remove a benign brain tumor. In 1983, she acknowledged a 35-year addiction to sleeping pills and pain killers. Taylor was treated for alcohol and drug abuse problems at the Betty Ford Clinic in Rancho Mirage, Calif.
Her troubles bonded her to her peers and the public, and deepened her compassion. Her advocacy for AIDS research and for other causes earned her a special Oscar, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, in 1993.
As she accepted it, to a long ovation, she declared, "I call upon you to draw from the depths of your being — to prove that we are a human race, to prove that our love outweighs our need to hate, that our compassion is more compelling than our need to blame."
The dark-haired Taylor made an unforgettable impression in Hollywood with "National Velvet," the 1945 film in which the 12-year-old belle rode a steeplechase horse to victory in the Grand National.
Critic James Agee wrote of her: "Ever since I first saw the child ... I have been choked with the peculiar sort of adoration I might have felt if we were in the same grade of primary school."
"National Velvet," her fifth film, also marked the beginning of Taylor's long string of health issues. During production, she fell off a horse. The resulting back injury continued to haunt her.
Taylor matured into a ravishing beauty in "Father of the Bride," in 1950, and into a respected performer and femme fatale the following year in "A Place in the Sun," based on the Theodore Dreiser novel "An American Tragedy." The movie co-starred her close friend Montgomery Clift as the ambitious young man who drowns his working-class girlfriend to be with the socialite Taylor. In real life, too, men all but committed murder in pursuit of her.
Through the rest of the 1950s and into the 1960s, she and Marilyn Monroe were Hollywood's great sex symbols, both striving for appreciation beyond their physical beauty, both caught up in personal dramas filmmakers could only wish they had imagined. That Taylor lasted, and Monroe died young, was a matter of luck and strength; Taylor lived as she pleased and allowed no one to define her but herself.
"I don't entirely approve of some of the things I have done, or am, or have been. But I'm me. God knows, I'm me," Taylor said around the time she turned 50.
She had a remarkable and exhausting personal and professional life. Her marriage to Michael Todd ended tragically when the producer died in a plane crash in 1958. She took up with Fisher, married him, then left him for Burton. Meanwhile, she received several Academy Award nominations and two Oscars.
She was a box-office star cast in numerous "prestige" films, from "Raintree County" with Clift to "Giant," an epic co-starring her friends Hudson and James Dean. Nominations came from a pair of movies adapted from work by Tennessee Williams: "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and "Suddenly, Last Summer." In "Butterfield 8," released in 1960, she starred with Fisher as a doomed girl-about-town. Taylor never cared much for the film, but her performance at the Oscars wowed the world.
Sympathy for Taylor's widowhood had turned to scorn when she took up with Fisher, who had supposedly been consoling her over the death of Todd. But before the 1961 ceremony, she was hospitalized from a nearly fatal bout with pneumonia and Taylor underwent a tracheotomy. The scar was bandaged when she appeared at the Oscars to accept her best actress trophy for "Butterfield 8."
To a standing ovation, she hobbled to the stage. "I don't really know how to express my great gratitude," she said in an emotional speech. "I guess I will just have to thank you with all my heart." It was one of the most dramatic moments in Academy Awards history.
"Hell, I even voted for her," Reynolds later said.
Greater drama awaited: "Cleopatra." Taylor met Burton while playing the title role in the 1963 epic, in which the brooding, womanizing Welsh actor co-starred as Mark Antony. Their chemistry was not immediate. Taylor found him boorish; Burton mocked her physique. But the love scenes on film continued away from the set and a scandal for the ages was born. Headlines shouted and screamed. Paparazzi snapped and swooned. Their romance created such a sensation that the Vatican denounced the happenings as the "caprices of adult children."
The film so exceeded its budget that the producers lost money even though "Cleopatra" was a box-office hit and won four Academy awards. (With its $44 million budget adjusted for inflation, "Cleopatra" remains the most expensive movie ever made.) Taylor's salary per film topped $1 million. "Liz and Dick" became a couple on a first name basis with millions who had never met them.
They were a prolific acting team, even if most of the movies aged no better than their relationship: "The VIPs" (1963), "The Sandpiper" (1965), "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (1966), "The Taming of the Shrew" (1967), "The Comedians" (1967), "Dr. Faustus" (1967), "Boom!" (1968), "Under Milk Wood" (1971) and "Hammersmith Is Out" (1972).
Art most effectively imitated life in the adaptation of Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" — in which Taylor and Burton played mates who fought viciously and drank heavily. She took the best actress Oscar for her performance as the venomous Martha in "Virginia Woolf" and again stole the awards show, this time by not showing up at the ceremony. She refused to thank the academy upon learning of her victory and chastised voters for not honoring Burton.
Taylor and Burton divorced in 1974, married again in 1975 and divorced again in 1976.
"We fight a great deal," Burton once said, "and we watch the people around us who don't quite know how to behave during these storms. We don't fight when we are alone."
In 1982, Taylor and Burton appeared in a touring production of the Noel Coward play "Private Lives," in which they starred as a divorced couple who meet on their respective honeymoons. They remained close at the time of Burton's death, in 1984.
Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was born in London on Feb. 27, 1932, the daughter of Francis Taylor, an art dealer, and the former Sara Sothern, an American stage actress. At age 3, with extensive ballet training already behind her, Taylor danced for British princesses Elizabeth (the future queen) and Margaret Rose at London's Hippodrome. At age 4, she was given a wild field horse that she learned to ride expertly.
At the onset of World War II, the Taylors came to the United States. Francis Taylor opened a gallery in Beverly Hills and, in 1942, his daughter made her screen debut with a bit part in the comedy "There's One Born Every Minute."
Her big break came soon thereafter. While serving as an air-raid warden with MGM producer Sam Marx, Taylor's father learned that the studio was struggling to find an English girl to play opposite Roddy McDowall in "Lassie Come Home." Taylor's screen test for the film won her both the part and a long-term contract. She grew up quickly after that.
Still in school at 16, she would dash from the classroom to the movie set where she played passionate love scenes with Robert Taylor in "Conspirator."
"I have the emotions of a child in the body of a woman," she once said. "I was rushed into womanhood for the movies. It caused me long moments of unhappiness and doubt."
Soon after her screen presence was established, she began a series of very public romances. Early loves included socialite Bill Pawley, home run slugger Ralph Kiner and football star Glenn Davis.
Then, a roll call of husbands:
• She married Conrad Hilton Jr., son of the hotel magnate, in May 1950 at age 18. The marriage ended in divorce that December.
• When she married British actor Michael Wilding in February 1952, he was 39 to her 19. They had two sons, Michael Jr. and Christopher Edward. That marriage lasted 4 years.
• She married cigar-chomping movie producer Michael Todd, also 20 years her senior, in 1957. They had a daughter, Elizabeth Francis. Todd was killed in a plane crash in 1958.
• The best man at the Taylor-Todd wedding was Fisher. He left his wife Debbie Reynolds to marry Taylor in 1959. She converted to Judaism before the wedding.
• Taylor and Fisher moved to London, where she was making "Cleopatra." She met Burton, who also was married. That union produced her fourth child, Maria.
• After her second marriage to Burton ended, she married John Warner, a former secretary of the Navy, in December 1976. Warner was elected a U.S. senator from Virginia in 1978. They divorced in 1982.
• In October 1991, she married Larry Fortensky, a truck driver and construction worker she met while both were undergoing treatment at the Betty Ford Center in 1988. He was 20 years her junior. The wedding, held at the ranch of Michael Jackson, was a media circus that included the din of helicopter blades, a journalist who parachuted to a spot near the couple and a gossip columnist as official scribe.
But in August 1995, she and Fortensky announced a trial separation; she filed for divorce six months later and the split became final in 1997.
"I was taught by my parents that if you fall in love, if you want to have a love affair, you get married," she once remarked. "I guess I'm very old-fashioned."
Her philanthropic interests included assistance for the Israeli War Victims Fund, the Variety Clubs International and the American Foundation for AIDS Research.
She received the Legion of Honor, France's most prestigious award, in 1987, for her efforts to support AIDS research. In May 2000, Queen Elizabeth II made Taylor a dame — the female equivalent of a knight — for her services to the entertainment industry and to charity.
In 1993, she won a lifetime achievement award from the American Film Institute; in 1999, an institute survey of screen legends ranked her No. 7 among actresses.
During much of her later career, Taylor's waistline, various diets, diet books and tangled romances were the butt of jokes by Joan Rivers and others. John Belushi mocked her on "Saturday Night Live," dressing up in drag and choking on a piece of chicken.
"It's a wonder I didn't explode," Taylor wrote of her 60-pound weight gain — and successful loss — in the 1988 book "Elizabeth Takes Off on Self-Esteem and Self-Image."
She was an iconic star, but her screen roles became increasingly rare in the 1980s and beyond. She appeared in several television movies, including "Poker Alice" and "Sweet Bird of Youth," and entered the Stone Age as Pearl Slaghoople in the movie version of "The Flintstones." She had a brief role on the popular soap opera "General Hospital."
Taylor was the subject of numerous unauthorized biographies and herself worked on a handful of books, including "Elizabeth Taylor: An Informal Memoir" and "Elizabeth Taylor: My Love Affair With Jewelry." In tune with the media to the end, she kept in touch through her Twitter account.
"I like the connection with fans and people who have been supportive of me," Taylor told Kim Kardashian in a 2011 interview for Harper's Bazaar. "And I love the idea of real feedback and a two-way street, which is very, very modern. But sometimes I think we know too much about our idols and that spoils the dream."
Survivors include her daughters Maria Burton-Carson and Liza Todd-Tivey, sons Christopher and Michael Wilding, 10 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
A private family funeral is planned later this week.
___
Associated Press Writer Bob Thomas contributed to this report.
She was surrounded by her four children when she died of congestive heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she had been hospitalized for about six weeks, said publicist Sally Morrison.
"My Mother was an extraordinary woman who lived life to the fullest, with great passion, humor, and love," her son, Michael Wilding, said in a statement.
"We know, quite simply, that the world is a better place for Mom having lived in it. Her legacy will never fade, her spirit will always be with us, and her love will live forever in our hearts."
"We have just lost a Hollywood giant," said Elton John, a longtime friend of Taylor. "More importantly, we have lost an incredible human being."
Taylor was the most blessed and cursed of actresses, the toughest and the most vulnerable. She had extraordinary grace, wealth and voluptuous beauty, and won three Academy Awards, including a special one for her humanitarian work. She was the most loyal of friends and a defender of gays in Hollywood when AIDS was still a stigma in the industry and beyond. But she was afflicted by ill health, failed romances (eight marriages, seven husbands) and personal tragedy.
"I think I'm becoming fatalistic," she said in 1989. "Too much has happened in my life for me not to be fatalistic."
Her more than 50 movies included unforgettable portraits of innocence and of decadence, from the children's classic "National Velvet" and the sentimental family comedy "Father of the Bride" to Oscar-winning transgressions in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and "Butterfield 8." The historical epic "Cleopatra" is among Hollywood's greatest on-screen fiascos and a landmark of off-screen monkey business, the meeting ground of Taylor and Richard Burton, the "Brangelina" of their day.
She played enough bawdy women on film for critic Pauline Kael to deem her "Chaucerian Beverly Hills."
But her defining role, one that lasted long past her moviemaking days, was "Elizabeth Taylor," ever marrying and divorcing, in and out of hospitals, gaining and losing weight, standing by Michael Jackson, Rock Hudson and other troubled friends, acquiring a jewelry collection that seemed to rival Tiffany's.
She was a child star who grew up and aged before an adoring, appalled and fascinated public. She arrived in Hollywood when the studio system tightly controlled an actor's life and image, had more marriages than any publicist could explain away and lasted long enough to no longer require explanation. She was the industry's great survivor, and among the first to reach that special category of celebrity — famous for being famous, for whom her work was inseparable from the gossip around it.
The London-born actress was a star at age 12, a bride and a divorcee at 18, a superstar at 19 and a widow at 26. She was a screen sweetheart and martyr later reviled for stealing Eddie Fisher from Debbie Reynolds, then for dumping Fisher to bed Burton, a relationship of epic passion and turbulence, lasting through two marriages and countless attempted reconciliations.
She was also forgiven. Reynolds would acknowledge voting for Taylor when she was nominated for "Butterfield 8" and decades later co-starred with her old rival in "These Old Broads," co-written by Carrie Fisher, the daughter of Reynolds and Eddie Fisher.
Taylor's ailments wore down the grudges. She underwent at least 20 major operations and she nearly died from a bout with pneumonia in 1990. In 1994 and 1995, she had both hip joints replaced, and in February 1997, she underwent surgery to remove a benign brain tumor. In 1983, she acknowledged a 35-year addiction to sleeping pills and pain killers. Taylor was treated for alcohol and drug abuse problems at the Betty Ford Clinic in Rancho Mirage, Calif.
Her troubles bonded her to her peers and the public, and deepened her compassion. Her advocacy for AIDS research and for other causes earned her a special Oscar, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, in 1993.
As she accepted it, to a long ovation, she declared, "I call upon you to draw from the depths of your being — to prove that we are a human race, to prove that our love outweighs our need to hate, that our compassion is more compelling than our need to blame."
The dark-haired Taylor made an unforgettable impression in Hollywood with "National Velvet," the 1945 film in which the 12-year-old belle rode a steeplechase horse to victory in the Grand National.
Critic James Agee wrote of her: "Ever since I first saw the child ... I have been choked with the peculiar sort of adoration I might have felt if we were in the same grade of primary school."
"National Velvet," her fifth film, also marked the beginning of Taylor's long string of health issues. During production, she fell off a horse. The resulting back injury continued to haunt her.
Taylor matured into a ravishing beauty in "Father of the Bride," in 1950, and into a respected performer and femme fatale the following year in "A Place in the Sun," based on the Theodore Dreiser novel "An American Tragedy." The movie co-starred her close friend Montgomery Clift as the ambitious young man who drowns his working-class girlfriend to be with the socialite Taylor. In real life, too, men all but committed murder in pursuit of her.
Through the rest of the 1950s and into the 1960s, she and Marilyn Monroe were Hollywood's great sex symbols, both striving for appreciation beyond their physical beauty, both caught up in personal dramas filmmakers could only wish they had imagined. That Taylor lasted, and Monroe died young, was a matter of luck and strength; Taylor lived as she pleased and allowed no one to define her but herself.
"I don't entirely approve of some of the things I have done, or am, or have been. But I'm me. God knows, I'm me," Taylor said around the time she turned 50.
She had a remarkable and exhausting personal and professional life. Her marriage to Michael Todd ended tragically when the producer died in a plane crash in 1958. She took up with Fisher, married him, then left him for Burton. Meanwhile, she received several Academy Award nominations and two Oscars.
She was a box-office star cast in numerous "prestige" films, from "Raintree County" with Clift to "Giant," an epic co-starring her friends Hudson and James Dean. Nominations came from a pair of movies adapted from work by Tennessee Williams: "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and "Suddenly, Last Summer." In "Butterfield 8," released in 1960, she starred with Fisher as a doomed girl-about-town. Taylor never cared much for the film, but her performance at the Oscars wowed the world.
Sympathy for Taylor's widowhood had turned to scorn when she took up with Fisher, who had supposedly been consoling her over the death of Todd. But before the 1961 ceremony, she was hospitalized from a nearly fatal bout with pneumonia and Taylor underwent a tracheotomy. The scar was bandaged when she appeared at the Oscars to accept her best actress trophy for "Butterfield 8."
To a standing ovation, she hobbled to the stage. "I don't really know how to express my great gratitude," she said in an emotional speech. "I guess I will just have to thank you with all my heart." It was one of the most dramatic moments in Academy Awards history.
"Hell, I even voted for her," Reynolds later said.
Greater drama awaited: "Cleopatra." Taylor met Burton while playing the title role in the 1963 epic, in which the brooding, womanizing Welsh actor co-starred as Mark Antony. Their chemistry was not immediate. Taylor found him boorish; Burton mocked her physique. But the love scenes on film continued away from the set and a scandal for the ages was born. Headlines shouted and screamed. Paparazzi snapped and swooned. Their romance created such a sensation that the Vatican denounced the happenings as the "caprices of adult children."
The film so exceeded its budget that the producers lost money even though "Cleopatra" was a box-office hit and won four Academy awards. (With its $44 million budget adjusted for inflation, "Cleopatra" remains the most expensive movie ever made.) Taylor's salary per film topped $1 million. "Liz and Dick" became a couple on a first name basis with millions who had never met them.
They were a prolific acting team, even if most of the movies aged no better than their relationship: "The VIPs" (1963), "The Sandpiper" (1965), "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (1966), "The Taming of the Shrew" (1967), "The Comedians" (1967), "Dr. Faustus" (1967), "Boom!" (1968), "Under Milk Wood" (1971) and "Hammersmith Is Out" (1972).
Art most effectively imitated life in the adaptation of Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" — in which Taylor and Burton played mates who fought viciously and drank heavily. She took the best actress Oscar for her performance as the venomous Martha in "Virginia Woolf" and again stole the awards show, this time by not showing up at the ceremony. She refused to thank the academy upon learning of her victory and chastised voters for not honoring Burton.
Taylor and Burton divorced in 1974, married again in 1975 and divorced again in 1976.
"We fight a great deal," Burton once said, "and we watch the people around us who don't quite know how to behave during these storms. We don't fight when we are alone."
In 1982, Taylor and Burton appeared in a touring production of the Noel Coward play "Private Lives," in which they starred as a divorced couple who meet on their respective honeymoons. They remained close at the time of Burton's death, in 1984.
Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was born in London on Feb. 27, 1932, the daughter of Francis Taylor, an art dealer, and the former Sara Sothern, an American stage actress. At age 3, with extensive ballet training already behind her, Taylor danced for British princesses Elizabeth (the future queen) and Margaret Rose at London's Hippodrome. At age 4, she was given a wild field horse that she learned to ride expertly.
At the onset of World War II, the Taylors came to the United States. Francis Taylor opened a gallery in Beverly Hills and, in 1942, his daughter made her screen debut with a bit part in the comedy "There's One Born Every Minute."
Her big break came soon thereafter. While serving as an air-raid warden with MGM producer Sam Marx, Taylor's father learned that the studio was struggling to find an English girl to play opposite Roddy McDowall in "Lassie Come Home." Taylor's screen test for the film won her both the part and a long-term contract. She grew up quickly after that.
Still in school at 16, she would dash from the classroom to the movie set where she played passionate love scenes with Robert Taylor in "Conspirator."
"I have the emotions of a child in the body of a woman," she once said. "I was rushed into womanhood for the movies. It caused me long moments of unhappiness and doubt."
Soon after her screen presence was established, she began a series of very public romances. Early loves included socialite Bill Pawley, home run slugger Ralph Kiner and football star Glenn Davis.
Then, a roll call of husbands:
• She married Conrad Hilton Jr., son of the hotel magnate, in May 1950 at age 18. The marriage ended in divorce that December.
• When she married British actor Michael Wilding in February 1952, he was 39 to her 19. They had two sons, Michael Jr. and Christopher Edward. That marriage lasted 4 years.
• She married cigar-chomping movie producer Michael Todd, also 20 years her senior, in 1957. They had a daughter, Elizabeth Francis. Todd was killed in a plane crash in 1958.
• The best man at the Taylor-Todd wedding was Fisher. He left his wife Debbie Reynolds to marry Taylor in 1959. She converted to Judaism before the wedding.
• Taylor and Fisher moved to London, where she was making "Cleopatra." She met Burton, who also was married. That union produced her fourth child, Maria.
• After her second marriage to Burton ended, she married John Warner, a former secretary of the Navy, in December 1976. Warner was elected a U.S. senator from Virginia in 1978. They divorced in 1982.
• In October 1991, she married Larry Fortensky, a truck driver and construction worker she met while both were undergoing treatment at the Betty Ford Center in 1988. He was 20 years her junior. The wedding, held at the ranch of Michael Jackson, was a media circus that included the din of helicopter blades, a journalist who parachuted to a spot near the couple and a gossip columnist as official scribe.
But in August 1995, she and Fortensky announced a trial separation; she filed for divorce six months later and the split became final in 1997.
"I was taught by my parents that if you fall in love, if you want to have a love affair, you get married," she once remarked. "I guess I'm very old-fashioned."
Her philanthropic interests included assistance for the Israeli War Victims Fund, the Variety Clubs International and the American Foundation for AIDS Research.
She received the Legion of Honor, France's most prestigious award, in 1987, for her efforts to support AIDS research. In May 2000, Queen Elizabeth II made Taylor a dame — the female equivalent of a knight — for her services to the entertainment industry and to charity.
In 1993, she won a lifetime achievement award from the American Film Institute; in 1999, an institute survey of screen legends ranked her No. 7 among actresses.
During much of her later career, Taylor's waistline, various diets, diet books and tangled romances were the butt of jokes by Joan Rivers and others. John Belushi mocked her on "Saturday Night Live," dressing up in drag and choking on a piece of chicken.
"It's a wonder I didn't explode," Taylor wrote of her 60-pound weight gain — and successful loss — in the 1988 book "Elizabeth Takes Off on Self-Esteem and Self-Image."
She was an iconic star, but her screen roles became increasingly rare in the 1980s and beyond. She appeared in several television movies, including "Poker Alice" and "Sweet Bird of Youth," and entered the Stone Age as Pearl Slaghoople in the movie version of "The Flintstones." She had a brief role on the popular soap opera "General Hospital."
Taylor was the subject of numerous unauthorized biographies and herself worked on a handful of books, including "Elizabeth Taylor: An Informal Memoir" and "Elizabeth Taylor: My Love Affair With Jewelry." In tune with the media to the end, she kept in touch through her Twitter account.
"I like the connection with fans and people who have been supportive of me," Taylor told Kim Kardashian in a 2011 interview for Harper's Bazaar. "And I love the idea of real feedback and a two-way street, which is very, very modern. But sometimes I think we know too much about our idols and that spoils the dream."
Survivors include her daughters Maria Burton-Carson and Liza Todd-Tivey, sons Christopher and Michael Wilding, 10 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
A private family funeral is planned later this week.
___
Associated Press Writer Bob Thomas contributed to this report.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Yemen's weakened president abandoned by own tribe
SANAA, Yemen – The U.S.-backed president of Yemen suffered a devastating political blow on Sunday when his own powerful tribe demanded his resignation, joining religious leaders, young people and the country's traditional opposition in calls for an end to his three decades in power.
Massive crowds flooded cities and towns around the impoverished and volatile nation, screaming in grief and anger as they mourned dozens of protesters killed Friday when President Ali Abdullah Saleh's security forces opened fire from rooftops on a demonstration in the capital.
Saleh appeared to be trying to hold on, firing his entire Cabinet ahead of what one government official said was a planned mass resignation, but making no mention of stepping down himself. Yemen's ambassador to the United Nations and its human rights minister had announced their resignations earlier in the day.
Experts said that Saleh, who has cooperated closely with U.S. military operations against his country's branch of al-Qaida, had lost the support of every major power base in Yemen except the military.
Many said he would now be forced to choose between stepping down and confronting demonstrators with even deadlier force.
"We're talking a new set of dynamics that are driving the conflict into either the resignation of Saleh or a very serious clash between the two sides," said Ibrahim Sharqieh, deputy director of the Brookings Doha Center. "The U.S. should work now on an orderly transition in Yemen and press Saleh to find an arrangement that doesn't allow chaos."
Sharqieh said from Washington that it was far from clear what would replace Saleh if he goes. Options could include a military-run transitional government and an adminstration of traditional political opposition parties.
Sharqieh described the Obama administration as "extremely worried."
Saleh and his weak government have faced down many serious challenges, often forging tricky alliances with restive tribes to delicately extend power beyond the capital. Most recently, he has battled an on-and-off, seven-year armed rebellion in the north, a secessionist movement in the south, and an al-Qaida offshoot that is of great concern to the U.S.
Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which formed in January 2009, has moved beyond regional aims and attacked the West, including sending a suicide bomber who came terrifyingly close to blowing up a U.S.-bound airliner with a bomb sewn into his underwear. The device failed to detonate properly.
Yemen is also home to U.S.-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is believed to have offered inspiration to those attacking the U.S., including Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, who is accused of killing 13 people and wounding dozens in a 2009 shootout at Fort Hood, Texas.
"The U.S. just cannot afford losing Yemen," Sharqieh said.
The Yemeni government appeared to shy away from more violence for the moment, disbanding police and special forces around Sanaa University, which has been the center of the deadly crackdown, and replacing them with a largely unarmed force.
"From now on, we will be controlling the entrances and exits of the square by orders from the supreme military command," said Lt. Col. Mohammed Hussein.
Soldiers with sticks checked people arriving to join crowds of thousands who carried the flag-wrapped bodies of the slain through the square where on Friday, gunmen hidden on rooftops fired methodically into protesters. Police sealed off a key escape route with a wall of burning tires and more than 40 people, including children, perished, many shot in the head and neck.
The day after the bloodshed, the head of Saleh's Hashed tribe met with religious leaders at his home on Saturday and emerged with a statement of support for the protesters' demands that the president step down.
"We hail with all respect and observance, the position of the people at the (Sanaa University) square," Sheik Sadiq al-Ahmar said late Saturday.
Al-Ahmar does not command the automatic loyalty of tribal members but his positions are deeply influential, Sharqieh said.
The tribal leader now stands with opposition parties who have gone from negotiating Saleh's eventual departure to demanding his immediate resignation.
The parties said they would not be satisfied by Saleh's pledges not to run for re-election in 2013 or to hand power to his son.
"Our only choice now is the removal of the regime soon. We stand by the people's demand," opposition leader Yassin Said Numan told The Associated Press.
The opposition will under no circumstances agree to a dialogue with Saleh after Friday's violence, spokesman Mohammad al-Sabri told The Associated Press.
"The president must understand that the only way to avoid more bloodshed and strife in this country is for him to leave. Nobody will have any regrets about him," he said.
The president has now been left almost entirely dependent on external support, mainly from the United States, which sends Yemen hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to battle the potent al-Qaida offshoot in the country's mountainous hinterlands, political analyst and researcher Abdelkarim al-Khiwani said.
The U.S. has condemned violence against Yemeni protesters.
People living in apartment buildings around the square tossed down flowers at Sunday's funeral procession. Electricity was cut off for about three hours in Yemen's major cities, and activists accused the government of trying to block people from seeing television coverage of the march. Cell service was also interrupted.
Massive crowds flooded into the Sanaa University square and solidarity demonstrations were held across the country in regions including Aden, Hadramawt, Ibb, Al-Hudaydah, Dhamar and Taiz.
Human Rights Minister Huda al-Ban said she was stepping down to protest the government's "horrible, coward and perfidious crime." And a Foreign Ministry official told The Associated Press that UN Ambassador Abdullah Alsaidi had sent in his letter of resignation.
Health Minister Abdul-Karim Rafi told reporters the killing of protesters was "a crime unacceptable by logic or could be justified."
He said 44 protesters were killed and 192 wounded, 21 critically.
Prosecutor-General Abdullah al-Ulty said that 693 protesters were hurt and some bodies have not yet been identified.
Mohammed Naji Allaw, a lawyer and activist, said the government offering money to victims' families to not cooperate with the investigation, and was pressuring them not to participate in the funeral procession.
_____
Michael Weissenstein and Zeina Karam in Cairo contributed to this report.
Massive crowds flooded cities and towns around the impoverished and volatile nation, screaming in grief and anger as they mourned dozens of protesters killed Friday when President Ali Abdullah Saleh's security forces opened fire from rooftops on a demonstration in the capital.
Saleh appeared to be trying to hold on, firing his entire Cabinet ahead of what one government official said was a planned mass resignation, but making no mention of stepping down himself. Yemen's ambassador to the United Nations and its human rights minister had announced their resignations earlier in the day.
Experts said that Saleh, who has cooperated closely with U.S. military operations against his country's branch of al-Qaida, had lost the support of every major power base in Yemen except the military.
Many said he would now be forced to choose between stepping down and confronting demonstrators with even deadlier force.
"We're talking a new set of dynamics that are driving the conflict into either the resignation of Saleh or a very serious clash between the two sides," said Ibrahim Sharqieh, deputy director of the Brookings Doha Center. "The U.S. should work now on an orderly transition in Yemen and press Saleh to find an arrangement that doesn't allow chaos."
Sharqieh said from Washington that it was far from clear what would replace Saleh if he goes. Options could include a military-run transitional government and an adminstration of traditional political opposition parties.
Sharqieh described the Obama administration as "extremely worried."
Saleh and his weak government have faced down many serious challenges, often forging tricky alliances with restive tribes to delicately extend power beyond the capital. Most recently, he has battled an on-and-off, seven-year armed rebellion in the north, a secessionist movement in the south, and an al-Qaida offshoot that is of great concern to the U.S.
Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which formed in January 2009, has moved beyond regional aims and attacked the West, including sending a suicide bomber who came terrifyingly close to blowing up a U.S.-bound airliner with a bomb sewn into his underwear. The device failed to detonate properly.
Yemen is also home to U.S.-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is believed to have offered inspiration to those attacking the U.S., including Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, who is accused of killing 13 people and wounding dozens in a 2009 shootout at Fort Hood, Texas.
"The U.S. just cannot afford losing Yemen," Sharqieh said.
The Yemeni government appeared to shy away from more violence for the moment, disbanding police and special forces around Sanaa University, which has been the center of the deadly crackdown, and replacing them with a largely unarmed force.
"From now on, we will be controlling the entrances and exits of the square by orders from the supreme military command," said Lt. Col. Mohammed Hussein.
Soldiers with sticks checked people arriving to join crowds of thousands who carried the flag-wrapped bodies of the slain through the square where on Friday, gunmen hidden on rooftops fired methodically into protesters. Police sealed off a key escape route with a wall of burning tires and more than 40 people, including children, perished, many shot in the head and neck.
The day after the bloodshed, the head of Saleh's Hashed tribe met with religious leaders at his home on Saturday and emerged with a statement of support for the protesters' demands that the president step down.
"We hail with all respect and observance, the position of the people at the (Sanaa University) square," Sheik Sadiq al-Ahmar said late Saturday.
Al-Ahmar does not command the automatic loyalty of tribal members but his positions are deeply influential, Sharqieh said.
The tribal leader now stands with opposition parties who have gone from negotiating Saleh's eventual departure to demanding his immediate resignation.
The parties said they would not be satisfied by Saleh's pledges not to run for re-election in 2013 or to hand power to his son.
"Our only choice now is the removal of the regime soon. We stand by the people's demand," opposition leader Yassin Said Numan told The Associated Press.
The opposition will under no circumstances agree to a dialogue with Saleh after Friday's violence, spokesman Mohammad al-Sabri told The Associated Press.
"The president must understand that the only way to avoid more bloodshed and strife in this country is for him to leave. Nobody will have any regrets about him," he said.
The president has now been left almost entirely dependent on external support, mainly from the United States, which sends Yemen hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to battle the potent al-Qaida offshoot in the country's mountainous hinterlands, political analyst and researcher Abdelkarim al-Khiwani said.
The U.S. has condemned violence against Yemeni protesters.
People living in apartment buildings around the square tossed down flowers at Sunday's funeral procession. Electricity was cut off for about three hours in Yemen's major cities, and activists accused the government of trying to block people from seeing television coverage of the march. Cell service was also interrupted.
Massive crowds flooded into the Sanaa University square and solidarity demonstrations were held across the country in regions including Aden, Hadramawt, Ibb, Al-Hudaydah, Dhamar and Taiz.
Human Rights Minister Huda al-Ban said she was stepping down to protest the government's "horrible, coward and perfidious crime." And a Foreign Ministry official told The Associated Press that UN Ambassador Abdullah Alsaidi had sent in his letter of resignation.
Health Minister Abdul-Karim Rafi told reporters the killing of protesters was "a crime unacceptable by logic or could be justified."
He said 44 protesters were killed and 192 wounded, 21 critically.
Prosecutor-General Abdullah al-Ulty said that 693 protesters were hurt and some bodies have not yet been identified.
Mohammed Naji Allaw, a lawyer and activist, said the government offering money to victims' families to not cooperate with the investigation, and was pressuring them not to participate in the funeral procession.
_____
Michael Weissenstein and Zeina Karam in Cairo contributed to this report.
'Supermoon' Dazzles: Biggest Full Moon in 18 Years Amazes Skywatchers
The largest full moon in more than 18 years – a so-called "supermoon" – did not disappoint eager skywatchers around the world Saturday when it rose, big and bright, into Earth's night sky.
The full moon of March was 221,565 miles (356,575 kilometers) on Saturday, March 19 just 50 minutes after it hit its full phase, making it the biggest and brightest full moon since 1993. The "supermoon" phenomenon occurred because the moon was in its full phase and just 50 minutes past perigee – the point of its orbit that brings it closer to Earth. [Supermoon Photos From Around the World]
This year's biggest full moon also gained notoriety after erroneous claims that it would spark waves of natural disasters around the world.
NASA scientists and others dismissed the fringe lunar disaster claims as nonsense, but did admit the moon should look spectacular. Saturday's full moon appeared 14 percent larger and 30 percent bigger than the smallest full moons Earth sees, though the difference wasn't immediately apparent to some skywatchers.
And for moon lovers graced with clear skies, that's exactly what happened according to overwhelming number of email reports received by SPACE.com from around the world.
In New York City, avid skywatcher Tony Hoffman watched the moon rise from a bedroom window and caught a lucky shot when an airplane passed by. [See Tony Hoffman's photo]
"It was beautiful as it rose, though it didn’t look particularly large to me, then again, I wasn’t expecting it to," I was fortunate enough to catch a jetliner’s passage in front of it," Hoffman told SPACE.com. "I don’t usually photograph the Moon when it’s so low, but tonight it paid off."
Just outside New York City, in northern New Jersey, the bright moon offered a serene view for me and my family. We caught an amazing view of it low on the horizon, and then stopped at a hilltop vista to see the full moon with the lights and skyscrapers of Manhattan and Newark in the distance.
Big moon rising
Skywatcher Ian Griffin watched the moon as it rose over his village of Brill in the United Kingdom and soaked in the amazing view. In his photos, a huge moon hangs low in the horizon awash in dusky colors. [See Ian Griffin's moon photo]
Griffin wasn't the only one to send SPACE.com an account of a huge rising moon.
In Grand Rapids, Mich., skywatcher Susan Wagener watched as the moon climbed up from behind the horizon, catching a stunning view of the so-called "moon illusion" in which the moon appears to be much larger near the horizon than it does overhead.
"We watched the moon rise last night from our condo on the 23rd floor of Plaza Towers in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan with our 4 1/2-year-old granddaughter, Matilyn Sizemore," Wagener told SPACE.com. "We talked about the moon and how it's different sizes during different times of the month and year. Matilyn's favorite moon is the half-moon she told us."
In one of Wagener's photos, the bright curve of the moon peeks out from behind the horizon, its edge distorted by atmospheric interference. Another image shows the moon hanging low over Grand Rapids. [See Susan Wagener's moon photo]
"For reasons not fully understood by astronomers or psychologists, a low-hanging moon looks incredibly large when hovering near trees, buildings and other foreground objects," SPACE.com skywatching columnist Joe Rao explained in a recent column. "The fact that the moon will be much closer than usual this weekend will only serve to amplify this strange effect."
Skywatcher Sandy Adams caught similar views of the rising moon over the U.S. capitol of Washington, D.C. [See Sandy Adams' supermoon photo]
Omar Mendoza, of Hermosillo, Sonora in Mexico, snapped his version of the view to show a reddish-hue moon rising behind hills in the distance.
"So beautiful, my moon," Mendoza told SPACE.com.
The next comparable full moon to offer a view like Saturday's "supermoon" won't occur until Nov. 14, 2016, according to Rao. [Infographic: 'Supermoon' Full Moons Explained]
Supermoon around the world
While SPACE.com received a flood of supermoon accounts, the theme was the same: an amazingly bright moon. While some skywatchers did not immediately notice the moon's larger size on Saturday night, they were all dazzled by its brightness.
"That was sure a beautiful moon," said Abbe Arenson of Sanford, Fla. "The moon while bright and beautifully big, still did not seem larger upon rising (about 8 p.m.) than that night of January 19th when it rose. But as I just went outside, it is very definitely closer to the Earth - usually the moon by this time, 12:45 a.m., is very small up there."
In Tasmania, Australia, observers Marlene and Tim B were worried that cloud cover would obscure their view of the moon. Those fears, it turned out, were unfounded. Marlene's photo shows a moon so bright it overwhelmed the frame.
"What struck my husband and I was that it was difficult to look at. That is how bright it appeared. The glow that emanated from the moon surpassed any full moon that we have observed in a very long time," Marlene told SPACE.com in an email. "It appeared slightly larger; I suppose that was due to the close proximity of the Earth … it was absolutely entrancing. Who would have believed that you could take a picture at night, without using a flash, and get a picture of the moon like that!!!!!"
Another bright view of the moon came from Gina Farthing in Crimora, Va., who snapped photos of the bright moon through some trees that appeared to glow with the lunar backlighting.
"We live in the Blue Ridge mountains, so didn't get to see it at the horizon," Farthing said. "But it did appear slightly larger coming over the mountain."
In Ekaterinburg Russia, photographer Dmitry Benbau took the opportunity to snap a close-up of the moon full disk. The bright and full moon, he said, was "very exciting."
In Shallotte, North Carolina, photographer Tavi Greiner made the supermoon of March a family affair. Greiner's amazing photos show the moon low over the Shallotte River.
"I took my entire family down to the river tonight, to experience tonight's 'Super Moon,' and was pleasantly surprised to see many of the locals out for a look, as well," Greiner told SPACE.com "It was really nice to see so many people looking up!"
Editor's Note: SPACE.com received an overwhelming number of first-hand accounts and photos from readers who made stunning observations of the moon. While it is impossible to recount all of those experiences, you can see many of the photos in our Supermoon 2011 Photo Gallery, with more being added all the time
The full moon of March was 221,565 miles (356,575 kilometers) on Saturday, March 19 just 50 minutes after it hit its full phase, making it the biggest and brightest full moon since 1993. The "supermoon" phenomenon occurred because the moon was in its full phase and just 50 minutes past perigee – the point of its orbit that brings it closer to Earth. [Supermoon Photos From Around the World]
This year's biggest full moon also gained notoriety after erroneous claims that it would spark waves of natural disasters around the world.
NASA scientists and others dismissed the fringe lunar disaster claims as nonsense, but did admit the moon should look spectacular. Saturday's full moon appeared 14 percent larger and 30 percent bigger than the smallest full moons Earth sees, though the difference wasn't immediately apparent to some skywatchers.
And for moon lovers graced with clear skies, that's exactly what happened according to overwhelming number of email reports received by SPACE.com from around the world.
In New York City, avid skywatcher Tony Hoffman watched the moon rise from a bedroom window and caught a lucky shot when an airplane passed by. [See Tony Hoffman's photo]
"It was beautiful as it rose, though it didn’t look particularly large to me, then again, I wasn’t expecting it to," I was fortunate enough to catch a jetliner’s passage in front of it," Hoffman told SPACE.com. "I don’t usually photograph the Moon when it’s so low, but tonight it paid off."
Just outside New York City, in northern New Jersey, the bright moon offered a serene view for me and my family. We caught an amazing view of it low on the horizon, and then stopped at a hilltop vista to see the full moon with the lights and skyscrapers of Manhattan and Newark in the distance.
Big moon rising
Skywatcher Ian Griffin watched the moon as it rose over his village of Brill in the United Kingdom and soaked in the amazing view. In his photos, a huge moon hangs low in the horizon awash in dusky colors. [See Ian Griffin's moon photo]
Griffin wasn't the only one to send SPACE.com an account of a huge rising moon.
In Grand Rapids, Mich., skywatcher Susan Wagener watched as the moon climbed up from behind the horizon, catching a stunning view of the so-called "moon illusion" in which the moon appears to be much larger near the horizon than it does overhead.
"We watched the moon rise last night from our condo on the 23rd floor of Plaza Towers in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan with our 4 1/2-year-old granddaughter, Matilyn Sizemore," Wagener told SPACE.com. "We talked about the moon and how it's different sizes during different times of the month and year. Matilyn's favorite moon is the half-moon she told us."
In one of Wagener's photos, the bright curve of the moon peeks out from behind the horizon, its edge distorted by atmospheric interference. Another image shows the moon hanging low over Grand Rapids. [See Susan Wagener's moon photo]
"For reasons not fully understood by astronomers or psychologists, a low-hanging moon looks incredibly large when hovering near trees, buildings and other foreground objects," SPACE.com skywatching columnist Joe Rao explained in a recent column. "The fact that the moon will be much closer than usual this weekend will only serve to amplify this strange effect."
Skywatcher Sandy Adams caught similar views of the rising moon over the U.S. capitol of Washington, D.C. [See Sandy Adams' supermoon photo]
Omar Mendoza, of Hermosillo, Sonora in Mexico, snapped his version of the view to show a reddish-hue moon rising behind hills in the distance.
"So beautiful, my moon," Mendoza told SPACE.com.
The next comparable full moon to offer a view like Saturday's "supermoon" won't occur until Nov. 14, 2016, according to Rao. [Infographic: 'Supermoon' Full Moons Explained]
Supermoon around the world
While SPACE.com received a flood of supermoon accounts, the theme was the same: an amazingly bright moon. While some skywatchers did not immediately notice the moon's larger size on Saturday night, they were all dazzled by its brightness.
"That was sure a beautiful moon," said Abbe Arenson of Sanford, Fla. "The moon while bright and beautifully big, still did not seem larger upon rising (about 8 p.m.) than that night of January 19th when it rose. But as I just went outside, it is very definitely closer to the Earth - usually the moon by this time, 12:45 a.m., is very small up there."
In Tasmania, Australia, observers Marlene and Tim B were worried that cloud cover would obscure their view of the moon. Those fears, it turned out, were unfounded. Marlene's photo shows a moon so bright it overwhelmed the frame.
"What struck my husband and I was that it was difficult to look at. That is how bright it appeared. The glow that emanated from the moon surpassed any full moon that we have observed in a very long time," Marlene told SPACE.com in an email. "It appeared slightly larger; I suppose that was due to the close proximity of the Earth … it was absolutely entrancing. Who would have believed that you could take a picture at night, without using a flash, and get a picture of the moon like that!!!!!"
Another bright view of the moon came from Gina Farthing in Crimora, Va., who snapped photos of the bright moon through some trees that appeared to glow with the lunar backlighting.
"We live in the Blue Ridge mountains, so didn't get to see it at the horizon," Farthing said. "But it did appear slightly larger coming over the mountain."
In Ekaterinburg Russia, photographer Dmitry Benbau took the opportunity to snap a close-up of the moon full disk. The bright and full moon, he said, was "very exciting."
In Shallotte, North Carolina, photographer Tavi Greiner made the supermoon of March a family affair. Greiner's amazing photos show the moon low over the Shallotte River.
"I took my entire family down to the river tonight, to experience tonight's 'Super Moon,' and was pleasantly surprised to see many of the locals out for a look, as well," Greiner told SPACE.com "It was really nice to see so many people looking up!"
Editor's Note: SPACE.com received an overwhelming number of first-hand accounts and photos from readers who made stunning observations of the moon. While it is impossible to recount all of those experiences, you can see many of the photos in our Supermoon 2011 Photo Gallery, with more being added all the time
Friday, March 18, 2011
Charlie Sheen adds 12 more dates to his live tour
LOS ANGELES – Charlie Sheen's "Violent Torpedo of Truth" is growing.
Sheen is adding a dozen more dates to his live show, which is now set to stretch into Canada and continue through May 3.
The outspoken actor announced his first two live performances last week on his Twitter account. Those shows in Detroit and Chicago sold out quickly.
Earlier this week, Sheen added an additional five dates. He tacked on a dozen more late Thursday, including stops in Toronto, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Denver, San Francisco, Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia.
Sheen has not revealed the content of the show, other than to call it "the REAL story."
Tickets for the latest dates go on sale Saturday.
Sheen is adding a dozen more dates to his live show, which is now set to stretch into Canada and continue through May 3.
The outspoken actor announced his first two live performances last week on his Twitter account. Those shows in Detroit and Chicago sold out quickly.
Earlier this week, Sheen added an additional five dates. He tacked on a dozen more late Thursday, including stops in Toronto, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Denver, San Francisco, Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia.
Sheen has not revealed the content of the show, other than to call it "the REAL story."
Tickets for the latest dates go on sale Saturday.
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