If you're not the type to take care of your belongings, you might want to check out Outlier's new Minimal Backpack when you're on the hunt for a new bag. You can think of it as the Tonka truck of carry-alls, except that instead of metal it's actually made from a lightweight fabric called Dyneema that has a strength-to-weight ratio that's about ten to fifteen times stronger than steel.
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ALLEN PARK, Mich. (AP) — Ndamukong Suh has been fined by the NFL.
Again.
The Detroit Lions defensive tackle was docked $31,500 by the league for a hit on Cleveland Browns quarterback Brandon Weeden, a person familiar with the decision told The Associated Press. The person spoke Wednesday on condition of anonymity because the fine had not been announced.
Suh insisted earlier in the day he was unaware the NFL was reviewing his actions during Sunday's game, but acknowledged being used to the scrutiny.
"I think there is always going to be a microscope on me," he said. "I think there has been a microscope on me since I was first drafted."
Since Detroit selected Suh No. 2 overall in 2010, he has been fined seven times for more than $200,000. He lost $165,294 in pay during a two-game suspension in his second season for stomping on the right arm of Green Bay's Evan Dietrich-Smith.
Earlier this season, Suh was docked $100,000 for an illegal block on Minnesota center John Sullivan in Week 1 during an interception return. He lost an appeal last week, upholding the largest fine in NFL history for on-field conduct, not counting suspensions.
Suh wasn't penalized for his latest act that drew discipline, but it was shown on a video posted on NFL.com as vice president of officiating Dean Blandino said he wanted to look at it more for "potential helmet to the body."
Lions center Dominic Raiola — perhaps Suh's most vocal supporter — saw Suh's hit on Weeden after he threw a pass and said it was "ridiculous" that the league was even considering discipline.
"The guy is violent, football is a violent game," Raiola said. "I don't think you can ever make hitting somebody soft."
Raiola noted the officials had a better view, and didn't throw a flag.
"They were right there," Raiola recalled. "It was a football play, to me. But I guess maybe my view of football now is different than the way football is viewed now. I really don't know what they're looking at."
Suh knows the league is looking at everything he does, saying nothing in life is fair, but said it won't make him want to leave the game.
"Not everything is going to go your way in life," he said. "I understood that and grew up that way. It's just like for me, I wanted a Nintendo 64 when I was little and my mom said, 'No.' I had to deal with it."
And, now the Cincinnati Bengals (4-2) have to deal Suh on Sunday when they play at Detroit (4-2). Bengals left tackle Andrew Whitworth said Suh's after-whistle hits have diminished his ability to be known as a great player, but doesn't think he's a dirty player.
"He's not dirtier than guys that played the game back in the day," Whitford said. "The real truth is now he plays the game in an era where there's a TV camera covering every single possible thing on the field and a lot of stuff gets put on film. People know about it. Outside of that, people would never even know some of these antics. I think he plays the game on the borderline level with a lot of intensity and sometimes it carries on into extra stuff."
NOTES: Lions WR Calvin Johnson (right knee), RB Joique Bell (ribs) and CB Rashean Mathis (groin) were limited Wednesday while S Louis Delmas (knee) and OT Jason Fox (knee) were held out of practice. ... WR Patrick Edwards, who was cut earlier this week, was added to the practice squad and FB Shaun Chapas was released from the practice squad.
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Online:
AP NFL website www.pro32.ap.org
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Follow Larry Lage on Twitter: http://twitter.com/larrylage
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-10-16-FBN-Lions-Suh/id-9984f7bfe57049c4951ad598a295165eSenate Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., walks to the Senate floor after agreeing to the framework of a deal to avoid default and reopen the government on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013 in Washington. The partial government shutdown is in its third week and less than two days before the Treasury Department says it will be unable to borrow and will rely on a cash cushion to pay the country's bills. (AP Photo/ Carolyn Kaster)
Senate Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., walks to the Senate floor after agreeing to the framework of a deal to avoid default and reopen the government on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013 in Washington. The partial government shutdown is in its third week and less than two days before the Treasury Department says it will be unable to borrow and will rely on a cash cushion to pay the country's bills. (AP Photo/ Carolyn Kaster)
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, speaks to reporters waiting outside a closed-door meeting of Senate Republicans as news emerged that leaders reached a last-minute agreement to avert a threatened Treasury default and reopen the government after a partial, 16-day shutdown, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013. Cruz said he would not try to block the agreement. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio arrives on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013, in Washington. Chaos among Republicans in the House of Representatives has left it to bipartisan leaders in the Senate to craft a last-minute deal to fend off a looming U.S. default and to reopen the federal government as a partial shutdown entered its 16th day. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Senate Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., walks to his office after arriving on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013 in Washington. Aides to Senate Democrat Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the leaders resumed talks Tuesday night and voiced optimism about striking an agreement Wednesday that could pass both houses of Congress and reach President Barack Obama's desk before Thursday, when the U.S. Treasury says it will begin running out of cash. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is followed by reporters as he walks to a Senate GOP meeting on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013 in Washington. The partial government shutdown is in its third week and less than two days before the Treasury Department says it will be unable to borrow and will rely on a cash cushion to pay the country's bills. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate leaders announced last-minute agreement Wednesday to avert a threatened Treasury default and reopen the government after a partial, 16-day shutdown. Congress raced to pass the measure by day's end.
The Dow Jones industrial average soared on the news that the threat of default was fading, flirting with a 200-point gain in morning trading.
"This is a time for reconciliation," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of the agreement he had forged with the GOP leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
McConnell said that with the accord, Republicans had sealed a deal to have spending in one area of the budget decline for two years in a row, adding, "we're not going back."
One prominent tea party lawmaker, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, said he would oppose the plan, but not seek to delay its passage.
That was a key concession that signaled a strong possibility that both houses could act by day's end. That, in turn, would allow President Barack Obama to sign the bill into law ahead of the Thursday deadline that Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew had set for action to raise the $16.7 trillion debt limit.
Officials said the proposal called for the Treasury to have authority to continue borrowing through Feb. 7, and the government would reopen through Jan. 15.
There was no official comment from the White House, although congressional officials said administration aides had been kept fully informed of the negotiations.
In political terms, the final agreement was almost entirely along lines Obama had set when the impasse began last month. Tea party conservatives had initially demanded the defunding of the health care law as the price for providing essential federal funding.
Under a strategy set by Obama and Reid, Democrats said they would not negotiate with Republicans in exchange for performing what the White House called basic functions of keeping the government in operation and preventing Treasury from defaulting on its obligations.
A long line of polls charted a steep decline in public approval for Republicans in the course of what Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., pronounced a "shameful episode" in the nation's history.
While the emerging deal could well meet resistance from conservatives in the Republican-controlled House, the Democratic Leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, has signaled she will support the plan and her rank and file is expected to vote for it in overwhelming numbers.
That raised the possibility that more Democrats than Republicans would back it, potentially causing additional problems for House Speaker John Boehner as he struggles to manage his tea party-heavy majority.
Boehner and the House Republican leadership met in a different part of the Capitol to plan their next move. A spokesman, Michael Steel, said afterward that no decision had been made "about how or when a potential Senate agreement could be voted on in the House."
The developments came one day before the deadline Lew had set for Congress to raise the current $16.7 trillion debt limit. Without action by lawmakers, he said, Treasury could not be certain it had the ability to pay bills as they come due.
In addition to raising the debt limit, the proposal would give lawmakers a vote to disapprove the increase. Obama would have the right to veto their opposition, ensuring he would prevail.
House and Senate negotiators would be appointed to seek a deficit-reduction deal. At the last minute, Reid and McConnell jettisoned a plan to give federal agencies increased flexibility in coping with the effects of across-the-board cuts. Officials said that would be a topic for the negotiations expected to begin shortly.
Despite initial Republican demands for the defunding of the health care law often derided as "Obamacare," the pending agreement makes only one modest change in the program. It requires individuals and families seeking subsidies to purchase coverage to verify their incomes before qualifying.
There were some dire warnings from the financial world a day after the Fitch credit rating agency said Tuesday it was reviewing its AAA rating on U.S. government debt for possible downgrade.
John Chambers, chairman of Standard & Poor's Sovereign Debt Committee, told "CBS This Morning" on Wednesday that a U.S. government default on its debts would be "much worse than Lehman Brothers," the investment firm whose 2008 collapse led to the global financial crisis.
Aides to Reid and McConnell said the two men had resumed talks, including a Tuesday night conversation, and were hopeful about striking an agreement that could pass both houses.
It was expected to mirror a deal the leaders had neared Monday. That agreement was described as extending the debt limit through Feb. 7, immediately reopening the government fully and keeping agencies running until Jan. 15 — leaving lawmakers clashing over the same disputes in the near future.
It also set a mid-December deadline for bipartisan budget negotiators to report on efforts to reach compromise on longer-term issues like spending cuts. And it likely would require the Obama administration to certify that it can verify the income of people who qualify for federal subsidies for medical insurance under the 2010 health care law.
But that emerging Senate pact was put on hold Tuesday, an extraordinary day that highlighted how unruly rank-and-file House Republicans can be, even when the stakes are high. Facing solid Democratic opposition, Boehner tried in vain to write legislation that would satisfy GOP lawmakers, especially conservatives.
Boehner crafted two versions of the bill, but neither made it to a House vote because both faced certain defeat. Working against him was word during the day from the influential group Heritage Action for America that his legislation was not conservative enough — a worrisome threat for many GOP lawmakers whose biggest electoral fears are of primary challenges from the right.
The last of Boehner's two bills had the same dates as the emerging Senate plan on the debt limit and shutdown.
But it also blocked federal payments for the president, members of Congress and other officials to help pay for their health care coverage. And it prevented the Obama administration from shifting funds among different accounts — as past Treasury secretaries have done — to let the government keep paying bills briefly after the federal debt limit is reached.
Boehner's inability to produce a bill that could pass his own chamber likely means he will have to let the House vote on a Senate compromise, even if that means it would pass with strong Democratic and weak GOP support. House Republican leaders have tried to avoid that scenario for fear that it would threaten their leadership, and some Republicans worried openly about that.
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Associated Press writers David Espo, Andrew Taylor, Charles Babington, Stephen Ohlemacher, Henry C. Jackson and Donna Cassata contributed to this report.
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-10-16-Budget%20Battle/id-9d1de6f49f0a42c9b0b01a270f7f2641
Andreessen Horowitz-backed Aviate, a startup working to build a better interface for interacting with an increasing number of mobile apps stored on our devices, is today launching into public beta. Since its alpha debut this summer, the company racked up over 70,000 sign-ups from those looking to give this new Android launcher experience a try, and all of these early adopters will now be invited in to begin testing Aviate for themselves. Meanwhile, those signing up from this point forward will be gradually allowed in over the coming weeks as Aviate scales up to support the influx of new users.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/TJ7vqYYqojw/EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton, left, walks next to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, right, during a photo opportunity prior to the start of two days of closed-door nuclear talks Tuesday, October 15, 2013, at the United Nations offices in Geneva, Switzerland. Iran's overtures to the West are being tested as the U.S. and its partners sit down for the first talks on Tehran's nuclear program since the election of a reformist Iranian president. Negotiations between Iran and the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany began Tuesday morning at the main United Nations building in Geneva. (AP Photo/Fabrice Coffrini, pool)
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton, left, walks next to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, right, during a photo opportunity prior to the start of two days of closed-door nuclear talks Tuesday, October 15, 2013, at the United Nations offices in Geneva, Switzerland. Iran's overtures to the West are being tested as the U.S. and its partners sit down for the first talks on Tehran's nuclear program since the election of a reformist Iranian president. Negotiations between Iran and the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany began Tuesday morning at the main United Nations building in Geneva. (AP Photo/Fabrice Coffrini, pool)
US Under Secretary for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman, center, waits for the start of the two days of closed-door nuclear talks on Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2013 at the United Nations offices in Geneva, Switzerland. Iran's overtures to the West are being tested as the U.S. and its partners sit down for the first talks on Tehran's nuclear program since the election of a reformist Iranian president. Negotiations between Iran and the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany began Tuesday morning. (AP Photo/Fabrice Coffrini, pool)
Political director at the French Foreign Ministry Jacques Audibert looks on at the start of the two days of closed-door nuclear talks on Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2013 at the United Nations offices in Geneva, Switzerland. Iran's overtures to the West are being tested as the U.S. and its partners sit down for the first talks on Tehran's nuclear program since the election of a reformist Iranian president. Negotiations between Iran and the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany began Tuesday morning. (AP Photo/Fabrice Coffrini, pool)
General view prior to the start of the two days of closed-door nuclear talks on Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2013 at the United Nations offices in Geneva, Switzerland. Iran's overtures to the West are being tested as the U.S. and its partners sit down for the first talks on Tehran's nuclear program since the election of a reformist Iranian president. Negotiations between Iran and the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany began Tuesday morning at the main United Nations building in Geneva. (AP Photo/Fabrice Coffrini, pool))
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton, left, talks to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, right, during a photo opportunity prior to the start of two days of closed-door nuclear talks Tuesday, October 15, 2013, at the United Nations offices in Geneva, Switzerland. Iran's overtures to the West are being tested as the U.S. and its partners sit down for the first talks on Tehran's nuclear program since the election of a reformist Iranian president. Negotiations between Iran and the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany began Tuesday morning at the main United Nations building in Geneva. (AP Photo/Fabrice Coffrini, pool)
GENEVA (AP) — Six world powers sat down with Iran for a closer look Wednesday at what Tehran is describing as a possible breakthrough deal that could lessen suspicions it is interested in nuclear arms and lead to the easing of sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Iran says it is not interested in getting the bomb. Its proposal Tuesday to the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany focused on their demands that uranium enrichment and other activities that could be used to make nuclear arms be stopped or reduced.
No details were made public. But comments from Western officials meeting with Iranian negotiators indicated interest in the proposal, described by Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi as designed to allow Iran to leave the "dark" path of international isolation.
Iran's version of success is for painful international sanctions to be lifted in exchange for possible concessions it had been previously unwilling to consider, such as increased monitoring and scaling back of uranium enrichment — a potential path to nuclear arms and the centerpiece of the impasse with the West.
International talks designed to reduce fears that Iran may make such arms have been stalled for most of their 10-year history, with Tehran insisting it has no interest in weapons production, while resisting both enticements and sanctions designed to force it into ending uranium enrichment and other activities that could be used to make weapons.
But negotiations appear now to be driven by the new wind generated since reformist President Hassan Rouhani was elected in June.
Wednesday's meeting started several hours late, as the six powers discussed further steps among themselves before the talks resumed for a closer look at the proposal.
Asked for details beyond broad outlines made public by the Iranians ahead of the talks, a member of one of the delegations at the table said the plan offered reductions in both the levels of uranium enrichment being conducted by Iran and the number of centrifuges doing the enrichment — a key demand of the six powers.
An Iranian official said any plan would be implemented in three stages lasting from six months to a year. Both men demanded anonymity because they were not allowed to discuss the confidential plan.
Iran's state TV, which closely reflects government views, said Tehran offered to discuss uranium enrichment levels. The report also said Iran proposed adopting the additional protocols of the U.N.'s nuclear treaty — effectively opening its nuclear facilities to wider inspection and monitoring — if the West recognizes Iran's right to enrich uranium.
But the Iranian official said any acceptance of the protocols would be one of the last steps in implementing the plan.
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-10-16-Iran-Nuclear%20Talks/id-15756820968b42c093fe86965de048c2
UK supermarkets carrying their own branded tablets is apparently a thing now, and Argos has joined Tesco with its launch of the 7-inch MyTablet. Though the �100 price trumps the �119 Hudl, the tab is decidedly more budget, featuring a 7-inch, 1,024 x 600 screen, dual-core 1.6-Ghz CPU, 2-megapixel ...Cloudy skies shroud the Capitol on Monday. Congress is at an impasse as Democrats and Republicans remain at odds over the crises gripping the nation.
Cloudy skies shroud the Capitol on Monday. Congress is at an impasse as Democrats and Republicans remain at odds over the crises gripping the nation.
It's one of the oldest axioms in politics: Voters always say they want to "throw the bums out," except when it comes to their own representative. That's why the re-election rate for House members is typically over 90 percent.
Heading into the 2014 midterms, that long-standing rule appears to be holding true. But against the backdrop of the federal government shutdown, a potential default and general dysfunction in Washington, there are signs it's reaching a straining point.
According to a new Pew Research poll released Tuesday, anti-incumbency sentiment among voters is a high point — and even the local congressman isn't immune to the anger. A record-low 48 percent of registered voters want their own representative to win re-election in 2014, while 38 percent said they want to see their representative in Congress defeated — the highest percentage in more than two decades.
A record-high 74 percent of registered voters said most members of Congress should not be re-elected next year; just 18 percent of registered voters said most representatives should be re-elected.
In November 2009 — the most comparable point during the 2010 election cycle, when 58 incumbents lost re-election — 53 percent of those Pew surveyed thought most representatives should not be re-elected, while 52 percent thought their own representative deserved another term in Congress.
Pew found that Democrats were slightly more likely to say their representative should be re-elected (54 percent) than Republicans (47 percent) and independents (43 percent).
The poll was conducted during the second week of the shutdown from Oct. 9-13.
WASHINGTON (AP) — House GOP leaders Tuesday floated a plan to fellow Republicans to counter an emerging Senate deal to reopen the government and forestall an economy-rattling default on U.S. obligations. But the plan got mixed reviews from the rank and file and it was not clear whether it could pass the chamber.
The measure would suspend a new tax on medical devices for two years and take away the federal government's contributions to lawmakers' health care and top administration officials. It would also fund the government through Jan. 15 and give Treasury the ability to borrow normally through Feb. 7.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said he's "trying to find a path forward" but that "there have been no decisions about exactly what we will do." He told a news conference, "There are a lot of opinions about what direction to go."
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., involved in negotiations with Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, blasted the House plan as a blatant attack on bipartisanship.
"It can't pass the Senate and it won't pass the Senate," Reid said.
The move came as a partial shutdown entered its third week and less than two days before the Treasury Department says it will be unable to borrow and will rely on a this cash cushion to pay the country's bills.
The House GOP plan wouldn't win nearly as many concessions from President Barack Obama as Republicans had sought but it would set up another battle with the White House early next year.
"The jury is still out," said Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas.
Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., said he was not sure he could vote for the plan because it did not address the debt. "I have to know a lot more than I know now," he said.
The House move comes after conservative lawmakers rebelled at the outlines of an emerging Senate plan by Reid and GOP leader McConnell. Those two hoped to seal an agreement on Tuesday, just two days before the Treasury Department says it will run out of borrowing capacity.
The White House and Democrats quickly came out against the Republican plan. Obama planned to meet with House Democratic leaders Tuesday afternoon as negotiations continue.
"The latest proposal from House Republicans does just that in a partisan attempt to appease a small group of tea party Republicans who forced the government shutdown in the first place," said White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage. "Democrats and Republicans in the Senate have been working in a bipartisan, good-faith effort .... With only a couple days remaining until the United States exhausts its borrowing authority, it's time for the House to do the same."
"GOP's latest plan is designed to torpedo the bipartisan Sen solution," tweeted Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md. "Plan is not only reckless, it's tantamount to default."
Political pressure is building on Republicans to reopen the government and GOP leaders are clearly fearful of failing to act to avert a default on U.S. obligations.
Republicans are in a difficult spot, relinquishing many of their core demands as they take a beating in the polls. Rep. Steve Southerland, R-Fla., led GOP lawmakers in several verses of "Amazing Grace."
"We have to stick together now," said Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas.
Like the House GOP bill, the emerging Senate measure — though not finalized — would reopen the government through Jan. 15 and permit the Treasury to borrow normally until early to mid-February, easing dual crises that have sapped confidence in the economy and taken a sledgehammer to the GOP's poll numbers.
"There are productive negotiations going on with the Republican leader," Reid said as he opened the Senate Tuesday. "I'm confident we'll be able to reach a comprehensive agreement this week in time to avert a catastrophic default."
On Wall Street, stocks were mixed early Tuesday, with investors somewhat optimistic over a potential deal.
"We're willing to get the government open. We want to get the government open," Scalise said. "Hopefully they get something done that addresses the spending issue."
The competing House and Senate plans are a far cry from the assault on "Obamacare" that tea party Republicans originally demanded as a condition for a short-term funding bill to keep the government fully operational. It lacks the budget cuts demanded by Republicans in exchange for increasing the government's $16.7 trillion borrowing cap.
Nor do either the House or Senate frameworks contain any of a secondary set of House GOP demands, like a one-year delay in the health law's mandate that individuals buy insurance.
Another difference between the Democrats and Republicans involves a Democratic move to repeal a $63 fee that companies must pay for each person they cover under the big health care overhaul beginning in 2014. Unions oppose the fee and Senate Democrats are pressing to repeal it, but House Republicans are positioning to block them and Senate Republicans are adamantly opposed as well.
Democrats were standing against a GOP-backed proposal to suspend a medical device tax that was enacted as part of the health care law, but might not be able to win a floor vote since many Democrats oppose the tax too.
Democratic and Republican aides described the outlines of the potential agreement on condition of anonymity because the discussions were ongoing.
But with GOP poll numbers plummeting and the country growing weary of a shutdown entering its third week, Senate Republicans in particular were eager to end the shutdown — and avoid an even greater crisis if the government were to default later this month.
Any legislation backed by both Reid and McConnell can be expected to sail through the Senate, though any individual senators could delay it.
But it's another story in the House. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, signaled that conservative members of the House were deeply skeptical. He said any bill had to have serious spending cuts for him to vote to raise the debt ceiling and said he thought Obama and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew had more flexibility than they had said publicly.
"No deal is better than a bad deal," Barton said.
In addition to approving legislation to fund the government until late this year and avert a possible debt crisis later this week or month, the potential pact would set up broader budget negotiations between the GOP-controlled House and Democratic-led Senate. One goal of those talks would be to ease automatic spending cuts that began in March and could deepen in January, when about $20 billion in further cuts are set to slam the Pentagon.
Democrats also were seeking to preserve the Treasury Department's ability to use extraordinary accounting measures to buy additional time after the government reaches any extended debt ceiling. Such measures have permitted Treasury to avert a default for almost five months since the government officially hit the debt limit in mid-May, but wouldn't buy anywhere near that kind of time next year, experts said.
The House GOP plan would repeal the extraordinary measures, which would make the Feb 7 date a hard deadline to revisit the fight.
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Associated Press writers Donna Cassata, David Espo, Henry C. Jackson, Julie Pace and Alan Fram contributed to this report.
13 hours ago
ABC
Elizabeth Berkley and Val Chmerkovskiy got "So Excited" on "Dancing With the Stars."
Monday night was Memorable Year night on "Dancing With the Stars," wherein the stars shared the times that really moved them — through dance. But by the end of the show, it was viewers who found themselves waltzing down memory lane.
That's because actress Elizabeth Berkley took them back to school — Bayside High, class of 1993, to be exact.
Yes, channeling her "Saved by the Bell" alter ego, Jessie Spano, Berkley delivered a faithful, hilarious and oh-so-apt tribute to a fan-favorite scene for the classic sitcom — the moment Zach (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) found her strung on the hard stuff … caffeine pills.
In the ballroom version of events, Elizabeth was flying high on "DWTS"-brand jive pills, and when partner Val Chmerkovskiy confronted her, she couldn't contain herself.
"I'm so excited! I'm so excited! I'm so … ready," she said hysterically before kicking off a jive to the only possible song to suit the setup, "I'm So Excited."
As she bounced her way through the high-stepping routine (while Mario Lopez, aka A.C. Slater, looked on), "Saved by the Bell" fans stepped over to Twitter to express their own excitement.
But unfortunately for Elizabeth, the "Dancing" judges weren't quite as excited.
Well, returning head judge Len Goodman liked what he saw and Bruno Tonioli thought it was fun, but Carrie Ann Inaba nitpicked the kicks and spotted a small slip early in the dance.
All of that resulted in a 26 for Elizabeth, and on any other night, that would have been a boon. But the scores were sky-high for other dancers on Memorable Year night, and a 26 left Elizabeth in jeopardy.
Good thing for her, scores only mean so much on "Dancing With the Stars."
As if to prove that point, Christina Milian hit the dance floor with a cha-cha that wowed the panel. Bruno called it "indecently hot." Carrie Ann dubbed it "something special." And Len not only considered it "fantastic, he handed out the first 10 of the season for the hip-shaking dance (giving her a total of 28 points).
But when it was all over, it turned out to be Christina's last dance of the season. Those scores couldn't counteract a lack of viewer votes.
The news came as a shock to Christina, who turned to pro partner Mark Ballas and said, "What?!" when her elimination was announced.
"It's a true shock," she said. "I wasn't expecting that."
The night was full of shocks.
Just as surprising as Christina's not-so-helpful 10 from Len was Amber Riley's 7 from Len — after performing one heck of a high-energy foxtrot.
Amber was on point throughout the routine, as reflected in the scores she got from Carrie Ann (9) and Bruno (yet another 10 for the season). But Len's problem with the performance didn't have anything to do with her. It was simply the fact that pro Derek Hough just didn't put enough foxtrot into their foxtrot.
Corbin Bleu got a shocking score too. His foxtrot continued the 10-trend (thanks to Bruno), but he almost saw double perfect digits. It seems Carrie Ann would have given him a 10 too, but she deducted a point for a lift at the beginning of the dance.
Corbin's partner, Karina Smirnoff, protested, insisting her toe always stayed on the floor. The video backs up her story, but as host Tom Bergeron informed fans later in the evening, judge's scores can't be changed.
Still, it's a safe bet that Leah Remini wishes they could be. After delivering a dance to celebrate her liberation from … well, most likely the Church of Scientology, but she didn't name names Monday night, Leah learned that her contemporary routine didn't leave Len and the gang smiling.
They gave her just 22 points, and she held back from giving them a piece of her mind.
"What am I thinking? You don't want to know," she told Tom. "No, you really don't. It's not for this audience."
Yowza.
As for the rest of the pack, Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi, Jack Osbourne and Brant Daugherty all tied with 27 points for their respectable efforts for the night. And Bill Engvall, with just 24 points, at least edged out Leah and escaped last place.
'Donatella,' 'Fashion!,' and R. Kelly collabo 'Do What U Want' among the album's 15 songs.
By Gil Kaufman
Photo by Joe Klamar/AFP/GettyImages
One dreary October Saturday I was sitting in a Starbucks in downtown Washington reading my review copy of Brad Stone’s The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon. My iPhone was running low on charge, and the charger I normally keep in my bag was gone. There was a Radio Shack across the street. They had the charger I needed and the price was perfectly reasonable. While ringing me up, the cashier asked the inevitable question: Would I like to pay Radio Shack extra money for a worthless one-year warranty that clearly made no sense whatsoever for such a low-value piece of commodity electronics?
Of course he didn’t exactly put it that way. But that was the value proposition. And you could tell by his demoralized tone that he neither expected nor wanted me to buy the warranty. Yet whether at Radio Shack, at Best Buy, or at the former Circuit City, this sort of tactic is integral to the business model. Stone doesn’t have much to say about Radio Shack or Best Buy or Barnes & Noble in his book. But he should, because the real nature of Amazon’s achievement is about customer relations, not just online ordering.
The story of Bezos’ personal life is well-told in The Everything Store, forming a sort of entrepreneurial stations of the cross. There’s a childhood gifted with educational opportunities but marred by the absence of his biological father (“belonging to a unicycle troupe didn’t pay much,” Stone writes). There’s the relentless drive and determination from an early age. There’s the youthful job at D. E. Shaw & Company, the hedge fund whose mercurial founder redefined the industry and showed the power of thinking outside the box. We’ve got the daring decision to start a new company—literally in a garage at first. Then comes the key early six-figure investment in the company by Bezos’ mom and stepdad—a forceful reminder of the deeply uneven playing field in American life.
If you’re interested in the company, Stone’s history is consistently engaging and full of amusing anecdotes. Bezos’ high-school valedictorian speech outlined “his dream of saving humanity by creating permanent colonies in orbiting space stations while turning the planet into an enormous nature preserve.” During the company’s early years, executives from Seattle had to help staff up distribution centers during the holiday rush. The strong labor market made it hard to obtain quality temp help; one early hire dispatched to Delaware “watched one worker get fired for intoxication and then wet himself while he tried to protest.” At a high-level executive meeting shortly before the launch of Amazon Web Services, Bezos unilaterally lowered the price. When warned that would cause the company to lose money on AWS for a long time, the CEO simply replied, “Great!”—he thought high profits would only attract competition.
The best part of the book is set during the early-to-mid aughts, when the post-dot-com blues raised serious questions as to whether the company could continue to exist at all. Of today’s tech giants, the vast majority were either founded well before (Apple, Microsoft) or well after (Google, Facebook) the great technology mania of the 1990s. Most companies from that era failed, of course. And most of the survivors such as AOL, Yahoo, and eBay, are more or less struggling. Amazon stands alone as a dial-up-era company thriving in the present day. But this was a close thing. The 1999 iteration of Amazon had all the problems of a classic money-bleeding bubble company. It was only a well-timed European bond issue that let Amazon avoid a disastrous financial crunch.
Amazon subsisted for several years thanks to cash injections from deals it made to run the website back-ends of several big box retailers, including Toys-R-Us, Target, Borders, and Circuit City. These tales, coming from a time when Amazon was neither a fascinating startup nor a dominant player, are not well-known, and they nicely illustrate the combination of hard work, intelligence, and old-fashioned dumb luck it takes to succeed in business.
As the book goes on and Amazon survives, then thrives, then dominates, the shrewd business dealings of its CEO can begin to look more menacing. Scrappy negotiating from a startup feels more like bullying from an incumbent. Stone’s recounting of the hardball tactics Bezos used to acquire Zappos and Diapers.com are slightly horrifying. Faced with promising newcomers to e-commerce spaces that he wanted to add to his empire, Bezos in both cases opened with lowball acquisition offers. When rebuffed, instead of negotiating he launched ferocious price wars, selling shoes and diapers at far below wholesale cost. Once it was clear Bezos would rather lose millions destroying rivals than spend them on higher acquisition prices, both firms were induced to sell and join the Amazon family. And hey, at least those Web startups got buyout offers and ultimately made money from Bezos’ empire-building. Bookstore chains just got stomped on.
But throughout it all, Amazon stays remarkably true to its core vision of long-term growth via customer satisfaction. The company and its CEO are not without their dark sides, but it’s never consumers who have cause to complain. When Bezos throws sharp elbows his tactic is almost always to lower prices. The official company line that everything they do is in pursuit of better serving their customers sounds self-serving, but as best anyone can tell it’s true. Even in its best years, Amazon’s profit margins are thin, and in recent quarters they’ve been losing money. I once described the company as “a charitable organization being run by elements of the investment community for the benefit of consumers,” which prompted a reply from Bezos who explained that long-term shareholder value is created by building long-term relationships with customers.
This is where the absence of a comparative perspective in Stone’s book hurts it. Bezos’ core ideas—long-term focus, consumers first—are correct but hardly earth-shattering. But while most companies just pay lip service to this stuff, Amazon stands out by actually doing it. The deep structure of American financial capitalism almost compels focus on the next quarterly earnings report. That, rather than stupidity, is what leaves Radio Shack addicted to brand-killing warranty pitches and kept Barnes & Noble perennially a day late and a dollar short on the Web. CEOs are loath to deliberately take a short-term profit hit, no matter the long-term upside. Companies change and adapt not when they should, but when they have no choice—and by then it’s usually too late.
What makes Bezos probably the greatest businessman in America today (I should note that Slate has an affiliate relationship with Amazon, though unlike our former corporate partners at the Washington Post we’re not owned by Jeff Bezos) is his ability to actually stick with these ideas. It’s not so much that he sees things other executives miss, but that he manages to actually do them. Nobody has been better at keeping Wall Street’s confidence even during a quarter or two of bad earnings, or at keeping his team’s confidence even during a year or two of bad stock performance. Stone’s narrow focus occasionally exaggerates the originality of Bezos’ vision (Amazon wasn’t the first online bookstore, or the first company to focus on everyday low prices, or the first vendor of cloud computing services) while understating his unusual mastery of the larger corporate game.
With the holiday season fast approaching, it looks like Nokia is eager to bump up sales in the UK lest it get trounced by the competition. For Vodafone customers shopping around for a new Windows Phone, that means getting a free year-long Netflix subscription with the purchase of a Lumia 1020. ...Affecting drama exposes a brutal real-world phenomenon.
Reykjavik International Film Festival, New Visions
P.J. Boudousque, James C. Burns, Chris Petrovski, Octavius J. Johnson, Nicholas Bateman, Stephanie Simbari, Mackenzie Sidwell Graff, Clayton LaDue, Tommy Nash, Scott MacArthur, Michael Rousselet, Brandon Bilotta
Vincent Grashaw
In chain-gang movies of the past, men wound up condemned to inhumane lock-ups and open-ended sentences because they had no loved ones to come looking for them. Today, according to Vincent Grashaw's ire-raising Coldwater, loved ones pay to give their children to despots, trying to fix their own parenting failures by sending troubled teens to privately run rehab centers that are unregulated by the government and often brutal. Grashaw's convincing drama distills this underexposed world into the story of a single young man trying to survive a system designed to break him. Emotionally accessible but formally reserved enough not to feel like a cause movie, the picture has plenty of potential beyond the fest circuit if given the right kind of attention.
P.J. Boudousque plays Brad Lunders, who is awakened one morning by strangers -- not policemen -- dangling handcuffs above his cheek. As his mother watches on, he's dragged out of his home and thrown into a van with other boys, bound for a remote camp surrounded by razor wire and ruled by thugs. This is Coldwater, where his parents hope he'll be scared straight after a few years of small-time drug dealing and related trouble.
The camp's director is gruff retired Marine Colonel Frank Reichert (James C. Burns) whose talk is blustery but makes a hard-boiled sense: Give up whatever ideas you have about yourself, he tells his new charges, because they clearly aren't working for you. His employees, however -- former inmates who've supposedly bettered themselves -- don't know what the second word in "tough love" means: They're sadistic instead of stern, doling out arbitrary and extreme punishments. Reichert is blind to their abuses; whether that's by choice or ignorance, we don't yet know.
As Grashaw fleshes out the dehumanizing environment here, he offers occasional glimpses of Lunders's life before incarceration, with buddy Gabriel Nunez (Chris Petrovski) as a semi-innocent sidekick who wound up suffering for Brad's poor judgment. As he enters his second year at Coldwater -- now a line-toeing inmate who might graduate soon from trusty to guard -- Nunez is sent to the camp, a newly-hardened kid whose attitude is bad enough it might get him killed.
Grashaw has an affinity for the misdirected energies of these troubled teens and their despair in the face of their jailers' capricious punishments. He and co-screenwriter Mark Penney) introduce incidents that tie the story to prison films of the past, then gradually exploit the novelty of this setting, heightening the mood of isolation with glimpses of outside authorities who should be able to see what's going on here and intervene, but fail to in sometimes wrenching ways. The script's dramatic finale is shockingly violent but just within the bounds of the credible, an eruption of justified rage that speaks for the real-world youths (dozens since 1980, according to closing titles) who have died in juvenile rehab centers the government refuses to monitor.
Production Company: Flying Pig Productions
Cast: P.J. Boudousque, James C. Burns, Chris Petrovski, Octavius J. Johnson, Nicholas Bateman, Stephanie Simbari, Mackenzie Sidwell Graff, Clayton LaDue, Tommy Nash, Scott MacArthur, Michael Rousselet, Brandon Bilotta
Director: Vincent Grashaw
Screenwriters: Vincent Grashaw, Mark Penney
Producers: Kris Dorrance, Dave Gare, Vincent Grashaw
Executive producers: Joe Bilotta, Mike Dorrance
Director of photography: Jayson Crothers
Production designer: Geoff Flint
Music: Chris Chatham, Mark Miserocchi, Flying Pig Productions
Costume designer: Tricia Grashaw
Editor: Eddie Mikasa
Sales: Continental Media
No rating, 103 minutes
Zade Rosenthal/Universal Studios and DreamWorks
"Cowboys & Aliens"
Universal Pictures might have thought that comic book author Steven John Busti's lawsuit over the 2011 film Cowboys & Aliens was frivolous, but the studio still spent more than $186,000 on lawyers defending it.
Busti sued in Texas federal court, claiming that a 2006 graphic novel about aliens crash-landing in the Wild West infringed his 1995 story, titled Cowboys & Aliens. The plaintiff asserted that the movie was derivative of the graphic novel, and thus, another infringement of his work.
In late August, U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks dismissed the lawsuit. His ruling didn't dwell on the movie -- the judge said he was "spared the necessity of watching Cowboys & Aliens more than once" -- but rejected the copyright claim because the graphic novel wasn't "strikingly similar" to Busti's comic.
Now comes an arguably closer call as the judge has to decide whether Universal should be allowed to recover the $186,000 paid to attorneys at Haynes & Boone, who say they spent 544 hours on the case at a $250-$400 per-hour rate.
In a motion for attorneys' fees, the defendants (including Platinum Studios) point to the judge's decision that there was "no fact issue as to factual copying," "no evidence of access," "no showing of striking similarity" and "overwhelming, conclusive evidence of independent creation." Busti was also warned by defendants that his claims were barred by the statute of limitations and that he failed to state the basic elements of a claim.
In response, Busti points to the judge's findings of a number of similar elements shared by both works, which didn't rise to copyright infringement, but what he says wasn't a claim "frivolous or objectively unreasonable." (Busti also appealed the judge's order on Monday to the 5th Circuit.)
You be the judge. Here's the court's ruling, which starts out with a Johnny Cash lyric with aliens added.
In other entertainment law news:
CANTON ? We were standing outside the hotel, waiting for the bus to take us to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the last stop of the journey that took Mickey Corcoran and his Jersey guy prot?g? from Oradell to the shrine of football immortals, when his mind began drifting back to that summer of 1956 when he first laid eyes on Bill Parcells.
The occasion was a summer basketball camp, which Corcoran had organized in an effort to get a head start on his program as the head basketball coach for the new regional River Dell High School from the towns of Oradell and River Edge. ?I had already done my homework,? Corcoran, 92, was saying now. ?I?d asked around to find who were the best athletes in Oradell and River Edge and everyone I talked to said the same thing ? the Parcells kid. So I?m watching him working out on the court, and I could tell immediately they were right. He was just physically better ? he wasn?t that fast but he had great quickness, agility and instincts.
?He was just so much better than everyone else.?
Nevertheless, Corcoran was warned Parcells might be in need of an attitude adjustment. A week or so into the summer basketball camp, he was paid a visit by Parcells? dad, ?Chubby,? a legendary football player at Hackensack High and then Georgetown. Corcoran who himself had played high school basketball at St. Cecilia?s in Englewood ? where his coach was Vince Lombardi ? knew all about Chubby and was both surprised and honored he had taken the time to check in on his son?s new basketball coach.
PHOTOS: PARCELLS' HALL-OF-FAME CAREER
?Chubby showed up unexpectedly and took me aside and said: ?Sometimes Duane (Bill?s birth name) needs a boot in the ass. Feel free to take care of business.? At the same time, Bill was checking me out to see what I was doing. It wasn?t until the football season was over and Bill came over to basketball that we started really getting to know each other. I threw him out of the gym two-three times that first year for not controlling his emotions. But he always came back the next day because I knew he?d come back. He was too much of a competitor. ?In a JV game his sophomore year, we?re up 17 points in the second half and he got a (technical). I put him on the bench and now the lead goes from 17 to nine to six and down to none. I was not going to put him back in, though, and we wound up losing by one. If I?d have put him back we probably would?ve won the game but I would?ve lost Parcells.?
As Corcoran recounted the story we were suddenly joined by Parcells himself on the sidewalk. Grinning and embracing Corcoran, Parcells said: ?We?re a long way from Hagler?s (the landmark Oradell bar and restaurant where Parcells hug out as a kid and later held court all through the ?80s and ?90s when he came home to coach the Giants). ?I was telling Billy here about the Park Ridge game . . . ,? Corcoran said.
?Never mind,? Parcells said, interrupting him. ?Your job was to win. It was a good thing you had the principal in your back pocket.?
* * *
RELATED: MYERS: PARCELLS GIVES THANKS TO HALL
In the summers, Parcells played baseball, mostly catching, in every age limit league he could get himself into ? and Corcoran followed him around all over Bergen County, as did major league scouts. After graduating from River Dell, he went to Colgate on a football scholarship, and in the summer of ?59, he was playing baseball in a semi-pro league when a Phillies scout named Ben Marmo offered him a bonus of $50,000. But when he told Chubby, the old man told him he couldn?t take it, that he had to finish college.
?Bill was crushed,? Corcoran said. ?He really wanted to play pro baseball. I have no doubt if they?d had a baseball draft in 1958 when he was graduating from high school, he would not have ever been in pro football ? and we wouldn?t be standing here in front of this building waiting to see him inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.?
Once again, however, it was Corcoran, through his college coaching connections, who got Parcells headed back into football. Furious at his father for not allowing him to sign with the Phillies, Parcells proceeded to quit Colgate after his sophomore year, whereupon Chubby kicked him out of the house in Oradell and told him to get a job.
?Bill shows up at my office at 8:30 one morning in September and says: ?I need your help,? ? Corcoran said. ?He told me he?d committed himself to football and wanted to upgrade to a stronger football program. So I called Hank Foldberg, the head coach at Wichita, who I?d known when he was at West Point, and arranged to get Bill a partial scholarship there.?
RELATED: MYERS: COUGHLIN COULD JOIN PARCELLS IN HOF ONE DAY
Upon graduation from Wichita, Parcells was selected as a linebacker in the fourth round of the NFL draft by the Detroit Lions. But as he said: ?I realized I wasn?t good enough for the NFL. I was married and I needed to get a job. So I went right into coaching.? His first coaching job was as a defensive assistant at tiny Hastings College in Nebraska. After that first year, he called Corcoran and asked him if he?d look into the assistant coaching vacancy at Army, where the head coach, Tom Cahill, had been his former coach at River Dell. ?I called Cahill and told him of Parcells? interest and at first he was a little skeptical,? Corcoran said. ?He asked me why he should hire Bill and I told him: ?For one reason. He?s one of us!? That fall, Corcoran made regular trips to West Point to watch the Cadets? practice sessions. ?I just watched the way Bill interacted with those kids. All the things I tried to instill in him ? the discipline, the coach/player relationships, it was there. You either have it or you don?t. And he had it from the very beginning.?
Theirs would remain a lifelong bond, mentor and prot?g?. In all his years as one of pro football?s most successful coaches in history ? without a doubt the most successful ?turnaround? coach in history ? Parcells surrounded himself with some of the most astute and respected assistants in the business, coaches such as Bill Belichick, Romeo Crennel, Dan Henning, Sean Payton and Tom Coughlin, but on the plane rides to the Super Bowls, the coach who sat next to him, the coach he used as a sounding board, was the coach who threw him out of the gym at River Dell all those years ago. ?I never knew anyone as superstitious as Bill,? Corcoran was saying as we strolled the room of the Friday night enshrinees? Gold Jacket dinner, where Parcells had arranged for a table for him right in front of the dais. ?We?re flying out to California for the first Super Bowl (XXI) versus Denver (in 1987) and I take out my briefcase to do some paperwork for my job as an evaluator of the Big East officials, and what do I see, right on top, but a little ceramic elephant with its tail up. ?What the hell is this?? I say. ?Where did this come from? I didn?t put this in here. (His wife) Delores must have put this in here.? Bill turns to me and says: ?No. I put it in there. It?s an Italian thing for good luck ? an elephant with its tail up.? ?
He was on the sidelines, right behind Parcells, for both the Giants? victorious Super Bowls under the now Hall of Fame coach, as well as all the other championship games, and now, 57 years after that summer basketball camp in Oradell, Mickey Corcoran, the coach?s coach who?d been there for him through all of it, was here for the final chapter in his prot?g??s career: immortality.
?On the plane flight home from that first Super Bowl,? Corcoran recalled, a tear filling in his eye, ?he told me: ?I?ll never let them forget you.? ?
And in his Hall of Fame acceptance speech Saturday night, Parcells kept his word. Looking down at Corcoran sitting in the front row, he told the crowd: ?I want to tell you about a special guy. He?s here tonight. He?s 92 years old. He?s my high school basketball coach. His name?s Mickey Corcoran. He was everything a 14-year-old guy needed ? coach, teacher, disciplinarian, butt-kicker. He?s been like a second father. He knows the love I have in my heart for him. As I said, he?s 92 and I?ve got to get 10 or 15 more years out of you, buster, so let?s go.?
Corcoran waved, and at that moment they were indeed a long way from Hagler?s.
Bill Parcells isn?t the only Hall of Famer that Mickey Corcoran mentored. He also guided a young Bill Madden, the author of this column, who was inducted into the sportswriters wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2010. And like Parcells, whom Corcoran helped get a football scholarship to Wichita State, Madden also got assistance from Corcoran in securing a track scholarship to the University of South Carolina.?
Source: http://feeds.nydailynews.com/~r/nydnrss/sports/~3/gkBj1km5kVU/story01.htm
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Raven Symone has officially come out.
In celebration of hearing the Supreme Court?s decision to overturn The Defense of Marriage Act and the recent legalizations of gay marriage in Rhode Island and Minnesota, the actress took to Twitter and tweeted, ??I can finally get married! Yay government! So proud of you.?
Symone was then met with overflowing support and the actress even retweeted some of her favourite responses.
@MissRavenSymone Can I have your spot in the Cheetah Girls? Disney might not like you anymore.
? Thugnificent. (@SilentKoalaBear) August 2, 2013
?
She been out, momma just didn?t have time for bullshit. and I LIVVVEEE ?@_BeatrixKiddoo: You better come out sis. @MissRavenSymone?
? Golden Oreo. (@H8teTheeSquares) August 2, 2013
?
My childhood remains intact. Because it?s based on her good acting skills and show, not sexuality. Congrats @MissRavenSymone
? Maddie Catanzaro (@MaddieCatanzaro) August 3, 2013
?
In the past, the star has said her sexual orientation was a private matter.??My sexual orientation is mine, and the person I?m datings to know. I?m not one for a public display of my life,? she posted Twitter page in May 2012.
But releasing a statement yesterday, she said, ?I was excited to hear today that more states legalized gay marriage. I, however am not currently getting married, but it is great to know I can now, should I wish to.?
Source: http://www.andpop.com/2013/08/03/raven-symone-comes-out-on-twitter/
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SAN ANTONIO (Aug. 2, 2013) -- A group that got its start in Army Entertainment is the driving force behind the American Military Spouses Choir, an "America's Got Talent" quarterfinalist scheduled to perform Aug. 6 at Radio City Music Hall in New York.
The show will be televised live at 9 p.m. ET on NBC.
The American Military Spouses Choir competing on "America's Got Talent" consists of 37 spouses of active-duty military personnel, including 10 Army wives whose husbands range in rank from sergeant to major general. All told, there are 50 military spouses in the choir, ranging in age from 19 to 54, whose husbands range in rank from corporal to two-star general.
The group is the brainchild of Victor Hurtado, an Army Entertainment veteran who has performed in and directed programs such as the U.S. Army Soldier Show, Operation Rising Star, Military Idol and Stars of Tomorrow, among others, for nearly three decades. Hurtado also founded CAMMO, a non-profit Center for American Military Music Opportunities, which supports the military wives choir.
The group was assembled for a May 6 performance at the 2012 Kennedy Center Spring Gala: An Evening with David Foster & Friends in Washington, where they sang "The Promise That We Make," an original song co-written by Charlie Midnight, who penned "Living in America" for James Brown, and Bernie Herms, who arranged the Natalie Grant version of "Joy to the World."
"They were supposed to do a one-night performance at the Kennedy Center," Hurtado deadpanned. "And, oh, by the way, I put them together over the Internet while directing the last two weeks of Soldier Show last year."
Several clips of Foster introducing the American Military Spouses Choir are available on YouTube, as is footage of them singing "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" on "America's Got Talent."
The lead vocalist for that number, Melissa Gomez, won Army Entertainment's 2010 Operation Rising Star, a military singing contest about to embark on its ninth season.
"Melissa has risen to the top from the very beginning," Hurtado said. "Her training that she got over the years with Army Entertainment was extremely evident."
The military wives climbed their first mountain, which obviously was not high enough, May 10 in Chicago, and advanced to the second round in Las Vegas, where they were told July 16 to pack their bags for a trip to New York City.
"Their performance was strong enough to put them through," said Hurtado, who explained that 60 acts advanced to the "America's Got Talent" quarterfinals in New York, where 12 will perform each week for five weeks. "There were a few that were put through without having to perform again [in Las Vegas]. It's going to keep going because these ladies ain't playin'."
Vicki Golding, Army Entertainment's 2006 Military Idol champion, is the choirmaster for the American Military Spouses Choir.
"She is the reason why we're able to do what we do," Hurtado said. "I send her the arrangements, she writes out the parts, and then Joey [Beebe] checks our work. She has become a real viable music director/choirmaster."
Beebe, another former Soldier Show performer, currently serves as music director of Army Entertainment's marquee program. He also works with Soldiers and military family members competing in Operation Rising Star.
"Joey Beebe is the music director for CAMMO, so that makes him the music director for all the artists that fall under CAMMO," Hurtado said. "When the ladies first met -- they actually met the night before the gig at the Kennedy Center. They had never met before. And Joey has had that choir since that night. He taught them the song. He made it sound amazing. And they performed the next day at the Kennedy Center.
"David Foster said it was some of the best vocal choral work, dynamically, musically, pitch-wise, everything, that he had ever experienced in his life. And he told Joey that himself. Joey just stood there and listened. I've never seen Joey at a loss for words like that before."
Ron Henry, another former Army Entertainment performer and original member of the 4TROOPS recording group, also helps the American Military Spouses Choir.
"He's in line to work with the ladies when one of us is not there," Hurtado said. "Vicki, Joey, Ron and I have all groomed so well that we can all sing, fill in for 4TROOPS, or conduct a choir. To have that sort of stable, that we are all interchangeable like that, is pretty satisfying for someone who had Sgt. Henry coming to Alaska with me, and Spc. Beebe coming to be the first assistant director, or Vicki Golding, who won Military Idol and sings so beautifully and is such a skilled music director. Who knew, right?"
And then there are the ladies getting it done on stage for their troops.
"I have been a military spouse for 34 years and this choir experience validates what I have learned about all military spouses," said Karen Gravlin Bartell of Fort Eustis, Va. "They are strong, loyal, resourceful, supportive, kind-hearted, honest and, of course, talented. "America's Got Talent" and Radio City Music Hall are giving us the chance to show that to America."
"I love being part of a choir that sings in tribute to our military," said Michelle Gable of Fort Meade, Md. "I sing to say 'thank you.' I sing to say 'I love you.' I sing so that those who are silent will be remembered."
"Being in the choir is a dream come true for me," said Gomez, an Army veteran and spouse with the 7th Special Forces Group at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. "I feel I am part of something so special that is afforded to me because I am a military spouse. Being in New York is still surreal! Performing at Radio City Music Hall solidifies our status as true artists in the music industry and our cause is one worthy of recognition."
"First and foremost, I am in total awe, total shock of where we are now: New York City!" said Yari Dominguez of Fort Rucker, Ala. "And we'll be performing at Radio City Music Hall, where the big dogs perform - where legends have paved that path for others' dreams. It's a true honor to be singing with such an amazing group of ladies, knowing we all represent and stand for the same reason. It's a blessing - a once in a lifetime experience."
"This experience for me is more than just a competition," said Crystal Wood of Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, D.C. "This choir has given me a sisterhood and a support system that I have never had. The love and support we have received from not only military families, but also from the public, is incredible. So many times as a military family, we are isolated and struggle alone. Since being on the show, so many families have said that we have inspired them, when in fact their support has inspired us. We are representing not only military families but also anyone who has been separated from their loved ones or experienced difficult situations. We are a beacon of hope for so many, that no matter how difficult the journey may be, you can always find a glimmer of light and the end of even the darkest tunnel. Performing at Radio City Music Hall is affirmation that as a society we all should support each other and we can overcome even our darkest moments."
"What it means to me to be in this choir is that I'm not alone," said Stephanie Holberg of Fort Leavenworth, Kan. "It's a blast being in New York City, beyond a dream to perform at Radio City Music Hall, and a huge honor to give military spouses a voice. In a world where you hear so much negative news, this is such an amazing forum to share our stories and share something positive and patriotic like military spouses singing for their husbands and choir."
The remaining Army wives in the choir: Brandy Albert and Rachael Smith, both of Fort Belvoir, Va., Deidra Lee Stubbs of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., and Sonjia Perry of Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va.
Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, dropped by to visit during one of the American Military Spouses Choir rehearsals and his wife, Deanie, personally thanked the ladies.
More than 35,000 auditioned last autumn for this season of "America's Got Talent," which will culminate in September.
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