Jordin Sparks, Leona Lewis, David Cook, Celine Dion and Beatles music for Olympic Figure Skating

February 27, 2010 -- The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver may be held to showcase athletics and skill, but for those in the figure skating audience tonight, music is a factor. This is especially so tonight at the exhibition skate when these ice stars glided to songs familiar around the world. Many of the songs chosen came from recording artists who have recently come up the ranks in reality contestant shows like American Idol and X Factor, while other music moved toward the more classical tunes of yesteryear.

Celebrity musicians featured last night in Vancouver included Jordin Sparks, Leona Lewis, and David Cook. Ice-bound performers set their choreography to the beauty of the music while dancing all over the rink in front of an enthusiastic audience. Also included in the popular list of tunes was the Beatles with their iconic tune Yesterday......... read more>>

Jordin Sparks, Leona Lewis, David Cook, Celine Dion and Beatles music for Olympic Figure Skating

Chile and Haiti: A Tale of Two Earthquakes

The 8.8-magnitude earthquake that hit Chile early on Feb. 27 was 500 times stronger than the 7.0 quake that killed an estimated 200,000 Haitians last month. And yet the number of casualties in Chile appears to be exponentially smaller, with the official death toll still in the hundreds. Far fewer people were rendered homeless than in Haiti, and much of the telephone service in Santiago and parts of central Chile had been restored within five hours. (Read a TIME reporter's first-hand account of the earthquake in Chile.)

Comparisons between the two countries will no doubt be much discussed when the U.N. hosts a conference in New York City on March 31 to hash out how best to help Haiti rebuild. Donor governments already know why there was so much less destruction........ read more>>

Chile and Haiti: A Tale of Two Earthquakes

Debra Medina, new star of America's right, is firing up the race for Texas governor

Lytle is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it kind of town, one of hundreds that dot the vast flat ranchlands of southern Texas. A smear of houses by the main highway between San Antonio and Laredo. Population: 2,383. The first streets only got paved here in the years after the second world war.

A sewage system took a little longer, not being built until the 1960s. In short, Lytle, Texas, has never been big enough to have much impact on the politics of the Lone Star state. And few Texas politicians have ever paid much attention to it.Until Debra Medina, that is. When Medina breezed into Lytle's community hall the locals found themselves confronted with a Texan version of Sarah Palin.

She wore a sharp scarlet skirt suit, librarian-style glasses and a puffed-up hairdo. More than 60 Lytle residents had gathered to meet her, a hefty turnout on a weekday at 11am for a Republican ........ read more>>

Debra Medina, new star of America's right, is firing up the race for Texas governor

Time for Obama to meet Ahmadinejad

The two-day visit by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, to Syria and his warm meetings with his Syrian counterpart as well as with the leaders of the Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas have ruffled many feathers in the US, Europe and Israel.

Although they said much about the future of the region, including the end of the 'Zionist regime', the anti-Israeli gathering has sent a primarily strategic not polemical message: We stand united - an attack on one of us is an attack on all....... read more>>

Time for Obama to meet Ahmadinejad

8.8 quake strikes Chile

SANTIAGO, CHILE—A MASSIVE 8.8-MAGNITUDE EARTHquake struck Chile early Saturday, killing at least 78 people, collapsing buildings and setting off a tsunami.

A huge wave reached a populated area in the Robinson Crusoe Islands, 660 kilometers off the Chilean coast, said President Michele Bachelet.

In the moments after the quake, people streamed onto the streets of the capital, hugging each other and crying.

“Never in my life have I experienced a quake like this, it’s like the end of the world,” one man told local television from the city of Temuco, where the quake damaged buildings and forced staff to evacuate the regional hospital....... read more>>

8.8 quake strikes Chile

'State of Catastrophe' After Chile Quake

RIO DE JANEIRO -- A deadly 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck central Chile early Saturday, ripping apart buildings, highways and bridges and leaving a path of smoky rubble across a long swath of this earthquake-tested country before sending waves rumbling across the Pacific Basin.

At least 300 people died, according to local news services that quoted the director of Chile's emergency management office, and more than 1.5 million people were displaced. The death toll was expected to rise, particularly around Concepción, Chile's second-largest metropolitan area, which is roughly 70 miles from the quake's center.

There, cars lay mangled and upended on streets littered with telephone wires and power cables. A new 14-story apartment building fell, while an older, biochemical lab at the University of Concepción caught fire......... read more>>

'State of Catastrophe' After Chile Quake