FOXBOROUGH, Mass. ? One of Bill O'Brien's first acts as the new Penn State football coach was to mourn the loss of the old one.
O'Brien said former Nittany Lions coach Joe Paterno, who died Sunday, was "an icon in the coaching profession." But he was also more than just a coach, O'Brien said in offering condolences to the Paterno family, current and former Penn State players and the rest of the university community.
"Today they lost a great man, coach, mentor and, in many cases, a father figure, and we extend our deepest sympathies," O'Brien, the New England Patriots offensive coordinator, said in a statement before the AFC championship game against the Baltimore Ravens.
"The Penn State football program is one of college football's iconic programs because it was led by an icon in the coaching profession in Joe Paterno. There are no words to express my respect for him as a man and as a coach."
Paterno died at the age of 85 from complications of lung cancer, two months after he was fired in the wake of sexual abuse allegations against one of his assistant coaches. O'Brien was hired to replace him, but he is finishing out the year with the Patriots as they reached the AFC title game for the second time in his five years with the team.
In his 46 years at Penn State, Paterno won two national championships and 409 games in all ? the most in the history of major college football.
"To be following in his footsteps at Penn State is an honor," O'Brien said "Our families, our football program, our university and all of college football have suffered a great loss, and we will be eternally grateful for coach Paterno's immeasurable contributions."
The Patriots said O'Brien did not address Paterno's death with the team on Sunday, when New England won 23-20 to advance to the Super Bowl. That means Penn State will have to wait another two weeks before O'Brien takes over the job full-time.
"I think Penn State has hired a great young man to be their head coach, someone I'm very fond of," Patriots owner Robert Kraft said in the locker room after the game. "Hopefully if we collect enough draft picks we'll be able to pick his best players."
Receiver Matthew Slater was among the players in Sunday's game offering their condolences to Paterno's family. Several of them did not know Paterno had died.
"The man was a legend and always will be," Slater said. "It's tough to fill the shoes of a legend, but I think that they picked a great coach who's a leader, who's (going to) try to build men with those kids there at Penn State. He's going to do everything he can to help that program on and off the football field, and I think he was a great hire."
But, for now, O'Brien is focused on winning the Super Bowl.
"Billy, right now, the job he's doing under the pressure that he has on his own has been phenomenal," offensive lineman Brian Waters said. "He definitely hasn't slipped one bit; it's been no distraction. You wouldn't even know that he was going to be going to a big-time job somewhere else. He's done a great job, and I expect he's going to be at an even higher level in the next two weeks."
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The Top 20 Concert Tours ranks artists by average box office gross per city and includes the average ticket price for shows in North America. The previous week's ranking is in parentheses. The list is based on data provided to the trade publication Pollstar by concert promoters and venue managers.
TOP 20 CONCERT TOURS
1. (2) Kanye West / Jay-Z; $2,093,467; $118.23.
2. (1) Cirque du Soleil ? "Michael Jackson: The Immortal"; $2,039,167; $110.54.
3. (3) Taylor Swift; $1,120,727; $68.98.
4. (5) Foo Fighters; $713,947; $51.07.
5. (6) Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band; $697,857; $70.11.
6. (7) Trans-Siberian Orchestra; $571,979; $51.82.
7. (8) Zac Brown Band; $513,132; $43.48.
8. (9) Sting; $475,037; $92.43.
9. (10) Selena Gomez & The Scene; $464,699; $45.59.
10. (12) Guns N' Roses; $415,202; $52.44.
11. (13) Deadmau5; $360,479; $48.85.
12. (14) Andre Rieu; $302,452; $77.92.
13. (19) Jeff Dunham; $300,429; $47.33.
14. (18) Paul Simon; $255,730; $77.51.
15. (20) Lady Antebellum; $244,691; $45.25.
16. (21) Judas Priest; $207,393; $52.61.
17. (22) "So You Think You Can Dance"; $203,315; $54.14.
18. (24) John Mellencamp; $169,771; $90.14.
19. (27) "Scream Tour" / Mindless Behavior / Diggy Simmons; $131,650; $40.91.
20. (28) Mannheim Steamroller; $125,841; $56.44.
For free upcoming tour information, go to http://www.pollstar.com
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BEIJING (Reuters) ? Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao defended his country's extensive oil trade with Iran against Western sanctions pressure in comments published on Thursday, and yet also warned Tehran against any effort to acquire nuclear weapons.
Wen spoke on Wednesday at the end of a six-day visit to the Middle East, against a backdrop of tensions over possible U.S. sanctions on nations that do energy trade with Iran, which Western powers say is focused on developing nuclear weapons.
Iran has insisted its nuclear goals are peaceful, and in late December threatened to punish the latest Western sanctions by choking off oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital route for much of the Middle East's oil exports.
"China adamantly opposes Iran developing and possessing nuclear weapons," said Wen, and he warned against potential confrontation in the Strait of Hormuz. Beijing is usually much more coy in public about saying Iran could want nuclear arms.
Speaking at a news conference in Doha, Wen also took aim at both potential threats to China's oil imports: the U.S. sanctions pressure and the Hormuz tensions.
"I also want to clearly point out that China's oil trade with Iran is normal trade activity," he said in response to a question about U.S. and European efforts to curtail Iranian oil exports and revenues, according to a transcript on the Chinese Foreign Ministry's website (www.mfa.gov.cn).
"Legitimate trade should be protected, otherwise the world economic order would fall into turmoil," he added.
But Wen shrugged off worry about China's oil needs.
"I don't have this or that worry about China's oil supplies, and this time I didn't discuss this issue with the leaders of each country," he told the news conference.
Wen visited Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
TRICKY PATH
The Chinese leader's comments laid bare the tricky path Beijing is trying to steer between pressure from Washington and its allies and rival expectations from Iran, which looks to China as a sympathetic Third World power and a big oil customer.
Wen's warning was not the first time China has openly stated its opposition to Iran possibly developing nuclear weapons; in 2010, the foreign ministry made the point at least twice.
"There have been similar statements (from China) before, and of course China has repeatedly voted in favour of resolutions over this issue in the U.N. Security Council," said Yin Gang, an expert on the Middle East at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing.
"This time, Premier Wen made that point a bit more clearly than usual," Yin told Reuters.
"The core of the Iran nuclear issue is whether or not it develops nuclear weapons. It's not only the United States that worries about this. The Arab countries are even more worried."
The tensions are a particular worry for China, the biggest buyer of Iranian oil, followed by India and Japan. Only Saudi Arabia and Angola sell more crude than Iran to China.
"We believe that, no matter what the circumstances, the security of the Gulf of Hormuz and normal shipping passage through it must be guaranteed, because this is in the interests of the whole world," said Wen.
"Any extreme measures on this issue would violate the wishes of all countries in the world and their people."
The Obama administration last week invoked U.S. law to sanction China's state-run Zhuhai Zhenrong Corp, which it said was Iran's largest supplier of refined petroleum products.
The United States is also working out how to enforce a law enacted on December 31 that targets foreign financial institutions doing business with Iran's central bank, notably to buy crude.
China has backed U.N. Security Council resolutions calling on Iran to halt uranium enrichment activities, while working to ensure its energy ties are not threatened.
In the first 11 months of 2011, Chinese crude imports from Iran were at about 553,000 barrels per day, a gain of nearly 30 percent on the same period a year before, according to Chinese customs data.
"There's no doubt that China and Iran maintain normal trade relations, but we certainly won't abandon principles for the sake of doing deals," said Wen.
(Reporting by Chris Buckley; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
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>>> to go before the south carolina pry mairks mitt yomny is firing back against attacks from his gop rivals, accused of being a corporate raider who cost people their jobs. peter alexander is in south carolina . good morning.
>> reporter: good morning to you from the city of charleston. there's going be a forum for a lot of people to make up their minds in the state of south carolina . mike huckabee , the former candidate in this state is going to be hosting this event. they're going to try to whoo christians here o who represent nearly 60% of the state's voters. campaigning across south carolina friday, mitt romney tried to present himself as a sympathetic conservatives.
>> i want to get jobs for america. and by the way, i'm concerned about our poor in this country.
>> reporter: at the same time romney launched a new ad responding to his opponents' accusations that he callously killed jobs while running the private equity firm bain capital .
>> this is the business mitt romney helped start and this one and this one.
>> reporter: he's accused of mischaracterizing the claim.
>> he claims. "the washington post " two days ago reported in their fact check column that he gets three pinocchios. now, pinocchios, when you get to the post if you're not telling the truth.
>> reporter: but that same fact check analysis by "the washington post " found gingrich's own supporters guilty too. rewarding them four pinocchios for their facts.
>> i'm calling on them to either edit out every single mistake or to pull the entire one.
>> reporter: he wrote, romney and his partners made hundreds of millions of dollars while taking companies to bankruptcy. romney 's supporters are also targeting rick santorum whose message could target the evangelical christians .
>> voting for the bridge to no wrr, a teapot museum, even an indoor rain forest .
>> reporter: and rick perry friday took his struggling campaign to target practice , but he was off the mark again during an interview, concerning which three agencies he vows to shut down. mitt romney very nearly missed his campaign last night in hilton head . he was stuck in paralyzing traffic so bad he needed a police escort. he called in with an event filled with veterans. that was met by a groan when he said he was running late and ultimately cheers when he arrived.
>> peter alexander , in charleston, south
Source: http://video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/45996802/
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BUFFALO, N.Y. ? Many Americans' first real taste of winter this season blew through the Midwest and Northeast on Friday, leaving ski resort operators giddy, delaying commuters and air passengers, and forcing pedestrians along the East Coast to button up against biting winds.
The storm blanketed the Upper Midwest before slowly swirling to points east. Snowplow drivers were out in force overnight in Chicago, where temperatures plummeted. It could drop as much of a foot of snow on parts of Ohio along Lake Erie before plodding on.
In a typical year, such a storm would hardly register in the region. But atmospheric patterns, including the Pacific phenomenon known as La Nina, have conspired to make this an unusually icy winter in Alaska and have kept it abnormally warm in parts of the lower 48 states accustomed to more snow.
In Buffalo, worse than the accumulation of 5 inches ? moderate by regional standards ? were 25- to 35-mph winds that blew the snow in blinding sheets.
"We go from no snow to a blizzard," said Courtney Taylor of Lewiston, north of Buffalo, holding on to keep her fur-lined hood up.
For Steve Longo, a 47-year-old chiropractor from Wauwatosa, Wis., the wait to try out the cross-country skis he got for Christmas was excruciating. He and a friend wasted no time hitting the trails at Lapham Peak, about 25 miles west of Milwaukee.
"I wasn't worried," Longo said. "I was just anxious."
The storm annoyed commuters, and authorities said it caused hundreds of traffic accidents and at least three road deaths ? two in Iowa and one in Missouri. And while some lucky grade-schoolers cheered an unexpected day of sledding, hundreds of would-be air travelers had to scramble to come up with a Plan B.
High winds delayed flights Friday, as the long Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend began, heading to large East Coast airports including Philadelphia; Newark, N.J.; New York's LaGuardia; and Boston.
Officials said the strong winds also were a factor in bringing down a huge billboard onto the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in Brooklyn, tying up traffic for hours.
The National Weather Service said up to 36 mph winds were blowing through Central Park, and forecasters expect Saturday to be windy as well.
Blowing snow appeared to factor into a mishap at Buffalo Niagara International Airport, where the nose gear of a plane on a flight arriving from Atlanta rolled from the runway onto grass and got stuck. No one was injured.
While the dry weather has been an unexpected boon to many cash-strapped communities, which have saved big by not having to pay for plowing, salting and sanding their streets, it has hurt seasonable businesses that bank on the snow.
The arrival of blustery weather had Vermont's ski industry celebrating. The King Day weekend is one of the most important moneymaking weekends of the season.
The snow finally enabled the state's snowmobile organization, the Vermont Association of Snow Travelers, to start opening some trails.
"We are absolutely giddy, stoked, and the phones are ringing off the hook," said Jen Butson, a spokeswoman for the Vermont Ski Areas Association. "It's what we've been hoping for. Our snow dances have paid off."
___
Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Carla K. Johnson in Chicago, Carrie Antlfinger in Milwaukee and Wilson Ring in Montpelier, Vt.
___
Online: Associated Press winter storm interactive http://apne.ws/xKAREC
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WASHINGTON?? The International Space Station is preparing to dodge a softball-sized piece of space junk.
Mission Control told astronauts to fire the station's engines briefly Friday morning to avoid a piece of an old communications satellite.
It will be only the 12th time since 1998 that the station has moved because of debris. Debris travels at such high speed in orbit that it could cause a deadly puncture to the space station.
The last time the station moved was in April last year. In June, astronauts had to take shelter in the Soyuz escape capsule as debris flew by.
NASA said the debris from the private U.S. satellite Iridium was on a path that would have brought it close to the station Friday afternoon, possibly less than a mile.
Online: NASA site
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45977884/ns/technology_and_science-space/
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