GENEVA — Tina Turner is on her way to becoming a Swiss citizen.
The American rock diva has lived in the Zurich suburb of Kuesnacht since the mid-1990s. The local Zuerichsee-Zeitung newspaper said on its Web site the local council announced its decision to grant the 73-year-old Turner citizenship in an official notice published in Friday's edition.
The decision still requires formal approval from state and federal authorities.
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Tina Turner
DAVOS, Switzerland --
Is the euro crisis over? A leading U.S. economist says not by a long shot.
Even as the head of the European Central Bank talked Friday of “positive contagion” in the markets and predicted an economic recovery for the recession-hit eurozone later this year, economist Barry Eichengreen warned that the debt crisis that has shaken Europe to its core could easily erupt again this year unless European leaders move faster to solve their problems.
While European governments and markets have been breathing easier in recent months after years of turmoil, it’s no time for complacency, said Eichengreen, a professor at the University of California - Berkeley who has chronicled the Great Depression and explored the consequences of a breakup of the euro currency.
“Nothing has been resolved in the eurozone, where markets have swung from undue pessimism to undue optimism,” Eichengreen told The Associated Press in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, an annual gathering of corporate and government leaders. “They said all the right things last year … and they’ve been backtracking ever since.”
He urged eurozone leaders follow up on its proposals to steady its banking system and keep failed banks from adding to government debt through expensive bailouts.
European leaders in Davos this week are seeking to reassure investors and corporate leaders that the continent is on the mend after its punishing debt crises.
European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi on Friday forecast a recovery in the eurozone economy in the second half of the year, and spoke of “a new restored sense of relative tranquility” and “positive contagion on the financial markets.”
But he acknowledged “we don’t see this being transmitted into the real economy yet.”
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) - Miami Heat starter and former Kansas star Mario Chalmers, whose buzzer-beating 3-pointer helped the Jayhawks win the 2008 national title, will have his jersey retired next month.
Chalmers was the MVP of the Final Four when the Jayhawks beat Memphis for the national championship. But it was his 3-pointer from the top of the key to force overtime that became the defining moment of Kansas' march through the tournament.
The shot is replayed during the video montage showed before every Kansas home game, and always generates the biggest roar from the crowd in Allen Fieldhouse.
Chalmers joins 27 other men and three women to have their names hoisted to the rafters. Among them are Wilt Chamberlain, Danny Manning and Paul Pierce.
SEATTLE (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp reported a dip in fiscal second-quarter profit on Thursday, as weaker sales of its Xbox game system in the holiday quarter offset a solid start for its new Windows 8 operating system.
The world’s largest software company reported profit of $ 6.4 billion, or 76 cents per share, compared to $ 6.6 billion, or 78 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter.
Overall sales rose 3 percent to $ 21.5 billion.
(Reporting by Bill Rigby; Editing by Richard Chang)
Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Mama June and Sugar Bear -- a.k.a. Honey Boo Boo's parents -- are going on almost nine years together, and in this brand new TLC clip, Mama June explains just how the two fell in love.
While for Sugar Bear it was "love at first sight," for her it was more lust at first sight!
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"Was it love at first sight? No," she admits. "Was it bed at first sight? Maybe. You gotta try the milk out before you buy the cow."
The brand-new clip is from this Sunday's Here Comes Honey Boo Boo: You Don't Know Boo! special, which will feature never-before-seen interviews and bloopers, as well as highlights from the first season. The special airs at 9 p.m. ET/PT on TLC.
Video: Honey Boo Boo Scares Mama with Mayo
Click the video to hear how Mama June and Sugar Bear met, and why Honey Boo Boo calls her father Sugar Bear.
AP
Notre Dame golden boy Manti Te’o appeared in an emotionally-driven interview with Katie Couric today, telling her that the feelings he had for what turned out to be a fake, online girlfriend were real and reiterated he had nothing to do with the hoax.
The All-American linebacker said he was truly sorrowful and pained.
He said he sustained tall tales about his fake, dead girlfriend to keep inspiring legions Irish football fans who saw him as the ultimate triumph-over-tragedy figure.
Te’o told Katie Couric that the story of gal pal “Lennay Kekua,” who allegedly died of cancer on Sept. 12 during the Irish football season, had taken a life of its own -- so he ran with it.
“I think for me the only thing I basked in was that I had an impact on people,” he said in an interview aired today.
“That people turned to me and for inspiration and I think that was the only thing I focused on.”
He added: “You know my story I felt was a guy who in times of hardship and in times of trial really held strong to his faith, held strong to his family and I felt that that was my story.”
Te’o led his Notre Dame football team to an undefeated regular season. His real grandmother died on Sept. 11 and Te’o said he was told Lennay died the next day.
City National Bank of Florida on Thursday reported record earnings for 2012, owing in large part to a one-time $136 million tax credit.
The Miami-based bank reported fourth quarter net income of $158 million, up from $4.3 million during the same quarter of 2011. For the full year, City National earned $190.2 million, compared to $34.4 million for 2011.
The bank said it received the tax credit during the fourth quarter as a result of the release of deferred tax assets. “They were released due to sustained excellent financial performance, superior asset quality and effective management,” the bank said.
Even without that one-time benefit, the bank said its $69.9 million in pre-tax, pre-amortization income, compared to $50 million in 2011, gave it a record year. City National attributed its financial performance in part to more than $1 billion in new lending.
City National has 26 branches, from Miami-Dade County to the greater Orlando area.
INA PAIVA CORDLE
The Boys and Girls Clubs of Broward County will host a Wild West-themed fundraising event featuring country artist Amber Leigh and Animal Planet’s “Gator Boys” at 6 p.m. March 23.
This will be the 17th year for the fundraiser, called Ranch Roam, which is sponsored by DEX Imaging and benefits The Boys & Girls club of Broward County.
Guests will spend time on “Alligator” Ron Bergeron’s Green Glades Ranch in Weston. The event will feature gourmet food, hayrides, western photos, live and silent auctions, line dancing and clogging demonstrations, Old West fortune tellers, an Old West casino and an “Otter” John Wildlife Experience.
Guests can also see gator wrestling by the Animal Planet’s “Gator Boys.”
For information on tickets, call 954-537-1010 or go to www.bgcbc.org.
LONDON (Reuters) – The original Mrs Robinson’s diary and scandalous suggestions about a former heir to the British throne are all part of the latest ancestral revelations to go online.
British genealogical website Ancestry.co.uk said on Tuesday it has put the transcripts of thousands of Victorian divorce proceedings online, which reveal the racy details of an era that most modern Britons consider to have been dominated by imperial duty, a stiff upper lip and formal familial relations.
The UK Civil Divorce Records, 1858-1911 date from the year when the Matrimonial Causes Act removed the jurisdiction of divorce from the church and made it a civil matter.
Before this, a full divorce required intervention by Parliament, which had only granted around 300 since 1668. The records also include civil court records on separation, custody battles, legitimacy claims and nullification of marriages, according to the website.
Primarily due to their high cost, divorces were relatively rare in the 19th century, with around 1,200 applications made a year, compared to approximately 120,000 each year today, and not all requests were successful due to the strength of evidence required.
The rarity of such cases, combined with the fact that it was wealthy, often well-known nobility involved, made the divorce proceedings huge public scandals, played out in the press as real life soap operas.
Famously high-profile divorces included that of Henry and Isabella Robinson, the inspiration for the novel “Mrs Robinson’s Disgrace”, by Kate Summerscale.
Henry Robinson sued for divorce after reading his wife Isabella’s diary, which included in-depth details of her affair with a younger married man.
The diary was used as court evidence and when reported by the media became a huge scandal, partly because of the language used within the journal. Isabella, however, claimed the diary was a work of fiction, which led to her victory in court.
Conservative MP and baronet, Charles Mordaunt, filed for divorce in 1869 from his wife Harriet who stood accused of adultery with multiple men.
The case became national news when the Prince of Wales was rumored to be among the men who had had an affair with her. This rumor was never proven and Lady Mordaunt was eventually declared mad and spent the rest of her life in an asylum.
“At the time, such tales often developed into national news stories, but now they’re more likely to tell us something about the double standards of the Victorian divorce system or help us learn more about the lives of our sometimes naughty ancestors,” Ancestry.co.uk UK Content Manager Miriam Silverman said in a statement on Tuesday.
When the divorce laws first came into effect, men could divorce for adultery alone, while women had to supplement evidence of cheating with solid proof of mistreatment, such as battery or desertion.
Despite this double standard, roughly half of the records are accounts of proceedings initiated by the wife. Many of the nullifications of marriages fall into this category, with failure to consummate the nuptials a common reason.
One such example in the records shows a Frances Smith filing for divorce in 1893 under such grounds.
In the court ledgers it is noted that the marriage was never consummated, with the husband incapable “by reason of the frigidity and impotency or other defect of the parts of generation” and “such incapacity is incurable by art or skill” following inspection.
(Reporting by Paul Casciato; editing by Patricia Reaney)
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Country singer Chely Wright and her wife, Lauren Blitzer-Wright, announced on Wednesday that they are expecting twins!
The news was revealed by the couple on the web show Gwissues, hosted by famed publicist Howard Bragman. "Coming to you live this summer, probably sometime in June," Lauren said about the babies, which will be carried by Chely.
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"They're due in July, but with identical twins you typically have to deliver a month early," Chely said. "So we are anticipating that I'll be as big as a bus, or an A-frame house by around June," she added.
Chely and Lauren -- who joked to Bragman that they are excited to be having twins but "hope we don't mess it up too badly" -- married in Connecticut in August 2011.
VIDEO: Chely Wright on 'Betraying' Her Country Fans
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