Video: Obama strikes populist tone in State of Union

>> the president's state of the union was not a campaign speech per se . but his populist rhetoric is something we're going to hear a lot of in the general election campaign ahead. president obama used this election year state of the union address to talk about the future and boast about what he believes are his best accomplishments.

>> the state of our union is getting stronger. we've come too far to turn back now.

>> reporter: bracing for a tough re-election fight the president struck a populist tone.

>> we can have an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone gets their fair share and everyone plays by the same rules.

>> reporter: he went out of his way to strike a patriotic tone using the words " america " and "american" 88 times.

>> what's at stake aren't democratic or republican values but american values . american manufacturers are hiring again. america is back.

>> reporter: sticking to the populist theme he went after easy targets -- wall street and congress.

>> i talked about the deficit of trust between main street and wall street but the divide between this city and the country is at least as bad.

>> reporter: foreign policy mostly took a back seat but one topic came up twice.

>> for the first time in two decades, osama bin laden is not a threat to this country.

>> reporter: the president going out of his way to use the successful bin laden mission as a lesson on how washington should work.

>> one of my proudest possessions is the flag that the s.e.a.l. team took with them on the mission to get bin laden . on it are each of their names. some may be democrats. some may be republicans. but that doesn't matter.

>> reporter: but the presidential campaign was never far from his mind. one of his signature proposals -- creating a 30% minimum tax rate for multimillionaires and billionaires.

>> asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? most americans would call that common sense.

>> reporter: the president could have been talking directly to mitt romney who released his tax returns tuesday showing he paid less than 15%. under the president's proposal romney's tax bill would more than double.

>> he thinks america is on the right track.

>> reporter: in an interview with brian williams , romney questioned the optimistic tone.

>> the idea that we are on the right track is foreign to people here.

>> reporter: the emotional high point of the evening took place before anyone uttered a word. arizona congresswoman gabby giffords who is resigning her seat today received an enthusiastic bipartisan salute, including a special greeting from the president. while the president's traditional post state of the union travel schedule looks awfully like a campaign swing, he's hitting five battleground states in three days from michigan, arizona, nevada, colorado and iowa, matt.

Source: http://video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/46128879/

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Rashad Evans says boo all you want, he likes it

This is a nice behind-the-scenes video blog following Rashad Evans. As always Evans drops some awesome lines. He talks about being a heel and that he wouldn't want it any other way (5:35 mark). Watch the end, the delivery is dynamite.

Evans faces Phil Davis in the main event of Saturday's UFC on Fox 2 card in Chicago.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/rashad-evans-says-boo-want-likes-223605991.html

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Manila seizes shipment feared bound for drugs gang (AP)

MANILA, Philippines ? Philippine customs authorities waited a month to see who would claim the suspicious shipment of "kitchen equipment" from Taiwan. The unclaimed items seized Tuesday appeared to have been meant for cooking something illegal.

A Chinese drug syndicate is suspected to have arranged the shipment to use the drumloads of chemicals, heating equiment and other items to produce large quantities of methamphetamine in the Philippines, officials said.

After a tip-off from an informant, the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission secretly monitored the arrival of the shipment as part of a new crackdown to prevent foreign-based drug syndicates from setting up clandestine drug laboratories and secret warehouses in the country, specially in the capital, said Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr., who heads the commission.

The five containers were declared by the shipper as carrying kitchen equipment. It had refrigerators, laboratory glass containers and pipes, plus 80 drums of sulfuric acid and more than 400 bags of caustic soda to make meth, Deputy Customs Commissioner Danilo Lim said.

Anti-narcotics agents were trying to find the sender and would-be recipient of the shipment, Lim said. The seized equipment strongly resembled items found in a drug-manufacturing hideout raided recently in an upscale Manila enclave, he added.

Methamphetamine is known locally as "shabu."

The Philippines continues to face an alarming drug problem despite efforts to disrupt major trafficking syndicates and dismantle clandestine labs. Corruption among law enforcers and officials and vast stretches of unpatrolled coastline make the country an attractive narcotics source and transshipment point.

Illegal drug production in the Philippines carries a maximum prison term of 40 years.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120124/ap_on_re_as/as_philippines_drugs_crackdown

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In Afghanistan, it?s dog-fight-dog world

Dmitry Solovyov / NBC News

The fight master at a dog fight outside of Kabul, Afghanistan during January 2012.

By Dmitry Solovyov , NBC News? Cameraman

Reporters? Notebook

KABUL ? Michael Vick would feel right at home here.

Just north of Kabul, on the edge of the mountains, around 1,000 people recently? gathered in the cold for a dog fight. The crowd was basically all men, of all ages, even babies, sharing in a tradition that has been going on for hundreds of years.
?
Dog fights are popular all over the country, and in some cases gambling is involved. In this particular case, we were told there was no gambling taking place, although I?m not sure that was true.
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The dog fight is led by an old man, the fight master,? who stands with a stick. He rules the show and is very powerful and very confident. The crowds gather in a series of circles, and no one steps out of line. Only the dog owners and their dogs are allowed to enter the circle.
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At the start of the fight, there is a green cloth between the dogs so they cannot see each other. The dogs are held by their owners without leashes. Then the cloth is dropped, and the dogs run towards each other and start the fight.

Dmitry Solovyov / NBC News

Some of the dogs were decorated at a recent dog fight outside of Kabul, Afghanistan.

Contrary to common belief, the goal is not for the dogs to kill one another. The winner is the dog that best controls the other ? usually by holding on to the skin that surrounds the dogs? necks ? which is decided by the old man. And once he has made his pronouncement, the fighting stops immediately.
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I know that the notion of dog-fighting is very controversial. I understand this view ? I have had dogs, and love these animals. But at the same time, the dogs do not die and the owners do not want their animals to get hurt.

In fact, the dog owners are very protective of their animals. After all, owning a fighting dog is an expensive proposition for an Afghan. One dog owner told us that the prices for a fighting dog start at $500 and go as high as $10,000 ? a lot of money anywhere, but particularly in Afghanistan.? The owners seemed to care for their dogs and treated them with respect.

Dmitry Solovyov / NBC News

Dogs fight outside of Kabul, Afghanistan on a Friday in January 2012.

That said, Afghans tend not to be concerned about cruelty to animals. Taking care of their fighting dogs is more about protecting a valuable asset.

After the fights were over, the elderly fight master told us that he has been going to fights since he was a 10-year-old, attending at first with his father. This is a part of Afghan tradition, a way of life and a bit of excitement on Fridays, the day of rest here.

NBC News? Kiko Itasaka contributed to this report.

Source: http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/23/10218753-in-afghanistan-its-dog-fight-dog-world

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Attacks in Nigeria's Kano kill over 100: security source (Reuters)

ABUJA (Reuters) ? More than 100 people were killed in bomb attacks and gunfights in Nigeria's second largest city Kano late on Friday, a senior local government security source told Reuters, in the deadliest coordinated strike claimed by Islamist sect Boko Haram to date.

"Definitely more than 100 have been killed," the source, who could not be named, said. "There were bombs and then gunmen were attacking police and police came back with attacks." Hospital staff said there were still bodies arriving at morgues in Kano.

Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for the attack. The sect has killed hundreds in the north of Africa's most populous nation in the last year.

(Reporting by Mike Oboh; Writing by Joe Brock; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120121/wl_nm/us_nigeria_blast

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Pew: Tablet, e-reader ownership nearly doubled over the holiday season

The number crunchers over at the Pew Research Center have released another batch of market statistics today, this time, with a focus on tablets. According to the Center's latest survey, 19 percent of all adult Americans now own some form of tablet, marking a nearly twofold increase over figures from a poll conducted in mid-December. E-reader ownership, meanwhile, increased by exactly the same margin over this period, jumping from 10 percent to 19 percent. These numbers also signal a healthy acceleration from the middle of this year, when the slate and reader markets apparently stagnated, ahead of the holiday shopping rush. Overall, about 28 percent of US adults own either a tablet or an e-reader, up from 19 percent last month. You can find more stats and breakdowns at the source link below.

Pew: Tablet, e-reader ownership nearly doubled over the holiday season originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 Jan 2012 08:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/23/pew-tablet-e-reader-ownership-nearly-doubled-over-the-holiday/

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Why would anyone steal Banana Sam, beloved San Francisco monkey?

A 17-year-old squirrel monkey named Banana Sam was stolen Friday morning from the San Fransciso Zoo. In the past, zoo thieves have tried to sell stolen zoo animals and even used them to impress girlfriends.

The San Francisco Zoo is offering a $5,000 reward to anyone who can help recover Banana Sam, a two-pound, 17-year-old squirrel monkey nabbed from the zoo overnight Friday. But the audacious heist of the beloved monkey begs a question: Why would anyone steal a monkey, or any other zoo animal for that matter?

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In 2009, Palm Beach, Fla., police arrested several teenagers after the heist of three squirrel monkeys and a Goeldi's monkey ? Simone, Sallie, Dougie and Elsie ? and a Green-Cheeked Amazon parrot with a gimpy leg named Chalupa. Investigators believed the animals may have been bound for sale. Available as pets in the US, the monkeys can sell for as much as $3,000.

The Palm Beach Zoo also had four tamarin monkeys stolen in 1998, three of which were recovered after they apparently escaped from their captor.

``We've seen them surface on the pet market here in Florida, so that's what we think they were taken for,'' curator Randi Meyerson McCormick told the Sun-Sentinel newspaper at the time. ``Actually, though, they're very lousy pets. They bite and scratch and they're loud. We're kind of laughing at the idea that right now someone is trying to have this monkey as a pet.''

Other zoo theft motives have been more mundane. A theft of a mother and daughter pair of Koalas from the San Francisco Zoo in 2000 turned out have been carried out by two teenage boys wanting to impress their girlfriends with exotic Christmas presents.

While zoo thefts are relatively rare in the US, a study in 2006 showed that 40 percent of European zoos had been burglarized, with over 80 monkeys stolen according to the National Theft Register in Britain. One investigator, John Hayward, likened the zoo theft rings to international crime syndicates ?like the gangs that go after art or antiques.?

More common in the US are pet thefts. The percentage of dogs stolen for sale or even for ransom rose by 32 percent from 2010 to 2011, the American Kennel Club reports.

For his part, Banana Sam has been rescued before from dire circumstances. He's one of 20 male squirrel monkeys given to the zoo in 2010 after a local research lab was shuttered. "We are hoping he has nine lives and will be rescued again," Tanya Peterson, the zoo's executive director, told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Meanwhile, someone outside the zoo has set up a Twitter account for Banana Sam, where some 1,500 people are following his imagined exploits. ?Went to monkey bars in Golden Gate Park playground, left disappointed,? @SF_Banana Sam tweeted Friday night.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/7TXtdTESkBU/Why-would-anyone-steal-Banana-Sam-beloved-San-Francisco-monkey

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