2010 Alaska Election Results: The Senate Race Fight Continues - Africana Online

Alaskan write-in candidate Lisa Murkowski claimed 98 percent of the write-in ballots that were counted on Wednesday. Election officials started the five day process of counting the 92,500 write-in ballots. The Democrat in the race, Scott McAdams has conceded. Republican Joe Miller and Murkowski are locked in a close race for the Alaska Senate seat. Murkowski has had the edge and is expected to win with almost all the write-in ballots expected to go her way. An early tally of 19,203 ballots showed Murkowski winning 89 percent of the write-in vote without dispute. Another 8.5 percent of the ballots counted for her were contested. There were two write-in votes for "Joe Miller."

"So far things look really good for us," Murkowski campaign manager Kevin Sweeney told the Anchorage Daily News. While the laborious count is conducted, there are observers and lawyers from both candidates present. Miller’s observers are quick to challenge any ballot that is misspelled or difficult to read. Murkowski spokesman John Tracy suggested some of the challenges were frivolous. "This isn’t supposed to be a penmanship test," he said.

The ballot count began despite a lawsuit that was filed on behalf of the Miller campaign. Miler’s camp believes that Murkowski’s name has to be spelled correctly in order to count by law. A judge Wednesday refused to stop the count while Miller’s complaint is being considered and set briefing schedules for next week. Election officials point to case law and declared their plans to use discretion in determining voter intent when reading ballots with Murkowski’s name misspelled. Division of Elections Director Gail Fenumiai made the decision to use common sense prior to the election. “If I can pronounce the name by the way it’s spelled, that’s the standard I’m using," Fenumiai said.

Miller spokesman Randy DeSoto said the campaign remained cautiously optimistic and was determined to see the counting process through. The next step after the counting process is certainly court. The deadline to file a case is next month. Murkowski would make history as the first Senate candidate to win a write-in campaign since 1954, when Strom Thurmond became the second Senator to pull off the feat. Although election officials hoped to have the count done by Friday, it will likely last until early next week.

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Keyshia Cole Would 'Love' To Work With Eminem

'He made the hardest comeback for 2010,' the singer tells MTV News.
By Rebecca Thomas, with reporting by Danielle Nieman

Keyshia Cole
Photo: MTV News

Nicki Minaj erupts into lyrical spasms on "Roman's Revenge," a fitful track that features Eminem, spewing murderous bars at breakneck speed. If that doesn't strike you as natural terrain for an R&B balladeer, then no one told Keyshia Cole.

The petite powerhouse recruited Minaj for her uptempo new single "I Ain't Thru," and now she told MTV News she wants a moment in the booth with Em.

"Me and Eminem doing a collaboration?" she asked aloud, her red curls grazing her eyes as she savored the possibility on the set of her "I Ain't Thru" video. "I love that idea."

The Bay Area native revealed that she's a true fan when it comes to Slim Shady — and not just because they're labelmates.

"I just think he made the hardest comeback for 2010, and I support him all the way, and he's just dope, he's just dope," K. Cole said, raising a symbolic glass to the MTV News Hip-Hop Brain Trust's pick for this year's Hottest MC in the Game.

Cole — a new mom who this year welcomed a son with Cleveland Cavaliers baller and fiancé Daniel Gibson — might be onto something. ("We'll have to make that come true," she said of teaming with Em.)

Just as pop&B superstar Rihanna wove a shared experience with relationship abuse into chart-topping accolades on Em's "Love the Way You Lie," Cole's own difficult history with a drug-addicted mother could prove to be common ground with Marshall Mathers, whose catalog is filled with raging diatribes about his mom. Keyshia's own troubled relationship with her biological mom was captured for three seasons on BET's highly rated "Keyshia Cole: The Way It Is." Cole's mother Frankie's antics regularly made for blog fodder, and the network green-lit a spinoff, "Frankie & Neffe," which followed the matriarch and the star's sister's exploits and drew jeers from Cole.

The A Different Me songstress told us that although fans look to her for the soulful love ballads, she didn't shy away from delving into dark, twisted stuff on her upcoming album, due December 21.

"You will hear a lot of love from me," she said, but, "You will also know that I've been through some things, and I'm not ashamed of reflecting, OK?" she said seriously, before breaking into giggles.

Would you like to hear a Keyshia Cole/ Eminem collabo? Tell us in the comments!

Related Artists

• Keyshia Cole
• Eminem

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Election results 2010: What is in our future? - UMD Statesman

Minnesota's political future depends on party cooperation

BY CARL F. BERWALD

Interesting is the best word to describe the statewide outcome of the recent midterm election. Currently (provided the gubernatorial recount doesn't change the outcome), Minnesota will be run with a divided government. This makes it more difficult to get things done, unless the two parties work together, which would be great, but is highly unrealistic.

Currently, Mark Dayton (DFL) is only slightly ahead of Tom Emmer (R) in the race for governor. Provided that the mandatory recount does not change the outcome of this election, Minnesota will be working with a split government, meaning the governor and constitutional officers (Rebecca Otto, Mark Ritchie and Lori Swanson) are of the opposite party of either or both the state house and senate (both of which have switched to Republican control).

This can go one of two ways. First, party affiliation will get in the way and absolutely nothing will happen because it will be a war of bills and vetoes (like we have seen for the last eight years in Minnesota). Alternatively, both parties could work together and compromise, much like the federal government did in the mid 1990s, a time where all was well and we had a budget surplus (what a concept!).

Unfortunately, national trends indicate that the first scenario will take place, with the Republican Party attempting to undo everything that has changed under Democratic control. This not only will move our state in a reverse direction, but it will also not do anything to solve our problems including our huge budget deficit. The legislature needs to focus on solving problems and making Minnesota a better state, not on petty party games and blatantly disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing.

If, on the other hand , Tom Emmer wins after the recount, we will have a repeat of the last eight years of Pawlenty-like policy. Minnesota will not see many (if any improvements) and will probably work backwards to undo any policies that are in place. Also if Emmer wins, Minnesotans will be crippled by a skyrocketing property tax that will result from excessive cuts to local government aid. Tuition costs will also likely rise if Emmer wins as his proposed local government aid cuts would also negatively affect universities' budgets.

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Cigarette Packs to Feature Corpses, Diseased Lungs - ABC News

By LARA SALAHI, ABC News Medical Unit

Nov. 10, 2010

Modest one-liners of smoking dangers featured on cigarette packs may soon turn into gory images and messages that will cover nearly half the pack.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration unveiled 36 jarring labels Wednesday aimed to ramp up efforts to warn smokers of cigarettes' fatal consequences. These labels exercise the agency's new authority over tobacco products and the most significant change in cigarette warnings since companies were forced to add the mandatory Surgeon General's warning in 1965.

Some of the proposed images include a man smoking from a tracheotomy hole, a cadaver labeled to have died from lung disease, and a pained infant exposed to smoke.

For decades federal regulators and health experts have warned that cigarettes are deadly. But Matthew L. Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, called the amped measure, "a timely and much-needed shot in the arm."

"The current warnings are more than 25 years old, go unnoticed on the side of cigarette packs and fail to effectively communicate the serious health risks of smoking," said Myers.

Previous studies also suggest that graphic health warnings displayed in other countries worked better than text warnings to motivate smokers to quit and nonsmokers not to start.

Although overall smoking rates have declined since the 1960s, health officials noted that rates have leveled off in the last decade. About 21 percent of U.S. adults and nearly 20 percent of high school students smoke cigarettes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Today marks an important milestone in protecting our children and the health of the American public," Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the U.S. department of Health and Human Services, said Wednesday.

The FDA will accept public comment on the proposed labels through January 2011, and will select nine to use by June 2011. The agency will then require all manufacturers to use the labels on all U.S. sold cigarettes by October 22, 2012.

"When the rule takes effect, the health consequences of smoking will be obvious every time someone picks up a pack of cigarettes," said FDA commissioner, Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg.

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US Debt Proposal Would Cut Social Security, Medicare - Bloomberg

Erskine Bowles, co-chairman of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

A presidential commission’s leaders proposed a $3.8 trillion deficit-cutting plan that would cut Social Security and Medicare, reduce income-tax rates and eliminate tax breaks including the mortgage-interest deduction.

The co-chairmen of the panel appointed by President Barack Obama suggested reducing Social Security spending by raising the retirement age to 68 in about 2050 and 69 in about 2075. The plan also would slow the rate at which benefits grow. The savings would come between 2012 and 2020.

“This country’s out of money and we better start thinking,” said co-chairman Erskine Bowles. Without “tough choices,” he said, “we’re on the most predictable path toward an economic crisis that I can imagine.”

Bowles, former President Bill Clinton’s chief of staff, and Republican former Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming announced the proposal in Washington today, stressing that it was intended as a starting point for discussion.

None of the proposals would take effect next year to avoid disrupting the economic recovery. Bowles said income-tax rates would be reduced to three levels: 8 percent, 14 percent and 23 percent.

Wiping out all tax breaks, including the home mortgage deduction, while lowering rates would save $100 billion a year, Bowles said. Members of the panel could decide to keep some tax breaks by offering offsetting cuts, he said.

Bowles said about three-fourths of the savings would come from spending cuts with the remainder from tax increases.

‘Harpooned Every Whale’

“We have harpooned every whale in the ocean and some of the minnows,” Simpson said. “No one has done this before.”

The proposal would attempt to slow health-care costs by paying doctors participating in Medicare less, and it calls for “comprehensive” legislation to reduce medical malpractice costs.

Discretionary spending cuts in the plan include reducing congressional and White House budgets by 15 percent, freezing federal salaries and cutting the federal workforce by 10 percent. The discretionary reductions of $1.4 trillion would be split equally between defense and domestic programs, Bowles said.

“The cuts really will happen on both sides of that firewall,” he said.

The plan would cut the deficit to 2.2 percent of gross domestic product by 2015, from the current 9 percent, exceeding Obama’s goal. It would also reduce debt to 60 percent of GDP by 2024.

“This is Al’s and my proposal, nobody else’s,” Bowles said. “The president hasn’t seen this proposal.” Some members of Obama’s financial team have seen the plan and they liked some things and not others, he said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Heidi Przybyla in Washington at hprzybyla@bloomberg.net; Brian Faler in Washington at bfaler@bloomberg.net;

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva@bloomberg.net

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Cargo plane bomb plot: ink cartridge bomb 'timed to blow up over US' - Telegraph.co.uk

A Scotland Yard spokesman said the cargo plane arrived at East Midlands Airport from Cologne at 2.13am BST and left at 4.20am BST "after the suspect package had been removed".

"Forensic examination has indicated that if the device had activated it would have been at 10.30am BST," he said.

"If the device had not been removed from the aircraft the activation could have occurred over the eastern seaboard of the US."

He added that the bomb was "disrupted" when explosive officers removed the printer cartridge from the printer during their initial examination of the device at about 7.40am BST.

Experts in Germany said the bomb, and another found in Dubai, contained at least 300g (10.58oz) of the powerful explosive PETN.

It had travelled through a UPS hub at Germany's Cologne airport before being detected in the UK following the tip-off, officials said.

Both devices, which were bound for Chicago, originated in Yemen and are thought to have been made and dispatched by al Qaida.

An anti-terror investigation was focusing on Saudi-born bomb-maker Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, believed to be a member of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (Aqap), as the prime suspect for making the bombs.

He is also believed to have been responsible for making the device involved in the failed Christmas Day bomb plot over Detroit last year.

As part of new security measures brought in following the foiled attacks, countries sending airfreight to the UK will be "graded" according to risk, Transport Secretary Philip Hammond said.

Rules which allowed some freight not to be rescreened if it was merely passing through the UK were being amended, he added.

Ink cartridges larger than 500g (17.6oz) will be banned from hand baggage on flights departing from the UK and also on cargo flights unless they originate from a regular shipper with security arrangements approved by the Department for Transport.

The FBI and Homeland Security Department in the US have warned local officials across the country that packages from abroad with no return address and excessive postage required a second examination.

They added that Aqap was not behind the September 3 crash of a UPS cargo plane in Dubai, despite claims to the contrary from the group itself.

Crash investigators have found no evidence of an explosion on board the UPS cargo plane.

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Rihanna Calls 'Love The Way You Lie' Sequel 'A Challenge'

'The original, it was so massive, so it's hard to do a version that's kind of like that,' she tells MTV News at the EMAs.
By James Montgomery

Rihanna
Photo: Ian Gavan/Getty Images

MADRID — Rihanna has already said that she was initially "completely against" including a "Love the Way You Lie" sequel on her upcoming Loud album, but — as the recent leak of the track can attest — she eventually softened her stance.

So what made her change her mind? It's all due to the tireless trial-and-error work of producer Alex Da Kid, who not only crafted the original version of the song, but tinkered at length on "Part II," eventually coming up with an updated take on the track that had Rihanna's head spinning.

" 'Love the Way You Lie (Part II)' actually started off just as a broken-down piano version," she told MTV News at the 2010 MTV Europe Music Awards on Sunday. "And then we added some drums, and then we added Eminem, and finally we came up with the version we love."

Though Rihanna is quick to praise the contributions of Eminem, who once again goes verse-for-verse with her on the sequel, she didn't waste any time in applauding the efforts of Alex Da Kid either. After all, he knew the challenge in following-up a smash hit — and he was more than up to the task.

"Alex is amazing," Rihanna said. "That was the challenge: How do you compete with 'Love the Way You Lie' part one? The original, it was so massive, so it's hard to do a version that's kind of like that, but Alex, he changed the drums up and surprised me once again. ... I love it."

The 2010 EMAs will air on Friday, November 12, at 9 p.m. ET on MTV.

Related Artists

• Rihanna
• Eminem

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Interactive: 2010 Gubernatorial Election Results Maps - Texas Tribune

Perry By 10 in New UT/TT Poll  |  10/25/10

Republican Gov. Rick Perry leads his Democratic challenger, Bill White by 10 points — 50 percent to 40 percent — in the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll, which was conducted in the days leading up to early voting. Libertarian Kathie Glass has the support of 8 percent of respondents; Deb Shafto of the Green Party gets 2 percent.

In the last UT/TT poll, conducted in early September, Perry led by 6 points, 39 percent to 33 percent. That poll also found 22 percent undecided; in this poll, undecided voters were pressed to say which candidate they would choose if ...

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