Obama's big Hispanic win worries Republicans

FILE - In this Oct. 26, 2012, file photo, Spanish language election campaign signs promoting President Barack Obama hang on the windows at Lechonera El Barrio Restaurant in Orlando, Fla. Hispanics supported President Barack Obama over Republican Mitt Romney by almost 3-to-1 and put Republicans on notice they must take real steps to win over the nation?s largest minority group if they want to win the presidency again. Exit polls say that Romney, who has backed hardline immigration measures, won only 27 percent of Hispanics. (AP Photo/Julie Fletcher)

FILE - In this Oct. 26, 2012, file photo, Spanish language election campaign signs promoting President Barack Obama hang on the windows at Lechonera El Barrio Restaurant in Orlando, Fla. Hispanics supported President Barack Obama over Republican Mitt Romney by almost 3-to-1 and put Republicans on notice they must take real steps to win over the nation?s largest minority group if they want to win the presidency again. Exit polls say that Romney, who has backed hardline immigration measures, won only 27 percent of Hispanics. (AP Photo/Julie Fletcher)

In this Oct. 19, 2012 photo, Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat who became New Mexico's first Latina elected to Congress after winning the state's open 1st Congressional District race on Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2012, is shown speaking with Hispanic voters at Barelas Coffee House in Albuquerque, N.M. Among many troubling signs for Republicans Tuesday night was the continued drift of Hispanics _ the nation?s fastest-growing ethnic group _ into the blue column. Republican Mitt Romney backed hardline immigration measures during the primary and won only 27 percent of the Hispanic vote Tuesday, less than any presidential candidate in 16 years. (AP Photo/Russell Contreras)

Miami-Dade Elections Department employee Mandy Montanez folds absentee ballot tally reports in Doral, Fla., Thursday, Nov. 8, 2012. Elections Supervisor Penelope Townsley says the agency has ?no more than 500? ballots to count Thursday. Elections workers are uploading some 21,000 ballots into the system today after uploading 10,000 on Wednesday.(AP Photo/Alan Diaz)

DENVER (AP) ? Omayra Vasquez blinks and does a double take when asked why she voted to re-elect President Barack Obama. The reason for her was as natural as breathing.

"I feel closer to him," said Vasquez, a 43-year-old Federal Express worker from Denver. "He cares about the Spanish people."

Millions of Hispanic voters seconded that emotion Tuesday with resounding 71 percent support for Obama, tightening Democrats' grip on the White House and putting Republicans on notice that they must seriously court the nation's largest minority group if they want to win the presidency again.

According to initial exit polls, Republican candidate Mitt Romney, who backed hard-line immigration measures, came away with 27 percent Hispanic support, less than any presidential candidate in 16 years. It also was a sharp drop from the 44 percent claimed by President George W. Bush in his 2004 re-election after he embraced immigration reform.

"We could have won this election if the party had a better brand name with Hispanics," said Al Cardenas, chairman of the American Conservative Union. "I don't believe there's a path to the White House in the future that doesn't include 38 percent to 40 percent Hispanic support."

Cardenas said Hispanics were only a large part of a worrisome trend in the electorate, which is increasingly comprised of younger and minority voters who traditionally do not back Republicans. If the 1980 electorate looked like the 2012 version, he added, Jimmy Carter would have defeated Ronald Reagan.

Matt Schlapp, who was political director of George W. Bush's 2000 campaign, drew parallels between the GOP's standing with Hispanics and the party's troubles with African-Americans, who now routinely back Democrats by 9-1 margins. "The idea that we would somehow copy that with the Hispanic community is troubling," he said.

Hispanics have long favored Democrats. But they have been trending even more sharply toward that party since Republicans stymied Bush's immigration proposal and favored hard-line immigration measures that critics decried as racially motivated.

Romney tapped an author of Arizona's controversial immigration law to advise him during the GOP primaries and called for "self-deportation" to lower the number of illegal immigrants. Obama, meanwhile, announced in June that immigration authorities would grant work permits to people brought here illegally as children who graduated high school or served in the military. The directive energized a Hispanic electorate that had been disappointed by Obama's inability to overhaul the U.S. immigration system.

Recognizing the political impact, House Speaker John Boehner said Thursday that he wants the next Congress to tackle an immigration bill.

"This issue has been around far too long," Boehner said in an interview with ABC News' "World News." ''A comprehensive approach is long overdue, and I'm confident that the president, myself, others can find the common ground to take care of this issue once and for all."

Interviews with voters as they left their polling places this week found that Hispanics gave Obama his winning margin in Colorado, Nevada and Virginia. They also account for his narrow lead in Florida, where votes were still being counted on Thursday.

Even before the races were called, some Republicans took to the airwaves and social media to call on the party to pull back from its hard-line stance and embrace certain immigration reforms.

It's unclear whether the results would change the party's opposition to legalizing the status of some illegal immigrants. In a conversation with the Des Moines Register last month, Obama predicted that GOP opposition could crumble after Hispanics delivered the White House to him. The conversation was initially off the record but later published with the president's consent.

"And since this is off the record, I will just be very blunt," Obama said. "Should I win a second term, a big reason I will win a second term is because the Republican nominee and the Republican Party have so alienated the fastest-growing demographic group in the country, the Latino community."

On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he would introduce immigration legislation next year and that Republicans would reject it "at their peril."

Opponents of an immigration deal warned that Republicans should not take the Democrats' bait. Steve Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies noted that Hispanics have reliably backed Democrats for decades, even after President Ronald Reagan signed an immigration amnesty law in 1986 that gave many of them legal status. Those new American citizens, Camarota said, turned into Democrats.

Camarota and other supporters of immigration restrictions contend that Hispanics lean Democratic because they favor government social programs and higher taxes on the wealthy. The GOP changed the national electorate through the 1986 law "and now they have to move with the electorate," he said. "For 30 years that we have data, Hispanics have been voting Democratic. There's no reason to think that's going to change unless the Republican Party moves away from its low-tax, low-regulation position."

NumbersUSA President Roy Beck, whose group advocates reductions in immigration levels, argues that Republicans like Romney need to explain to Hispanic voters why immigration restrictions are in their interest. "He should have talked about Hispanic unemployment and how much high immigration hurts Hispanic employment."

Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Pa., an immigration hawk, agreed and said economic issues, not immigration, are key to winning Hispanics. "You should never sacrifice your core beliefs for political reasons," he said.

The debate is nothing new for the GOP.

Mario H. Lopez, president of the conservative Hispanic Leadership Fund, said he's heard arguments like that before ? after every election in which Hispanics lean more Democratic and Republicans suffer. "The clock has been ticking," Lopez said. "Some of us have been talking about it for years. It's up to them if they want to listen or have more nights like Tuesday night."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-11-08-Presidential%20Race-Hispanics/id-487fe55321314433989f04b4e115880b

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High court to take new look at voting rights law

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Supreme Court said Friday it will consider eliminating the government's most potent weapon against racial discrimination at polling places since the 1960s. The court acted three days after a diverse coalition of voters propelled President Barack Obama to a second term in the White House.

With a look at affirmative action in higher education already on the agenda, the court is putting a spotlight on race by re-examining the ongoing necessity of laws and programs aimed at giving racial minorities access to major areas of American life from which they once were systematically excluded.

"This is a term in which many core pillars of civil rights and pathways to opportunity hang in the balance," said Debo Adegbile, acting president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

In an order Friday, the justices agreed to hear a constitutional challenge to the part of the landmark Voting Rights Act that requires all or parts of 16 states with a history of discrimination in voting to get federal approval before making any changes in the way they hold elections.

The high court considered the same issue three years ago but sidestepped what Chief Justice John Roberts then called "a difficult constitutional question."

The new appeal from Shelby County, Ala., near Birmingham, says state and local governments covered by the law have made significant progress and no longer should be forced to live under oversight from Washington.

"The America that elected and reelected Barack Obama as its first African-American president is far different than when the Voting Rights Act was first enacted in 1965. Congress unwisely reauthorized a bill that is stuck in a Jim Crow-era time warp. It is unconstitutional," said Edward Blum, director of the not-for-profit Project on Fair Representation, which is funding the challenges to the voting rights law and affirmative action.

But defenders of the law said there is a continuing need for it and pointed to the Justice Department's efforts to block voter ID laws in South Carolina and Texas, as well as a redistricting plan in Texas that a federal court found discriminated against the state's large and growing Hispanic population. "What we know even more clearly now than we did when the court last considered this question is that a troubling strain of obstructing the path to the ballot box remains a part of our society," Adegbile said.

Since the court's decision in 2009, Congress has not addressed potential problems identified by the court. Meanwhile, the law's opponents sensed its vulnerability and filed several new lawsuits.

Addressing those challenges, lower courts have concluded that a history of discrimination and more recent efforts to harm minority voters justify continuing federal oversight.

The justices said they will examine whether the formula under which states are covered is outdated because it relies on 40-year old data. By some measures, states covered by the law are outperforming some that are not.

Tuesday's election results also provide an interesting backdrop for the court's action. Americans re-elected the nation's first African-American president. Exit polls across the country indicated Obama won the votes of more than 70 percent of Hispanics and more than 90 percent of blacks. In Alabama, however, the exit polls showed Obama won only about 15 percent of the state's white voters. In neighboring Mississippi, the numbers were even smaller, at 10 percent, the surveys found.

The case probably will be argued in February or March, with a decision expected by late June.

The advance approval, or preclearance requirement, was adopted in the Voting Rights Act in 1965 to give federal officials a potent tool to defeat persistent efforts to keep blacks from voting.

The provision was a huge success, and Congress periodically has renewed it over the years. The most recent occasion was in 2006, when a Republican-led Congress overwhelmingly approved and President George W. Bush signed a 25-year extension.

The requirement currently applies to the states of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia. It also covers certain counties in California, Florida, New York, North Carolina and South Dakota, and some local jurisdictions in Michigan and New Hampshire. Coverage has been triggered by past discrimination not only against blacks, but also against American Indians, Asian-Americans, Alaskan Natives and Hispanics.

Before these locations can change their voting rules, they must get approval either from the U.S. Justice Department's civil rights division or from the federal district court in Washington that the new rules won't discriminate.

Congress compiled a 15,000-page record and documented hundreds of instances of apparent voting discrimination in the states covered by the law dating to 1982, the last time it had been extended.

Six of the affected states, Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, South Carolina, South Dakota and Texas, are backing Shelby County's appeal.

In 2009, Roberts indicated the court was troubled about the ongoing need for a law in the face of dramatically improved conditions, including increased minority voter registration and turnout rates. Roberts attributed part of the change to the law itself. "Past success alone, however, is not adequate justification to retain the preclearance requirements," he said.

Jurisdictions required to obtain preclearance were chosen based on whether they had a test restricting the opportunity to register or vote and whether they had a voter registration or turnout rate below 50 percent.

A divided panel of federal appeals court judges in Washington said that the age of the information being used is less important than whether it helps identify jurisdictions with the worst discrimination problems.

Shelby County, a well-to-do, mostly white bedroom community near Birmingham, adopted Roberts' arguments in its effort to have the voting rights provision declared unconstitutional.

Yet just a few years earlier, a town of nearly 12,000 people in Shelby County defied the voting rights law and prompted the intervention of the Bush Justice Department.

Ernest Montgomery won election as the only black member of the five-person Calera City Council in 2004 in a district that was almost 71 percent black. The city redrew its district lines in 2006 after new subdivisions and retail developments sprang up in the area Montgomery represented, and the change left his district with a population that was only 23 percent black.

Running against a white opponent in the now mostly white district, Montgomery narrowly lost a re-election bid in 2008. The Justice Department invalidated the election result because the city had failed to obtain advance approval of the new districts.

The case is Shelby County v. Holder, 12-96.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-11-09-Supreme%20Court-Voting%20Rights/id-7b100161331d435aa061dc740e861a0c

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Can Wikipedia Predict a Box Office Hit?

A model displays a creation by designer Lanre DA Silver Ajayi, during the MTN Fashion and Design Week in Lagos, Nigeria, Saturday. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

Social Democrat party leader Algirdas Butkevicius smiles in his office in Vilnius, Lithuania, Sunday. The opposition Social Democrats, who campaigned on promises to end budget cuts and increase social spending, won the most votes in Lithuania's election, according to results of a near complete vote count late Sunday. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)

Missouri head coach Frank Haith, right, watches with new assistant coaches Dave Leitao, center, and Rick Carter, left, during the first half of an NCAA college basketball exhibition game against Northwest Missouri State Monday in Columbia, Mo. Missouri won the game 91-58. (AP Photo/L.G. Patterson)

Mitt Romney and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., sing along with the Oak Ridge Boys as they campaign at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Marion County Fairgrounds, in Marion, Ohio, Sunday. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Ukrainian opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk speaks during a news conference in Kiev, Ukraine, Tuesday. (AP Photo/Sergei Chuzavkov)

Sand bags protect the front of the New York Stock Exchange, Monday. (AP/Richard Drew)

From left to right, Chairman of the International Labor Organization Guy Ryder, International Monetary Fund Chief Christine Lagarde, OECD General Secretary Angel Gurria, France's President Francois Hollande and World Bank President Jim Yong Kim take part in a group picture following a meeting at the OECD headquarters in Paris, Oct. 29, 2012. (AP Photo/Bertrand Langlois, Pool)

On Tuesday, night falls on a Syrian rebel checkpoint in the Bustan Al-Pasha neighborhood, the boundary of the area controlled by rebel fighters at the northeast limit of the Kurdish- controlled area of Sheikh Maksoud in Aleppo, Syria. (AP Photo/Narciso Contreras)

Los Angeles Lakers' Kobe Bryant, left, and Dwight Howard, rear right, watch during the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Dallas Mavericks in Los Angeles, Tuesday. The Mavericks won 99-91. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Jake Balsiger reacts to supporters after betting all in and winning the pot on a hand during the World Series of Poker Final Table event, Oct. 30, 2012, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

Bolivia's President Evo Morales, right, and U.S. actor Sean Penn pose for photographs before participating in a friendly soccer match in La Paz, Bolivia, Tuesday. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)

Peter Hanson from Sweden watches a shot at the 11th hole during the first round of the WGC-HSBC Champions golf tournament in Dongguan, southern China's Guangdong province, Nov. 1, 2012. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

The Moscow City complex with the Mercury City tower, right, is being constructed in Moscow, Russia, Thursday. Moscow is reclaiming bragging rights for having Europe?'s tallest building after losing the distinction for a few months to London. The mixed office and residential tower called Mercury City has topped out at 338 meters (1,109 feet), officials of its development company said Thursday. (AP photo / Mikhail Metzel)

French demonstrator hold a placard reads "No Netanyahu in Toulouse" as another holds a flag of Palestine during a demonstration in Toulouse, southwestern France, Wednesday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is visiting France on Wednesday and Thursday and will pay homage to a rabbi and three Jewish schoolchildren killed in France's worst terrorist attack and worst anti-Semitic attack in years. (AP Photo/Bob Edme)

A policeman checks identity of women visiting Tiananmen Square in Beijing Thursday. Beijing usually tightens security for high-profile political events, and this one is the most pivotal for the Communist Party in 10 years. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

Iranians show their hands, with writing in Persian in support of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, denouncing the U.S. and one of them with the word "Nuclear Scientist," during an annual state-backed rally in front of the former U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran, Friday. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

San Antonio Spurs' Tony Parker (9), of France, celebrates with Tim Duncan, center, and Stephen Jackson, right, after hitting a buzzer-beating basket to end the fourth quarter of an NBA basketball game against the Oklahoma City Thunder, Thursday in San Antonio. San Antonio won 86-84. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

U.S. tennis players Venus Williams, center left, and Serena Williams, center right, pose for a photographs with school girls, during a visit to Lagos, Nigeria, Thursday. On their first visit to Nigeria, Serena and Venus Williams want to inspire local kids to set their goals high. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

Mitt Romney waves to supporters before speaking during a campaign event at Wisconsin Products Pavilion at State Fair Park, Friday in West Allis, Wis. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

New York City Marathon banners adorn an entrance to New York's Central Park, Friday. The course for Sunday's New York City Marathon will be the same since there was little damage but getting to the finish line could still be an adventure for runners from outlying areas. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1926234/news/1926234/

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ShoreTel Hosts Innovation Center at Annual Reseller Conference ...

Growing ecosystem of worldwide technology partners and resellers meet to explore new business opportunities

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Nov. 7, 2012 ? ShoreTel (NASDAQ; SHOR), the leading provider of brilliantly simple unified communications platforms, including business phone systems, applications and mobile UC solutions, today welcomes leading business communications experts, including resellers, technology partners and industry analysts, to connect and collaborate at the annual ShoreTel Champion Partner Conference (Twitter: #ShoreTel12), held this week in Orlando, Fla.

The ShoreTel Champion Partner Conference is the premier event for ShoreTel?s global reseller and distributor network, as well as for key technology partners from the ShoreTel Innovation Network. This year?s onsite Innovation Center will showcase more than 40 UC technology partners, giving resellers easy access to new solutions that will help them expand their offerings and grow their businesses.

?ShoreTel?s Champion Partner Conference is the premier opportunity for our technology partners to collectively showcase hardware, software and service solutions that extend and enhance the capabilities of ShoreTel?s brilliantly simple unified communications solution,? said Joe Vitalone, vice president channel management, ShoreTel. ?Our sponsors enjoy increased exposure to ShoreTel?s distribution channel, our executive leadership, as well as our sales and marketing teams. All of us are looking forward to learning from each other and identifying new ways to advance our UC-based businesses.?

Platinum Sponsors

OAISYS
OAISYS is a leading developer of call recording and contact center management solutions for a wide range of organizations, from small- to medium-sized businesses to multi-site large enterprises. OAISYS Talkument voice documentation and Tracer interaction management solutions help companies within a variety of industries?including healthcare, automotive dealerships, financial services and the public sector?attract and retain customers by digitally capturing phone-based interactions for simple retrieval, playback and management. ShoreTel customers rely on OAISYS solutions to address regulatory compliance, quality assurance, risk management, customer retention, dispute resolution and other critical business concerns.

?As a longtime provider of call recording and contact center management solutions to the ShoreTel channel and active member of the ShoreTel Innovation Network, OAISYS shares ShoreTel?s vision for bridging cloud and on-premise solutions to provide the best of both worlds. We?re looking forward to discussing our vision on the many ways our solutions complement one another at this year?s Champion Partner Conference.
- Bill Johnson, OAISYS Director of Marketing

Polycom
Polycom is the global leader in open standards-based unified communications and collaboration (UC&C) solutions for voice and video collaboration, trusted by more than 415,000 customers around the world. Polycom solutions are powered by the Polycom^? RealPresence^? Platform, comprehensive software infrastructure and rich APIs that interoperate with the broadest set of communication, business, mobile and cloud applications and devices to deliver secure face-to-face video collaboration in any environment.

?Both Polycom and ShoreTel are committed to offering our customers the best unified communications and collaboration (UC&C) solutions and experiences to meet their needs. We are excited to showcase our joint offerings, demonstrating how customers can continue to benefit from open standards-based solutions that bring people face-to-face for improved productivity.?
- Ron Myers, senior vice president of Global Channels at Polycom.

ScanSource Communications
ScanSource Communications understands the channel like no other distributor. And understanding the channel means understanding what your business needs. They deliver industry-leading telephony and video conferencing products and high-quality communications products and services resellers rely on. They provide the value-added services resellers need to strengthen and grow their business, including unified communications education, state-of-the-art logistics, financial services, technical support, professional services, as well as quoting and configuration tools specific to the ShoreTel product line.

?With ShoreTel?s unified communications, mobility solutions and IP phone systems, coupled with the value-added services and support ScanSource Communications is known for, we are armed and ready to help our reseller partners deploy solutions that can help them grow their communications business. We are happy to be at the 2012 ShoreTel Champion Partner Conference, expanding ecosystems and increasing value, as well as representing other industry-leading solutions, such as AudioCodes, Plantronics and Polycom.?
- Buck Baker, President, ScanSource Communications.

Gold Sponsors

HP
HP Networking has changed the balance of power in the networking industry with the FlexNetwork architecture, a converged network, server, storage and security fabric based on open standards that delivers up to twice the industry leading performance and reduces total cost of ownership by up to 60 percent.

Ruckus Wireless
Ruckus Wireless is a supplier of advanced wireless systems for the mobile networking market. The company markets and manufactures a wide range of indoor and outdoor ?Smart Wi-Fi? products for mobile operators, broadband service providers and corporate enterprises.

Silver Sponsors

911Enable	Acme Packet	Adtech Global
AVST	bridgeSpeak	Brightmetrics
CallCopy	CommSoft RMS	Contingent Network Services
dvsAnalytics	Edgewater Networks, Inc.	Enghouse Interactive
Enterasys Networks	Esna Technologies	FaxCore
GFI Software	Ingate Systems Inc.	Ingram Micro
Jabra	MarkeTel Systems	Microsemi
Multi-Tech Systems, Inc	Mutare	Palitto Consulting Services
PathSolutions	Phybridge	Red Box Recorders
Resource Software International Ltd.	Sennheiser Electronic Corporation	ShoreTel Financial Solutions (TAMCO)
SJS Solutions Ltd	Technology Sales Resource Interactive (TSRI)	TelStrat
TriVium Systems	VXSuite	Westcon

More at shoretel.com or shoretelsky.com

Source: http://itresellerworld.com/2012/11/08/shoretel-hosts-innovation-center-at-annual-reseller-conference/

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Rihanna And Kate Moss For 'V' Magazine': See The Sexy Leaked ...

It seems Rihanna is getting back to her ?S&M? roots. In an upcoming spread for V magazine by photographer Mario Testino, the ?Diamonds? siren heats things up with model Kate Moss. The pair pose in several highly sexual shots including Kate sitting on the pop star?s lap and even pic of RiRi holding a riding crop. The images were meant for the mag?s March 2013 issue, but the Bajan singer reportedly leaked the images via her own Instagram feed. We can?t blame her ? who could keep pics this hot to themselves?

Source: http://idolator.com/7260732/rihanna-kate-v-magazine

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Mexico charges agents with trying to kill CIA officers

MEXICO CITY (AP) ? Mexican prosecutors on Friday charged 14 federal police officers with trying to kill two CIA officers and a Mexican navy captain in an August ambush south of the capital.

The announcement by the Attorney General's Office did not state a motive for the attack, but said the officers have been charged with attempted homicide and damage to property.

The police officers were off duty and driving private vehicles when they opened fire, shooting 152 times at the U.S. Embassy vehicle, which was carrying the CIA officers and navy captain to a military training camp, the prosecutor's office said.

The U.S. vehicle tried to escape and more vehicles joined the aggressors in the chase as they continuously shot the diplomatic vehicle. The two CIA men were wounded, but survived. The Navy captain was not injured.

Prosecutors say the attackers changed into uniforms and arrived in police patrol cars when they were questioned.

The statement said the fact that the vehicle was armored helped the men survive.

Homicide and attempted homicide charges are usually state crimes in Mexico, but an official with the Attorney General's Office said this was a more serious case because the suspects were federal police. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

The Mexican officers have spent nearly 80 days in a form of house arrest Mexico uses in organized crime cases.

Mexican authorities initially said the attack was probably an accident by well-intentioned officers who thought they were shooting at criminals. Later, U.S. and Mexican officials who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity said they were leaning toward the idea that it was a targeted attack masterminded by a drug cartel.

Since then, Attorney General Marisela Morales has acknowledged her office was investigating whether organized crime was behind the attack.

___

Adriana Gomez Licon is on Twitter http://twitter.com/agomezlicon

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mexico-charges-agents-trying-kill-cia-men-195427856.html

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Child molester linked to Etan Patz has brief taste of freedom

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Jose Ramos, for long a suspect in the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz from a New York City street, was freed from prison on Wednesday after serving 20 years for molesting children but immediately was rearrested pending other charges.

Police said Ramos, 69, took a few steps from the prison gate at the State Correctional Institution at Dallas in northeastern Pennsylvania and was re-arrested for violating Megan's Law provisions requiring sex offenders to register their address.

Lieutenant Richard Krawetz of the Pennsylvania State Police said Pennsylvania authorities had determined that a relative who Ramos said he would live with at a New York City address had not in fact lived there for years.

Patz's disappearance as he walked to a bus from his Greenwich Village home drew national attention. He was one of the first missing children whose face appeared on a milk carton as part of an appeal for information from the public.

Ramos was found liable for Patz's death in a civil case in 2004 but no criminal charges were brought.

Another man, Pedro Hernandez, 51, was arrested last May and has confessed to luring Patz from the street and strangling him, and it was unclear whether authorities still believed Ramos had a connection with that case.

Lawyers for Hernandez, who had worked in a deli near the Patz home, said he was mentally ill.

Ramos was being held in police custody and will be arraigned later on Wednesday, Krawetz said. The penalty for violating Megan's Law is up to 10 years in prison, he said.

(Editing by Barbara Goldberg and David Storey)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/child-molester-linked-etan-patz-brief-taste-freedom-172651379.html

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Britain: Obama victory an opportunity for Syria

In this Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012 photo, a Syrian rebel fires at sniper positions in the town of Harem, Syria, near the Turkish border. (AP Photo/Mustafa Karali)

In this Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012 photo, a Syrian rebel fires at sniper positions in the town of Harem, Syria, near the Turkish border. (AP Photo/Mustafa Karali)

In this Sunday, Nov. 4, 2012 photo, a Free Syrian Army fighter fires his weapon while running for cover in the Bab al-Nasr district of Aleppo, Syria. (AP Photo/Mustafa Karali)

In this Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012 photo, Syrian rebels carry a wounded comrade in a blanket away from the frontline in the town of Harem, Syria. (AP Photo/Mustafa Karali)

In this Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012 photo, Syrian rebels carry a wounded comrade in a blanket away from the frontline in the town of Harem, Syria. Despite two weeks of attacking a Roman-era citadel in which pro-Assad militia are dug in, the rebels failed to secure the town. (AP Photo/Mustafa Karali)

In this Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012 photo, a group of Free Syrian Army fighters carry a wounded comrade to cover in the town of Harem, Syria. Despite two weeks of attacking a Roman-era citadel in which pro-Assad militia are dug in, the rebels failed to secure the town. (AP Photo/Mustafa Karali)

BEIRUT (AP) ? Britain called on the U.S. and other allies Wednesday to do more to shape the Syrian opposition into a coherent force, saying the re-election of President Barack Obama is an opportunity for the world to take stronger action to end the deadlocked civil war.

Also Wednesday, Turkey said NATO members ? including the United States ? have discussed using Patriot missiles along the Syrian border. It was unclear whether the purpose was to protect a safe zone inside Syria or to protect Turkey from Syrian regime attacks.

The announcements come as U.S. allies appear to be anticipating a new, bolder approach from Obama now that he has won a second term.

"With the re-election of Obama, what you have is a strong confidence on the British side that the U.S. administration will be engaged more on Syria from the get-go," said Shashank Joshi, an analyst at London's Royal United Services Institute, a security think tank.

It remains to be seen, however, if the U.S. plans to change course in any significant way.

Syria's civil war, which activists estimate has killed more than 36,000 people since March 2011, has been the most deadly and prolonged conflict of the Arab Spring. World powers have shown no appetite for foreign military intervention, and there are fears that arming the fractious opposition could backfire, with powerful weapons falling into the hands of extremists.

Against this backdrop, a diplomatic process that has proven increasingly moribund and faltering has been the only real option for peace thus far.

In Washington, the State Department said the Obama administration was open to considering the deployment of Patriot missiles along the Turkish border, as was done previously during the 1990 Gulf War and at the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003.

Officials said such a deployment had been raised by Turkish officials several weeks ago at NATO but that there had been no formal request from Ankara. They stressed that Patriots are defensive and would not be used to help enforce potential no-fly zones over Syrian territory.

"We've been working within NATO and with Turkey to look at what other defenses (and) support Turkey might require," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said. "As of today we haven't had a formal request of NATO. But as you know in the past, we have reinforced Turkey with Patriots. So, we will await a formal request, and then NATO will deliver aid."

A Turkish foreign ministry official who reported Patriot missile discussions between his nation and its allies, including the United States, said planning for possible Patriot deployment to protect a safe zone inside Syria had been put on hold pending the U.S. election.

But the issue is likely to be taken up now that Obama has won a second term, he added, saying any missile deployment might happen under a "NATO umbrella." He spoke on condition of anonymity in line with department policy.

A Patriot missile air defense system could be a boost for Assad's enemies. Since the summer, Assad's regime has significantly increased its use of air power against rebels as government forces are stretched thin on multiple fronts.

NATO has insisted it will not intervene in Syria without a clear United Nations mandate.

During a trip to visit Syrian refugees in Jordan on Wednesday, British Prime Minister David Cameron also announced his country will deal directly with Syrian rebel military leaders. Previously, Britain and the U.S. have acknowledged contacts only with exile groups and political opposition figures ? some connected to rebel forces ? inside Syria.

"There is an opportunity for Britain, for America, for Saudi Arabia, Jordan and like-minded allies to come together and try to help shape the opposition, outside Syria and inside Syria," Cameron said. "And try to help them achieve their goal, which is our goal, of a Syria without Assad."

Like their British counterparts, U.S. officials, including the former U.S. ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, have already been in contact with members of the Free Syrian Army and those discussions will continue, Nuland said.

She stressed, however, that there is no change to the U.S. policy of supplying only non-lethal assistance to the political opposition.

Despite Wednesday's diplomatic flurry, the bloodshed on the ground raged unabated as rebel fighters made a new drive into the capital.

Rebels fired several mortar rounds at the Syrian president's residence in Damascus early Wednesday, but failed to hit their mark, said Bassam al-Dada, an adviser to the commander of the Free Syrian Army, Col. Riad al-Assad.

"This was a very special operation that was planned for a while," al-Dada said by telephone.

Assad's current whereabouts are unknown, and the rebels' targeting of the palace, located in the Muhajireen district in the northwestern part of the city, was largely a symbolic strike on the Syrian leader's power.

Meanwhile, a judge was killed when a bomb exploded under his car, the second high-profile assassination of a top Assad loyalist in two days. The SANA state news agency said the judge, Abad Nadhwah, died instantly when the bomb was detonated remotely.

Rebels also fired mortars at a Palestinian refugee camp, activists said, apparently to try to break the resistance of a pro-government Palestinian faction. There are a half million Palestinian refugees in Syria.

When Syria's unrest began last year, the Palestinians struggled to stay on the sidelines. But in recent months, many Palestinians started supporting the uprising.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, led by Ahmed Jibril, has remained loyal to Assad, however.

The group issued a statement Wednesday saying eight of its members had been "killed and mutilated" by the rebels. It was impossible to independently verify the allegation.

In London, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said talks with rebel military leaders would not involve advice on military tactics or support for their operations. Hague also insisted that Britain would not consider offering weapons to Assad's opponents.

Face-to-face meetings with military figures will take place outside Syria, Hague said. Diplomats from the U.S., Britain, France and Turkey are already scheduled to meet with Syrian opposition groups on Thursday in Doha, Qatar, though there has been no announcement that those talks will include contacts with rebel fighters.

Hague said U.K. diplomats will tell rebel commanders to respect the human rights of captured Assad loyalists, amid concern over abuses carried out by both sides.

"In all contacts, my officials will stress the importance of respecting human rights and international human rights norms, rejecting extremism and terrorism, and working toward peaceful political transition," Hague told lawmakers.

At the Zaatari camp, which houses about 40,000 of the estimated 236,000 people who have fled into Jordan from Syria, Cameron said he would press Obama to drive forward efforts to end the 19-month-old conflict.

Cameron plans to convene a meeting of Britain's National Security Council in London devoted entirely to Syria and to discuss how the U.K. can encourage Obama to pursue a more direct strategy.

"Right here in Jordan I am hearing appalling stories about what has happened inside Syria, so one of the first things I want to talk to Barack about is how we must do more to try and solve this crisis," Cameron said.

Talks with those who fled the violence has redoubled his "determination that now, with a newly-elected American president, we have got to do more to help this part of the world, to help Syria achieve transition," Cameron added.

___

Stringer reported from London. AP writers Matthew Lee and Bradley Klapper in Washington, Dale Gavlak in Zaatari, Jordan, Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, Christopher Torchia in Istanbul and Barbara Surk and Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-11-07-Syria/id-299ecd1be31548439cadc81dabc65390

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Final "Spartacus" Season to Enter the Arena January 25

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