NH ends calendar uncertainty with Jan. 10 primary (AP)

CONCORD, N.H. ? New Hampshire on Wednesday scheduled its first-in-the-nation presidential primary for Jan. 10, finally giving candidates a concrete calendar after months of uncertainty.

The date announced by Secretary of State Bill Gardner Wednesday had been widely expected since Nevada Republicans voted last month to shift their presidential caucuses to early February, ending what had become a bitter standoff among rival states. Gardner had warned that Nevada's initial decision to hold its contest in mid-January could force New Hampshire to vote in early December.

"I was sort of on the edge of a cliff," Gardner said. "I was hoping if I had to move, there would be a puddle of water to jump into if necessary."

It's a position Gardner knows well, though he said this year's wrangling over the date wasn't the worst he's faced by a longshot ? that distinction goes to 1984, when he faced intense pressure from the Democratic National Committee to change the date.

New Hampshire state law requires the primary to be held at least seven days ahead of any other similar contest and gives Gardner exclusive power to set the date. That has made him the target of criticism from other states hoping to grab some of the spotlight.

Critics also argue that New Hampshire is too small and too white to play such a major role in picking presidents, but Gardner and other defenders of New Hampshire say the country ? and the candidates ? are well-served because the primary requires close contact with voters, not just name-recognition or advertising cash. In fact, thanks to a random drawing, the first candidate listed on Republican ballot will be Joe Story of Jacksonville, Fl., whose website is theaveragejoeforpresident.com. Candidates will be listed alphabetically after him, putting front-runner Mitt Romney nearly at the bottom.

"Really, the election for the candidates begins today," said state Rep. Jim Splaine, who authored the state law that puts New Hampshire first.

New Hampshire's decision brings welcome clarity to the path for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. New Hampshire will vote a week after the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, with South Carolina's primary on Jan. 21, Florida's on Jan. 31 and the Nevada caucuses on Feb. 4.

Some feared that jockeying states might cram more contests into January, creating an informal national primary that would deprive second-tier candidates of opportunities to regroup and raise money as they raced from state to state. With the calendar set, campaigns can now launch strategies that had been held hostage to an uncertain calendar.

Already, there are signs they are ramping up. Texas Gov. Rick Perry, for example, begins airing his first television advertisements in New Hampshire on Wednesday.

Though Wednesday's announcement comes just 10 weeks before primary day, Gardner has cut it closer before. During the last presidential campaign, he waited until Nov. 21 to set the Jan. 8 date, the earliest date yet.

"I thought after last cycle we would not face this again, and I'm hopeful in next cycle we won't face it again," Gardner said Wednesday. "But there is no simple answer."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111102/ap_on_el_ge/us_primary_scramble

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1st-degree murder conviction in yoga shop killing (AP)

ROCKVILLE, Md. ? A woman who killed her co-worker in an upscale suburban Washington yoga clothing shop was convicted of first-degree murder Wednesday and faces the chance of life in prison.

The Montgomery County jury deliberated about an hour before returning the verdict against Brittany Norwood.

Norwood killed Jayna Murray inside the Lululemon Athletica shop in Bethesda on the night of March 11. Prosecutors said Norwood used at least a half-dozen weapons inside the store to kill Murray, then lied and told police that they had been attacked by masked men.

Norwood's lawyer conceded that Norwood killed Murray. But he said it happened during a fight and wasn't premeditated. The argument was aimed at sparing Norwood a first-degree murder conviction, which can carry a sentence of life in prison without parole.

Murray's family choked back tears as the verdict was read and a "yes" sounded from their side of the courtroom. Norwood and her family sat impassively and declined to comment afterward.

Norwood's attorney Doug Wood said she was disappointed at the speed of the verdict.

"I think that we were surprised that this happened so quick. I thought we had established a pretty good case for second-degree murder."

State's Attorney John McCarthy told jurors during closing arguments that there was abundant evidence of premeditation. He said Norwood lured Murray back to the store after closing by saying she had forgotten her wallet and needed to get back inside.

A medical examiner, Mary Ripple, testified that she found at least 331 wounds on Murray's body and that the woman was alive during the duration of the attack.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/crime/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111102/ap_on_re_us/us_yoga_shop_killing

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Yoko Ono: 'Imagine' tune is bigger than expected

FILE - In this May 23, 2011 file photo, Yoko Ono attends a dinner hosted by The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA PS1 and Volkswagen in New York. John Lennon's iconic song ?Imagine? is one that Yoko Ono says wasn't initially embraced. Rolling Stone magazine ranked ?Imagine? No. 3 on its list of ?The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.? (AP Photo/Evan Agostini, file)

FILE - In this May 23, 2011 file photo, Yoko Ono attends a dinner hosted by The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA PS1 and Volkswagen in New York. John Lennon's iconic song ?Imagine? is one that Yoko Ono says wasn't initially embraced. Rolling Stone magazine ranked ?Imagine? No. 3 on its list of ?The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.? (AP Photo/Evan Agostini, file)

NEW YORK (AP) ? Yoko Ono says John Lennon's iconic "Imagine" wasn't initially embraced by the public.

She says the song, released in 1971, "was not really accepted ... it wasn't 'Wow!'"

Ono, who is listed as a co-producer on the track, says she remembers when Lennon created it, calling that time "really beautiful."

Lennon's 78-year-old widow made the comments at the launch of Hard Rock and WhyHunger's "Imagine There's No Hunger" campaign in New York City's Times Square on Tuesday. The global campaign aims to raise money and awareness for childhood hunger and poverty in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked "Imagine" at No. 3 on its list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time."

___

Online:

http://www.hardrock.com

http://www.whyhunger.org

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2011-11-01-People-Yoko%20Ono/id-f493dd2819894a5292e1d803e91ea259

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New Amy Winehouse Album to Be Released

A posthumous album from Amy Winehouse will soon be released.

Island Records' Lioness: Hidden Treasures, featuring 12 tracks of previously unreleased and rare recordings from the late chanteuse, is coming December 5.

At an emotional family gathering last week, the singer's dad, Mitch Winehouse, wept as he listened to the music, some of which he had never heard before.

"It wasn't until I sat down with the rest of the family and listened to this album that I fully appreciated the breadth of Amy's talent," says Mitch Winehouse.

"From jazz standards to hip-hop songs, it really took my breath away," her grieving dad said in a statement. "I never realized what a true genius she was."

Coming from her biggest fan, that's saying something.

Winehouse never released another album after her 2006 smash Back to Black, but recorded plenty of unreleased material from which her label might choose.

The new album apparently includes one track written while she was on drugs, according to the Sun, as well as a song about a cheating Blake Fielder-Civil.

Also mmong the offerings on the album: a brand new song, "Between the Cheats," a slower tempo version of her hit "Valerie" and "A Song For You."

The latter is a cover of the Leon Russell song also performed by Winehouse's musical idol, Donny Hathaway, so you know that's going to be good.

Produced by friends Mark Ronson and Salaam Remi over the last few weeks, the album will be Winehouse's third in all. She died this July at age 27.

A donation from the sale of each album will also go to the Amy Winehouse Foundation, established after her death to help those battling addiction.

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2011/10/new-amy-winehouse-album-to-be-released/

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UK, U.S. talk tough on web freedom at cyber talks (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) ? Britain and the United States strongly rejected calls from China and Russia for greater Internet controls on Tuesday at a major conference on the future of cyberspace, although Western states too faced accusations of double standards.

While Western states worry about intellectual property theft and hacking, authoritarian governments are alarmed at the role the Internet and social media played in the protests that swept the Arab world this year.

In September, China, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan proposed to the United Nations a global code of conduct including the principle that "policy authority for Internet-related public issues is the sovereign right of states."

Cyber security experts say western Nations hoped to fend off those calls for a "cyber treaty" and to prompt China, Russia and others to rein in hackers. Speaking by video link after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pulled out of the two-day London meeting for family reasons, Vice President Joe Biden was particularly direct.

"What citizens do online should not, as some have suggested, be decreed solely by groups of governments making decisions for them somewhere on high," he said. "No citizen of any country should be subject to a repressive global code when they send an email or post a comment to a news article. They should not be prevented from sharing their innovations with global consumers simply because they live across a national frontier. That is not how the internet should ever work in our view."

To impose such controls on the Internet, Biden said, would stifle innovation. If countries wanted the economic benefits of connectivity, he they needed openness.

Britain faced some criticism at the conference following Prime Minister David Cameron's suggestion this August after England's riots that government might impose controls on some social media platforms. But Foreign Secretary William Hague struck a similar tone to Biden.

"Too many states around the world are seeking to go beyond legitimate interference or disagree with us about what constitutes 'legitimate' behavior," Hague told the meeting of ministers, tech executives and Internet activists.

"The idea of freedom cannot be contained behind bars, no matter how strong the lock."

On Wednesday, delegates will continue to discuss potential international co-operation to tackle online crime, child pornography and other threats -- seen by many as the most likely area on which some agreement might be reached.

At a press conference organized by his delegation, Russian official Igor Shchegolev denied the "code of conduct" was part of a plan to censor the Internet, saying it was simply about refreshing now outdated telecommunications treaties.

"We in Russia are convinced that it is impossible to block or censor the Internet," he said. "Some countries in Europe declare that some social disturbance takes place they will close access to Twitter and Facebook. Russia doesn't even consider this possibility."

WESTERN STATES CRITICISED

Some other speakers at the conference said Cameron's suggested block of at least some social media platforms had put the West in an awkward position.

"It's very easy to defend this case of black and white human rights against dictatorships around the world, but as soon as our own Western-style stability of the state is called into question then freedom of expression is expendable. There should be one rule for all, including Western governments," said John Kampfner, chief executive of Index on Censorship.

Around 60 countries, including China, Russia and India, were represented at the conference as well as tech industry figures such as Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, and senior executives from Facebook and Google.

Wales told the conference he believed many attempts to regulate the flow of information -- such as British court "superinjunctions" which celebrities have used to block discussion of embarrassing stories -- were "bad law."

"We see all the time these kinds of laws," he said. "Maybe there are better ways than to rely on government control."

In a closed session, government and business officials discussed cybersecurity, with a mounting number of cyber attacks and hacking attempts seen high on the agenda.

On the eve of the conference, the head of Britain's communications spy agency said UK government and industry computer systems faced a "disturbing" number of cyber attacks, including a serious assault on the Foreign Office's network.

In his speech to the conference, Prime Minister Cameron described such attacks as "unacceptable." Whilst he did not refer directly to his riots comments, he said future prosperity and peace depended on managing cyberspace properly.

"Governments must not use cyber security as an excuse for censorship, or to deny people the opportunities that the internet represents," Cameron said. "The balance we've got to strike is between freedom and a free-for-all."

(Additional reporting by Peter Apps, Michael Holden; writing by Peter Apps)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/internet/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111101/wr_nm/us_technology_cyber_conference

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China's 1st Space Docking Mission to Launch Today With German Experiment Aboard (SPACE.com)

When China launches its Shenzhou 8 spacecraft on an unmanned docking test flight today, a German-Chinese science payload will be along for the ride, marking the first time China has ever collaborated with another country on one of its Shenzhou missions.

China's?Shenzhou 8 spacecraft is due to launch atop a Chinese Long March 2F rocket Oct. 31 at 5 p.m. EDT (6 a.m. local time on Nov. 1) from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Inner Mongolia.

Two days after the liftoff, Shenzhou 8 will dock with China's Tiangong 1 spacecraft, which was launched in September. It will be the nation's first in-space docking.

Packed aboard Shenzhou 8 is a unit called SIMBOX (Science in Microgravity Box), a joint Chinese-German research unit that weighs 55 pounds (25 kilograms). The box contains 40 experimental units, each about the size of a cell phone, designed to test the effects of microgravity on various specimens.

Plants, nematodes, bacteria and human cancer cells are just some of the samples that will be exposed to zero gravity and space radiation for nearly three weeks. The research will investigate fundamental biological and medical questions, including how gravity intervenes in biological processes, and how the immune system can be strengthened.

The German portion of the project is managed by the German Aerospace Center (Germany's space agency), while the China Manned Space Engineering Office has coordinated the Chinese contribution to SIMBOX.

The docking maneuver between Shenzhou 8 and Tiangong 1 is seen as a significant step for China's space program, which aims to eventually build its own manned space station in orbit. Autonomous docking is a necessary skill to achieve that that goal.

China is only the third country, after Russia and the United States, to develop spacecraft capable of flying humans to and from space. The country's first?human spaceflight launched a single astronaut in 2003, with two-man and three-man spaceflights following in 2005 and 2008.

If the Shenzhou 8 docking is a success, it will be followed by another robotic rendezvous with Shenzhou 9, to launch next year, and then a crewed docking with Shenzhou 10, Chinese space officials have said.

Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter?@Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/space/20111031/sc_space/chinas1stspacedockingmissiontolaunchtodaywithgermanexperimentaboard

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Lockdowns lifted at Albuquerque schools (Reuters)

(Reuters) Lockdowns were lifted on Monday at three New Mexico schools that had restricted student movements earlier in the day "due to a SWAT situation in the area," the Albuquerque Public Schools website said.

A man in the area barricaded himself inside his Albuquerque home and claimed he had a hostage, Sergeant Trish Hoffman of the Albuquerque Police Department told Reuters.

"There's no evidence of that," Hoffman said. "We're trying to negotiate with him."

Police had been looking for a stolen vehicle earlier in the day. They spotted a vehicle at the man's home, but he told police from inside the house to back off or someone would get hurt, Hoffman said. She said police were seeking a warrant that would allow them to enter the home.

Garfield Middle School had been on lockdown and Valley High School and Griegos Elementary School were under "shelter-in-place," which is similar to a lockdown except students can move around inside their classrooms and take supervised restroom breaks, the website said.

(Reporting by Corrie MacLaggan in Austin, Texas; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Jerry Norton)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/education/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111031/us_nm/us_new_mexico_schools_lockdown

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