Transcripts show Italy captain says was told to approach shore (Reuters)

GIGLIO, Italy (Reuters) ? The captain of the Italian liner Costa Concordia said he was told by managers to take his ship close to shore on the night it ran aground and capsized, but the company denied having any prior knowledge of the maneuver.

The daily La Repubblica published transcripts of a conversation Captain Francesco Schettino had with a person identified only as Fabrizio in which he implicates an unnamed manager of the vessel's owners, Costa Cruises.

"Fabri ... anyone else in my place wouldn't have been so nice as to go there because they were breaking my balls, saying 'go there, go there'," Schettino says in the conversation taped while he was being held following his arrest over the incident.

"...the rock was there but it didn't show up in the instruments I had and I went there ... to satisfy the manager, 'go there, go there'."

The conversation, in a thick Neapolitan dialect which the transcription translates into standard Italian, was apparently taped without the knowledge of Schettino. It was posted on the website of the newspaper.

A source in the prosecutor's office said the transcript was genuine. Schettino's lawyer Bruno Leporatti did not dispute it but said his client should not be treated as a "scapegoat."

Investigators say Schettino steered the 114,500-tonne vessel to within 150 meters of the shore to perform a maneuver known as a "salute" in which a ship makes a special display by coming in very close to land.

"Taking a tourist ship close to shore is allowed under certain conditions and is a practice adopted by all the cruise ship companies around the world," Pier Luigi Foschi, chief executive of Costa Cruises, told the Senate on Wednesday.

"In this case the company wasn't aware of such a maneuver, and the program distributed to the cruise's passengers spoke of the ship passing Giglio island at a distance of miles."

Schettino is under house arrest and blamed for causing the accident by steering too close to shore. He is accused of multiple manslaughter and abandoning ship before the evacuation of more than 4,200 passengers and crew was complete.

At least 16 people died when the cruise ship struck a rock which tore a hole in its side and caused it to capsize off the Tuscan island of Giglio on January 13. Another 16 people are still unaccounted for. Six bodies are still unidentified.

Whether or not "salute" maneuvers were encouraged by the ship's operators is one of the key questions in the investigation.

Costa Cruise's Foschi said it was common practice "and is not dangerous by definition, but of course one cannot proceed at 16 knots there in that location."

The practice is a matter of discretion that must be planned, recorded in the ship's log beforehand and performed safely, but it is allowed, a Coast Guard source said on Wednesday.

SEARCH RESUMED

Divers resumed their search on Wednesday after blasting four new holes to open up submerged interior space in the ship almost 12 days after the accident.

"It's obvious that for all the time that has passed, and given the conditions, finding someone alive today would be a miracle," said Franco Gabrielli, head of the civil service agency, who is in charge of the state's emergency operations.

Salvage teams are continuing preparations to pump more than 2,300 tons of diesel fuel from the hulk, an operation expected to start by Saturday and last about a month.

Giulia Bongiorno, one of Italy's best-known criminal lawyers, is to represent passengers who are planning to seek damages from the cruise company.

Bongiorno represented Raffaele Sollecito when he was acquitted last year on appeal, with U.S. student Amanda Knox, of murdering Briton Meredith Kercher.

In the transcript published by La Repubblica, Schettino also suggests that he abandoned ship soon after realizing that the vessel was listing dangerously.

During questioning by magistrates, Schettino said he fell into a lifeboat while investigating the state of the ship, which suffered an electrical blackout after it struck the rock. In the confusion, he had been unable to return to the ship.

Costa Cruises, a unit of Carnival Corp, the world's largest cruise ship operator, has blamed the captain and suspended him. The company has begun disciplinary action against Schettino, a legal source told Reuters on Wednesday.

Neither the company nor individual executives, apart from Schettino and the ship's first officer, have been placed under investigation even though Schettino's lawyer has said that the probe will be extended to other parties.

(Additional reporting by Cristian Corvino and Ilaria Polleschi in Grosseto, Roberto Landucci in Rome, Emilio Parodi in Milan, and Laura Viggiano in Naples.; Writing By James Mackenzie and Steve Scherer; Editing by Giles Elgood and Robert Woodward)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120125/wl_nm/us_italy_ship

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Oddly mild winter leaves much of U.S. on thin ice (Reuters)

CONWAY, Mass (Reuters) ? Unusually mild winter weather is spoiling the fun for hockey players, skaters and ice fisherman across the Northeast and Midwest as officials warn of uncommonly thin ice.

Fish and game officials in several northeastern states have issued advisories in recent days, saying ice conditions were unsafe on lakes where ice typically reaches 10 inches thick.

In Minnesota, officials warned ice was unreliable in the southern part of the state, where temperatures topped 60 degrees for the first time on record in the first week of January.

With no ice yet recorded on Lake Erie, organizers of Buffalo's public hockey tournament of 1,000 amateur players say they may have to cancel the February 10 event for the first time in its 5-year history.

An extraordinarily mild December and early January failed to deliver the cold needed to freeze most lakes and ponds.

Meteorologists say December temperatures in the region were the warmest in five years. Massachusetts recorded 12 days when the temperature was more than 10 degrees above normal, said Mark Paquette, meteorologist with AccuWeather in State College, Pennsylvania.

As a result, winter sports enthusiasts who flock to frozen lakes and ponds are at risk, said Lieutenant Robert Bryant of New Hampshire Fish and Game.

"We've had some tragedies over the years with ice skaters," Bryant said. "Ice fishermen tend to get close to their holes and stay in one place and skaters sometimes roam about."

Very little snow is on the ground in New England, so there is less concern snowmobilers will drive onto thin ice, Bryant said.

In stark contrast with last year's long, frigid winter in the Northeast, sturdy ice is lacking on bodies of water from Massachusetts to New Hampshire. At times, conditions in southern New England have seemed more favorable for a round of golf than outdoor ice hockey.

"There are areas where the ice has started to thicken over the open water. But it's still marginal at best, and not consistent," said Colonel David LeCours, Vermont's chief game warden.

LeCours's office, in an advisory last week, warned people to use good judgment and observe safety precautions before venturing onto the ice.

"My biggest concern is, if we do get a bit of cold, it can sometimes give people an unrealistic sense and they forget the ice has only been there a day or two," he said in a phone interview. "There may be only an inch or two of ice, or less, and they don't know it until it's too late."

Weak ice forms atop ponds or open water such as lakes when warming trends break down the surface, allowing the slush to refreeze. Gusty wind, which hammered the region last week, triggers wave action that further inhibits ice formation.

In general at least 6 inches of hard ice is needed to support one person on foot, and 8 to 10 inches of hard ice is needed for a snow machine or an all-terrain vehicle, according to the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department.

In Minnesota, dozens of people have fallen through the ice this winter on foot, in cars, riding all-terrain vehicles and even an ice boat, said Tim Smalley, water safety specialist for the state department of natural resources.

Through Thursday the state had no ice-related fatalities. Four fatalities are recorded on average each year as even thick ice weakens under rising temperatures.

High temperatures reached into the 40s as far north as the border with Canada on Friday.

"It's getting soft," Smalley said. "The ice may be thick, but it is not as strong as it could be."

The icebox of the nation was melting this week, but at 18 inches thick the ice on International Falls, Minnesota, lakes was strong enough for most trucks to drive on. Forecasters expected temperatures to drop back below zero within a week.

"This truly is not the type of weather that creates winter playground conditions," International Falls Mayor Shawn Mason said in a telephone interview.

Mason said it was too early to worry about the warm front's impact on the city's Icebox Days winter festival that starts January 18 and includes a "Freeze yer Gizzard Blizzard Run."

In New Hampshire, some lakes and ponds have begun to freeze over, but officials are urging people to be patient and wait for solid ice. They should always check the thickness before going onto the ice, experts say.

In the western Massachusetts town of Conway, people created a make-shift ice rink by pumping water onto the town's outdoor tennis court. Several families took advantage of it for their first ice skating of the season on Thursday.

"This is pretty good, because you're outside," said Leslie Chaison, who was on the ice with friends and her 4-year-old daughter, Rosa. "But something about skating on a pond feels magical, as opposed to rink skating. Pond skating is the best."

(Additional reporting by Jason McLure in Littleton, N.H., Neale Gulley in Buffalo, and David Bailey in Chicago; Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Daniel Trotta)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120106/us_nm/us_ice_warning

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Bright spots, dark clouds ? Obama seeks right tone (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Bullish yet wary, President Barack Obama is highlighting recent economic bright spots while taking care not to overstate a recovery that still has not put millions back to work.

His Republican rivals, in the face of late-arriving economic good news, are making slight adjustments themselves, arguing that Obama's policies have been a drag on a recovery that could have taken hold sooner.

The competing rhetoric reflects the positive indicators in areas ranging from retail sales and housing to unemployment and falling gas prices. All this has pushed up consumer confidence, a potential barometer of political attitudes. Even Congress and Obama managed to agree on a two-month payroll tax cut extension before leaving Washington for the holidays.

But the economic signs could prove fleeting, as they were in the early spring when economist also detected upticks in activity only to watch them tumble. These new indicators may hold more promise. But a looming European debt crisis is casting a pall.

No one is more aware of that risk than Obama.

"We've got an economy that is showing some positive signs; we've seen many consecutive months of private sector job growth," Obama said last week before departing for Christmas in Hawaii. "But it's not happening as fast as it needs to."

For Obama, the danger is in promoting an economy that while, slowly recovering, has yet to reflect reality for millions of Americans, or in highlighting positive signs only to see them falter in 2012.

For David Axelrod, the Obama campaign's top political adviser, visions of a European financial meltdown are what keep him awake at night.

"I think the American economy is gaining strength, I don't think many would argue that point," he said. "The imponderable is not about that, it's really about these externalities and particularly Europe. Especially now that we've passed this threshold on the payroll tax cut and assuming that the Republicans in Congress don't want to rerun that battle, the one big thing on the horizon is Europe."

Indeed, as the year ends on an up note, leading economists surveyed by The Associated Press expect the economy will grow slightly faster in 2012 ? about 2.4 percent compared with the less than 2 percent annual growth that the economy is expected to register by the end of this year.

But underscoring the political challenges facing Obama, these same economists don't expect unemployment to drop much in a year from November's 8.6 percent rate.

The public's economic outlook is improving. An Associated Press-GfK poll in December found that 37 percent of those questioned expect improvement in the economy in the coming year. It was the first time since May that the sentiment significantly outweighed the share saying the economy would get worse in the next year.

This modestly rosy scenario is contingent on keeping any financial disruptions in Europe contained to the other side of the Atlantic. Obama has pressing European leaders, particularly German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, to act swiftly to avoid a wholesale debt crisis from taking hold. But Obama has few tools other than persuasion with which to influence an outcome.

In a trend the Obama camp is sure to watch, the public is holding Obama more accountable for the economy. The AP-GfK poll found that the percentage who says Obama deserves little or no blame for the economy's sluggishness has declined from 43 percent in October to 36 percent now.

Republicans are watching, too.

After months of asserting that conditions under Obama have worsened, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney this past acknowledged signs of improvement, but gave Obama no credit.

"I think the economy's getting better. I sure hope so," Romney told CNN on Wednesday. "There's never been a time when our economy has not recovered from recession. We will recover, but it will not be thanks to the president's policies. It will be in spite of the president's policies."

Republican pollster Wes Anderson, a veteran of congressional and presidential contests, says the first quarter of 2012 could lay down crucial markers that could affect the election results.

"If the uptick in economic indicators that we've seen here this month continues into the next month at the same general pace, it will be an interesting race and it will be very close, and there will be an opportunity for Obama to win," he said. "If economic conditions deteriorate at all, I think he's done.

"If they pick up significantly in the first quarter ? I don't know what that is, but something that is tangible for middle-class America ? he probably gets re-elected," Anderson said.

The White House is ready to have the president maintain a high economic profile, showcasing his bailout of the auto industry as a concrete example of an administration policy that saved job. Beyond that, Obama's team wants to portray the president as a champion of the middle class.

"The battle is really over the long term because the Republicans have a fundamental theory that we can cut our way to prosperity ? cut taxes for the wealthy, cut regulations, especially for Wall Street, and the economy will flourish," Axelrod said. "We've tested that theory and it failed. Badly."

"This notion that he's been there, we should fire him and we should go back to what we were doing before the crisis is not a very strong argument," Axelrod said. "And obviously to the degree that the economy improves it becomes less of an argument."

Still, even economists friendly to the administration see contradictory signals in the end-of-year upswing.

On the positive side, the number of people applying for unemployment benefits has dropped to the lowest level since April 2008. At the same time, November's dip in unemployment from 9 percent to 8.6 percent was partly the result of frustrated workers leaving the labor force and no longer looking to be hired. The private sector is hiring, but states, school districts and local municipalities are shedding jobs. Also, despite an increase in consumer spending, Americans are not seeing real income growth.

"For every positive indicator, there is an indicator on the other side that's worrisome," said Jared Bernstein, former chief economist to Vice President Joe Biden who's now with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics whose data is often cited by Democrats and Republicans, said that for all the encouraging signs, the economy still faces drags. That includes deficit reduction measures that helped reduce the debt in the long term but could cost the economy 1 percentage point in growth next year.

Washington politics poses its own challenges.

"I don't think 2012 is going to be a break out year for the economy," he said. "It is an election year and there is going to be a fair amount of political acrimony back and forth. People in business are already on edge. It doesn't take a lot for them to remain anxious and nervous."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120102/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_economy

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Ringing in the New Year in the Big Apple

NEW YORK, NY (FOX 25 / MyFoxBoston.com) - It's said to be the biggest party in the world. Crowds waited in position all day Saturday so they?d be in the perfect place to watch the iconic ball drop in New York?s Times Square.

FOX 25?s Elizabeth Hopkins checked in with Robert Moses from WNYW less than two hours before the city erupted with cheers as 2011 came to a close.
?

Source: http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/news/local/a-glimpse-at-the-new-years-festivities-in-times-square-20111231

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A New Era For Social Interest Sites: Twitter, Tumblr And Pinterest Go Big In 2011

One of the most interesting trends in comScore's 2011 social networking report is the new growth of social sites that cater to users' interests, rather than their real-life social graphs. In particular, according to comScore data, microblogging platforms Twitter and Tumblr have had break-out years, and they've been joined by new online pinboard site Pinterest. But all this growth doesn't seem to be coming at the expense of Facebook. That site's traffic growth has only appeared to slow (but not fall) in places where it is running out of new users to add. The site that has been taking a beating is MySpace. It may be that users who previously used that site to express themselves and follow the celebrities they care about are now doing the same thing across these other sites.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/NZyJyIcDU0o/

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